My life is like walking on thin ice

Chapter 502 Bonfire Party
Therefore, over the past year, Cheng Buzhi, as the governor of Shuofang and the highest administrative and military commander in the Hetao region, not only focused his main energy on the military strategic arrangements in Hetao and surrounding areas, but also devoted a considerable amount of energy to observing and understanding the lifestyle and social operation logic of the Hetao tribes under his jurisdiction.

After a year of observation and summary, as well as occasional reminders in letters from Emperor Rong of Chang'an, Cheng Buzhi had gained a more comprehensive understanding of the nomadic people.

After learning more about it, Cheng Buzhi felt more and more that nomadic people could be conquered through non-military means.

——First of all, compared with the Chinese agricultural civilization, the biggest difference between nomadic people is undoubtedly their main means of survival.

nomadic.

In the words of Emperor Rong of Chang'an, it is livestock breeding in pursuit of water and grass through periodic migration.

Unlike the Han people who relied on farming as their main means of survival, nomadic people could not fix their production and living places.

Most of the Han farmers live near where their fields are.

The fields of hundreds or thousands of households are connected, and these hundreds or thousands of households will gather near the farmland to form villages and even towns.

Farmland cannot be taken away or moved, so most Han farmers will never move in their entire lives, and will never leave the town or even the village where their hometown is located.

The production and living places are fixed for a long time and have been fixed in one place for dozens, hundreds of years or several generations. Naturally, the rule and governance of the Han farmers are relatively easy.

Nomadic people use cattle and sheep as livestock rather than fields as their means of production.

The fields cannot be moved, but the cattle, sheep and other livestock can and must be driven away.

Cattle and sheep would graze on a piece of grass for more than ten days, and then nomadic people would have to move to another pasture.

This resulted in extremely frequent and wide-ranging population movements among nomadic peoples.

In addition, due to the special geographical features of the grassland, there is no possibility of setting up checkpoints to monitor and control the direction of population movement.

In the Han Dynasty, in the social operation logic of agricultural civilization, population mobility is the most fundamental source of social unrest.

Because whether the population is mobile or not, the difficulty and energy required for governance in a county or a county will vary greatly.

In the contemporary Han Dynasty where population mobility is almost prohibited and strictly controlled, a county needs to govern only the thousands or tens of thousands of farmers with local household registration.

Not only does the population size remain stable, but even the people who are ruled remain almost unchanged.

Zhang San, Li Si, and Wang Ermaizi, once they are citizens of this county, they will be citizens of this county all their lives.

There is no floating population and no external factors affecting current social production, economy and other aspects.

For a county magistrate, the only thing he needs to do is to manage the thousands or tens of thousands of households under his jurisdiction.

You can even make targeted arrangements based on the specific situation!

For example, if Zhang San has a bad plot of land, he needs to send a farming official to give him guidance every now and then, and then let Zhang San take care of the neighbors on both sides;
Li Si used to hang out on the streets when he was young. If you need to know something, you can find clues from Li Si.
Sun Wuzu had been an official before and had some connections in the officialdom. When needed, he could help to build bridges and communicate with surrounding counties or the higher-level government offices.
Qian Liu is an honest and dutiful man, and he has many sons. If there is any military service or labor service required, it would be right to conscript people from his family.

Under the Han Dynasty's sound household registration system, almost every county can file the people under its jurisdiction on a "person" basis, build a primitive "talent pool", and make targeted governance guidance.

Moreover, due to the perfect household registration system and strict control of population mobility, social security can be maintained at an extremely high level at very low cost.

Murder, arson and the like - if there are outsiders, investigate the outsiders; if there are no outsiders, investigate the local ruffians or people with hot tempers, that's for sure.

Moreover, everyone knows each other. They have lived in the same village or town for decades, or even several generations, so they know each other very well.

If they really got into trouble, they would not be able to escape far without the help of the government - either they would become bandits and die tragically in the mountains, or they would be captured when they fled to the next county.

The advantages are countless and the disadvantages are almost zero.

But when it comes to the grasslands and nomadic people, the control of population mobility, which the Chinese agricultural civilization relies on to maintain social stability, has become completely empty talk.

Why do the Han people, or Chinese culture, hate and despise businessmen so much?
Because merchants have no fixed place to live, they often have to travel all over the world to trade, and they may be away for half a year or even several years.

He won't tell you when he's leaving, and he often leaves right away.

He couldn't give an exact time for his return, he could just come back whenever he wanted.

During the past six months or even several years that he was away, there is no way of knowing where this guy went, what he did, whether he robbed and killed people in the mountains or died at the hands of other robbing merchants.

To put it bluntly: the original sin of merchants in feudal society was their unique production and living style, which could not be restricted by fields to a village or a county.

As a population whose mobility cannot be controlled, the merchant group has greatly increased the government's governance costs, consumed a great deal of government experience, and posed a great threat to social security, harmony and stability. At the same time, while they have sought huge profits for themselves, they have not brought corresponding taxes and labor contributions to the country.

As soon as they heard about conscription, they saw the merchants going out to do their business.

When we asked for labor to build a canal, we couldn't find it anywhere.

We couldn't even control or know where he went or what he did, let alone collect taxes from him.

To the feudal Chinese agricultural civilization, the nomadic people of the grasslands were like countless merchants living together on the same piece of land.

In an ordinary county, there is only one businessman, an uncontrollable troublemaker, or an unstable element among a thousand or eight hundred people.

However, the nomadic people of the grasslands live in groups and tribes, and the troublemakers and unstable elements occupy the entire social structure!
For Han officials, governing a nomadic area composed entirely of nomadic people is equivalent to managing a county with no farmers and only merchants!

It is easy to see how terrifying and difficult this is.

The inability to control population movement is the root cause of chaos for feudal regimes.

Because in this era, there is no surveillance, no Sky Eye, and even no decent means of preserving human portraits.

In this era, when a murder occurs, the only way for the government to solve the case is to guess.

——I guess it’s most likely the stranger next door.

——I guess it’s the butcher at the entrance of the village who has a bad temper and waves a kitchen knife in his hand all day long.

——I guess it would be those lazy, evil-minded thugs on the street.

By controlling population mobility, the world was divided into countless parts according to counties and prefectures, and then based on the location where the case occurred, the scope of suspects was determined to be: the county where the case occurred, or even the township or village.

Then, from within this range, we can look for unstable elements who may have committed crimes, and then, whether through interrogation or torture, we will eventually be able to find out the truth.

Because population movement is strictly controlled, people who commit crimes cannot escape.

Because they know they can't escape, and objective conditions don't allow people to have any fluke mentality, most people will try their best not to commit crimes. The same logic doesn't work at all in the grasslands where the population is uncontrolled.

Can't run away?
Hey!
Do you think I'm so strong because of my horse?
I can stab the person with a knife, and even if he is still alive, I can gallop a hundred or eighty miles on horseback!
By the time someone finds the body, I might have already gone from Hetao to Munan in the north, to Hexi in the west, or even to Mobei!
Just check it out.

When we checked, no one said a word.

There is also no way to investigate social relations and motives for the crime.

Because they do not settle down, the life of nomadic people is very similar. Except for the strong ties within the tribe, individuals from different tribes often meet each other by chance, and these encounters are accidental during the nomadic journey.

In addition, due to the fundamental logical differences between nomadism and farming, the population density of nomadic people in an area is much lower than that of farmers in agricultural civilization.

Farmers' fields are often connected to each other on the plains, so they live together in villages and towns.

Nomadic people, even if they are from the same tribe, may consist of hundreds of households scattered across vast grasslands covering dozens of miles in radius.

It is common on the grassland for a nomadic family to have no other family within several miles.

They may be visited by chance, and disputes may occur during the visit, or even murders may occur. However, the animals will usually not be noticed until the corpse rots and stinks, attracting vultures and other scavengers.

Just like in the Han area, in the deep mountains and old forests where few people go, it is possible for murders to occur, with the bodies being buried and destroyed.

The grassland is a super-large deep mountain forest with a radius of hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of miles.

Therefore, the logic of controlling population mobility, reducing governance costs, and maintaining basic social order at the lowest cost, which has been proven effective in China's agricultural civilization, has become empty talk on the grassland.

The movement of population on the grassland is like birds flying in the sky, uncontrolled or even monitored.

The frequency and scope of population movement, which almost completely follow the natural laws of wild animals, are also the social operation logic of nomadic people, and are infinitely close to the most primitive law of the jungle.

Like every animal in nature, the relationships between nomads often do not involve gratitude, friendship, or hatred.

I am stronger than you, so I will definitely eat you when I am hungry.

I am weaker than you, so I will definitely avoid you.

The strong 'eat' the weak, and bystanders will not think there is anything wrong.

When witnessing the weak being "eaten" by the strong, the weak bystanders will not feel sad, but will say: It's good to be strong!

I also want to work hard to become strong, and then eat other weak ones!
Therefore, the Chinese would say: The barbarians eat raw meat and drink blood, and eat humans like beasts.

Because whether from the perspective of social system, social operation logic, or the foundation of civilization, nomadic people have no fundamental difference from wild beasts including jackals, tigers and leopards.

If we have to say there are differences, it is that they have human appearance, can speak human language, and can make tools.

It is equivalent to a high-level beast in human form.

It is easy to imagine how difficult it would be for an advanced civilization to achieve complete control over such an extremely backward low-level civilization that has not even completely escaped from the barbaric primitive period - or has not escaped at all.

If it weren't for the letter from Emperor Rong of Chang'an that reminded him, Cheng Buzhi would have despaired long ago and come to the conclusion that "barbarians cannot be governed by the kingly way".

But Liu Rong's reminder cleared the fog for Cheng Buzhi and pointed out a path that was the simplest, most direct and easiest to understand.

——Whether they are farmers or nomads;

Be it an advanced civilization or a low and barbaric civilization.

In the final analysis, it all comes down to one word: survival.

Under the Chinese agricultural civilization, common people and farmers work hard in spring ploughing and autumn planting for survival.

The nomadic people under the Xiongnu nomadic civilization also grazed across the grasslands in order to survive.

If we really want to talk about contradictions, let alone the "mysterious and incomprehensible" nomadic people - even the Han farming people are a lot, too numerous to count.

But in the final analysis, whether it is farming or nomadism, the core contradiction is always survival.

As long as the Chinese farming people have enough to eat and a chance to survive, they can endure the appalling taxes and the unlimited oppression from the government.

Until the day when they can no longer survive and have no way to make a living, the farming people will rise up in rebellion. Will the kings, princes, generals and ministers be of different races?

The same logic actually applies to the nomadic people on the grasslands.

——If survival can be guaranteed easily, who would be willing to risk their life and steal other people’s cattle and sheep?
Therefore, in Liu Rong's view, the most basic and direct way to solve the grassland problem, solve the problem of nomadic people and achieve fundamental rule over nomadic people is to focus on the word "survival".

Back then, Emperor Taizu Gaozu worked hard to establish the Han Dynasty, but most of the people in the world hid in the mountains and forests, claiming that they were escaping from the war, but in fact they became bandits, destroying public order and making it impossible for the Han Dynasty to collect taxes and levies.

In such a difficult situation, Emperor Taizu Gao simply waved his pen and granted the people land and titles, which made the hermits in the deep mountains and forests come out of the Peach Blossom Spring, farm the land and pay taxes.

The same principle actually applies to the grasslands and nomadic people.

No matter how difficult it is, there is only one sentence: find them a way to survive, a way that as long as they are diligent, they will most likely not starve to death, and that does not require them to fight desperately with others.

With their survival guaranteed and their stomachs full, they will no longer think about fighting each other, but like every other farming people in China, they will think about how to save money and find a good future for their children and descendants.

Be it literature or martial arts, one must learn both literary and martial arts and serve the imperial family.

If all else fails, the son can follow in his father's footsteps and continue farming and herding.

But after all, each generation will be better than the previous one.

As long as this set of thinking logic begins to become the norm in the minds of nomadic people, then even if they wear Hu clothes, they will be genuine people of the Xia Dynasty.

However, in response to Cheng Bushi's question about "how to solve the survival problem of nomadic people", Chang'an Emperor Rong's guidance left Cheng Bushi confused.

"Bonfire Party..."

"Will it work?"

"Isn't this the way to boost morale in the military..."

(End of this chapter)