Yuan Shao, the father of Fanghua in the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 1407 Development
Although there was great controversy within the Wei Kingdom as to whether Cao Pi was suitable for the highest position, Yuan Xi, who returned to Yecheng, actually had a very high opinion of Cao Pi when he reviewed the situation.

In the past few years, Jin State has used military force against Wei State. Although Yuan Xi has made unexpected progress, there have actually been many mistakes. There were several flaws revealed by Wei State, and Yuan Xi believed that he had not been able to seize them well, so there were some mistakes.

In general, Yuan Xi had a very high opinion of his subordinates, but his own evaluation was average, which could only be said to be neither meritorious nor demerited.

In comparison, Yuan Xi thought that Cao Pi's performance was quite outstanding. In fact, when Cao Cao died, the Wei Kingdom was extremely unstable both inside and outside the country. In addition, the Wei Kingdom had been using military force to drain the pond to catch fish in recent years. Therefore, it was not an exaggeration to say that the Wei Kingdom was in a precarious situation when Cao Pi took over.

But Cao Pi first relied on some of his trusted officials in domestic affairs, won over some important old Cao Wei people, secretly suppressed the tendency of the Cao and Xiahou generals to take advantage of the opportunity to rise to power, and made the remaining people with ideas dare not act rashly, thus forming a delicate balance in the court.

As for foreign affairs, he was able to find the few remaining military and political talents in Wei and employ them. At the same time, he transferred Cao Zhang and other potential threats from the Cao Zhi faction to Liang Province, where the Cao Wei clan's power was weakest, and let Sima Yi defend Jing Province, which was most prone to problems. Although both sides were defeated by the Jin army in the end, the Wei army did not suffer heavy losses and still maintained a considerable amount of strength.

Before Chang'an was surrounded, Cao Pi reacted quickly. He kept Cao Hong and Yu Jin, a pair who could neither escape nor surrender, and took all their families away as a threat.

Both Cao and Yu had suffered great defeats and were in urgent need of merit to prove their innocence, so naturally they had no choice but to defend Chang'an to the death. The only fate that awaited them was to be buried together with Chang'an.

Although Wei's retreat to Yizhou had already announced in advance that it had lost the qualifications to compete for the world, it was still quite difficult for it to survive until now under the wave after wave of attacks by the Jin army. Yuan Xi thought that if he were in their place, he might not be able to do better.

But all this is not important anymore. Within two years, Chang'an will surely be captured by the Jin army. By then, as long as the exits of Jingzhou and Hanzhong are blocked, the Wei State will have no choice but to wait for death in Yizhou.

In later generations, with Zhuge Liang's ability, while barely suppressing the surrender faction in Yizhou and exhausting the strength of Yizhou, he could only launch five northern expeditions. Yuan Xi really did not believe that the Wei State, which was not much better than a pile of loose sand, could have the determination to launch a northern expedition.

After all, in later generations, the Shu Kingdom was supported by the ideal of restoring the Han Dynasty, but what does the Wei Kingdom have now?
As for the Yizhou faction, Yuan Xi had no interest in winning them over. Although there were indeed some talented people among them, they were either loyal to the Han Dynasty, or were sycophantic and contented with living in a corner, or were obsessed with being local tyrants and only dared to show off their power in front of the local people. These people were basically useless to the current Jin State.

Yuan Xi once analyzed the powerful families in various parts of China and found that after comprehensive evaluation, he found that Yizhou was a huge pit.

The local people in Yizhou are hardworking, diligent and simple, but their combat capabilities are not commendable.

The place is closed and has not experienced large-scale invasion by foreign races, so the combat capabilities of local soldiers are generally not strong. After all, they cannot even defeat the southern barbarians, and are far inferior to the Youliang soldiers who are fighting against the Hu people all the time.

Although Zhuge Liang later won several battles with the help of Yizhou soldiers, that was all he had, because the Yizhou soldiers were able to win, in the final analysis, thanks to Zhuge Liang's training methods. These victories were almost the only ones that Yizhou soldiers had ever won in the two thousand years of history.

In addition, in the two thousand years before and after, Yizhou had almost no successful experience in resisting foreign enemies. In every era when heroes fought against each other, it was the regime that was most easily defeated and destroyed the fastest.

Now it was Wei's turn to enter Sichuan. Yuan Xi didn't think that with people like Sima Yi and Zhong Yao, they could do better than Zhuge Liang in later generations.

The more crucial point is that the current Jin State is much more powerful than the later Wei State. As the strength of one increases and the other decreases, the strength comparison over the past two hundred years is no longer on the same level. To deal with Yizhou, Yuan Xi only needs the soldiers from You and Ji to firmly block the two roads of Yizhou out of Sichuan, causing the Wei State to die slowly.

After fighting to this point, Yuan Xi was no longer in a hurry. He let the Cao Wei court continue to live a life of luxury in Yizhou for a few more years. After all, the current Jin State had a lot of more important things to do besides taking over the uncritical pieces of territories in the southwest border.

The biggest threat facing the State of Jin now is no longer the State of Wei, but the turmoil caused by the chaotic grasslands to the north.

Yuan Xi had already learned that Jia Xu was responsible for Kobineng's death. The explosives in the secret room in Dai County were actually just a secret trick. Yuan Xi did not expect to really blow up Kobineng, but Jia Xu did it. He used the only opportunity and ruthlessly buried dozens of people including Kobineng in the ground.

Of course, this also includes Sun Quan and his subordinates who were innocently implicated and had unclear intentions.

This was an unexpected event that Yuan Xi had not expected, but he always asked himself, did he not expect this situation at all?
For a person like Jia Xu who only cared about protecting himself and sold out his teammates so blatantly and had a criminal record, why did he put him together with Sun Quan? Didn't he really want to make him disappear from the world?

Later, Yuan Xi finally realized that there was no point in thinking too much about such things. Everyone has a dark side in their heart, and he is not a saint, so why bother about it?
So he finally put these past events behind him. As for Madam Wu, Yuan Xi felt that he did not need to explain anything. Sun Quan chose his own path. Compared with the people of the world, his life was not more noble. Hundreds of thousands of people died because of Sun Quan. There was no reason why the people could die but Sun Quan could not. Yuan Xi also had the same view on his own descendants. Without the ability and state of mind, they could not bear it even if they were given the title of king or marquis. It would be better to let them die alone in an ordinary position.

Yuan Xi was very open-minded about this. As for how to place his descendants, Yuan Xi actually considered thousands of years of Chinese history and found that the most desirable one was the Song Dynasty.

There were twelve ranks of kingship in the Song Dynasty, the highest being the prince of the first rank, followed by the heir apparent. Princes, dukes, and kings were all of the first rank, and then down in order until the last, the founding prince of the country, of the fifth rank.

Although their rank seems high, it actually only shows their status and has no actual benefits. Even their fiefs are empty. Only those who are awarded with real fiefs as an exception can get the money. Therefore, the princes of the Song Dynasty were generally poor.

Moreover, it was very difficult for the royal heirs of the Song Dynasty to be promoted. Not only did they have to spend time and experience, but they also had to have political achievements. It was normal not to be promoted to the next level for several years, and the higher you went, the more difficult it became. After all, the higher the position, the harder it was to have the opportunity to make achievements.

Therefore, many princes' sons could only reach the fourth or fifth class throughout their entire lives, and those who could reach the top two classes were extremely rare, and there were only a few in each dynasty.

On the contrary, it was very easy to fall in rank. For example, Zhao Yuanzuo, the eldest son of Emperor Taizong of Song, was directly demoted to a commoner because of his relationship with the King of Chu. Therefore, the royal heirs of the Song Dynasty were generally much more restrained than those in other dynasties.

The Song Dynasty did have many shortcomings. It was not good at fighting wars, and had very high taxes. The levies and levies were far higher than the regular taxes. It took half the country's resources to support Kaifeng, and the lower classes did not live well. However, Yuan Xi had to admit that the Song Dynasty had made some attempts to improve certain areas that were not touched upon by predecessors.

For example, reforms of the imperial examination system and restrictions on the enthronement of offspring are both desirable. In fact, many aspects of the current reform direction and economic status of the State of Jin are similar to those of the Song Dynasty.

This was not something Yuan Xi did deliberately, but was the inevitable result of the development of commerce and handicrafts in human society to a certain extent, which promoted social change.

After all, the so-called sprouts of capitalism are just a name. Its essence is a series of improvements and changes in the production relations of the upper class in feudal society based on economic development. It is actually the same if it is called something like the sprouts of Chinese characteristic production.

The internal and external troubles of Jin State are actually not complicated anymore. The external trouble is the power vacuum left in the northern grassland after the death of Kirbinen.

Although the Central Xianbei had become a loose group, with hundreds of tribes of all sizes and a population of millions, they were destined to be a huge threat. If even a small half of them leaked into the interior, it would be a big trouble.

In response to this, Yuan Xi adopted a two-pronged approach. On the one hand, he used the forces among the Eastern and Western Xianbei to annex and integrate the tribes of the Central Xianbei. On the other hand, in order to prevent the emergence of a second Kebinen in the Xianbei, he searched for forces close to the Jin State among the Xianbei tribes, cultivated them wholeheartedly, and suppressed and divided other forces.

From the current perspective, Yuan Xi has successfully infiltrated several tribes of the Eastern Xianbei. This will also be his focus of attack in the future. After all, the iron mine in the Great Xianbei Mountain is something Yuan Xi is determined to obtain.

As for the Western Xianbei on Budugen's side, Yuan Xi adopted a strategy of corruption and paralysis. Budugen was not without ambition. As a descendant of Tan Shihuai, he also had a certain appeal among the Xianbei. Therefore, the method Yuan Xi adopted was to send sugar-coated bullets to erase Budugen's ambitions.

As long as the war continues for a few more decades, Yuan Xi will be able to establish a more three-dimensional and effective defense system in the Youbing area. By then, even if the Xianbei are integrated again, the Jin State will be able to deal with it easily.

In order to achieve this, the State of Jin had to solve its internal problems, that is, break through the bottleneck of productivity.

To achieve this, it is necessary to make breakthroughs in science and technology at multiple levels and at the same time transform these technological applications into reality to improve the production methods and infrastructure levels within the State of Jin.

Yuan Xi’s idea on this was very clear. He took fuel improvement as the main focus and replaced firewood resources with coal resources. While protecting tree resources, he could also protect forest and river water resources.

Large-scale deforestation will also destroy river resources, causing the abundant water resources of this era to dry up within hundreds of years. If these water resources can be developed in a protective way, the State of Jin will be able to build a supporting waterway system, thereby greatly improving production and transportation efficiency while protecting the environment.

The sound of firecrackers was heard outside the window. Yuan Xi put down the pen in his hand, got up and walked out the door. The new year had arrived.

(End of this chapter)