mtlumby2d Chapter 702 Poor Pan Jun
Chapter 702 Poor Pan Jun
Human nature is complex. It's true that you feel a sense of kinship when you see someone from your hometown while you're away from home, but it's also true that you might want to take advantage of them.
As a Han Chinese, Ma Chao was certainly closer to the Xiongnu, who had fought against the Han Dynasty for four hundred years, than to the Western Regions coalition. Therefore, he genuinely wanted to bring the Northern Xiongnu into his camp and turn them into a Han-Qiang coalition where they could intermarry and even be assimilated into the Han people's base.
To assimilate the Northern Xiongnu into the Han people, it was necessary to have in-depth exchanges with them. But how to have in-depth exchanges? Need you ask? Naturally, it was to take up arms together and go to the battlefield to fight the Parthians.
Therefore, upon learning of the existence of Mulu City, Ma Chao decided to take the initiative and lead his army to seize it.
Although Tu Lin didn't have as many schemes as Ma Chao, he did enjoy robbery.
The Xiongnu way of life consisted of herding and raiding; herding was for survival, while raiding was their hobby. Therefore, upon hearing that they could seize Mulu City, Tu Lin naturally agreed wholeheartedly, but...
Tu Lin said with a mixture of excitement and worry, "Your idea is good, but Mulu City is a city after all, with city walls. Can we take it down?"
Ma Chao countered, "Is there a moat?"
Tu Lin shook his head and said, "No, there's a general lack of water here. Parthia doesn't have water conservancy experts like the Han Dynasty, so they can't do projects like the Dujiangyan Irrigation System or the Zheng Guo Canal. Therefore, they don't even know what a moat is. Let alone a moat, the city walls are less than two zhang high, and they're just ordinary earthen walls that can be easily broken by battering rams. It's a pity that we Northern Xiongnu don't know how to build siege engines like battering rams and catapults. Otherwise, I would have taken Mulu City long ago. How could I have waited until today?"
Ma Chao laughed and said, "What's there to worry about? Our army has plenty of carpenters, blacksmiths, and bricklayers. We can even build the latest catapults that have become popular in the Han Dynasty in recent years, which have been modified by Liu Ye. They can easily break through a mere two-zhang city wall. Go and make preparations. We'll go to Mulu City to scout it out first, and then we can march out to war after we return."
Tu Lin nodded in agreement, summoned his subordinates and gave them a brief instruction before leading Ma Chao and a hundred personal guards through the snow toward Mulu City.
Although it is now winter and heavy snow has blocked the mountains, this year's snowfall is less than in previous years, and the snow is not yet knee-deep, so it does not affect normal passage. Ma Chao and Tu Lin rode their fast horses and arrived at the foot of Mulu City in just two days. Looking at the dilapidated walls of Mulu City from afar, Ma Chao did not hide his disdain and directly mocked, "Is this what you call a city wall?"
The city wall in front of him was less than ten feet high, at most a little higher than the courtyard wall of a duke's mansion. Its width was ridiculously narrow, barely a meter wide, making it difficult for two people to walk side by side. What made Ma Chao even more speechless was that there was no barbican. Therefore, the city gate became the only entrance and exit. As long as the city gate was broken through, the army could easily rush into the city.
Attacking such a city would be no challenge for Ma Chao at all; Ma Cheng could handle it without Ma Chao even having to lift a finger.
Tu Lin chuckled awkwardly, "It's not difficult to take it, but this is, after all, an important city of the Parthian Empire. If we really attack, it could easily provoke retaliation. Our Northern Xiongnu only have such a small population..."
The Northern Xiongnu were, after all, outsiders, with a small population and weak strength. They couldn't afford to provoke a behemoth like the Parthian Empire. While the empire might not bother with them when they were herding livestock on its periphery, attacking important cities was a different story.
Ma Chao scoffed, "To put it bluntly, you're just a coward. Let's go back and muster our troops to attack the city. I want to move into the city before the next heavy snowfall."
The two rode back to their tribe, mustered 10,000 elite Han and Qiang soldiers, 20,000 Northern Xiongnu soldiers, and 50,000 Western Region allied troops, and marched in a mighty force of 200,000 towards Mulu City.
On the way to Mulu City, Ma Chao did something else: he ordered Ma Dai to lead a thousand elite soldiers to the vicinity of Mulu City ahead of time to ambush and kill the local natives who had recently traveled from the surrounding areas of the tribe to Mulu City, thereby blocking the news and preventing his attack plan from being leaked in advance.
Therefore, it wasn't until Ma Chao had reached within ten miles of Mulu City that the Marquina family, who controlled Mulu City, received the news. The family patriarch turned pale with fright and immediately ordered the city gates to be sealed off, calling on all the people of the city to go up the city walls to meet the enemy.
Ma Chao paid no attention to this, but quickly arranged his troops to surround the city on three sides, leaving one side for the natives inside to escape. At the same time, he ordered his army to cut down trees everywhere to build siege weapons.
The siege equipment needed to breach this city doesn't need to be too elaborate; it can be done in two days at most. In other words, the Marquinha family only has two days to prepare.
However, the Marquina family did not know that Ma Chao was waiting for siege equipment. When they saw that Ma Chao did not attack the city immediately, they thought that the other party had some concerns. So they sent people out of the city to negotiate, hoping to give some money to send Ma Chao away. The problem was that Ma Chao and Tu Lin could not understand the local dialect.
Since the two sides couldn't communicate due to language barriers and different writing systems, Ma Chao simply beheaded the envoy and ordered his deputy to take the head back, demonstrating his intentions and determination to the Marquinha family through concrete actions.
Marquina was completely dumbfounded when he saw the envoy's head being returned. Although he was unwilling, he knew that the hope of peace talks was shattered, so he had no choice but to call on the people in the city to resist with all their might.
In this way, the news of Ma Chao killing the messenger spread throughout the city, making it known to everyone.
In a residential house in Mulu City, several men with black hair and black eyes, dressed in Han Dynasty attire and holding Han envoy's insignia, were sitting together sighing. Their clothes were tattered and their faces were weary, making them look like refugees fleeing famine. Upon closer inspection, the man in the lead turned out to be Pan Jun, who had been sent by Liu Bei to Kushan as an envoy.
Upon hearing the news from his subordinate, Pan Jun frowned and sighed, cursing, "Damn it, why can't they ever have a moment's peace?"
When Liu Bei recovered Jingzhou, he was demoted to an envoy as a traitor and a criminal. He set off from Chengdu with two hundred personal guards, passed through Nanzhong and entered Kushan, where he successfully met the Kushan king.
Pan Jun originally planned to stay in Kushan for a while, but the environment there was too unfriendly to him. The rain and heat were out of season, and it was not only humid and hot, but the local natives were also unhygienic. They liked to defecate, urinate, and burn corpses in the ditches in front of their houses, making the living environment smell terrible.
Furthermore, the Kushan people don't use chopsticks to eat; they eat directly with their hands. They don't even wash their hands before meals, but instead use hands that have been used to pick their toes or wipe their bottoms. Just hearing about this scene is disgusting, let alone eating it.
These were nothing compared to what Pan Jun found most intolerable: the Kushan people didn't build latrines and instead relieved themselves in the river, making the ditches in front of their houses stink. They also drank and used the water from these ditches, essentially drinking excrement every day. These weren't human beings; they were maggots!
Pan Jun's troops contracted dysentery immediately after drinking the river water, and more than 30 people died in just seven days. This was even with doctors in the army providing treatment. If he had not brought doctors with him on his mission, the entire army would probably have been wiped out.
Pan Jun could no longer tolerate this lifestyle, so he advised the Kushan king to change his way of life and at least pay attention to basic hygiene.
However, the Kushan king sternly refused, saying that this was their Kushan traditional dining etiquette and that their way of life could be changed even if it meant losing their heads.
It was only then that Poon Chun realized that this wasn't a lifestyle issue at all, but a mindset issue, and mindset issues are almost impossible to change, so Poon Chun decided to run away.
He was afraid he would die if he stayed any longer, so why wouldn't he run away?
However, before fleeing, we need to teach the Kushan king a lesson, otherwise it will be too damn frustrating.
So before he left, he treated the Kushan king to a meal, which consisted of hot pot invented by Guan Xing.
You like to grab things with your hands, don't you? Grab one and let me see.