Yuan Shao, the father of Fanghua in the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 1429 Long term
In the spring of the sixth year of Cheng Han, when Wei was still waging wars everywhere and struggling to break through the blockade of Yizhou, Jin had already begun to take a completely different path.

Except for Chang'an, Jingzhou and Jicheng, which still retained a considerable number of troops, other places began to carry out considerable military cuts, allowing soldiers to retire and participate in the construction of water conservancy facilities and roads as officials.

The Jin army had almost no specialized fortification soldiers, and most soldiers had participated in fortification construction, so they were familiar with it. This was also the route of soldier transformation that Yuan Xi had planned long ago.

After all, there are many lessons learned from later generations. If soldiers have no wars to fight and cannot be properly resettled, whether it is the military farming system or the fubing system, it will become a source of chaos in peacetime in the later stages of development.

Large-scale military layoffs are more likely to lead to turmoil, so even though the State of Wei has not been destroyed, the State of Jin has already set its sights on the longer-term future.

Yuan Xi handed the task of disarmament to Zhuge Liang. After a few months of his administration, he found that everything was going smoothly, so he finally felt relieved and began to plan to return to Jicheng.

Before leaving, he said to Zhuge Liang: "With Zilong in charge in Chang'an, there shouldn't be any major problems in the next few years, but there is still a lack of talent for internal affairs. The Prime Minister can select talents who can take charge of the situation."

"Three to five years from now will be the right time to launch a full-scale attack on Wei. By then, we will still need the Prime Minister to personally take charge."

"I'm in Jicheng. In the next few years, I'm going to try a new approach, which is to expand the influence outside the Great Wall. Officials from the Central Plains and even Jianghuai who want to make further progress will need to go to the north for a few years of training. Those who can't endure hardship can't accomplish great things."

"The officials rotate every year, and Kong Ming and Boyan are responsible for their respective self-government."

Zhuge Liang agreed to it. A few days later, Yuan Xi sailed north. Zhen Mi brought Xiao Qiao and Bu Lianshi to the dock. Yuan Xi said to the three women, "I will trouble you in the next few years."

The ladies watched the ship leave. Zhen Mi saw that Xiao Qiao was not in a good mood, so she tried to comfort her. Xiao Qiao said softly, "I am in Yecheng with the Queen and Madam Bu, so it is naturally very good. I just missed my sister in Shouchun."

"In the days ahead, I'm afraid only Mrs. Mi who is visiting Shouchun can occasionally chat with her."

After hearing this, Zhen Mi sighed in her heart that her husband, who made the women sit in the secondary capital to represent Yuan Xi in exercising the royal majesty, was simply treating his wife as a general. He had a really cruel heart.

She could vaguely guess that Yuan Xi must have a purpose in doing this.

In fact, Zhen Mi's guess was correct. Yuan Xi did it on purpose. His purpose was to use this behavior to declare to the world that even if a woman is a concubine, she still has her own place.

Although he could not eliminate the system of wives and concubines, Yuan Xi believed that this practice showed the world from top to bottom that women were capable of standing on their own feet and that they did not exist simply to be vassals, but had the ability and qualifications to display their own specialties.

Today, the anecdotes about Yuan Xi and his wives have spread widely throughout the country. Many of these stories, which are talked about with great relish among the women of the gentry, are related to the talents of his wives.

For example, Zhen Mi and Lady Wu, who were in charge of government affairs, and even the current Da Qiao, Cai Zhaoji, who studied classics and music all night long, Cao Xian, who was praised by the court officials of Jin for his document organization, and Lü Lingqi, who charged into the battlefield, were all once widely sung among the ladies of the aristocratic families.

Therefore, a trend gradually emerged in Jin State. Unlike the women of Wei State's aristocratic families who were addicted to feasting and pleasure, the women of the aristocratic families learned a skill or studied classics. As a result, when they raised their children, they had higher qualities. Combined with the relatively clean official atmosphere in Jin State, the chance of playboys appearing among the aristocratic families in Jin State was greatly reduced.

After this spirit of self-reliance and self-improvement among women was formed among the gentry, it gradually influenced the common people. With the rise of charity schools and the development of technology, lower-class women used improved looms to work, which not only improved efficiency but also gave them more spare time to educate their children, and even began to learn to read and write together.

Yuan Xi was quite pleased about this. The lower classes of the society were restricted by living conditions, and most of them were struggling to make ends meet. Naturally, they had no spare time to engage in cultural life. But now that the granaries were full and people knew etiquette, and as their wisdom was enlightened, they began to liberate the labor force of women and allowed them to participate in more social production and life. This was the purpose of Yuan Xi's series of actions.

Yuan Xi believed that the most valuable quality of the people of the world was to create history with their own labor, and that most of the wealth accumulated by the aristocratic families above them came from exploitation. He could not completely change or eradicate this reality for the time being. After all, the elimination of the feudal system would require the efforts of countless generations.

What he has to do now is to try his best to cleanse the social atmosphere, let the people from top to bottom form the idea that labor is glorious and they should be self-reliant and self-reliant, and prevent the rapid degeneration of officials from the aristocratic families. Only then can a positive and good atmosphere be formed within the State of Jin. This is already the limit of what Yuan Xi can do.

Yuan Xi traveled through time to this world, and along the way he discovered how difficult it is to reform society. From economy to system, from institution to governance, social political economics, it is the result of countless factors within the country that are closely linked and influence each other, and finally form a joint effect. It is far from being able to surpass the times by a few scientific and technological improvements. Only by taking one step at a time and constantly trial and error can we lead the people of the world towards a future where there is a glimmer of hope.

Now, most of what he wanted to do has actually been completed. The unification of the world is just around the corner, and all that remains is the finishing work.

Apart from the Wei Kingdom that was forced into Yizhou, the remaining foreign threats were not the southern barbarians, and the last and most worrying thing for Yuan Xi was the Xianbei tribe. The Central Xianbei were split into hundreds of tribes, large and small. In Yuan Xi's previous plan, these tribes would kill each other and annex each other. At the same time, due to lack of food, they would frequently harass the neighboring Eastern and Western Xianbei tribes, thus causing chaos on the grassland.

At the beginning, the situation on the grassland did develop as Yuan Xi expected, but there were slight inconsistencies in its subsequent direction.

In order to prevent the Eastern and Western Xianbei from swallowing up the scattered tribes of the Central Xianbei, Yuan Xi did some secret work to restrain Bu Dugen and Suli, making them unable to devote their full efforts to this matter.

However, Yuan Xi's power could not influence all the tribes of millions of Xianbei people. So in the midst of fighting and annexation, several new tribes gradually emerged that were not controlled by the East and West Xianbei and were very aggressive and organized.

The characteristic of these tribes is that they had considerable strength in the past, but were overshadowed by the Xianbei kings, so they were not well-known. Until the death of Kobineng, the Central Xianbei, the tribes fell into a melee. In the constant killing and annexation, several rapidly growing forces emerged.

These forces did not obey the orders of the East and West Xianbei, but occupied their own spheres of influence. At the same time, they frequently attacked and absorbed weak tribes, and became powerful in a short period of time.

This is also a normal phenomenon of tribal annexation. If the weak want to survive, they can only become stronger and annex other forces at the same time. The weaker ones will either be eliminated and killed, or rely on the strong to survive, and then through fighting and killing, the ones left are the strongest and most suitable for survival.

This is just like raising Gu. After a large group of poisonous insects kill each other, several Gu kings will survive. After experiencing life-and-death struggles, they will become more aggressive, cruel and ruthless.

After receiving the message from Jicheng, Yuan Xi realized that he was still a little careless. The reason why the grassland tribes were difficult to completely eliminate was that they had always used this model, with the fittest surviving. Those who could survive in the end were naturally the strongest ones who eliminated the weak.

This loose tribal alliance, which has a larger number of people than the previous one, has become a huge threat that exists solely for the purpose of survival and killing. It was naive of me to think that the Xianbei would perish in the infighting.

Human tribes have been killing each other in this way for hundreds of thousands of years. Not only have they not perished, but they have also evolved and developed in constant wars to form today's human society. War will not only destroy human civilization, but will also promote the rapid development of human society into the future.

The state and nation that fail to adapt to this cruel reality will inevitably be eliminated, either by being exterminated or enslaved, just like the Five Barbarians' Invasion of China and the Jurchens' Invasion of the Shanhai Pass in later generations. Relying on the enemy's barbarism and backwardness for survival is a sign of carelessness and underestimation of the enemy, which leads to destruction.

So after thinking about it, Yuan Xi decisively chose the latter between destroying the Wei State and continuing to plan for the grasslands outside the Great Wall. In this grassland breeding battle, the Jin army must not only participate in it, but also get the biggest share.

So at the beginning of spring, Yuan Xi rushed to Jicheng, and was greeted by the officials and generals he had summoned. Almost all the famous generals and forces in the north gathered there.

There were many civil officials headed by Ju Su, and the military generals included Tian Yu, Qian Zhao, Yan Rou, Xian Yu Yin, the Gongsun family, and representatives of the Goguryeo and Wuhuan kings. They were all waiting for Yuan Xi's arrival at the gate of Jicheng.

Yuan Xi stepped down from the carriage, and everyone bowed and saluted, saying, "Your subjects pay their respects to the Emperor of Great Jin!"

Yuan Xi raised his hand and said to the crowd, "You have all worked hard, and I am very pleased."

"I summoned you all here for the grassland plan for the next few years, or even decades. Since you are all here, I will not delay you any longer. Let's go to the palace to discuss matters together."

The ladies who were waiting at the gate of the inner house could not help but look at each other and smile bitterly when they heard the guards come to report that the emperor had gone directly to the official residence and asked the ladies to go back and rest first.

Cao Xian smiled and said, "I should have expected this. Your Majesty always puts public affairs first. You are still hoping for the best."

Madam Feng joked, "Why, who didn't sleep well last night and got up early to wash and dress up, looking forward to seeing His Majesty?"

Cao Xian's face flushed, and he snorted, "Okay, expose my secrets, Cao Jie, help me tickle her!"

Cao Jie, who was standing by, quickly took two steps back and said innocently, "It has nothing to do with me. Please do as you please, sister."

(End of this chapter)