My younger brother Lü Fengxian

Chapter 166 Xianbei Power
"But this money is all your wealth, my lord. If you give it all to the Xianbei, how will you recover in the future?"

Upon hearing this, Su Shuang's loyal servant hurriedly stopped Su Shuang.

"As long as you can help me get through this difficult time, I will always have the chance to get the money back with interest someday."

"If we are unwilling to part with these money and blindly resist risks, not only will these floating wealth be used up one day, but even if we want to save it, these Xianbei people will continue to blackmail us. By then, without money, even maintaining our current life of living under someone else's roof will be a luxury!"

Su Shuang is nearly fifty years old and has built a huge family business on his own. Naturally, his vision and experience are not comparable to those of a servant, so he can directly see his own predicament in the current situation.

Now he and Luo Hanyi still have some friendship based on their previous dealings, but with the passage of time, without the bond of interests, these friendships will sooner or later run out. Therefore, Su Shuang is now eager to meet Luo Hanyi before these friendships run out, and explain to him the plan in his mind. Only in this way will he have a chance of revenge.

"I understand. I will ask the lord about this matter again."

After hearing this, the loyal servant stopped giving advice and left the tent dejectedly.

……

Compared with Su Shuang's shabby tent, Luo Hanyi's big tent was brightly lit and very lively.

Luo Han also sat high up on the main seat, holding a hot Hu Ji in one hand and a sizzling roasted leg of lamb in the other, tearing it into his mouth.

Where is the slightest bit of morbidity?
It seems that his excuse of not meeting Su Shuang was just an excuse as Su Shuang guessed.

At this moment, he was entertaining the tribal chiefs who were dependent on him in the big tent.

The Xianbei people were even less organized than the Southern Xiongnu, whom they had already defeated.

Although Tan Shihuai nominally unified the Xianbei tribes and was the leader of the Xianbei people, in reality the Xianbei people still fought each other.

The chiefs of each tribe enjoy most of the rights in their tribe. Even Tan Shihuai has to use interests to win over the leaders of various tribes.

Tough orders can only have a counterproductive effect among the Xianbei tribe.

The Xianbei people rose too quickly and failed to evolve political attributes suitable for their strength.

It can only be equivalent to the clan period of the Han nationality.

Not to mention that within the vast territory of the Xianbei people today there are many other ethnic tribes that are not Xianbei people.

If Tan Shihuai did not want to provoke resistance from these people, continuing to maintain their nominal submission would never affect their interests.

Therefore, although the Xianbei people were powerful and occupied all the grasslands during the Xiongnu's heyday, they harboured hidden dangers.

It only took one opportunity for the Xianbei people to weaken at the speed of light, just as they seized the opportunity of the Xiongnu's weakness to rise at the speed of light.

This opportunity may be the sudden death of a wise leader such as Tan Shihuai, or it may be a spectacular failure, or even simply the inability to maintain the current rapid expansion momentum can lead to the decline of the Xianbei people.

Xianbei leaders like Tan Shihuai, Budugen and Luo Hanyi were well aware of this, and therefore tried their best to win over the tribes under their command.

Luo Han also frequently hosts such banquets.

One reason is to win over these tribal leaders, and the other is to take this opportunity to reconcile the conflicts between the tribes and maintain a stable situation.

"My Lord Chief, Hutuo's tribe brazenly attacked our pasture last month, not only killing one hundred of our people, but also robbing thousands of our livestock. This act of Hutuo blatantly violated the orders of Chief Zuo and you. My Lord Chief, please punish this criminal Hutuo and give us justice!"

Luo Hanyi hadn't finished eating a leg of lamb yet when the chief of a medium-sized tribe came up to him in public inside the big tent, knelt on one knee and cried.

"Oh! Here it comes again!" Luo Han also had an unhappy look on his face, but he sighed deeply in his heart.

Now the mountains are blocked by heavy snow, and the living conditions of all tribes have suddenly become severe.

The order that had been easily maintained in the fall became increasingly difficult to maintain under the threat of survival.

Various frictions and disputes continue to occur.

The grassland rule of the survival of the fittest gradually rose in Luo Hanyi's sphere of influence.

This made his mood worse recently.

"If you had not allowed your livestock to graze in my pasture, why would I have killed your people?"

"You openly allowed your servants to cross the border, which is a taboo on the grassland. I only killed more than a hundred of you, which is already a mercy for you for the sake of Chief Luo Hanyi."

"And your thousands of livestock are naturally meant as an apology."

"Besides, the rule on the grassland has always been that the strong are respected. If you don't accept it, you can gather your troops and come to fight with me, Hu Tuo. If you win, I will not only return all your cattle and sheep, but also compensate you with 10,000 cattle and sheep."

"Who would have thought that you, a coward, would not dare to fight me, but would disturb the drinking mood of Chief Luo Hanyi and come here to complain. You really don't look like a brave Hu man like me, but more like a Han woman."

Before Luo Hanyi could speak, Hutuo, the chief of the Hutuo tribe who was accused by the chief, slammed the table angrily, pointed at the chief and cursed him, then knelt on one knee in front of Luo Hanyi.

Huto looks rough on the outside, but he is treacherous on the inside.

With just a few words, he lightly covered up the accusations made by the patriarch against him, and then turned around and began to suppress the patriarch, saying that he was cowardly.

Every word he said was heart-breaking, causing laughter from the other leaders in the tent.

"you……"

The tribe of that patriarch was just a medium-sized tribe similar to the Hunye tribe.

The Hutuo tribe is already a larger tribe than the Hunye tribe. The people under its command can mobilize 5,000 troops at any time, which is definitely not something this patriarch can match.

Therefore, even though he was humiliated in public by Huto, he was unable to resist openly.

His original intention was just to use Luo Hanyi's authority to recover his losses. If he made things worse and went into a full-scale war with the Hutuo tribe, his tribe would be doomed to be destroyed.

"Master Chief, look at this. Hu Tuo dares to humiliate me in front of you. This shows how lawless he is."

"Please, leader, help me!"

The leader had no choice but to give up his reputation for bravery and choose to continue holding on to Luo Hanyi's thigh.

"Huh, that's smart."

Hu Tuo looked unhappy when he saw this.

The patriarch was right. The so-called dispute was instigated by Hutto.

Being in the midst of a power, Hutto could not attack directly as he had done against the Southern Xiongnu or the Han people, so he could only adopt this roundabout strategy to muddy the waters so that he would have an excuse to send troops to annex his tribe.

(End of this chapter)