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Chapter 459: 232: Consolidating Hanzhong_3

On the tenth day of the first month, the army arrived at Xicheng Prefecture.

On the thirteenth day of the first month, the army arrived at Xixiang Prefecture in Hanzhong County.

At this point, his personal disciple Chu Wei was replacing the previous Zhou Qing’s duties and leading ten thousand soldiers to attack this prefecture.

After Lu Yuan teamed up with him, he, along with Lan Cai’er, led the attack on Xixiang Prefecture, which had stoutly defended itself for half a month.

Underneath the thunderous blows from two Inborn Grandmasters, the city of Xixiang Prefecture naturally couldn’t hold up, and it was broken within just half a day.

More than half of the four thousand-some defenders in the city died in the battle, and the rest surrendered.

It took Lu Yuan another day to split up his troops and capture all the counties of Xixiang Prefecture.

Then, leaving behind five thousand men to defend, he led fifty-five thousand soldiers and arrived at Nanzheng Prefecture in Hanzhong County after three days.

Nanzheng Prefecture is the location of Hanzhong County, and the Nanzheng city in this prefecture is the county city.

Therefore, when Lu Yuan led his troops to arrive, the whole of Nanzheng Prefecture was in turmoil.

At this point, the city of Nanzheng already received the news about a massive Yue invasion and the defeat of Xixiang Prefecture.

However, the entire Hanzhong County, whether it was the county and prefecture soldiers or the town soldiers, had already been relocated south to Wushan Prefecture for battle.

Within the entire county, the only troops that could be mobilized were the officials who only knew how to arrest thieves and oppress the good people, and the private guards of the various families and merchants in the city.

The county leader mobilized these forces and gathered over ten thousand civilian workers, making up a force of 13,000 to defend the city.

However, were these forces any match for Lu Yuan?

Under his and Lan Cai’er’s fierce attack, the Hanzhong County fell after only one day.

By this point, on the seventeenth day of the first month of the eighth year of Hongdao, the United Army had finally captured the first county city since the Northern Expedition, and the Zhou People suffered their greatest loss.

After capturing the city, Lu Yuan left Lan Cai’er behind and assigned her fifteen thousand men. He then ordered her to continue to collect wealth and food from the city and capture the remaining territories of Hanzhong County in the following days.

In addition to that, he also began to relocate the population of Hanzhong County to various parts of Changsha.

The Dongting Prefecture in Changsha and the forthcoming three prefectures in Xichuan are all places with depleted populations.

These thirteen prefectures have almost lost two million people compared to their prime times.

To make up for such a massive population loss, relying solely on natural growth might take forty to fifty years.

Therefore, to quickly recover the potential of his territory, the best method is to plunder from outside.

Whether it be plundering wealth or population.

Although Hanzhong Prefecture has now been defeated and the Zhou People have no significant defense in the region, Lu Yuan knows that it would be impossible to hold onto this territory even if he takes it over.

This is because the Zhou People aren’t likely to stand by and watch their southwestern strategic stronghold fall into his hands.

This was an entire county!

The Zhou People only had eight counties. Over half of Xiangyang County had been lost. If Hanzhong County was also lost, they would have lost nearly a quarter of their territory.

How could the Zhou People possibly accept such a tremendous loss?

Thus, even if they have to throw in everything they’ve got, they have to dispatch troops southward to take the county back.

It’s likely that as soon as the news here gets back to them, the troops that the Wuan Marquis said he didn’t know whether Zhou Country’s Hexi, Longxi, and Shuofang counties would send are more likely to move.

And their target was nowhere else but Hanzhong County.

Lu Yuan did not have the energy to engage Zhou People’s tens of thousands of troops in a decisive battle regarding the ownership of Hanzhong County at this point.

Moreover, frankly speaking, even if he could win the battle, he didn’t want to fight it.

The reason is very simple.

Even if he took over Hanzhong County, with his current strength, he would be unable to hold onto it.

Firstly, to maintain the Jiangnan areas of Dongting Prefecture within Changsha, an Inborn Grandmaster was needed to defend this territory.

As for the areas north of the River, including the already obtained three western prefectures of Xiangyang County, the soon-to-be-obtained three eastern prefectures of Xichuan County, and Tianmen Prefecture, these seven prefectures.

In order to keep these territories, another Inborn Grandmaster was necessary.

In this way, the destinations of Lu Yuan and Lan Cai’er were pretty much decided.

The couple, divided between the territories south and north of the River, had no spare capacity to manage anything else.

Thus, even if he took over Hanzhong County, for Lu Yuan, it was essentially a chicken rib, exceeding his capabilities, and besides attracting burdens and catastrophes, there would be no advantage.

Therefore, no matter how good or rich Hanzhong County was, he didn’t have the slightest interest in owning this kind of territory.

At this time, beyond taking a brief advantage, he had no other thoughts.

Of course.

If he could hold more territory in Hanzhong County after Zhou’s arrival, perhaps he could exchange that for more territory in Xichuan County from Jihui and Qiao Kangquan.

That would be an excellent thing for Lu Yuan.

Therefore, after capturing the Nan Zheng prefecture, he quickly sent an order to the country.

He asked Jiangnan to send over 20,000 troops to Hanzhong County to be at his beck and call.

In Jiangnan, including the 5,000 people who had initially escorted the Zhou captives, Lu Yuan still had 65,000 troops.

So at this point, deploying 20,000 troops northward might weaken the homeland defense a lot, but it could still be maintained. It wasn’t a big deal.

With these 20,000 soldiers, including the 5,000 left in Xixiang Prefecture and the 10,000 to be left in Nanjiang and Baishi prefectures, Lan Cai’er would have 50,000 troops to command.

With such number of troops and the leadership of an Inborn Grandmaster, even if the Zhou People brought 100,000 troops, they wouldn’t be able to easily take Hanzhong County back if they are just defending the city.

After making these arrangements, Lu Yuan continued to lead his troops southward.

Then on the twentieth day of the first month, he captured Nanjiang Prefecture.

After leaving 5,000 soldiers to defend, he arrived at Baishi Prefecture on the twenty-third day and captured it as well, also leaving behind 5,000 soldiers.

On the twenty-fifth day of the eighth year of Hongdao, Lu Yuan led 30,000 troops to arrive at Jiange Prefecture in Xichuan County, officially arriving at Xichuan.