Xiang Kang, who has always liked hypocrisy and hypocrisy, is indeed good at deceiving people's hearts, after Dingtao ascended the throne, Xiang Kang led the Han Dynasty to return to Sanchuan County, and immediately received a warm welcome by the people of Sanchuan.

Of course, the people of Sanchuan of the Han Dynasty are not blind, it is the advanced agricultural tools and farming technology vigorously promoted by the Han Dynasty that blinded the eyes of the people, the year before last Xiang Kang's personal creation of advanced agricultural tools in Guanzhong achieved great success, the civilian officials of the Han army headed by Zhou Zeng could not wait to start the comprehensive promotion of advanced agricultural tools in the areas controlled by the Han army, and at the same time tried to encourage the people to adopt the method of farming on behalf of the field. Advanced agricultural tools such as manpower plows and pedal plows were also successfully used on a large scale during spring ploughing last year, and the Daitian method was also widely adopted by the people of Guanzhong, who were the first to taste the sweetness, and sowed countless seeds into fields that would otherwise need to be fallow for one or even two years.

Of course, the results of trying the field method made the people of Guanzhong ecstatic again, so that they harvested the grain that can only be obtained in the usual harvest years on the land that should have been fallow, and at the same time, the people in Sanchuan, Jindi and Bashu and other places also tasted the joy that the people of Guanzhong had enjoyed the year before last, and each mu of land generally received about half a minute more grain, and many places where the land was particularly fertile, and because of the intensive cultivation of advanced agricultural tools, the harvest was nearly double the usual grain!

In the era of farming, of course, nothing can make the people happy and excited more than a bumper grain harvest, coupled with the fact that the Han military officials have long explained that these advanced farming tools and farming techniques came from Xiang Kang's own initiative, the Han people who have escaped the disaster of war are naturally more grateful to Xiang Kang, worship and love, and then of course more willing to support Xiang Kang as emperor, so that Xiang Kang can bring them a better and happy life.

Xiang Kang, who is good at performing, also lived up to the expectations of the people, and every place he went, he had to take time to meet with the representatives of the people, and pretended to say all kinds of good things to the representatives of the people, rewarding the elderly for the widows and orphans, encouraging farming and running schools, and doing his best to perform, and successfully coaxed countless poor people who were just barely able to fill their stomachs to be grateful to Dade, believing that they had met a rare Ming monarch and holy lord for a thousand years, and completely forgot that Xiang Kang was actually the spokesperson of the landlord class and the biggest exploiter at the top of the food chain.

The people of Sanchuan who have just begun to taste the sweetness are still like this, of course, not to mention the people of Guanzhong who have been pleasantly surprised for two consecutive years, because the people who came to greet them spontaneously were too enthusiastic, from Hangu Pass to Xianyang 300 miles of road, Xiang Kang's chariot walked for ten days, and then finally returned to Xianyang, and before Xiang Kang could take a breath, he was immediately drowned in the great enthusiasm of hundreds of thousands of Xianyang people, and he had to get out until it was dark.

After finally returning to Xianyang Palace and reuniting with the beautiful concubines such as the Yu family sisters, the exhausted Xiang Kang originally thought that he could breathe a sigh of relief, but Xiang Kang soon found that he was very wrong.

In the end, with the full assistance of Zhou Zeng, Li Shiqi, Zhang Liang and others, after finally straightening out the operation order of the Han court, and then no longer need to grasp the big and small affairs, Xiang Kang got a little time to rest, but even so, there are still endless official documents to read and unfinished affairs to deal with every day, which made Xiang Kang lament more than once, "I knew that being the emperor was so tired, I shouldn't have fought this world in the first place." ”

No matter how much you lament, it's useless, the cannon you have made an appointment with you has to finish it with tears, as the duty of the king, Xiang Kang can only do the position of the emperor hard-headed, every day is to try his best to restore the people's livelihood and economy, encourage population growth, punish corruption and clean up the rule of officials, rest with the people, and lightly pay for the poor, and dare not spoil the loser like Qin II, only care about enjoyment and ignore the life and death of the people.

Time is like an arrow, busy, nearly half a year has passed unconsciously, and in a blink of an eye it was the autumn harvest of the year, and as a result, just when the people of Guanzhong were gearing up to harvest the autumn grain, Lou Jing, who volunteered to make an envoy to the Huns, suddenly returned to Xianyang, and Xiang Kang immediately summoned him at the first time to understand the situation of the envoy in person.

"Your Majesty, the current Xiongnu Shan Yu Maodun is definitely not an easy character to deal with, and fortunately he is not from the Central Plains, if he is from the Central Plains and also participated in the Central Plains War with the army, then he must be a more dangerous and terrible enemy of the King of Western Chu."

This is the first sentence of Lou Jing's report to Xiang Kang, and then after listening to Lou Jing's careful introduction, Xiang Kang, who has a sparse history, was dumbfounded to know that he actually met the famous Xiongnu male lord who shot his biological father to death with a Ming Di, and only then did he know that Mao Dun took the opportunity of the Central Plains Anti-Qin War and the Chu-Han War in full swing, not only annexed dozens of nomadic tribes, but also eliminated Donghu, the Xiongnu's long-time enemy, opened up thousands of miles of territory, and established a thriving grassland regime. There are more than 300,000 soldiers under his command, and the overall strength is not only overwhelming over the northern border army of the Han Dynasty, but also enough to fight head-on with the main force of the Han army.

Fortunately, the Hun army is not without weaknesses, Lou Jing quickly offered himself to risk his life from the grassland to bring back a few Hun army weapons, Xiang Kang picked up one by one and looked at them carefully, and found that the Hun army mainly used four weapons, one is the bow and arrow with obvious rough workmanship, the wooden bow body bronze arrowhead, the second is the backward wooden handle copper knife, the third is the length of only more than seven feet (about one meter five) of the wooden handle copper spear, the last is similar to the bronze pecking of Ge, the use of the law is similar to the axe.

After carefully reading the usual weapons of the Hun army, Xiang Kang only thought about it a little, and quickly asked Lou Jing: "Two questions, first, are there any iron weapons in the Hun army?" Second, did you bring the sabers of our cavalry to the steppe? ”

"Back to Your Majesty, the Hun army has iron weapons. But there are very few of them, and basically only the generals and nobles can equip them. Lou Jing immediately replied: "As for the question of the saber, Your Majesty can rest assured that before your subordinates set off from Mayi to the north, they had already asked all your subordinates to reload with bronze weapons, and even His Majesty himself only deliberately wore bronze long swords, and absolutely did not leak the secrets of our cavalry swords." ”

"I'm glad you're careful." Xiang Kang breathed a sigh of relief, and immediately gritted his teeth and said: "We must block the iron trade in northern Xinjiang, and we must not let the Xiongnu army be equipped with a large number of iron weapons, otherwise our trouble will definitely be greater." ”

"Your Majesty, rest assured, after His Majesty returned to Yanmen, Guangwujun immediately took this into account." Lou Jing comforted: "He immediately ordered a ban on the iron trade in northern Xinjiang, and also issued a strict decree that those who sold less than three catties of iron to the Xiongnu would be punished, and those who sold more than three catties of iron would be executed." In addition, Guangwujun also asked His Majesty to issue an edict to Zang Di, the king of Yan, so that Yandi would also prohibit the sale of iron tools to the Xiongnu. ”

Xiang Kang nodded and said, "I will send an edict to Zang Di tomorrow, asking him to learn from Guangwujun to do this." ”

It was only after making this decision that Xiang Kang asked Lou Jing about asking for peace with Mao Dun, and Lou Jing said with a wry smile: "Your Majesty forgives you for your sins, and you didn't talk about it, after your subordinates finally met Mao Dun with all their efforts, that barbarian not only wants us to return all the land seized by Zhao and Tyranny Qin before, but also wants us to give up all the city land in the four counties of Jiuyuan, Yunzhong, Daijun and Yanmen, and in addition, on the issue of border markets, the Maodun barbarians also want us to sell salt, silk and iron tools to them at a low price. In addition, we are required to pay him a large sum of money and food every year, and none of the conditions put forward are acceptable to us, nor are there any sincerity in the slightest. ”

"It's okay." Finally, he casually asked this question, Xiang Kang was of course very open at this point, and said: "It was originally a group of grassland jackals that can never be fed, no matter how much they give them, they still won't show mercy when they should bite us, let's talk about it slowly, and see who can survive whom." ”

Lou Jing nodded hurriedly, and said: "Your Majesty, when Your Majesty went north to the grassland this time and went deep into the barbarian tribe to listen to the enemy's situation, he overheard an important news, that is, in the west of the Xiongnu, there is also a Yue clan country that is not weak, not only often at war with the Xiongnu, but also almost killed Mao Dun, who was sent by Lao Shan Yu to be a proton at that time, and the hatred between Mao Dun and the barbarians is very deep. ”

Xiang Kang, who likes to sow discord, was of course overjoyed when he heard it, and quickly asked the guards to pick up the map of the Western Regions, which is still very rough, and asked Lou Jing to point to the map to introduce himself to the general situation of the Yueshi country, Lou Jing first pointed out that the Yueshi country, which is also a nomadic people, is mainly active in the Qilian Mountains and the Hexi Corridor, and has a distant road connection with Guanzhong, and introduced that the Xiongnu Lao Dan favored the younger son, and deliberately sent the eldest son Mao Dun to the Yue clan as a proton, and then deliberately sent troops to attack the Yue clan, wanting to force the Yue clan king to kill Mao Dun, but unfortunately Mao Dun was alert, took the lead in receiving the news and fled back to the Xiongnu, and then killed his biological father and set himself up as Shan Yu, and because of this incident, he had a bad relationship with the Yue family, and often had the idea of sending troops to fight against the Yue family.

After listening to Lou Jing's introduction, Xiang Kang didn't even blink his eyelids, and immediately said: "Immediately find an envoy who is familiar with the situation of the Yue Clan, and ask him to contact and form an alliance with the Yue Clan, and be sure to win over the Yue Clan, so that they can join forces with us to deal with the Xiongnu." ”

After Zhou Zeng, Zhang Liang and Chen Ping next to him agreed, Chen Ping asked Lou Jing about the internal situation of the Xiongnu, and Lou Jing, who had made great efforts to understand the domestic situation of the Xiongnu, immediately replied, saying that there were left and right virtuous kings in the Xiongnu country, respectively, for the Xiongnu to manage the east and west lands, and set up the left and right Gu Li, the left and right generals, the left and right captains and the left and right big households and other official positions, the nomadic tribes on the Xiongnu land to implement militarized management, peacetime horses and sheep herding, wartime men, women and children together for the army, young and strong men to fight, Women are in charge of logistical support.

After listening to Lou Jing's words, Chen Ping quickly had an idea in his heart, and hurriedly said to Xiang Kang: "King, the left and right virtuous kings of the Huns can be used, as long as we get direct contact with them, or bribe the beauties with money, or promise them to be on the throne, there must be hope to divide the rebellion, let the Xiongnu internal chaos, the Xiongnu's internal chaos, our opportunity will come." ”

Xiang Kang nodded, and said: "This matter will be handed over to you and Lou Jing, Lou Jing, although you did not succeed in this mission, but also for us to find out a lot of important internal information of the Xiongnu, the credit is not small, I now make you a pawn, in the future, try to collect more news and information related to the Xiongnu and the barbarians in the Western Regions, so that I and the prime minister can know all the barbarian departments well." ”

When Lou Jing heard the great joy, he hurriedly bowed to Xiang Kang, Xiang Kang waved his hand, and then said with a smile: "The mountains are high and the roads are far away, the roads are blocked, these things have to wait again, there is no one and a half years, it will definitely be difficult to see results." Fortunately, I'm still young, and I have time to wait. ”

The road is too far, the major event of contacting the Yueshi to attack the Huns does have Xiang Kang, etc., fortunately, the good news of the autumn harvest does not need to wait for a long time, perhaps it is the people of the world who have suffered from the war and turmoil, in this year, not only all kinds of floods and droughts on the land of China, Guanzhong, Hanzhong, Bashu, Sanchuan and Hedong and other places have once again ushered in a bumper year, in addition, Taiyuan, Yingchuan, Nanyang and the counties in the middle reaches of the Yellow River have obtained a good year, Xiang Kang in addition to joy, but also immediately decided to exempt a number of affected counties from taxes and grain, In this way, it will further buy the hearts of the people and give these affected areas time to breathe and recover.

Of course, there are also things that make Xiang Kang wo fire, during this period, in addition to the local officials of the Han court in addition to constantly secretly reporting Zang Tu and Zhao Xie and other princes and kings with different surnames, after holding a ceremony to celebrate the harvest in Xianyang, Xu Ji also accumulated to the ten Linjiang secret reports to Xiang Kang, which not only listed Yingbu arrogance and disrespect and other crimes, but also secretly reported that Yingbu in Jiangling, Changsha soldiers and horses, grass and grain, seems to have the possibility of rebellion.

No matter how bad the history is, he knows what kind of goods Yingbu is, and he feels that the evidence in his hand can justify Yingbu's crimes, Xiang Kang, who has already given birth to two more sons, just thought about it for a while, and quickly made up his mind, and instructed Xu Ji: "Go and invite the two prime ministers and Zhou Taiwei and Zhang Fengchang immediately, and say that I have something important to discuss with them." ”