My life is like walking on thin ice

Chapter 318 The eve of the decisive battle
Luan Bu's words undoubtedly made everyone present - especially King Jiangdu Liu Fei - fall into deep thought.

Henan and Hexi seem to be two completely unrelated directions, but in fact, they are closely adjacent to each other from east to west.

If the Yellow River basin in the Hetao area is described as a "几" shape, the Hetao area is the area inside the "几" shape;
Hexi is on the left side of the character "几", that is, the west side.

In other words, Henan and Hexi are actually separated by the stroke on the left side of the "几"-shaped basin of the Yellow River in the Hetao region, and they face each other from east to west across the river.

For people in the Hexi region, Henan should not be called "Henan", but should be called: Hedong, which is more appropriate.

In the past, the Han Dynasty used the three counties of Shangjun, Beidi and Longyou from north to south as the frontier defense line adjacent to Hetao.

Today, Hetao is about to become the "Shuofang County" of the Han Dynasty, and the original northwestern border will also become the Hetao region - or the area to the west of Shuofang County, facing Hexi across the river, and Gaoque to the north of Shuofang County, which is also across the river.

From now on, these two directions will become the top priority of the entire northern border wall of the Han Dynasty!

Before regaining the Hetao region and turning the Han-controlled Shuofang County back into the Xiongnu's 'Henan territory', it was almost impossible for the Xiongnu people on the grassland to focus their energy anywhere else.

To put it another way: from now on, the focus of the Han Dynasty's entire northern border defense will be concentrated in this Shuofang County.

The Hexi region to the west was secondary to the Han Dynasty and the central court in Chang'an.

After all, this area was once the base camp of the Yuezhi people;
It was only a few decades ago that the Xiongnu completely defeated the Yuezhi in a battle in Hexi and drove them to the distant west.

Although the order of the grassland has never been about "management" or "foundation", in the decades after the Xiongnu people obtained this land, only a few tribes moved here. They lived a nomadic life while guarding the main transportation route between the Central Plains and the Western Regions for the Xiongnu Empire.

In other words, the current situation is not that the Han Dynasty should worry about whether Hexi will pose a threat to the Hetao region, that is, the "Shuofang County" that has not yet been formally established;
Instead, the few tribes that remained in Hexi, and even the Xiongnu Chanyu's court, had to worry about whether the Han would advance further westward and threaten the Xiongnu's blood bag and back garden: the Western Regions.

What's more, the ancient Silk Road, which had already taken shape, might have radiated to the Western Regions due to the influence of the Han Dynasty, thus depriving the Huns of the space to make huge profits from it.

- Exactly.

The Huns also did business.

However, unlike the shrewd Han merchants in the Central Plains, the merchants on the grasslands still maintain very primitive business concepts.

It is like a piece of Han brocade, which flows from the north of the Han Dynasty to the grassland, and is worth about five gold pieces;
The merchants on the grassland would feel very satisfied if they could obtain such a piece of brocade at the cost of five gold pieces and transport it all the way to the Western Regions and only needed to exchange it for twice the selling price, that is, ten gold pieces.

From the perspective of future generations, a 100% profit is obviously considered a huge profit.

But if you know the extent to which commodity prices skyrocketed along the ancient Silk Road, from its starting point in Chang'an to its end point in Europe, I'm afraid no one would think that 100% profit can be called "huge profits."

Let me give you a very simple example.

——Last spring, that is, in the sixth year of Emperor Xiaojing’s reign, a Han merchant sold a bag of pepper brought back from the Western Regions on the streets of Chang’an.

The bag of pepper weighed no more than six liang, or a little over a hundred grams;
The final transaction price reached a staggering twenty gold!
A discount of two hundred thousand!
However, 100 grams of exotic spices are ultimately worth as much as the entire fortune of two 'middle-class families'!

So what is the cost price in the Western Regions of this spice which is worth twenty gold, or two hundred thousand cash, and weighs only six taels?
There is no need to say anything else, just one thing: when the merchant set out from Chang'an three years ago, he carried large and small bags, on his back or on horseback - he took away several carts of things, but the total value of the things was less than twenty gold!

More than a year later, those trucks of goods taken away from Chang'an became a larger number of foreign goods.

Among the seven or eight carts of goods from the Western Regions that the merchant brought back, a small bag of spices that only occupied an area the size of a palm allowed the merchant to recover the cost of the entire round trip.

This is the profit margin that the ancient Silk Road should have!
A huge profit!
Whether it is the Chinese specialty that travels westward from the Central Plains, or the exotic goods from the east, their prices cannot increase by 20% or 30% with every mountain or river they cross, or even every hundred miles they travel.

But it doubled or quadrupled!
It is for this reason that a piece of silk worth a thousand coins, traveling from the Central Plains all the way west to Europe, could be worth up to twelve taels of gold, but could only be exchanged for nine taels of silk.

——The same weight of gold cannot even be exchanged for the same weight of silk, but must be exchanged at a ratio of four to three!

A piece of silk in the Han Dynasty weighed 11 Han jin, which is equivalent to 2,730 grams in later times.

In other words: a piece of silk weighing 2,730 grams could be sold at an extremely high price of at least 3,600 grams of gold in Europe.

And three thousand six hundred grams of gold, according to the current measurement system of the Han Dynasty, is approximately fifteen gold.

Discount money 150,000;
In the Han Dynasty and the Central Plains today, this amount of money can buy at least 600 bolts of ordinary cloth and more than 3,000 dan of grain.

He could buy two male slaves of full age, three female slaves, or seven or eight child slaves;
If it is exchanged for wine and meat, he can buy ten thousand pounds of fish and meat, thousands of chickens and ducks, hundreds of stones of thick wine, and thousands of chips of fine wine.

If he bought property, he could buy six or seven acres of good farmland, plus a supporting farmyard, in a prime location no more than ten miles from Chang'an;

Would you like to go further, to Weinan, Lantian or even Guandong?
——Don't forget that in today's Han Dynasty, the total assets of the so-called "middle-class families" are only a hundred thousand coins.

Today, the first criterion for the concept of a "middle-class family" in the Han Dynasty is that the household registration is in Guanzhong.

In Guanzhong, if you own a hundred acres of land, a wife, children and you, a total of five people, can have two meals a day, and even have enough money to train one of your children to study or practice martial arts, your family can be called a "middle-class family";
The offspring you raise can be called: children of good families.

The total value of a middle-class family like this is only 100,000 yuan;
As for families in Kanto with the same living conditions, their assets might not even be 70,000 or 80,000 yuan.

But a piece of silk can be sold for 150,000 yuan in Europe...

It is no exaggeration to say that whether it is the Xiongnu who occupy the Hexi Corridor now, or the Han who will surely retake this place in the future;

Or every nomadic regime or Chinese dynasty in the future - as long as they occupied the Hexi Corridor, it was impossible for them not to understand how incredible benefits they could get by controlling such a channel.

To put it bluntly: even if they occupy this land and do nothing, but bring a bunch of strong men with fat faces to collect tolls from passing caravans, they will definitely make a fortune every day!
In the past, the Huns occupied the natural pasture of Hetao and left the Hexi Corridor to a few unlucky tribes, allowing them to exploit the merchants and collect tribute from these tribes every year.

Now, Hetao belongs to the Han Dynasty, and Hexi is no longer a remote place that the Han Dynasty only heard of but never saw.

There is no need to go too far;
——At this moment, the Hetao Campaign had not yet been concluded, and the Han-affiliated 'Shuofang County' had not yet been completely swallowed up by the Han family. King Jiangdu Liu Fei's gaze inevitably fell on this area.

"Henan will definitely be the place where my Han family raises horses and strengthens the army."

"The 'King of Meng' mentioned by my brother will never be crowned by splitting the land of Henan."

"In other words, my country of Mongolia will either be in the Nanchi area after my Han Dynasty breaks through Gaoque and points its troops to the south of Mu;"

"Or, it was the area around Xiutu Lake when the Han people advanced westward from Shuofang to seize the Hexi area..."

As a patriarch of the Han family and a qualified politician, Liu Fei certainly knew that whether farming or nomadic life, one must rely on water sources.

On the grassland, water resources are of paramount importance.

Thinking of this, Liu Fei thought about Gaoque, which he had visited from afar a few days ago. Gaoque was located on the other side of the river;

When the Han army marched north to Hetao, or Shuofang, they had to cross the river first, braving the arrows shot from Gaoque that blocked out the sun, and then attack the pass with their backs to the water.

Like Hangu Pass: Gaoque, it also uses a large river as a moat.

The only difference is that Hangu Pass is based on the natural dangers of the mountains and is defended by the mountain stream pass;

Gaoque, on the other hand, was built with a wall based on a mountain, and a pass wall was used as a defensive fortification.

It is no exaggeration to say that Gaoque is absolutely beyond human power to break through!
Just like Hangu Pass, it is absolutely impossible for human beings to break through.

and so……

"My country of Meng will probably be in Xiu Tu Ze."

"And Xiutu Lake got its name because the Xiutu tribe lived here all year round..."

"In addition to the Xiutu tribe, there are also the Huyan tribe, the Hunxie tribe, the Qiulin tribe, and the Julin tribe in Hexi..."

For a moment, all of Liu Fei's attention was focused on the Hexi region in feng shui.

Secretly, Liu Fei also made up his mind: after returning to Chang'an after the war, he must find the Dianke Gongsun Hunxie to have a good exchange of feelings.

——Everyone knows the nine ministers of the current dynasty: Gongsun Hunxie, the Minister of State Affairs, was originally a prince of the Yiqu tribe in the north. He gained official salary by pledging loyalty to the Han Dynasty, and was granted a title by conquering Wu and Chu.

But no one knows that Gongsun Hunxie is not from the Gongsun clan, but from the Hunxie clan.

Gongsun Hunye was given by Emperor Taizong Xiaowen, who took the Han surname "Gongsun" as his surname and his original surname "Hunnye" as his name.

The "Hunxie" clan of Gongsun Hunxie and the "Hunxie" clan of the Hunxie tribe in Hexi are real blood relatives.

——In the early years of Emperor Taizong Xiaowen’s reign, the Xiongnu’s Laoshang Chanyu attacked the Yuezhi and won a great victory;

Hexi was owned by the Xiongnu, and the Yuezhi people moved westward. The Yiqiu people, who had originally submitted to the Yuezhi, were divided into two branches.

The former Yiqiu nobles, namely Gongsun Hunxie's lineage, disdained to submit to the once weak and humble Xiongnu people, so they all moved east and submitted to the Han Dynasty;
As for the people and slaves who were abandoned by the nobles to fend for themselves, they chose to surrender to the Xiongnu in order to survive, and accepted parts of Hexi that originally belonged to the Yuezhi people, becoming the present-day Hunxie tribe.

This secret was mentioned by the current Emperor Liu Rong in casual conversation when Liu Fei came to the court.

Now it seems that Liu Rong was probably already 80% to 90% sure of the Hetao Campaign at that time.
Telling Liu Fei this secret was a blatant hint...

"Gongsun Hunxie was once a noble of Yiqiu. He must hate the Hunxie tribe of the Xiongnu today - the slaves and tribesmen who pretended to be the 'Hunxie' king."

"If I can talk to Gongsun Hunxie in a friendly way, then in the next two or three years, it is not impossible for my Han family to send troops to Hexi - at least to stop the massacre of Tuze."

"At most, the food and funds needed by the army will all come from my treasury!"

"Anyway, after the transfer, I will be the King of Meng;"

"The Jiangdu Kingdom that I left behind will either be given to the Twelfth Brother or the Thirteenth Brother..."

Just do it.

Inside the central army tent, a group of generals were still discussing how to garrison Gaoque in the north and Hexi in the west, but King Jiangdu Liu Fei was already daydreaming and drafting a letter to Gongsun Hunxie.

While Liu Fei was daydreaming, Shang Cuo in the tent also came to a rough conclusion.

"If we want to seize Gaoque, then our Han family must make another perfect and appropriate plan like this time, crossing the river at night and launching a surprise attack on Henan."

"——This is obviously not something that can be accomplished in this battle."

"So before winter comes this year, what we need to do is to block the Xiongnu at Gaoque and the north bank of the river - Gaoque will not only be an obstacle for our Han family to move north, but also a pass that will prevent the Xiongnu from moving south and seeking to seize Shuofang."

"What I mean is to build a city on the south bank of the river, across the river from Gaoque!"

"Your Majesty has already agreed with me, Marquis Quzhou, and Marquis Gonggao to make a decision on this matter before the war. The specific matters of forging the city will also be followed up by the Shaofu."

"What we need to do is to prevent even a single Xiongnu from walking out of Gaoque in the north, crossing the river and heading south, and appearing on the south bank of the river before winter arrives - setting foot on the land of Shuofang County of our Han family."

···
"Furthermore, the main force of the Chanyu Court returning from Mayi will arrive at Gaoque around September 15th;"

“We have no idea what the follow-up actions will be.”

"To ensure that there is no chance of failure - to ensure that when the ice melts in the spring of next year, the southern part of the Xiongnu River can completely become the Shuofang County of our Han family!"

"From today, immediately, our army will send out fifteen divisions in units of two thousand soldiers each, totaling thirty thousand soldiers, to patrol along the south bank of the river."

"Each batch of patrols takes four hours, with three shifts per day."

"Scouts and rangers, each shift lasts six hours, two shifts a day!"

At the end of his speech, Luan Bu's face was extremely solemn and dignified, and his eyes looking at everyone present were filled with a sense of mission.

"Gentlemen."

"Is it Henan or Shuofang County?"

"It all depends on what kind of situation our army can create in the next month or so."

"——If it succeeds, we will expand our territory, become famous all over the world, and go down in history!"

"If we lose, then all our plans will be in vain..."

···
"I would like to thank you all in advance!"

"I hope you will repay the ancestral temple and the country with your glorious achievements that will go down in history;"

"To thank Emperor Taizong and Emperor Xiaojing for their kindness, and the current emperor for his trust and kindness!!!"

(End of this chapter)