Mythical Three Kingdoms

Chapter 1314: Chapter 1267: Chen Xi’s Mistake

Tan Shihuai, known as the foremost among the Xianbei, initially, during Emperor Ling’s time, did not have the ability to break through Bingzhou. He merely skirmished along the borders of Youzhou and Bingzhou and fought in places like Liaodong.

As a result, after Tan Shihuai died, the Xianbei astonishingly grew strong to the point of breaking through Bingzhou under Yuan Shao’s northern dominance, threatening the Yongzhou Commandery. Tsk tsk tsk, Tan Shihuai’s title as the foremost of the Xianbei ought to be discarded; without him as their leader, the Xianbei became extraordinarily powerful.

Similarly, Yuan Shao, the model for the world, should retire with his achievements; he cannot compare even to the negative example of Emperor Ling. Not to mention that Emperor Ling once owned the entire realm, while Yuan Shao merely held four prefectures. At that time, Emperor Ling dispatched fewer than thirty thousand men; the fact affectionately remains that Yuan Shao did not even have thirty thousand...

Therefore, Chen Xi can guarantee there’s something fishy; as for the Xianbei, by the time of the Jin Dynasty, they were indeed formidable; Chen Xi believes it. If they had been so formidable during the late Han Dynasty, they would have first dealt with Gongsun Zan of Youzhou and Ding Yuan of Bingzhou long ago, instead of squatting in the Hetao Region for years.

Of course, it’s not impossible the Xianbei might have indeed defeated the Great Wall garrison troops of Bingzhou, but it was utterly improbable for them to break through Bingzhou’s border soldiers within seven or eight years and still have the might to conquer and occupy Bingzhou completely.

Chen Xi found this very suspect; in any case, he doesn’t believe the Xianbei suddenly evolved overnight like they took some magical strength pill and broke through the species’ limits.

Hence, Chen Xi speculates there’s a high chance that the Northern Huns subsumed the Xianbei and used their elite to control the Xianbei, which would reasonably explain why the Xianbei broke through the species’ limits.

Of course, breaking through species’ limits isn’t crucial; the important thing is it could pit Cao Cao. Now, with most of Bingzhou under Cao Cao’s garrison, Yuan Tan made a deal with Cao Cao, selling those areas to Cao****.

Therefore, after detecting the potential involvement of the Northern Huns, Chen Xi has been eagerly waiting for amusement. Never mind how joyfully Liu Bei’s side is handling Yuan Tan, and how joyfully Cao Cao and Yuan Tan have allied, but this doesn’t really matter.

Even though Yuan Tan and Cao Cao are in a defensive alliance now, even if Yuan Tan and Cao Cao were biological brothers, it wouldn’t matter; Liu Bei’s side battles Yuan Tan, and if Cao Cao has the spare energy, he’ll surely lend a hand since losing lips means cold teeth. But this doesn’t imply Cao Cao, too preoccupied himself, has the capacity to save Yuan Tan.

If the Northern Huns step into Bingzhou, then not even if Cao Cao’s combat power equaled historically peak Yuan Shao will it help; Cao Cao definitely won’t have spare energy. Though victory is possible, there’s absolutely no hand free to support Yuan Tan.

Switching to a command system led by Hun elites within the Xianbei makes it so, even if slightly weaker than the Han Army, they absolutely can’t be beaten by the Cao Army at a one-to-ten exchange rate like before.

So dreams of encircling and annihilating a massive army of two hundred thousand, or outrightly defeating it in one battle, should be washed away. Once the army size swells significantly, conventional tactics lose their impact. Winning requires head-on collision, and if Cao Cao initially takes them for ordinary Xianbei, he’ll have nowhere to cry.

However, one vexing issue for Chen Xi at present is that, with the intelligence personnel allocation of Liu Bei’s army, they haven’t found the Northern Huns, nor is there any sign of forces rallying south in the northern part of Bingzhou.

Instead, reports coming in tell of one Xianbei tribe being annexed by another larger tribe, and then some tribe begins migrating east. In essence, there’s no news of gatherings, more often large fish eating small fish, small fish eating shrimps, and shrimps fleeing east.

Previously, Chen Xi might have been attentive to whether there were more shrimps fleeing east than usual, but now he pays no mind. Jia Xu had mentioned earlier that this was merely typical for prairie tribes; after being defeated, nothing is left but this exploitation.

As previously stated, the Xianbei are not a unified nationality; they lack a collective ethnic culture, merely existing as separate tribes, collectively referred to by the Han Dynasty as Xianbei.

In reality, after a heavy snowfall, the Xianbei tribes would go mad with hunger, not caring about other tribes’ survival; as long as they could survive, they didn’t care about cutting down other tribes to ensure their own meals.

This left Chen Xi, who was waiting for a spectacle, feeling very frustrated, finding no trace of the Northern Huns. It was indeed dull!

Casually tossing aside the intelligence he had finished reading, Chen Yun would naturally tidy it up later. Chen Xi could only doubt if there was a flaw in his previous conjecture.

[This isn’t right; after all, Lyu Bu had sunk Langjuxu Mountain. Never mind the Northern Huns, even the Southern Huns would have reacted. Given the Northern Huns’ spirited nature, how could they not come?] Chen Xi thought, pressing his temples, feeling dizzy.

In essence, it was mainly because Chen Xi was stuck in Jia Xu’s past experiences, without considering that the Northern Huns had already begun manipulating the Western Xianbei, facilitating internal annexations before dispersing into the east to integrate the Eastern Xianbei tribes.

Huyan Chu, knowing well who his adversaries were, did not wave the banner of the Northern Huns, just like historically. Only those Xianbei who truly received his recognition would be granted the title of Northern Huns, so internally within the Xianbei, it appeared as large tribes annexing smaller ones.

As for why the annexations were so fierce, it was perfectly normal; to survive, being ruthless in annexation is not wrong.

However, it was after reaching the Western Xianbei that the Northern Huns reconnected with intelligence from the southern Han Dynasty and only then learned that their primary target to eliminate had already ascended.

Of course, by this point, the Northern Huns had fully understood the entire current situation in the Han Dynasty, which seemed to be falling apart, reminiscent of the chaos during the upheaval of five Chanyus. What a piece of good news!

Thus, Huyan Chu changed his previous plan, initially coming to make the younger generation of the Northern Huns realize their current weakness and subsequently leave this place of heartache. But now, after perceiving potential advantages, Huyan Chu intended to make a grand move.

Understanding the disparity in strength, Huyan Chu did not let fortuitous opportunities cloud his judgment. After contemplation, he decided if the Han Dynasty was genuinely weak, they would openly raise their flags and overthrow the Han Dynasty.

If the Han Dynasty remained powerful, however, they would proceed as planned, suffer a severe defeat, allowing the younger generation of the Northern Huns to realize the disparity, thereafter making them wholeheartedly follow him away from this ancestral land stained with endless Xianbei blood from the Huns.

But achieving this cannot be done with just the numbers from the Western Xianbei, so Huyan Chu abandoned the idea of heading south after annexing the Western Xianbei. Instead, he began unifying the entire Great Prairie like a snowball, consolidating under the banner of Xianbei. After all, with current Xianbei engaging in annexation, capitalizing on the Xianbei banner was relatively easy.

As for raising the Northern Huns’ flag later if the Han Dynasty proves feeble, that would pose no difficulty. Don’t you see how Huyan Chu is currently bestowing the Northern Hun title upon excellent Xianbei?