After talking about the right army's withdrawal to Hanzhong, everyone discussed the official affairs of the past few days.
"Youchang, how is the disposal of the prisoners of the Wei army going? How many Wei soldiers are willing to surrender in the past few days?" Zhuge Liang asked Ma Su.
Ma Su frowned and replied: "Prime Minister, these prisoners are quite stubborn, especially Qiu Yan. These days Su has used all kinds of means, including coercion and inducement. Only those who are willing to surrender are the ones who are willing to submit. Just a few hundred people.”
In the battle of Jieting, the Han army captured and surrendered almost 18,000 people under the Wei general Qiu Yan. However, in fact, there were many prisoners and few surrendered. There were only two to three thousand people willing to join the Han army anyway, which was less than 20% of the total number. .
That's why Zhuge Liang put Ma Di in charge of persuading the prisoners and mobilizing them to join the Han army. Although these people were defeated at the hands of the Han army, after all, they were mostly elite veterans with rich experience and proficiency in swords and horses. With them to supplement the troops, the Han army's combat effectiveness would also rise to a big level.
Besides, with their example, they can also reduce the opponent's fighting spirit against the Wei army in the future and attract more Wei soldiers to surrender to the Han Dynasty. Otherwise, if more than 10,000 prisoners are kept under guard like this, a lot of money and food will be consumed every day.
"Are there only a few hundred people?" Zhuge Liang couldn't believe it.
Ma Su's face turned red and he softly replied: "Yes." After saying that, he lowered his head feebly.
"Alas, are these prisoners worried about their families?" Zhuge Liang stopped the feather fan in his hand and said seriously.
Ma Di raised his head and replied: "Exactly. In fact, I have seen these days that there are not a few captives willing to surrender to my big man. It's just that they are afraid of the harsh military laws of the puppet Wei Dynasty and worry about the lives of their parents, wives and children, so they dare not surrender. "
"Sigh, it is indeed difficult to surrender the Wei soldiers. I didn't expect that even Youchang didn't have a good way!"
Zhuge Liang couldn't help but sigh in his heart after hearing this. He asked Ma Su to deal with this matter intentionally, but he took a fancy to Ma Su's advantage in attacking people's minds. He didn't expect that he would have little effect if he went there.
"Do you have any clever plan to capture these prisoners?" Zhuge Liang asked Yang Qing and others.
He decided to brainstorm and use everyone's wisdom to solve this problem. After all, Ji Han had always been based on benevolence and righteousness and could not massacre prisoners.
Yang Qing and others listened for a while but were unable to do anything. The difficulty of the Wei soldiers to surrender was not a matter of today, but a problem that had troubled the Liu and Sun families for many years.
As for the reason for this, everyone present naturally knows that it is not because the loyalty of Wei soldiers is higher than that of Han and Wu, but because of Cao Wei's wrong service system.
The so-called wrongful service system is also one of Cao Wei's bad policies. It was established in the Cao Cao era. It is a special method to control soldiers and protect their loyalty. The specific method is to separate soldiers from their families.
Since Dong Zhuo's rebellion, the Han Dynasty has declined and the world has become unstable. The soldiers who rely on the heroes to divide one side often come from the local states and counties, so the soldiers and their families are generally in the same place and are not separated. This is also the case for most The normal situation of the military households under the princes.
Only the Cao Wei family implemented a system of mixed service in which people lived in separate households, forcibly separating soldiers from their families, and gathering these family members into the hinterland of their rule to control them as hostages.
Neither Ji Han nor Soochow were like this. Ji Han has always regarded benevolence and righteousness as the foundation of his country. Liu Bei and Zhuge Liang, the two leaders, would not use such harsh control methods on the sergeants.
At that time, Guan Yu had tens of thousands of Jingzhou soldiers and horses, and Liu Bei, who was living in Yizhou, did not move the families of these soldiers to Chengdu as hostages.
Otherwise, after Lu Meng attacked Jingzhou, how could he have used the soldiers and their families in the city to carry out offensive tactics against Guan Yu's army, and Guan Yu and Guan Ping would not have ended up being defeated in Maicheng and Sun Wu died.
As for Soochow, it was because the power of the Jiangdong gentry was too strong and the rampant tribal system also prevented Sun Quan from establishing a mixed service system like Cao Wei.
In fact, in order to compete for the world, the princes did not lack control methods to ensure the loyalty of their subordinates, but these methods were often aimed at generals. Cao Wei was the only one who specifically involved a large number of low-level soldiers.
In order to better manage these soldiers and their families, Cao Wei established separate household registrations for them, called scholar families, such as the Jizhou scholar families who moved to Yecheng to live together.
Men in a scholar's family must serve in the army for generations and cannot switch to other professions. Moreover, other members of the family must also obey the needs of the country's war, and sometimes have to undertake certain combat tasks.
In order to obtain a stable and larger scholar family population, Wei Ting also stipulated that men and women with scholar status were not allowed to marry ordinary people, and could only marry within the scholar family.
Later, Cao Wei also forcibly designated marriages regardless of etiquette and favors. If all the male members of the scholar family assigned to the women died, the women in the family would be designated to remarry to other scholar families to ensure that they continued to have children.
Young men in the scholar register are called Shixi. These people are the main source of soldiers for Cao Wei's army and are generally recruited to serve in the capital. As for the remaining old, weak, sick and disabled, in addition to being responsible for local military tasks, they also had to undertake a series of corvee services such as reclaiming wasteland and guarding the country.
The burden on the scholar family was so heavy that naturally many people would run away. In order to prevent this situation, Cao Wei also formulated the Law on the Exile of Scholars, which stipulated that if a soldier from a scholar's family fled, the whole family would be implicated, and his parents, wives, children, and even brothers would be executed.
Of course, Cao Wei was not stupid enough to blindly exploit the people of the scholar family, and would still give some sweeteners to ease the sharp conflicts.
For example, it was stipulated that if a member of a scholar's family had made great achievements or had special skills, his or her title as a scholar could be removed, that is, his family status could be changed from a scholar's family status to an ordinary civilian household. In addition, at certain times, family members implicated in fleeing may not necessarily be executed, but may be punished as official slaves to save their lives.
However, Cao Wei's system of erroneous military service did not target all Wei troops, but mainly targeted two types of people.
One is the soldiers that Cao Cao surrendered after defeating Yuan Shao, Yuan Shu, Lu Bu and others; the other is some of the Chinese and foreign troops who went out to fight or guard the border areas. For these two types of soldiers, Wei Ting often moved their families to live in the hinterland of the north.
This time, most of the 50,000 Chinese troops that Zhang He brought to Longyou came from the ranks of soldiers. Cao Wei punished deserters so severely, let alone surrendering to the enemy, so it was extremely difficult for Zhuge Liang to surrender most of the prisoners. difficult.
Yang Qing didn't have any good solutions to this matter. Cao Wei's wrong service system was really powerful. When Guan Yu flooded the Seventh Army and captured 30,000 Wei soldiers under Jin's command, he was unable to use them for his own purposes, so he had to send them back to Jiangling and imprison them. Of course, later on, these 30,000 prisoners fell into the hands of Sun Quan.
"Mingzhi, you have always been smart, is there any way to surrender these prisoners?" Seeing that everyone was silent, Zhuge Liang had no choice but to call them by name.
Yang Qing smiled bitterly and said: "Prime Minister, the puppet Wei army is insidious and cruel. The method of wrongful recruitment is really difficult to break, and Qing can't think of any good way. If you ask about how to deal with these prisoners, Qing did have some experience when he was in Nanzhong."
"Forget it, just tell me how to arrange the more than 10,000 Wei soldiers." Seeing that Yang Qingdu seemed to be helpless, Zhuge Liang did not force the prisoners to surrender.
Yang Qingdao: "Yes. The first thing to do when dealing with these prisoners is to distinguish the soldiers who are soldiers from the soldiers who are not soldiers. Of course, the Wei army who are not soldiers can conquer them and join the Han army with great righteousness, but The Wei troops with military status can be divided into three categories.
Those who are stubborn and single-minded in following the thieves must be broken up and placed in remote places such as Nanzhong and Wenshan to engage in heavy work such as mining and opening roads to punish the crime of rebellion. The time may be for life or for twenty or thirty years. wait. "
For those who dare not surrender simply because they are afraid of involving their families, they can be scattered and placed in Yizhou counties in Hanzhong to farm for five to ten years.
The third category is for those prisoners in the second category who are only sons in the family. They can be given travel expenses and let them go home to show our kindness to others.
I wonder what the Prime Minister thinks of this treatment? "
After Zhuge Liang thought for a long time, he smiled and said: "Good. This is almost the most appropriate way to deal with it. What do you think, Mr. Wei?"
"What the Prime Minister said is true. This method is extremely clever. It can be said to be a combination of kindness and power, and it is effective." Yang Yi said.
Hu Ji also agreed: "Although this method cannot recruit a large number of soldiers, it can do its best and use its talents. After all, we cannot keep these Wei soldiers forever."
Others also agreed, so Zhuge Liang ordered Ma Di to follow Yang
Act according to the law of the Qing Dynasty and deal with tens of thousands of prisoners as soon as possible.
