Standalone Northern and Southern Dynasties

Chapter 460 Chen Baxian

Yizhou was lost too quickly, which also led to a problem, that is, the influence of Southern Liang in Yizhou was not completely expelled.

It is indeed true that Xiao Ji plundered the people in Yizhou and suppressed the local gentry.

However, the Southern Dynasty had controlled Yizhou for hundreds of years, and many people in Shu hated the soldiers from the north, especially Hou Jing's followers, many of whom were from the Six Garrisons. Although they had begun to assimilate into the Han culture under Su Ze's bestowal, they still retained many Hu habits.

Finally, there was another important resistance force, the Southwestern Yi who had been causing trouble in Shu for hundreds of years.

Although Xiao Ji was extremely greedy, he still achieved good results when implementing the ethnic policy in Shu.

The most famous rebellion among these Southwestern Yi was the capture of Meng Huo seven times during the reign of Zhuge Liang in Shu.

Of course, the Seven Captures of Meng Huo is a plot from the novel, but it is true that the Southwestern Yi people in Shu were restless.

After Xiao Ji fled to Jingzhou, for fear of being blamed by his father, he sent his confidants into Shu and began to enfeoff the Southwestern Yi people as the governor of Yizhou, in order to encourage them to rebel and cause trouble for Hou Jing.

Some of the ambitious tribes, after receiving the promise of alliance from the Southern Liang, began to rebel one after another.

Even during the entire New Year period, Hou Jing was unable to have a good time as he was leading his troops to quell the rebellion of the Liao people in the Jiannan area.

Many people don’t know that in fact, during the Han Dynasty, the ethnic minorities in Shu were mainly distributed in the southern region. At least in core areas such as Chengdu and Bazhong, there were not many ethnic minorities.

However, Yizhou also experienced a small version of the "Five Barbarians Invasion", the largest scale of which was the Liao people from the Lingnan region invading Shu.

The Liao people's influx into Shu was a sin committed by the Jin Dynasty, the main culprit of the Five Barbarians' Invasion of China.

During the Eastern Jin Dynasty, counties such as Zangke and Yelang became the sites of repeated contention and battles between the Cheng Han regime and the Eastern Jin Dynasty.

In order to compete for labor, the Eastern Jin Dynasty and Cheng Han each mobilized hundreds of thousands of Liao people living in Zangke, Guizhou, to move northward into Sichuan.

According to statistics, there were about 100,000 households and more than 580,000 Liao people who entered Shu during the Cheng Han period.

The 15 counties established during the Western Jin Dynasty were Shu, Jianwei, Wenshan, Hanjia, Jiangyang, Zhuti, Yueyu, Zitong, Guanghan, Xindu, Fuling, Bajun, Baxi, Badong, and Jianping.

Except for Xindu County, there were Liao people in the other 14 counties, and Chengdu in Shu County was no exception.

The books of the time recorded: "There were no Liao in Shu, but they emerged from the mountains, from Ba to Qianwei and Zitong, filling the valleys and mountains, causing great trouble to the people."

These Liao people are actually of the same ancestry as the Li people in the Lingnan region, and the language they speak is not much different from that of the Li people.

In order to contact the Liao people in Shu, Xiao Yan transferred the meritorious soldiers who quelled the rebellion of the Li people in Guangzhou to Jingzhou, and had them contact the Liao people in Shuzhong area to incite them to confront Hou Jing.

Before the Chinese New Year, these people entered Shu from Baidi City and began to connect with the Liao people tribes.

At this time, in the mountains of Bazhong, a young man was sitting in a stilt house, drinking with the leader of the Liao people across the street.

This young man was named Chen Baxian. He was from Wuxing County (Zhejiang), but he could not make a name for himself in his hometown, so he went to Guangzhou to join the army. He distinguished himself in several suppressions of the Li people's rebellions, and was thus personally appointed by Xiao Yan to be sent to Shuzhong.

The name of the Liao tribe was Nanping Liao, and the one who drank with Chen Baxian was the chief of the Nanping Liao, Kexian.

The chief of the Kexian tribe was drinking wine in big gulps. When he opened his mouth, one could see his two missing canine teeth. This is one of the customs of the Liao people, commonly known as "beating teeth", which means deliberately pulling out canine teeth after adulthood.

Therefore, in the Lingnan area, these Liao people are also called "Da Ya Lao".

In addition to tattooing, the Liao people also like to tattoo their hands and feet, and even their faces, so they are also called "flower-footed men" and "ghost-faced men".

The Liao people in Shuzhong and the Li people in Lingnan are of the same ancestry and their languages ​​are similar.

Chen Baxian could speak the Li language and communicated smoothly with Kexian.

In order to regain Yizhou, Xiao Yan made a lot of empty promises. For the Liao people in Yizhou, Xiao Yan even agreed to marry them to the royal family and allow them to divide the land and be crowned kings, as long as they could send troops to drive away Hou Jing.

Chen Baxian was full of anxiety about this.

In fact, whether it is the Li people in Lingnan or the Liao people in the southwest, they are all a group of scattered sand. Although they make trouble every year, they do not have any unified national consciousness. To put it bluntly, they are just fighting small battles. Even if they occasionally form an alliance, it will soon disband because the leader cannot command the support of the people.

In order to strike at the north, Xiao Yan promised things like marriage and enthronement. During the conversation, Chen Baxian also discovered that Xiao Yan was ambitious. Once he was enthroned by Southern Liang, he might create a overlord of the southwest.

But now that Xiao Yan had lost Yizhou, he no longer cared about all that. As long as he could take Yizhou back, he would drink it even if it was poison.

Seeing Kexian's appearance, Chen Baxian couldn't help but wonder which unlucky princess wanted to marry this guy.

But he took another sip of wine before saying:
"A few days ago, envoys from Chengdu also appeared in the nearby villages."

Chen Baxian's heart tightened. Hou Jing was not a fool. Since Southern Liang could win over these Liao people, Hou Jing could naturally do it as well.

Chen Baxian asked:
"What conditions did Hou Jing offer?" Ke Xian said, "It's actually very simple. Hou Jing promised not to set up any restrictions, and no longer collect taxes like before, but to collect taxes based on land and population, and treat the Han people equally."

Hearing this, Chen Baxian thought to himself, "Oh no!"

He had experienced the rebellion of the Li people in Guangzhou. The main reason for the rebellion was that local officials arbitrarily levied taxes on local Li tribes, which eventually led to the Li people in the entire Guangzhou area uniting and killing the county officials appointed by the Southern Liang Dynasty to rebel.

The collection of silk was originally a policy of vassalage, whereby the government would symbolically collect some special products from the foreign tribes in the vassal areas in order to maintain a certain degree of political influence.

In the early days of this system, taxes were levied on worthless things, such as fish and shellfish from coastal tribes, and animal skins from mountain tribes. The general principle was to just collect the taxes as a token of appreciation, and there was no expectation that these taxes would be of much use. Sometimes the imperial court was even unwilling to transport these "specialties" to the capital, and would just hand them over to local officials to distribute as welfare.

However, any system will be distorted during implementation if it lacks supervision.

What was originally just a symbolic tax to control the local people became a means for local officials to exploit these foreign tribes due to their greed.

The requirements for collecting silk were repeatedly raised, and the special products collected became more and more valuable.

For example, those tribes that used to only collect fish catches gradually became required to offer pearls as tribute.

Those tribes that were unable to fulfill their tax collection became targets of attack by local officials because of the prosperous slave trade in Southern Liang.

The defeated tribes would be declared in rebellion, and their people would be sold to slave traders to become serfs who worked day and night in the manors of the Southern Liang nobles.

This led to increasing conflicts between Han and Li people in the Lingnan region during the Southern Liang Dynasty.

The same problem also occurred in Yizhou.

For many Liao people, paying taxes together with the Han people is not a tax increase but a tax reduction.

In fact, the land tax and the poll tax at that time were not that heavy. The most important thing was that the country's taxation was a serious policy and local officials could not mess around with it. This could to a certain extent prevent local officials from using special tax policies to exploit the people.

Chen Baxian laughed dryly and said:

"What was the reaction from the surrounding tribes?"

The chief of Nanping Liao said with a smile:

"Some people are still tempted, but Governor Xiao has been very kind to our Nanping Liao, and we still want to repay the Governor."

Chen Baxian had a lot of contact with these Liao people, most of whom were relatively simple and honest.

Only this one can be considered as the most ambitious among the Liao people. Over the years, Nanping Liao has conquered five Liao tribes under Xiao Ji's nose and forced them to pay tribute and submit. His ambition is obvious.

But Chen Baxian could only sigh. The Nanping Liao was the largest tribe around Ba County. It was said that they had 3,000 soldiers in rattan armor. Even if this number was exaggerated, the mountains were their home ground. These Liao people were natural mountain infantry, and it was difficult for the Han army to defeat them in the mountains.

They occupied the mountain stream and could go down the mountain to attack the government troops at any time.

According to Wang Sengbian, who was guarding Baidi City, they did not ask these Liao people to cause much damage to Hou Jing's army. They only asked them to delay Hou Jing's army and cause trouble for his logistics. Then, when the Southern Liang court sent more troops to Baidi City next year, they could counterattack and enter Shu.

Chen Baxian continued to talk to Kexian:

"Master, the northerners are untrustworthy. You also know that Commander Xiao has always kept his word since he came to Shu. This time, please ask the master to punish those tribes that rebelled against the northerners."

But he glanced at Chen Baxian and said:

"You Han people have a saying, 'If the name is not right, the words will not be justified.' Under what name can we, the Liao of Nanping, fight against those rebellious tribes?"

Chen Baxian cursed inwardly, it seemed that this Kexian Cave Master had already received the news a long time ago, and would not take action until he was conferred an honor by the Southern Liang court.

Chen Baxian was worried, but thinking of his mission, he could only say humbly:

"Cave Master, these are all negotiable."
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Yang Jia was leading his troops and advancing through the mountains.

From a small soldier under Hou Jing, Yang Jia was promoted to captain after the war of entering Shu. He was considered a legend in the army.

But this achievement was earned by his two first climbs, so the soldiers could only admire him.

As a newly promoted captain, Yang Jia's battalion had only 500 men, and only 300 core veterans, which was seriously short of the full strength of 1,000 men.

Although Hou Jing instructed him to recruit men on his own, Yang Jia had his own opinion. Having seen elite soldiers, he understood that quality is more important than quantity. He did not blindly expand the army, but carefully selected qualified soldiers.

Yang Jia was assigned to the vicinity of Ba County, responsible for clearing out the rebellious Liaoren tribe nearby.

Soon after arriving in Ba County, he heard the news of Nanping Liao and personally led his men up the mountain to investigate the situation of Nanping Liao.

(End of this chapter)