In the eleventh year of Xuanping, this year was the same as the usual years for the Tang Empire, and the main tone was to restore and develop the people's livelihood and economy, and at the same time carry out many reforms in the education, imperial examination, official governance, and economy of the cabinet.

The large-scale war had already stopped in the eighth year of Xuanping, and the empire's hundreds of thousands of troops were mainly stationed on the border and guarding the inland areas, while the external expansion was mainly based on small-scale colonial wars.

Even if the siege of Banten, which was in a state of uproar a few months ago, it was actually just an inconspicuous skirmish for the huge Tang Empire, and even the military bigwigs were too lazy to take a look.

The left and right are just a battle on the scale of a thousand people, and this kind of small-scale battle is nothing at all, and for the military, its scale and significance are not even as big as those of domestic bandits.

If there is any action taken by the military in recent years, it should also be the war against bandits, the army to suppress bandits and all kinds of illegal armed forces at home, and the navy to encircle and suppress pirates.

War has not been the main body in recent years, as can be seen from the decreasing proportion of military spending over the years!

In recent years, the theme has been to restore agricultural production, which had been destroyed by the war, and at the same time to vigorously develop industry and commerce, especially new industries!

In the early years, the country was in chaos, and the war for hegemony between the Tang Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty caused considerable damage to the national economy.

Although the main body of the war was the Tang Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty, in fact, the most destructive power was not the two sides, but the various ghosts, snakes and gods that emerged during the war, especially in the northern region, and there were many careerists in the early years, especially in Shanxi, Henan, Shaanxi and Gansu.

At the peak, the various rebel armies in the Shaanxi and Gansu regions reached more than a dozen, and the scale was not small, and the Ming army at that time had no way to deal with them, and in the end, it was the Tang Army that cleaned up these large-scale rebel armies one by one after the Tang Army entered the Shaanxi and Gansu regions.

The devastation caused by the war is quite severe, and it will take time to recover slowly.

After several years of hard work, the large-scale destruction caused by the war, especially the destruction of agricultural production, has finally been curbed, and now agricultural production in various localities, especially in the north and northwest regions, has gradually returned to normal levels.

In contrast to agricultural production, which took several years to recover, industry and commerce developed relatively quickly, but industry and commerce were industry and commerce, and agriculture was agriculture, and both were the core pillars of the empire and were indispensable.

The people take food as the sky, and it is naturally not enough to eat.

And if industry and commerce cannot develop, the empire will lack tax revenue, and there will be no way to maintain a large army equipped with advanced weapons.

Therefore, in the past few years, Li Xuan's work has always focused on restoring people's livelihood and developing industry and commerce, compared with large-scale external expansion, although Li Xuan has this mind, and almost all the government and the opposition know that the Holy Son of Heaven wants large-scale external expansion, but now, it is not the time, at most it is just playing small-scale colonization.

Not only in the past few years, in fact, in Li Xuan's strategic planning, the next few years will also focus on developing itself, and large-scale external expansion is actually not mature, after all, even if you want to expand on a large scale now, it is very reluctant.

But after all, it is necessary to embark on the road of external expansion, if you want to expand externally, then you must first solve the threat of the north, although the navy is clamoring for a southward strategy, but in Li Xuan's view, whether the south is Nanyang or the Portuguese, it is impossible to bring any real threat to the empire, the real threat is in the north.

What's more, going south and going north are not in conflict with each other.

Because of going south, as long as it is not a large-scale army to the Indochina Peninsula, not to Malacca and the Portuguese, but only to expand on the islands of the South Seas, there is no need to use a large number of land forces, and even the main fleet of the navy does not need to be used.

As long as Li Xuan's brain is not feverish, he will not stupidly send hundreds of thousands of troops south to the Indochina Peninsula, and then fall into a super quagmire, and finally be messed up, nor will he completely turn his face with the Portuguese when he is not ready, and then smash Malacca.

This in turn led to the emptiness of the northern border, and the Tatars found an opportunity to invade!

Going south must be carried out, but going south does not need to cost too much imperial strength, those natives of the South Seas are vulnerable, and an army of several thousand people is enough to sweep the islands of the South Seas, which is nothing more than a matter of success, and the follow-up maintenance of rule, but if it is just a simple military strike, as long as there is a navy and maintains superiority at sea, it will not take much effort to break the natives on the islands.

Take 10,000 steps back and say, even if the current natives are very violent, don't fight it first, block it with the navy first, and slowly clean up those natives when you have time later!

These natives, lacking the necessary counter-forces, do not see any actual threat to the Empire.

The words of the Portuguese are more realistic, people come all the way to East Asia, it is just to seek wealth, as long as it is not too big to stimulate them, to maintain the trade between the two sides, although there will be all kinds of intrigue and conflict, but if you want to completely fall out, it is really not easy.

Besides, even if they fall out, it doesn't matter too much, even the population of the Portuguese can only engage in a small armed conflict with the Tang Empire in various colonies if they die, and it is impossible to pose any actual threat to the empire, is it possible that they can still land on the mainland of the empire?

Give them a hundred dares!

For the current Tang Empire, it is easy to go south and difficult to go north!

The enemy who can threaten the empire and bring a life-and-death crisis to the empire has always been in the north!

It doesn't matter in the past, in the present, or in the future!

Throughout thousands of years of history, the nomads in the north have always been the henchmen of the Chinese nation, these nomads, just like the grass in the grassland, cut off a stubble, and grow a large patch in the spring of the next year, even if it is directly burned with fire, it is useless.

History a few years ago has proved that relying only on a simple military strike is basically useless, and at most it is only a short period of peace, but if we want to completely solve the problem in the north, then we need to cut the grass and eradicate the roots.

Military strikes are only the foundation, and subsequent domination is the foundation.

How did the Qing Dynasty solve the grassland problem in later generations, simply put, there are two points, the first point is to win over by marriage, knighthood, etc., note that this win is to win over the aristocracy, not to win over all the nomads.

If the first point is just an ordinary means, then the second one is powerful, that is, to promote religion, pay free money to help nomads build a large number of lama monasteries, and then let a large number of nomads be satisfied to become lamas, and what is the use of being a lama?

A lama cannot marry a wife and have children!

Therefore, the Ming Dynasty repaired the Great Wall and the Qing Temple, as for the effect it is obvious, there was a Qing Dynasty, the grassland nomads did not experience any large-scale wars, natural disasters, the population did not increase but decreased, about 30%.

It works very much!

As for the handling of the Qing Dynasty, Li Xuan thinks it is still good, but it is still not thorough enough, and it needs to be won over and attacked at the same time!

But for the Tang Empire, does it need to be wooed?

No, you don't!

The Tang Empire never co-opts the enemy, and killing the enemy directly is the solution of the Tang Empire!

If you don't accept it, just do it!

Regarding the issue of the northern grasslands, Li Xuan is also ready to follow the way the Goryeo Peninsula handles, first play a wave of military strikes, kill their army, suppress their resistance, and then carry out immigration and marriage, and have a great integration of races!

Just the millions of nomads who were thrown into the Tang Empire, which had a population of more than 150 million, would at most make a splash and then disappear.

Huaxia has played thousands of years of fusion, and this is the big killer to solve the problem!

In addition, in order to avoid new problems after integration, or the migration of nomads from other places to occupy the steppe and become the new enemies of the empire, then it is necessary not to simply deal with people, but also to exercise effective rule over the vast steppe area, and the easiest way is to promote some cultivation and urbanization.

As long as they start farming, as long as they have cities, then the grasslands will not be a place to come and go freely!

Of course, in order to completely solve the steppe problem, there must be a prerequisite, that is, to be able to defeat militarily, and even completely eliminate the Tatar army under the command of Altan Khan.

If even the Tatar army could not be defeated, then it would be impossible to talk about various policies of domination of the steppes.

And is the current Tang Army capable of defeating the Tatar army of Altan Khan?

One word, difficult!

If you want to talk about defense, there is no problem at all, relying on the Great Wall and many cities in border towns, the field troops and reserve troops and even militia units in the Tang Army have established a perfect Great Wall defense line, west to Jiayu Pass, east to the Yalu River.

Most of the Great Wall defense lines are similar to the previous Ming Zhengde period, with little change, and even the defense area is actually following the nine-sided policy of the former Ming Dynasty, dividing the entire northern defense line into several defense areas.

There are Gansu, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Hebei, Liaoxi, and Liaodong in the defense area, a total of seven, and then each of the major defense areas has a military garrison, and each army has a different number of troops, these troops are composed of the main force and the reserve division, more than 100,000 main forces and nearly 200,000 reserve division troops, a total of nearly 300,000 troops, a total of nearly 300,000 troops, a total of the entire Tang Empire's northern defense line!

Compared to the Tatars, who had to spend 300,000 troops to maintain the Great Wall, the Portuguese posed a negligible threat to the Empire!