In the first month of spring, the entire Makuhoku area is still covered in heavy snow.
Hu Lushe led the people to patrol around Langjuxu Mountain. This winter, the Huns in Mubei were having a very difficult time.
Women and children freeze to death and starve to death every day.
Every moment, there are herders and slaves on the run.
In order to prevent these lowly herdsmen and slaves from escaping, all the remaining cavalry from various Xiongnu tribes were mobilized to catch fugitive slaves everywhere.
"Damn Han Dynasty people!" Hu Lushe took a mouthful of dry food and cursed in a low voice.
Of course he had reason to criticize the Han Dynasty.
Because most of the difficulties and disasters suffered by the Northern Huns in the past winter were caused by the Han Dynasty.
Originally, the Shanyu of Juli Lake left behind basic grain and materials during the Western Expedition for the use of the ministries staying in Mubei. In addition, the Huns could transfer grain and materials from various countries in the Western Regions. This was theoretically
It is said that the Huns could survive the past winter safely.
but……
Shortly after Chanyu of Guli Lake led his army to the westward expedition, the Han Dynasty army in the Munan area conducted a large-scale drill in Junji Mountain.
The Loufan Army, the Zhongyong Army, various servants, more than 20,000 cavalry and 10,000 infantry, practiced various tactics along the mountains of Junji Mountain.
His scouts went deep into Junji Mountain and even crossed Junji Mountain, looking for a way to Gonglu River.
This caused Hu Lushe to fall into a terrible trap.
If he sent troops to defend, then the Han Dynasty people would practice for a while and then go home. This waste of food, grass, manpower and material resources would be in vain.
If he turned a blind eye, once the Han Dynasty discovered this fact, or they were already preparing to march north.
Then, the Han Dynasty cavalry could break through the natural dangers of Junji Mountain, cross the Gonglu River, and enter and control this river, which was a matter of life and death for the Xiongnu.
How important is the strategic position of Gonglu Water?
You only need to know that the name of Gonglu River in later generations is Kerulen River.
It was Genghis Khan's earliest base and the place where he called himself Khan.
In history, Huo Qubing's great expedition crossed the Gonglu River and went straight to Langjuxu Mountain.
It is no exaggeration to say that without Gong Lu Shui, the Huns would lose their own lives.
Therefore, Hu Lushe did not dare to gamble at all. He could only choose to mobilize the army and go to the south bank of Gonglu River and Junji Mountain to guard and alert the Han Dynasty cavalry.
Although, he was cautious and only mobilized a force of three thousand cavalry.
but……
Three thousand horsemen means more than ten thousand people, plus war horses and slaves. People eat horses and chew them, which consumes tens of thousands of stones, grain and grass a day.
In the heyday of the Xiongnu Empire, the Huns would not even blink an eye at such a small amount of expenditure.
But now, these expenditures are equivalent to a hippopotamus suddenly running into a small pond during the dry season. In just a blink of an eye, all the water in the pond is drunk.
At this point, Hu Lushe sadly discovered the fact that the Han Dynasty people didn't seem to need to send troops to really attack Mubei.
They only need to hold a show of similar scale a few times a year and use money and food to compete with the Huns, and the Huns will be unable to bear it.
And this is precisely the fact that the Huns are facing now.
Even if the people of the Han Dynasty only used money and food to compete with them, they would not be able to afford it, and they might even be directly consumed to death.
Fortunately, the Huns still have one last way to survive.
"Great Chanyu, you have to grab some money, food and slaves to come back..." Hu Lushe thought in his heart.
Now, the thing that maintains the Xiongnu Empire is the Western Expedition.
As long as the Western Expedition can continue to achieve glorious victories and bring back wealth and slaves.
Then, the Xiongnu Empire still had the capital and ability to confront the Han Dynasty.
otherwise……
Just when I was thinking about these things, I suddenly rode from the east. A cavalryman shouted from a distance on horseback: "Tushe! Tushe! Urgent report from Munan!"
The cavalryman ran up to Hu Lushe, got off his horse, knelt on the ground and said: "Great Tu She, we have just received the news that the Han Dynasty is going to carry out the so-called 'household registration and equalization of the people' policy in Mu Nan.
The people and nobles all wept and begged the Great Chanyu to send troops to bring justice to the various tribes!"
"What's going on?" Hu Lushe heard this and didn't react for a moment.
He didn’t even know what ‘wedding households and bringing people together’ meant.
Until Yang Ye next to him explained to him: "Tushe, the so-called household registration and equalization of the people, is a Chinese system. Everyone is registered as a family unit, and the tingli township and county are organized..."
"Different from the Xiongnu settlement system, China's system of household registration and uniformity of the people, the people are citizens, and the land is the land of the emperor. The so-called whole world is not the king's land, and the shores of the land are not the king's ministers. That's it..."
After hearing the explanation, Hu Lushe immediately laughed: "Justice? It would be best if all of these founders died!"
In Hu Lushe's eyes, the various tribes in Munan and Hexi, no matter what their status was before, now only have one identity: Jianmin!
Because these people were neither willing to follow their Xiongnu masters nor to fight with the Han Dynasty.
In the future, if the Huns can fight back to Munan and regain Hexi, all these scum will be taken as slaves by the Huns, and all their upper-class nobles will be killed.
Use their blood to shock others!
Of course, Hu Lushe would not consider such a long-term matter now.
On the contrary, he suddenly became interested in "organizing households and improving the people's livelihood".
He turned to Yang Ye and asked: "Mr. Yang, in your opinion, is it possible for the people of this household to succeed among the people who lead the bow?"
If there is, then we have to resort to selling iron at the expense of others!
Over the past year or so, the Xiongnu nobles lying in Mubei have learned a painful lesson.
They constantly reflect on their past mistakes and constantly think about reforms.
The banner of the reformists was flying high. Starting from Juli Lake and Hulushe, the majority of high-ranking nobles set an example. Everyone placed a few books of the Han Dynasty in their domes and read them when they had nothing to do.
From Shangshu to The Book of Songs, from the Spring and Autumn Period to The Analects of Confucius, the sound of reading was endless.
The Huns now not only read Chinese books, but also began to copy the system from the Han Dynasty.
Before the Western Expedition of Juli Lake, the core area under the rule of the Northern Xiongnu, which is now the grassland around Langjuxu Mountain and Jinshan Mountain, was directly classified as the pasture of the Xiongnu headquarters, called "Muzhong", which was the same as that of the Han Dynasty.
Correspondingly, Guanzhong claimed that it would take ten years to build this area into the basic territory of the Xiongnu.
You can pull out 100,000 cavalry overnight and dominate the world.
Not only that, the Huns also began to imitate the Han Dynasty in their military system.
They abandoned the ten thousand cavalry system, and instead began to imitate the Han Dynasty's tribal service system, and built two new types of cavalry, one called Mayi and the other Gaoque.
In order to show that he would not forget Mayi and Gaoque's defeat, he wanted to avenge his shame.
However, the name and organization are easy to copy, but the organization cannot be copied.
The Northern Xiongnu, who were under the nomadic tribal system, spent countless efforts to form these two cavalry units that were modeled on the military system of the Han Dynasty. The total number of cavalry was only five thousand.
If you want to push forward, it will be extremely difficult.
After all, now, the Huns only know that the top leaders must learn from the Han and imitate the Han.
But the lower levels were not happy.
Especially the leaders of clans, large and small, Shan Yuting wanted to deprive them of control and command over their warriors and armies.
How could they be willing?
It was this incident that made both Gulihu and Hulushe deeply aware of the shortcomings of the Xiongnu's current social system and organization.
The Huns were simply unable to effectively mobilize and use their own power.
The tribes and clans below have their own affairs.
Chanyu's orders are difficult to implement effectively.
Reform is necessary to change this reality.
In Hu Lushe's eyes, the Han Dynasty's system of "organizing households and bringing together the people" was very good.
The herdsmen and herdsmen were organized into households and established prefectures and counties, thereby depriving the middle nobles of their control over resources and population.
Shan Yuting has great power from now on and can control everything and own everything.
"Tu She..." Yang Ming thought for a moment and then said, "In my opinion, if Tu She behaves like this, I'm afraid that tomorrow everyone will rebel!"
Hu Lushe laughed after hearing this.
He also knew this.
Now, this is the dilemma of the Northern Huns.
The high-ranking nobles, including him as King Youxian, Chanyu, King Guli and the senior nobles of the four major clans, all knew deeply and understood the fact that the Xiongnu Empire would die if it did not change.
But the people below are all stupid.
Especially those side clans and small tribes, they are unwilling to hand over the power in their hands.
"However, why doesn't Tushe first select two trusted clans in Tushe's headquarters to conduct a pilot project?" Yang Ye raised his head and said to Hu Lushe with a smile: "In this way, it will not cause public outrage, but it can also verify the effectiveness of this strategy.
It’s so powerful, wait until the results are achieved, and then implement it. When the leaders see the benefits, they won’t stop them anymore..."
When Hu Lushe heard this, he immediately smiled and thought more highly of Yang Ye.
"This Yang Ming must be contained..." Hu Lushe thought in his heart.
The Xiongnu Empire currently lacks intellectuals like Yang Zeng.
But Yang Ye also laughed in his heart.
"In ancient times, there were Handan people who were learning to walk, but now there are Huns who imitate the Han people..." He was also afraid and fearful in the past. The Huns became stronger after comprehensively learning from the Han Dynasty.
But after staying on this grassland for so long, Yang Ming has become convinced that no matter how the Huns learn, they will only become dogs if they fail to paint tigers.
The reason is very simple. The living habits and lifestyle of the grassland people are completely different from those of China.
The way of thinking and the way of doing things are completely unrelated.
No matter how much the Huns learned from the Han system and civilization, they could never learn the essence or the charm.
Of course, after learning from China, the Huns did make a lot of progress compared to before.
At the very least, under the rule of Hu Lushe, the connections and bonds between the various departments in northern Tokube became closer.
In the crisis of survival, the Xiongnu forces became more united.
In addition, resource utilization has also increased countless times.
For example, the craftsmen captured from the Western Regions forged countless weapons for the Huns in this year.
Thinking of these craftsmen, Yang Ye felt proud in his heart.
Because not long ago, at his suggestion, Hu Lushe ordered all the craftsmen to be gathered together, imitating the Han Dynasty's Shaofu system, and established a Xiongnu Shaofu. Of course, the name was changed, and it was called "Dafu".
The Huns thought this name was good and much more powerful than the Shaofu of the Han Dynasty.
And this is exactly what the Han Dynasty needs.
"The next day when the king's army goes to the north, they only need to capture the 'big mansion' and immediately obtain all the craftsmen of the Huns..." Yang Ming thought proudly in his heart.
He has already passed on the specific location and information about the palace through his emissary.
"Mr. Yang, not long ago, a slave reported that iron ore was discovered near Jinshan..." Hu Lushe said to Yang Zeng, "Sir, do you know how to smelt iron ore?"
Regarding iron smelting technology, the Huns dreamed of it.
In the past two years, the Huns have been experimenting with iron ore smelting methods everywhere.
I have used all the tricks, and I have also refined some iron.
But unfortunately, the output is too small, the cost is too high, and it is basically low-quality pig iron.
After all, the Huns did not even fully master the bronze smelting technology. How easy was it to smelt qualified and usable refined iron?
It was only after a large number of craftsmen were brought back from Daxia that the Huns' smelting technology ushered in a leap forward.
But it is still far from overcoming the difficulties of iron smelting technology.
Yang Ye shook his head with a smile and said: "Tu She, I am just a scholar. How can I know these skills? If Tu She wanted to make iron, he would have to find a Mohist from the Mohist family..."
After hearing this, Hu Lushe was dejected.
In the past two years, the Huns also learned the specific situation of hundreds of families in the Han Dynasty.
Now that they know the existence of the Mohists, the Huns are salivating over the Mohists, but unfortunately, until now, the Huns have not been able to touch the sleeves of their apprentices, let alone the Mohists.
The only way for the Huns to understand the Mohists was through various Han Dynasty jokes and stories.
Of course, there are also all kinds of magical weapons that showed great power on the battlefield and made the Xiongnu frightened.
"If I can get help from Yi Mo, I would be willing to give him the land of a country!" Hu Lushe sighed.
Yang Ming listened on the side and nodded secretly in his heart. This Xiongnu Righteous King was indeed an outstanding person.
He is smart, wise, studious and inquiring. He is very hungry for Chinese culture and knowledge.
He had only been exposed to Chinese culture for two years, but he was already able to recite Shangshu and The Book of Songs by heart. He could even talk to him about the history of the Spring and Autumn Period and the difference between justice and benefit.
It's a pity that he was born in the Huns.
Yang Ming sometimes even thought about assassinating this outstanding Huns person rather than risking his own life.
However, Hu Lushe looks careless on the surface, but in fact he is very thoughtful. No matter where he goes, he will be accompanied by more than a dozen loyal warriors.
Yang Yi couldn't find any chance to assassinate him.
After Hu Lushe finished sighing, he suddenly thought of something: "Mr. Yang, since this policy of reorganizing households and regulating the people is not suitable for the fortress, why did the Han Dynasty people take it to Munan to implement it? The emperor of the Han Dynasty was not afraid of public anger?"
"It has aroused public outrage..." Yang Zheng said with a smile: "Didn't Tushe hear it? All the ministries in the southern part of the country are asking Tushe to make the decision?"
"I see..." Hu Lushe nodded and seemed to have come to his senses. He asked, "Then why did the Emperor of the Han Dynasty implement such a policy that even I know will definitely arouse public outrage?"
"Without it, the armor is strong and the cavalry is invincible..." Yang Ye said leisurely.
"I see. I didn't expect that the gap between Han and Huns today is so huge..." Hu Lushe sighed. The gap between Han and Huns today is as big as a chasm.
While the Huns were still worrying about how to survive, the Han Dynasty people could already ignore the resistance of various tribes in the southern part of the country as if they were nothing.
This time, the various tribes in Makunan will probably suffer a serious blow.
But this has nothing to do with the Northern Huns. It would be best if all those slaves died. Of course, it would be perfect if the Han Dynasty could be held back.
only……
This is impossible.
The people of the Han Dynasty only need to send out their ace horse, and the resistance of various tribes will dissipate like ice and snow meeting the sun.
Yang Ye looked at him and said nothing.
Because Yang Ye knew that Hu Lu She was acting in front of him!
The tricks I learned from books were used.
He has evolved from the realm of undressing and eating, to a higher realm.
Human relationships, feelings and perceptions have all become his means.
If it had been anyone else, he might have been intimidated by this Yi Di monarch and would have been willing to act as his lackey and hawk from then on.
But it's a pity...
"I have already pledged my heart to the three kings and ordered to serve the five emperors..." Yang Ming shook his head in his heart.
During his years in Lantai, his three views had long been influenced by the strong Zhuxia nationalism.
For him, his allegiance is not to the Liu family.
And dating back to three thousand years ago, this Xia nation and this Central Empire were passed down by the Xia ancestors who held up the torch of civilization.
This kind of loyalty to one's family, country and nation is naturally far stronger than loyalty to the king.
And he was also one of the first nationalists in the world.
Therefore, Hu Lushe's wooing and corruption only caused a little ripple in his heart, and then it completely disappeared.
Hu Lushe looked at Yang Ye and couldn't help but shook his head in his heart, but his hope was still there.
Hu Lushe couldn't believe it. Are there really any hard-hearted people in this world? Who else can not be loyal to him despite his all-round solicitation?
