My life is like walking on thin ice

Chapter 426 End of the year
As an emperor, Liu Rong's considerations were generally comprehensive.

But everything has two sides.

——Thinking about problems comprehensively naturally means that when Liu Rong is thinking about a small problem, his thinking will easily spread and extend to a larger proposition, and his perspective will be raised to a very large range.

Just like now, when he thought of the original history, in which the Hunxie tribe finally surrendered and destroyed the Xiutu tribe on its own (backstab), and used the entire Xiutu tribe plus the Xiutu Lake as a token of submission to the Han Dynasty, Liu Rong immediately thought of another thing.

Champion Hou.

In the original historical timeline, Huo Qubing, Marquis of Guanjun, and Wei Qing, Marquis of Changping, were undoubtedly the most dazzling duo of the entire Han Wudi reign, and even in the entire Western Han Dynasty for more than two hundred years.

But on the battlefield, the tactics of the uncle and nephew were completely different.

Wei Qing, the older of the two, is an epic strategist who ranks among the best in Chinese history.

On the battlefield, Wei Qing often commanded an army of tens or even hundreds of thousands, but he was always able to coordinate troops of this magnitude and make arrangements in an orderly and proper manner.

When it came time to fight, it was time to fight to the death, and Wei Qing was unequivocal;
It was time to make a detour, and Wei Qing did not hesitate.

When necessary, Wei Qing would give the order to retreat without hesitation to avoid further casualties.

Such a person~
How to say it;

Just like a textbook.

Let him go to war, from the moment he leads his army from Chang'an to the moment he returns to the capital and then returns to Chang'an - during the entire process, he will not make even a single mistake.

The "not making mistakes" here is different from Cheng Buzhi's "do less and make fewer mistakes" and "do nothing and make no mistakes".

Instead, at any time, we can make the correct decision that is most beneficial to our side and can maximize our interests within the extreme decision-making window.

In addition, Wei Qing had a kind temper and never ate alone. He would not forget anything he could remember when reporting his military achievements, and he always shared the honors with everyone.
All these factors combined together eventually created one of the most famous and outstanding duos in Chinese history: Marquis of Changping and Wei Qing.

Compared with his uncle Wei Qing, who focused on frontal and large-scale army battles, Huo Qubing's fighting style was much more passionate.

——Special operations!
Of course, they were not the special forces of later generations, but they were similar to those of later generations: small groups of troops would detour and launch surprise attacks on the enemy's rear or even the rear, and even decapitation operations - this was what Huo Qubing was good at.

Uncle and nephew are not afraid of anyone when one of them fights head-on, and they dare to go anywhere and fight anywhere when the other one attacks from behind.
When the two are combined, the chemical reaction produced is by no means as simple as 1+1>2.

They are worthy of the eternal praise of "the two most outstanding heroes of the time".

And now, recalling the original historical event in which the Hunxie tribe used the Xiutu tribe as a token of surrender and became the "Han Kun Xie tribe", Liu Rong immediately remembered another major characteristic of the Guanjun Hou Huo Qubing in history.

——Under the command of Marquis Guanjun, the proportion of grassland Hu servants reached almost 30%!

Moreover, in the battle in which Guanjun Hou's troops achieved great results and suffered correspondingly heavy casualties, the casualties of the Hu cavalry servant troops under his command even accounted for more than half of the total casualties!
This means that for every ten soldiers of the great general Huo Qubing, there were three Hu people - and they were most likely Huns!
In one battle, one hundred soldiers under the command of the Champion Marquis were killed, among whom at least fifty were Huns!!!
This made Liu Rong feel a little itchy in his heart, and he wished he could summon the system immediately and draw a peak Huo Qubing card.

——Give him 800 Yaoqi, and he will go out for a walk and can take over Longcheng for you!

If he were given 5,000 elite cavalry, he would be able to turn the grassland upside down, and he could also bring back more than 4,000 Han soldiers, plus an equal number of 'elite Huns'.

Under the command of the Han army, they were the most active and dedicated Huns elite troops who fought under the leadership of the Han army.

When these words are put together, it's really hard not to feel excited.

Liu Rong knew that this magical method of using Hu to control Hu and using Hu to attack Hu was difficult for ordinary people to imitate.

At least it is difficult for someone to be like Guanjun Hou, who first made a certain Xiongnu tribe go crazy and then, with just a few words, turned them into top-notch lackeys who were more loyal to the Han Dynasty than the Han army soldiers and fought more desperately than the Han army soldiers when fighting the Xiongnu.

But Liu Rong knew clearly: in history, the Hunxie tribe rebelled in Hexi, and used the Xiutu tribe as a token of their surrender - the whole process of this incident had nothing to do with Guanjun Hou.

This means that the 'incite one to rebel and then defeat one' model similar to that of the Hunxie and Xiutu duo can be replicated.

As for the reasons, they are very sufficient.

——Life on the grassland is really hard;

——The Huns on the grassland were really poor.

It’s not that Liu Rong planned to use money to stun these inexperienced and money-hungry Hun bumpkins on the grassland and directly buy them off with money.

Rather, their hardship and poverty mean that their yearning for a better life is even stronger, while their expectations are relatively much lower.

For example, in the Han Dynasty today, the vast majority of farmers' vision for a "good life" is a good harvest in autumn and a low drop in grain prices;
The food grown is enough for the whole family to eat, and they can have meat every few days - at least once a month.

For future generations, this may not be considered a 'vision of a better life';
But if you look at what kind of beautiful life the nomadic people living on the grasslands in this era yearn for, it is not difficult to find that the people and farmers of the Han Dynasty are really happy now.

——Not die a violent death.

This is the only standard for the "beautiful future life" that more than 99% of nomadic peoples yearn for.

Not dying a violent death.

Not starving to death, not freezing to death;
Don't be bullied to death by others, and don't be slaughtered to death by robbers.

Not suffocated or poisoned by shit;
They will not die suddenly or tragically due to lack of trace element intake;
Don't die from illness from eating rotten meat, and don't die from poisoning from drinking contaminated water.

This is the 'beautiful future life' that the nomadic people of this era yearn for.

They were willing to die on horseback;
They are also willing to die in hunting or in wars with other tribes for the survival of their own tribe.

In addition, in the "old age" of more than 30 years old, being gently expelled by the tribe, left to fend for themselves, and eventually buried in the stomachs of wild beasts and scavengers is also a way of death that nomadic people are willing to accept.

——They believe that dying in battle or dying of old age are the most ideal ways to die.

If one could die in these two ways, rather than other strange and somewhat incomprehensible ways, for nomadic people, it would be a decent, peaceful, and even a 'natural death'.

The reason for this situation - the extremely harsh living environment on the grassland - is the reason why nomadic people have such low standards for a better life and dare not even dream of having enough food and warm clothes.

There is no need to elaborate on the climate - the prairie located in the north of the entire Chinese territory has a naturally colder climate and longer winters than that of the Han Dynasty.

Under the premise that the northern border of the Han Dynasty is still known as a "bitter and cold land", the prairie located further north is naturally a place with a harsh climate and is difficult to survive.

It is true that the cold climate did not have as great an impact on nomadic civilization as it did on agricultural civilization;

But agricultural civilization at least has choices.

The climate is hot, so crops that love heat, such as millet and rice, can be grown;

The climate is cold, and there are crops that can grow in cold weather, such as winter wheat, etc. But nomads have no choice.

They have no winter calves or winter lambs.

They can only try their best to fatten the livestock in spring and summer, try to find a warmer place in autumn, and pray that the winter will not be too cold or too long, and that too many cattle, sheep and livestock will not freeze to death or starve to death.

There is no need to mention the resources.

Even in later times, when this grassland was a mineral-rich region of world civilization, even in that new era, the people of this land could only make a living by raising livestock and were unable to dig out the wealth buried underground.

As people in later generations learned, this cry came from the lower class of the Xiongnu people: The loss of Mount Qilian has caused my livestock to have no rest; the loss of Mount Yanzhi has caused my women to have no color.

The scarce resources on the grassland forced the nomadic people to compete with the sky, the earth, and people.

What we are fighting for is not great wealth or numerous descendants, but simply to stay alive.

Coupled with the problem of lifestyle - a nomadic civilization with a low upper limit and an extremely low lower limit, the people living on this land have almost no ability to resist risks.

A strong wind, a heavy rain;
A heavy snow and a hailstorm.

Even a drought, a heat wave, a cold snap, or a plague can be like a sickle, harvesting life on this grassland in large swaths.

They have no central government to provide relief to disaster victims—because their central government is also unable to resist such natural disasters;
They had no supplies to call upon from other places - the resources on the grassland not only did not allow other regions to help them, but even made other regions more willing and willing to have more people die so that the pressure of survival could be reduced.

For nomadic peoples, invading the south has always been a cruel survival issue.

——If you don’t rob, you will starve or freeze to death.

You can only grab it.

They rob their neighbors, they rob their relatives;
When everyone is so poor that there is nothing worth robbing, it is time to gather together and head south to rob the richer Han people...

This is unfair to the Han family.

But from an objective point of view, from the perspective of God, this is nothing more than a nomadic civilization, the only way of survival that can be thought of at this stage of civilization.

Well, since it is the word "survival" that forces nomadic peoples to plunder and wage war, this problem is not unsolvable.

——Nomadic people want survival, not killing or war;
And survival does not necessarily have to be achieved through plundering and invasion.

Take the history of the Hunxie tribe for example, who used the Xiutu tribe and Xiutu Ze as tokens of their allegiance to the Han Dynasty - they were the first ones to figure it out.

In a war, you may or may not be able to rob something, but people will definitely die.

Just surrender, there is no need to fight for things, and no one will die.

What else are you thinking about?
How could something with almost no risk and guaranteed return be better than war or aggression where risk and return are positively correlated?

History tells Liu Rong: The Hunxie Tribe was just the first one to figure things out, but definitely not the last.

After the Hunxie tribe submitted to the Han Dynasty and successfully lived a wonderful life with a wife and children and no one had to worry about dying at any time, more and more grassland tribes began to have different ideas.

It was also in this context that Guanjun Hou was able to move like a god from heaven on the grassland and transform almost every Xiongnu man within his field of vision into a member of the Han Dynasty's "Huqi Biebu".

Liu Rong was very clear: This was the most correct route.

This is the most cost-effective united front idea for the Han family - it requires the least investment, the least loss, and the greatest benefit.

The story of the Hunxie tribe and the Xiutu tribe will become the beginning of this united front line.

——The matter will have a conclusion by the end of this year at the latest.

Or, the Hunxie tribe could destroy the Xiutu tribe by itself, just like what happened in history, and offer the heads of the entire Xiutu tribe and Xiutuze to the emperor;
Or, these two medium to large tribes that have lived in the Hexi region for generations will fight each other and suffer losses.

The Han Dynasty made money no matter what.

The most important thing is: from now on, it will be difficult for the tribes on the grassland to get along in a relatively peaceful and friendly manner.

——Aren’t you afraid that your neighbor will be the next evil person who wants to borrow your head for use?
If that's the case, then he'll stab you in the kidney, and it'll be very painful.

Even if it’s not…

Ahem;

Even if he wasn't, he wouldn't want to be the second Hunxiebu;
Can't you become the second Hunxie tribe and let him become the second Xiutu tribe...

For a long period of time in the new era of later generations, people all over the world yearned for a beautiful country and wished they were born noble and beautiful.

But few people know that for most of human history, the people of the world - at least in the eastern half of Asia - yearned for the "Celestial Empire", that is, China.

Now, the Han Dynasty may not have the absolute overwhelming power to face the equally important Xiongnu.

But the life of the Han people was something that even the Xiongnu people, who were also citizens of a superpower, yearned for.

Liu Rong is absolutely confident that as long as there is an opportunity, more than 99% of nomadic people are willing to become part of the Chinese nation, who have food to eat, land to farm, clothes to wear and houses to live in.

Just like hundreds of years ago, the Yiqu people who required Qin Xiaogong to go to great lengths to win over and appease - now in the Han Dynasty, they have become the Yiqu Iron Cavalry that are regarded as treasures by the army!

Although they are called the Yiqiu Iron Cavalry, they are basically the same as the Han people!
Going back even further - when the Shang Dynasty was founded, even the Shandong Peninsula was still "outside the country", and Jingchu, Bashu, Guanzhong, Yan and Dai were all foreigners;

After leaving the capital, you can reach the border after walking a few hundred miles.

The results of it?
The Laiyi people of Shandong Peninsula now call themselves "Qi people".

The land of the barbarians of Jingchu gave birth to Emperor Gaozu of Han.

The mountains and forests of Bashu have become a land of abundance;
The once "bitter and cold" Yan, Dai, Qin and Zhao have now become the northern half of the Han Dynasty's territory.

So, what about the future?

Why can't the prairie of the future be the 'Inner Xiongnu' on the Han Dynasty's territory?

Why can't the Xiongnu be like the Yiqu people today, becoming another precious elite force that the Han army is scrambling to snatch after a hundred years, while at the same time being indistinguishable from the Chinese people...

(End of this chapter)