Chapter 880

Han Sui truly did not disappoint Wang Yan's expectations; before even receiving the troops and armor, he had already begun military operations in the Western Regions, seizing resources and treasures, and cultivating cotton on a large scale throughout the Hexi Corridor to fund the purchase of military equipment.

Matters like cotton did not require much from Wang Yan. After all, when Cheng Gongying left, it was already the spring plowing season, and by the time he reached Zhending, the spring plowing would be nearly over; if they waited for news to be sent back, they would inevitably miss the farming season. It was something they had prepared for long ago, and they had to plant more cotton.

At the same time, Han Sui was actively connecting with various barbarian tribes, lobbying them to accompany him to the Western Regions to attack Kushan. Han Sui had also grasped the essentials of uniting the majority and creating a community of shared interests; in fact, this was the true essence of the vertical and horizontal alliances.

To Han Sui, the various barbarian tribes were the majority, and they were indeed facing the same situation. Grand General Wang was incomparably fierce, blocking all paths to the south and cutting off trade routes, allowing only his own people to trade, and the barbarians dared not kill them. On one hand, they feared the terrifying, "harder to die than to live" retaliation that would follow; on the other hand, it was because there was only this one caravan, and if there were no trade, they would have no way to continue living.

However, while they did not kill the caravans, the caravans were rampant in spreading news, spying for intelligence, and drawing maps. When winter arrived, Liao Hua would lead the Brave Cavalry Battalion to slaughter them. In this way, their strength was constantly consumed, making them weaker and weaker.

Moreover, Wang Yan had now begun his advance into Liangzhou, and he certainly would not abandon the grasslands. Furthermore, Han Sui was now preparing to run, and it was not as if they hadn't resisted before; they truly could not withstand it. Thus, facing Han Sui's invitation to build a state outside the borders was their only choice.

If they did not comply, they could only despairingly wait for the iron hooves of Wang Yan's great army to approach and harvest their lives...

Therefore, a great change was currently occurring in the grasslands and Liangzhou regions not yet occupied by Wang Yan, with countless people dying every day.

This was because the various barbarian tribes were clear about Wang Yan's system. Some of the barbarians at the bottom did not want to leave, and they would not be killed by Wang Yan; he would even give them cattle, sheep, and horses. Only those chieftains who enslaved them and those tribal warriors who bullied them would be the ones killed.

Now, because these people feared Wang Yan, they wanted to flee and wanted to drag them along to continue selling their lives to those who oppressed them elsewhere, living the same life as now. Moreover, it was such a long distance to migrate, and various accidents would always occur along the way. If they could live and live well, no one would want to die. Especially since the barbarians did not have the so-called concept of "great righteousness," their hearts naturally leaned toward a better life.

It was for this reason that serious internal strife occurred among the barbarian tribes, with many people driving cattle and sheep and taking their families to migrate eastward. Some came to the grasslands, and some entered the lands in Liangzhou controlled by Wang Yan.

Grand General Wang was very welcoming of this; these were all human resources. Although there might be difficulties for a time, in the long run, it was undoubtedly better; after all, human resources were the most important.

Ultimately, by the summer of 198, Han Sui had retreated to the Western Regions as promised, and the disputes on the grasslands had thoroughly reached a conclusion. Wang Yan had fully recovered Liangzhou and the three-thousand-li grasslands; his territory was vast, but the population was very sparse, and there were ethnic issues that would be difficult to resolve in the short term.

However, this was not a major problem; as long as the work of population migration was carried out continuously, utilizing education and intermarriage, and with the strength of the empire, it could be successful in a few decades.

In fact, the eastern grassland regions and the original northeastern regions of the Wuhuan, Xianbei, Fuyu, and Goguryeo could already be considered to have initially integrated, and there had been no internal ethnic conflicts so far. Achieving this had already taken ten years.

Removing the factor of educational brainwashing, more of it actually lay in development. Because rapid development would indeed resolve many internal contradictions; if the empire was strong, then everything was easy to talk about. People would automatically yearn for more prosperous places, which would prompt them to follow the rules, thereby striving toward prosperity and ultimately truly identifying with this system.

Wang Yan had a long time; by the time another batch of people died, another batch was educated, and rapid development assimilated everyone, it would basically be a success.

Just as Grand General Wang was focused on internal affairs, developing the grasslands and Liangzhou, rectifying the interior at a deeper level, resolving problems, and developing once more, the news that he had thoroughly occupied the grasslands and Liangzhou spread throughout the world along with the opening of trade routes and the printing of news details in newspapers.

Once the news came out, the world was truly shocked.

To this day, if one were to speak of the knowledgeable people in the world—that is, the powerful clans, wealthy households, and others who belonged to the exploiting and ruling class—they were already very clear about Wang Yan. It could even be said that when they had nothing to do, they were studying Wang Yan. These people were all discussing major world events, and when they gathered with others, they would open their mouths to talk about Wang Yan, because Wang Yan was someone who could not be bypassed no matter what; they truly had no way to pretend they didn't see him.

Therefore, they were very clear that there was no land in Wang Yan's hands that was held through loose control; it was all under actual control. This was also what made them very puzzled. Past emperors and generals had never been able to achieve thorough control, yet Wang Yan had done it. They studied everything from the system to policies and development. Looking at the results, they could naturally understand.

But the main thing was this process, the main thing was the initial creative ideas. Yet Wang Yan's identity was known to all the world—he was just a commoner. How such a person learned to read and study, and how he had such ideas, was what they could not understand. One by one, they suspected whether there really were heavenly gods and whether Wang Yan had luckily obtained an opportunity to achieve such a hegemony.

These were all things they studied when bored, but no matter what, it could not change one fact: Wang Yan had thoroughly swept through the north of the Yellow River and the vast northwest, and even unified all the grasslands of Mobei; the barbarians of Mobei had also disappeared into the desert, never daring to invade again.

That is to say, with the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River as a line, in the north of Luoyang, Chang'an, and even further west, Wang Yan no longer had a single enemy, and no one could distract Wang Yan's energy.

One must know that after the autumn harvest every year, Wang Yan would publish the statistics, letting people know exactly what their situation was now.

Since unifying Hebei, while other places saw reduced production, Wang Yan had managed to increase grain production every year. The population had even begun to explode in growth, with hundreds of thousands of newborns added each year, and the data was continuing to rise.

This was because Wang Yan had been starting his enterprise for fourteen years now. In the past fourteen years, there had never been any natural or man-made disasters in his governed territories. Even if occasionally some livestock fell ill and transmitted it to humans, under the powerful intervention of medicine, it was suppressed in a very short time.

And in the fourteen years of military operations, the dead and wounded soldiers did not exceed 150,000. Of course, the "wounded" in this statistic only refers to those whose lives were affected. Otherwise, with the high-intensity training of the army, there would always be fractures and the like; in battle, there were stray arrows, and collisions of swords and blades caused damage. For wounded soldiers, there were as many wounded as there were soldiers.

To summarize, it was successfully blocking the war outside their own governed areas. The common people under his rule, after more than ten years of recuperation and continuously improving material conditions, could be considered thoroughly stable. Added to this was the promotion of hygiene and medical care by medicine, which influenced people's lifespans, infant survival rates, etc., causing the population growth to begin to defy the original ancient population growth laws and break through the upper limit.

And the marriage age stipulated by Grand General Wang was eighteen, which is to say that until now, no children who grew up under his rule had truly married and had children. But in four more years, it would exactly be the time of a generation, and the population growth under his rule would be higher year after year. Because the newborns under his rule were emerging more and more each year.

Similarly, the students in the schools and the talents produced by the Wenchang Pavilion, medicine, etc., although limited by the lack of educated people and a severe shortage of teaching strength, could not match the population growth, but they were also exploding in growth.

Strength is like a snowball; once it becomes strong, it will continue to be strong. The only thing that can destroy it is itself. That is a collapse from the inside out. But now Wang Yan is in his prime and will continue to be in his prime for eighty or ninety years. He has truly created an even more powerful empire once again...

Now that Wang Yan's power has reached this point, what needs to be done next is self-evident.

Everyone in the world knows that Wang Yan has newly acquired vast grasslands and the land of Liangzhou, adding a million barbarians. These barbarians must be stabilized, and the newly acquired places must also begin to be built and developed according to other prefectures; it will inevitably be stable for a few years. Once digested, moving south is an inevitable matter. And the strategy is also an open secret; the next step must be to take down the region north of the Yangtze River and unify the north.

And the Qingzhou, Yanzhou, Xuzhou, and Yuzhou between the Yellow River and the Yangtze River were occupied by Yuan Shao and Cao Cao. That is why there was a relatively peaceful year, and Yuan Shao, who finally had a little grain in his hands, fought Cao Cao again.

In the past peaceful year, old Cao did not stop his troops; he just stopped fighting Yuan Shao, but he was still fiercely attacking Yuan Shu and Liu Biao. The situation was clear to anyone, and old Cao naturally understood it, so he naturally set his sights on the south of the Yangtze River.

Although it was not completely peaceful with Yuan Shao before, when Cao Cao attacked Liu Biao and Yuan Shu, Yuan Shao would still send troops to harass and distract him, but in the end, they did not go to full-scale war. Moreover, Liu Bei had already firmly established himself in the south of the Yangtze River, distracting a considerable portion of Yuan Shu's attention. Therefore, Cao Cao's strike against Yuan Shu was relatively successful.

Old Cao was indeed a quite formidable military strategist, using all kinds of schemes, attacking Yuan Shu on one side while inciting the powerful clans under Liu Biao, and at the same time contacting the powerful clans under Yuan Shao and Yuan Shu. It could be said that old Cao grasped the weaknesses of each warlord very accurately and utilized them to internally divide the warlords and weaken their combat power.

This was indeed a very effective strategy, because as far as the current situation was concerned, among the military capabilities displayed by the various warlords, Cao Cao was the most powerful. With only Liu Bei as an ally and facing attacks from three sides, although the internal livelihood was not good, he repeatedly achieved success externally and reached his strategic goals.

But no matter what, on the whole, Cao Cao was still at a disadvantage.

On the contrary, Liu Bei, because he originally modeled himself after Grand General Wang, and because he himself was not truly useless, could withstand the pressure when fighting Yuan Shu one-on-one. With the pressure dispersed by Cao Cao's attack from the other side, Liu Bei had expanded rapidly in the past year or more. He had already controlled Wu Commandery and most of the regions of Kuaiji and Danyang commanderies, and could be considered to have considerable power.

Yuan Shu clearly could not hold on for much longer, but it was precisely at this time that because Wang Yan had fully obtained the grasslands and Liangzhou, and Yuan Shao had begun to fiercely attack Cao Cao again, Yuan Shu was given a chance to catch his breath.

Now the situation in the south was very chaotic. Yuan Shao wanted to kill Cao Cao before moving south of the Yangtze River. Cao Cao wanted to kill Yuan Shu first to move south of the Yangtze River and manage it earlier. However, Yuan Shao sent troops, and Cao Cao had to fight Yuan Shao to the death first. Liu Biao firmly allied with Yuan Shao and was also attacking Cao Cao. Yuan Shu, because of Yuan Shao's actions, gained a chance to catch his breath and turned to fight Liu Bei to the death, determined to unify the Yangtze River region and the south of the Yangtze River to hold the south and respond to the changing times.

And Sun Ce, under Yuan Shu, although his independence failed again because of Liu Bei and he had to submit to Yuan Shao again, Sun Ce was indeed capable of fighting. Now in times of crisis, Yuan Shu had to reuse him, so Sun Ce's power was also developing and growing. This was an internal hidden danger for Yuan Shu, and a quite serious one at that.

At the same time, because old Cao incited the powerful clans, except for Liu Bei who was not greatly affected, the interior of the others was now very turbulent. Because the pressure Wang Yan gave them was too great, and they did not want to lose their hereditary family inheritance, they could only keep tossing and turning.

Unifying the south of the Yangtze River to resist the rebel Wang had increasingly become the common interest of the powerful families north of the Yellow River, and they were attempting to act together.

Even though Wang Yan's newspaper clearly wrote that Han Sui was going to take his main force and the coalition of barbarians to expedition to Kushan, and introduced the currently known situation of the Kushan state, giving Han Sui quite high praise and clearly stating that he had already asked historians to write history for Han Sui, the powerful clans in the south of the Yangtze River did not have the idea of opening up further south.

It was a waste of Grand General Wang's good intentions. He actually very much encouraged these powerful clans to go out; after all, these people were all experts at playing with people, and if they went out, they would definitely be quite capable of tossing and turning, but it was a pity.

However, Wang Yan didn't care; if they didn't go out, they would just die, it was no big deal.

Time passed in development. Wang Yan once again sat on the mountain and watched the tigers fight, steadily managing his territory, developing and building Bingzhou, Liangzhou, and the grasslands, and stabilizing the barbarians under his rule so they would not repeatedly cause chaos.

It was not until more than a year later, entering the new era, that is, 200 AD, that the peace and comfort under Grand General Wang's rule were broken.

In fact, the calendar used under his rule was the Huang Di Calendar, but it was not the pure Huang Di Calendar. It was improved on the basis of the Huang Di Calendar by some so-called strange people and scholars under him—that is, those who practiced Daoism, studied the Five Elements and Eight Trigrams, astronomy and astrology, divination and calculation, etc. However, they all started with the Huang Di Era, and the specific name was the "Zhonghua Calendar."

So according to the Zhonghua Calendar, this year should be the 2897th year of Kaiyuan. Under Grand General Wang's rule, it was called "Zhonghua 2897." It sounded very ancient and very powerful.

Zhending in summer, because of the Taihang Mountains, was also quite hot. However, today in Zhending, it was very good; a heavy rain poured down, removing the dryness and heat.

Wang Yan did not particularly like rainy days. Of course, he didn't truly like any weather, because no matter what weather it was, he had experienced it many times, and it was hard to say whether he liked or hated it.

But freshness was always good, so at noon, he had people prepare mutton and set up a copper pot under the pavilion. Outside, the rain was pattering down, while he was drinking and eating meat in the pavilion, how leisurely.

Of course, it would be even better if there wasn't a bunch of crazy children. Although it was said that if they broke their legs, they would definitely break their legs, he had never been a strict father. Now that there were more wives, there were more children, and they had all grown up one after another. There wasn't much difference in age between the older and younger ones. There were more than twenty children; the older ones were playing wildly, and the younger ones couldn't even walk steadily, but they were also desperately following along, all of them annoying.

On rainy days, children all liked to play in the water, each wrapped in a small raincoat, running wildly and fighting in front of him. Although they had all eaten, they still had to run to him to eat a few bites of meat after making a scene for a while, and then run out to cause trouble again.

Not saying a word was Wang Yan's annoyance. The small raincoats on the children were his responsibility as a father.

Just at this time, a personal guard ran over in a hurry, very excited: "Grand General, an 800-li urgent report from Tuhe. The navy that went overseas to find immortal seeds, the second batch of departing troops, is returning. The sweet potatoes, potatoes, corn, chili peppers, peanuts, etc., mentioned by the General have all been found. The specific casualties are unknown; it must be because of the urgency. There will be detailed intelligence tomorrow."

Wang Yan nodded with a smile, not excited. After all, the things were there, and now that nine years had passed, it was time for them to return. Even if they didn't return this year, there should be movement in two more years.

"Very good."

Grand General Wang nodded with satisfaction, took a sip of wine, ate some meat, and instructed the personal guard: "Quickly pass the order, the returning troops will be quarantined for one month. Have medicine send people to check the health of the troops. For three meals a day, there will be fish and meat, and they can be provided with wine to drink to their heart's content. Also, pack the luggage tonight, and set off early tomorrow morning. I will personally go to Tuhe to welcome my warriors."

"Yes, Grand General." The personal guard responded and took the order, quickly turning around and running out, avoiding the children who were eagerly listening for news.

Wang Yan was in a good mood, smiling and talking to the buzzing children about grain, and by the way, imparting knowledge. With good news, the buzzing of the brats was not so annoying, but instead had a childlike interest.

The good seeds had been obtained. Even if the current seeds were not as high-yielding as those in the future, after so many years, his subordinates already had a complete grain improvement experimental group, and a bunch of agricultural doctors were studying day and night how to harvest more.

So once these seeds were in hand, after years of cultivation and improvement, in a few years, they would be in a different state. The yield didn't need to reach the level of after two thousand years; as long as it was more than double the current grain yield, then they could initially achieve not going hungry. Once they reached that step, people would naturally think more and live better. As long as they were guided properly, then the empire would naturally become more and more prosperous...