Starting from the twenty-fifth year of Shenwu, this prosperous age of Shenwu, which had lasted for more than ten years, seemed to have problems.
First, in Hanzhong County in the northwest, barbarians from the north and west began to invade the territory.
In order to ensure the security of the border, the imperial court had to send 200,000 to 300,000 troops all year round to regularly raid the Longxi and Hexi counties adjacent to Hanzhong. Hundreds of thousands of troops and a larger number of migrating barbarians almost defeated the entire five Yongxi counties. Mountains of corpses and seas of blood.
Millions of barbarians were killed every year, and the imperial court was not much better. Over the years, no less than 50,000 soldiers died in the northwest frontier, and more than 100,000 were injured. The losses were tragic.
But even so, those grassland barbarians and foreign races from the Western Regions still seemed unable to be killed.
If a group of people are killed every year, more people will flood into the land of Yongxi the next year, and then repeat what the previous group of people did and start a desperate struggle with the Chu State.
In order to survive, the firm will of a person who wants to survive cannot be destroyed at all.
Because this is an instinct engraved in human bones and in the culture of an ethnic group.
In order to survive, even if they know that the five counties of Yongxi today have become a meat grinder of life where everyone who comes is bound to die, there are still a large number of people fighting for the survival of the ethnic group, rushing in one after another, seeking a life in this hunting ground of life. Chance.
The Chu State could only passively join this war and follow the barbarians and aliens to fight in this survival field.
Just like the Zhou Kingdom back then, it was hindered by the two counties of Helong and held back by countless foreigners who wanted to survive. It was constantly bleeding and weak in this foreign land.
However, the Chu State is better than the Zhou State. It is that the Chu State is larger than the Zhou State and faces fewer and weaker enemies than the Zhou State. Therefore, even if it is constantly bleeding, its own hematopoietic ability is not enough. is stronger.
Before the loss of this little blood could have any impact on the body, more fresh blood was replenished, and the body became even stronger.
Perhaps it is precisely because of this that in the face of this cruel northwest war, even if the casualties and losses were so heavy, the Chu State could persevere unswervingly instead of choosing to be conservative.
If the death in the Northwest Helong battle was a painful but acceptable wound for Chu State.
Then the pirate rebellion, which also started in the 25th year of Shenwu and started in the South China Sea, is a stubborn disease that makes people itchy but cannot be cured.
Because the Antarctic fires have begun to break out, a large number of island countries living in the South China Sea Islands have to take boats to the north where there is no disturbance from the fires, hoping to find a habitat there.
Therefore, although it is limited to the shortage of sea ships, those southern island countries cannot directly move their clans and countries like the grassland barbarians and the aliens from the Western Regions.
However, due to the environment of the South China Sea, there are thousands of islands. The living habits of those island countries in the past were that they liked to travel by boat, and they liked to sail big boats, and their travels were mainly by boats.
If the countries in Kyushu were founded based on the army, then the countries in the South China Sea were based on the navy.
Therefore, any small country in the South China Sea can basically produce thousands of ships, of which there are no less than dozens of large ships that can pass through the sea.
Some big countries in the South China Sea even have tens of thousands of boats and thousands of ships at sea, covering the sky and the sun and the entire sea.
Island countries like these are swarming towards the north, which almost means the erosion of the sea frontier.
Among the nine states, Chu State is already considered a big country with prosperous boats.
But even in the Chu State, there were no more than 100,000 ships in the country. Among them, there were no more than 3,000 ships that could be called large ships and could sail through the sea.
With this strength, facing the overwhelming Nanhai Marine Corps, numbering tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands, they are simply pebbles in the waves. As long as they hit them, they will be submerged in an instant.
Therefore, except at the beginning, they still insisted on patrolling the sea area and cleaning up pirates, and held on for a period of time.
After losing more than half of Chu's navy of only 200,000 men, they decisively withdrew to the port to preserve their strength.
Except for guarding some key areas, he never goes out again.
But as a result, the Chu State's tens of thousands of miles of maritime territory was completely reduced to the paradise of those South China Sea bandits, and war broke out from then on.
Tens of thousands of ships and hundreds of thousands of pirates were active on the coast of Chu State. From time to time they would go ashore to plunder, and in serious cases they would even attack towns and openly separatist rule.
After all, the pirates who came from across the sea wanted to find a place for their country and tribe to live, which was very different from the ordinary pirates who only wanted to steal wealth.
However, this kind of attempt to occupy territory was naturally severely punished by the Chu State.
At sea, due to the weakness of the ship's navy, Chu had to give way.
But if those South China Sea pirates come ashore and have no ships to rely on, the Chu army will not be afraid at all.
Even without the Chu army taking action, the Linhai vassal states that were sealed off in Lingnan led their own troops and drove the pirates who came to seize territory from them directly into the sea.
One of them wanted to go ashore, and the other was suffering from banditry in the sea, so the tension continued.
Even the Chu State's Linhai, Guangling, and Jian'an counties had to abandon a large number of small towns along the coast because of the pirates. Except for a few heavily guarded large cities, a large number of people were moved to safer areas. Mainland.
Within a hundred miles of the coast, it was just abandoned.
Not only Chu State, but also Liang State, Nanzheng State, Jin State and other countries in the north, which were also close to the sea, were also harassed by pirates like Chu State.
It's just that because they are in the north, they are a bit far away from the South China Sea. The pirates from the South China Sea cannot reach that far, so there are fewer pirates in the sea.
It's just that in the Jin and Xu countries, the pirate banditry is more serious.
Because there were not only pirates from the South China Sea, but also pirates from the East China Sea who were driven by sea storms and began to migrate towards Kyushu.
At present, these people have landed in the Yuzhou and Liangzhou areas and are frequently harassing the coastal areas of Jin and Xu, causing them great trouble.
Even the war in Yuzhou was greatly affected by this.
In short, all the coastal countries in Kyushu have suffered from the never-ending harassment of pirates.
It's just that Chu's luck is a little worse. There are invasions of grassland barbarians and foreign tribes from the western regions in the northern border, and pirates from the South China Sea are causing trouble and harassing the coast.
Oh, no, there is one more thing to add.
In the southwest, in the adjacent Southern Rainforest, some tribes from small countries have also appeared in recent times migrating north.
It seems that ground fires have also begun to rage in the southernmost part of the rain forest.
Some small tribes in the southern part of the rain forest lost their homes and had to migrate north to find new habitats.
Under the influence of their migration tide, some tribes in the southern and central parts of the rainforest were also driven northward.
It's just that in the rain forest, the area where ground fire occurs is still too small, and the coverage is not very large, so not many tribal countries are affected.
The migration wave caused by this, even if it had an impact, was temporarily blocked by the national tribes in the central and northern rainforest, and only a small part spread to the southwest of Chu State.
These only impacts were quickly resolved by the vassal states of Dali and Nanzhao in the southwest, and no trouble was caused.
But this news was sent back to Baling so that the court could be prepared for this.
After all, everyone knows that the current commotion in the rain forest is just a sign.
As the ground fire moves northward, the entire rainforest will soon be affected, and eventually the entire forest will turn into a sea of flames.
Under this impact, all tribal countries living in the rainforest will migrate northward in order to survive.
By then, the Chu State would have to face the impact of an entire region's population migration wave.
Even if the southern rainforest has a smaller population due to its environment, it may not be as good as the northern grasslands.
But no matter how small it is, it is still the population of a domain, and the number is tens of millions.
Such a migration wave is not like that of the grassland barbarians in the north and the foreign tribes in the Western Regions. There is also the Wei State helping to share the pressure.
The people in the southern rainforest can only be resisted by the Chu State.
Now more than a dozen small countries in the southwest, including the vassal states in Lingnan, have begun intensive preparations after learning about the changes in the rain forest.
Build passes, repair city walls, recruit soldiers and horses, hoard food and grass...
For anything related to war, the vassal states in Southwest and Lingnan have begun preparations.
Because if the migration wave from the southern rainforest really comes, the first wave to be affected will be the southwest and Lingnan regions.
These vassal states are on the front line. They can't escape even if they want to, and they can only fight to the death with the people of the rain forest.
In this case, of course they dare not slack off.
In short, the war is raging in the northern Xinjiang, the bandits are incessant in the coastal Xinjiang, and the clouds of war are hanging over the southwest. This is what the Chu State has suffered in the past ten years or so.
Under the drag of these three major battlefields, the hinterland of Chu State was still singing and dancing, and it was peaceful and prosperous.
But this prosperous age also has a bit of gloom, and it is actually a bit dark.
…
Baling City.
After more than thirty years of prosperity, this imperial capital has gradually gained a bit of history, revealing its unique heritage and wealth as the center of a country.
"What a prosperous and wonderful dream!"
At the Royal Palace Star Observation Deck, Lu Yuan stood on the stage, climbed up and looked out into the distance, looking at the almost endless Baling City, Wei Ran let out a long sigh.
Then he turned around and said, "Brother Sun, do you think so?"
Sun Siwen next to him nodded: "It is indeed a prosperous and wonderful dream."
It has been Shenwu's forty years, and it has been another fifteen years of peace.
As the population multiplied and people from all directions gathered, Baling City grew larger again, and the population once again climbed to the terrifying figure of three million.
In a society still dominated by farming, a giant city like Baling is almost unimaginable.
Not to mention in Chu State, even in the entire Jiuzhou, it is absolutely the number one city in the world.
Because the current overlord of Zhongzhou, once the most powerful country in Kyushu, and now the capital of Daliang, has a population of just one million.
After more than twenty years of war, the Liang Kingdom was exhausted. The population of the capital, Daliang, had not only dropped from one and a half million at its peak to one million at this time.
Even the throne of Liang Guo, the most powerful country in the world, was pulled down and the country was changed.
The prosperity of Daliang, like its owner, confirms the rise and fall of an empire.
Of course, this is just the actual girder.
In reality, in the eyes of outsiders, today's Daliang is still the number one city in the world.
Liang Guo is still the first country in the world.
Because the real number one state, Chu State, has not released important data on its population, troops, money and grain output to outsiders for ten years.
"With fifteen years of savings, I, Da Chu, have been hiding my strength, using continuous wars and this dream of prosperity to confuse the world."
Lu Yuan stared at Baling City, his thoughts drifting far away, and he counted: "Seventy million people, three million soldiers and horses, annual income of 400 million taels, 600 million acres of farmland, 500 million shi of grain, innate Seventy-two people.
In fifteen years, I, Da Chu, have accumulated this wealth.
But he has been hiding it, just waiting for an opportunity.
In order to win the trust of the Northern Kingdom, I raised troops year after year and gathered hundreds of thousands of people in Longxi.
Villages and towns were evacuated, and tens of thousands of miles of maritime territory were abandoned.
Appease the southwest and allow the forest people to become powerful.
Relying on these methods that were close to self-mutilation, those people were finally reassured. "
In recent years, Chu State has only shown to the outside world the wars in the northern Xinjiang, the banditry in the coastal areas, the wars in the southwest, and the peaceful singing and dancing in the country.
And Chu State's behavior of not publishing its own data is more like being overwhelmed by the continuous war, and the entire country is in the midst of internal and external troubles.
Everything right now is just whitewashing the peace.
Well, this is indeed the message that Chu State wants to convey to outsiders.
Otherwise, do you want to tell the world the true information about Chu State?
This is indeed a way to greatly enhance the country's prestige and shock the world.
But after the shock, it was destined to be a mess.
The reason...
If the Chu State in the south is a country with internal and external troubles and many problems, then the Liang State, Wei, Zhao, Xu and other countries in the north can naturally fight with confidence.
But what if the Chu State was a country with abundant money and food, sharp weapons, no worries at home and abroad, and a rich heritage that was unparalleled in the world?
Let me ask, with such a powerful country hiding behind you and staring at you eagerly, who would not feel uneasy and who would not be on guard?
When the Liang Kingdom goes to war with Wei, Zhao, Xu and other countries, how can they go all out and leave no room for anything?
Will the three kingdoms of Wei, Zhao and Xu be worried that when they and Liang Guo fight to the death, Chu will come and pick up the peach?
Therefore, unless the doubts of these countries are resolved, they will not fulfill the Chu State's wish and fight in Qingzhou.
No one wants to make someone else’s wedding dress.
This is why Chu State knew that it could blockade the northwest and protect Hanzhong at a very small cost by defending Longshan, but it still insisted on sending troops to Helong to fight with the grassland barbarians and the foreign races of the Western Regions.
How can you win people's trust if you are not willing to pay a certain price?
The Wei State, like the Chu State, also faced invasions and threats from grassland barbarians and foreign tribes from the Western Regions. It also suffered from this problem in the north and west of the border.
In order to resist those foreign tribes, Wei's casualties would only be greater than those of Chu's.
Only those who have experienced it can know the pain.
Similarly, the Liang State, which suffered deeply from maritime banditry, could also understand the suffering of the Chu State.
Therefore, the four northern countries are quite convinced that Chu State is constantly weakening amid endless border troubles.
Because they were faced with a border threat, they felt deeply exhausted and overwhelmed.
The Chu State was faced with three at once, which was almost equivalent to being besieged by three hegemons. How could it be easy for them?
Liang Guo endured the siege of Wei, Zhao and Xu for more than ten years. In the end, the people were short of money, the country was wasted, the household registration was greatly reduced, and the soldiers were blunt and armored.
Even if Chu State is a little better, how much better can it be?
It is precisely because Chu State has the same views as himself that the current situation in all nine states is exhausted.
"Now, I have made it clear that I heard that the Wei State has given up all the land it occupied in Yanzhou and moved all the people into Henan and Nanyang counties, focusing on defending Shuofang and Guan Nei, and operating the original The homeland of the Zhou Kingdom."
Lu Yuan continued to mention the latest news.
As time goes by, the cold wave natural disaster that first started in the north, after more than thirty years of evolution, has approached the Yanzhou area.
At this time, the entire northern part of Yanzhou had turned into a land of ice and snow.
The central part of Yanzhou is completely occupied by the grassland barbarians who migrated south and the people of the small country of Yanzhou. Tens of millions of people are crowded there, and they are migrating southward crazily every day.
The cold wave is constantly compressing their living space. If they don't go south one day, they will be swallowed up by wind and snow the next moment.
This is no longer forced by wind and snow, but urgent.
Therefore, in this case, after the Wei State moved all the people of Yanzhou, it did not continue to hold on and retreat, but simply gave up all its land in Yanzhou.
The land in the southern part of Yanzhou was given to those who were eager to move south.
It's just that the land of Yanbei, which is about to be engulfed by the cold wave and has been relocated with few people, can be easily abandoned.
But it is still an important grain-producing area, and should still be stable in the next twenty or thirty years. Can Wei give up the eastern part of Yongzhou, or the two counties of Shuofang and Guannei?
At the beginning, these two counties, Henan and Nanyang counties behind Zhou State, were a safe hinterland, which could continuously produce money, food and soldiers to support the war on the front line.
With this foundation, Zhou State is still the hegemon in the world and can dominate the world.
And when Zhou State abandoned Shuofang and Guannei counties, Henan and Nanyang became the front lines. The people of the two counties became faced with war and could no longer produce with peace of mind.
As a result, the Zhou Kingdom fell into a dilemma of shortage of money and food and widespread famine.
The country could no longer support a large-scale army and could not feed more soldiers and horses. In the end, even with the help of Liang State, it was quickly wiped out by Wei State.
The lesson is right before our eyes.
"With the example of Zhou State, Wei State should know that they have no retreat."
Lu Yuan said this with emotion: "But the prairie barbarians from the north are easier to deal with. After decades of consumption, the number of prairie barbarians who originally numbered tens of millions is now less than ten million.
Just like the Tibetan people in the snowy plains, there were too many casualties to make it a success.
In the end, they were either annexed by others, or they died and moved south.
But those foreign races from the Western Regions who came from the west have just started their migration.
Considering the vastness of the Western Region, there are at least 30 to 40 million people in these alien races. After integrating the grassland barbarians and the remnant people of Yanzhou, the number of refugees from the west may even reach 50 million.
And today, there are still 40 million people in Wei State?
There is Liang State in the east, foreigners in the west, and Zhao State, its ally in the north, seems to be ready to attack Wei State's Henan County.
How is the current state of Wei similar to the state of Zhou in that time?
If the Wei State does not want to follow in the footsteps of the Zhou State, it must make a choice, give up the battlefield with the Liang State, and try its best to protect the country.
If it withdraws, it will be difficult for Zhao and Xu to compete with Liang.
Our strategy of consuming the four kingdoms of Chu will also be ineffective. "
Lu Yuan spoke in a low tone with determination in his voice: "So, we have been waiting for decades, and although the time is not yet ripe, we are ready to take action.
The Northern Expedition is imperative. "
