Valley Emperor

In the eleventh year of Xuanping, this year was the same as the previous years for the Tang Empire. The main theme was to restore and develop the people's livelihood economy, and at the same time carried out many reforms in the education of the cabinet, the imperial examination, the administration of officials, and the economy.

The large-scale war had already stopped in the eighth year of Xuanping. The empire's hundreds of thousands of troops were mainly stationed at the border and guarding the inland areas, while the external expansion was mainly based on small-scale colonial wars.

Even the siege of Wandan, which had been raging in the past few months, was actually just an inconspicuous conflict for the huge Tang Empire, and even the military bosses were too lazy to look at it. .

It was nothing more than a battle on the scale of thousands of people. This kind of small-scale battle was nothing at all. For the military, its scale and significance were not even as big as those of domestic bandits.

If there is any action by the military in recent years, it should also be a campaign to suppress bandits. The army suppresses bandits and various illegal armed forces in the country, and the navy is to encircle and suppress pirates.

War has not been the mainstay in recent years. This can be seen from the decreasing proportion of military expenditures over the years!

In recent years, the theme is to restore agricultural production that was destroyed by the war, while vigorously developing industry and commerce, especially new industries!

In the early years, the country was in chaos. The hegemonic war between the Tang Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty caused considerable damage to the national economy. Because of the war, there were even extreme cases of large-scale population reduction in many areas.

Although the main body of the war is the Tang Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty, in fact, the most destructive power is not the two sides, but all kinds of bulls, ghosts, snakes and gods who emerged during the war, especially in the northern region, but they emerged in the early years. Many careerists, especially in Shanxi, Henan, and Shaanxi and Gansu regions.

In the peak period, there were more than a dozen chaotic armies in the Shaanxi-Gansu region, and the scale was not small. The Ming army at that time was unable to take them. In the end, it was after the Datang Army entered the Shaanxi-Gansu region. , is to clean up these large-scale chaos army one by one.

The damage caused by the war period is quite serious, and it will take time to recover slowly.

After several years of hard work, the large-scale damage caused by the war, especially the damage to agricultural production, has finally been curbed. Today, agricultural production in various places, especially in the north and northwest regions, has gradually returned to normal levels. .

Compared with the fact that agricultural production takes several years to recover, the development of industry and commerce is relatively fast, but industry and commerce are industry and commerce, and agriculture is agriculture, and both are the core pillars of the empire, and neither is indispensable.

People take food as their heaven, and it is naturally impossible to not have enough to eat.

And if industry and commerce cannot develop, the empire will lack tax revenue, and it will not be able to maintain a large-scale army equipped with advanced weapons. Naturally, it will not work.

Therefore, in the past few years, Li Xuan's work has always been focused on restoring people's livelihood and developing industry and commerce. Compared with large-scale external expansion, although Li Xuan has this idea, and almost everyone in the court and the public knows that the Son of Heaven wants to expand The scale is expanding externally, but now, it is not the time, at most it is just a small-scale colonization.

Not only in the past few years, but in fact, in Li Xuan's strategic plan, the next few years will also focus on self-development, and large-scale external expansion is actually not mature. After all, even if you want to expand on a large scale now, It is also very reluctant.

But in the end, we have to embark on the road of external expansion. If we want to expand externally, we must first solve the threat from the north. Although the navy is clamoring for the strategy of going south, in Li Xuan's view, the south does not matter whether it is from the Southeast Asia or the Portuguese. It is impossible to bring any real threat to the empire, and the real threat is in the north.

What's more, going south and going north are not mutually exclusive.

Because if you go south, as long as you don't send troops to the Indo-China Peninsula on a large scale, don't go to Malacca and fight the Portuguese to death, but just expand in the islands of the South China Sea, you don't need to use a large number of troops, not even the main fleet of the navy. Even if they had dispatched an army of tens of millions, according to the establishment of the Datang Army, not even a single division could be reached.

As long as Li Xuan's brain doesn't have a fever, he will not stupidly send hundreds of thousands of troops south to the Indo-China Peninsula, and then fall into a super quagmire. , and then smashed Malacca.

This led to the emptiness of the northern border, and the Tatars found an opportunity to invade!

Going south is a must, but going south does not need to cost the empire too much power. Those natives of the South Seas are vulnerable, and the army of several thousand people is enough to sweep the islands of the South Seas. However, if it is just a simple military attack, as long as the navy is there and maintains the maritime superiority, it will not take much effort to destroy the indigenous people on each island.

Taking a ten thousand steps back, even if the natives are very fierce now, if the big deal is not to fight, first block them with the navy, and then slowly clean up those natives when you have time!

These natives lack the necessary counter-attack power, so they do not see any actual threat to the empire.

The Portuguese words are more realistic. People have come all the way to East Asia, and they are only seeking money. As long as they do not stimulate them too much and keep the business and trade between the two sides, although there will be all kinds of intrigue conflicts, but want to completely fall out. , that's not easy.

Besides, even if they fall out, it doesn't matter too much. Even with the Portuguese population, if they die, they can only engage in small-scale armed conflicts with the Datang Empire in various colonies. It is impossible to fight against the empire. What actual threat is caused, is it possible that they can still land on the mainland of the empire?

Don't dare to give them a hundred courage!

For the current Tang Empire, it is easy to go south and difficult to go north!

The enemy who can threaten the empire and bring life and death crisis to the empire has always been in the north!

Whether in the past, now, or in the future!

Throughout the thousands of years of history, the nomads in the north have always been the confidants of the Chinese nation. These nomads, just like the grass in the grasslands, cut off a stubble, and a large area will grow next spring, even if it is directly burned with fire. Also useless.

History a few years ago has proved that simple military strikes are basically useless. At most, they can only achieve short-term peace. However, if we want to completely solve the problem in the north, we need to eradicate the roots.

Military strikes are only the foundation, and subsequent rule is the foundation.

How did the Qing Dynasty in later generations solve the grassland problem? Simply put, there are two points. The first point is to win over by means of marriage, nobility, etc. Note that this win is to win over the aristocratic class, not all nomads.

If the first point is just an ordinary method, then the second point is very powerful, that is, to promote religion, to help nomads build a large number of lama temples with free money, and then to make a large number of nomads satisfied to become lamas, and being a lama has What's the use?

Lamas cannot marry and have children!

Therefore, the Mingxiu Great Wall and Qingxiu temples have obvious effects. In the Qing Dynasty, the grassland nomads did not experience any large-scale wars or natural disasters. The population did not increase, but decreased by about Thirty percent.

Very effective!

Regarding the handling of the Qing Dynasty, Li Xuan felt that it was not bad, but it was not thorough enough, and it was necessary to win over and attack together!

But for the Datang Empire, does it need to win over?

unnecessary!

The Datang Empire never wooed the enemy. Killing the enemy directly was the solution for the Datang Empire!

Do it if you don't like it!

Regarding the issue of the northern grasslands, Li Xuan is also preparing to follow the way of the Korean Peninsula, first play a wave of military strikes, kill their troops, suppress their resistance, and then emigrate and marry to bring about a great racial integration!

As far as the millions of nomads are thrown into the Tang Empire with a population of more than 150 million, at most it will be a splash of water and then disappear.

Huaxia has played the fusion for thousands of years, and this is the big killer to solve the problem!

In addition, in order to avoid new problems after integration, or the migration of nomads from other places, occupying the grasslands and becoming the new enemies of the empire, then it is not easy to deal with people, and it has to be implemented on the vast grassland areas. The easiest way to effectively rule is to promote part of the planting industry and urbanization.

As long as they start farming, as long as they have cities, the grasslands are no longer a place to come and go!

Of course, if you want to completely solve the grassland problem, you have to have a premise, that is, you can defeat and even completely destroy the Tatar army under the command of Altan Khan militarily.

If even the Tatar army cannot be defeated, then there can be no talk of various policies to govern the steppe.

And is the current Datang Army capable of defeating Altan Khan's Tatar army?

One word ~www.wuxiaspot.com~ is difficult!

If you want to talk about defense, there is no problem at all. Relying on the Great Wall and many cities in the border towns, the field troops, reserve troops and even militia troops in the Datang Army have established a perfect Great Wall defense line, west to Jiayuguan, East all the way to the Yalu River.

Most of the Great Wall defense lines are similar to the previous Ming Zhengde years, with little change. Even the defense areas are actually imitating the nine-front policy of the former Ming Dynasty, dividing the entire northern defense line into several defense areas.

There are seven major defense areas including Gansu, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Hebei, West Liaoning, and East Liaoning, and then each of the major defense areas has an army garrisoned, and each army has different numbers of troops. , more than 100,000 main troops and nearly 200,000 reserve division troops, a total of nearly 300,000 troops, which constitute the northern defense line of the entire Datang Empire!

Compared to the Tatars who had to invest 300,000 troops in the empire to maintain the Great Wall, the threat posed by the Portuguese to the empire was almost negligible!