I traveled with them to the Northern Song Dynasty

Chapter 374 Leave some room for greed and lust, lest you become incompatible with worldly customs.

...

The central system of Goryeo has been completely wiped out. The Goryeo royal family, the royal family, and the nobles of Gaegyeong have all been escorted to Bianliang (Kaifeng). It is clear to everyone that the Song Dynasty, under the banner of liberating Goryeo slaves, will never restore the old Goryeo royal family's rule.

Yet some people still have no awareness of this.

The most typical example is Kim Bu-sik.

After arriving in Bianliang (Kaifeng), the capital of the Song Dynasty, he had Wang Kai write a letter to Zhao Yu, stating that as long as the Song Dynasty was willing to allow Goryeo to be restored, Goryeo would be willing to become a vassal state of the Song Dynasty and pay tribute to the Song Dynasty every year.

He further argued that with the capital city of Gaegyeong now destroyed and Goryeo losing its rule, chaos and the rise of numerous warlords would inevitably ensue, making pacification difficult in the short term. Only by releasing King Gae and his ministers could Goryeo restore order in the shortest time. At that point, Goryeo would fully support the Song Dynasty, just as it had previously fully supported the Jin Dynasty. This would allow the Song Dynasty to launch a full-scale attack on the Jin Dynasty immediately, eliminating its greatest threat.

To be honest, Kim Boo-seok's point of view is valid.

From the perspective of the Song Dynasty, Kim Bu-seok's proposal did indeed hit the nail on the head regarding the current war situation and was feasible for short-term implementation.

At present, the Song and Jin dynasties are engaged in fierce fighting. If troops are to be sent to garrison Goryeo, quell local rebellions in Goryeo, and recover Goryeo, it will inevitably tie up a large number of Song troops.

The Goryeo Peninsula is mountainous, and the noble and tribal forces are deeply entrenched. Crucially, the central government of Goryeo was destroyed by the Song Dynasty. Those former subordinates or local powerful families who were originally attached to the Goryeo royal family are likely to establish their own independent regimes. At that time, the Song Dynasty will not only have to send more troops to maintain order, but also need to transport grain and military supplies from the interior. This will undoubtedly be a further blow to the Song Dynasty's national treasury, which is already strained due to years of fighting against the Jin Dynasty.

If Wang Kai and his ministers were allowed to restore their kingdom and make it a vassal state of the Song Dynasty, the short-term benefits would be obvious.

Firstly, the Song Dynasty would not need to expend manpower to quell the chaos in Goryeo. As the former ruler, Wang Kai could quickly win over the hearts of the people and stabilize local order. The Song Dynasty would only need to send a small number of envoys and troops to oversee the country, just like the Jin Dynasty.

Secondly, Goryeo could be immediately transformed into an ally in the fight against the Jin. According to Kim Bu-sik, Goryeo could provide supplies and provisions, and also mobilize local troops to contain the Jin army from the east. This was a case of one gaining at the expense of the other.

Third, this move could establish the image of the Song Dynasty as "pacifying distant lands," allowing the surrounding grassland tribes and Japan to see the Song Dynasty's tolerance towards vassal states, weakening the Jin Dynasty's influence in East Asia, and indirectly dismantling the Jin Dynasty's alliance system.

On the other hand, if we set aside the limitations of short-term warfare and the Song Dynasty persisted in its original intention of liberating Goryeo slaves and completely incorporated Goryeo into its territory for direct control, its long-term advantages would be far greater than making Goryeo a vassal state of the Song Dynasty.

First, the Goryeo Peninsula is rich in resources, including not only agricultural resources such as rice and cotton, but also strategic materials such as iron ore and sulfur. By establishing it as a county of the Song Dynasty, it could be directly incorporated into the national tax system, providing a continuous supply of materials for the war against the Jin Dynasty, rather than relying on tributes from vassal states "at their whim".

Secondly, these former nobles of Goryeo had long been dependent on the Jin Dynasty. Even if they outwardly submitted to the Song Dynasty after the restoration of their country, they might still secretly collude with the Jin Dynasty. Direct control could be achieved by selecting Song Dynasty officials and implementing the imperial examination system to cultivate local forces loyal to the Song Dynasty, thus eliminating the potential for "two-faced" elements from the root.
Furthermore, Goryeo is located at a crucial point of maritime transportation in East Asia. After controlling Goryeo, the Song Dynasty's navy could establish bases in its ports, thus deterring the Jin Dynasty's Liaodong hinterland to the north and controlling maritime trade with Japan and the Korean Peninsula to the east, forming a combined land and sea encirclement of the Jin Dynasty and completely reversing the strategic landscape of the Song-Jin War.

More importantly, the liberation of slaves was the banner under which the Song Dynasty launched its military campaign against Goryeo. If it were to compromise for short-term gains and restore the rule of the old Goryeo royal family, it would be tantamount to breaking faith with the Goryeo commoners and slaves.

Those slaves who had been oppressed for hundreds of years had already seen hope of escaping slavery. Once the old Goryeo royal family returned, they would most likely fall into misery again. At that time, the Song Dynasty would not only lose the hearts of the Goryeo people, but also render the banner of "benevolent governance" empty talk. Instead, it would give the Jin Dynasty a pretext to say that "the Song Dynasty is no different from the Jin Dynasty," thus shaking the Song Dynasty's moral foundation among the surrounding regimes.

In this light, Kim Bu-sik's proposal was a stopgap measure to address the immediate crisis, while the long-term strategy for the Song Dynasty to achieve lasting peace and stability and to completely defeat the Jin Dynasty was to thoroughly unify Goryeo.

Emperor Zhao Yu and his ministers were keenly aware of this.

The key point is that the Song Dynasty has gained the upper hand in the war in the north. Destroying the Jin Dynasty is no longer a question of whether it can be done, but a question of when.

Therefore, Zhao Yu ignored those in Goryeo who still dreamed of restoring their kingdom.

Seeing that Zhao Yu ignored them, Kim Bu-seok and the others knew that the Song Dynasty now had the upper hand. If Goryeo didn't offer some tangible benefits, it would be difficult to win back the hearts of Zhao Yu and his ministers.

Therefore, Wang Kai and his ministers offered to present all the Goryeo women who had come to the Song Dynasty, including the royal daughters and clan daughters of the Goryeo Dynasty, to Zhao Yu. In addition, if the Song Dynasty agreed to the restoration of Goryeo, they would offer Zhao Yu another 10,000 Goryeo beauties.

It must be said that Wang Kai and his ministers were quite capable; at least they had a clear understanding of the current situation and knew when to make a decisive move.

Furthermore, now that the royal daughters, clan daughters, and noble daughters of the Goryeo Dynasty are in Jo Yu's hands, can King Wang Kai and his ministers really prevent them from entering Jo Yu's harem?
Therefore, it was better for Wang Kai and his ministers to swallow their humiliation and willingly accept being cuckolded.

In this way, Zhao Yu might mistakenly believe that they are cowardly and incapable of achieving great things and would not pose a threat to the Song Dynasty, thus allowing them to return to Goguryeo, or giving them the opportunity to learn from King Goujian of Yue and endure hardship to achieve his goal.

Furthermore, the idea of ​​relying on women to maintain the dynasty's rule is ingrained in the genes of the Goryeo people.

Historically, after the establishment of the Jin Dynasty, it quickly rose to become the hegemon of Northeast Asia, successively destroying the Liao and Song dynasties. Goryeo, assessing the situation, chose to surrender in exchange for survival space, and the tribute of beauties became an important adhesive in the relationship between the two sides.

According to the "History of Goryeo" and the "History of Jin", from the founding of the Jin Dynasty by Emperor Taizu Wanyan Aguda to the fall of the Jin Dynasty by Emperor Aizong, Goryeo sent envoys to the Jin Dynasty a total of 194 times in the 119 years, far exceeding the frequency of exchanges with the Southern Song and Western Xia during the same period.

These missions were not simply political pilgrimages; each time they brought dozens of carefully selected Goryeo beauties who became concubines of the Jin dynasty royal family, concubines of nobles, or palace maids, thus building a bridge of communication between the two countries in a subtle way.

This kind of "beauty diplomacy" reached its peak during the reign of Emperor Wanyan Yong of the Jin Dynasty.

After Wanyan Yong ascended the throne, he changed his previous hardline attitude towards Goryeo and took the initiative to send envoys to repair relations. The two sides gradually formed an institutionalized model of "regular envoys + envoys of fixed rank".

The beauties of Goryeo were the invisible link that maintained this system. They could convey Goryeo's goodwill to the Jin dynasty's royal family and nobles, and also relay the Jin dynasty's policy trends back to the Goryeo court.

With the mediation of the Goryeo beauty, the Jin Dynasty even allowed Goryeo to open a "Goryeo Pavilion" in the Jin capital, specifically to house Goryeo envoys and their entourage.

After the rise of the Mongol Empire, the Mongol nobles' pursuit of Goryeo women almost reached the point of a competitive frenzy.

During the Mongol Yuan dynasty, high-ranking officials often used the quantity and quality of their Goryeo female slaves as a symbol of status. Nobles with few or unattractive female slaves were openly ridiculed by their peers.

This trend directly led to the large-scale demand for Goryeo women by the Mongols.

Kublai Khan, the Yuan emperor, even issued a special decree: "Virgins from Goryeo must first register with the authorities before they can be betrothed," thus bringing the marriage rights of Goryeo women under the control of the Mongol Yuan dynasty.

Under pressure, the Goryeo royal court had no choice but to issue a decree: all women aged thirteen to sixteen in the country were not allowed to marry without permission, and they had to be selected by the government first, with priority given to Mongolian nobles.

This policy caused panic among the people of Goryeo. In order to protect their daughters, people hid their newborn girls and neighbors did not tell each other that they had daughters.

To meet the growing needs of the Mongols, the Goryeo Dynasty established two special agencies: the "Marriage Bureau" and the "Widow and First-Time Widow Selection Bureau".

The former was responsible for screening unmarried women, while the latter searched far and wide for married women, orphans, wives of rebels, daughters of monks, and even wives and daughters of criminals, forcibly including them in the "supply list." In addition to meeting the needs of the Mongol royal family and princes and ministers, these women were also assigned to Mongol soldiers as spouses—the Mongol army was constantly at war and needed stable family structures to appease the soldiers, so Goryeo women became an important source of supplies for military families.

What's even more disheartening is that the Goryeo royal family and nobility developed a distorted sense of honor regarding such dedication. If a Goryeo royal daughter, a member of the royal family, or a daughter of a high-ranking official was chosen to be presented to the Mongol emperor or a prince, it was considered an honor for the family. Some princesses even gained the favor of the Mongol Khan and, in turn, secured tax reductions and exemptions from corvée labor for Goryeo.

This top-down cooperation allowed Goryeo to gradually transform from a conquered nation into a subordinate ally within the Mongol ruling system, winning crucial space for its survival.

Towards the end of the Mongol Yuan Dynasty, the world was in chaos, and the Red Turban Rebellion swept across the Central Plains. Among them, Mr. Guan, Po Tou Pan, and Sha Liu led 200,000 Red Turban soldiers to launch a major attack on Goryeo in order to cut off the Mongol Yuan's supply line to Goryeo, thus beginning the "Red Turban Calamity" of the Goryeo Dynasty.

The Red Turban Army was extremely powerful and quickly broke through the Goryeo defenses, capturing the capital Gaegyeong. The Goryeo king fled to Andong, and the dynasty was on the verge of collapse.

At this critical juncture, Goryeo once again resorted to its ultimate tactic of "beauty diplomacy"—they selected thousands of beautiful women from the common people and the court and sent them to the Red Turban Army's camp, while also offering them large amounts of gold, silver, and fine wine and delicacies.

The Red Turban Army soldiers, indulging in pleasure and romance, quickly lost their fighting spirit—the generals spent their days drinking and making merry, while the soldiers lingered in the company of women, completely relaxing their vigilance against the Goryeo army.

Goryeo seized this opportunity, secretly gathered its remaining forces, and joined forces with local powerful militias to launch a surprise attack on the Red Turban Army camp under cover of night.

Caught completely off guard, the Red Turban Army was instantly routed, with almost the entire 200,000-strong army wiped out. Mr. Guan and Sha Liu died in battle, and Po Tou Pan was captured. The Goryeo Dynasty successfully recaptured Gaegyeong and escaped the calamity of national destruction.

The success of this honey trap can be considered the pinnacle of Goryeo's "beauty diplomacy"—it was no longer a long-term political preparation, but a deadly weapon in close combat, and it also proved Goryeo's ultimate use of this survival strategy.

Goryeo survived for nearly 500 years by relying on "beauty diplomacy," becoming one of the few long-lived dynasties in ancient Northeast Asia.

During this period, the Northeast Asian continent was dominated by sword fights and dynastic changes.

The Liao, Northern Song, Western Xia, Jin, Southern Song, Mongol, and Ming dynasties all came to an end, and even countries as far away as Central Asia and Europe could not escape the impact.

Only Goryeo, which was confined to the Korean Peninsula, survived for nearly five hundred years by relying on its women, amidst powerful neighbors.

This shows how adept the Goryeo people were at using women to maintain their rule.

Unfortunately, Zhao Yu was not swayed by the Goryeo people's rhetoric.

Zhao Yu even found Kim Bu-sik and his group ridiculous.

'Now, the entire Ji region will be mine. I could have as many beautiful Goryeo women as I wanted; why would I need you to send them to me?'

Indeed, Wu Yong and his men not only returned all the royal daughters, clan daughters, and noble daughters of the Goryeo Dynasty to Zhao Yu, but they also had beauties collected from the common people and presented to Zhao Yu.

This had become a bad trend during Zhao Yu's reign.

The ministers of Zhao Yu's reign, especially those who went to war, liked to find beautiful women to "bribe" Zhao Yu.

It was as if Zhao Yu wouldn't reward them no matter how great their achievements were, unless they sent him some beautiful women.

In all honesty, Zhao Yu always rewarded those who had made contributions and punished those who had made mistakes. His promotions and demotions were based primarily on ability and merit. He certainly had instances of nepotism, but they were far from rare.

Ok.

Because he was a time traveler who knew history and had Zhang Chun, a walking encyclopedia of history, Zhao Yu often promoted and gave important positions to famous ministers and generals from history. In fact, before this, they did not have many opportunities to show their talents, that is, they did not have any outstanding achievements.

This inevitably makes people think that Zhao Yu was practicing nepotism, and they wanted to become Zhao Yu's confidants, so they frantically sent him gifts.

It wasn't just those who weren't promoted by Zhao Yu who liked to do this; those who were promoted by Zhao Yu also liked to do this.

For example:
Among the beauties sent back this time were quadruplet sisters, who were sent by Yue Fei. Can you believe it?

Of course, Yue Fei certainly did not violate any military discipline.

The quadruplets were discovered by one of his generals. They were daughters of a minor noble family and were originally to be sent to the brothel.

The generals under Yue Fei wanted to give these four beauties to Yue Fei.

Yue Fei was not interested in women, so he refused.

At this moment, someone reminded Yue Fei that Zhao Yu had shown him great favor, and that he should offer these four extraordinary women to Zhao Yu to show his loyalty.

Some people even advised Yue Fei that it wasn't a matter of gifts, but a matter of attitude.

Yue Fei was persuaded and used his connections to send the four beauties to Zhao Yu.

Not only did people send Zhao Yu beautiful women, but they also sent him all sorts of treasures.

It is no exaggeration to say that almost all of Goryeo's finest treasures are now in Jo Yu's treasury.

Zhao Yu also reflected on whether it was right or wrong for him to accept gifts in this way, and whether it would set a bad example for others.
However, Zhao Yu later reconsidered and realized that accepting gifts, viewed from another perspective, could be a special bond that maintained the relationship between the emperor and his subjects.

The beauties or treasures sent by the ministers, though carrying a hint of flattery and ingratiation, also implied their loyalty and dependence on the emperor. If the emperor could skillfully use these "gifts," he could demonstrate the emperor's boundless grace, making the gift-givers grateful and even more devoted to serving him.

Take the quadruplets that Yue Fei sent as an example. If Zhao Yu didn't want them, Yue Fei would definitely feel alienated from him. On the contrary, if he did, he would feel at ease. If he favored the four sisters that Yue Fei sent a few more times, he would definitely feel more at ease.

Seeing it this way, Zhao Yu felt more at ease accepting it. He even consoled himself, "Alright, although I am the emperor, I must retain a bit of greed and lust, lest I become incompatible with worldly customs..."

……

(End of this chapter)