Wen Yuan originally planned to wait until the emperor moved the capital to stabilize before launching a new round of southern expedition. The time was planned for about half a year, but the human calculations were not as good as the God's. A natural disaster forced Wen Yuan to temporarily dispel the idea of the Northern Expedition. In summer in 207, most areas in the north encountered severe drought. Although the four prefectures of Hebei already had a fairly mature irrigation system, you should know that the foundation of the prefectures and counties south of the Yellow River was not good! The grain output of these prefectures decreased by an average of 30% that year, and a few counties even had no grain harvest! Fortunately, the four prefectures of Hebei received little impact, and Wen Yuan took out some of the reserved grain to provide relief to the disaster. He survived such a drought without any danger. Of course, the shrinkage of grain reserves also gave Wen Yuan aside the idea of fighting a large-scale war, and instead practiced his internal skills. Taking advantage of the disaster relief, the disaster victims were recruited to repair the water conservancy irrigation system in the affected areas.
The construction of water conservancy is not a matter of overnight success, but once you succeed, it will benefit you from the future. Wenyuan does not expect such large-scale infrastructure to be completed in a short period of time. As for these victims, they are idle anyway. They have to take some effort to take advantage of the court's relief.
After working hard to recover from the drought, the year 207 was almost over. Unexpectedly, it was raining all night long. As soon as winter began, news came from the north that several fierce cold waves caused a large number of cattle, sheep and horses to be frozen to death! The minority ethnic minorities outside the pass were injured. If it weren’t for the fact that they followed the Han army to fight for some savings in the past few years, many tribes would not even be able to survive the winter!
In fact, this is impossible. The bad weather outside the pass is a test of survival, and it also destined that these aliens will invade and plunder the outside world. In previous years, they were afraid that before the weather warmed up, these aliens would gather people to go south to plunder. But now the Han people are in great power, and no one dares to open their eyes to touch the eyebrows of the great Han Jin king Zhang Liao. Several tribes' heads and figures gathered together to make up for the persimmon. After all, they decided to wait for the spring of the next year to take a Western Expedition. Although we dare not grab food from the Han bowls, we can also grab some territory from the Qianghu tribes in the west and get some cattle, horses and wealth. As for the current hurdle, we still have to ask the prince from the Central Plains to help us survive.
After discussing this, several leaders went to Qu Yi and Lu Bu came forward to ask Wen Yuan to make the decision. Wen Yuan asked Xu Shu to come forward on his behalf for the request of these "allies" outside the pass, which made it difficult for him. After signing many unequal cooperation conditions and taking these alien races closer in their hands, they agreed to lend some of the food to help these alien races survive this difficult winter.
Many officials felt that Wen Yuan was not doing enough to lend food to foreign races in the north. At present, the obedience of the foreign races to the court was almost unprecedented, and even better than that after Han Wu. In this case, the superiority of the Han people's etiquette and benevolence and righteous country appeared in many officials, and they advocated free support for these "foreign nations and foreign races" so that they could "relatively be grateful for the benevolence of the Celestial Empire" and demonstrated the benevolence and righteousness of the King of Jin.
Wen Yuan didn't say anything on the surface, but secretly sneered at the idea of his subordinates. The motto he believed most now was taught by Cao Cao. People should not be able to admire their reputation and live in real trouble. Some people have really healed their scars and forgot the pain. Not to mention the blood feud between the court and the Huns since the Han Dynasty. Even the "Celestial Dynasty" that officials had been bullied by foreign countries recently, Wen Yuan knew the wolf nature of these foreigners. Because they were afraid of being beaten by Wen Yuan before, these foreign countries will now lower their eyebrows and eyes like dogs. Once that day the Han people decline, they will immediately tear off the mask on their faces and turn their heads and bite a piece of meat from your body blood! The Five Barbarians Invasion of China a hundred years later is a clear proof.
Of course, Wen Yuan did not look down on the aliens at all. They did this because of the living environment. The strong prey on the weak and the strong survived. This was originally the law of survival of the grassland nation.
After experiencing a severe drought in a year, he borrowed a large number of food and grass to foreign races outside the pass. Even though his family was as rich as Wen Yuan, his life was tense for a while. Fortunately, several foreign leaders agreed that the next year, the two bigwigs, Qu Yi and Lu Bu, led by the Xianbei, Wuhuan and Xiongnu, jointly organized a large-scale western expedition. The grasslands obtained were divided by several foreign races. As for the seized cattle and sheep goods, Wen Yuan could occupy a large amount!
Wen Yuan of course readily accepted the suggestion proposed by his allies of the alien race. Now he is almost the largest shareholder of a joint-stock company. He can also get his own dividends from the benefits regularly without putting any effort. As for what you said, Qu Yi and Lu Bu's army will also follow the army to fight westward? You must know that both of them have received Wen Yuan's advice. Even if they have less benefits, the Han army will not take action until the necessary moment.
This is what Wen Yuan thought. Those alien races were happy to see the battle, so Wen Yuan wished that he could not agree with the Western Expedition proposed by the alien race allies.
So in the spring March of 208, the allies of the foreign race in the north finally launched! After two months of assembly, the Western Expedition gathered a total of 160,000 cavalry from seven or eight foreign races, including the Xianbei, Wuhuan, Xiongnu, etc., plus the 50,000 Han troops from Qu Yi and Lu Bu, and combined them into one place, with a total of 220,000 people!
The more than 200,000 troops gathered in this Western Expedition were divided into two groups due to internal reasons. The Western Army recommended Lu Bu as the leader of the alliance and commanded the Xianbei in the Western Region, more than a dozen tribes in the central Region and the Xiongnu tribes. The Eastern Army was led by Qu Yi, responsible for commanding the Xianbei in the Eastern Region, Wuhuan and several other small tribes in Liaodong. The two legions advanced one south and one north, so there was no need to worry about not getting a share of the pie.
Two hundred and twenty thousand may not sound like a lot, and it is less than one-third of Wen Yuan's total strength in the last southern expedition. But you should know that there are nearly 200,000 cavalry among them! Wen Yuan has a million people in the pass, and the cavalry is only 600,000 to 70,000. In this way, the number of alien cavalry is three times that of Wen Yuan!
This is also one of the reasons why Wen Yuan is determined to weaken the alien races outside the pass. The combat power of the grassland cavalry is already stronger than that of the Han army infantry. If these grassland alien races are allowed to become stronger, the people in the Central Plains will be bullied in the end. At least if these 200,000 cavalry go south in large numbers, Wen Yuan will never dare to be proud of himself and be able to block them all. Once there is even a slight mistake in the defense line for thousands of miles, the losses suffered will be something Wen Yuan will not bear.
Therefore, this time Wen Yuan would rather give up some of the grain reserves and promote this huge and significant Western Expedition. Of course, in Wen Yuan's view, this is essentially a dog biting a dog.
When Wen Yuan was unable to move south for a moment and turned his attention to the outside of the pass, in the south, the opponent Wen Yuan was most concerned about was not willing to be lonely and had some movement.