My life is like walking on thin ice

Chapter 359 Since ancient times?

It has to be said that Liu Rong was quite surprised that the Xiongnu Chanyu Ting shifted his strategic focus so decisively after the Hetao Campaign.

Not because it’s stupid to do so;
But because doing so is the wisest thing to do!

Liu Rong originally thought that after losing Hetao, there would definitely be some turmoil in the Xiongnu Chanyu's court - even if there would not be a new Chanyu who would "kill the king with a whistling arrow", there would at least be a bloodbath and violent suppression.

Afterwards, the Huns would certainly not be reconciled to the loss of Hetao and would still try to take it back.

After a few years, after suffering heavy casualties, the Xiongnu will face up to reality and accept the established fact that "Hetao no longer belongs to the Xiongnu", and based on this, they will formulate a new foreign strategy.

As the saying goes: Know yourself and know your enemy, and you can fight a hundred battles with no danger of defeat.

In order to better respond to the possible choices that the Huns might make at the overall strategic level, Liu Rong once stood in the perspective of the Huns - the Huns' Chanyu Ting - to think about the future direction of the Hun Empire.

If I were the Khan of the Xiongnu, what should I do next?
The moment this thought appeared in his mind, Liu Rong came up with the answer.

- Abandon all unrealistic fantasies, completely abandon the Hetao region, and quickly shift the strategic focus westward!

However, they did not do so in order to avoid the Han army, but to re-establish their prestige in the West and in the distant Central Asia, and to make the Xiongnu Empire "great again."

After that, it is to focus on deepening the development of the Western Regions, thoroughly achieve complete control over the Western Regions, firmly grasp the blood transfusion package of the Western Regions in hands, and prepare for a long-term tug-of-war with the Han people.

After they were replenished in Central Asia and completely controlled the blood bag of the Western Regions, they would turn around and start a war with the Han people for another thirty to fifty years.

When the war situation becomes intense, the Han people are tired of the long war and their livelihood is in dire straits, and problems will naturally arise among the Han people...

This is the optimal solution that Liu Rong could think of from the perspective of the Xiongnu Chanyu and based on the current situation faced by the Xiongnu.

But after a brief thought, Liu Rong concluded that this optimal solution would most likely not be adopted by the Huns.

The reason is simple;
——Not everyone can be like Emperor Xiaojing, who is like a cold and ruthless decision-making machine, making the most correct decision in theory but extremely frustrating in practice with an extremely calm mental state without any emotion.

Especially the Huns!

Especially the Huns, who had a strong desire for strength, so strong that their religious beliefs were filled with the strong flavor of "the only one I can't beat is God". They would never allow their supreme ruler to make a decision that had even the slightest suspicion of weakness.

Take the Xiongnu Chanyu Ting, who just lost the Hetao region, for example;
According to the most simple expectations of the nomadic people of the grassland, the Xiongnu Chanyu at this time should gather all the warriors who can fight in the grassland and launch a heroic charge to the death towards the Hetao area!
The Chanyu should set an example himself, even charge into battle, with the firm determination to never give up until Hetao is recaptured, and let the Hun cavalry set foot in Munan land again!
And with such earnest expectations, the Chanyu actually humbled himself and begged for peace with the Han emperor, and even went far away to the west to bully the weak countries in the Western Regions, or those blond-haired and blue-eyed Westerners?

The moment this happens, the Xiongnu Chanyu will lose the loyalty of most of the nomadic people on the grassland!

It won't be long before one or even thousands of "brave men" will appear in some corner of the grassland.
Whether or not they can replace the Chanyu is another matter, but at least these people will raise the banner of "march south to retake the ancestral land of Hetao" and grow stronger rapidly.

Then, the strongest Gu King will appear on the grassland and unite all the forces determined to take back Hetao.

At this point, the status of this "leader of the anti-Han coalition forces" was actually no lower than that of the Chanyu.

Taking all these into consideration, Liu Rong had concluded that the Huns would never give up easily.

Even though he knew that he could not recapture Hetao, the Xiongnu Chanyu Junchen would definitely make some symbolic attempts.

Not until those passionate grassland warriors were frightened by the exaggerated casualty figures and their blood turned cold, would the military officials find an opportunity to complete the shift of the overall strategy from east to west.

As for whether things would go smoothly afterwards - whether Central Asia could be taken over smoothly, Liu Rong had no doubts.

After all, the reputation of the Whip of God still has something to it;
After all, he was born in an East Asian monster house, and even briefly served as the owner of a monster house!
For the Huns in their "empire" state, successfully advancing westwards was a piece of cake.

However, in the Western Regions, Liu Rong felt that there was still room for maneuver.

——Before the Xiongnu completed their westward advance and took control of Central Asia, the Han Dynasty took the lead in taking Hexi...

In summary, according to Liu Rong's original inference, after the Hetao Campaign, the Han and Xiongnu would continue to fight in the Hetao and surrounding areas for several years;

When the tug of war is over and both sides are exhausted, the Huns will come to their senses and run to Central Asia to bully the weaklings like Dayuan and Daqin.

The Han Dynasty took advantage of the Xiongnu's strategic focus shifting westward and seized the opportunity to seize Hexi, open up the Hexi Corridor, and then began to plot against the Western Regions.

After the Huns successfully advanced westward and became the fear in the souls of Westerners: Attila, the Scourge of God, they turned back to deepen their rule over the Western Regions, only to find that the Han Dynasty also had considerable influence in the Western Regions.

Then, the Han and the Xiongnu, the only two giants in the known world, fought a decisive battle in the Western Regions, which was not part of either side’s homeland, to determine who would be the hegemon of the world…

But at the moment, the situation is obviously somewhat beyond Liu Rong's previous expectations.

The Huns actually had no attachment to Hetao at all!
After just one winter, the Huns quickly recognized and accepted the reality, and then quickly made the wisest strategic decision!
Liu Rong didn't know how Junchen did it.

Liu Rong could not imagine how Jun Chen could make such a "weak" overall strategy accepted by the nomadic people who had always admired strength - so that such a Xiongnu delegation with the mission of "seeking peace" successfully appeared in the Han capital Chang'an.

Nomadic people will never show any forgiveness to the weak or those who surrender!

If they had not accepted and acknowledged this approach, the Xiongnu envoys standing in the Xuanshi Hall at this moment would never have been able to escape the pursuit and interception of the nomadic peoples of the grassland and set foot on Han territory unscathed.

Since they left the grassland and came to the Han Dynasty, it means that the nomadic people of the grassland basically support Junchen's decision and do not think that this is a sign of weakness on the part of the Chanyu.

And this is the reason why Liu Rong started a killing spree over a disagreement when the delegation arrived at the palace just now, and killed the Xiongnu deputy envoy: Donghu Prince Lu Rong with just a few words, and made it clear that "no traitor from the Han King's tribe or the Donghu King's tribe will be spared."

——Despite such explosive news, the Han family was unable to receive even the slightest information through the two lines of the King of Han and the King of Donghu (Marquis of Chang'an)!

The Han Dynasty was fine - after all, they were pushed to the north of the wall by the Xiongnu, and were separated from the Han Dynasty by the entire south of the wall, as well as the great desert that divided the north and south of the wall.
But the Donghu Kingdom, or the territory of Chang'an Hou Lu, is just south of Mu!
And it is an area quite close to the Han family: the Nanchi area!
Lu would certainly have heard about everything that happened in the court of the Xiongnu Chanyu;

And as long as they are willing to pass on the message, the Lu family will definitely be able to get in touch with the Han family!
In order to ensure that this information channel is unobstructed, the Han family has made a lot of investments in the Chang'an Hou family over the years.

In order to stabilize the old Lu family, Emperor Xian Xiaojing even promised at one point: Just lie in ambush on the grassland, and when the mission is accomplished, the Lu family will completely return to the Han family, and the throne of King of Yan will still belong to the old Lu family!
Let’s not talk about how true or false the promise made by the late Emperor Xiaojing was - at least the real gold and silver, and the Chang’an Marquis Mansion in Shangguanli, were all real, right?
With such generous treatment, the Lu family should at least pretend to be grateful and send back the obviously important information as soon as possible, right?
The result was not good.

Until the end of the Hetao Campaign, the Han family still had not received the news of "Hunnu Chanyu's troops heading towards Mayi" from the old Lu family's channel;

After the war was over and Hetao had become Shuofang County and Wuyuan County, the old Lu family finally sent back a letter saying that they had been targeted by Shanyu Ting and had not been able to send any news back.

This time it’s even worse!
The Xiongnu Chanyu had already made the entire grassland accept the view that "the strategic focus shifting westward does not equal weakness";

Not to mention the letter from the Huns - even the Huns' delegation requesting an end to the war so that the Huns could march westward with peace of mind had arrived in Chang'an!
As a result, the old Lu family has not yet sent back any news to tell Liu Rong: What kind of magical methods did Junchen use to achieve such an incredible achievement!

It was obvious that the Lu family had gotten a little carried away by the good life of double agents over the past few years. The Lu family would accept the money from the Han family, but they had no decent intelligence.

Upon closer inspection, the last time the Lu family provided effective intelligence to the Han family was in the third year of Emperor Taizong's Houyuan reign, when they reported back the news that "Laoshang Chanyu had died last year, and Zuoxian Wang Junchen inherited the Chanyu's position."

Look - even the news of the change of Chanyu, the old Lu family couldn't guarantee the timeliness, it took a full year to pass the news back...

This time, Liu Rong brazenly executed the Xiongnu deputy envoy. It seemed that he was angry and wanted to show off his status as a "victorious country" to intimidate the Xiongnu people, who were the "defeated country".

But in fact, this was a warning to the old Lu family that Liu Rong finally decided to deal after careful consideration.

Especially the sentence 'regardless of whether it is the Han King's army or the Donghu King's army, all will be beheaded', and 'As long as it is a traitor, no matter where he hides, my Han family will never let him go' - Liu Rong dared to guarantee that as long as these two sentences reached Lu Tazhi's ears, the old Lu family would only have two choices left.

Or, they would serve the Huns wholeheartedly and become their dogs, and when they lost their value, they would be abandoned by the Huns.

Or, he could put aside those little tricks, and honestly serve as an intelligence channel for the Han family. After the Han family completely defeated the Huns, he would return to the Han Dynasty and become a leisurely marquis.

As for the present, the Huns' unexpected "premature awakening" and premature shift of their strategic focus to the west are a little tricky for Liu Rong.

But it's just tricky.

Compared to the past, when the Han border wall was struggling to hold on, fearing that the Xiongnu army would one day invade the border, and the area would be devastated for hundreds or thousands of miles, it was already quite good to be just "tricky"...

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"Before I left, my Lord Chanyu gave me some special instructions;"

"As long as His Majesty is merciful and willing to grant peace to the nomadic people who have suffered all their lives, my Lord Chanyu will cede the Henan area of ​​our Great Xiongnu to His Majesty in its entirety."

"In addition, to show the sincerity of our Lord, the Xiongnu will also give a gift of a fine horse from Dayuan and ten beautiful girls as a testimony to the friendship between the Han and Xiongnu brothers for generations."

"In addition, our vast North Sea land of the Great Xiongnu can also be ceded to His Majesty the Emperor..."

As Hu Yanqie put his "sincerity" on the table, some discordant complaints gradually began to be heard in the hall.

"Henan is already owned by the Han dynasty, and we have established two more counties, Shuofang and Wuyuan. Why do we need the Di chieftain to 'cede' it?"

"——That's right, that's right!"

"——Not to mention the good horse. There is only one. Was it given to him by his military officer?"

"Humph, what is this Dayuan horse? I've never heard of it. I'm afraid it's not even as good as a poor horse..."

...

"And there is the North Sea. The people of Mubei have to travel hundreds of miles north to reach the icy land of the North Sea!"

"If his army cedes this piece of land to us, how can we, the Han family, occupy it?"

"What's more, it's rumored that the North Sea has heavy snow for eight months a year, and it's freezing cold all year round."

"Even if we get this land, what can our Han family do with it?"

"We can't really grow our Han family's wheat on that frozen soil..."

As the murmurs became louder, Huyan Qiedang's voice gradually became lower.

But on the imperial couch, Liu Rong instinctively raised his hand and rubbed his lips with the tip of his index finger, his face showing a thoughtful look.

The first article: cede Henan, namely the Hetao area. Liu Rong understood Hu Yanqie Dang’s meaning.

Although Liu Rong had just muttered, "I'll use his military officials to cede it?", Liu Rong knew very well the benefits of this to the Han family.

——Since it is clearly "ceded", there must be written evidence in the form of a letter from the Xiongnu state!

And this evidence became the most solid proof of the Hetao region "since ancient times" in later generations!
In other words, this article has little significance for the Han family today, but it still has good practical benefits for future Chinese generations.

As for the second one: one Dayuan horse and ten girls.

Even though Liu Rong had never seen the "girl" on the grassland, he couldn't say anything good about her.

Could it be possible that the Huns, who ate raw meat and drank blood, could really raise beautiful women with fair skin?
At most, it's not ugly and is acceptable.

As long as Liu Rong wants a woman with this kind of appearance, he will never lack her.

However, the Dayuan horse became an unexpected surprise for Liu Rong.

——Blood horse!

However, this horse somewhat carries the implication that the military official is threatening the Han family.

It was probably because of this horse that Junchen said to Liu Rong in a roundabout way: Brother~
We have a lot of horses like this.
If I really push you to the limit, I will ask the warriors to ride on such tall horses to fuck you~
Listen to me, brother. Stop hitting me.
When I take over Dayuan, I'll have as many horses as you want. It's not impossible for me to give you a few more...

"Blood horse~"

"Tsk, it looks good but is useless..."

"It's so precious, I wish I had to ride on someone to feed them."

"——You really think I don't understand..."

"It's the North Sea..."

...

"Hey!"

"Let Lake Baikal, and even the surrounding East and West Siberia, become the 'since ancient times' of our China..."

"Tsk tsk..."

(End of this chapter)