When Zhao Kuo heard the news that Xia Caicheng was lost, the army he led was actually only a few days away from Xia Caicheng.

Looking at the county magistrate and county magistrate in front of him, Zhao Kuo couldn't help laughing.

"I have already understood what happened.

The Chu people used the Chu family in Xia Cai City to rebel, and Xia Cai Ling and Xia Cai Duwei were also murdered. It is actually normal to throw the city away under such circumstances."

From Zhao Kuo's perspective, he can actually understand the following people.

How to say it?

To put it in a perhaps boastful sentence, it is "not everyone is Zhao Kuo."

If Zhao Kuo was in Xia Caicheng, even if Zhao Kuo had only three thousand people in his hands, Jingyang's troops would not be able to conquer Xia Caicheng.

But the question is, how could the officials and generals in Xia Cai City have the same talent as Zhao Kuo?

What's more, Caicheng's highest military and political chief has paid the price of his life, so Zhao Kuo does not intend to continue pursuing it.

"But, some things don't need to be investigated, some things must be investigated.

The three thousand brave soldiers and more than twenty officials in our Han Kingdom were killed by the traitors in Xia Cai and the Chu people.

After we recover Caicheng, we must make this city pay the price.

Not only will all Chu people who have participated in the killing have to be executed, but in addition, all the people in the city must gather together to draw five to kill one to serve as a warning!”

The so-called "drawing five and killing one" is simply two words - massacre of the city! Yes, if you understand it normally from the meaning of massacre, it seems that the entire city is going to be slaughtered, but in fact it is not the case.

A very simple reason is that if all the people in the city are killed, who will Zhao Kuo rule in the future?

Who will farm for Zhao Kuo, and who will pay various taxes for Zhao Kuo?

Conquering the land is to rule the population and the world, obtain more taxes and military sources, and build a stronger country.

From this point of view, it is impossible to massacre all people, and it can even be said that it is a loss-making act for the conqueror.

After all, the conqueror will lose his troops in the process of conquering the city. If he does not find a way to replenish the city after conquering the city, wouldn’t the conqueror’s troops be consumed all the time? So, the meaning of slaughtering the city does not mean slaughtering the entire city, but launching a massacre in the city.

For Zhao Kuo, this kind of city massacre has basically never happened before.

Everyone knows that Zhao Kuo is a very kind conqueror.

So this time, when Zhao Kuo said the order to massacre the city, everyone present was surprised.

Even Li Mu couldn't help but say, "King, do you really want to massacre the city?"

Zhao Kuo nodded slightly and said calmly: "When Xia Caicheng surrendered for the first time, I was sure and gave them tolerance.

But what did they do with the tolerance of their widows?

Not only did they not have any gratitude, they also joined forces with the Chu people to betray me and the Han, and killed my soldiers and officials! Since they chose to betray me, what they faced was no longer my tolerance, but my anger.

Do you understand?"

Traitors must die! Whoever wants to betray Zhao Kuo will definitely be punished extremely severely.

Only in this way can we shock those who have ulterior motives and make those conquered people truly choose to surrender.

Someone is going to say that, what if you are convinced orally but dissatisfied?

The answer is even simpler, that is assimilation! In just a few years, over a decade, these places will basically be assimilated by the Han Dynasty. It will be very difficult to rebel and rebel at that time.

After Zhao Kuo said that, everyone nodded at the same time: "I understand, king."

Zhao Kuo stopped talking, but stared at the south.

Now that spring plowing has been completed, the land under our feet was a place where the Han Dynasty had just conquered the year before, but crops have basically been planted in the farmland on both sides of the road, with green everywhere and full of vitality.

For Zhao Kuo, such vitality is something he is very happy to see.

The people are actually very simple. As long as they have a little way out, they will not choose to rebel.

After planting all the fields, it means that the family has a way out and hope for this year.

But some people just don’t want to follow the way Zhao Kuo gave them, and they have to seek death.

Then, let them die! The 300,000 Han army continued to roar south! Five days later, the Han army finally arrived outside Xiacai City.

Zhao Kuo stood above his imperial guard and stared at Xia Caicheng in the distance. After watching for a while, he couldn't help but smile.

"This Jingyang really has some ideas about it."

Jingyang did not mean that he would put all his troops in the city and defend Xia Cai City to the death.

On the contrary, Jingyang also built two camps outside the city, one on the left and the other on the right to guard Xia Caicheng in the middle.

Moreover, the two camps in the State of Chu were specially built, so that the two camps and the three places in Xiacai City would become an inverted word "Pin".

If the Zhao army directly attacked Caicheng, then the two camps on the left and right of the Chu army could easily encircle the flanks and rear of the Zhao army.

If the Zhao army attacked the left and right camps of Chu, then the Chu army could provide support to the left and right camps through Xia Caicheng.

Since both camps on the left and right sides of the Chu army were located in the wild, there was no need to worry about explosives.

Xia Caicheng, who is most afraid of explosives, just said that it happened to be the most vigilant place of the Chu army.

In this way, the two camps and the city support each other, forming a very tight defense circle.

Moreover, this defense circle can also weaken the destructive power of explosives to the greatest extent, which has really taken a lot of thought.

Li Mu stood beside Zhao Kuo, and he was a little dissatisfied with this: "It seems to be good, but there are actually many flaws."

Zhao Kuo smiled and said, "What flaws do you think do you have?"

Li Mu smiled and said, "Their flaw is that although these two wild camps are not afraid of explosives, they are afraid of ordinary attacks.

So we just need to concentrate our troops and take down the two camps next to us. At that time, Xia Caicheng lost the protection of the two camps, and he was just to break him up casually."

Zhao Kuo nodded with a smile: "This is indeed the reason."

As the saying goes, things have two sides. Although Jingyang has avoided the damage of explosives to Xia Caicheng as much as possible, the problem is that the two wild camps have become new flaws for the Chu people.

In the wild camp, no matter how you build various wild fortifications and defenses, its defense is definitely not comparable to the tall and sturdy city walls.

Therefore, the Han army only needed to adopt the tactic of first breaking through two camps in the field and then besieging Caicheng, and then easily breaking Jingyang's defense line.

Of course, if another coach was here, the wild camp might not be able to conquer it so easily.

But for Zhao Kuo, this is obviously not a problem.

Zhao Kuo said to Li Mu: "From tomorrow, you will preside over the attack.

Our focus is to first attack this camp on the west side of the city, then the camp on the east side, and finally Xiacai City!”

Li Mu was full of confidence and immediately agreed.

Just as Zhao Kuo and Li Mu were discussing plans to attack Xia Caicheng, Jing Yang was also following the Han army camp with many generals from the Chu army on the walls.

From Jingyang down, all the expressions on the faces of the Chu army generals were actually quite solemn.

They all knew very well that Chu State had no room for failure in this battle. As long as he lost, he would immediately destroy his country! Compared with other Central Plains countries, Chu State was actually not so interested in the so-called "Huaxia".

Because the Chu State itself was not a genuine Chinese system, but a barbarian origin, and was gradually assimilated by more advanced Chinese culture.

Since its founding, Chu has fully integrated into China on the one hand, and on the other hand, it has fought against the overlords of the Central Plains such as Qin, Qi, Jin, and Wei for hundreds of years. The arrogance in their hearts is actually far from dissipating.

Jing Yang said lightly: "Everyone should know the current situation, so I won't talk nonsense.

In short, if you don’t want your wives and concubines to become female slaves of Han people in the future, and don’t want your own and your sons to be hung on the flagpole by Han people, this time, follow me and beat these damn Han people back!”

After Jingyang finished speaking, everyone agreed and expressed their desire to fight to the end with the Han people. However, it is hard to say how many of them were sincere and how many of them had other plans.

Just later that day, Zhao Kuo, who had just returned to the tent, received two letters from Shouchun City.

Judging from the signature on the envelope, the two letters were from Li Yuan, the imperial court of Chu, and Li Si, the deputy minister of foreign affairs of Han who was operating in Shouchun City.

"This Li Si seems to be a little capable."

Zhao Kuo nodded slightly and expressed his praise.

Zhao Kuo has actually established a system now, that is, every prime minister (both chief and deputy) can only hold the position for five years at most, and then he will have to replace him.

On the one hand, this is for the sake of future generations. After all, the prime minister was definitely not a problem when Zhao Kuo was in power, but in the future, the prime minister may become a powerful minister.

Someone asked, if this prime minister really becomes a powerful minister, will his descendants have a way?

In fact, the answer is very simple. Everyone comes to be an official, who doesn’t want to be the prime minister?

So, once a prime minister takes control of power and is unwilling to serve his five-year term, he will become the biggest enemy in the hearts of all the important officials of the State of Zhao and Han who want to continue to make progress as prime ministers.

A prime minister may be able to undermine the emperor, but can he undermine other officials who are also important officials of the Han Dynasty?

It is certainly impossible.

By that time, as long as Zhao Kuo's descendants are not too stupid, they can easily overthrow this powerful minister and prime minister if they quietly contact these important officials.

Li Si is one of the candidates for the future prime minister of the Han Dynasty in Zhao Kuo's mind.

This person is still young now, capable and able to do things. He was also the prime minister of Qin Shihuang in history. It would be fine to let him be the prime minister once.

In history, Li Si wanted to continue to be the prime minister, so he collaborated with Zhao Gao to establish Qin II. But now, Li Si had retired by the time the second generation of the Han Dynasty took over, and even if he intervened, he would not have such a chance.

What's more, Zhao Kuo was not Qin Shihuang. When Qin Shihuang was in power, there was no crown prince in Qin, so the dispute between Fusu and Hu Hai was caused.
To be continued...