My life is like walking on thin ice

Chapter 369: Strange Silence
When various opinions on adoption emerged in Chang'an, with some even declaring that the Han Dynasty should mobilize all its national strength to conquer Longcheng, the Weiyang Palace, the core of Han Dynasty's power, fell into unprecedented tranquility.

The common people who participated in the discussion, the meritorious dukes and generals who were eagerly waiting, and even the officials in the court were all waiting for Liu Rong's response to these international opinions.

It was during this inexplicable and strange silence that Liu Rong received the Hun delegation again after more than half a month.

Unlike the last time, when all the Han officials were present, the Xiongnu delegation could not fill up the Xuanshi Hall.
——This time, there were only a handful of people from both sides attending the meeting.

On the Han side, the emperor Liu Rong was in the lead, with the prime minister Liu She as his attendant, and several Zhonglangs in charge of record keeping and guarding.
The Xiongnu side was even simpler and more brutal - they only had one envoy, Huyan Qiedang.

People in later generations often say: to solve small problems, hold a big meeting; to solve big problems, hold a small meeting;

This "small meeting" was so small, obviously, it was to solve a huge problem...

"After not seeing you for so long, Your Excellency seems to be much more haggard?"

They sat down in the side hall, and Liu Rong opened his mouth with a teasing tone that seemed friendly but actually contained a hint of sarcasm.

As expected, before Liu Rong finished speaking, a look of grief, as if he had lost his parents, immediately appeared on Huyan Qiedang's face.

——Hu Yanqie thought this mission would be difficult;
I even thought about being humiliated.

But even though he had made sufficient mental preparations before coming, when the Han emperor and his ministers shamelessly put forward one unrealistic condition after another, Huyan Qiedang was still inevitably caught in a dilemma.

Ever since the two sides first contacted each other and the Han Dynasty proposed the fantastic condition of "ceding the land west of the Yellow River and the East China Sea", every day that Hu Yanqie spent in the post house was extremely painful.

During this period, Huyan Qiedang even used the Han people's information network: he sent someone back to the Chanyu court at an urgent rate of 800 miles to show his contempt.

Until yesterday, instructions came from the Chanyu Court: no matter the means, the result is the only thing that matters.

No matter what means are used or what conditions are agreed to by the Han people, a peace agreement must be reached between the Han and the Xiongnu!
This made Hu Yanqie Dang very worried.

——Under normal circumstances, the fewer words a request or instruction contains, the bigger the matter is.

If the Chanyu court's instructions were more specific, such as: this condition of the Han people cannot be agreed to, change it to that; that condition cannot be agreed to in principle, try to negotiate it, etc.;

Then Huyan Qiedang would feel better - after all, there were specific instructions and he just had to follow them.

But now, just receiving the instruction of "you can negotiate however you want, as long as you come up with a peace agreement", Hu Yanqie Dang was extremely conflicted.

According to this approach, if Huyan Qie really agreed to all the requests of the Han people and ceded land to seek peace on behalf of the Xiongnu Chanyu Ting, then the moment Huyan Qie returned and set foot on the grassland, he would definitely become the scapegoat for this incident of the Xiongnu Chanyu Ting 'ceding land to seek peace' and 'loss of power and humiliation of the country'.

No one cared about what instructions the Xiongnu Chanyu had given to Huyan Qiedang, and no one cared whether Huyan Qiedang, as the chief envoy, had the authority to make the decision.

On the grassland, no matter which tribe, no matter whether it is nobles or herdsmen, they will definitely say: It is all because of this sinner that we, the Great Xiongnu, have to cede land and seek peace, losing face!
Even if the Chanyu Ting had some dignity and was willing to come forward to protect Huyan Qiedang, at most he could only protect Huyan Qiedang's life;

From now on, whether Huyan Qiedang wanted to make great achievements and become a hero on the grassland, or to strategize and move towards becoming the next generation tribal leader of the Huyan family, he would have almost no chance of success.

In the words of the Han people: If this negotiation were to be concluded according to the Han people's conditions, then Hu Yanqie Dang would have ruined his political career in the court of the Xiongnu Chanyu.

If Huyan Qiedang was not a noble from the Huyan clan, one of the four major noble surnames of the Xiongnu, but a prince of an ordinary tribe, he might even have thought of "staying in the Han territory and never going back to that hellhole of the grassland"!

It’s a pity that the Huyan nobles, like the Luandi royal family, were closely connected with the entire Xiongnu Empire, and they shared the same fate.

Even if it really meant death, Huyan Qiedang had no choice but to accept it, rather than betray his own tribe, his noble bloodline and identity of the Huyan clan, and turn to the enemy...

Therefore, after receiving the instructions sent back by Shanyu Ting, Huyan Qiedang immediately requested to meet with the Han family.

Moreover, Hu Yanqiedang specifically requested that if possible, he hoped to have a meeting "under a felt blanket".

To put it bluntly, it is a non-public meeting that cannot be seen in the open, or has a higher level of confidentiality.

Upon learning that Huyan Qiedang had made such a request, Liu Rong immediately understood the intention and agreed to the Xiongnu envoy's request.

As for the moment, both parties have met, and Liu Rong still wants to tease Hu Yanqie for "looking much more haggard". Naturally, he wants to use this - a relatively tough and arrogant attitude as the opening remark of this meeting.

The subsequent developments naturally did not surprise Liu Rong.

After Liu Rong unabashedly revealed his attitude of "talk if we can, fight if we can't, I'm not afraid of fighting another war", Hu Yanqie's originally prepared speech, that is, those roundabout words, were instantly thrown out of his mind.

The only remaining sentence was transmitted to Liu Rong's ears word by word in Huyan Qiedang's extremely depressed tone.

"Your Majesty, this is forcing our Great Xiongnu."

The first words spoken by the representatives of both sides set the tone for this informal meeting.

- Both sides abandoned the usual empty talk and rhetoric used in formal occasions to promote themselves and belittle the other side;

Everything returns to the essence of the problem and to the simplest and most direct communication.

Liu Rong just sneered when he heard this.

After exchanging a glance with Prime Minister Liu She beside him, the two of them smiled at each other. Liu Rong then raised his head with a smile and looked at Huyan Qiedang indifferently.

"If your Excellency says so, then it is so."

"——Our Han people have always suffered from the scarcity of war horses and cavalry;"

"If you want to have a good fight with your Lord, you have to make plans and use fortresses and cities as bait to achieve your wish."

"Let's talk about the battle between the Han and Xiongnu in Hetao and Mayi last year. My Han family took great pains to lure your Lord Chanyu to the Daibei Mayi line."

"I thought that even if we couldn't gain much advantage on the battlefield, we wouldn't let your main force escape openly from the city of Mayi..."

...

"How is the result?"

"Your Excellency Chanyu left whenever he wanted. Even if our Han family gave up Mayi and even retreated to the south of the Great Wall, we couldn't keep your Excellency Chanyu for even half a day."

"——That's fine."

"If I can really force your Lord Shanyu to fight with my Han family in Henan-Gaoque, then I will just force you."

Such words made Huyan Qiedang frown even more tightly, but also made Prime Minister Liu She, who was standing next to him, suddenly smile with a gloating look on his face.

Liu Rong didn't lie.

Over the past few years - to be precise, since the Battle of Pingcheng between the Han and the Xiongnu when Emperor Taizu Gao was trapped in the siege of Baideng, to this day, the constraints faced by the Han Dynasty when facing the Xiongnu army cannot be avoided by the four words "arms restraint".

cavalry versus infantry;
Especially pure cavalry versus a large group of infantry with a combination of various arms. This level of restraint between arms once made the Han Dynasty conclude that the only solution was to have a comparable number of cavalry as the Xiongnu, and to use cavalry against cavalry to maintain a balance on the front battlefield!
Then, on this basis, assisted by infantry clusters of various arms, it would be possible to gain the upper hand over the Hun army and gain the upper hand over the Huns.

But in fact, the core of this restrained relationship between the two arms is not the stereotype of later generations: as soon as the cavalry charges, the infantry will be instantly defeated.

In fact, what the Han people feared least was the Xiongnu cavalry charging head-on.

The Han Dynasty even had a branch of the army that was specifically responsible for dealing with cavalry charges.

——The giant shield of the material officer.

Those who can become talented officials are all strong men with sturdy lower limbs, extremely stable chassis, and outstanding waist and abdominal strength.

In times of war, they would erect one giant shield after another that was taller and wider than themselves, forming a breathtakingly solid "wall" at the front of their own formation.

They only had one tactical move: they took a sideways lunge, roughly making a posture similar to the Iron Mountain Leaning stance, using their upper arm and shoulder to hold the giant shield in their hands tightly.

Such an array of officers and soldiers could almost ensure that the Xiongnu cavalry could not break up the Han infantry phalanxes through simple charges and collisions.

When faced with this giant shield array, the only way for the Huns to break into the phalanx was to ride over the shield wall.

Therefore, behind the huge shield of the officer are often the "freely moving" spears, swords and shields.

Whenever a cavalryman crossed the shield wall and jumped into the Han army's formation, they would surround the whimsical cavalryman and pierce him like a hedgehog.

The Han army infantry group also assumed that it had the military organization of the material officer.
Therefore, the restraint between the two sides' arms does not lie in the cavalry's charge against the infantry phalanx.

In fact, what really gave the Han army a headache was that the Xiongnu cavalry were too "smart". They simply would not act like a reckless man and charge head-on into the Han army's infantry phalanx, causing their heads to bleed.

——They will cruise around the periphery, fire sporadic shots, and harass from a distance.

We are on full alert, with bows and crossbows fully strung, spears and halberds lined up, and officers holding shields, ready to go!

The enemy was like a pack of wolves, circling on the periphery, outside the range of the bows and crossbows, and then suddenly shot an arrow.

Although there is a high probability that no casualties will be caused, it will be a huge drain on the morale of the Han army.

After just a few hours, the Han army archers couldn't draw their bows, their spears couldn't hold their weapons steady, and even the military officers couldn't hold up their shields...

The Huns still would not charge.

They will still test and harass a little bit;

The Han army's soldiers were exhausted, and the restraint of the two sides' troops would finally be revealed.

—Han’s infantry could not get away even if they wanted to;
I want to catch up but I can’t;
It's like a giant with infinite strength but his feet are fixed in place, and he can only let those tiny but agile little pickles move around like annoying mosquitoes.

If it drags on for three to five days, even if the Han soldiers do not collapse mentally, they will most likely not have the strength - especially the will - to continue fighting.

Therefore, the restraining relationship between cavalry and infantry between the Han and Xiongnu sides, what really made the Han uncomfortable was actually this: you can't catch up if you want to, and you can't run away if you want to.

Especially the former, in the past few decades, I don't know how many veterans were so angry that they vomited blood - they clearly had the upper hand in the front and were about to defeat the enemy, but the enemy just waved his whip and ran away, and our army couldn't even catch up.

This is true in small tactics, and it is also roughly true in general strategy.

——Faced with the Xiongnu’s flexible and highly mobile cavalry, the Han Dynasty had almost no chance of encircling and annihilating the enemy.

Even if we want to fight, it depends on whether the enemy is willing to fight.

Or maybe, it took a lot of effort, such as setting baits and making the army pretend to be exhausted and weak, to lure the Huns into a fight.

This is very uncomfortable.

The Huns came whenever they wanted and attacked whenever they wanted;

On the other hand, if the Han Dynasty wanted to fight, they had to spend a lot of effort to plan and deploy, and in the end the enemy might not be fooled!
——Even before the war starts, the Han Dynasty needs to set the stage!

From this perspective, the Han Dynasty now has an opportunity to force the Huns and the Han Dynasty to fight a war through blocked diplomatic channels, which is not bad.

Obviously, Liu Rong's words hit the nail on the head for Hu Yanqie with great accuracy.

After thinking for a long time, Huyan Qiedang finally gave up the fight and put the bottom line he had come up with after thinking for many days in front of Liu Rong.

"After returning, I may ask my Lord Chanyu to marry a beautiful daughter of the Luanti clan to the Emperor as his concubine."

"——The land of a thousand miles in the East China Sea centered on the Xianbei and Wuheng Mountains can be used as a dowry."

"But in exchange, His Majesty the Emperor must promise that before next autumn, not even a single Han soldier will appear twenty miles south of Gaoque, or set foot in Hexi."

"Next autumn, when my Lord Chanyu returns from the west, I will let the noble lady of the Luandi clan go south..."

In Huyan Qiedang's opinion, this was the best condition and also the most acceptable condition to the Xiongnu Chanyu court.

Unlike the Han people who viewed marriage as a humiliation, the nomadic people of the grasslands often had a very open attitude towards marriage.

In most cases, two tribes on the grassland that are not far from each other and have similar strength will deepen their close relationship through similar "marriages".

Therefore, on the grassland, a marriage between two parties means that the two parties are equally powerful and it is a strong alliance.

Although the marriage between the Han and Xiongnu in the past few years was actually a tribute from the weak to the strong, in the eyes of the vast majority of nomadic people, it still carried some meaning of "alliance of the strong".

Nowadays, the Han and the Xiongnu have changed their offensive and defensive strategies, and the Xiongnu have started marrying their daughters to the Han Dynasty. As long as the Chanyu's court can whitewash it well enough, it will be enough to make the entire grassland believe: in the past, the Han people married princesses to the Han Dynasty as tribute; now that we Xiongnu people marry the noble daughters of the Luandi clan to the Han Dynasty, it is a true powerful alliance.

Furthermore, Huyan Qiedang also had some thoughts in this regulation.

——The schedule for the Western Expedition that the Chanyu Court has already set is to set out this summer and return next autumn.

As long as the Han people can stay in Henan during this period of time instead of continuing to expand outward and end the Xiongnu Chanyu's westward expedition, the current dire situation can be reversed.

At that time, will you marry your daughter and move south?

Oh;
Let’s have a fight first!

If you still can’t win, it won’t be too late to marry your daughter off and move south! ! !

(End of this chapter)