My life is like walking on thin ice

Chapter 589 Not Difficult to Handle

According to Liu Rong's vague memory, throughout China's five thousand years of history, the population of northern nomadic peoples has almost never exceeded one million, and has never reached the level of 'ten million'.

The reason for this is as mentioned earlier: the carriers and forms of civilization directly determine the population carrying capacity of a civilization.

—In the agricultural civilization of China, on the Central Plains, a hundred-acre field, 240 steps long and 120 steps wide, can support a family of five.

A small town, with an area of ​​no more than ten miles in circumference, can support hundreds or thousands of farmers and thousands of people.

But on the grasslands, a family living in a tent, consisting of only five or six people, needs five horses, two camels, six cows, and twenty sheep just to barely make ends meet.

Barely enough to make ends meet!

And even under the ideal circumstances, it's barely enough to ensure basic needs are met!
If anything goes wrong, such as a natural disaster or man-made calamity, then families will be destroyed and people will die immediately!

These five horses, two camels, six cows, and twenty sheep require a pasture spanning several miles, or even tens of miles, to sustain them.

This is just the livestock and pasture configuration needed for one family—a Xiongnu family.

In most cases, such Xiongnu families would form large and small "tribes" in units of dozens, hundreds, or even hundreds of families, sticking together for warmth and living together on the grasslands, taking care of each other.

That's why nomadic peoples need to be 'nomadic'.

Because if they didn't live a nomadic life and stayed in one place, even a small tribe with only a few dozen families could, in a very short time, have the surrounding grasslands devoured by cattle and sheep until they were barren and even turned into desert.

This is precisely why the word 'survival' carries such weight on the grasslands, and why the struggle for 'survival' on the grasslands is so fierce.

—The entire grassland could only support a small number of cattle and sheep, and these cattle and sheep could only support a small number of people.
How to do?
If there are too many cattle and sheep, then slaughter them!

Of course it wasn't about killing oneself, but about killing others!
Since they killed the cattle and sheep that the nomadic people relied on for survival, there was no reason to leave the people behind—they should be killed as well.

Thus, the lives of nomadic people on the grasslands were almost entirely spent in killing.

Two children would fight to the death over a single bite of food;

Two families would fight tooth and nail over a piece of pasture.
Two tribes can even wage war, or even a mini-battle, over a single water source!

The reason is that the grasslands cannot support so many people and so many cattle and sheep.

At the same time, the law of the jungle, which the nomadic people of the grasslands have believed in and respected for generations, could not possibly produce someone like Thanos who is a bit dim-witted.

Thus, the nomads could only kill anyone who threatened their survival, driven by the thought that "someone has to die, but it can't be me."

Kill the enemy's warriors, abduct their women, enslave their offspring, and seize their livestock;

The endgame, however, is incredibly real.

After this comparison, the superiority of agricultural civilization over nomadic civilization is basically self-evident.

I just didn't expect there to be an expert among them.

—In the face of the agricultural civilization of China, the nomadic peoples of the grasslands were as backward as greenhorns.

Unexpectedly, compared to the nomadic civilization of the grasslands, the Korean Peninsula's current stage of "hunting and fishing civilization" is more like that of a primitive person who has not fully evolved.

Good or bad is always relative.

Compared to the Korean Peninsula today, the nomadic civilization of the grasslands was incredibly superior and advanced—far more advanced and superior across levels!
After all, no matter how unstable, how weak in its ability to withstand risks, or how precarious its existence, nomadic civilizations on the grasslands still have a theoretical possibility of a steady, long-term survival.

In theory, as long as they do not encounter severe natural disasters or far-reaching man-made calamities, nomadic people can barely guarantee their survival by relying on the livestock they raise.

If there is absolutely no other way out, some of the livestock can be slaughtered, which can still help them hold out for a while.

However, the fishing and hunting civilization of the Korean Peninsula had absolutely no need to discuss similar issues.

—Going out in the morning to fish or hunt;

If you hit it, you hit it; if you didn't, you didn't!

Even the most experienced hunter cannot guarantee that he will bring home fish or wild game.

It's like gambling.

The people of the Korean Peninsula are like every household, relying on a gambler who goes to the casino every morning to see if he can win enough supplies to survive the day.

Although they were so poor that they had nothing left to lose, this gamble was a risk-free business, so there was no possibility of 'losing' at all; at most, they could only 'not win'.
But when the outcome of this gamble is directly linked to the survival of the entire family, losing is already extremely cruel.

This situation is particularly noteworthy because it is a common and prevalent phenomenon.

—The men in your family don't only need to gamble on this one occasion today;
It's not just the men in your family who need to gamble like this every day.

Instead, every family needs to send its best workforce to this gamble with an uncertain outcome.

This lifestyle, in essence, is no different from making a living through real gambling.

In a civilization system where life is so uncertain that people can't even be sure if they'll have their next meal or if they'll even be able to see the sun five days from now, any undertaking that requires 'long-term planning' is simply unrealistic.

The agricultural civilization of China was able to survive several years of famine by storing up grain, which is why it was able to enjoy the country for hundreds of years.
Nomadic civilizations on the grasslands, with animal husbandry as their foundation and armed plunder as a supplement, were able to form empires that lasted for decades and civilizations that endured for centuries.

But on the Korean Peninsula, none of this is possible.

Because the ruled people on this land have no long-term perspective on 'what will happen next year, what will happen the year after next, what will happen in five years, ten years, what will happen to their sons and grandsons'.

There is simply no such condition.

In this land, rather than making a citizen ponder the future of civilization, it's better to let him consider: if he catches a fish in the river tomorrow, should he trade it with his neighbor for a meal of rabbit meat?

After all, for the past six months or so, this family had only been eating fish and hadn't been able to eat anything else.

They were also quite lucky.

Because they had fish to eat, they survived the past six months.

During the same six months, countless others starved to death because they had no fish to eat...

Moreover, the residents of this land face not only the problem of scarce and difficult-to-obtain resources;

There are also problems with uneven access to resources and the inability to store them for long periods.

Take the agricultural civilization of China as an example.

Farmers sow seeds in spring, cultivate the land in spring, summer, and autumn, and harvest after the Mid-Autumn Festival.

Whether the harvested grain is sold to grain merchants for money or stored in one's own granary, it can be preserved. The grain harvested this autumn can be stored until next autumn's harvest, meaning it can be taken out and eaten little by little over the next year.

If stored properly, these grains will only be consumed within the next year, but will not spoil.

Grain merchants, nobles, and government departments could store the grain they obtained in a given year for several years or even more than a decade, in preparation for unforeseen circumstances.

Grain merchants can hoard grain when prices are low and then sell it when prices rise.

When grain prices were low, nobles could hoard their own grain and buy grain from the market to eat. When grain prices rose, they could sell most of their grain and keep only a small portion for themselves.

The government can purchase and store grain during bumper years, and distribute it as disaster relief during years of famine...

and many more.

The main focus is on cultivating a savings mindset and taking precautions.

The nomadic peoples of the grasslands are somewhat lacking in this regard, but they are still quite commendable.

—During the summer and autumn seasons, especially autumn, cows and sheep produce a lot of milk, so they store more cheese to prepare for winter.

Although they couldn't store grain like the Han people did for several years, they could at least find ways to get through the winter.

However, the fishing and hunting civilization that existed on the Korean Peninsula suffered from both drought and flooding.

Every year during the fishing season, the residents of the Korean Peninsula can easily obtain fish resources far exceeding their own needs.

However, the fishing season is extremely short, often lasting only one or two months, and sometimes even less than a month.

Therefore, whenever the fishing season arrives, the local residents, who don't know when the season will end, have to desperately try to catch fish.

They arrested the suspects, but didn't know how to deal with them.

Fish and meat are inherently more prone to bacterial growth and spoilage. Furthermore, the Korean Peninsula is currently in a stage of ignorance that is even more backward than nomadic civilizations, let alone food storage technology.

This makes the fishing season a source of trouble for North Korean residents every year.

—If you can't store it, then why don't you eat as much as you can, and eat as much as you can?
Anyone who has ever experienced hunger would not find this approach clever.

Because appetite can change.

If a person is never full at every meal, their appetite will gradually decrease.
Conversely, if a person eats until they are full at every meal for a period of time, or even until they are stuffed, their appetite will be rapidly expanded.

This means that if North Korean residents overeat during the annual fishing season, their enlarged appetites will make the subsequent period of scarcity—especially the harsh winter—extremely difficult for them.

Therefore, during the fishing season each year, no matter how many fish they catch, they dare not eat too much or eat too full.

They had just enjoyed a blissful month without worrying about food, and then they had to sigh over the fish and dried fish that had rotted and spoiled on the riverbank because they couldn't be stored properly.

Then came another six months of hardship, with food running out of options, and a bitterly cold winter in December when food was almost impossible to obtain.

From this perspective, it is no exaggeration to say that what Chinese farmers consider and talk about is "how things will be this year, how things will be next year, and how things will be in the years to come";
The nomadic people of the grasslands were thinking about what spring and summer would bring. In autumn, their cattle and sheep hadn't fattened up, and if they wanted to survive the winter, they feared they would have to plunder the Han people.

The hunter-gatherer civilization of the Korean Peninsula, on the other hand, only considered, and could only consider: what to eat today, what to eat tomorrow, and if there is nothing to eat today or tomorrow, will they starve to death the day after tomorrow...

This is just a small group of people in this small area, and you're telling me you're going to notify them?

They might not actually resist.

Even if you rule them for their entire lives, you might not be able to rule for more than three or five days.
Even if you were to rule their entire family, you might not be able to rule for an entire season.

On this land, starvation is as common as dying in battle on the battlefields of China or freezing to death in the winter on the grasslands—it's a frequent and ordinary occurrence.

Having understood all this, no one will find Liu Rong's assessment of the Korean Peninsula strange anymore.

This land, in the eyes of Chinese civilization, was truly an 'untamed land, inhabited by uncivilized people'.

The way Chinese civilization has dealt with such land throughout history has never been the worst approach of enslavement.
Instead, we should first immerse ourselves in the culture in order to achieve cultural integration.

This process can take anywhere from a few decades to hundreds of years.

Once their culture has been integrated and they are no different from the Chinese civilization and the Chinese people, then the final step can be taken: military conquest or political annexation, and the mission will be accomplished.

However, these conclusions can only be drawn from the perspective of contemporary people—from the mindset of the "locals" of the Qin and Han dynasties.

When Liu Rong first met the inhabitants of the Korean Peninsula, he came to this conclusion, which was actually similar to the judgment that "the Emperor would definitely think so."

But when he took control of the Han dynasty, the situation was different.

As a time traveler and visitor from the future, Liu Rong knew that there was another way to deal with similar situations.

Take it down first;

Then, under the foundation of domination, a forced cultural integration was carried out.

In the process of cultural integration and fusion followed by mergers, or rather, the final mergers are merely the last step that leads to the inevitable outcome.

However, in the process of conquering first and then merging cultures, the process of conquest and annexation becomes particularly important.

Whether the process of conquest and annexation is gentle, appropriate, and skillful will directly affect the subsequent cultural integration and whether it can proceed smoothly and at an accelerated pace.

If these matters were handled by the native emperors and officials of this era, they would undoubtedly go wrong.

After all, in the eyes of the Chinese people of this era, there are only two kinds of people in the world.

—Han people and savages.

Whether they were the northern barbarians, the Baiyue people of the south, or the barbarians of the Korean Peninsula and the southwest—in the eyes of the Chinese civilization of this era, they were all savages.

According to the logic of modern Chinese civilization, those who have not been influenced by the culture of the various Xia peoples are uncivilized people, or unenlightened savages.

It is clearly unscientific to let such a group of people handle matters such as "peaceful reunification" and "resolving the Korean Peninsula".

But for Liu Rong, this matter was extremely easy to handle.

It's not difficult at least.

Liu Rong had nine ways to perfectly resolve the Korean Peninsula issue.

Nine kinds!

(End of this chapter)