Chapter 2192: The Peninsula's History Ends—The Limit

Liu Jirong, the third King of Linyi, formally ascended the throne in the twelfth year of Jianlong. By the second year of Zhengtong, over fourteen years, he launched wars at a frequency of roughly twice per year.

Of course, the scale of these wars was not particularly large—the big battles had already been fought by his predecessors—and half of his energy was spent on suppressing internal unrest and rebellious tribes.

As a multi-ethnic vassal state, with the Han people, as outsiders, holding the dominant ruling position and enjoying most of the state's resources, it was impossible for Linyi to be free of resistance. Counterinsurgency warfare had been waged in Linyi for decades as well.

Especially on those Chenla lands that Linyi had conquered and annexed—those tribes, princes, and Khmers whose interests had been damaged—facing the Han's forceful rule and exploitation, they could hardly refrain from opposition.

Building on the decades of management by two generations of former kings, and on the hard work of hundreds of thousands of Han sons, Liu Jirong adopted a strategy combining "internal pacification and external warfare," thoroughly completing the conquest of the southern regions of the former Chenla state, especially the vast plains of the Tonlé Sap. This was also the foundation upon which the Angkor dynasty had been established—losing this, the Chenla state was left with nothing but an empty name.

Back when Liu Wenyan campaigned against Chenla, after achieving the final decisive victory over the enemy, he established the two prefectures of Dun and Lin in the region from southwest of the Tonlé Sap to the coast.

By the second year of Zhengtong, after Liu Jirong carried on his father's ambitions with fourteen years of unbroken conquest and annexation, the state of Linyi had come to fully occupy the Tonlé Sap region and the Mekong River basin to the east, essentially incorporating the southern part of modern Vietnam and Cambodia into its territory.

He also established Ji Prefecture, Xian Prefecture, and Zhan Prefecture east of the Tonlé Sap, and Ke Prefecture, Na Prefecture, and Bo Prefecture in the upper Mekong River basin.

At this point, the Linyi state ruled by Liu Jirong, more than half a century after its founding, already possessed eighteen prefectures and had devoured the national destiny of the Angkor dynasty, which ought to have marched toward a glorious history.

After the Empire's great army struck it down, Linyi hurried forward, kicked it viciously several more times, then stepped on it until it was dead, drawing the nourishment for national development from its corpse. Thus Linyi became the second-largest state on the peninsula and an imperial vassal state with broad influence across the South Seas region.

The northern expedition Liu Jirong launched in the second year of Zhengtong went a step further on this foundation. Though nominally a pursuit of the Chenla court that had already moved north to "Phitsanulok," in reality it was a campaign against those fragmented, separatist tribal princes of the former Chenla.

This was destined not to be a simple, easy, or swift matter. The complexity and difficulty lay not in military affairs, but in unfamiliar geography, harsh environments, and backward transportation—all of which greatly drained Linyi's national strength.

Therefore, after the arduous conquest of several northern highland princes, and having tasted more than enough hardship himself, Liu Jirong finally restrained his eager heart for conquest, changing from direct annexation to a system of loose control.

This move indeed reduced resistance to the northern campaign. On the premise of guaranteeing the power and class interests of the original princes and chieftains, those Khmers naturally had no desire to oppose a powerful and fierce Han kingdom.

Thus, emulating the native chieftain system of the Empire's heartland, Liu Jirong also enfeoffed a large number of native chieftains in the northern regions of Linyi, and those who showed "filial obedience" could even be granted noble titles.

Loose control was a choice made under duress, but its positive and constructive significance cannot be denied—while achieving territorial expansion, it also ensured stability in Linyi's northern borders for a considerable period.

With the north stabilized, Liu Jirong was able to free up his hands to continue deepening development at home—opening up wasteland for cultivation, attracting and pacifying the people, establishing institutions, and promoting Sinicization.

The "River Prefecture region" of the lower Mekong had been regarded by Linyi as the foundation for its rise more than forty years earlier, and it had fought tooth and nail with Chenla over it. And the Tonlé Sap region, which had nurtured the so-called "Khmer Empire," with its great plains, was even more fertile and possessed a richer foundation.

When these two fertile lands fell into the hands of Linyi, under Han governance and management, they evidently obtained better development, with the level of civilization and enlightenment greatly elevated.

Subsequent historical development proved that, leveraging the uniquely favorable water and soil conditions of these two plains and river prefectures, after decades of management, Linyi's national strength rose rapidly, at one point approaching or even surpassing Annam.

In his later years, King Liu Jirong of Linyi, finding Jin Prefecture too narrow and cramped to govern all directions effectively, moved the capital from Jinlan City to Mao Prefecture, and on the foundation of the old city, established a new capital spanning the Yan River (Liu Jirong carried out a comprehensive Sinicization renaming campaign throughout the state; the Tonlé Sap was renamed Yan Lake, with "Yan" connecting to "Yan" 【of Liu Wenyan】)—the Southern Capital.

It should also be mentioned that Liu Jirong's northern expedition in the second year of Zhengtong, while certainly not achieving the feat of expanding territory a thousand li or conquering ten thousand states, was nevertheless the first time Linyi's army crossed the highland mountains surrounding the Yan Lake great plain on three sides, ascended the northern plateau, and set foot on the Chao Phraya River plain of modern Thailand.

This latter development also caused Linyi to encounter another troublesome problem: it now bordered the Coastal State on the west by land. As early as thirty years prior, when the Coastal State was still under the rule of Liu Wenhai, it had established strongholds along the Gulf of Thailand coast. After decades of development, a new city had formed—Bin Prefecture—and taking advantage of Chenla's collapse, it had pushed more than two hundred li inland.

Here, one must again mention the Coastal State established by Coastal King Liu Wenhai. Compared with Linyi, this was truly an extreme regime.

Due to insufficient support from the Empire (the Coastal State could be said to have been carved out by Liu Wenhai blade by blade, relying on the legacy of Jin Prince Liu Xi), forced to rely only on itself, Liu Wenhai forged the Coastal State into an extremely aggressive militaristic nation, and the Coastal State maintained its development and even survival through its military-state system.

The foundation of Han civilization, combined with a high degree of military organization and the plunder of benefits—the combination of these three erupted with extremely formidable combat power in Liu Wenhai's hands, directly knocking the Pagan Kingdom, which had been on a path of flourishing development, back to its original state. For a time, it could only rely on the complex northern geography to defend itself, pitifully clinging to its regime.

Of course, this military kingdom built single-handedly by Liu Wenhai could not possibly be healthy. It delighted in war but was deficient in production and development. Once the gains of war could no longer offset the costs and losses, major problems would arise.

Liu Wenhai had already realized this in his later years and had begun to make changes. He obtained a certain degree of support and achieved some results, establishing a number of agricultural production zones in the lower Burma region.

Unfortunately, Liu Wenhai died too early—in the sixth year of Jianlong, he passed away from illness while on a campaign to suppress rebellion, at just fifty-four years of age. This also interrupted the Coastal State's difficult transformation process.

After Liu Wenhai's death, his second son, Liu Jixu, inherited the throne. But Liu Jixu clearly lacked his father's prestige and ability, and was even less capable of handling the great matter of shifting the Coastal State's system. Thus, in those years, the Coastal State remained in constant struggle, especially in the great matters of war versus development, never able to find a balance.

It even relaxed its suppression of the Pagan Kingdom, which was barely surviving in the northern mountain regions. Had it not been for the "Dian people" entering Burma after the Dian-Qian Rebellion, merging with Pagan, and later falling into internal strife that threw Pagan into chaos, the Coastal State might not have been able to pacify the north and achieve the complete annexation of the Burma region.

However, such a Coastal State clearly had no small problems and severe contradictions. When facing internal unrest rising one after another, the Coastal State, founded on military force, inevitably faced a question: where to expand next?

The coastal region to the east was clearly a good direction, and a solid foundation had already been laid there. When the highly expansionist Coastal State and the equally formidable Linyi under Liu Jirong's rule both extended their claws toward the great plains of "Thailand" at the same time, sparks flying between them was a perfectly normal thing.

In fact, by the second year of Zhengtong, after more than half a century of development by the three states across the entire Indochinese Peninsula, little room remained.

Fertile lands and advantageous positions had already been divided up more or less completely, and the remaining wild and remote regions held little appeal. Under these circumstances, the "crowded feeling" among the three states would only grow more pronounced. How to handle this situation was a difficult challenge for the three states, and for the Central Empire, it was an equally difficult—perhaps even unsolvable—problem......