My life is like walking on thin ice

Chapter 458 It’s difficult...

How could the Han Dynasty, an agricultural feudal regime, rule the prairie, which had been a nomadic civilization of tribal alliances for hundreds of years?

Not to mention the Huns and herdsmen of various tribes on the grasslands were worried;
——Even the Han family themselves did not dare to think about this strange possibility.

Because in today's world, there is no theoretical system for nomadic civilization and ruling the nomadic peoples of the grasslands.

How to rule the grassland, how to rule the nomadic people, how to ensure the stability of the grassland's social structure - the Donghu people don't know, the Yuezhi people don't know, today's Xiongnu people, and even the Han people, who are the "first generation of nomadic peoples", don't know.

People in later generations often say that humans cannot imagine things beyond their cognition.

For example, in the eyes of farmers, the emperor is probably a luxurious rich peasant who uses a golden hoe to plow the land, drinks canal water with a golden bowl, and eats rice porridge.

For example, in the eyes of prostitutes, there is no woman in the world who does not make money by selling her body - at least there is no one who is unwilling to do so.

The reason why some people don't do this is because they have better options and they feel that the price of selling their body is not high enough.

As long as the price is right, there will be no woman in the world who can't open her legs...

This is because in the old farmer's cognition, people in the world cannot support themselves without farming;

No matter how noble you are, you still have to farm!
Similarly - in the eyes of prostitutes, it is impossible for women in this world to make money without selling their bodies.

No matter how noble you are, you still have to open your legs!
Therefore, in the eyes of the vast majority of grassroots herdsmen on the grassland, if the Han people rule the grassland one day, it may completely subvert the survival logic of the grassland.

——What about turning over one-fifteenth of the livestock annually as "agricultural tax"?
——In addition, you need to hand over a certain amount of dairy products as a "mouthfeed"~
And so on and so forth.

But no matter how they imagine, the limitations of their thinking and the harsh living environment on the grassland will force them to go in the worst direction.

For example, a herdsman has one horse, three cows and twenty sheep.

Life was not comfortable, but he could barely support his wife, daughter, and his own small tribe.

One day, the herdsman heard people talking about this matter, saying that the Han people were about to rule the grassland.

If the Han people were allowed to rule the grasslands, then these herdsmen would become the same as the farmers in the Han areas.

So he thought: Han farmers have to pay an agricultural tax of one in thirty every year - this is the ratio after the agricultural tax is reduced by half.

I think the Han Chanyu would not be so kind to the nomadic people on the grasslands and would definitely collect an "agricultural tax" of 15%.

Or should it be called 'pastoral tax'?
The question of how to collect this 15% tax is somewhat frightening.

——I only have two horses, and I want to take one-fifteenth of them. Does that mean I have to kill one of them and take some of the meat? !

The same goes for the three cows. If one of them is killed, the milk production of the other two will not be enough to support this small family.

As for the twenty sheep, if you take one out of fifteen, that would mean one too many, which means there would be at least two less.

Two per year!

Next year and the year after, one would be taken away intact, and another would be slaughtered and some of its meat would be taken away.

Three years later, there were only fourteen sheep left.

Then, we kill one every year, and most of it is handed over...

We can’t blame the nomadic people on the grassland for coming up with such abstract and bizarre conjectures.

Rather, in the perception of nomadic people, especially the lower-class people, the Han people are a super tribe that is richer, weaker, and extremely stupid than the nomadic people.

They hardly ever starve to death;

As long as they work hard and don't encounter major natural disasters, they can be guaranteed to have food to eat every day!
Even if they encountered natural disasters, their Chanyu Court would be very kind and allocate a portion of the Chanyu Court's wealth to help the victims get through the difficult times.

The Han Chinese also have a saying;

This sentence means: As long as the Chanyu is not blind, deaf or stupid, his people should not starve or freeze to death.

Judging from these things, the wealth of the Han people - from the "Han Chanyu Court" to the lower-class Han farmers - has reached a level that is incomprehensible and unacceptable to the nomadic peoples.

Why!
Why did the braver nomadic people not receive such favor from God, but the cowardly Han people lived such a prosperous life instead? !

So they started to dwell on the problem and began to think hard.

And finally, a very complete and self-consistent logic was derived.

——The Han people are sheep specially raised by God for nomadic people to eat their flesh and blood, and for them to hone their skills and strengthen their will.

Since they are sheep, it is not surprising that they have nothing to do all day and can easily fill their stomachs.

With this logic as their belief support, the nomadic people began to treat the people of the Xia Dynasty within the Great Wall as wild monster bosses who could be killed and their equipment upgraded.

The boss is too powerful, so they hide, or pull, or kite;
Once the boss becomes weaker, they will think that they have become stronger, so they will go to fight the boss in groups to see what good things can be dropped.

According to the original historical timeline, about a thousand years later, there were two Chinese bosses who gave the nomadic people unprecedented rich equipment.

——The boss’ place!

Understanding this and the nomadic people's understanding of the civilization and society on both sides of the Great Wall, it is no surprise then that we can see the tenacity of the nomadic people during the heyday of the Chinese dynasty in history.

Isn't it just that I can't beat the boss~
Collect some equipment, level up, and come back to fight when your combat power is high enough.

Who would be sad because they couldn’t beat the boss?

As for those special periods, such as the reigns of Qin Shi Huang and Emperor Wu of Han, when the nomadic peoples were beaten and collapsed, that is also easy to understand.

The wild monsters are rebelling and the boss is going berserk. Aren't you afraid?
If I kill a kid with one sword, it doesn’t mean I’m killing your character, but I’m directly destroying your account!
Don't you collapse?
...

At this point, the nomadic people's understanding and recognition of China's agricultural civilization has become very clear.

Then look back at Gaoque.

What is Gaoque?
After the rioting boss seized the Hetao area, it was to ensure the safety of the Xiongnu 'players': the Munan area, a barrier that would not be attacked by the boss.

So, when this player and the wild monsters - or the dividing line between civilization and barbarism - are attacked by an increasingly violent boss, how will the players in the safe zone react?
The answer is: Anyone who has some fighting ability and feels that he can help will spontaneously go forward to fight!
Even if someone has no fighting power and feels that they can't help at all and can't even take away the boss's blood, they will do what they can to guard this pass.

Gaoque is difficult to attack because of this reason.

——As long as Gaoque is attacked, most areas of the grassland will activate the 'Frenzy' buff, and then rush to Gaoque one after another!
Today, on the grassland, in addition to the "400,000 soldiers and horses" that the Xiongnu Chanyu always boasted about, that is, about 400,000 households of the Xiongnu, there are also many large and small tribes.

The largest of these tribes could have 70,000 to 80,000 people, or even more than 100,000 people, with 20,000 to 40,000 cavalrymen and tens of thousands of soldiers!

A medium-sized tribe has a population of 30,000 to 50,000 and can barely muster 10,000 cavalry, or 4,000 to 6,000 soldiers and horses.

As for small tribes, they were much larger. The larger ones had about 80,000 people and 300 to 500 cavalrymen. Although they were not very powerful, they were definitely not something that ordinary bandits and robbers could covet.

If the surrounding tribes have evil thoughts, they have to consider whether these hundreds of rangers and the war potential that can be tapped when necessary are worth fighting to the death.

A medium-level army has three to two thousand men and a hundred to eighty cavalry. Unless they occupy areas with resources such as water, salt, and forests, they can protect themselves.

The smallest one is more directly based on the family unit, with a population in the double digits or even single digits, and the general number of soldiers is: one person.

When Gaoque, a lifeline, was attacked by "foreign civilizations" and was in danger of falling, these nomadic tribes of various sizes would send all the armed forces they could to the battlefield.

They don’t have such high-level emotions as patriotism;

There is no such profound philosophical understanding as "if the skin is gone, where will the hair be attached?"

But the survival wisdom passed down from generation to generation on the grassland for thousands of years will drive them to make the most correct and heroic choice in their ignorance.

So Li Ji said: Once the battle at Gaoque starts, it will be out of control.

Therefore, Luan Bu said: Unless you are absolutely sure - that is, you can capture Gaoque and hold it for a long time, rather than being overwhelmed by the nomadic peoples who are pouring in like a tide, otherwise, you should not think of attacking Gaoque too early.

As for Han Tuidang, although he never spoke much, among the three of them, Han Tuidang was the one who saw the most clearly and was also the most pessimistic.

Han Tuidang grew up on the grassland since childhood.

Han Tuidang knew the nature of nomadic people very well.

If Munan and Hetao are the two sides of the scale, then Gaoque is the fulcrum that balances the two sides of the scale.

If there is a problem with this fulcrum - even just a slight shake, it will be an unprecedented earthquake for Munan and Hetao on both sides of the scale!
After the earthquake, Munan must have been devastated.

But will Hetao be able to settle down?
Wouldn't the Han family, who control the Hetao area, be affected by this earthquake?

The final result - in Han Tuidang's view, the most ideal result of attacking Gaoque was to capture Gaoque, destroy Munan, and force the Huns to flee north or west, so that "there would be no royal court south of Munan".

The Han side will also suffer heavy losses.

——The Hetao area will also rot.

Whether it was the personnel, carriages, or weapons and supplies that were continuously sent up from the interior of the Han Dynasty, the natural horse-breeding area of ​​Hetao would be damaged and fall into a long period of self-repair.

At the same time, the battle broke out at Gaoque on the north side of Hetao, and it was almost impossible for Hexi on the west side to sit back and watch the fire.

Why did the Han family want Gaoque?
Because Gaoque was in the hands of the Xiongnu, the Han could not reach the south of the wall to the north, and could not concentrate on planning for Hexi without any worries to the west.

As long as Gaoque is captured, even if the Han family does not set foot further in Munan, they can just occupy this outpost to explore Munan and still be able to free their hands and concentrate on plotting for Hexi.

As the leaders of the tribes in Hexi, what choice should they make when a war breaks out in Gaoque?

It couldn't be simpler - invade the western part of Hetao from west to east, relieve the defensive pressure on Gaoque in the north of Hetao, and make the Han people fight on two fronts, exhausted and unable to take care of both ends.

However, the importance of Gaoque and the difficulty of attacking it forced the Han Dynasty to focus as much attention as possible on Gaoque rather than the western area adjacent to Hetao and Hexi regions.

The result of this is that regardless of whether Gaoque was taken or not, the various tribes in Hexi would most likely set foot in Hetao, eat, drink, have fun, smash, loot, and burn, and wander around before leaving.

War is about settling accounts.

The cost of investment and the possible returns are often the decisive factors in a regime's decision on whether to start a war.

It’s like in later generations, as long as there is no black oil, the handsome soldiers are not willing to go there.

Because it's not cost-effective.

The same principle applies - in today's Han Dynasty, when deciding whether to start a war, it is also necessary to settle accounts.

However, it is different from the calculation method of later generations where the beautiful soldiers only counted money but not people - the Chinese regime not only counted the war expenditure and income, but also the human lives and political gains and losses.

For example, in the first year of Liu Rong's reign, there was the Battle of Chaona between the Han and the Xiongnu.

An aggressive war initiated by a foreign enemy would cost the Han Dynasty countless costs, but ultimately would not yield any real benefits.

But the Han still had to fight.

Because if we fight, we will only lose the cost of the project.

If you don't fight, you will lose shares, stock price, and even face the risk of bankruptcy.

In the end, the Han family invested a huge amount of resources and was able to keep Chaonasai, which meant preserving the stock price and shares, and incidentally, reaped many spiritual and political benefits.

On the other hand, the enemy also invested huge resources but gained nothing in the end.

As the saying goes: One catty of the enemy's food is worth ten of our own.

Being able to make the enemy lose is a gain in itself.

Therefore, in principle, the Han family did not lose anything in that battle, and actually made a small profit.

Looking at the subsequent Hetao-Mayi Battle, it becomes even more clear.

——The Han Dynasty made a fortune, but the Xiongnu people almost lost everything, and there was a high probability that they almost lost a Chanyu.

Now that Liu Rong intends to start the Battle of Gaoque, he naturally wants to settle the accounts.

The investment in the war is beyond words - it was a tough battle in itself, and the consumption of resources and casualties were far beyond what the Battle of Chaona or the Hetao-Mayi Campaign could compare to.

The instability in the Hexi region will inevitably lead to losses in the Hetao region, or the Han Dynasty will have to invest an equally huge cost in defense in order to protect the western part of the Hetao region.

There are already so many visible costs.

What about the benefits?
It’s not that there aren’t any, nor that there aren’t enough - Mu’nan and Hexi are both fatal attractions that are enough for the Han family to risk their national destiny and give it a try.

But benefits are often accompanied by risks.

If Gaoque was not captured, all the huge war costs invested by the Han Dynasty would be wasted.

In the worst case scenario, we might even lose Hetao!

Such a huge cost, and the expected returns are tempting enough, but the risks are also extremely high.

difficult.

It is really hard to make up your mind to start this war...

(End of this chapter)