I am not Yuan Shu

Chapter 391 Yuan Shu Becomes a God

Of the nearly 600 officials and clerks in the three prefectures, only 23 escaped detection and remained untainted. The rest deserved to be executed immediately.

These twenty-three people were all local officials who couldn't stand by and watch, which is why they didn't join in the corruption.

All the dozens of officials in the three counties were wiped out; not one of them escaped unscathed.

They either fed the flesh and blood of Han Chinese or the flesh and blood of the Qiang people who migrated inland.

After Yuan Shu submitted a memorial to the court, a public execution ceremony was held in the three prefectures, where all of these dozens of corrupt officials were executed.

As for the handling of officials who are not officially part of the imperial court's staff, the court will not interfere much.

Previously, most of the people Yuan Shu dealt with in Bingzhou and Youzhou were also such clerks. The imperial court only cared about how the officials with official positions, such as prefects and magistrates, were dealt with, while the clerks were left to Yuan Shu's discretion.

Yuan Shu, of course, was not lenient. He killed officials, and he killed clerks as well. He truly killed those who were dishonest, those who angered the people, and those who broke the law. He earned his formidable reputation through killing, and only then did he make room for his own people to take their place.

This is what established his absolute power and status in the two prefectures of You and Bing.

And now, all of this will appear exactly as it was in Liangzhou, on this ancient land.

He actually valued Liangzhou far more than Bingzhou and Youzhou, because there weren't many valuable targets around Bingzhou and Youzhou.

But Liangzhou is different.

By controlling Liangzhou, one can open up the Silk Road, connect the countries of the Western Regions, Central Asia, and West Asia, open trade routes, conduct business, and earn extra money.

The insufficient domestic consumer market of the Han Empire could be compensated for by utilizing these external trade relationships.

All of this is predicated on gaining control of Liangzhou and creating a stable environment for development.

This is precisely what Yuan Shu excels at.

His handling of the three commanderies of Beidi, Anding, and Wuwei was a clear warning to the complex local forces in Liangzhou.

From now on, Liangzhou will have only one power core, only one regular army, and only one leader whose word is law.

That's me, Yuan Shu, Yuan Zijia!
Those who disobey will die!

Liangzhou adhered to the law of the jungle, where the strong preyed on the weak, even more so than Bingzhou and Youzhou. The ancient survival model was even more direct here than in Bingzhou and Youzhou.

Jia Xu clearly told Yuan Shu this.

Therefore, Yuan Shu initially adopted a policy of demonstration towards Liangzhou, showing his power and strength. Only in this way could he make the people of Liangzhou obedient.

As for restoring social stability to Liangzhou, that's a matter for later.

Yuan Shu's reorganization of Liangzhou began in the fifth year of the Yande era and lasted until the middle of the seventh year of the Yande era. The time spent dealing with Liangzhou was actually shorter than the time spent dealing with Youzhou.

It can only be said that once a set of methods for doing things has become familiar, and even developed into a formulaic approach, the speed of doing things becomes fast.

Without him, only familiar with Seoul.

First, having money allows one to recruit displaced people, establish conscientious farms, reclaim and restore land, construct water conservancy projects, build roads, and engage in a series of production and construction activities. This in itself can attract most of the people struggling on the brink of life and death to one's side.

Providing them with a stable living environment and a steady food supply can appease people's hearts and make most people who want a stable life behave themselves.

As for those who thrive on chaos, they are separated from honest people in this process, and there is no need to worry about accidentally harming them when dealing with them.

In the areas of Jincheng Commandery, Hanyang Commandery, and Longxi Commandery, more than a hundred armed groups of varying sizes and with separatist characteristics emerged during the previous Qiang rebellion. These groups varied in size and included purely Han Chinese groups, purely Qiang Chinese groups, and groups that were a mix of Han Chinese and Qiang Chinese.

Yuan Shu still adopted the approach of "courtesy before force," first explaining the reasons, publicizing the policies, and negotiating the terms. He said that if they were willing to live a good life, then they would disarm and enter Liangzhuang, where they would naturally have a good life.

This is guaranteed by Yuan Shu's personal reputation and credibility.

If someone is insatiable and wants to gain more benefits, or if they are simply incorrigible and insist on becoming a local tyrant, then Yuan Shu would absolutely not accept that.

Tianxiong Army, move out!

During this military operation, Yuan Shu also discovered that dealing with the Liangzhou problem was much simpler than dealing with Bingzhou and Youzhou. As long as the methods were brutal enough, many problems would not be problems at all.

For example, there were many separatist forces in Jincheng County. The largest of them had more than 10,000 Han and Qiang armed troops. When Yuan Shu arranged for Lian Da to become the governor of Jincheng and issued a surrender order, it was rejected by Wang Guo, the leader of this largest force.

Then the entire separatist force went on high alert, adopting a posture of fighting to the death as long as they could not be killed, resisting Lian Da's decrees by force, and successfully angering Lian Da.

Then Lian Da led 10,000 Tianxiong soldiers and 3,000 Jincheng County soldiers to attack and wipe out the entire force, scattering their ashes. Afterwards, all 27 separatist forces, large and small, in Jincheng County immediately knelt down, saying that as long as you don't kill us, everything is negotiable.

Later, Lian Da took the leaders of this group under his wing and incorporated them into the county army. All the retainers were brought into Liangzhuang to farm. In just four months, he quelled the armed separatist problem in Jincheng County and restored social order to Jincheng County.

As long as it is powerful enough, it can solve most problems, and solve them to a very high degree. When we say it is solved, we mean it. There are not many future troubles to consider. Just for this reason, Yuan Shu felt that Liangzhou was much more lovable than the prefectures and counties in the Central Plains.

In the Central Plains, especially in areas with a large number of scholars, things were incredibly complicated!
After the middle of the seventh year of the Yande era, the basic order of Liangzhou society had been restored. Yuan Shu used his overwhelming military force to completely eliminate the problem of armed separatism, and also implemented the order to prohibit the use of bows and crossbows and armor in Liangzhou society.

For the society of the Eastern Han Empire, banning bows and armor, if effectively implemented, was essentially equivalent to Amélie's ban on firearms. Especially in Liangzhou, banning bows and armor from private ownership made it difficult for people to engage in armed conflict.

In recent years, Yuan Shu has mobilized a large number of Yixinhui members to take up official positions in various counties and prefectures of Liangzhou, much like in You and Bing prefectures, thus firmly grasping official power. In the countryside, he used Liangzhuang as a foothold to strengthen his control over civil society by directly managing a portion of the social production force.

Because ancient dynasties lacked sufficient control over grassroots society, they often relied on clan power to participate in social management, thereby reducing their administrative costs and diminishing their own power.

Yuan Shu couldn't think of any way to completely solve the problem, but in terms of dealing with the immediate issues, setting up a large number of Liangzhuang farms and strengthening control over production units was the best option.

Liangzhuang is not strictly part of the official system, but because of its nature of land reclamation and centralized production, it also has a semi-official character.

Even from the perspective of the basic construction, Yuan Shu intended to turn Liangzhuang into a grassroots unit. However, the one in charge of this grassroots unit was not a proper official, but a secret society. All the administrative talents under Yuan Shu accumulated their initial experience in handling affairs through the management and construction of Liangzhuang before they could obtain a position in the higher-level government.

Therefore, it can be said that Liangzhuang, like Zhixing Academy, is a component of the Yixin Society group. After completing their studies at Zhixing Academy, Yixin members or prospective Yixin members would live and work closely with the farmers in Liangzhuang, engaging in production and management. It would take at least two and a half years before they could be qualified to work for the government.

Therefore, the Conscience Farm is not an official organization, but it is, in a sense, the cradle of official organizations. It is precisely because of the existence of the Conscience Farm that most officials with a background in the Yixin Society have sufficient grassroots experience, especially in agricultural production, where they have a wealth of knowledge. This allows them to continue to attach great importance to agricultural production even after assuming higher positions.

They were definitely not like ordinary aristocratic sons who only knew how to eat but didn't know where the food came from. Therefore, their average political literacy and ability to handle affairs far exceeded that of most traditional officials in the inland prefectures and counties. This also made the governance level of the three prefectures of You, Bing and Liang far exceed the average level of the Han Empire.

By establishing good farms, the goal of controlling and protecting the labor force can be achieved, thereby restoring agricultural production, obtaining grain revenue, meeting internal needs, and further accumulating savings, thus entering a virtuous cycle.

Yuan Shu can also provide Liangzhuang with high-quality and inexpensive farm tools through his own workshops, provide rental and purchase of draft cattle, and even set up a professional compost production unit to provide compost to Liangzhuang on a regular and quantitative basis.

Other water conservancy projects were also carried out under Liangzhuang's organization.

This enabled the counties controlled by Yuan Shu to achieve higher and higher grain yields year after year, even though they were not traditional agricultural centers.

For the people living in the three prefectures of You, Bing, and Liang during this era, whether they were Han, Qiang, Wuhuan, or Xiongnu, they had stable lives, houses, land, and food. They would not go hungry or be killed easily. Such a life was like that of immortals.

Three years after Yande, Yuan Shu was practically a god-like figure in Bingzhou.

Five years after Yande, Yuan Shu officially became a god in Youzhou.

Seven years after the Yande era, Yuan Shu became a guardian deity among the Han Chinese in Liangzhou and also held a supreme god-like status among the Qiang people.

Yuan Shu even heard that some families had abandoned their original beliefs and adopted Yuan Shu as their new faith, building shrines in his honor and worshipping him together during festivals to pray for his long life.

All of this was simply because he did what he believed he should do, and did it quite well.

Is that all it takes to become a god?
Yuan Shu sometimes found it quite ironic.

In addition to the three prefectures of You, Bing, and Liang, after June of the seventh year of Yande, Yuan Shu's influence officially extended to Dunhuang Prefecture. It was from this time that Yuan Shu officially reopened the Silk Road, which had been interrupted for more than 20 years due to the Han-Qiang War, and restored the ancient trade route to normalcy.

Before the merchants from the Western Regions could even arrive, Yuan Shu immediately arranged for a commercial team to head west, hoping to stimulate trade throughout the region and restore the trade route that the Western Han Empire had painstakingly established to its original purpose.

He hoped to restore trade with all the countries in the Western Regions, and to project the political influence and military presence of the Han Empire there, thereby opening up trade routes to Central Asia, doing business with the Kushans and Persia, and expanding the business further.

This is the best way to revitalize Liangzhou. Otherwise, relying solely on agriculture, Liangzhou's population size will not be able to grow, and it will be difficult to support the current population size.

However, regardless of the circumstances, by the seventh year of the Yande era, Yuan Shu had essentially taken control of the situation in Liangzhou.

Apart from not yet launching military operations against the Qiang people in the Qinghai Lake area, he has wiped out all the armed separatist forces in other regions.

From then on, Yuan Shu successfully controlled the three prefectures of You, Bing, and Liang, and successfully promoted his governance model in these three prefectures, where it operated smoothly.

As Yuan Shu had hoped, the three prefectures of You, Bing, and Liang all entered the "super energy-saving mode" that Yuan Shu had previously promised Yuan Feng.

The imperial court no longer needed to make annual transfer payments for border wars, nor did it need to allocate large sums of money to support the army's counterattacks, which greatly alleviated the financial crisis of the Luoyang court.

The most important transfer payment provided by the Luoyang court to the three prefectures of You, Bing and Liang was basically concentrated on the Tianxiong Army led by Yuan Shu, becoming the military expenses of the Tianxiong Army. Apart from this military expense, there were no other large-scale expenditures.

The construction expenditures of the three prefectures were actually included in the war spoils and local taxes by Yuan Shu. Apart from the excessive military expenditures of the Tianxiong Army, the construction and development funds needed by the three prefectures of You, Bing and Liang were no longer required from the Luoyang court.

As for the Tianxiong Army, there was nothing that could be done about it. The three prefectures of You, Bing, and Liang were still weak, barely able to support their own development needs, let alone maintain a field army of 120,000 men.

After Yuan Shu pacified Liangzhou, he expanded the Tianxiong Army from 30,000 to 120,000, including 60,000 infantry and 60,000 cavalry. Such a large-scale, full-time field army could not be supported by the weak foundation of the three prefectures of You, Bing and Liang.

They do need transfer payments from Luoyang to make up for the shortfall in military spending.

However, the cost was not as high as imagined, because many of the supplies needed by the Tianxiong Army could be purchased in the local villages. The only problem was the lack of funds. Once the funds were in place, purchasing supplies locally would definitely be cheaper than purchasing them elsewhere and then shipping them to the local area.

Moreover, Liangzhuang was semi-official in nature, and its grains, fruits, and vegetables could get more favorable discounts when the army purchased them in large quantities, with prices far lower than those in the normal market.

This cost was further controlled, which meant that the amount of military expenses that the Luoyang court needed to provide was far lower than some people had imagined, and also gave the Tianxiong Army more financial flexibility.

This gave Yuan Shu more room to expand and train his troops.

At the same time, due to the expansion of the army's size, in the seventh year of Yande, Yuan Shu reorganized the Tianxiong Army, transforming it into the Northern Army Corps of the Great Han Empire, which consisted of twelve armies, each with a combat quota of 10,000 men. Four armies were stationed in each of the three prefectures of You, Bing, and Liang to maintain Yuan Shu's rule over the local areas.

However, as time went on, the significance of maintaining a large-scale garrison in Youzhou and Bingzhou was no longer very great.

When Yuan Shu was managing Liangzhou, Lu Zhi led a part of the Tianxiong Army to fight in Liaodong. According to Yuan Shu's instructions, while Yuan Shu was fighting against the Qiang people and local powerful families in Xiliang, he also destroyed the remnants of the Xianbei, the Fuyu Kingdom, and the Goguryeo Kingdom.

Although Lu Zhi did not know why Yuan Shu harbored such deep resentment towards these external forces that were currently in a state of submission, Lu Zhi had no objection since Yuan Shu had made this decision.

After eliminating these large-scale national enemies, Lu Zhi expanded the scope of his army's sweeping campaign to the Heilongjiang and Ussuri River basins, targeting and eliminating local savage tribes.

According to Yuan Shu's theory, if we want to eliminate them, we must eliminate them completely and thoroughly. We must learn from the lesson that after the Dou family drove out the Northern Xiongnu, the Xianbei took advantage of the situation to grow stronger and develop. We must eradicate evil completely.

We must never give another potential enemy an opportunity to develop just because we have eliminated one enemy. We must never underestimate any seemingly weak external force. All external forces that do not submit to our rule are potential enemies, and we must prevent them from becoming the next Xianbei.

In order to thoroughly implement Yuan Shu's theory, Lu Zhi also arranged for the valiant general Xu Huang to lead a force south to the Korean Peninsula to strike at the Three Han forces and eliminate the crippled Three Han forces.

Almost simultaneously with Yuan Shu's pacification of Liangzhou, Lu Zhi also dealt with most of the external forces in Liaodong. By then, apart from the Southern Xiongnu and the Qiang people around Qinghai Lake, there were no other forces on the entire northern border.

Up to this point, Yuan Shu also proudly prepared two maps of the northern border situation from different periods and sent them to Luoyang, so that the Luoyang officials, including his father, could take a good look at his achievements.

These two maps are, one is a map of the situation in the second year of the Zhengshi era, before Yuan Shu went to Bingzhou, and the other is a map of the situation on the northern border in the seventh year of the Yande era, almost ten years later.

The two images have very obvious differences.

During the second year of the Zhengshi era, the northern border was inhabited by various forces, including the Qiang people, local strongmen from Liangzhou, the Southern Xiongnu from Bingzhou, the Xianbei, the Wuhuan from Youzhou, local separatist forces, and external forces from Liaodong. These forces were intertwined and almost turned the northern border of the Han Empire into a sieve.

The northern border was never peaceful, and there was never a day without war. The people could not live in peace and could hardly produce anything. Every year, the nomadic tribes from the grasslands would invade from the south, and everyone suffered terribly. The imperial court paid more than one billion in military expenses every year, but it still could not change the predicament at that time.

By the seventh year of the Yande era, apart from the relatively docile Southern Xiongnu and the Qinghai Qiang who were outside Han territory, there were no other forces on the northern border. Along the border stretching for thousands of miles from Dunhuang Commandery in the west to Xuantu Commandery in the east, the days of constant warfare and devastation were over.

(End of this chapter)