My life is like walking on thin ice

Chapter 390: Damn Han Envoy!
Finally, after a brief rest of an hour or so, the caravan set out again, heading west along the river.

——In fact, the discussion about whether to continue moving forward or turn back once reached the conclusion of "going back".

But in the end, the caravan changed its final plan due to an unexpected variable.

Everything that the merchants had worried about did not happen.

No one complained about going forward, and no one grumbled about wanting to go back.

Even the benefits promised by the merchant, "as long as you keep moving forward and trade all the goods, no one will give you 300,000 yuan when you return," seemed to be of little concern to the caravan members.

With this sharing, the caravan's subsequent trading philosophy also underwent a drastic change.

Half a month later, the caravan arrived at the second tribe they encountered on the grassland: the Qiequ tribe.

This was in stark contrast to what happened in the Jebie tribe: in this transaction, the caravan paid half of the goods but received nothing in return.

To be precise, there is no visible or tangible reward.

Then they walked a few hundred miles further and delivered the remaining goods. Then the caravan immediately turned back and headed straight towards Hetao.

Another two months passed, and it was the autumn of the second year of Emperor Rong Xinyuan's reign.

On July 26, a report from Hetao was delivered to Liu Rong's desk...

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"Hexi~"

"Hexi..."

Weiyang Palace, Oath Hall.

Looking at the report sent back from Hetao in his hand, Liu Rong smiled and kept repeating two words: Hexi.

As for Hexi, Liu Rong's original plan was to try to spread the influence of the Han family westward with Hetao as the center in the next two years.

By the autumn of next year, when the Xiongnu Chanyu Ting returns from his western expedition, the Han Dynasty must at least ensure that it has a certain degree of control over the Hexi region.

It is not necessary to actually control or occupy the land, but at least military deterrence and diplomatic channels must be established.

Liu Rong originally thought that these things would have to wait until the beginning of next spring at the earliest before a plan could be put forward and then implemented.

However, he never expected that before he could make up his mind what to do, a huge surprise fell from the sky and hit Liu Rong right on the spot.

"Tell me;"

"What's the plan of that caravan?"

Looking down at the report, Liu Rong's smile was harder to suppress than a heavy machine gun, but he did not forget to ask about the details of the matter.

Seeing that Liu Rong was in a good mood, the Imperial Physician Commander - to be precise, the Commander of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, Zhou Ren, couldn't help but straighten his back a little.

"It was the second month of spring. A caravan was planning to depart from Liangdi and head to the grassland to collect goods from the traitor Lan. They were secretly recruiting guards."

"As early as the late years of Emperor Taizong, our Embroidered Uniform Guard had already deployed many spies in Suiyang in preparation for the rebellion of the relatives and princes in Guandong."

"——During the reign of the late Emperor Xiaojing, the rebellion of the Seven Kingdoms of Wu and Chu was quelled. I, the Embroidered Uniform Guard, received an order from the late Emperor Xiaojing to secretly inquire about the daily life of King Xiao of Liang."

"After the death of King Xiao of Later Liang, the Embroidered Uniform Guards withdrew some of their spies from Suiyang. However, the late emperor was worried that the princes in Guandong might make changes, so he ordered some people to stay in Suiyang to continue to spy on Guandong."

When talking about the past, Zhou Ren always spoke in a cold tone without any emotion, explaining the facts completely objectively;
But then, Zhou Ren's tone became slightly proud, and there was an inexplicable excitement between his brows.

"In the second month of spring, we heard that a caravan was planning to travel far away, but its whereabouts were unknown. The spies in Suiyang felt that there was something else going on, so they sent five of them to infiltrate the caravan."

"In the third month of spring, the caravan escaped through the mountain trails between Beidi and Shangjun and set foot in Munan."

"In the fifth month of spring, we encountered the Zhebie tribe of the Xiongnu 170 miles northwest of Gaoque and exchanged goods with them."

"——According to the spies' report, the caravan traded with the Zhebie tribe for goods originally worth only a few hundred thousand coins, but they received three Xiongnu stallions and two hundred old horses in return."

"According to what Liang Shang said privately, these horses, especially the three stallions, can be sold to the imperial steward for a huge profit."

"So, Liang Shang, who had made a hundredfold profit, had the idea of ​​turning around and returning home."

"It was then that the spies revealed their identities and acted on their own..."

At the end, even though Zhou Ren was extremely proud of his five daring subordinates, he couldn't help but lower his head guiltily and stopped talking at the right time.

Not far in front of Zhou Ren, Liu Rong was sitting on the imperial couch in a slightly lazily manner, holding a bamboo slip in his hand and repeatedly reading it. When he heard Zhou Ren's description, he raised his eyebrows and laughed strangely.

——This matter is complicated if you say it’s complicated, but it’s not that complicated if you say it’s simple.

During the reign of Emperor Taizong, the first intelligence agency in Chinese history, the Embroidered Uniform Guard, was formally established at the behest of Emperor Taizong Xiaowen and by the Crown Prince Liu Qi, who served as regent.

Since the original intention of establishing this organization was to deal with possible armed rebellions launched by the royal relatives and princes in Guandong, most of the spies and informants were dispersed to various counties and kingdoms in Guandong shortly after the establishment of the Embroidered Uniform Guard.

Liang State, as the eastern gateway of Guanzhong and the last line of defense outside Hangu Pass, as well as a bridge for communication between Guanzhong and Guandong, naturally became the intelligence gathering center of the Xiuyiwei.

Spies and informants collected intelligence in various countries in Guandong, and then summarized it at the temporary headquarters in Liang State, and then transferred it to Chang'an to be presented to the commander Zhou Ren and the emperor Liu Qi.

It was also through this intelligence network that the Chang'an court was able to maintain "meticulous" control over the movements of every clan prince in Guandong before the Wu-Chu Rebellion broke out.

For example: When did the King of Qi meet the envoy of the King of Wu, Liu Bi?
What did the King of Chu and Liu Bi's envoy talk about?
Who did King Zhao Liu Sui send to the north to negotiate with the Huns?

Relying on the intelligence provided by the Embroidered Uniform Guard, the court in Chang'an was always "one step ahead of the enemy", and in the end, although it seemed thrilling, it was actually easy to handle. In just three months, it completely suppressed the massive rebellion of the Seven Kingdoms of Wu and Chu.

Then, of course, the real highlight comes: reducing the power of the feudal lords.

Although the suppression of the Wu-Chu Seven Kingdoms Rebellion basically laid the factual foundation for the central government in Chang'an to toughly reduce the power of the princes, the cautious nature of the late emperor Liu Qi meant that this intelligence network was not taken back immediately.

Quite the contrary - after the rebellion of the Seven States of Wu and Chu was suppressed, the Chang'an court's surveillance of the Guandong clan princes, whether it was the Xiuyiwei, a special intelligence agency, or the overt military alerts, was even more stringent!

In order to avoid a second Seven Kingdoms Rebellion in Guandong, the late emperor even decided to sacrifice part of the border defense forces to strengthen the monitoring of the Guandong clan princes.

Therefore, the former temporary headquarters of the Xiuyiwei in Suiyang was basically preserved intact.

However, even if the information was retained, the Wu-Chu Rebellion was eventually put down, and there was actually not much intelligence left that the Embroidered Uniform Guard needed to collect from Guandong.

Liu Rong had just recently looked at the intelligence about clan relatives and princes that the Embroidered Uniform Guard had collected from Guandong in recent years.

What? Hejian King Liu De is only interested in writing and not in state affairs?
What? King Liu Sheng of Zhongshan was lustful and indulged in sexual activity in broad daylight~
The fact that Liu Yu, the Prince of Lu, loved hunting, and Liu Fei, the Prince of Jiangdu, was obsessed with martial arts, was all just some bullshit and private gossip. The only valuable information was about Zhao Tuo in Lingnan, such as the second yellow-roofed left banner in the world being seen again, and the "Emperor" of Nanyue reappearing in the world.

This resulted in the Embroidered Uniform Guard, an intelligence agency that was originally set up to spy on the princes in the east of the Guandong region. Although it was not abandoned after the Wu-Chu Rebellion was quelled, it also had a feeling of confusion as it drew its sword and looked around.

Everyone in the Xiuyiwei was very anxious!
Because if there is no work to do, it means that there is no need for this department to exist!
If it was any other department, it would be fine - at most the department would be abolished and the staff would be deployed to other departments.

But Xiuyiwei is a secret intelligence agency!
Take any small fry and tell them what's hidden in their heads, and you can make up a complete unofficial history!

If such a department were to be abolished, I'm afraid only Commander Zhou Ren himself would be able to escape unscathed.

For the rest, let’s not even talk about whether they will die or not - dying beautifully and decently is probably a luxury.

So, the Xiuyiwei began to look for work everywhere.

At the beginning, they were cautious, saying that King Liang suspected King Xiao's death and had ulterior motives, and that King Huainan was plotting something evil and wanted to cause chaos.

Although the words are exaggerated, they are basically based on facts.

Later, seeing that Chang'an had no reaction, the Suiyang Embroidered Uniform Guard simply stopped acting - even things like the fact that Prince Linjiang Liu Yu intended to rebel were brought out to boost performance!
Such fake news couldn't even pass Zhou Ren's test, let alone Liu Rong, and there was no way it could be delivered to Liu Rong.

Therefore, the Xiuyiwei, who were too idle to believe it and were extremely worried about losing their jobs, began to collect big news by all means.

This time, it was undoubtedly the product of this mentality, which backfired and ended up being a blessing in disguise.

——Five daring spies of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, out of curiosity, or the ambition to "find out the truth and make a big news", accidentally infiltrated a smuggling caravan heading to the grassland.

After figuring out the caravan's origin, the five people kept thinking along the way: This is a great opportunity, we must bring back some sales!

At first, they wanted to leave the caravan, lurk on the grassland, find out valuable information and then go back to collect the reward.

However, this approach would take too long and was too dangerous. They kept hesitating but never made up their minds.

As a result, after bidding farewell to the Zhebie tribe, Liang Shang, the leader of the caravan, unexpectedly realized the meaning of "contentment" and planned to go back;

So, these five people gritted their teeth and stomped their feet, deciding to reveal their identities!
As excellent intelligence personnel, they obviously would not do such a taboo thing as revealing their identities for no reason.

The reason they chose to do this was for a big gamble.

——They told Liang Shang: We are all spies sent by His Majesty to explore the grassland!
They also claimed that their mission this time was to establish initial contacts with the tribes in the Hexi region in order to prepare for the Han dynasty's attempt to seize Hexi in the future!

Then, they used Liu Rong's trick to temporarily "requisition" the caravan, and used the remaining goods of the caravan as funds for their development of the Hexi "market".

As for Liang Shang, why didn't he kill him to silence him after he found out that there was someone who was the emperor's spy among him?
Because those five bastards made a promise to Liang Shang on behalf of Liu Rong: As long as the task is completed, the current emperor will reward you handsomely...

This kind of thing~
What should Liu Rong say?

Tsk.

This is like when a natural disaster occurs in a certain place, an official forges an imperial edict to open the granary in the name of Liu Rong to provide relief to the victims.

You say he forged the imperial edict?

He meant well, and got the job done;
You say he is loyal?

The "rebels" who dared to forge the imperial edict have nothing to do with the word "loyalty" in any way.

This was probably Liu Rong's mentality at the time.

——From the bottom of his heart, Liu Rong admired these five Xiuyiwei who dared to infiltrate the smuggling caravan, were suspected of setting foot on the grassland, and finally caused such a commotion.

Not to mention anything else, just five people dared to infiltrate a smuggling caravan of hundreds of people, and even dared to reveal their identities in the grasslands outside the Great Wall!
This kind of courage is beyond the reach of ordinary people.

But when it comes to pure appreciation, Liu Rong feels somewhat uncomfortable.

After all, no emperor would feel happy if some insignificant subordinate made decisions and promises for him.

As for this matter...

"Hexi~"

"Hexi..."

...

"And the canal department~"

"Hiruzubu..."

After another round of muttering to himself, Liu Rong finally threw the bamboo slips in his hand back onto the imperial desk. He supported his hands behind his back, slightly raised his head, and let out a long sigh.

Liu Rong probably has made a decision about these five bastards.

——Suppress the disgust and acknowledge their achievement;
At the same time, Liu Rong secretly kept in mind the embarrassing situation of the Xiuyiwei, and included the future planning of the Xiuyiwei in the scope of several reforms of the Nine Ministers' Yamen that were about to be completed.

As for what kind of positive impact this incident will have on Liu Rong's future plans for the Hexi region, Liu Rong needs to think carefully about it.

Those five people - or to be more precise, the Liang State caravan - reached verbal agreements respectively with the Qiequ tribe, which was located at the junction of Hetao and Hexi, only a few hundred miles away from Hetao, and the Rizhu tribe, which was located in the center of Hexi and even closer to the Western Regions.

Of course, he was a businessman, not a "Han envoy".

They made an agreement with the two caravans: this time, they would hand over half of the supplies to the caravans as a way to establish good relations with the two tribes.

From then on, every time they went out of the border and came to the grassland, they would give half of the caravan's goods free of charge when passing through the territories of these two tribes.

And it’s available both round trip and onward!
The ten carts of goods brought from the Han area will first be given to the Qiequ tribe, and then three carts will be given to the Rizhu tribe!

The remaining two carts will be transported to the Western Regions, and all the goods brought in in exchange will be divided half to the two tribes again.

In return, the two tribes need to provide necessary protection when the caravan passes through their territory.

To put it nicely, it is protection, but to put it bluntly, it is actually protection money - as long as they do not attack the caravan, no one can threaten the safety of this caravan.

In this way, the caravan reached a transit agreement with Qiequ and Riju, two important tribes in the Hexi region, as well as two tribes on the only way from Hetao to the Western Regions.

This agreement theoretically gave the caravan the objective conditions to easily cross Hexi and travel back and forth between Hetao and the Western Regions...

(End of this chapter)