Yuan Shao, the father of Fanghua in the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 681 Face it sooner or later
The invasion of foreign races outside the customs has always been the number one problem Youzhou has to face.

During the Chinese New Year last year, Yuan Xi asked Zhao Yun to fight in a battle, killing the heads of the Xianbei bandits who came to invade the border, and he was able to live in peace this year.

When the Battle of Shouchun lasted until autumn, there was still no movement on the border. Yuan Xi once thought that there would be no fighting inside and outside the Great Wall this year. But when he was in Yecheng, news came from the north that the Hu people inside and outside the pass were ready to attack again. .

This not only refers to Xianbei outside the Pass, but also shows that Wuhuan within the Pass is not honest either.

The reason for this problem is that the expansion of Gongsundu's family in Liaodong has caused not only Xianbei outside the pass, but also Wuhuan within the pass to become vigilant. After all, Gongsundu is powerful and will have an interest conflict with them sooner or later.

When Yuan Xi supported Gongsun Du behind his back, one of his purposes was to force Wuhuan to have no choice but to join forces with him.

But it seems that Shanyu Taodun, who is in charge of hundreds of thousands of Wuhuan, seems to have lost his mind and has not shown any signs of being on good terms with Yuan Xi so far.

Yuan Xi guessed that from Shanyu Taodun's point of view, it was because he was married to the Yuan family and relied on Yuan Shang, so he had nothing to fear, right?

Moreover, the news that Yuan Xi and Yuan Shang had temporarily joined forces probably did not reach the ears of Shan Yu Tat Dun. Shan Yu Tat Dun thought that he was a chess piece used to contain Yuan Xi, but he did not know that the situation in Jizhou had changed.

Think about the same thing in later generations. Shanyu Taodun's reaction was always half a beat too slow. Cao Cao also made good friends with Wuhuan during his northern expedition, and then traveled a long distance and secretly marched to the vicinity of Bailang Mountain. Suddenly he turned against him and attacked. Wuhuan was caught off guard. Defeated, Shan Yu Taodun was killed, most of the remaining troops surrendered, and most of them were moved to the interior, and Wuhuan in Guan Nei died.

Although Cao Cao's approach seemed unkind, Yuan Xi understood the reason why Cao Cao did so. Because at that time, there were continuous epidemics in the Central Plains, but the population of Wuhuan outside the Pass continued to grow. If this continued, sooner or later there would be disaster, so Cao Cao worked hard. Expedition, Wuhuan must be wiped out no matter the cost.

The main reason why the population growth rate in the North is higher than that in the Central Plains is due to the continuous outbreak of epidemics in the Three Kingdoms at the end of the Han Dynasty.

At that time, although the Central Plains region had a large population, most of them lived in large towns and villages, especially large cities. However, due to the era, there were not many areas for living in large cities, so many residents lived together, and the population density was extremely high.

In this case, the use of water sources, the discharge of sewage, and the isolation of people are much worse than in modern environments. They are fine in normal times, but during an epidemic outbreak, every link will become a factor in the growth of the epidemic level.

In addition, the theory of typhoid fever and miscellaneous diseases has not yet been published, and people do not know enough about the epidemic. Driven by various factors, every time an epidemic occurs, it is almost in big cities and towns. It is extremely difficult to control, and a considerable number of people often die. The population density After a sharp decline, the disease will gradually stop spreading.

This cost was extremely painful. The Chinese people figured out the secret to preventing the epidemic only after countless lives were lost. However, Europe was much later. Until the Middle Ages, it was still unable to find an effective way to deal with the Black Death.

Nowadays, Youzhou where Yuan Xi is located has the best conditions in the world because of the purposeful prevention and control. Many signs of epidemic outbreaks have been eliminated in advance, so the death rate is higher than that of the big cities in the Central Plains. much lower.

Therefore, although the environment in Youzhou is bitter and cold, as long as there is no outbreak of an epidemic that is difficult to deal with, the population can grow steadily.

The same is true for Xianbei, further north in Liaodong. It does not live in villages and towns, and its population density is low. Because water sources are precious, they must pay more attention to the protection of water sources. And because rations are precious, when an epidemic occurs, the treatment methods for patients are also quite Decisive, even cruel.

In this way, the spread of the disease was invisibly suppressed, so the population of foreigners in the north has been growing slowly over the years, including the southern Huns in Bingzhou.

If it were a peaceful world and the regime in the Central Plains was stable, it would not be a big problem. However, in the war years, military disasters and epidemics caused the population of the Central Plains to collapse, and the foreign population in the North increased. One and the other increased, and there were more problems.

According to later records, when the population of the Central Plains dropped to 2000 million during the Wei and Jin Dynasties of the Three Kingdoms, the total number of Xianbei and Wuhuan Xiongnu inside and outside the Great Wall in the North exceeded [-] million.

The imbalance of power, coupled with the arrival of the ice age and the southward movement of foreigners, made the conflict between the two sides inevitably become a life-and-death struggle for survival.

The Eastern Han Dynasty adopted a policy of using foreigners to control foreigners outside the Pass, using the Wuhuan within the Pass to deal with the Xianbei outside the Pass, and the southern Xiongnu within the Pass to deal with the northern Xiongnu outside the Pass.

This approach was initially effective, but the premise was that there was a strong Central Plains regime that could suppress the barbarians in the pass. But obviously in this era of chaos, this approach has failed.

Sooner or later, the barbarians inside the pass will join forces with the barbarians outside the pass, or they will attack separately and turn the focus against the prosperous Central Plains area, which will lead to the Five Husties in later generations.

Regarding this situation, Cao Cao should have had foresight, so he had the Battle of Bailang Mountain in later generations. Although there was a suspicion of treachery, it reflected Cao Cao's grasp of the world's situation.

In the face of life and death, nothing else matters.

At that time, Cao Wei occupied the entire north. There were Xiongnu, Xianbei, Di, Qiang, Wuhuan, Jie, Lushuihu, Dingling and other ethnic groups in the territory. The ethnic groups were complex and some areas were prone to rebellion, so the strategy adopted was to accept the internal annexation. Actively countering rebellions is a useful supplement for the Central Plains, which lacks labor.

However, big problems arose in the subsequent internal relocation and resettlement policy.

On the one hand, it adopted the policy of moving the defeated Hu people inside the Pass inward, leaving all the Great Wall defense lines to the Hu people outside the Pass.

On the other hand, there were too many people migrating inland. In the Longyou Hezhou area, by the Western Jin Dynasty, the Hu people had surpassed the Han people, and they were mainly anti-Japanese people, even in the Guanzhong area.

"Lun on Migration to the Rong" mentioned that "there are more than a million people in Guanzhong, of whom there are only a few, half of whom are Rongdi", and "all the counties in the northwest are inhabited by Rong".This is actually equivalent to the fact that the current Youzhou and Liangzhou, and even Jizhou Sili, have become areas dominated by Hu people within a hundred years. In addition, the Hu people from outside the pass have gone south, and the Five Routes of chaos have become inevitable.

What Yuan Xi wants to think about is how to prevent this kind of history from happening from Youzhou.

He already had some vague ideas in mind, but it was extremely difficult to implement. After all, with his current strength, many of his ideas were out of control, so he could only use diplomacy to make up for military shortcomings.

Wuhuan is an important key point. Yuan Xi's idea is to use it as a test field to verify the feasibility of his ideas.

He had previously discussed his ideas with Guo Jiajushou. Although the two were amazed by Yuan Xi's completely different thinking from ordinary people, they could not appreciate the cruelty of the future because they did not have the historical knowledge of later generations.

Both of them felt that Yuan Xi was thinking too much. Shouldn't the most important thing at this time be to dominate the world?
But Yuan Xi understood that if he didn't prepare early now, it might be too late in the future.

So this time he went against all odds and prepared to negotiate with Wuhuan and launch a series of military and internal affairs cooperation.

One is to join forces to deal with the foreign bandits outside the customs.

Although there was a feud between Xianbei outside the Pass and Wuhuan within the Pass, Chanyu Taton did not want to completely break up with them, lest he be retaliated on a large scale.

Therefore, Yuan Xi proposed that Wuhuan should use his young men to join Yuan Xi's army and fight against Xianbei in the name of Youzhou Army, so that Wuhuan could escape.

Of course, although the labor of young people is valuable, Yuan Xi is also responsible for settling the families of these young people. This can actually alleviate some of the pressure for Wuhuan, who is short of food relative to the growing population.

But this is Yuan Xi's purpose, to draw fuel from the bottom of the cauldron.

What he wants to do is to test the critical point of the inward relocation policy, that is, what is the appropriate proportion of Hu and Han in one place.

It is definitely not possible to allow the Hu people to dominate in terms of population ratio. This will not only fail to assimilate, but will also turn them into foreigners, forcing the Han people to flee.

What Yuan Xi wants to test is to retain some foreigners from the border areas and accept a considerable proportion of the barbarians under his own rule, so that they can slowly integrate into the local area but not let them occupy the magpie's nest.

Of course, his rule could not help but include Youzhou, Xuzhou and the Jianghuai region.

When he first proposed this idea, Professor Guo Jiaju was also experienced and wondered: "There is no shortage of people in Jianghuai. Is it worth it for them to expend manpower and material resources to move there?"

Yuan Xi smiled and said, "Is there something wrong?"

"If we really count, most of the Hu people today can trace their ancestors back to the Yanhuang Dynasty, and they actually have the same origin as us."

"It's just that with the changes of the times and the expansion of residential areas, various customs have emerged. Some of these customs may not be suitable, but some are useful supplements to the Central Plains."

"Since it is a fusion of Hu and Han, of course it includes not only the Central Plains region, but also the Jianghuai and even Jiangdong, as well as the Nanman and Nanyue regions."

"Nowadays, although these areas belong to the Han family, they are called mountain people. In the eyes of the Central Plains people, they are not as good as the barbarians, and they are not even regarded as human beings."

"But with the unification of the world in the future, these will sooner or later enter the category of the Han people. If the Hu and Han people can fuse, the Han people and the Shanyue people can of course also fuse. Why not add the Hu people to them?"

"Let them realize the benefits of national integration in advance, which is also one of the important steps for the unification of the world. Moreover, integration is not about elimination, but about mutual learning and complementation."

"As long as your heart is toward China, you are a Chinese."

Guo Jiaju had to admit that although they could not understand some of Yuan Xi's words, they seemed to make sense. Moreover, they had never thought much about these statements, but now they seemed to have opened a door and saw the door. A new scene outside.

Guo Jia spoke up: "There is something unclear about Jia, why are you so concerned about this matter?"

Yuan Xi hesitated for a moment, then slowly said: "Indeed, this matter doesn't seem too important."

"But when I think about the tragic scenes that may happen, I feel that since I am in this world, I must try to see if I can change something."

(End of this chapter)