The revival of the Han Dynasty must start with Dong Zhuo

Chapter 172: The Emperor of Heaven personally leads the army!

"So, this is roughly what the court means."

The emperor has decided to select some elite troops from the Qiang people and have them attack Hanzhong via the Ziwu Road.

These Qiang people have also admitted that they have been to Hanzhong and walked along the Ziwu Road.

It was these methods of controlling the Qiang people that made Xun You's eyelids twitch.

"Wei Liangzhou, I'm counting on you."

In addition to the treatment of the Qiang people, the Secretariat also issued orders for the appointment and dismissal of officials in Liangzhou after the war.

In view of Wei Kang's good performance this time, coupled with his previous achievements in Guanzhong, he was directly promoted to the governor of Liangzhou and was granted the title of Marquis of Duting.

As expected, Ma Teng was recalled to the court, granted the title of Marquis of Huaili, and became the Weiwei, one of the Nine Ministers.

However, in order to reassure him, the court did not summon his son Ma Chao to the court, but instead granted him the title of General of the State and set up a military headquarters in Liangzhou to protect Liangzhou.

Although Ma Teng was still somewhat reluctant in his heart, he also knew that the court had already been very kind to him.

He was granted the title of county marquis and entered the imperial court to be honored as one of the Nine Ministers. His son Ma Chao even became the seventh pillar general of the Han Dynasty at the young age. If he dared to refuse, he would be rubbing the face of the imperial court into the ground.

By then, not only will the imperial court not let me go, even Lu Bu will be the first to capture me and apologize to the imperial court.

Fa Zheng and Meng Da both looked at Ma Chao with envy.

A few days ago, we were all penniless.

How come you suddenly became the seventh pillar general of the Han Dynasty and a famous general on par with Lu Bu?

……

But envy is useless.

Everyone knows that the reason why Ma Chao was promoted to General at the young age was because his father was Ma Teng, a veritable local lord.

Since Ma Teng was to be recalled to the court and Ma Chao was to be retained in Liang Province, it was necessary to give Ma Chao an absolutely high position. Otherwise, it would be difficult for him to manage the troops left by his father Ma Teng.

but……

Even if Ma Chao was granted the title of General, given his age and qualifications, he probably would not be able to completely convince the public.

At this time, Ma Chao could only rely on the imperial court with all his strength and his relationship with the imperial court became closer.

Xun You smelled a strong "flavor of Jia Xu" from this appointment.

Vicious, sophisticated, and also helpless.

At the same time, the rewards for other people were also distributed.

The court did not recall envoys like Fa Zheng and Meng Da, but generously appointed them as the minor officials and military officials of Liangzhou Prefecture, allowing them to display their abilities without any worries.

Both Lü Bu and Xun You were promoted to marquis for their contributions in pacifying the Qiang invasion.

Xun You was conferred the title of Marquis of Lingshu Ting.

Lu Bu was conferred the title of Marquis Wen...

This title made Lu Bu a little dissatisfied.

Because the previous Wenhou of the Han Dynasty was the Si Tu Wang Yun who had died before.

When I put the title of "Wen Hou" on my head, I always feel like something is not quite right.

But when Lu Bu heard that the title of "Wenhou" was chosen for him by His Majesty himself, although he didn't know the reason, he still accepted it.

After all, can Your Majesty harm me, Lu Bu?
This time, the imperial court's rewards were mostly in the form of titles, and the actual material rewards were not that much...

after all,

I understand everything I understand.

The imperial court is now extremely poor. Even the food and supplies for this expedition were purchased from Liu Biao. How could there be any money left to reward the soldiers?

After the rewards were distributed according to merit, Pang De and Zhang Xiu took the lead in escorting the Qiang captives to Wudu and Yinping counties to bring their families out of the deep mountains and forests and properly settle them, but Lu Bu's main force was slow to leave.

Because in addition to targeting the Qiang people, the Secretariat also issued orders to Lu Bu and Xun You -

Take advantage of this opportunity to survey the land, conduct a thorough household registration, and crack down on the powerful!
Liangzhou is a frontier area. The miserable life of the people in Liangzhou is certainly a reason for the frequent invasions, but the greed of some of the big families in Liangzhou is obviously too ugly.

Now Lu Bu's army is stationed in Jincheng, and with the power of a great victory, they are looking at Liangzhou. If they don't take the opportunity to strike at all the powerful families in Liangzhou, then the Secretariat of the imperial court would be too useless!
Lu Bu didn't care.

Isn't it just staying in Liangzhou, preparing to kill people?

He did this job a lot and had no objection to it.

Xun You, however, had a miserable look on his face.

I clearly ran away from the Shangshu Tai to escape from handling government affairs, so why do I have to continue handling government affairs after arriving in Liangzhou?

And it’s offensive government affairs such as measuring the land and thoroughly checking the household registration?
……

Xun You's forehead was full of black lines. He dared to guarantee that this was definitely another case of Jia Xu taking revenge in the Secretariat to avenge himself for leaving the Secretariat without permission.

"He is really a poisonous old man!"

Xun You cursed inwardly, but he also knew the importance of measuring the land to the stability of Liangzhou, so he quickly began a thorough investigation.

It’s better not to check.

Once a thorough investigation is conducted, the results will be shocking!
Let’s just talk about Jincheng.

Jincheng County was established by Emperor Zhao. It is 2,800 li west of Luoyang. It has ten cities, 3,858 households, and 18,947 people.

This is the data recorded in the classics twenty years ago.

But now there are only 800 registered households and more than 4,000 people in Jincheng!

The population is only one-fifth of what it was twenty years ago!

Are all these people dead?

impossible!
Xun You came from the Xun family of Yingchuan, and was very clear about the practices of some aristocratic families.

It was nothing more than taking advantage of the turbulent times to hide these people under his own name and turn the people of the Han Dynasty into his own private property!
It is precisely in this way that the local financial situation will become worse and worse, and the taxes paid to the court will become less and less, resulting in the central finances gradually becoming empty and unable to support the army, suppress bandits, or quell rebellions.

"In that case, let's investigate thoroughly."

Anyway, Lu Bu's army is now stationed in Liang Province. This is the time when the imperial court is most powerful and can best restore order.

If the imperial court does not eliminate all the accumulated problems in Liangzhou at this time, I am afraid there will be no opportunity or excuse to do such a thing in the future.

Xun You asked Wei Duan to borrow Fa Zheng, Meng Da, and a group of scholars and officials from Guanzhong to conduct a thorough investigation of the population of Liangzhou.

Once anyone is found hiding civilians, he will be summoned immediately and questioned by the person in charge.

If they confessed frankly and were willing to cooperate with the government, nothing would happen. As long as they returned the embezzled land and counted the people they hid, the government would turn a blind eye and let them keep their original property.

But as Meng Da said before, it is impossible for people in the world to only do the right things.

Even if Lu Bu's army stopped in Jincheng.

Even if the blood of the Qiang people was still floating on the river, there would still be local nobles who would be stubborn and still know nothing after being summoned, intending to fight against the court.

These powerful families are not one family.

Several powerful families were secretly forming alliances or competing to bribe, and they were unwilling to hand over all the land they had embezzled and the people they had hidden.

Xun You only has one word for this kind of people:

court death!

This is not a peaceful time, the court is not afraid of killing people. And there is no political force tied to it in the court that can influence the central decision-making.

Most of Dong Zhuo's Xiliang generals came from poor backgrounds. They hoped that the court would send all these wealthy families from Liangzhou to the execution ground. How could they risk offending the emperor to speak for them?

Ma Teng actually received a lot of bribes in private...

However, after Ma Teng mentioned it to Xun You intentionally or unintentionally, Ma Teng decided not to get involved in the matter.

Xun You's attitude was very resolute, and he was determined to completely eliminate all the troubles in Liang Province.

Ma Teng asked Xun You: "Aren't you afraid of them? Behind them are countless scholars living in the local officialdom of Liangzhou!"

Xun You said righteously: "I have the imperial court and the emperor behind me! How can I be afraid of a few officials?"

After hearing this, Ma Teng felt ashamed and decided not to help out anymore, allowing Xun You to thoroughly clean up Liang Province.

After finding out the results and confirming the evidence, Xun You directly asked Lu Bu to lead the soldiers to arrest the person.

When the soldiers rushed into the homes of these wealthy families with swords in hand, they finally realized that the world had changed, so they hurriedly begged Xun You for mercy, indicating that they knew they were wrong.

"It's not that they know they are wrong, they just know they are going to die."

Xun You remained unmoved and allowed Lu Bu's soldiers to wipe out those wealthy families. Half of the money and grain they collected were rewarded to the soldiers, and the other half was distributed to the people.

When the people of Liangzhou heard the news, they all knelt down towards Chang'an to express their gratitude and shed tears of gratitude.

It was later found that in Jincheng County, there were more than a thousand households of people who were hidden, even more than the number of people registered...

"Shocking!"

This is just Jincheng County.

How many people are hidden in the remaining counties such as Longxi, Hanyang, Wudu, Anding, Beidi, Wuwei, Zhangye, Jiuquan, and Dunhuang?

And this is just Liangzhou.

In Kanto, where the power of aristocratic families is even more rampant, how many households are concealed?
"The weak stem and the strong branch, this is why the Han Dynasty has declined to this point today!"

In order to eliminate the accumulated problems in one fell swoop, Xun You simply ordered the captains at all levels under Lu Bu to lead their troops to the counties and prefectures of Liang Province.

At first, the wealthy families in these counties thought that the soldiers were crude and wanted to fool them.

But no one expected that the soldiers under Lu Bu's command were the first group of soldiers to start learning literacy on a large scale.

In addition, because they were to be trained as county officials from the beginning, they were able to basically understand the most basic household registrations and rosters.

If they were asked to interpret the meaning of the scriptures, there might be some problems, but if they were just asked to understand the accounts and sort out the data, there would be no problem at all.

Some soldiers saw local nobles coming with accounts to pass off fake ones as real ones, or simply writing some messed up things on them to fool them, and they immediately jumped up and killed people, putting an end to them decisively and swiftly.

"Damn it! I am educated too! You are trying to fool me with a bunch of weird drawings? You deserve to be killed!"

"..."

For a whole month, all the wealthy families in Liangzhou lived in fear.

On the other hand, the people of Liangzhou applauded and were grateful to the court, and their respect for the Han Dynasty grew even more.

Pang De and Zhang Xiu also escorted the Qiang people to Wudu and Yinping counties.

Because now most of the tribes of Qiangduan and Agui are left with only women and children, they can only obey the arrangements of the court and walk out of the mountains.

After all, without the protection of the young and strong people in the tribe, these women and children would not be able to survive in the mountains on their own.

After moving these women and children out, officials in the Longyou area also changed the surnames and names of these Qiang people in accordance with the court's wishes.

Most Qiang people were willing to cooperate, and some even took the initiative to change their surnames to "Yang", "Ma" or "Jiang".

There were also many Qiang people who worshipped the strong and gave themselves names like "Fengxian" and "Qubing".

As for the few who were unwilling, the imperial court did not force them, but simply demoted them to slavery and sent them to repair canals and reclaim wasteland, making them work like slaves for their former tribesmen and becoming the targets of oppression and humiliation.

Some smart officials even noticed that the Qiang people who changed their surnames to Han ones were more brutal towards those who refused to change their surnames to Han ones. The respect and friendship among the same ethnic group disappeared in an instant, leaving only the masters scolding the slaves.

As for some widows in the tribe, they were also distributed to Han soldiers as wives according to the order.

At first, these Han people were somewhat reluctant, as they disliked the faint smell of sheep on Qiang women.

But after living there for a while, these Han soldiers all sighed—

"Qiang women are so fragrant!"

Although they are not as good at spinning and weaving as Han women, they are all good hunters.

These Qiang women would sometimes take the initiative to go to the mountains and forests to capture some wild game to provide nutrition for their Han husbands.

Not to mention that Qiang women are mostly unrestrained and can give these Han soldiers unprecedented experiences in matters between men and women.

man.

Especially the lower class men.

The women they pursue are never gentle, elegant, beautiful or charming.

As long as you can take good care of your family and be considerate to yourself, that's enough.

If you can have a son or daughter to carry on the family line, it would be a blessing earned through several lifetimes!

The Qiang women who were once somewhat despised suddenly became popular in the eyes of the Han soldiers, and they all wanted to marry them.

The Qiang men were filled with a sense of crisis, fearing that the Han people would snatch their wives away.

I asked the Han officials if they had any solution. These Han officials were also quite smart.

"Join the army!"

"Go and become a palace soldier!"

After becoming soldiers of the imperial court, they would be granted land by the imperial court and taught to read and write in the military camp to accelerate their sinicization.

If he could be promoted to a high position in the future, would he still be afraid that his wife would abandon him?
So these Qiang people requested to join the government troops, and soon they had gathered a large Qiang army capable of carrying out the mission of crossing the Ziwu Road.

Pang De and Zhang Xiu each led several thousand Qiang people and quickly led the army to Guanzhong, intending to cross the Ziwu Road.

But before heading to Guanzhong, they still had one thing they had to do -

"The emperor's procession has arrived at Shanggui!"

(End of this chapter)