My life is like walking on thin ice

Chapter 588 A New Carrier of Civilization
Liu Rong was not someone who had never seen the world.

Whether in his past life or this one, Liu Rong was not the kind of despicable nobleman who had never experienced human suffering and who constantly spouted "Why don't they eat meat porridge?"

Speaking of his past life, Liu Rong clearly remembered that when he was young, he wore the short-sleeved shirts and trousers that his older brother and even his older sister had left over.

When wealthy city dwellers visited relatives or stayed in the countryside for a short time, they would bring their children's old clothes with them. Liu Rong not only didn't mind, but was happy as if she had received new clothes.

Later, as life got better and better, Liu Rong never forgot his roots. He always paid attention to cleanliness and tidiness when it came to clothing, but never cared about extravagance.

Liu Rong would wear a piece of clothing as long as it wasn't so torn that it needed patching, even if it had been washed until it was faded. He would never feel ashamed.

In Liu Rong's view, being poor is not shameful;

Being fussy about trivial matters is shameful.

Moreover, in his previous life, even though Liu Rong almost never owned new clothes as a child, his family's life was already relatively better than others in the village.

Liu Rong clearly remembers that there was a family of three brothers in the same village who never went out to play together.

Whenever Liu Rong and his friends from the village climbed trees to raid bird nests or went down to the river to catch fish and shrimp, only one of the three brothers would come, and there was a subtle sense that they would take turns coming.

As for the truth, even people of the modern era in later generations can probably guess what it is.

In those days, the situation of "a family of several people having only one or two pieces of clothing, which is worn by whoever goes out" was not only common, but also existed in at least a few families in every village.

Later, as Liu Rong grew a bit older, he went to high school in the county town and then to university in a big city—during which time he did encounter many poor people who were dressed in rags and smelled terrible.

Even though Liu Rong started out as the eldest grandson of Emperor Taizong and was a true nobleman, he was by no means unfamiliar with the poor people of this era.

Indeed, in the Han Dynasty today, neither the law nor the social moral system allows for the existence of beggars.

But the absence of beggars does not mean the absence of vagrants.

Liu Rong witnessed firsthand how, in Shanglin Garden, many farmers lost their land and were forced to leave their homes, only to be fortunate enough to be resettled there as tenants of royal farmland.

But Liu Rong was very certain that whether it was the poor people and beggars he had seen in his previous life or the bankrupt farmers he had seen in this life, they all had one thing in common.

Their clothes were tattered and dirty, not because they wanted to be, but because they were forced by reality.

They will do everything in their power to change this situation whenever they have the chance.

When they encounter water, they will try to wash their clothes, or at the very least, wash their faces;

If they were to find a place to stay, even a temporary dwelling like under a bridge, their first instinct would be to wash their clothes and themselves.

Clothes can be old, torn, or even tattered;
But it can't be dirty or smelly.

Back then—in the first year of the late emperor's reign—when Liu Rong saw the kings and envoys from the Korean Peninsula who came to pay homage to the emperor, he could hardly believe his eyes and nose.

Liu Rong was certain that anyone who wanted to enter the Han court had to bathe and change clothes, and then intensively study Han court etiquette.

As for the envoys and monarchs from the Korean Peninsula, they can first take a free, forced hot bath, and even receive a piece of cutting-edge technology that has never been seen in the Korean Peninsula before: soap!
After showering and cleaning their bodies of dirt and odor, they can choose to wash the clothes they brought with them.

Alternatively, if they wished, the Han people would never be stingy with providing them with clean clothes and the perfunctory incense before they entered the palace.

After going through this whole process, what Liu Rong finally saw in the Xuan Shi Hall was still the king and envoy from the Korean Peninsula, dressed in dark gray—even blackish—clothing.

Even after washing themselves, Liu Rong could still smell a fishy and sweaty odor that had seeped into their bones from a great distance.

This might seem a bit strange.

Liu Rong, as the emperor, even if at that time he was just the eldest son of the emperor who had not yet been made crown prince, should not have focused his attention on such trivial matters.
No.

This is not a trivial or insignificant detail.

Or rather, what Liu Rong was concerned about was not whether these people from the Korean Peninsula were clean, whether their clothes were neat, or whether they smelled.

Liu Rong is, after all, a politician. He wouldn't let such a trivial matter affect his mood, much less hold it against him.

Liu Rong's real concern was that even after the Han family provided a complete "bathing" package including bathing, changing clothes, and even incense, these people still hadn't washed themselves clean or tidied themselves up properly.
This means that in their minds, words like clean and hygienic are simply unimportant.

In their view, the only difference between having hair down and having it tied up is that tying up hair is more troublesome, while having hair down is more worry-free.
In their minds, the difference between being clean and not being clean is that being clean is too fussy, and just going through the motions to appease the Han people is what a normal person does.

It was this seemingly insignificant and easily overlooked detail that enabled Liu Rong, who was then only the eldest son of the emperor, to make a judgment about the Korean Peninsula.

This land is far from possessing the objective conditions to 'integrate into Chinese civilization'.

To this day, they still live like 'barbarians,' that is, savages, and view problems through the lens of wilderness survival.

Traditional Chinese customs, such as tying hair up to keep oneself clean and wearing clothes with the right side overlapping the left, have not yet affected them.

—More than nine hundred years after Mustard Seed established itself on the Korean Peninsula, the rain and dew of Chinese civilization could not even touch the Korean Peninsula!
For such a place, and for the people of such a place;
For these "quasi-savages" who consider tying their hair up troublesome, personal hygiene fussing, and wearing clothes with the right lapels fastened, and who consider it nothing but whining, the county system, the feudal system, culture, and civilization are all castles in the air, and talking to a brick wall.

They don't care.

They didn't care whether their clothes were slit on the left or the right;
They didn't care whether their hair was braided, tied up, or left loose;
They care less about what language they speak, what script they use, what system they adopt, or what kind of ruling system they have.

Their way of thinking is still stuck in the most primitive and barbaric stage.

Similar to: When I see something good, I want to snatch it.

If I can't get it by force, I'll steal it;

If you can't steal it, try negotiating with the owner to see if you can exchange it for something else.

The 'good things' here include, but are not limited to: a delicious meal, a gorgeous piece of clothing, a fine suit of armor, and a sharp weapon;

Even a beautiful woman, an elite army, or a vast territory. To give another example.

In their understanding, there is no distinction between 'their own people and foreign peoples' or 'their own civilization and foreign civilizations,' and there is not even a distinction between humans and beasts.

In their view, jackals, tigers, and leopards are beasts, cattle, sheep, and livestock are beasts, and humans are also beasts.

Wolves, tigers, leopards, cattle, sheep, and livestock all need food to ensure their survival, and so do humans;
Animals need a relatively suitable temperature and climate environment; they need to hide in caves when it is cold, and humans are the same.
Animals need water and generally live in groups; humans are the same...

Rather than saying that these people don't understand why humans and animals need to be distinguished, it's more accurate to say that they simply don't have the energy or time to think about this question.

Like the nomadic people on the grasslands who are busy herding cattle and sheep all year round, and the farmers in the Central Plains who toil day and night in the fields, the people of the Korean Peninsula are also exhausted from the struggle for survival.

Moreover, unlike the nomadic people of the grasslands who made a living by animal husbandry, using cattle and sheep as means of production and dairy products as food and output, and the Central Plains Chinese civilization which made a living by farming, using fields as means of production and crops as food and output.

For thousands of years, fishing has been the primary, and sometimes only, means of obtaining food and ensuring survival on the Korean Peninsula.

This has resulted in the living standards of the North Korean people being even worse than those of the nomadic people of the grasslands.

Even in times of scarcity, nomadic herders on the grasslands will not be unable to produce milk from their cattle and sheep; at most, they will simply remember that there is not enough milk to feed them.

At worst, there are still cattle and sheep that can serve as emergency food reserves to help nomadic people get through the lean winter months.

Furthermore, the shelf life of dairy products and dried meats is still barely acceptable.

Therefore, nomadic peoples theoretically possess the objective conditions for 'storing resources'.

When cows and sheep produce a lot of milk, is it okay to store some cheese?

When you have no choice but to slaughter cattle and sheep, is it okay to store some dried meat?

Either is fine.

As for the agricultural civilization of China, that goes without saying.

The grain grown from the land, if stored properly, will last for not just a few days or months—but for several years, or even more than a decade.

It is precisely because of the long shelf life of essential resources, namely food, that Chinese civilization was able to possess a higher resilience to risks than nomadic civilizations.

When nomadic civilizations encountered trouble, their food reserves were only enough to last for a few months.
If left for too long, the food will spoil regardless of whether there is enough left to eat, and continuing to eat it will be risking your life.

When agricultural civilizations encounter floods, as long as the affected area is not particularly large, they can often easily eliminate the impact of the disaster by transferring grain from surrounding areas.

The long shelf life of crops enabled Han dynasty official institutions to hold supplies stably for extended periods, and also made the long-distance transport of survival supplies possible.

—It won't spoil anyway!
—It's okay if we walk a little slower, we can just transport it slowly!
The situation on the Korean Peninsula is not only incomparable to that of the agricultural civilization of China, but it is also incomparable to the nomadic civilization of the grasslands, which is known for its low ability to withstand risks.

Because the Korean Peninsula in this era should essentially be called a 'hunting and fishing civilization'.

What is fishing and hunting?

As the name suggests, it involves fishing and hunting.

To put it more bluntly, during the summer and autumn seasons when fish resources are plentiful, people would wade through the river with a long spear to catch fish; they hadn't even developed high-tech fishing nets yet.
At other times, when there were no fish in the river, or the fish were too few or too small, they would carry their homemade bows and arrows and spears of questionable quality to hunt in the mountains.

It is obvious that whether it is fishing in the river or hunting in the mountains, it is undoubtedly dependent on the weather.

If they're lucky and catch a lot of fish or wild game, the whole family can have enough to eat for several days.
If the air force were to arrive one day, that entire family would be left destitute.

For several days in a row, the air force was on the verge of killing that family.

This precarious, uncertain lifestyle, where one meal doesn't guarantee the next, is clearly no different from that of online novel writers in later generations.

In fact, whether it is the agrarian civilization of the Central Plains of China or the nomadic civilization of the grasslands, they are essentially based on the means of production, thereby producing the materials for the survival of the people and maintaining the order of civilization.

Agricultural civilizations used land as the means of production and produced food through labor.
Nomadic civilizations used cattle and sheep as means of production, producing dairy products and meat through animal husbandry.

These two means of production, and the goods produced, directly affect the upper limit of the population that the two civilizations can support.

—The Han dynasty now has a population of over 30 million, and its regime is as solid as a rock, which means that the Han dynasty can support these 30 million people on the land of China.

In the next thousand years, this number will continue to climb, eventually reaching 450 million nearly two thousand years from now.

Later, with the arrival of a new era, the land of China still nurtured 1.4 billion descendants of Yan and Huang with this fertile soil.

Of course, the new era has seen a surge in productivity, and the wave of mechanization has changed the laws of human civilization, so it cannot be compared with feudal agrarian civilization.

But at least two thousand years later, the last dynasty that could support 450 million people proved that the population carrying capacity of China's feudal agrarian civilization was no less than 450 million.

In contrast, the nomadic peoples of the grasslands—the so-called 'Xiongnu Empire'—controlled hundreds of large and small tribes on the grasslands, and were known as the 'Great Power of a Hundred Barbarians'.
These tribes, some as large as the Xiongnu themselves, claimed to have 400,000 archers, but in reality, their population was roughly 400,000 to 500,000.

There are also four other major tribes, such as the Huyan clan and the Qiulin clan, each with a population of tens of thousands, and they can easily muster an army of twenty to thirty thousand people.

But these are all large tribes, or even super tribes that are several levels above the main force.

The other ordinary tribes, some with tens of thousands of people, could muster a force of ten thousand cavalry, or six thousand soldiers.
A medium-sized tribe might have 10,000 to 20,000 people, and at most, they could only muster 2,000 to 3,000 cavalry.

As for the small tribes—even those that were qualified to be included in the "Hundred Barbarians" of the Xiongnu, this "Great Power of a Hundred Barbarians"—most of them were only a few thousand people, small villages that might not even be able to muster five hundred soldiers.

All things considered, the total population of the entire 'Xiongnu Empire' and 'Hundred Barbarian Great Power' was most likely less than five million.

Even if we include the slaves on the grasslands who are not counted as 'people', as well as the conquered slave tribes and dependent tribes, the number would be at most ten million.

(End of this chapter)