Chapter 287 The Population Problem of the Tang Dynasty (1st Update)

The war is finally over, and the surviving Xia soldiers are finally relieved. Yan Zhao is so heroic, it's not that they haven't seen fierce and ruthless people, the Turks are fierce enough, right? Since the end of the Sui Dynasty, they have invaded Hexi, Xihe, Hedong, Hetao, Youzhou, Yingzhou, and Pingzhou, and the border line of seven or eight thousand miles from west to east is full of Turkic iron horsemen.

Looking at the history of wars in the past few years, you will be surprised to find that from Wuzhou to Yunzhou and Shunzhou, the area of 2,000 miles has rarely been invaded by the Turks, the reason is actually very simple, it is not that Hebei is too poor and the Turks have no oil and water, but that the Hebei people are too strong.

From the white-haired old man to the children who were just above the wheel, they picked up their knives and dared to cut each other with the Turks, of course, the combat effectiveness of the Hebei people was really not high, and the loss ratio of the two sides was about three to one, but relatively speaking, Hebei became the chicken ribs of the Turks.

The number of people is small, and it is not possible to take advantage of it at all. There are a lot of people, and the things they grab are not enough for people to eat and chew, as for the women of Hebei are also very strong, they are not sheep to be ravaged by others, biting with teeth, stabbing with scissors, and smashing with stones.

However, at this moment, the surviving soldiers of the Hebei Xia Army, without exception, all looked at the young general who was riding on horseback with a beautiful face. In particular, the indifference on the young general's face made them shiver from the bottom of their hearts.

How had they ever seen such a terrifying army of tigers and wolves? The headless corpses everywhere, the murderous aura on the blood-stained soldiers, all made their eyelids jump wildly! Compared to them, the Turks are simply scum. The people of Hebei are also very smart, they know that they are far inferior to the Turks in terms of riding and archery, but they can't stand it, they dare to fight hard, just like that kind of pig-style tactics, as soon as they use it, they will be accurate, and they will use the kind of crazy and crazy and fearless strength to make the Turks retreat.

These Hebei captives are very honest at the moment. I was afraid that Chen Ying would kill all of them in order to establish his authority. Killing prisoners is not a good reputation, and it is undeniable that it is the best means of deterring the enemy. In later generations, Xue Rengui's fame was very great, what general set the Tianshan Mountain with three arrows, and looked at the horse and surrendered, but behind this great fame, it was the lives of tens of thousands of Xue Yantuo people as a price.

To the surprise of these Xia army captives, Chen Ying had no intention of executing them. Not only did he not kill prisoners, but even the wounded soldiers in Hebei were treated as much as possible.

"You bunches of fools, what are you doing in a daze, and you can't come over to help?" A black-faced Tang Army general roared impatiently: "Fuck me, so many corpses are piled up here, the weather is so hot, it is easy to have plague......"

Hearing the word plague, the captives hurried forward as if possessed by their souls, looking for tools, or broken knives and axes, digging pits to bury their bodies.

However, at this time, Chen Ying said with an angry face: "Don't bury the body first, burn it first, and then bury it!" ”

The weather was so hot that just over two hours later, the corpses on the battlefield were spotted. Although Chen Ying knows that medical knowledge is not even a skin, he knows that once the corpse decays, a large number of bacteria or viruses will breed, which is easy to cause plague.

The captives followed the Tang Army's medical guards to treat the wounded and began to treat the wounded, looking for firewood, making crematories, and the entire battlefield calmed down. However, these Tang soldiers were not idle, they took knives and axes, walked up to the corpse, raised their knives in their hands, and cut off the corpse's head.

The Tang Army counts merit by the first rank, and every head on these corpses is a military merit. This is an indisputable achievement, with more than 30,000 generals completely defeated more than 100,000 Xia army soldiers, and every soldier can get three military merits. Although the meaning of the three military meritorious generals and soldiers is definitely different, they can all be exchanged for money and land.

The fishy and smelly heads are all white silver and yellow copper coins in the eyes of the Tang soldiers.

"These stunned babies, what a fucking loser, I don't know how to start!" A Tang Army soldier complained with a stomach: "Another waste of military merit!" ”

There is no way, the Tang Army's method of calculating military merit is to kill the whole complete head, all of which are cut to death with a horizontal knife or shot to death by a bow and crossbow, it doesn't matter, the key is that the Modao Army is too high, and many people are split in half from the position of the temple, so that since the head is incomplete, it cannot be counted.

In fact, it is not just one that is causing this, but it is a common phenomenon. Especially when the hook and sickle of the Xiao cavalry charged, the corpses of countless Xia soldiers were trampled by more than 40,000 horses' hooves.

Li Shentong and Feng Deyi went to Zhaozhou City, at this moment Liu Tong and Xunxiang have basically controlled Zhaozhou City, at this moment Li Shentong and Feng Deyi led the troops over, I am afraid they just accepted it smoothly, Chen Ying did not join in the excitement.

However, Chen Ying's eyebrows have never been stretched, his eyebrows have been twisted into the word "Chuan", and his face is so gloomy that he can wring out water.

"General Chen seems to have something on his mind?" Just when Chen Ying didn't know what he was thinking, a voice suddenly sounded.

Chen Ying turned around and looked at the voice. But seeing that Wei Wenzhong, the right guard, didn't know when, he came behind Chen Ying.

"Hey......" Chen Ying sighed, revealing a thick sense of helplessness and tiredness: "It's nothing, it's just a little stuffy in my heart!" ”

Wei Wenzhong said: "General, you are now the head of the three armies, and countless generals are looking at you at this moment, regardless of the casualties of the left guard, we have finally won a big victory......

Without waiting for Wei Wenzhong to finish speaking, Chen Ying directly interrupted him and said, "Do you think we have won a big battle?" ”

"Isn't it a victory?" Wei Wenzhong asked very strangely: "The captives have captured more than 50,000 people, and more than 25,000 have been beheaded. ”

In fact, the number of Xia soldiers killed in battle was far more than 25,000, or even 35,000, although Wei Wenzhong did not get the exact battle record, but he also knew that at least one-third of the Xia army's soldiers had their heads damaged, and they were extremely recognizable.

"This is a war with no winners!" Chen Yingyou sighed and said: "We didn't win, the Xia army didn't win, we fought in Hebei, and the blood flowed and drifted, but in this war, the two sides of the war are our Chinese people, and it is also my Chinese people who die, we can't talk about winning, if you want to win, the biggest winner is the Turks." ”

Wei Wenzhong couldn't understand Chen Ying's words, in fact, he couldn't understand them.

This is not Chen Ying's alarmism, in fact, it is. If it weren't for the chaos at the end of the Sui Dynasty, the Sui Dynasty had a population of more than 60 million, and only a quarter was left in the early Tang Dynasty, and I am afraid that the Tang Dynasty would not have restricted its expansion because of the population problem.

In later generations, some people said that Datang was a governance issue, but in fact, it was a population issue. During the heyday of the Tang Dynasty, even parts of present-day Iran and Afghanistan belonged to the territory of the Tang Dynasty, but the population of the Tang Dynasty at that time was more than 20 million, and the average population of the entire territory of the Tang Dynasty was only 0.1687 people per square kilometer. There are no people in the real Baili.

But the battle of Hebei, this battle was fought. But more than 50,000 people died, which means that more than 50,000 families have lost their breadwinners.

Just looking at the numbers on paper, there is no feeling. However, once he saw it with his own eyes, everywhere he passed, there were stumps and broken arms, and corpses everywhere, Chen Ying felt very uncomfortable in his heart.

Of course, Chen Ying was only a little uncomfortable in his heart, but when he had just been driven out of Jinzhou by Li Jiancheng and retreated to Zezhou, Dou Jiande felt heartbroken.