Chapter 305: The Way to a Strong Nation, a Great War Looms
To every Jiangdong aristocratic clan and commoner, the Shanyue were no strangers.
When later generations spoke of the Shanyue, they always saw them as an alien force, but at their core, the Shanyue were mountain bandits.
Their main body consisted of commoners who had fled into the mountains to evade taxes, living intermixed with a small number of Yue people.
These people mainly lived by farming, planting grain just like ordinary Han commoners.
But because the mountain terrain was steep and perilous, they held fast to dangerous ground and used the copper and iron in the mountains to forge their own weapons and armor, forming one massive armed force after another.
Zu Lang, whom they now used to garrison Kuaiji, had once been one of the Shanyue chieftains.
These people chose their leaders through martial strength. Smaller groups numbered several thousand, while the larger ones had tens of thousands.
All told, there were likely several hundred thousand to over a million of them, entrenched throughout the great mountain ranges of Jiangdong.
In the original course of history, the Shanyue were to Jiangdong what the Southern Barbarians were to Shu Han.
Sun Quan spent more than twenty full years suppressing them before gradually eliminating the Shanyue threat.
When Gu Yong heard that Qin Tian intended to send troops against the Shanyue, fresh worry appeared on his face.
"Prefect, there is naturally nothing wrong with campaigning against the Shanyue. But Jiangdong has only just been settled, and the summer grain has yet to be harvested."
"If we send too few troops, I fear we will achieve little. If we send too many, our provisions will be insufficient, and the very foundations may be shaken!"
Though Gu Yong was also a