Chapter 21 The flames of war are in urgency

After Liu Heng ascended the throne, things continued to happen in the court.Introducing policies and resolving conflicts, the entire leadership team of the central government is extremely busy with internal adjustments within the imperial court.Everyone forgot for a moment that outside the territory of the Han Dynasty, especially in the north of the Han Dynasty, there was a group of Huns who were eyeing them.It's been a long time since this group of Huns who were quite rowdy made any big moves.Instead of perishing in silence, they broke out in silence. Obviously, the Huns are brewing a new war.

Sitting on Shanyu's seat at this time is still Maodun who led the Huns to prosperity.It is impossible for such a talented and bold generation of heroes to be dismissed by the Han Dynasty casually sending a couple of women and presenting some gold and silver treasures. Women and money are only temporary playthings for such ambitious people.Unless these things can be traded in continuously, or there is some kind of emotion in between, they will always think about their career. Gentle Township cannot contain extraordinary people, especially those leaders who embrace political ideals.No matter how cruel their desire to rule the world is to the common people, their ideals are the first and the reality is the second.They seldom have love, and what they vent in women's sex is only a moment of lust, and what they covet in money is only a moment of pleasure.A sober person, a person who shoulders a great mission, and a person with great pressure in life will never be fettered by short-term pleasure and vain lust.

So we can see that the ancient kings didn't have much love.Many people envy the countless beauties in the ancient emperor's harem, but in fact that is also a task, to ensure that the royal family has successors.In addition, the emperor worked hard all day, and at night it was purely to vent. Anyway, he did not pick his wives. There is little emotion. Therefore, any lingering stories of the ancient emperors were caught by the folks, and they were interpreted into love legends to their heart's content.From this we can also see the lack of the emperor's emotional life. Therefore, the way for the Han Dynasty to make peace with the Huns is definitely a stinking game.Regardless of the right or wrong of the Han and Hungarian peace negotiations, peace cannot be exchanged for peace, how valuable it is for you to be a princess of the Han family!

So in May of the third year of Emperor Wen's Yuan Dynasty, the Xiongnu army invaded Beidi County (zhimaling, northwest of Qingyang, Gansu Province) in the Han Dynasty, occupying the area south of the Yellow River in today's Ordos City, Inner Mongolia.Liu Heng woke up from his dream, and realized that the Xiongnu didn't care about it.Liu Heng, who was so busy, decided to put down the work at hand and go north to fight in person.Liu Heng was very interested in his own conquest. He led the army to the north and stopped at Ganquan Palace to confront the Xiongnu soldiers. In June, Liu Heng issued an edict saying: "The Han Dynasty and the Xiongnu once agreed to be brotherly countries. In order to prevent the Xiongnu from invading the border of the Han Dynasty, the Han Dynasty gave the Xiongnu a lot of property. Now the Right Wise King of the Huns has left the country to lead the The army stationed in Beidi County completely destroyed the previous peaceful and friendly relationship between the two countries and seriously violated our national sovereignty.

"The Xiongnu invaded the border of the Han Dynasty, captured and killed the soldiers of the Han Dynasty, and drove out the ethnic minorities who had surrendered and lived in the territory of the Han Dynasty, preventing them from living in the place where they originally lived. The Huns bullied the officials of the Han Dynasty on the border and robbed the border people I am now dispatching 85,000 cavalry from the northern region to Gaonu County (northeast of today’s Yan’an), and dispatching Prime Minister Yingyin Hou Guan Ying to lead the army to attack the Xiongnu.” The 85,000 cavalry were powerful, and Guan Ying was good at commanding the cavalry, but seeing the banners of the Han family fluttering in the desolate northwest region, the dust was flying and the sky was full of yellow sand, it was another fierce battle.

From ancient times to the present, the Han people and the nomads have no advantage in fighting. Even if they win a battle, it is often obtained with huge manpower and material resources.The army of the nomads is very mobile, jumping up and down, and the army formation changes quickly, and the general infantry cannot cope with it at all. It was certainly a wise move for the Han Dynasty to send cavalry, but the Central Plains are mostly flat land, and the combat effectiveness of a single cavalry may not be as good as that of the Huns.But the good thing is that there is no shortage of big men. The cruel and backward tactics of "human sea tactics" are often extremely effective on the battlefield in the era of cold weapons.Anyway, it wasn't the emperor who died, so Liu Heng didn't care about the consumption of soldiers.

The Youxian King of the Xiongnu saw that the Han Dynasty had a large number of people, and that the soldiers of the Han Dynasty were fighting with the mentality of "kill one to earn money, kill two to earn one", so he suddenly became unwilling to fight and took The harvest along the way went home. Liu Heng had just ascended the throne and was dealing with the Huns' war for the first time, so he inevitably panicked.Afterwards, Liu Heng dispatched a large number of special forces (material officers) from the chief garrison officers of the capital to the General Guard's jurisdiction, so as to strengthen his own guarding force.

On June 27th, Liu Heng, who hadn't had enough fun, passed through Ganquan Palace and Gaonu County, and then went to Taiyuan Kingdom.This place is the original Taiyuan County under the jurisdiction of Liu Heng when he was the king.Satisfied, Liu Heng set foot on this familiar land again, feeling quite "returning home".He met the officials in the former Dai's mansion in the local area, and gave them a lot of property. At the same time, he distributed wine and beef to the original people of Dai, exempting the people of Jinyang and Zhongdu for three years. taxation.Liu Heng finally got a chance to show off his success, so he stayed in Taiyuan for more than ten days before leaving reluctantly.

Since ancient times, it has been a very festive and lively scene for an emperor to return to his hometown. Liu Heng's revisiting his hometown is not only full of showing off, but also shows his closeness to the people of the world.Liu Heng tried his best to show his success in front of the people of Daidi, and then gave the people of Daidi a sense of psychological superiority and pride.Chinese people have such a characteristic: when a famous person comes out of a village, the whole village feels that they have face, even if the famous person has nothing to do with them. Liu Heng's move is intended to stabilize the hearts of the people.The aspiration of the people is a kind of affirmation, which shows the success of the emperor.

When Liu Heng was showing off in his "second hometown" Taiyuan, the dissatisfied Jibei King Liu Xingju took advantage of Liu Heng's absence to rebel and attempted to invade Xingyang. Liu Xingju rebelled mainly because he blamed Liu Heng for not fulfilling his promise to make him King Liang and Liu Zhang King Zhao.Liu Heng did not fulfill his promise, but there were difficulties. First, Liu Heng must focus on the overall situation.To be honest, Liu Xingju and Liu Zhang's contributions in supporting Liu Heng's ascension to the throne are far inferior to those of Chen Ping and Zhou Bo.If you give Liu Xingju and Liu Zhang the vassal states as big as Liang Guo and Zhao Guo, then other people who have made more contributions than them will have to make trouble in front of Liu Heng.

Secondly, Liu Heng wants to rectify the power of the princes and kings, and he can just divide a place from a certain princes country to seal them. .And if the promise is fulfilled, the strength of the Kanto princes and kings will be even stronger. So Liu Heng was right in not fulfilling his promise, not to mention that the promise was originally made by the hero group and had nothing to do with Liu Heng. To Liu Xingju's regret, Liu Zhang, King of Chengyang Jing, had passed away in April of the lunar calendar in the year Liu Xingju raised his army. His good friend was gone, leaving Liu Xingju to fight alone.After learning of Liu Xingju's rebellion, Liu Heng immediately asked the prime minister Guan Ying to stop chasing the Huns, and at the same time dispatched Jipuhou Chaiwu to lead 100,000 troops to fight against Liu Xingju's rebels, and dispatched the founding hero Qihou Zenghe as the general to garrison Xingyang. , to prevent Liu Xingju's army from continuing to advance westward. According to historical records, before Liu Xingju dispatched troops, "...a strong wind came from the east, blowing his flag straight into the sky and into the clouds, and falling into the west well of the city, all the horses screamed and refused to enter, and Li Kuo and Li Kuo waited for advice, but did not listen..." (Ge Hong's "Xijing Miscellaneous Notes" ) Suddenly a gust of wind blew, and the flags were swept up into the sky and fell into the well. The horses neighed one by one, which contained sad emotions.Everyone around saw that this was an ominous omen, and advised Liu Xingju not to raise an army, but Liu Xingju had been dazzled by his own greed and anger, and started to make trouble. On July 18th, Liu Heng returned from Taiyuan to Chang'an, the capital city, and immediately issued an edict: "Liu Xingju, the king of Jibei, has a corrupt moral character, dared to rebel, and took a large number of officials and people of Jibei Kingdom under his wing. I declare All the officials, people and soldiers of Jibei Kingdom, before the arrival of the imperial army, anyone who can voluntarily separate from Liu Xingju's command, or lead the army or the city to surrender, will pardon their sins and retain their original official positions and titles Those who had contacts with Liu Xingju in the past but did not participate in this rebellion will also be pardoned." In August of the same year, Liu Xingju was defeated and captured. Liu Heng ordered the amnesty of officials and common people who followed Liu Xingju in rebellion, and only Liu Xingju was held accountable.According to "Xijing Miscellaneous Notes", Liu Xingju, who was full of grief and indignation, finally committed suicide and died. After carefully analyzing the edict issued by Liu Heng on July 18th, 3rd year of the Yuan Dynasty, and his treatment of those who participated in Liu Xingju's rebellion, Liu Heng's approach was very tolerant.We have reason to suspect that this kind of tolerance is a show, but this kind of show at least shows that Liu Heng has deeply realized that in dealing with the issue of princes and kings, it is necessary to "conquer rigidity with softness".The reason why he did not wantonly suppress counterrevolutionaries is to avoid stirring up a new round of rebellion. Looking at the methods used by Emperor Wen to deal with kingdom issues in the first dynasty, he has always focused on appeasement since then, instead of intentionally forcibly attacking and weakening the power of local kingdoms as in the previous Liu Bang and Hui Lu eras.Thinking about it carefully, this not only makes Liu Heng tolerant and generous, but also allows the common people to see the confident side of the emperor, so naturally they will no longer listen to the reactionary separatist propaganda of the princes and kingdoms.Through this method of establishing virtue, Liu Heng subtly weakened the strength of the Kwantung princes and kings. Since Liu Heng came to the throne, the entire vassal king group and hero group have lost seven vassal kings and lieutenants successively. In the first year of the Yuan Dynasty, King Liu Jiao of Chu died, and his posthumous title was "Yuan"; in the same year, King Liu Xiang of Qi passed away, and his posthumous title was "Ai". In October of the second year of the Yuan Dynasty, Chen Ping, Marquis of Qu Ni, died, and his posthumous title was "Xian"; in the same year, Liu Ze, the original king of Langya, who was later renamed King of Yan, died, and his posthumous title was "Jing". In April of the third year of the Yuan Dynasty, Liu Zhang, king of Chengyang, died, and his posthumous title was "Jing" after his death; in the same year, Liu Xingju, king of Jibei, died, and his posthumous title was not recorded in history books. The next step is Yingyin Hou Guanying who died in December of the fourth year of the Yuan Dynasty. After his death, he was given the posthumous title of "Yi". By the fourth year of Emperor Wen's Yuan Dynasty, the main figures of the hero group and the princes and kings group had basically passed away.Although Zhou Bo is not dead yet, he is still at home.As soon as the core figures of these two major groups dispersed, Liu Heng's serious worry had been eliminated, and the general situation of the world was completely controlled by Liu Heng. However, the problem is not completely gone, there is at least one person, he is still Liu Heng's opponent.If you still have an impression, you should remember that besides his uncle Liu Jiao, the king of Chu, Liu Xiang, the son of Liu Fei, the king of Qi, and Liu Heng's younger brother Liu Heng, the king of Huainan, who were qualified to fight for the throne with Liu Heng. long.This person has been dormant and has great ambitions.For Liu Heng, it is hard to guarantee that this person is not a stumbling block. "It's better to strike first, and to suffer later." Liu Heng had already planned on his younger brother, but Liu Chang himself brought the opportunity to his door. In the sixth year of Emperor Wen's BC (174 BC), the arrogant and domineering Huainan King Liu Chang also followed in the footsteps of Liu Xingju and was accused of treason.There are many reasons for this, but the introduction of the incident is related to Empress Lu's male favourite, Piyang Hou Shen Shiqi.