The meeting room fell silent, deathly silent.
Many people had heard that foreign tribes invaded the borders every year, but what exactly happened could not be clearly described by the mere words "border invasion." However, to the people of this era, how many border civilians died had no effect on them whatsoever. There was no need to waste too many words describing the invaders' actions. Thus, those who were not from Youzhou or Bingzhou had no real concept of what "border invasion" meant.
Even Huang Zhong and Gan Ning had occasionally encountered border invasions by the Shanyue or Wuxi Man in their hometowns, but in most cases, the Han people had the upper hand. Moreover, many of the Shanyue and Wuxi Man were actually Han people who had fled into the mountains to escape the heavy taxes and live there. Thus, they did not have particularly strong feelings toward foreign tribes either. But now, after hearing Wang Xuan's detailed account—especially the statements that "tens of millions of Han civilians have died directly at the hands of the steppe tribes over the past thousand years" and that they "plundered food, abducted people, burned villages, and killed everyone they could not carry away, regardless of age or sex"—an unmistakable, suppressed fury suddenly surged from the depths of their hearts.
How had our magnificent Han dynasty been bullied by mere foreign tribes to such an extent?
Just as Gongsun Zan had said, he was clumsy with words and did not know how to express his thoughts. He could only respond through his actions. Whenever foreign tribes invaded, he became exceptionally violent, completely disregarding his status as a regional lord and charging into battle at the very front. This roused his subordinates' willingness to fight desperately. Every time, he led forces far smaller than