Traveling through Tianlong: Starting from the Zhenlong chess game

Chapter 627: Defeat the Liao Bandits and Eliminate the Traitors

In response to Wanyan Sheng's question, Zhao Mu replied: "It's Empress Xiao Chuo of Emperor Jingzong of Liao, or Xiao Yanyan or something like that."

Aguda said at this time: "So your majesty is talking about the Qianling Mausoleum of Emperor Jingzong. However, when Empress Dowager Chengtian was in power, it was indeed the peak period of Liao's national strength. There should be many rare treasures in her and Emperor Jingzong's tombs. We are willing to present them all to your majesty."

Zhao Mu said, "Your Excellency is too kind. I am not a greedy person. With the wealth of Zhongjing and Shangjing, I am already satisfied. As for the treasures of Qianling Mausoleum, I only want two. One is Empress Dowager Xiao, and the other is Han Derang."

After hearing what Zhao Mu said, everyone was very confused.

Bao Bu Tong, who was always straightforward, asked, "Your Majesty, why do you want two dead bodies when you don't want the gold and silver treasures in the tomb?"

Zhao Mu replied, "Of course I am useful. Empress Dowager Xiao led her troops to invade the Song Dynasty and fought with Emperor Zhenzong at Chanyuan, signing the humiliating Treaty of Chanyuan. Even the famous generals of Tianbo Yang Mansion were killed by this woman."

"In my eyes, the only one in Liao who is truly capable of being my opponent is this woman. First, I want to see with my own eyes what this woman who can make things happen with a wave of her hand looks like. Second, I want to transport her back to the Song Dynasty so that we can avenge the national humiliation of the Chanyuan Alliance."

"As for Han Derang, I just want to vent my anger. Han Derang was originally a Han Chinese, but he helped the Liao people invade the Song Dynasty many times. He is indeed a traitor who has committed many evil deeds. This time we will pacify the Liao people, and we may let other people go, but no one from the Han family can be spared."

"And I want to take out Han Derang's body, dry it with salt, apply tung oil on it, and hang it in Bianjing City for public display, so that all Han people in the world know that this is the fate of being a traitor. As for the rare and exotic objects buried with him in the tomb, I am not very interested in them."

Facing Zhao Mu's answer, the people of the Jurchen tribe had no objection. After all, "traitors" are something that normal people hate. If there were someone in the Jurchen tribe who sold out the interests of the tribe to the Liao people and acted as a lackey for the Song people, then they would treat him the same way.

But compared to the others, the faces of Murong Fu's three ministers were a little ugly. Bao Bu Tong, Feng Bo E, and Deng Baichuan all lowered their heads in embarrassment.

After all, the four great ministers of the Murong family are all descendants of the ancient Han people, and the Murong family is a descendant of the Xianbei. To put it nicely, their current behavior is "loyal to their duties", and to put it bluntly, there is no difference between them and Han Derang.

However, Zhao Mu didn't care about the embarrassment of the three people. After all, this was his opinion of traitors.

If you are simply working as a civilian in an enemy country to earn a living, it is fine. But to help an enemy country to harm your own blood and fellow countrymen for your own personal fame and gain is simply a heinous crime.

Therefore, when Zhao Mu was in Bianjing before, he also advised Zhezong that they could use more drastic means to conquer Liao this time. The civilians, whether Khitan or Han, would not be harmed.

If a Khitan official surrendered, any official in Liao could be stripped of his official position, his property confiscated, and his family members saved, except for officials of the fifth rank or above.

But if they were Han Chinese, they could be divided into different levels. Those who served in the Liao army had their entire family made slaves. Those who served as officials in the Liao, below the seventh rank, had their entire family made slaves. Those above the seventh rank but below the fifth rank had their entire family beheaded, and their female relatives sent to the Jiaofang to be prostitutes. Han Chinese who were officials above the fifth rank had their entire family executed.

Zhao Mu also planned to have Zhezong write this into a proclamation and post it throughout the country.

Zhao Mu wanted to use this method to create a strong psychological deterrent for the "traitors" at home and abroad. In addition, he wanted to make them alienated from their Khitan masters. By then, even if these Khitans wanted to surrender, these Han puppet troops might still be stubborn to the end.

However, Zhao Mu was not worried because he needed the Liao Kingdom to reduce its population.

Previously, when he and Zhezong were in Bianjing, they had counted the household registration of Qidi and the Song Dynasty itself. Although the Song Dynasty had been fighting wars year after year in recent years, each time it won a great victory with huge profits at the lowest cost.

The wealth and people they plundered could make up for the previous losses. In addition, the military reforms before Emperor Zhezong and Emperor Zhaomu improved the economic treatment of the soldiers. These soldiers basically returned home in groups of three or five with huge sums of money. After returning home, they quickly bought houses and fields, married and had children, and lived a stable life.

Now that life is stable, people have nothing to do but give birth to children.

According to statistics from the Ministry of Households of the two places, after several years of war, the population of the Song Dynasty and the State of Qi not only did not achieve a short-term negative growth, but even successfully achieved positive growth.

Now Zhao Mu and Zhezong must reconsider how to make the "cake" bigger.

They basically took all the rich land they could in East Asia, and the remaining Tubo, Uighur, and Mobei were all unsuitable for farming.

Therefore, now they can only change the cage and replace the bird, and the people of Liao Kingdom have to continue to live a nomadic life in Mobei.

As for the traitors, we can only send them to death.

Therefore, Zhao Mu and Zhezong no longer care whether the Liao Kingdom will reduce its population, because they do not lack the required population at all. They are even troubled by the excessive population explosion.

If this continues, then we will have no choice but to send troops to attack India and obtain arable land.

After that, they discussed the details of the advance, but Zhao Mu was no longer in the mood to talk to them. So Zhao Mu said that he would not be responsible for the attack on the eastern front in the future. If there was anything, he would talk to General Yang after the Song army gathered in Goryeo.

Because of Aguda and others' strong urging, Zhao Mu, Queen Wang and others stayed in the Jurchen tribe for three days.

However, these three days have made Zhao Mu's opinion of the Jurchen tribe change a little.

During these three days, Aguda invited Zhao Mu to watch the singing and dancing of the Jurchen girls, as well as the wrestling performances of the boys.

The biggest change is that "clothes make the man, and saddles make the horse". Zhao Mu originally hated these jungle barbarians, but after they thoroughly learned the Han culture of Song and Liao, they still looked like "monkeys in human clothing". But they also had some meaning.

The girls of the Jurchen tribe wore Han Chinese clothes and used rouge and powder from the Central Plains. Although they were not very pretty, they were still quite pretty.

The men of the Jurchen tribe have shed the savage nature of the wild men in the mountains and are actually pretty good guys.

Zhao Mu saw this and truly understood the words in Sima Guang's "Zizhi Tongjian" and Sun Quan's "Encouragement to Learning": "When a scholar is away for three days, one should look at him with new eyes."

Seeing these energetic young people, Zhao Mu just sighed. Because soon, they will also become the souls of his sword. But there is nothing he can do about it. Who let the Jurchen tribe cause them so much trouble in the original historical time and space? So they must die too.

If we have to blame anyone, we can only blame them for being born in the wrong era, not in the era that he was originally born in.

(End of this chapter)