My life is like walking on thin ice

Chapter 386 The prince is ill, you should encourage him

It is obvious that the Xiongnu Chanyu Ting, headed by Junchen, was quite dissatisfied with the diplomatic results brought back by the delegation from Chang'an in the early spring of this year.

In fact, if we really look at the matter from a practical point of view, even the father of the envoy Huyan Qiedang, the current head of the Huyan clan and the current Right Danghu Huyan He, also had complaints about the conditions of the Han people.

——Other things would be fine, but they actually want the Huns to cede land!
Especially after they had used insidious and treacherous means to steal the Henan land bestowed upon the nomadic people by the god of the plow, they still shamelessly demanded that the Huns continue to cede land!

Although the East China Sea that was to be ceded was a place of exile that the nomadic people of the grasslands did not value very much, it was still land that was ceded.

If this gets out, how can the Shanyu court survive on the grassland and rule the nomadic people?

But this kind of thing is actually the same in any civilization or political system.

——As a member of the nomadic people, one of the Eight Pillars of the Chanyu Court, and a genuine Xiongnu aristocrat, Huyan He would of course strongly oppose ceding land to the Han people!
Even if this diplomatic regulation was brought back from Chang'an by Huyan He's own son, Huyan He would still criticize and scold it!

But at the same time, Huyan He is also the leader of the Huyan tribe.

While speaking for the nomads - and even before that - Hu Yanhe would prioritize the interests of his own tribe.

You said the diplomatic results my son brought back were not good?
If you can do it, go ahead!

As long as you can bring back better diplomatic results from Chang'an, I would be willing to kill my son with my own hands!

As for what you said, the nomadic people of the Xiongnu suffered losses because of my son's diplomatic failure, I don't want to take the blame.

Looking at the present, from a realistic perspective, after the Hetao-Mayi Campaign between the Han and the Xiongnu, although the Xiongnu Chanyu court was not seriously damaged, the foundation of its rule had been shaken after all.

——The once invincible Xiongnu cavalry was defeated by the Han people without any suspense!

In the past, the Chanyu Ting ruled the steppes with an invincible army;

Now, the Chanyu court is no longer "invincible", and the foundation of its rule will naturally be shaken.

For example, this year's Zhulin Conference was a test of the Chanyu Court by the various grassland tribes, and it was also a way to express dissatisfaction with the Chanyu Court.

As the first decision-maker of the Huyan clan, Huyan He had to participate in it, testing Shanyu Ting on behalf of the Huyan tribe and expressing his dissatisfaction with Shanyu Ting's military incompetence in a subtle way.

This situation is very common in the grassland.

On the grassland, if you beat a man so hard that he can’t tell east from west, west from east, then he is your dog;
But if one day, you don't beat him so hard, his "bloodline" will instantly awaken, and he will start to revert from a dog to a wolf.

At the beginning, it was a little bit of probing, a little bit of "taking advantage of others' advantage";
Until you can no longer beat him, and are even beaten by him, then you have to become his dog.

This is the most naked and bloody law of the jungle on the grassland - whoever has the bigger fist has the final say!

This is true for individuals, and the same principle applies to the nomadic regime of the Xiongnu.

The former Shanyu Court was undoubtedly powerful!

The foundation of Chanyu Ting: Chanyu Ting’s main force, formerly the Xiongnu tribe, once relied on only 400,000 soldiers to overthrow two generations of grassland overlords, Donghu and Yuezhi, and unified the grassland like never before!
Therefore, the grassland under the rule of the Xiongnu became a "great country of barbarians".

No tribe dared to challenge the Shanyu court's headquarters.

Every nomadic tribe prostrated themselves outside the royal tent of the Chanyu Court, vying with each other to lick the toes of successive Xiongnu Chanyu to offer their purest loyalty.

But nomadic people are never a flock led by a leader;
They are a pack of wolves that hunt everywhere under the leadership of the Wolf King!

When the wolf king is powerful, every member of the wolf pack is the wolf king's most staunch supporter.

Even if the wolf king is injured or old, as long as the wolf pack can obtain a steady supply of prey, the wolf pack will still remain absolutely loyal to the wolf king.

——Because being able to bring a steady supply of prey to the wolf pack also means that the wolf king is powerful.

Wisdom is also a kind of strength.

But one day, when the wolf pack begins to run out of food and the members start to go hungry, someone will notice: the wolf king is getting old.

Not as good at fighting as before, not as wise as before - in short, not as powerful as before.

When this discovery is confirmed, young and strong male wolves will emerge one after another in the wolf pack and challenge the wolf king.

The order on the grassland is exactly the same as the way wolves construct order through the survival of the fittest.

In order to change this situation - in order to prevent the nomadic people on the grassland from electing the Chanyu based on the logic of "selecting the wolf king", the two Chanyus, Maodun and Laoshang, who have passed away, have made many efforts and attempts.

The Forestry Conference held in May every year is the most representative and also the most amazing means, without a doubt.

Each tribe sends out elite warriors to compete for the top places in various events to gain better pasture resources for the tribe;

Shanyu Ting selected a group of outstanding people from among them to continuously "suck blood" from various tribes, and the blood they sucked was the best and most high-quality blood.

In this way, no matter whether the various tribes on the grassland were fighting for life and death, or rising and falling, the Chanyu Court could control the best soldiers and the most powerful army on the grassland, and thus always remain invincible.

From a certain perspective, the Xiongnu Chanyu's holding of the Zhulin Conference to "suck blood" from various tribes and the Han dynasty's system of mausoleum towns to absorb elite groups from various counties and kingdoms in the Kanto region are quite similar.

However, the core purpose of the Han Dynasty's mausoleum system was to curb the rise of local tyrants, and to siphon off the elite class outside the Great Wall, as well as the wealth and resources they controlled.

It can be said that the Zhulin Assembly and the Mausoleum Town System were the most unshakable ruling foundations of the Xiongnu Empire and the Han Dynasty.

The abolition of the mausoleum town system would inevitably sound the death knell for the Liu Han state.

The day when the Xulin Conference could not be held would also mark the beginning of the countdown to the collapse of the Xiongnu Empire.

Today, Junchen saw such an omen.

When the military officials saw the various tribes on the grassland, they began to deal with the Zhulin Conference as if it were their job.

As for the benefits that the Linlin Conference could have brought to the tribes - the redistribution of pasture resources - it was tacitly ignored by the tribe leaders.

Junchen knew why.

——From now on, at least for the next two years, the division of pasture resources on the grassland will no longer be controlled by the Chanyu Court.

Any tribe on the grassland who is dissatisfied with the pasture resources they control and covets their neighbor's pasture can use their fists and force to seize everything they want.

In the past, the Chanyu Court mainly played the role of a Zhou emperor-style "map enfeoffment" in this process.

——Here, this piece of land is given to you. Whether you can take it or not depends on how big your fist is.

In most cases, the results of the pasture division presided over by Shanyu Ting at the Zhulin Conference will eventually become a reality.

As long as a tribe is not too weak and obtains a pasture that originally belonged to a powerful tribe - as long as the strength of both parties is similar, the original owner of the pasture will generally abide by the division of the Shanyu Court.

But now, this power of the Chanyu Court has become invalid.

The reason……

"My Great Xiongnu's Troika is no longer able to suppress Munan..."

Thinking like this, Junchen raised his head and looked far away at the last seat, where three people were sitting side by side, all with gloomy faces. - Zhelan, Baiyang, and Loufan!
The three horses of the Xiongnu Chanyu Court that suppressed the grassland!

Since the position of Chanyu was mostly inherited by the previous generation's Zuo Xian Wang, and Munan was the territory of the "enemy": You Xian Wang, the significance of the troika to the Chanyu court was self-evident.

But last year, after the Hetao-Mayi Battle that stunned the nomadic people, the troika that had been able to suppress the entire Mu'nan, including the Right Wise King, seemed to have problems.

The most direct reason is that the ancestral land of the Baiyang tribe fell into the hands of the Han people along with the loss of the Hetao region.

Without their ancestral land and having temporarily lost their fixed pastures, the Aries tribe has not had an easy time this year.

Even with subsidies from the Chanyu Court, and even with the unwilling allocation of a new pasture to the Baiyang Tribe by the Lord of Munan, the Right Wise King, it was still impossible to avoid the fact that in the past two years, the Baiyang Tribe had not been able to focus most of its attention on the political task of suppressing Munan.

The situation of the Aries tribe was like this, and the situation of the Loufan and Zhelan tribes was not much better.

——The ancestral land of the Zhelan tribe is located at the junction of Hetao, Hexi and Munan.

In the past, it was the heart of the grassland.

But now, it has become the absolute front line facing the Han army in Hetao.

Although the Zhelan tribe had never engaged in nomadic life since they surrendered to the Xiongnu, and all of them were soldiers and completely supported by the Khan's court, the safety of their ancestral land also touched the sensitive and fragile nerves of these war maniacs.

For nomadic people, the ancestral land is where the gods worshipped by each tribe are.

Losing the ancestral land is equivalent to bringing shame to the gods and the collapse of faith.

Even a warmongering and outright lunatic like the Zhelan people could not withstand the blow of the collapse of their faith.

The Zhelan tribe is the most typical tribe on the grassland: a representative tribe that uses faith as the source of its fighting power and fighting will...

"The Right Wise King should know the Han people's conditions, right?"

Considering the current predicament, Junchen took a lot of effort to finally calm himself down.

——Western Expedition.

Only a westward expedition could resolve the current predicament of the Xiongnu Empire.

Only a resounding victory, coupled with an inexhaustible supply of supplies, and even the heads of the remnants of the Yuezhi, could allow Junchen to re-establish the prestige of the Chanyu court.

But before that - before going all out on the Western Expedition, Junchen must first reach an agreement with his most hated relative, and even the most disgusting human being: the Right Wise King Yizhixie.

When Junchen led the main force to the west, the Xiongnu's base camp: Munan, needed Yizhixie, the Right Wise King and the person in charge of the Munan area, to defend it with all his might.

At the very least, we have to hold out until the Western Expedition ends and the main force of the Chanyu Court returns triumphantly...

"Your will, the great support..."

Yizhixie was obviously aware of Junchen's intention.

To be precise, I had already prepared myself mentally.

However, the idea of ​​"taking the opportunity to blackmail" had long been thrown behind Yizhixie's mind.

——Look at Yu Shan beside Junchen, who can’t even cut a piece of mutton with his dagger!

What else is Yizhixie worried about?

The nomadic people of the grassland can marry after they turn ten, start to age after they turn twenty, and after they turn thirty, they are considered old and can be abandoned or expelled at any time.

And Junchen is almost forty years old.

He has been sitting on the throne of Chanyu for thirteen years!

Even among the well-fed and well-clothed nobles, the military official today is undoubtedly an old man.

A Chanyu military official who is nearly forty years old and could die of old age at any time;
Yu Shan, the Zuo Xian Wang, was not even five years old and couldn’t even ride a lamb steadily.

As the Right Wise King in his prime and the 'Second Prince' of the Xiongnu Empire, what else did Yizhixie have to worry about?

It is no exaggeration to say that as long as Junchen does not live to the unbelievable age of fifty on the grassland!

Then, the Left Wise King Yu Shan would never be able to become the next Xiongnu Chanyu!
Yu Shan is Junchen's only surviving son.

If something unexpected happened to Yu Shan, the military officials would not even be able to find a backup candidate for the position of Zuo Xian Wang, so the position would remain vacant until the next Shanyu appointed his most outstanding son as the Zuo Xian Wang of the Xiongnu...

In other words: In Yizhixie's eyes, the position of Chanyu has become his own "future".

In this case, Yizhixie could no longer consider the issue from the perspective of "Junchen Chanyu's enemy";

Instead, we should start from the perspective of the next generation of Xiongnu Chanyu and the common leader of the nomadic people on the grassland.

Yizhixie was well aware of Junchen's concerns and the solutions to the problems.

Yizhixie also approved of Junchen's plan to reverse the declining situation by marching westward.

As for the fact that Junchen led his army westward and left the Munan area for him to guard, although Yizhixie was reluctant, he had to nod and agree.

——Even if we don’t consider the overall strategy, Munan is ultimately Yizhixie’s territory.

What's more, Yizhixie wanted to become the Khan of the Xiongnu.

The Xiongnu Chanyu would not ignore the common interests of nomadic people for personal hatred.

Yizhixie thought so.

Seeing Yizhixie's reply so straightforward, Junchen was also stunned.

When he noticed that Yizhixie's eyes were looking at him with a playful look on his other side - at his only son Yu Shan, Junchen understood everything...

"Zuo Xian Wang is young, sickly and weak;"

"Tu She, encourage him..."

After saying this, Junchen was like a deflated ball, his temperament visibly weakened, and he immediately seemed to have aged a few years.

On the right side of Junchen, hearing the "encouragement" with a strong Han accent, Yizhixie's gaze towards Yu Shan became more and more fanatical.

“Your will;”

"The great Chengligutu..."

This time, perhaps, was the most pious time that Yizhixie kissed Junchen's toes in his life;
At the same time, this was probably the most disgusting experience of having toes kissed in Junchen's life...

(End of this chapter)