In the eighth and ninth years of Zhenguan, the number of official and private business teams from the Han Empire that went out to do business in the Western Regions and the Western Seas doubled.
By the 10th year of Zhenguan, the Municipal Shipping Department, which had been established for only more than three years, had already submitted a very beautiful tax report card to the central government through taxation.
However, also in the tenth year of Zhenguan, because the trade in the Western Regions dominated by the Han Empire seriously affected the interests of Kangju State, Kangju State had to unite the Parthian Empire and the Kushan Empire to wage war against the Han Empire in an attempt to regain the dominance of the trade routes.
However, the Parthian Empire refused to participate in this military alliance because of the threat from the Roman Empire. In the end, only the Kushan Empire, which had always had ideas about the Western Regions, participated in this joint campaign.
The results are self-evident.
Zhang Fei and Zhao Yun sent troops from two directions. Zhang Fei led the troops to fight against the Kushan Empire's army, while Zhao Yun led the troops to attack Kangju. In just one month, Kangju's army completely collapsed, and the Han army's cavalry galloped across Kangju's territory.
Three battles.
In the next two months, Zhao Yun led his troops in pursuit for more than a thousand miles, and basically wiped out all the troops and leaders involved in Kang Juguo. He won three more major battles, six battles and six victories, and Kang Juguo was still living a nomadic life.
Thus destroyed.
The upper echelons of the Kangju Kingdom were escorted back to Luoyang by the Han army. Under the order of Emperor Liu Bei, they were all beheaded in public display and spread throughout the world to declare the Han Empire's great military exploits.
After the fall of the Kangju Kingdom, Zhao Yun led his troops south, joined Zhang Fei, and joined Zhang Fei and his troops to fight against the Kushan Imperial Army.
The Kushan army is a little more organized and tough than the Kangju army, and its military tactics are relatively mature, but it still pales in comparison to the Han army.
At that time, Zhang Fei only commanded 30,000 troops to deal with the Kushan army, while the Kushan side dispatched about 80,000 troops in an attempt to take over the Western Regions in one fell swoop. Zhang Fei's resistance was a little difficult, but he successfully fought back.
After Zhao Yun's mobile troops arrived, Zhang Fei immediately broke out with his cavalry. He defeated the Kushan cavalry in one battle, and then defeated the Kushan infantry head-on. In just one victory, he defeated the Kushan Imperial Army.
.
What followed was a two-month pursuit.
The Kushan side dispatched about 50,000 reinforcements to try to resist the Han army's pursuit. However, the Han army's momentum was too strong. Zhang Fei was suppressed for three months. How could he endure it?
Once the fight started, he acted like a madman. He even led a small number of cavalry to attack. He just fought to support the war. He ignored logistics at all. He quickly penetrated and attacked the logistics base of the Kushan army, burning most of it with a fire.
Without food and grass, Kushan's reinforcements collapsed together with the defeated army.
The five-month-long battle between Han and Kuishang and Kangju ended with the subjugation of Kangju and the annihilation of the entire Kuishang army. The Han army won a complete victory. The first battle established its status as the hegemon of Central Asia and achieved complete victory.
After that, internal turmoil occurred in the Kushan Empire. The emperor was killed, the royal family was divided, and the empire fell apart. In just over a year, a unified empire began to split and entered the internal Warring States Period, which was no longer able to take care of it.
When the Parthian Empire heard the news, they immediately sent envoys to make peace with the Han Empire and expressed their willingness to cooperate with the Han Empire in anything, whether it was commercial or political, as long as there was no military confrontation.
Parthia was also in a dilemma. The western side of their empire was squeezed by the Roman Empire all the year round. The Roman Empire was unhappy with them because they controlled the Silk Road. The second-hand dealers did a great job and sold the products of the Han Empire at sky-high prices.
, the Romans couldn't bear it, so they went to war.
The two sides fought to the death, and it was not until the news came that the Han Empire had destroyed Kangju and defeated Kushan that the Parthian Empire realized that something was wrong.
On one side is the Han Empire, which wants to sell goods.
On one side was the Roman Empire, which wanted to buy goods.
I am stuck in the middle as a second-tier dealer.
If this matter was known to the two empires and they communicated privately, wouldn't I be doomed?
The top leaders of the Parthian Empire were quite self-aware.
After the Han Empire and the Roman Empire met at sea, the Roman Empire quickly informed the Han Empire of the matter. When Liu Bei learned in Luoyang that his country's goods had been super doubled by the Parthians and sold to Rome, he was immediately angry.
Don't hit any place.
Good guy, I cooperated with you to make money from the goods I shipped after I worked hard to make them. I also doubled the price and let the Roman Empire buy it. You are a trafficker and eat both sides. Your heart is so black. No wonder you are being sold by the Roman Empire.
People were beaten like crazy.
So Liu Bei decided to make some small demands to the Parthians, such as opening trade routes, coordinating minimum tariffs, not being allowed to deal with Han Empire merchants privately, and providing protection to Han Empire merchants, etc.
Promise or not?
Don't agree?
That will only force you to agree.
In March of the eleventh year of Zhenguan, Zhao Yun led 10,000 cavalry to attack the eastern province of the Parthian Empire. Facing the 30,000 Parthian cavalry, Zhao Yun was not afraid and charged directly, defeating the Parthians in one battle.
Thirty thousand cavalry of the empire.
The Han army entered the territory of the Parthian Empire and swept away all the granaries in the area. They swaggered to eat and drink locally and stationed troops here. They also defeated all the reinforcements sent by the Parthian Empire. The local armed forces
All resistance was defeated, and in fact the entire administrative district was occupied.
At the same time as this battle took place, the five eastern legions of the Roman Empire arrived at the western border of the Parthian Empire, threatening the Parthian Empire with force and preparing for a full-scale war.
The Parthian Empire faced a crisis situation with attacks from two sides.
The Han Empire and the Roman Empire almost gave the Parthians an ultimatum. If they did not agree to the commercial terms of both parties, they would wait for war. The result of the war would inevitably be to destroy the Parthian royal family.
Until all is destroyed.
Yes, that is to say, we will slaughter the entire upper echelons of the royal family.
How about it? Do you agree or not?
Its senior officials thought about it, but they really had no choice, and finally chose to compromise with the Han Empire, agreed to Liu Bei's request, and accepted the most-favored-nation clause for the Han Empire.
So the Han Empire withdrew its troops and stopped fighting, and the Roman Empire also withdrew soon after.
Subsequently, in July of the 11th year of Zhenguan, the Parthian Empire opened its borders and trade routes to the Han Empire, kept tariffs to a minimum, and allowed merchants from the Han Empire to enter the Parthian Empire to do business.
Moreover, the Parthian Empire did not have the power to enforce laws against the citizens of the Han Empire. This power belonged to the highest office of the Han Empire in the Parthian Empire.
At this point, the Silk Road was completely opened, and merchants from the Han Empire had the possibility to actually reach the Roman Empire directly after setting off from Yumen Pass and Yang Pass, although no merchant from the Han Empire had done this before.
Moreover, after the Maritime Silk Road was opened, the importance of the land Silk Road also declined and was no longer the only one.
However, at that time, the maritime transportation capacity was still weak, and more transactions could be done along the route through the Western Region countries and the Parthian Empire, so the overland Silk Road was still preserved.
The Roman Empire also sent merchants into the Parthian Empire, and directly started trade with merchants from the Han Empire in the Parthian Empire. Both parties regarded the Parthian Empire as a market, and the Parthian Empire was reduced from a second-hand dealer to a trading place.
.
However, because the business protection they provide is still in place, the two empires are still willing to pay this tax and this small amount of hard work.
So from now on, although the Parthian Empire could not rely on its status as a second-hand merchant to live the luxurious life it once had, it could still maintain basic food and clothing.
In this regard, there was some dissatisfaction within Parthia. Due to the loss of interests, its internal nobles launched some actions against the Han Empire and the Roman Empire one after another, but all ended in failure.
After these rebellious nobles were wiped out, the high-level politics of the Parthian Empire gradually lost their independence and began to develop in the direction of puppets and compradors.
After the eleventh year of Zhenguan, the exchanges between the Han Empire and the Roman Empire became more frequent. As the trade between the two empires became increasingly frequent, some areas along the trade routes between the two empires also became prosperous.
At the same time, the Han Empire gradually established temporary bases along the Maritime Silk Road, and began to build ports and military camps, moving towards semi-permanent or even permanent garrison camps.
Countries along the route also had doubts and dissatisfaction about this, but under the overwhelming and powerful threat of force from the Han Empire's army, these dissatisfaction and doubts directly evolved into a war of national annihilation.
Some small countries along the route had no national power at all, not even as good as some small countries in the Western Regions. The Han army only dispatched three to five hundred regular troops and directly fought a war to destroy the country, effectively completing the occupation of the local area.
Therefore, along the Maritime Silk Road, from the eleventh year of Zhenguan to the thirteenth year of Zhenguan, in two or three years, the Han Empire established more than a dozen temporary bases, and built simple military camps and ports to facilitate the passage of merchant fleets.
For rest time.
Subsequently, farmland began to be opened up inside these temporary bases, and they began to develop towards self-sufficiency in daily life.
For this reason, the Han Empire even began to hire professional farmers with high salaries to go to the local area to carry out "professional reclamation" operations. They recruited people based on five to seven times their monthly income. The term was three years, and they could go home at the end of the term or renew. In this way,
We successfully recruited a group of courageous farmers who were willing to make money.
The joining of these professional farmers laid a good foundation for the Han Empire's overseas base development plan.
In the thirteenth year of Zhenguan, two wars broke out in the Han Empire at home and abroad. At home, there was a campaign to suppress bandits in Yangzhou. The Jiangnan water network successfully established by Guan Yu played a vital role in this campaign to suppress bandits.
Although Shanyue in Yangzhou has geographical advantages, the Han Empire has recruited refugees to return to their hometowns for many years to farm, and its generous policies have attracted many people who want to live a peaceful life back to farm, which has greatly weakened the power of the Shanyue refugee armed group.
power.
Secondly, after so many years, the Han army has completely adapted to the terrain and climate of Jiangnan, and this battle was initiated by Shanyue, so Guan Yu naturally beat them without any discussion.
This war ended quickly. The Shanyue refugee armed group, which could no longer adapt to the trend of the times, was completely wiped out by the Han army in just two months. The last hilltop was burned bare by the fierce fire and oil tanks, and nothing was left.
, Yangzhou officially entered a period of peaceful development.
The second war was against Japan.
The Dongyuan spy team sent by Liu Bei to look for gold on the Japanese archipelago successfully found a large number of silver mines based on the guidance of the locals. Although the legendary gold mine has not yet been found, the huge amount of silver mines is enough for Liu Bei, who lacks precious metals.
Jealous.
So Liu Bei arranged for a joint operation between the troops from the Central Plains Military Region and the fleet from the Jiangnan Military Region. The two sides gathered on the Korean Peninsula, took advantage of the monsoon to cross the Tsushima Strait, and successfully landed on the Japanese archipelago.
In this era when there was no decent political power on the Japanese archipelago, 20,000 troops directly controlled the Iwami Ginzan area, wiped out the local armed forces, captured many locals to assist the Han army in mining, and shiploads of silver crazily flowed towards them.
The Han Empire sailed away.
Relying on the import of large amounts of silver, Liu Bei successfully promoted the imperial silver currency reform in the fifteenth year of Zhenguan, using silver as legal tender, and minted the first self-cast silver currency of the Han Dynasty - a silver coin with Liu Bei's own face printed on it.
The introduction of precious metals has greatly alleviated the increasingly obvious deflation in the Han Empire. With the inflow of gold and silver from the Kushan, Parthian and Roman empires, as well as the inflow of silver mines from Japan, the Han Empire has taken great steps towards currency reform.
Set a solid pace.
Basically, by around the fifteenth year of Zhenguan, Liu Bei had expanded the territory of the Han Empire to the extreme. The limits of the four directions he had originally set, except for the southern area, which was a bit difficult due to epidemics, had been successfully completed in the other three directions.
The epidemic in the southern tropical areas is very severe. Although the Han Empire prepared mugwort in advance and popularized the epidemic in advance, claiming that the epidemic came from mosquitoes, so they had to stay away from mosquitoes and use various methods to drive them away, but the epidemic was still inevitable.
the appearance of.
Under the threat of such an epidemic, Liu Bei arranged a medical team to search for medicines for treatment. On the other hand, he could only postpone the southward movement and limit the activities of the main forces of the Han Empire in the Indo-China Peninsula to the coastal areas. Do not go deep into the interior for the time being.
land.
Limited by natural conditions, the Han Empire in the fifteenth year of Zhenguan was completely different from the Han Empire in the first year of Zhenguan.
The strategic plan of opening up and going out has been recognized by the public. More and more people are willing to go out, more and more people yearn to go out, and they have indeed made money.
Many merchants from the Han Empire went to settle in the overseas areas controlled by the Han Empire, and many others settled in the Roman Empire, specifically in Egypt, to do business and survive there.
The entire empire shows a high-spirited spirit of prosperity and enterprising, and people are full of interest in exploring unknown existences. They are always staring at new opportunities to make a fortune, looking forward to new opportunities that will fall on them.
, at least let yourself get a share of the pie.
More and more people have at least one or two people in their family working overseas, or at least have experience of leaving the territory of the Han Empire. Unlike in the past, leaving the county was equivalent to going abroad. Now it is a serious matter to leave the territory of the Han Empire.
will be considered as leaving the country.
In addition, even if you are from Youzhou and go to Yizhou or even Yunzhou, it is not considered going abroad.
Liu Bei occasionally paid private visits incognito. When he ate in a restaurant in Luoyang, all he heard was that the civilians of Luoyang were talking about the news about where the imperial fleet had discovered, or where he had seen Kushan people and Parthians.
People or Romans came to do business again with strange goods.
It is true that not all good news has been good for the empire in recent years, and bad things have happened. But this kind of change coming from the lowest level, this spirit of opening your eyes to the world, yearning for the world, and embracing the world, made Liu Bei feel very
happy.
After finishing a bowl of fried rice and a portion of braised pork in the restaurant, Liu Bei left the restaurant with his companion Zhuge Liang satisfied and wandered on the street.
Looking at the people coming and going on the street and the prosperous and lively scene, Liu Bei showed a slight smile as he walked.
"Kong Ming, every time I see a scene like this, I feel that all the years of hard work are worth it. It doesn't matter if you are tired. You can see such a prosperous scene after leaving the palace. This is what I yearn for."
"You are the biggest contributor to the great man's success today. No one in the world can compare with you."
Liu Bei turned his head and looked at Zhuge Liang who was following him.
"Kong Ming, this is not something you would say."
"Your Majesty... I'm just telling the truth. What can't I say about actual things and real achievements?"
Zhuge Liang smiled and said: "Without you, the Han Dynasty might be in the same state as the Kushan Kingdom today, but with you, the Han Dynasty has surpassed any other country in the past. Even in the past three generations, who dares to say that he can be better than you?"
What's better?
Therefore, although some of Chen Butang's statements may sound flattering, basically no one will object to them. You don't want to publicize it like this, but there are many people in the Han Dynasty who think so, and I am not the only one."
What Zhuge Liang was talking about was the suggestion made last month by Chen Lin, the newly appointed Minister of Rites, to regard Liu Bei as the most virtuous king in history.
Chen Lin believed that among the emperors throughout the ages, no one could reach the level of Liu Bei, and no one could push a country to such a high level. Even the three-generation rule in ancient times that Confucian scholars had been talking about before, could it be compared to today's rule?
Was the Han Empire more glorious?
Can't?
Therefore, Chen Lin feels that future publicity should promote Liu Bei as the most virtuous person in ancient and modern times, and place Liu Bei in a position that transcends the rule of the three ancient generations.
Liu Bei felt that something was inappropriate about this matter, but there were many people who thought it was appropriate to do so, and many officials and even the people expressed support for this.
The reason is simple.
Everyone has never experienced the rule of three generations in ancient times, and they don’t know how simple and comfortable it was.
But Liu Bei's rule of Zhenguan was really experienced by everyone, and it was really comfortable.
Let’s not talk about anything else, let’s just talk about food. More than ten years ago, what everyone ate was very simple. But today, with the popularity and popularity of stir-fry, “cuisines” have begun to appear all over the country.
As people's lives become affluent, more and more people are beginning to pursue their appetites.
Being able to eat well and eat fine food is no longer a pursuit of the aristocratic class. Some ordinary families have no official status or business, but their family background is enough to support their pursuit of delicious food.
——————
PS: I plan to use a few biographies to make the final ending~