Wait, please don't call me Emperor Zhaolie

Chapter 458 People’s hearts are separated from each other’s belly

In late July, the Han army defeated many Xiongnu tribes in Shuofang, Wuyuan, Yunzhong, Xihe, Shang and other counties in Bingzhou.

A rough estimate by military and legal officials showed that a total of more than 74,000 Hun households surrendered. In addition, many nobles followed the Hun kings and fled to the outside of the Great Wall, so they could not be included in the statistics.

The number of seized cattle, sheep, mules, donkeys, and horses reached millions.

Seeing that the situation was not good, many tribes came forward with their cattle, sheep and horses to surrender to the Han army. In this battle, the Han army dispatched nearly 90,000 combat soldiers and auxiliary soldiers, including 20,000 cavalrymen including the Xiongnu and Qiang people from Hedong, the Bingzhou cavalry, and the Huben cavalry of the central army.

Almost all the cavalry in Liangzhou, Bingzhou, Sili and Yanzhou were withdrawn to hunt down the stubborn Xiongnu kings.

In this battle, a total of 53,427 Huns were beheaded, more than 206,800 Hu bows were obtained, 131,587 leather armors and other armors were seized, and a total of 3,652 carts of various animal skins were seized.

He also captured many Xianbei, Qiang, and Dingling slaves, and released 120,000 Han people who had been abducted over the years.

This battle basically wiped out the aristocratic forces of the Southern Xiongnu. For example, many of the officials of the 24 Xiongnu leaders, such as the Left and Right Zhanjiang Kings, the Left Guli King, the Right Riju King, the Xiutu King, and Daqiequ, were killed by the Han army.

The rest of the Xiongnu nobles who were not killed had already fled in fear to the Xianbei in Hexi.

While Liu Bei sent officials to count the many gold artifacts, cattle, sheep, horses and other livestock seized from the Huns, he urgently transferred officials from Hedong and Guanzhong to reorganize the Huns tribes in Bingzhou. While they were panic-stricken, he completely registered them as citizens, just like he did to the Huns in Hedong.

They no longer used their tribal divisions, but instead established a Jia for every ten households, a Bao for every ten Jias, and a Du Bao for every ten Baos. The surrendered leaders and generals were appointed as Jia heads, Bao heads, and Du Bao. If there was still a shortage of manpower, some of the Hedong Xiongnu were used as officials to manage the Bingzhou Xiongnu.

A performance appraisal system was also established, and after three years, the performance would be rotated every year, with the top performers taking over.

Let the Xiongnu in Hedong ride their horses and shout to inform the Xiongnu in Bingzhou, so as to alleviate their worries.

This was to prevent someone from spreading rumors among the surrendered soldiers, causing hundreds of thousands of Huns to surrender and then rebel again.

Many officials in the court had followed the emperor all the way from Qingzhou to fight against the Yellow Turbans. They had experienced the resettlement of hundreds of thousands of Yellow Turban surrendered soldiers and had also led the people of Pingyuan County across the river before the war between Liu and Yuan.

He also settled Yuan's surrendered soldiers and many civilians in Ganling County so that they would become accustomed to these things.

Anyway, that's it.

Every time His Majesty goes on an expedition, there is a mess to clean up. The Secretariat, headed by Xun Yu, has long been accustomed to it.

"Minister Xun, your Majesty has ordered the Sili and Jizhou granaries to transfer grain to Bingzhou by water. At the same time, you have ordered Wuji Zhenshi to use the Xianbei and Dingling slaves captured from the Xiongnu tribes to pay for the grain purchased from the wealthy families."

"It's fine as a temporary measure, but if the Han Dynasty uses Hu people as slaves in the future, would that be inappropriate?"

An official from the Honglu Temple, who was wearing a ceremonial hat and had a broad face and square mouth, bowed to Xun Yu and asked with a frown.

In addition to managing the affairs of the princes and vassal states, the Honglu Office was also responsible for the rituals of the barbarians' worship and their residences.

At this moment, the only prince of the Han Dynasty was King Liu Xie of Donglai. Except for the crown prince, all the other sons of your majesty are still young and have not been enfeoffed as kings.

Now the Xiongnu were completely registered as ordinary people, and additional military offices were set up to recruit Xiongnu people for military service, in addition to the Qiang people who had been registered previously.

At present, the only four barbarians left are the Xianbei in the north, the Wuhuan in the east of Youzhou, the Goguryeo in the north of Liaodong, the Western Regions in the west, the barbarians in Yizhou, the Shanyue in Yangzhou, and the barbarians in Jingjiao.

But in reality, Wuhuan Chanyu Tadun had offended the Han emperor and would be defeated sooner or later. Several counties in Liaodong had not returned to the Han Dynasty and were still occupied by the traitor Gongsun Du, so Goguryeo was put aside for the time being.

The barbarian forces in Yinan, Jingnan and Jiaozhou are numerous, and a tribal leader has less than 10,000 people under his command, which is not enough for the Han Dynasty to build a courtyard for them in the barbarian residence.

Not to mention the Shanyue people in Yangzhou, who were pushed back into the mountains of Kuaiji County under Cao Mengde's attack.

As a result, the only four barbarians left near the Han Dynasty were the countries in the Western Regions and the Xianbei in the south of the desert.

At this time, the Honglu Temple became the most leisurely place among the six ministries and the nine ministers, which also led to the continuous transfer of Honglu officials to other places starting from the first year of Jianxing.

Now there are only more than 300 people, which is almost equivalent to the clerks of a county. You must know that this is one of the Nine Ministers!
In just a few years, I have fallen to this point...

Chen Gui, who was Honglu Temple at the time, was not anxious at all. He still smiled at his colleagues every day, and it seemed that it didn't matter even if the Honglu Temple was emptied.

This made many Honglu officials grit their teeth. Every year in the court's performance evaluation of officials, the Honglu Temple was always ranked last.

Whenever the emperor questioned Chen Gui, who had white hair and beard, he would always smile, bow and say, "Your Majesty's power has frightened the four barbarians, and the mountain barbarians have all become Han people. The people from afar have submitted. In this way, the Honglu Temple will naturally have no achievements."

"This is the beginning of the prosperity of the Han Dynasty."

As Chen Gui spoke, he gave a thumbs up and praised with a smile on his face.

Liu Bei was left in a dilemma, as he thought the other party was old, and the Honglu office was indeed set up because he abolished all the princes of Liu Xiu's lineage and left only Liu Xie.

Under such circumstances, how could the Honglu Temple be busy?
From that day on, whenever the court was short of local officials, it would dispatch personnel from the Honglu, and at first the others would borrow and return them.

Later I found out that the Honglu had too much free time, so this was nothing.

Every time the time came to return the money, the other nine ministers and the heads of the six ministries pretended to be deaf and dumb, and even avoided seeing Chen Gui.

There was really no way to avoid it, so I just said that I was too busy recently and would release him when I was done. Besides, there wasn't anything important happening in the Honglu Temple recently...

Seeing this situation, Chen Gui could only sigh helplessly.

The Honglu Office really doesn't need so many people at the moment, and the emperor has tacitly approved of this matter.

Now the officials of the Honglu Temple have such doubts, and they are also afraid that in the future the four barbarians will either become Han people or become Hu slaves.

Then wouldn't it be of no use if his family's heritage, which has been passed down to this day and is familiar with the customs of various tribes and barbarians, the languages ​​of the Xiongnu, Qiang and Hu, and the Confucian etiquette,

How will our descendants be able to understand the affairs of the Hu people through documents and bamboo slips and then serve as the Honglu officials of the Han Dynasty?

Even though Xun Yu had been in power for many years, he never thought that this person would be born with a broad face and a square mouth, and he was afraid that the Han Dynasty would be affected if it accepted too many Hu slaves.

In fact, he was secretly worried that if the Qiang people and the Xiongnu became Han people, the books inherited in his family would be useless.

(End of this chapter)