My life is like walking on thin ice

Chapter 580 The Difficulty of Defending the Country
By following this process, the Lingnan region, once known as the land of Baiyue, could later become the Jiangnan region, a land of fish and rice that people all over the world yearn for.

Of course, this process involves several steps: first, the outer vassal states become non-royal princes, then the non-royal princes naturally die out and are replaced by princes of the imperial clan, and finally, the imperial clan princes are dismantled by the central government in Chang'an...

In particular, the natural extinction of the lineage of the feudal lords of different surnames and the gradual disintegration of the feudal lords of the imperial clan both took several decades, and together they required a long-term plan of more than a hundred years.

This means that the situation in Lingnan could not be resolved during Liu Rong's reign either; at best, it could only be put on the right track, and then Liu Rong's sons and grandsons would have to continue pushing it forward.

In summary, the situation is now quite clear.

During Liu Rong's reign, the Han dynasty faced four sub-sectors of 'external problems': the Xiongnu, the Korean Peninsula, the Baiyue people of Lingnan, and the southwestern barbarians. The first three were unlikely to be completely resolved.

Even a starved camel is bigger than a horse;

In the next two or three decades, the Xiongnu will at most suffer heavy losses or internal divisions, but it is almost impossible for them to be wiped out.

The Baiyue people of Lingnan were not suited for military action, so they could only outlast the old tortoise Zhao Tuo and then seek an opportunity for peaceful unification.

In the original history, Zhao Tuo, the King of Nanyue, lived to be a full 103 years old!

From the time Qin Shi Huang led his army on a southern expedition (219 BC) until the fourth year of Emperor Wu of Han's reign (137 BC), Zhao Tuo died in Panyu (present-day Guangzhou).

Now, the time has come to the fifth year of Emperor Liu Rong's new reign, which corresponds to the eleventh year of Emperor Jing of Han in history (146 BC).

According to the original historical trajectory, Zhao Tuo had a full ten years left to live.

After ten years of waiting, let Zhao Tuo die, then send the grandson of the King of Nanyue back to ascend the throne, and then wait for an opportunity to force Nanyue to submit...

Even if we rush to catch up, it will still be at least a decade or more later.

As for the Zhao clan's Nanyue Kingdom, which had been annexed, being "extinct and abolished," with the Liu clan taking over the ancestral temple, that was something that might not happen for another thirty or fifty years.

As for the Korean Peninsula—in the short term, it is possible to achieve de facto control over the Korean Peninsula by using physical means.

But as the saying goes: conquering the world is easy, but maintaining it is difficult.

Conquering such a 'new territory' by force, where people have little or no understanding of Chinese culture, will inevitably require decades or even centuries to gradually promote cultural integration.

The Xiongnu, Baiyue, and Korea were all "not to be rushed," and the southwestern barbarians were the last remaining threat, which made Liu Rong dare not even consider taking action.

The Qin Dynasty's infrastructure capabilities were nothing short of a miracle in the history of feudalism!
Even with such miraculous infrastructure capabilities, only a five-foot-wide road could be left in the remote and impoverished mountains of the southwest.

What is the Five-Foot Path?
As the name suggests, it is a narrow sidewalk that is five feet wide, or a little over one meter wide.

Such a narrow road is too narrow for even a single horse to pass, let alone a carriage.

It wouldn't be an exaggeration to call it a narrow, winding path.

However, this narrow, winding path consumed more than 20% of the Qin Dynasty's infrastructure resources after Qin Shi Huang unified the country.

Faced with this remote and impoverished region hidden deep in the mountains and forests, the ambitious Emperor Qin Shi Huang, who was determined to turn the southwestern barbarians into prefectures and counties, gradually retreated until finally only requiring the Qin Ministry of Finance to build a five-foot road to ensure communication between the Central Plains and the southwest.

why?
This five-foot road represents the limit that the Qin Dynasty, a nation renowned for its infrastructure prowess in feudal history, could achieve.

If this road were even an inch wider or a mile longer, the Qin court would not be able to afford or build it.

As the saying goes: If you want to get rich, build roads first.

Conversely, a place where even roads cannot be built is destined to have no development prospects in the short term, nor is it necessary to focus on its development.

For the Han dynasty, the southwestern barbarians were a 'Shangri-La' that was isolated from the world and Chinese civilization before Qin unified the country, and had never interacted with them.

After unifying the country, Qin Shi Huang exhausted the resources of the Qin Dynasty and opened up a five-foot road to the southwestern barbarians, thus establishing a stable transportation route between Chinese civilization and the southwestern barbarians.

Now, only seventy-odd years have passed since the completion of the Five-Foot Road that opened up the southwest.

It is no exaggeration to say that the degree to which the southwestern barbarians were influenced by Chinese culture is even less than that of the Korean Peninsula!

At least nine hundred years ago, a royal family from the Central Plains established a kingdom on the Korean Peninsula...

Therefore, during Liu Rong's reign, the four major "external problems"—the Xiongnu, Korea, Lingnan, and the Southwest—were all in a situation where they "could not be completely resolved, but could only get off to a good start."

Among them, the Xiongnu people, who are unlikely to be eradicated, are perhaps the ones Liu Rong is most capable of achieving results from!
All we can say is that the idea of ​​a time traveler sweeping across the planet, unifying Earth, dominating the solar system, and even aspiring to become a centaur is just a plot device that exists only in novels.

When it comes to presenting facts and logic, it is already quite remarkable for an emperor to not only achieve complete success but also to guide the dynasty in the right direction and get it off to a good start on most levels.

Even the First Emperor, a great emperor throughout history, could not achieve complete success. He vainly hoped to establish a foundation for the Qin Dynasty that would last for ten thousand generations, but in the end, the dynasty perished after only two generations.

Emperor Wen of Ming, Zhu Di, spent his life on the battlefield, desperately trying to completely eliminate the nomadic tribes in the north, but he still had to listen to his crown prince Zhu Gaochi's words: "Father, you have done enough."

The rest, let's leave to our children and grandchildren—let it be for me and Zhanji to do...

The same principle applies to Liu Rong.

Even as a time traveler, Liu Rong still had to admit that human strength has its limits.

Everything in the world, especially major policies and strategies concerning the rise and fall of a country, a civilization, and a feudal dynasty in China, often requires the accumulation of time and the patient promotion of these policies.

Just like Liu Rong, even as a time traveler, he couldn't use his hands to make firearms in the modern Han Dynasty, which is in the post-Bronze Age and in the early Iron Age.
There are many other things, and even if Liu Rong knew the final direction and the most ideal destination, he could only raise his arm and point out the direction to his children and grandchildren: Go that way, you can't go wrong.

As for Liu Rong himself, he could only take the crucial first step—at most, a few more steps—to point the way with practical actions.

If life is a marathon, then the transmission of civilization is a marathon relay race, with each generation running it.

Liu Rong could only do his best to run his own leg well and tell his future successor: where to run, how to run, how to allocate energy, how to maintain speed, where to replenish water, where to rest...

While the external problems are as they are, the internal problems are relatively more optimistic.

If the external problems of the Han Dynasty can be divided into four categories: the Xiongnu, Korea, Lingnan, and the Southwest, then the internal problems can be broadly divided into the following branches.

—People's livelihood;
—Government administration;
--noble;
--army;
—The feudal lords.

People's livelihood goes without saying; it directly concerns the survival of the lower classes, thus indirectly affecting social stability and even the rise and fall of dynasties.

The state of officialdom indirectly affects people's livelihoods—a clean and honest government leads to a peaceful and prosperous life for the people and a thriving nation; a corrupt and incompetent government leads to widespread suffering and national decline. As for the nobility, they too are inextricably linked to these two factors.

—If the nobility are ambitious, then the administration will not be too corrupt and the people's livelihood will not be too bad.

Conversely, if nobles turn their backs in anger, officials will inevitably follow suit, and the people's livelihood and livelihood will become nothing more than a eunuch telling a story—talking nonsense without any substance.

Although the three are subdivided, they complement each other, and affecting one will affect the whole.

When ordinary people live better lives and society is more stable, officials can naturally have an easier time, and nobles won't have too many troubles.
Conversely, if ordinary people are struggling and cause trouble at every turn, officials will feel uneasy and sweat profusely, and nobles will be unable to collect taxes in peace and live off their wealth.

Conversely, if nobles are concerned with their appearance and busy building their careers rather than squeezing food from the mouths of ordinary people, then even if officials try to exploit the people and plunder their wealth, they will never dare to go too far in extorting them.

With the nobles not intervening, officials dared not go too far, and the common people were able to catch their breath and were not driven to the brink of despair.

Conversely, if nobles are obsessed with exploiting the people and doing everything they can to squeeze them dry, then officials will naturally roll up their sleeves too—after all, if the sky falls, someone taller will hold it up.

The nobility already control social resources, so oppressing the lower classes is as easy as breathing for them—they don't even need to bother.

Add to that corrupt officials, and it's hard for ordinary people to avoid living in dire straits, ultimately leading them to take a desperate gamble and rise up in rebellion.

The three can be said to be mutually causal and interconnected.

Therefore, Liu Rong did not separate these three aspects, but rather considered them as a whole.

When it came time to address the problem, even though Liu Rong addressed each issue individually, he still clearly recognized that these three elements were interconnected.

Therefore, when Liu Rong stabilized grain prices during the reign of the late emperor and took the opportunity to monopolize grain production, it seemed at first glance that the first thing he addressed was the livelihood of the common people.
But in reality, Liu Rong used this opportunity to give a sharp warning to the aristocratic class: Don't reach out to my Han people!

If it shows its head, kill it instantly; if it reaches out, chop it down!
With the nobles becoming more subdued and no one of the "tall ones" standing up for the officials, Liu Rong finally set about dealing with the officials.

Compared to his brutal treatment of the aristocracy, Liu Rong was undoubtedly much more lenient towards the bureaucrats.

While the stated purpose is to combat corruption, the actual measures taken are to increase officials' salaries and income.

It almost uses the logic of 'If you take my money, you can't take my people's money,' to force officials to be honest—at least not to oppress or exploit the people too much.

With the officials' problems largely resolved, Liu Rong no longer needed to address the remaining issues concerning people's livelihoods and basic needs.

Aside from nobles and officials, who else could oppress the common people?

merchant?

joke!

In this generation, there may be merchants who scheme against farmers, but there is absolutely no merchant who openly bullies farmers!

As long as the nobles who control social resources and status, and the officials who wield public power, do not interfere, Han peasants can save themselves more than 90% of the troubles and risks in their lives.

In other words, by putting pressure on the nobility and restraining officials, Liu Rong was indirectly improving the livelihoods of the Han people, especially the common people.

In addition, the government monopoly on essential commodities such as grain, salt, and iron provided a final safety net for the lower classes.

Considering all of this, it is entirely reasonable to say that, provided that nobles and officials dared not take action, and the prices and quality of salt and grain were stable, the people of the Han Dynasty could not possibly have a bad life as long as they were diligent.

Unless you're starving yourself to death, it's almost impossible to starve to death!
This is undoubtedly one of Liu Rong's remarkable achievements over the past eight years, and one that historians would certainly write about in detail.

As I said before;
It is easy to conquer a country, but difficult to keep it.

For feudal emperors, killing an enemy soldier was never as valuable as saving and feeding one of their own people.

In terms of merit, destroying an enemy country is ultimately not as good as bringing peace and security to one's own people.

— Galloping across the battlefield and expanding territory is certainly exhilarating and unrestrained;
But in terms of true difficulty, it is undoubtedly more valuable to ensure that the people live in peace and contentment and have sufficient food and clothing.

As for the two following the people's livelihood, officialdom, and nobility—namely, the feudal lords and the army—these are issues of a different category and direction.

The feudal lords were mainly the separatist forces that, since the beginning of the Han Dynasty, had consistently shaken the foundation of the Han Dynasty's rule and hindered the Han Dynasty's national strategy.

The army is a problem that exists in the Han Dynasty and in every feudal dynasty: soldiers only recognize their generals, not the emperor.

In short, the core of the former is to further promote centralization of power and eliminate all local forces that hinder centralization of power—especially focusing on eliminating the separatist forces of the feudal lords who pose the greatest obstacle.

The latter addresses the problem that the military force often cannot be controlled by the emperor or imperial power.

Liu Rong didn't do much to address these two issues.

—As early as after the Rebellion of the Seven States during the reign of the late emperor, the imperial court already had established rules and regulations for the relatives and vassal states.

The rights of the feudal lords should be stripped or restricted as appropriate.

When the right opportunity arises, the favors will be extended to divide the country one by one, generation after generation, with each generation leading to further division—it's a slow and steady process that will eventually grind all the clansmen and lords of Guandong into nothing more than tofu pudding.

As for the army, Liu Rong was prepared on two fronts and took a two-pronged approach.

First, during his time as Crown Prince, he established the Yulin and Huben Guards under the guise of forming the Crown Prince's Guard, which were directly subordinate to the Han Emperor—or even directly subordinate to Emperor Rong alone.

After establishing his own military force, Liu Rong did not completely abandon the Han dynasty's existing standing field army.

For example, Zhou Yafu's Xiliu Camp was disbanded by more than half and reorganized by a small part.

The field armies of Bashang, Jimen, and Juzhu were also reorganized into new field formations.

Most importantly, after Liu Rong took control of the Han Dynasty, the Han people no longer had the peculiar troops like the Xiliu Camp, who revered their commanders as a faith.

Apart from the Flying Fox Army, the mobile unit on the north wall, all other field units—including the Feathered Forest Guard and the Tiger Guard—began to implement a rotation system at Liu Rong's insistence.

The commander of an independent field unit can only serve for a maximum of three years before being transferred to another field unit.
Before being transferred, they had to go to Chang'an for three months of "military strategy study"—which was actually ideological education.

Moreover, once a general has served as the commander of a field army, he cannot be the commander of that army a second time!

(End of this chapter)