unclear

Chapter 847 Key Point 2
The ancient Roman Empire, the ancient Arab Empire, the Qin, Han, Tang, Song dynasties, and even the once-powerful Mongol Empire, all, without exception, eventually collapsed due to ethnic issues.

So were there any dynasties that handled ethnic issues better? Yes, the Qing dynasty had a large territory and conquered the most ethnic groups, so it handled it the best.

This may be related to the fact that it is a minority ethnic group. You don’t need to put yourself in their shoes to understand the key point. At the same time, it should be noted that the Qing Dynasty did not establish a system such as a vassal state. Even in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, which has the most remote roads and the most difficult natural environment, officials were sent by the central court to participate in management, and troops were stationed to deter by force.

After nearly twenty years of struggle and adjustment, Hong Tao has brought the Ming Empire to its current state. The biggest challenge facing him has shifted from the distribution of power in the court to external expansion. In order to expand in an orderly and effective manner, the first thing to solve is the problem of ethnic integration.

For example, the Luzon Special Zone was taken by pure force. In order to ensure the occupation, the imperial court had to send officials and troops to occupy the area, and all of these cost money, a lot of money.

If the local people cannot be made to obey management and rebellions break out every other day, the imperial court will have to provide blood transfusions to the Luzon Special Region forever, which will not only fail to gain any benefits but will also become a burden.

If every time we expand overseas we get a burden in return, then expansion becomes a losing business, and the army becomes a losing institution, and no one from top to bottom will be willing to make high investments.

Without attention and investment, the army will soon degenerate into the appearance of the Ming Dynasty's garrisons. Even if all of them are armed with submachine guns, they still cannot defeat the enemy with cold weapons. Because fighting is only about losing and not gaining, everyone avoids it.

If you want the army to be invincible, you have to make it profitable to be a soldier and fight. Didn't the ancients say that everyone in the world comes for profit? As long as it is profitable, there will still be people willing to join the army and fight, even if no one shouts slogans or hypes them up all day long.

How to make war profitable? Taking spoils of war is one way, but it is only a short-term benefit and cannot last long. There is only one way to make long-term profits, which is to restore the production and life of the people in the occupied areas as soon as possible, so that they can live better than before the occupation.

When the people in the occupied area resume production, this area will be like any other province in the country, able to provide products and pay taxes. It will no longer be a burden, but a hen that can lay eggs. How many eggs it lays and how much profit it creates is another question, which should be thought about before the occupation.

How can we make the people in the occupied areas identify with the invaders and eliminate their hostility? This is a big question, much more difficult and complicated than leading troops to fight. Countless emperors, kings, and lords in history have tried this, with both successful experiences and failed lessons.

Hong Tao analyzed and summarized a set of solutions from these cases, which can be summed up in four words: racial integration. Only by completely eliminating the barriers of ethnicity, belief, and culture can we completely avoid future divisions.

The specific measures are very simple, with only one key point and a few precautions. The key point is integration, trying every means to dilute the culture, history, customs, and beliefs of the people in the occupied areas.

To achieve this, large-scale migration is necessary. When people are displaced and leave their familiar environment, survival becomes the primary goal, and cultural beliefs and customs will be temporarily forgotten or abandoned as a burden.

There is a line in later generations that says that when people are hungry, they only have one worry, but when they are full, they will have countless troubles.

The principle of large-scale migration is basically the same as this sentence, using artificially created survival crises to forcibly replace cultural beliefs and customs in order to achieve the goal of being assimilated by the majority of people around them. However, simple large-scale migration is far from enough. For example, transporting the natives of Luzon Island to Liaodong by sea and giving them land and farm tools may result in large-scale deaths.

Those who survived, including their descendants, will remember the disaster, continue to retain hatred and some cultural customs, and once given the opportunity, they will still use ethnicity as an excuse to resist.

Therefore, on the basis of large-scale migration, we should also improve their living standards as much as possible, while keeping in mind the key point of integration. The specific approach is to let the immigrants and the Han people form farms in a certain proportion, produce and live together, and use policies to make them rely on each other, communicate with each other, and influence each other.

At most, after a generation, the cultural, religious and customary genes carried by immigrants will be covered by new ones, and the improvement in quality of life will also make it easier for people to forget.

Would it be the opposite, that the culture, beliefs and customs of the Han people would be replaced by those of the Han people? In theory it is possible, but in practice it is almost impossible.

The Han Chinese population is too large, more than 100 million, so no matter how much they are mixed in, they are still the majority. Without overwhelming privileges, it is difficult for the minority to influence the majority. The Yuan Dynasty ruled the Han cultural areas for nearly a hundred years. It cannot be said that there was no influence at all, but it could not change the foundation. Instead, it was assimilated into Han culture to a great extent.

If we take into account the effect of Chinese cultural education, starting from the second generation, immigrants will increasingly identify with their new identity, and within two generations they will completely forget their previous culture and customs.

The Chinese culture is very inclusive and will naturally assimilate all the surrounding cultures. This is a bit like water, which is soft and gentle on the surface, but very stubborn in its bones. Nothing, including hard stones, can change the nature of water, but it can easily dissolve in water and even be changed by water.

Of course, Hong Tao did not dare to guarantee that this theory would be 100% successful, so he needed to keep trying and improving. The Jurchen people were the best test subjects. They were few in number and had low influence, so even if they failed, it would not cause much impact.

Once the experiment is successful, the scale of the experiment can be expanded, for example, targeting the Tumed, Kharchin and Horchin tribes, or the many ethnic groups in the southwest region.

If it succeeds again, it can be promoted on a larger scale to the Korean Peninsula, Annan, and Luzon, and eventually form a Ming Empire that is completely unified in terms of territory and culture.

Only when the ethnic issues in these regions and countries are completely resolved can Hong Tao dare to expand without scruples and seize more resources for internal distribution.

The army and navy were pushing in the front, while court officials with mature operating procedures were carrying out large-scale immigration in the back, conquering and assimilating each place they conquered, moving forward like a snowball.

By then, not every place can be incorporated into the territory of the Ming Dynasty. Only those with value will be integrated. As for those that are not of much value, the old method will still be used. They will be given official titles and allowed to do whatever they want. At most, a few court officials will be sent to supervise them.

(End of this chapter)