My life is like walking on thin ice

Chapter 337 Chain reaction?

Although Liu Rong rationally put the matter of the Western Regions on hold, he could not suppress his excitement about Hexi and began to make secret plans.

It is said that before the Hetao Battle between the Han and the Xiongnu, the terrain of the section where the northwest border wall of the Han Dynasty bordered the Xiongnu was very special.

——On the east and south sides of the Hetao are the Han Dynasty’s Beidi, Longyou, Shang, Dai and other counties;

To the north of the Hetao is the Xiongnu Munan;

To the west is the Hexi region, which is backed by the Qilian Mountains.

As for the area south of Hetao?

how to say……

The reason why Hetao is called "Hetao" - the reason why the Yellow River can make a semi-circle and tightly surround all directions of Hetao except the south, is because the terrain of the Hetao area is much higher than the surrounding areas.

The high terrain of Hetao comes from the Loess Plateau, from which the Hetao region was derived.

In other words, the topography of Hetao and its surrounding areas is basically as follows: the south of Hetao is a plateau, and Hetao itself is a raised part derived from the plateau to the north;
It is like a peninsula surrounded by the sea on three sides. Except for the plateau in the south, the other three sides of the Hetao area are grasslands and plains with obviously lower terrain than the Hetao.

It is precisely for this reason that in the past, no one dared to imagine that one day the Han Dynasty would be able to easily take over Hetao without paying a huge price in casualties.

——Even in the new era of the future when hot weapons are rampant, launching an attack from low terrain to high terrain is still an extremely difficult task;
Not to mention today, we are still in the cold weapon era, at the end of the Bronze Age and the beginning of the Steel Age.

It is no exaggeration to say that before airplanes, cannons, and steel torrents ravaged the blue planet, the owner of Hetao could always maintain a commanding strategic deterrence over Munan in the north, Hexi in the west, and the Han border counties in the east.

In the past, it was for this reason that the Han Dynasty concentrated most of its border wall defense efforts along the northwest line, namely Beidi, Longyou, Shang, and Dai (county).

As for the northeastern coast, it was directly left to the three border guarding kings of Yan, Dai and Zhao to worry about.

In the fourteenth year of Emperor Taizong Xiaowen's reign, the foreign invasion war that nearly overturned the Han ancestral temple and the country, and even almost caused the land of China to sink, also told all Han people in the world: Whoever controls the Hetao area can take action at any time, from a high position to a low position, and attack by surprise!
And now, Hetao belongs to the Han family.

The situation has been completely reversed.

——In the past, the Xiongnu people controlled the precious land of Hetao. They could graze their livestock in spring, summer and autumn, and spend the winter in the warm Hetao.

At the same time, the Huns were able to use the geographical advantages of the Hetao region to maintain a strategic deterrent against the Han border in the east without sacrificing a single soldier or a single clan, and always maintain control over the Hexi region.

But with the change of ownership of Hetao, all the advantages once owned by the Xiongnu have been transferred to the Han Dynasty.

Your Hetao is very good;
But now, it's my Hetao...

"With the Hetao, the pressure on the northwest border, such as Beidi, Longyou, Shang, Dai and other counties, will be greatly reduced."

"On the contrary, the Hexi and Munan of the Xiongnu must always be within the dynamic range of our Han family;"

"As long as we want, our Han family can march out of the Hetao area at any time, or head north to Munan, or head west to Hexi."

"——With Gaoque as a barrier, we don't have to worry too much about the Xiongnu in the south of Mu for the time being."

"But Hexi~"

"Hey;"

"There is no other Gaoque between Hexi and Hetao..."

Looking at the huge feng shui map that had been rubbed into a slightly yellowish color by him in just a few years, Liu Rong couldn't help but reveal a sincere smile on the corner of his mouth.

Liu Rong naturally had a deep understanding of the Xiongnu regime, or rather, this special entity.

To use a more vivid reference as an example: the Huns today are like the Zhou Dynasty, which completely obeys the law of the jungle and has not yet developed from a primitive and barbaric stage to a civilized stage.

That’s right;

Zhou Dynasty.

It is just like the Zhou emperor was nominally the king of the world, but in reality there were eight hundred princes who ruled their own territories and even attacked each other.

The Zhou emperor could summon various princes to serve him, and the same is true for the Xiongnu Chanyu court today - he would only mobilize troops when there was a war, and on normal days he would not even bother with them, leaving them to fend for themselves.

The Zhou emperor relied on the tribute system to maintain control over the various princes, and the same was true for the Xiongnu Chanyu Court - the annual Xulin Conference served as a link between the Xiongnu tribes and the Chanyu Court, and tribute was used to demonstrate the Chanyu Court's supreme ruling status.

The only difference is that no matter what, Zhou was still a civilization.

The Zhou emperor did not need to rely entirely on military force to suppress the princes, but could use rituals and morality to suppress them.

For example, you are a prince in the Zhou Dynasty;
No matter how ambitious you are or how powerful your army is, you still dare not say to the King of Zhou: It's my turn to rule the world!
Let alone an open rebellion - even if he proclaimed himself a king, it took the various princes of Zhou Dynasty a hundred years of cautious testing before he was finally able to do so through the method of "becoming a king".

What is the meaning of 'Xiang Wang'?
That is: respect each other.

It is like you are a prince, and you want to be king;
You have a good relationship with another prince and know that he also wants to be king;
So you two thought: Oh my!
The king, for respecting himself, is somewhat shameless~
Besides, if you tell others about it, it would seem a bit embarrassing to eat like that.

Otherwise, let’s become kings!

I respect you as king, and you respect me as king!
This way, when someone asks us, we can also say: Oh~
I don't want to be a king.
It's still that so-and-so who insists on honoring me as the king...

He respects me as a king. As a good friend, I can't really treat him as a subject or a person of lower status than me, right?
Therefore, in order to get along with him as an equal, I can only respect him as the king...

This is exactly what Liu Rong believes is the only difference between the present Xiongnu Chanyu Court and the present grassland and the former Zhou Dynasty and the former Central Plains.

——The Chinese people value dignity, propriety, righteousness, integrity and honor, and uphold loyalty, filial piety, morality and human relations.

Even if the Zhou emperor was already weak, and even very likely to be so weak that he could collapse at any moment, no one would directly send troops to overthrow the Zhou royal family;
Instead, he would carefully use the method of "Xiang Wang" to first bring his status to a level roughly equal to that of the Zhou emperor.

That’s right;

The Zhou emperor was called "Son of Heaven", but in fact he was not called emperor or emperor, but King of Zhou.

The princes became kings, which was equivalent to winning a theoretical political status equal to that of the Zhou emperor for themselves and their descendants through this euphemistic way.

——You are the King of Zhou, I am the King of Qin, and he is the King of Qi;
We are all kings, so there is no reason why we have to listen to you?

Well, since we are both kings, if we fight, it shouldn't be considered treason, right?
At most, it was just a war between kings and kings, and between countries.

Since we're at war, then it wouldn't be so incomprehensible if I accidentally killed you...

have a look;

This is the most direct manifestation of the Chinese people's implicit and tactful culture in that era.

——Even when rebelling, even when replacing, one must test and nibble away step by step;

But on the grasslands, especially under the rule of the Xiongnu Chanyu Court, things were simple and brutal to the point of being outrageous. At most 20% of Chanyu Court's rule over the grasslands came from the deliberately created myth of monarchy and religious beliefs;
The remaining 80% were all suppressed by force!

Only a Chanyu Court with flourishing martial virtues and strong military power - only a Chanyu Court that can challenge the entire grassland can maintain absolute rule over the grassland!
Even so, it only avoided a head-on military coup, but instead increased the enthusiasm of various tribes to launch assassination coups.

To put it simply, the only reason why the various tribes on the grasslands submitted to the Chanyu Court, were willing to accept the Chanyu Court's notices, and were willing to kiss the toes of successive Xiongnu Chanyus to offer all their loyalty was: they could not win.

I can’t beat him, so I surrender;
But as the saying goes, no child cries every day, and no one loses a fight every day.

One day, the Shanyu Court will face its downturn like every Chinese dynasty and even every regime in the history of human civilization.

When that day came, the people of the grassland could not be said to have risen up in unison to "violently rebel against the Xiongnu", but at least the situation was that the Xiongnu lost their deer, and the nomadic peoples chased them together.

In fact, there is no need to wait until the day when the Xiongnu Chanyu becomes as weak as the Zhou emperor.

Just for now;

The Xiongnu Chanyu Ting, who had lost the Hetao area, was gradually losing control of the Hexi region because he could no longer maintain a strategic deterrent against the Hexi region from the Hetao area, which was already owned by the Han Dynasty.

Of course, just like during the Zhou Dynasty, the various princes were cautious and tested, nibbling away at the enemy bit by bit;
The Hexi region, which still borders the Munan region and the prairie, will not rebel overnight and openly resist the Xiongnu Chanyu court.

However, submission to the prestige of the Chanyu court would inevitably begin to gradually diminish.

Things like obeying orders but not declarations, submitting but not paying tribute, will inevitably become the daily routine of the various tribes in Hexi towards the Xiongnu Chanyu's court in the foreseeable future.

And this is precisely the unique characteristic of the Xiongnu, an extremely special and unique loose nomadic tribal alliance regime in human history.

This feature cannot be said to be good or bad;
When the Chanyu Court was powerful, this characteristic ensured its absolute rule over the grassland and its absolute prestige over all tribes on the grassland.

But when the Chanyu court was weak - or even just slightly declining, this became the culprit that struck the death of the Chanyu court and the Chanyu himself.

It’s like a wolf pack;
The male members are strong enough, so the wolf pack no longer has to worry about not having enough prey or food.

When the wolf king is strong enough to suppress the male members within the pack, the wolf pack will inevitably be extremely powerful.

But once the wolf king shows signs of old age, every male member of the tribe will launch a frenzied attack on the wolf king.

What is even more terrifying is that when the wolf king of a wolf pack grows old, only a new wolf king will be born;
Once a new wolf king is born, the wolf pack will return to order from chaos.

But humans don’t;
The nomadic people on the grasslands would not do that either.

They would say: I can't be the wolf king of this wolf pack, so I will leave the pack and become the king of my own!
What's more, in today's grasslands, the chieftains of the Xiongnu tribes under the rule of the 'Wolf King', the Xiongnu Chanyu, are undoubtedly the wolf kings of their respective tribes.

As for Chanyu, it would be more accurate to say that he is the king of beasts rather than the wolf king.

Just like the present-day prairie and the Xiongnu Chanyu Court, the Han people privately called it: a great country of a hundred barbarians;

And Shanyu is the king of all barbarians in this great country of barbarians...

"If we want to ensure that Hexi is not lost, Junchen must resort to military force against Hexi!"

"——Move at least once!"

"We must slaughter a few tribes, kill a chicken to scare the monkeys, and establish our authority with blood, so that the tribes in Hexi can be quiet for a few years."

"But does the Xiongnu Chanyu Ting have the energy to kill a chicken to scare the monkeys in Hexi and establish his authority with blood?"

Muttering to himself, Liu Rong couldn't help but shake his head and smile to himself.

——The Hetao-Mayi Battle at the end of last year did not actually cause too significant damage to the Xiongnu's manpower.

Especially in the Hetao battlefield, the Huns didn't lose many soldiers!
Well, if we put aside the fact that the Xiongnu lost the Hetao area and the dozens of tribes...

In a battle fought on two fronts, the actual number of casualties among the Xiongnu was probably similar to that of the Battle of Chaona led by Yizhixie, the Right King of the Xiongnu, at the beginning of last year.

In terms of military strength alone, the Huns were not greatly affected by this war;

If he wanted, the Xiongnu Chanyu Ting could and was fully capable of extending his rule over the Hexi region through military operations in the region.

But what made the Han Dynasty most happy about the conquest of Hetao, and what also made the Xiongnu most uneasy, was not the losses in this war;
But after taking control of Hetao, the next campaign launched by the Han Dynasty against the Huns would most likely cause the Huns to suffer unimaginable losses.

For example, Hexi;

For example, Gaoque;

For example, Mu Nan behind Gao Que, and the political center deployed by the Xiongnu in Mu Nan: Longcheng...

"After the beginning of spring, Junchen~"

"Hey;"

"At most, they would just shout in Gaoque for a while, and then send an envoy to Chang'an to make a wish to me."

"As for what happens next..."

···
"Um……"

"My Han family cannot take Gaoque, and his military officials cannot take back Hetao."

"The two families will probably face each other across the river at Bowang-Gaoque until one of them slacks off."

"——The old thief Junchen has absolutely no intention of dealing with those restless tribes in Hexi."

"Perhaps at this moment, Junchen is expecting me to make a concerted effort to transfer the troops in Bowang to Hexi, so that Junchen can take advantage of the opportunity..."

Thinking of this, a spine-chillingly sarcastic smile appeared on Liu Rong's lips.

"But I have more than just this army..."

"The Northern Front Army on the Bowang front is far from my entire fortune..."

···
“Hey, hey, hey…”

···
"Sunflower... Summer Bird;"

"Go and call Zhonglang Wei Qing."

"——Huaiyin Military Book, I have been reading it for about a month;"

"I need to test you carefully..."

(End of this chapter)