Chapter 1680: Conservatism and Expansion

The height of summer in the twenty-first year of Kaibao arrived quietly, but this year's summer, this year's summer, was mild and unhurried, barely carrying any sense of heat. In the Eastern Capital, whether nobles and officials or common townsfolk, everyone enjoyed a measure of ease.

Of course, the price of this comfort was severe. The Imperial Observatory, the agricultural section of the Ministry of Revenue, and various far-sighted figures at court all submitted memorials of warning, saying the climate was abnormal.

Local governments and agricultural officials across the realm also submitted petitions, saying this year's grain harvest might be poor. The court had no choice but to take this seriously, because from the statistics of grain production and granary intake over the past several years, it could be clearly seen that the overall level was declining year by year.

Meanwhile, the population of the Great Han was continuously growing. The court, which had not felt the pressure of grain shortages for many years, was once again cast under that shadow.

In this regard, the matter could not be ignored. The Hall of State Affairs also issued strict orders: should a large-scale grain failure occur, preparations for disaster relief had to be made in advance, so as to avoid famine.

The foundations the Great Han had accumulated over several decades were still quite substantial, especially in the most recent ten years, which had been a golden period of development. Granaries across the realm were basically full, and the Ministry of Revenue had even begun clearing out and replacing old grain and rotting rice. Of course, this also stirred up some corruption scandals, and a batch of vermin was duly cleaned out along the way.

Even with sufficient confidence, the powerful figures at the center could not help but fret and worry, for in just the unfinished first half of the twenty-first year of Kaibao, the Great Han had been far from peaceful.

Of course, internal contradictions, especially official corruption, had been somewhat alleviated after last year's purge. The meat-eaters at the top had become more restrained, more subdued, more low-key.

Various administrative abuses in the regions were also beginning to be addressed and gradually eased. But war, like a specter, hovered over the Great Han, fraught with intense uncertainty — fortune and misfortune alike impossible to predict.

Not only was Yulin suppressing rebellion, the Western Regions were in the midst of great conflict, Yunnan Circuit was again in turmoil, Annam and the natives of the destroyed Champa had also risen in resistance, and on the Andong front, the northern Shiwei peoples, led mainly by the Mongol Shiwei, had begun migrating south and west, encroaching upon Andong's borders. Liu Xu had dispatched troops to campaign against and drive them off. Of course, the Khitan in Mobei also felt the threat and likewise sent troops eastward, showing signs of expansion once more.

In the South Seas, the long-brewing punitive campaign against Srivijaya had finally begun. The Chief Commander of Annam led more than twenty thousand troops of the navy and army southward.

Thanks to his outstanding performance previously, Guo Liangping not only continued to command the Annam fleet, but Emperor Liu also had him concurrently serve as Chief Commander of Annam, precisely to facilitate his unified command of the naval and land forces in attacking Srivijaya.

Faced with this situation of fires burning on all sides, there was great controversy within the court. Even Zhao Pu explicitly opposed it. Although aside from the Western Regions, these were all minor skirmishes, the conservative forces were everywhere, and they formed a fairly loud voice. But in the end, everyone could only hold their noses and accept it.

Some things simply had to be done. The rebellion of Li Jiqian needed no mention — that was an internal revolt, which had to be suppressed and crushed with thunderous force to intimidate those rebellious elements. This was politically correct; anyone who dared to counsel against it would be cutting themselves off from Emperor Liu and from the Great Han court.

As for fighting the Kara-Khanids, in Emperor Liu's view, if you don't strike them, they will come strike you. Better to take the initiative than to suffer humiliation passively. Moreover, taking the Kara-Khanids was not entirely without benefit for the Great Han — at the very least, it would remove one dangerous, greedy bloodsucker from the east-west trade route.

The only thing truly worth debating was probably the war against Srivijaya. From beginning to end, this was a matter of the Great Han actively picking a fight. What it reflected was the expansiveness of the Great Han's maritime trade, undertaken to safeguard the security of the South Seas shipping lanes and trade routes, and it also embodied the offensive will of a portion of the navy's officers and men.

Even if only for that reason, Emperor Liu had to support the demands of the naval commanders led by Guo Liangping. Moreover, fighting a Srivijaya that appeared powerful but was in truth still a native force — Emperor Liu did not see any difficulty in it. Sending a detached force would probably be even easier than disciplining Goryeo back in the day. And Srivijaya had repeatedly refused the court's "goodwill" — this was a sign of non-submission, and it deserved a lesson.

As for the Shiwei migration and invasion on the Andong front, that was even less worth mentioning. It could be regarded as a disturbance by native barbarians, something the Andong Protectorate could handle on its own, of no great consequence to the overall situation.

But when all these situations were combined and laid out together on the desks of the central ministers, they could not help but feel worry and vexation.

The Great Han had been founded for thirty-five years now. In those thirty-five years, its achievements in both civil governance and military might were worthy of praise. Having survived those thirty-five years, identification with the state had formed from top to bottom. Political stability and economic prosperity seemed to prove that the Great Han would not be a short-lived dynasty — this was enough to put people at ease.

But accompanying this was the rise of conservative forces centered on the aristocratic bureaucracy, and the strengthening of conservative consciousness. Historical inertia drove them, in internal affairs, to safeguard the empire's stability and their class interests at any cost, with any means necessary.

In external affairs, they inevitably made choices that appeared more prudent and safe. The rise of overseas trade had indeed allowed a portion of the emerging classes to rise, but they remained a minority.

The Great Han's basic foundation was already large enough, and internal resources were sufficient to keep the vast majority of the upper classes well-fed and content. Therefore, they habitually leaned toward managing internal affairs well rather than recklessly expanding, for not everyone could benefit from it.

Whether the western campaign or the southern expedition, both embodied Emperor Liu's will. In this regard, Emperor Liu was in the minority.

Of course, the conservative forces' considerations had their basis. For the most recent lesson, one only needed to look at Li Longji. Naturally, no one dared to compare Emperor Liu to Li Longji, but there were quite a few who, observing the changes in the court's internal and external situation in recent years, compared Zhao Pu to Li Linfu.

Fight then — since the blade had been drawn, without blood and without sufficient gains, how could one easily sheathe it? In the calculations of many court officials, once the war progressed to a certain point and achieved some acceptable objectives, they could submit remonstrances to end the fighting and restore peace and stability.

But an arrow already loosed is hard to control. In just two months, the Great Han court was soberly reminded that their thinking had been somewhat naive.

Especially the war in the Western Regions — as battle reports from the front continued to arrive, the enormous casualties and bloody numbers made many people secretly uneasy. Of course, they would not admit their inner cowardice and conservatism.

Since the founding of the state, in all the wars fought, casualties in the millions were still vivid in memory. Compared to that, the dead and wounded beneath the walls of Kucha counted for nothing. But this did not stop some who knew history well from using it as a mirror, firmly believing that if the desire for expansion were not suppressed, the Western Regions war would inevitably become a bleeding point draining the court's national strength.

Even setting aside practical realities — to support the tens of thousands of troops in the Western Regions, Hexi alone was insufficient. Manpower and materiel had to be drawn from the northwest as well to meet the need, which in itself meant enormous cost.

After all, the Han army in the Western Regions was not an army formed by simply handing out weapons. This could almost be regarded as the pinnacle of cold-weapon-era military forces, and the supporting logistics were extremely vast, for the Han army had a tradition of fighting lavishly.

Moreover, due to Li Jiqian's rebellion, the northwest region, rife with contradictions, was already unstable. To resist external threats, one must first pacify internal ones — how could one suppress rebellion on one front while launching a massive foreign campaign on another? Even from a purely military standpoint, this was a major taboo.

Though the voices of dissent were loud, they were suppressed, because there were also many supporters, and their hard power was stronger. Not to mention Emperor Liu, who held the greatest say, the northwestern military establishment and those nobles whose sons were participating in the western expedition also supported it — after all, one could not hold back one's own descendants.

If the Western Regions war had to be accepted with noses held under the pressure of the court's authority, then the war against Srivijaya completely exceeded the expectations of most court officials.

The operational plan Guo Liangping submitted was to dispatch troops to seize Pulau Ujong Island, establish a naval base, use war to promote peace, and stop once the objective was achieved.

But once these naval and land forces were sent out, things could not be reined in. After successfully taking Pulau Ujong Island, Guo Liangping, citing Srivijaya's refusal to submit, sent troops deep into its territory, taking cities and seizing land. At the same time, he also proposed a fanciful strategic plan of advancing from both north and south, intending to march south overland from the Champa region to completely level the Srivijaya area.

One should know that if Guo Liangping's ideas were followed, then Zhenla (the Angkor dynasty), which separated Annam from Srivijaya, would be an unavoidable topic.

One could hardly worsen relations with Zhenla and expand the flames of war. As for Guo Liangping's proposal of "borrowing passage," the court officials scoffed at it — this fellow simply wanted to expand the war and demand more troops and grain from the court.

Zhenla was currently a major state on the Indochinese Peninsula. Though not taken seriously by the court, it was still a century-old polity with its own glory and prosperity. When the Han army had swept through Annam and later destroyed Champa in the process of suppressing bandits, it had already aroused Zhenla's worry and wariness.

Now, with the war against Srivijaya not yet concluded, if the flames of war were allowed to spread across the Indochinese Peninsula, the consequences would be difficult even for the Great Han to bear.

The principle that going too far is as bad as falling short was fairly easy to understand. Therefore, both the civil official bloc and the Bureau of Military Affairs rejected Guo Liangping's proposal. The Bureau of Military Affairs even issued a severely worded edict, ordering Guo Liangping to fight Srivijaya well, end the war as quickly as possible, force Srivijaya to sue for peace, and acknowledge the Great Han's occupation of Pulau Ujong Island.

Only thus was Guo Liangping's ambition of expanding territory by thousands of li and being ennobled as a duke extinguished. But even so, his hand stretched out to the court for aid remained unrelenting — demanding troops, demanding grain, even demanding men.

When this matter reached Emperor Liu's ears, he likewise chose to support the decisions of the Hall of State Affairs and the Bureau of Military Affairs. Guo Liangping's pioneering and enterprising spirit was worthy of affirmation, but after one long voyage, the fellow's horizons had broadened even further, and his desire for expansion had thoroughly ignited. He had to be doused with a bucket of cold water to cool him down.

Excessive expansion was not a good thing — on this point, there was some consensus within the court, and the court had suffered deeply from it in the past. Even the war against the Kara-Khanids might not have ultimately come to military means had it not been for those "unexpected" factors.

As for expansion into the South Seas, while Emperor Liu certainly supported it, what he hoped for even more was economic expansion, focused primarily on resource plundering. As for destroying states and expanding territory, that was quite unnecessary. A disobedient little pest like Srivijaya only needed to be beaten into submission — one could even support a new regime in its place. To take everything and hold everything was truly unnecessary.