My life is like walking on thin ice

Chapter 370 Your Excellency, are you trying to make fun of me?

"Your Excellency, are you trying to tease me?"

Unfortunately, Huyan Qiedang's beautiful dream, which was full of luck, did not last even for a moment after meeting Liu Rong, and was shattered by Liu Rong's sneer.

"This year begins in spring, and ends in autumn next year."

"--Excluding the winter when you, the Great Hun, don't like to use troops, that's two years."

"My Han family has not taken the initiative to attack for two years, but in return, all we got was a promise from you, the Great Xiongnu, which you may not fulfill in two years?"

As he said this, Liu Rong couldn't help but smile again, and stood up from his seat. With his hands behind his back, he paced back and forth under Huyan Qie's obscure gaze.

After walking back and forth for a while, Huyan Qie Dang had difficulty breathing. Liu Rong then laughed, turned sideways, and looked at Huyan Qie Dang's gloomy face again.

"Since today is a meeting 'covered under a blanket', I will not beat around the bush."

"——Your Highness Chanyu intends to move westward. It is not difficult to guess what his intention is."

"When your Lord Chanyu completes his westward march and returns to the south with the power to stabilize the world, I am afraid that by then, the flames of war will suddenly break out again, and the Han and the Huns will fight each other, right?"

"Perhaps in the Western Regions, in Dayuan, or even further west, your Lord Chanyu can obtain many things that can make the nomadic people much stronger than they are today."

"By then, I'm afraid it will no longer be the Xiongnu envoys coming to the court to ask for an audience, marriage and cession of territory in exchange for peace;"

"Even if it was your Excellency himself, I'm afraid he would mount his warhorse, wield his barbarian sword, and chop at our Han soldiers, right?"

After revealing Huyan Qiedang's little thought, Liu Rong deliberately paused to give Huyan Qiedang sufficient time to think.

After Huyan Qiedang took a deep breath and made an attitude of "Since His Majesty the Emperor is so frank, I won't beat around the bush", Liu Rong sat back on the imperial couch.

It was at the moment when Liu Rong's body fell on the imperial bed that an inexplicable majesty rushed straight to Huyan Qie's face.

At that moment, Hu Yanqie felt that the one in front of him was a divine body that was even more majestic than the Xiongnu Chanyu he was loyal to...

"I have already said: The Xiongnu people have no right to speak in front of the Han family. They cannot negotiate with the Han family from the perspective of strength and status!"

"Twenty years ago, thirty years ago - even fifty years ago, you didn't have the qualifications."

"Similarly, in twenty, thirty, or even a hundred or a thousand years, you will not have this qualification either."

...

"The current situation is that it is you Xiongnu people who need peace, not us Han people."

"On the contrary: the officers and soldiers in my Han army are all extremely hungry for military honors and heads."

"——After the Hetao Campaign, the reason why our Han army did not attack Gaoque was not because we were satisfied with the Hetao area."

"It's not that our Han army is tired or homesick."

"On the contrary - if I hadn't tried my best to suppress it, I'm afraid that by now, my Han family's vanguard troops would have been cruising near your country's 'capital': Dragon City."

Liu Rong's remarks seemed to be roundabout and he didn't say anything, but in fact, he clearly laid out the Han family's current position on the table.

——Want to make peace?

——Then kneel down!
——Pay attention to your identity!
Again, the same thing;
The Han Dynasty did not mind using peace as a bargaining chip to get something from the Huns.

In other words, as long as the conditions are satisfactory to the Han people, they can fully accept that in the next two to three years, they will no longer carry out the next large-scale military operation against the grasslands - the areas controlled by the Xiongnu.

But this does not mean that the Han family really needs, desires, or is more willing to do so.

If the conditions are not attractive enough, the Han family can make a more cost-effective option.

The logic behind this is the same as it was used by the Huns who plundered the northern border of the Han Dynasty over the past few decades: If you don’t give it to me at the negotiation table, I will take it on the battlefield!
It is true that Liu Rong was somewhat suspected of asking for an exorbitant price by proposing the fantastic condition of "Hexi" during the negotiation;
But there was one thing that Liu Rong did not mince words at all.

——Hexi, even if the Xiongnu people don’t give it to us, the Han people will definitely take it!
It is indeed unlikely that the deal will be concluded at the negotiation table;
But Liu Rong has the determination to fight on the battlefield.

And there are many!
The Han army also has the ability to take down the enemy.

Rather than saying that Liu Rong knew he had gone too far and consciously removed this condition from the content of this diplomatic negotiation, it is better to say that Liu Rong knew the Xiongnu would not agree.

Therefore, Liu Rong has removed the issue of "obtaining Hexi" from the diplomatic channel and moved it to the strategic goal of the war channel.

And what Liu Rong said just now was not a lie at all.

——After the Hetao Campaign ended, the most common petitions Liu Rong received were from soldiers stationed in Hetao.

The content of each document is the same: Please, Your Majesty, issue an edict to allow our army to cross the river to the north and march into Longcheng!
Although Liu Rong finally made the decision to "temporarily stabilize the situation in Hetao" because Liu Rong believed that the time was not right, from a certain perspective, Liu Rong was indeed deliberately suppressing the generals in the army.

Obviously, Hu Yanqie Dang also understood this.

In fact, Liu Rong didn't even need to say anything, Hu Yanqi knew that this matter was real.

Why didn't the Huns counterattack after the Hetao Campaign?

Even if they did not counterattack and accepted the objective reality of "losing Hetao", why didn't the Xiongnu directly shift their strategic focus westward, but instead dragged on and sent an envoy to seek peace with the Han Dynasty?
Is it true that Qin Pass Gaoque is so untrustworthy? With Gaoque guarding the southern gate of Mu, is Xiongnu Chanyu Ting really so worried?
In fact, it is quite the opposite.

To this day, not to mention the Huns, not even a single person in the Han Dynasty - including Emperor Liu Rong - can come up with a decent plan.

Even those generals who took the initiative to volunteer out of pity could not explain why, and only said something like "We will die on the battlefield and will not be human beings until we break through Gaoque."

But what Liu Rong wanted was not to let hundreds of thousands of troops kowtow and bleed at Gaoque, and then drag their tired bodies to face the main force of the Xiongnu Munan who were ready for battle to the north of Gaoque.

In fact, Liu Rong always had a clear and distinct understanding of the battle of Mu'nan that would inevitably break out in the future.

——Gaoque is just the gateway to Munan.

The Battle of Gaoque was just the beginning of the Battle of Munan.

Breaking through Gaoque and gaining a foothold north of the river can definitely not be said to have gained a strategic advantage in the Battle of Munan;
To be precise, Gaoque is a prerequisite for the Han Dynasty to launch the Munan Campaign.

By conquering Gaoque, the Han army found a strategic support point north of the Yellow River where they could stop and stabilize their position. Only then would the Han army be able to look toward Munan and include it in their strategic coverage area.

And before that - before Gaoque belonged to the Han Dynasty, all battles between the Han and the Huns must and could only break out in Gaoque.

As experts in city defense, no one knows better than the Han family and the Chinese army how difficult it is to capture a pass that is surrounded by mountains and rivers, with mountains as its base and rivers as its barrier.

There is also such a great pass in the inland of Han Dynasty, which is also based on mountains and protected by rivers. People describe the pass with the words: one man guarding the pass, ten thousand men cannot open it.

That’s right;

That pass is now recognized as the most important pass of the Han Dynasty and the eastern gate of the Han Dynasty’s Guanzhong base camp: Hangu Pass.

In other words, before coming up with some effective and clever way, or having an absolute advantage in military strength and combat power over the Huns, fighting to the death at Gaoque was definitely not a good option for the Han Dynasty.

But all this was just what Liu Rong saw.

The nomadic people of the grassland, including Huyan Qie Dang, saw the Hetao area south of Gaoque, across the river. The Han army soldiers did not relax at all because of the end of the Hetao Campaign.

Every day at noon, the slogans shouted by the Han army soldiers as they were doing drills and exercises along the river bank could even be faintly heard as far as Gaoque on the other side of the river!
Since Hu Yanqie was appointed as the chief envoy of the diplomatic mission to Han, he naturally had a certain understanding of the Han people.

Hu Yanqie probably remembers that this practice is called "Zhi Gan Qi Wu" by the Han people...

"So, Your Majesty, what you mean is that my Lord Chanyu was before he set out westward?"

Hu Yanqie asked with full of doubt, but saw Liu Rong nodded slightly nonchalantly.

"I have heard that when merchants trade goods, they just exchange money and goods - both the money and the goods are cleared."

"If this is true between people, it should be even more true between countries."

"Thinking back to the past years, whenever my Han family made peace with the Xiongnu, have we ever told your Chanyu, or the Chanyu of previous generations, that we should wait two years before sending the dowry to them?"

"——If they really did that, I'm afraid that before the news reaches Shan Yuting, the main force of Shan Yuting will have already appeared in the northern border of our Han family, right?"

"In fact, even if we didn't do this, my Han family has experienced this repeatedly."

"The marriage treaty has just been signed, the ink is not dry yet, and your Excellency Chanyu has not even had time to enjoy the benefits, but the northern border of our Han Dynasty has already been invaded by another group of nomadic peoples."

"If I really open the account book, I would like to settle accounts with your Excellency, the Chanyu, and I am afraid that..."

He threatened her with some words, both overtly and covertly, then pretended to be calm and drank a sip of tea.

After deliberately remaining silent for a moment, Liu Rong finally made his bottom line clear.

"As for the dowry princess, I have no say in it - it's up to you whether to marry her or not."

"If you send it to me, I will place it in the harem. If you don't send it to me, I will never feel that my Han family has suffered a loss."

"——She is just a barbarian girl, I won't treat her like that."

"But the East Sea land that was given as a dowry must be owned by our Han family before the coming of autumn this year!"

...

"I know that in the Xianbei and Wuheng Mountains, there are remnants of the Donghu who were exiled by your first lord, Maodun Chanyu."

"And they are named after the places where they live, the Xianbei and Wuheng tribes."

"This summer, our Han army will send troops to take over the thousand miles of land in the East China Sea ceded by your Lord Chanyu."

"I hope your Excellency Chanyu can send an envoy to inform the Xianbei and Wuheng tribes that from now on, these two tribes, as well as the thousand-mile land in the East China Sea, will all belong to the Han family."

Liu Rong’s goal remains clear: East China Sea!

To be precise, it roughly covers the vast land of the three northeastern provinces in later generations.

This piece of land is not of much value to the Han family today.

——It’s too cold~
This land is still too cold now. Even the black soil that has been coveted by people in later generations is frozen without exception.

But what Liu Rong values, at least in the short term, is not the practical value of the land;
But after possessing this land, the geopolitical structure of the Han Dynasty in the Northeast will undergo a very subtle change.

Today, the East China Sea belongs to the Huns, and the area bordering the Han Dynasty and the Korean Peninsula is limited to the northeastern territory of Yan State, which is only the Yalu River which is hundreds of miles long.

To put it more bluntly, the Korean Peninsula and the Eurasian continent were not entirely part of the Han Dynasty's territory.

——Most of the land on the north side now belongs to the Xiongnu, and the small half on the south side belongs to the Yan State of the Han Dynasty.

But if the East China Sea changes hands, and the Han Dynasty expands its territory hundreds or thousands of miles to the north of the Xianbei and Wuheng Mountains, the situation will be very different.

By then, the location reported by North Korea to be connected to the continental plate will be completely covered by the territory of the Han Dynasty!

Anyone who wants to enter or leave the Korean Peninsula must obtain the consent of the Han family and pass through the Han family’s territory!
Using the territory and the peninsula terrain surrounded by the sea on three sides, the Korean Peninsula can be forcibly "surrounded" - this is Liu Rong's high hopes for the land of the East China Sea in the short term.

As for the black soil in the Northeast, we can only wait until our descendants and the Chinese civilization have the ability to develop it before we can enjoy the special benefits that the black soil brings to agricultural civilization.

From a certain perspective, this can be regarded as a valuable legacy left by Liu Rong to the descendants of the Chinese nation...

"My bottom line is clear, so there is no need to continue the discussion."

"——I have already made the greatest concession. There is no room for even the slightest compromise."

"If you are willing to accept this condition, please fulfill it as soon as possible. After my Han family gets what they want, they will naturally fulfill their promise."

"If they don't accept it, then there is no need to continue the negotiation. Your Excellency Chanyu doesn't need to go to the West to bully those poor little countries. We can just stand at the foot of the Great Wall and fight for another three to five years."

"Anyway, I have many soldiers and generals, and the treasury is full, so I can't store any more."

"After a few years of fighting, it would be wise to use up some of the treasury reserves."

As soon as Liu Rong finished speaking, Huyan Qiedang's expression turned completely gloomy.

Hu Yanqi knew that Liu Rong still did not lie.

——The Han treasury was so full that there was no place to store the money and grain. The hemp ropes that strung the money had rotted and died, causing the coins to scatter around the warehouse, but no one cared to take care of them. The stored grain was rotting in large quantities, but there was no one to dump it into the river.

Liu Rong said that fighting a national war lasting three to five years and consuming a wave of inventory is certainly a bit of bragging.

But Hu Yanqie was certain that if the Han and Xiongnu really fought a war lasting three to five years, then for the Han family, this war would really be just as Liu Rong said - it would only be a clearance of inventory, and would not hurt the foundation of the Han family at all...

(End of this chapter)