Chapter 386: All troubles are resolved, a prime minister of all ages (final chapter)

In the tenth year of Zhangwu, Emperor Zhaowu Liu Bei conquered the various Hu tribes, which was later praised by historians as the greatest achievement of his career besides unification.

Unlike Emperor Gaozu of Han who encountered the Siege of Baideng after unifying the country, the national strength gradually entered its heyday after Liu Bei unified the country.

According to statistics by later historians, after more than 20 years of war, the population of the Han Dynasty had declined to less than 30 million.

But after Liu Bei became king, within fourteen years, the population of the Han Dynasty grew to 47 million.

In addition, the development of industry, commerce and technology gave Emperor Zhaowu Liu Bei enough confidence to launch foreign wars, as the situation during the reign of Emperor Ling of Han, which was plagued by internal and external troubles and the decline of the court’s tax revenue, was changed.

On this basis, the Northern Expedition launched by Liu Bei was recognized by later generations as the first purposeful war of aggression of the Han Dynasty.

Contrary to Emperor Wu of Han’s purpose of launching a northern expedition to expel the barbarians, Liu Bei’s purpose in this war was simply to obtain enough slaves.

Therefore, under the organization of Prime Minister Qin Zhen and the Ministry of War, the Han Dynasty mobilized a total of 100,000 cavalry for this battle. A special type of soldier that influenced future generations for two hundred years also appeared in this battle.

Lancers, a new type of cavalry equipped with horseshoes and saddles, possessed strong mobility, and whose main weapon changed from ring-handled swords to matchlock muskets, dominated the entire battlefield.

The beginning of the matter originated from the death of Kebi Neng. Since Kebi Neng’s death in the 14th year of Jian’an, the central Xianbei tribe has been plunged into civil strife.

At this time, in the western part of Xianbei, the Budugen Group, which had been suppressed by Kebi Neng, saw an opportunity and took the opportunity to annex Kebi Neng’s former subordinates.

This made Budugen’s strength gradually grow, from tens of thousands of people to hundreds of thousands of people. His military force gradually became stronger and he had the strength to move south.

Similarly, without Kebi Neng’s restraint, the Eastern Xianbei gradually formed three tribes: Murong, Yuwen, and Duan, and occupied the Liaoxi area.

In addition, there was Tuoba Liwei, who, seeing the decline of the Xiongnu in the west, continued to migrate westward, to Yunzhong County, and later split into small tribes such as the Tufa tribe and the Qifu tribe.

It can be said that the Xianbei’s territory had expanded from Liaodong in the east to the west of Liangzhou, and the entire area south of the desert posed a great threat to the Han Dynasty.

However, since the Little Ice Age had not yet ended, the climate in both the north and south of the desert was extremely abnormal, with ice disasters occurring almost every year, killing countless cattle and sheep.

Under the influence of these two factors, Budugen united with the other Hu people and launched a large-scale looting operation on the border of the Han Dynasty in the winter of the ninth year of Zhangwu.

This action was the fuse that prompted Liu Bei to send troops. After the news reached Chang’an, the court was shaken. Prime Minister Qin Zhen, General Guan Yu, and Minister of War Liu Ye all submitted petitions to attack!
So Liu Bei decided to launch this war based on everyone’s petition, and ordered Qin Zhen, Pang Tong, Liu Ye and others to formulate a military strategy, not only to inflict pain on the foreign tribes, but also to recover their losses.

As a result, under the planning of more than a dozen top strategists in the Grand Council, an invasion plan against the Hu tribe was formed and launched in March of the following year, that is, the tenth year of Zhangwu.

First, General Zhao Yun and Lu Bu led troops from Beidi County to launch a decapitation operation against the Xianbei and Qiang peoples. They raided dozens of tribes in succession and captured them all.

Then, General Guan Yu and generals including Zhang Liao, Tian Yu, Xu Huang, and Zhang He set up a defense line along the north of Bingzhou, pretending to hold their ground.

Faced with this situation, Budugen thought that the Han Dynasty would act like a coward as in the past, so he simply summoned a joint army of more than 300,000 troops from various tribes and suddenly launched an attack in the hot summer weather.

He naturally had his reasons for sending troops at this time. In his view, the Han people ploughed in spring and harvested in autumn, and summer was right between the two busy farming seasons.

Even if Liu Bei knew that he was leading his army here at this time, he would not be able to mobilize troops to the north. He could take advantage of the current situation to plunder, and then move to the northern grasslands after the winter.

In this way, it would only take a few years for Liu Bei to give up the idea of ​​a northern expedition and become a pig in their pen.

But what he didn’t know was that this idea was the beginning of the Xianbei’s demise. They sent out troops in June, and as soon as they entered Bingzhou in July, they were hit head-on by Guan Yu.

Guan Yu chose to fight with cavalry, and led 30,000 cavalrymen to charge into the Xianbei army of 200,000. In this battle, Budugen led his army to encircle Guan Yu.

But at this moment, the sound of musket fire rang out, and Guan Yu’s troops rushed towards Budugen’s central army. The sound of musket fire continued along the way, and Budugen was shocked.

At the same time, the roar of artillery was heard from the distant hills. Huge shells fell into the Xianbei army formation, causing chaos among its troops.

Under the dual pressure of muskets and artillery, the Budugen coalition forces began to disintegrate, with more than 200,000 troops in chaos, with only Guan Yu’s troops charging around in them.

Until Budugen began to retreat, Zhang Liao, Xu Huang, Zhang He and others in the distance led a large number of cavalry and Wuhuan cavalry to attack Budugen’s rear!
In this battle, Budugen, the leader of the western Xianbei, was killed, his troops were scattered, more than 40,000 soldiers of the coalition forces of various ethnic groups were killed or trampled to death, and more than 70,000 were captured.

And this was only the first step in the Han Dynasty’s counterattack. After defeating the Xianbei coalition in July, Guan Yu, Xu Huang, Zhang He, Zhao Yun, Zhang Liao, and Lu Bu led their troops into the vast desert.

All the foreign tribes they encountered were captured without exception, regardless of gender, age or status. Their cattle and sheep were taken as rations, and the army continued its march using the Han people among them as guides.

By September of the tenth year of Zhangwu, most of the Xianbei tribes in the west had been wiped out, and the Xianbei people were almost extinct north of Liaoxi. By October, the army marched into the east and destroyed many Xianbei tribes.

In March of the following year, Zhao Yun and Lu Bu reached Jinshan, which is today’s Altai Mountains, and invaded the territories of the Jie and Di tribes, defeated the joint forces of the two tribes with tens of thousands of troops, and captured countless foreigners.

In the autumn of the eleventh year of Zhangwu, Guan Yu launched another northern expedition. The Xianbei people were frightened and quickly moved north, never daring to move south again. In the spring of the following year, the Jie and Di tribes moved west.

At this point, all the Hu tribes in the north of the Han Dynasty were wiped out, and the Han Dynasty captured more than 500,000 foreign slaves at the cost of thousands of cavalry.

In the past, these slaves could only farm, but now, they are arranged to work in various mines, doing the most dangerous and highest-profit jobs.

In the view of later historians, these slaves were the key asset for the rise of the Han Dynasty. It was also this battle that allowed the Han people to taste the sweetness of plundering people everywhere and started a bloody colonial history that lasted for two hundred years.

Of course, these are all stories of the past, but the arrival of these slaves did alleviate the extreme shortage of labor in the Han Dynasty and further increased the domestic output value of the Han Dynasty.

With the help of gunpowder and these slaves, the Han Dynasty’s coal production increased steadily, and even entered the homes of ordinary people, becoming a cheap fuel.

The use of mineral fossils further forced the development of transportation. Five years later, the first railway of the Han Dynasty appeared in Bingzhou, responsible for transporting coal out of the mining area. The large-scale mining of coal mines also increased the steel production in the Han Dynasty year by year. According to statistics, in the first year of Zhangwu, when Liu Bei had just unified the country, there were only 102 steel mills under his rule, with an annual output of only 120,000 tons.

But in the 16th year of Zhangwu, the steel production of the entire Han Dynasty had skyrocketed to 4 million tons, and steel production was still increasing.

This led to the further evolution of most industries, such as agriculture, where the development of glass, coal, steel, and chemistry led to the synthesis of ammonia fertilizer for the first time.

With the advent of intercropping, deep tillage, crop rotation, irrigation, and steel plows and waterwheel irrigation, grain production began to surge.

In the 16th year of Zhangwu, the entire Han Dynasty had nearly 600 million mu of arable land, which produced 1.7 billion shi of grain. With a tax of only 10%, the tax revenue exceeded 170 million shi!
In that year, Prime Minister Qin Zhen first proposed the goal of reducing agricultural taxes by half in 30 years. This goal was obviously earth-shattering in feudal society.

However, no one in the court thought that Qin Zhen was boasting, because at this time the Han Dynasty no longer needed to rely on agricultural taxes as much as it did in the past.

The development of commerce transformed the Han Dynasty’s original single tax system, which was mainly agricultural tax, into a comprehensive tax system that includes commercial taxation, personal income tax, tariffs, and foreign trade.

In the 16th year of Zhangwu alone, the tax revenue of the Han Dynasty reached 50 million strings of cash. This was only in the early years of the empire. No one would doubt how terrifying the output value of the Han Dynasty would be when the empire reached its heyday.

However, before that, there was a problem that had been plaguing the Han Dynasty, that is, their currency was obviously not in sufficient circulation.

After all, the Han Dynasty has always been a country short of copper. While developing its industry, copper products and copper coins are also being consumed continuously. With the slow growth in copper production, this precious metal has begun to become more expensive than it actually is!
In order to solve this problem, Qin Zhen proposed to replace copper coins with precious metals and paper money, and said that Japan in the east was rich in silver mines!

If Japan could be conquered, silver could be used to replace copper coins and gold. This proposal instantly caused heated discussions in the Han Dynasty.

Is it difficult for them to fight Japan now? Not at all. With the continuous development of the navy, the Han Dynasty has ships, ironclad ships and other ocean-going warships.

In addition, with the continuous updating of muskets, they can now crush Japan directly, but they have never had a reasonable excuse to send troops.

But since Qin Zhen said that Japan produced silver, that could be a reason for them to send troops. After negotiation, Liu Bei decided to send troops to Japan.

In the 17th year of Zhangwu, the Han navy landed in Wa, which was later known as Kyushu Island, and began to kill people, collect slaves, and search for silver.

The appearance of the Han navy was like the arrival of a divine army to the Japanese on Kyushu Island. In less than two months, the entire Kyushu Island fell.

After the victory, Lu Xun, the new commander-in-chief of the navy, led his troops north to land on Honshu Island, but was unexpectedly ambushed by Japanese soldiers.

In this battle, the Han army suffered 320 casualties, while the Japanese soldiers suffered more than 2,000 casualties. The nearly 1:1 loss ratio frightened the Japanese leader Himiko, who quickly submitted a letter of surrender.

However, Lu Xun had been following Qin Zhen since he was young and had never had a good impression of foreign races. When he saw that Himiko had taken the initiative to ambush and also worshipped ghosts, she was obviously a witch, so he refused her request to surrender and led his army to attack her.

The war lasted for half a year. In the beginning, Lu Xun did not achieve a great victory due to unfamiliarity with the climate and water. But when summer came, Lu Xun used the strategy of fire attack and defeated the Japanese coalition force of more than 30,000 people.

This changed the Japanese people’s belief in Himiko, and they invaded Yamatai during the civil strife, attacked and killed Himiko, and presented her to Lu Xun.

Seeing this, Lu Xun submitted a memorial to the court to ask for instructions on how to deal with it. Qin Zhen then submitted a memorial saying, “The Japanese are a small nation and a weak country. They have small principles but no great principles. They should not be tolerated. They can be colonized and educated slowly!”

Upon hearing this, Emperor Zhao of Han, Liu Bei, agreed and with a wave of his hand, turned Japan into the first colony of the Han Dynasty. A large number of Japanese people were transported to the Han Dynasty as slaves.

Some people immigrated to Japan with a small number of people, intending to gradually turn Japan into the territory of the Han Dynasty. In this way, in the 18th year of Zhangwu, they indeed discovered a large amount of silver, and the problem of shortage of silver and money in the Han Dynasty was thus solved.

However, just after this problem was solved, Qin Zhen, the first prime minister of the Han Dynasty, submitted a petition requesting to retire on the grounds of his old age.

It is true that Liu Bei was already 66 years old and Qin Zhen was 57 years old at this time, but as a high-ranking official in the court, Qin Zhen was still in his “prime”.

When Emperor Zhaowu saw the memorial, he naturally refused to accept it. Qin Zhen continued to submit memorials, and Liu Bei had no choice but to summon Qin Zhen into the palace for a detailed discussion. Then Qin Zhen said goodbye and left.

No one knows what the two talked about. In short, more than a month later, Qin Zhen was removed from the position of prime minister, and was appointed as the prince’s tutor. He returned to his hometown in Yanzhou to recuperate, and the position of prime minister was taken over by Zhuge Liang.

After that, Qin Zhen ended his glorious but bumpy official career, lived in seclusion in his countryside, wrote books, and no longer cared about worldly affairs.

It was not until seven years later, when Emperor Zhaowu Liu Bei passed away, that Qin Zhen came forward again to help Emperor Zhaowen stabilize the situation and change the era name to Jianxing.

He died in the 21st year of Jianxing, at the age of 85. He had four sons and three daughters, all of whom were given important positions. His family was extremely noble.

There are different speculations about the reasons why Qin Zhen resigned in later generations. Some say it was to protect his family, some say it was to pave the way for the new emperor to ascend the throne, and some say it was to enjoy his remaining years in peace.

All this makes Qin Zhen even more mysterious. Some people in later generations have calculated that Qin Zhen was a versatile person in his life.

He has written more than a thousand books, including but not limited to military strategy, politics, philosophy, astronomy, geography, music, calligraphy, diet, mathematics, psychology, physics, chemistry, and economics.

According to the inference of later historians, the works of Qin Zhen alone advanced the technology of the Han Dynasty by more than four hundred years!

The most frightening thing is that no one knows where Qin Zhen got all this knowledge from. The only thing that is certain is that Qin Zhen’s master Cai Yong does not have the relevant knowledge.

All this has led to constant speculation among later generations, and some even gave Qin Zhen the title of the first time traveler in history, using it as a topic of conversation.

However, one thing is undeniable: until the Han Dynasty evolved into the British Empire, no one had ever achieved the same success as Qin Zhen.

Until the collapse of the Han Dynasty and the advent of a new era, Qin Zhen was still the first prime minister of the feudal era. No one could shake his position, and he was known as the prime minister of all ages.

Complete book.

(End of this chapter)