My life is like walking on thin ice

Chapter 581 If you can't tame it, cook it.
With such a relatively sound rotation system, the Han army gradually transformed from its original state of "only recognizing the general, not the emperor" to the normal state that Liu Rong envisioned.

Liu Rong wasn't in a hurry about this.

Because Liu Rong is very clear that, in many cases, policies and systems are not necessarily better the more advanced they are, but rather the more they are in line with the context of the times and the progress of civilization.

Just like the Han Dynasty today, the most advanced weapons that should be deployed on a large scale are cold weapons made of steel and iron;
It was at least a century later that the Han dynasty possessed the objective conditions to equip itself with basic firearms—such as muskets and improvised explosive devices.

As for advanced firearms with higher technological content and greater firepower, such as automatic rifles, rifled cannons, and even missiles and drones—they are simply not something that this era can handle, nor can this era afford to maintain or operate, nor should they exist in this era.

Similarly, political systems and governing policies cannot be simply copied from advanced experiences of later generations and will not necessarily be effective in this era.

As I said before;
Taking half a step forward is called progress.
Taking a step forward is called a revolutionary leap;
If you take one and a half steps forward, you'll be tearing your balls.

Speaking of the military—in this day and age, the real 'progress' that Liu Rong should promote is to clarify the military command system on the existing basis and further distinguish between 'generals' and 'commanders'.

If, during his lifetime, he could ensure that every officer and commander of the Han dynasty would strategize in the central command tent during wartime, rather than leading troops into battle, then Liu Rong had already "effectively promoted the progress of the Chinese army."

As for the excessive control that officers have over the army—it's not that there's no way to solve it, but rather that due to the limitations of the times, solving it is very troublesome and somewhat unnecessary.

Because in this era, the illiteracy rate among the population is not a problem of 99 percent, but a problem of 999 per thousand.

The vast majority of people in this era, even after a lifetime of hard work, will not be able to recognize even a single character.

Being able to recognize one's own name is already considered 'cultured'; if one can also write one's own name, one is even more directly regarded as a learned person in the eyes of the neighborhood!
The high illiteracy rate and severe knowledge monopoly of this era can be seen from just one point.

—In today's Han Dynasty, anyone who can write and recognize characters can enter the system unconditionally!

As long as you can write and recognize characters, you can go to the nearest prefectural or county government office, prove that you can write and recognize characters, and be granted an official position, receiving a government salary without having to take an exam!
Alternatively, you could find a powerful landlord or a wealthy merchant; they would certainly not mistreat an intellectual like yourself.

They'll either keep you as a retainer or use you as an accountant. If all else fails, they'll at least send you to educate their children, so you'll never go hungry.

If you, like Liu Rong, have traveled to this era but were not born with the prestigious status of the eldest prince like Liu Rong, it doesn't matter;
If you can spend a little time transforming the cultural literacy you gained from nine years of compulsory education into an understanding of the language and writing of this era, then you can directly solve your basic needs for food and clothing by simply being able to "write and recognize".

With such a scarcity of literate people, the fact that anyone who could write and recognize words could secure a government job without question reveals the high illiteracy rate of that era.

While the illiteracy rate cannot directly reflect the moral quality of the people, it can, to some extent, reflect their level of awareness.

The lower classes are almost universally illiterate; those who can write and recognize characters are one in a thousand.

In addition, the restrictions on population movement that existed in feudal times meant that people at the bottom of society often could not leave their county or even their township for their entire lives.

This means that the understanding of the vast majority of the public is actually limited to an extremely narrow level.

Admittedly, they have their own set of logic and code of conduct, as well as a set of simple and easy-to-understand moral and ethical concepts;

Examples include the principle of "a life for a life," "debts must be repaid," and "a close neighbor is worse than a distant relative."

But if you ask them: What kind of person is trustworthy, what kind of person should be guarded against, how to judge whether a person is trustworthy, etc.?

They will most likely answer you: I can't tell good people from bad people, and I don't know who I can trust.
All I know is that my parents won't harm me, my relatives won't harm me, and my neighbors won't harm me.

As for outsiders—even if they won't harm me, I don't trust them.

Especially when traveling far from home, people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, lacking sufficient knowledge, almost instinctively seek out relatives, friends, or fellow villagers.

Even in later generations, similar situations continued to occur.

—When children go to school in other places, parents ask local friends, relatives and neighbors to take care of them.
When a family goes on a trip, the first thing they think of is their old acquaintances in the area;
When someone joins a company, the first thing parents think of is, "So-and-so's child also works here, so you two can look after each other."

In the Han Dynasty, for ordinary people, traveling far away was almost always only possible in one way.

He joined the army.

Like most small countries in later times, the Han Dynasty, while not exactly a nation of soldiers, had a conscription system that was almost universal.

Men begin winter training at the age of fourteen to hone their military skills, and begin preparing to enlist at the age of seventeen.
At the age of twenty, one begins to assume the responsibilities of a taxpayer and officially begins to undertake labor and military service. Before the age of twenty-five, one must serve two years of military service—one year to guard the frontier and one year to protect the capital.

At times like these, the importance of fellow villagers becomes most evident.

Traveling all the way to the northern border/near the capital, how can you manage without someone to look after you?
Especially on the battlefield, where life and death are at stake, if no one is there to look after you, you might not even know how you died!

As a result, the soldiers who joined the army instinctively banded together for mutual support based on their hometown ties and placed almost absolute trust in their fellow villagers.

When they arrive on the battlefield and receive orders from their superiors, the soldiers' first reaction is not to obey, but to discuss with their fellow countrymen and comrades on either side: What should we do?
Should we obey orders and proceed to a certain location to be stationed or remain in place?

Although the final conclusion would inevitably be that 'disobeying orders will lead to certain death,' the process of discussion itself further bound the fellow villagers together.

This situation was clearly unacceptable to the military's command system.

Obeying orders is a soldier's duty!

But this principle cannot be explained to soldiers from humble backgrounds who lack sufficient understanding.

But every time an order is given, the soldiers who are from the same hometown 'discuss' it like this. This can't go on forever.

How to do?
Simple.

Soldiers and officers from the same hometown can be placed under the same organization.

You're from Xiayi, your comrades are from Xiayi, and your squad leader is even your neighbor's good older brother!
You don't obey the sergeant's orders, but surely you won't disobey the orders of your neighbor, the kind older brother?

good;
Come again.

The corporal is your neighbor's good older brother, and above him, the sergeant is the king of the kids who grew up playing with you all.

Don't you listen to what he says?
Have you forgotten that back then, it was because you kids, barely out of hair, listened to him that you were able to sneak a peek at the widow bathing at the village entrance?

Continue. You may not know the village head above you, but he is from the same village—the son of the landlord at the edge of the village.

Although we didn't interact much, as soon as you enlisted, they kindly invited you all together, offering you good wine and meat, and constantly saying, "When you're away from home, you can rely on your fellow villagers."

Finally, I would like to entrust you with this great task: it is up to you all to make contributions on the battlefield!
Do you have anything else to say?
They didn't send you to your death—quite the opposite, they value your life more than anyone else!
As for achieving meritorious service for him—the enemy heads you cut off don't count as your military achievements.
To be honest, all the military achievements you made belonged to you; the others just benefited from your 'good command'.

How could you possibly disobey your fellow townsman and elder brother, or disobey his military orders?

And so it went, level by level—nowadays, in the Han Dynasty, almost every army, whether it was a standing field army or a temporary conscripted army, whether it was the central army in Chang'an or the local army in counties and prefectures, could, under the circumstances, promote the camaraderie among soldiers and officers from the same hometown.

In any army of the Han Dynasty today, the four soldiers and one squad leader of a squad, a total of five people, must be from the same hometown!

Moreover, they weren't even from the same prefecture or county, but from the same village or neighborhood—true fellow villagers who grew up playing together naked since childhood!
The squad leader must at least ensure that he and his two sergeants and eight soldiers come from the same village and that they at least know each other – that upon hearing each other's names, they can roughly recall what the other looks like, where they live, and who their parents are.

A garrison commander is in charge of fifty soldiers. He may be from a different village than those under his command, but they must at least belong to the same township.
When you start talking to each other, you say: I am the son of so-and-so family in such-and-such village and such-and-such neighborhood;

Most of the subordinates could suddenly realize and say: Oh, I know that place. So-and-so I know married someone there.

Say something like, "Oh, I know him. I heard his wife is from your village..."

You need to reach at least this level of relationship before you can be considered a true garrison commander with fifty troops under your command.

Going up further, the Marquis of Qu, who commands a hundred men—must be from at least the same county, right?

A commander of 500 men, even if not from the same county, must be from a neighboring county, so that everyone would have heard of him, right?

A captain leading a thousand men, also known as a lieutenant general, must at least be from the same prefecture as his thousands of soldiers before he can have the audacity to say: "Having lost soldiers and generals, I have no face to face the elders of XX."

This is the crux of the problem.

—The army was not transformed into its own 'private army' by officers through their own initiative, racking their brains and using every means possible;
Rather, it was because of these hometown ties that the armed forces naturally became a force with greater control by military officers and less control by the imperial court.

To completely eliminate this situation, the army must be broken up and mixed, and even efforts should be made to avoid soldiers from the same hometown being placed in the same combat unit.

But this brings us back to the very beginning.

— Organizing fellow villagers into a unit was to better command the army and to give soldiers a greater sense of identity, belonging, and security.

It was so that when soldiers went to the battlefield, they wouldn't have to worry about whether the 'strangers' around them would harm them, and could devote themselves wholeheartedly to the front lines, while entrusting their backs to the kind older brother next door or the kind older brother of a distant relative.

Especially in this era, the concept of "xiangdang" (乡党, a term referring to fellow villagers or neighbors) is often associated with clans.

Fellow villagers are often from the same clan.

In the township and village-level units of the Han Dynasty today, a considerable number were even directly named after the surnames of the local clans.

In places like Lijia Gou, Hejia Zhai, and Zhangjia Ao, once you arrive, you can't see anyone with a different surname!
Therefore, rather than saying that ordinary people who join the army trust their fellow villagers from the same hometown more, it would be more accurate to say that they believe these distant relatives who live with them and are even related to them in some way will not harm them.

If things really go wrong, then you'll have to endure the condemnation of everyone in your hometown and the backbiting of your entire clan.

In the new era to come, there will be very few people who are afraid of being criticized behind their backs.

But in the Han Dynasty, for the vast majority of ordinary people, being criticized behind their backs was likely a more painful punishment than being slowly sliced ​​to death!

After all, slow slicing is a physical punishment, while back stabbing is a psychological punishment.

It was precisely for this reason—because the situation of "local cliques sticking together" in the army had both advantages and disadvantages for the current Han dynasty, with the advantages and disadvantages being roughly equal—that Liu Rong was not in a hurry to change this situation.

After all, under the current Han dynasty, the excessive control that generals have over the army has not yet created the hidden danger of 'allowing the army to break away from the central control of the court'.

More importantly, the generals were able to command their troops with ease, resulting in better performance on the battlefield.

Command is more fluid, rather than being a figurehead with an army, or someone who only obeys orders and not commands.

It wasn't until one day, when Liu Rong personally experienced and witnessed a general's control over a certain army beginning to show signs of 'breaking away from official control,' that Liu Rong changed his mind.

That’s right;

It was not anyone else, nor any other army.

It was during the reign of Emperor Taizong that the Xiliu Camp was under the command of Lieutenant Zhou Yafu.

Liu Rong would never forget the scene from that year when Emperor Taizong was intercepted outside the Xiliu Camp.

— Zhou Yafu issued an order: No one may enter or leave the Xiliu camp by carriage!

From the fact that Emperor Taizong eventually had to get out of his carriage and walk into the Xiliu camp gate, it is not hard to see that even the emperor is no exception.

Emperor Taizong was not angered by this.

On the contrary, this almost humiliating scene was used by Emperor Taizong as evidence of the strict discipline and discipline of the Xiliu Camp.

But Liu Rong wasn't that magnanimous.

To be precise, Liu Rong wasn't that 'naive' when it came to the military.

The importance of the gun is absolutely unquestionable.

The ownership of the gun barrel is absolutely not open to discussion.

If you can't tame a guard dog, then you'll have to boil it in a pot.

The military's ability to retaliate is far more powerful than that of a guard dog...

(End of this chapter)