Chapter XIX Ethnic Policy

As mentioned last time, Gao Ding recruited Zhu Bao, but the spies reported that Meng Shu and his barbarian army had been scattered in the mountains and forests, and there was no trace of them. Liu Hou had a big headache about this.

At this time, the soldiers returned, and the emperor sent officials to help manage the counties. It turned out that there were too few officials brought by Liu Hou this time, so no one managed the occupied territory, leaving only some officials to keep the local order temporarily.

Seeing this, Liu Bei sent several civil and military officials such as Ma Zhong, Li Hui, Ma Dai, and Zhang Yi to help manage the counties. Among them, Zhang Yi was originally kidnapped by Yonghong and given to Wu Guo, but for some reason, he found an opportunity to escape when the guards were negligent, and returned to Chengdu to meet Liu Bei. Nanzhong was employing people, so Liu Bei sent him over again.

Liu Hou received them and summoned Lu Kai, the guard general of Yongchang, to hold a meeting with other generals and Wenchen.

The theme of the meeting was to discuss how to manage the Nanzhong region in the future. Li Hui brought Prime Minister Zhuge Liang's opinion: Zhuge Liang thought that the Nanzhong region was too big, with only four counties, and it was a little more difficult to manage, so it was better to split it into six counties.

It's just that he hasn't been to Nanzhong either, and he doesn't know the specific situation here, so he asked the prince, who personally led the troops to fight here, to finally decide whether to split up.

Liu Hou also felt that the four counties in Nanzhong were a little too big, spanning several provinces, and it was almost enough to be called a state, so he planned to follow Zhuge Liang's historical practice to split the four counties of Nanzhong: Yizhou, Yongchang, Qike, and Yuewei into six counties: Yizhou, Yongchang, Qike, Yueshan, Yunnan, and Xinggu.

Therefore, Liu Hou proposed to appoint Li Hui as the Taishou of Jianning, Lu Kai as the Taishou of Yunnan, Ma Zhong as the Taishou of Qike, and Zhang Yi as the Taishou of Yongchang.

There is no other reason, because he knows that after these two guys were occupied by Eastern Wu in Jingzhou in the original history, they surrendered to Eastern Wu, which indirectly led to the killing of Guan Gong. Therefore, if they are also placed in a place like Jingzhou for four wars, it will undoubtedly be a hidden danger.

Now things are not going according to the original historical trend, and the two of them have no act of surrendering, let alone evidence, so Liu Hou can't easily move them, not to mention, Mi Fang is still Liu Hou's brother-in-law, and it is even more difficult to move him. Therefore, Liu Hou wants to get them to the rear of Nanzhong, so that they can spend their old age here.

After a series of appointment arrangements were made, they could not take effect immediately, and they had to be reported to Liu Bei for approval, after all, Liu Bei was the emperor, and Liu Chan was only the first prince, he could only make proposals, not the final decision-maker.

In other dynasties, the crown prince can't even make this kind of proposal, the county guards of 6 counties, such a major personnel appointment arrangement, if the prince dares to put his beak in his mouth, he will either be a precursor to a rebellion. However, under the special circumstances of Shu Han, Liu Hou dared to make such a suggestion.

First, the identity of Liu Hou's heir is certain; Second, Nanzhong was single-handedly defeated; Third, except for Mi Fang and Fu Shiren, these officials were all sent by Liu Bei, they were not Liu Hou's descendants, but all of them were Liu Bei's people, so he was not afraid of causing any gossip.

Even Mi Fang and Fu Shiren are Liu Bei's former ministers, especially Mi Fang, Liu Bei is his brother-in-law, and he is much closer to Liu Bei than with Liu Hou. It's just that he may not be willing to come to Yizhou to take office, and Liu Bei may not be willing to let him come.

However, Liu Hou also had a way, he planned to write a letter to his mother Empress Gan privately after the meeting, and let Empress Gan be responsible for persuading Liu Bei to let Mi Fang be transferred to Yizhou to take office.

Just told her that Jingzhou was the place of the four battles, the soldiers were in danger, and there was a danger to her life at any time. Madame Mi is no longer here, but we have an obligation to take care of her brother, so we can't let him stay in such a dangerous place anymore. So he wanted to transfer this brother-in-law to Yizhou County, which was much safer, and there were only a few barbarians making trouble, which was easy to deal with. I also made this arrangement to take care of my uncle.

If he said it like this, Liu Hou was eighty percent sure that Liu Bei would agree to this proposal.

The question of dividing Yugoslavia and appointing officials was discussed for two full days before it was finally decided.

The next meeting was to discuss the issue of ethnic policy. This is a difficult question. Many celebrities in history have tried a lot of ways to solve this problem. This time, can you come up with any good methods?

First of all, Zhang Yi made the first suggestion:

"His Royal Highness the Crown Prince, I think that in the Nanzhong region, the mountains are high and the roads are far away, the troops are difficult to march, and the transportation of grain is inconvenient. We can appoint the local well-known natives as officials and put them in charge of managing these Yi people, these local natives are noble clans, and they are very famous in the local area, and those Yi people will definitely believe in them. In this way, we don't have to spend a single soldier, and we don't have to waste a grain of grain to make the Nanzhong region peaceful and stable, and the emperor can concentrate on the Central Plains. ”

What a pig brain. Liu Hou scolded in his heart when he heard it. This Zhang means national autonomy, and it is complete autonomy. Autonomy is not impossible, but it will only be possible until the situation is completely stable, at least after the reunification of the whole country.

These Yiren are simply white-eyed wolves that can't be raised, when you are strong, they will surrender to you, and if you are a little weak, they will bite you back. The rebellion of Yonghong and Meng Huo is the best example.

If they are allowed to govern themselves, it is tantamount to giving them a chance to hold together, and giving them a chance to develop and strengthen their own forces with peace of mind, which is even more dangerous. It's a pity that this kind of opinion was the opinion held by many literati at that time, and even Zhuge Liang considered it this way.

Historically, after Zhuge Liang's southern expedition, he reversed the practice of appointing officials to rule and send troops to garrison since the Han Dynasty, and adopted the policy of "not leaving troops and not transporting grain", reusing local forces to protect their interests, and appointing Li Hui, Ma Zhong, Lu Kai and others to adopt the Huairou policy to govern Nanzhong, and employing a large number of upper-level elements of local ethnic minorities.

He believes that there are "three difficulties" in keeping troops to defend the town: if you leave outsiders, you must keep troops to garrison, and if you leave soldiers to ask for food, this is the first difficulty; In addition, the people are newly broken, there are many casualties, and some fathers and brothers are mourned, if outsiders are left but there are no soldiers stationed there, it will definitely become a disaster, which is the second difficulty; In addition, people are worried that they will be charged with abolishing and killing, and they are afraid that their negligence will be too heavy, and if they leave outsiders, they will not be trusted in the end, which is the third difficulty.

Facts have proved that his policy is not very good, in history after the retreat of the Shu Han army, the barbarians have rebelled many times, fortunately Li Hui, Lu Kai, Ma Zhong and others are still effective, and many times to carry out clean-up and some Huairou policies did not lead to a big chaos.

"This can't be done, how can we give away the territory we have worked so hard to give away." Liu Hou unceremoniously pointed out the problem.

"However, it is not easy to garrison, and it is even more difficult to transport grain...... Zhang Yi still wants to argue.

"How difficult it is, you see that we sent troops this time, there were only 10,000 soldiers and horses, 30,000 baggage troops, but now it has become a total of 110,000 horses, more and more fights, how did these people come? Also, we brought so much food with us when we set off, and a few months have passed since the fight, and the number of people who have eaten has changed from 40,000 to 110,000, but there has never been a shortage of food, so how did the food come from? Liu Hou asked rhetorically.

"This ....... this ......" Zhang Yi blushed with shame, he didn't know how to answer, of course he didn't know how Liu Hou shamelessly "fought the enemy because of food" along the way.

Along the way, Liu Hou attached great importance to the issue of obtaining food. The capture of the city must empty the treasury, although there is no harm to the people, but the reserves of the government are gone. The capture of the stockade was even more ruthless, and all the grain and livestock must be confiscated, although they did not kill all the barbarians, but they did not care whether they would starve to death after the war.

Even for those villages that did not resist later, when Liu Hou's army passed by, he would order them to hand over part of the grain, which was called "Labor Army". Therefore, the Shu army did not transport a grain of grain from Chengdu all the way, not only did it not have the risk of lack of food, but because it got too much food, it was difficult to take all the baggage teams away once and again.

"All the people under the rule of the Han Dynasty, whether Han or Yi, had to pay taxes, and with these taxes they could feed the army on the spot, and of course, some of them had to be handed over to the imperial court. As for the number of soldiers, I brought some here this time, and when the battle is over, I can leave some of them to guard the local area, and I can also recruit some on the spot, which is enough as a town guard force.

The problem of traffic and transportation is indeed a big problem, and when the situation is a little calmer in the future, the county guards can organize the construction of official roads. Although there are many mountains and forests here, it is not easy to open mountains and build roads, but no matter how difficult it is, it must be done, which is a major event that is meritorious in the present and beneficial in the future. Liu Houdao.

"This ...... His Royal Highness the Prince, at present, Nanzhong has just encountered a great turmoil, and it is advisable to give the people a chance to recuperate. At this time, if a large number of conscripts are levied, I am afraid that they will ......" Li Hui came out to speak at this time, road construction is not a small project, and if a large number of conscriptions are issued, I am afraid that it will force the barbarians to rebel.

"I don't mean to levy labor, but to pay for workers. In the previous war, many barbarian villages were destroyed, and many people lost their sources of livelihood, and these people would become displaced people and become a factor of social instability. We recruited these people to build roads, and in addition to feeding them, we also paid them a certain amount of wages, so that these displaced people would not starve to death. If they are well fed, they will not rebel again. There is a name for this, called 'cash for work'. Liu Houdao.

"This ...... But we have so much money and food for such use......" Li Hui said. In fact, he also wanted to say that in all dynasties, road construction has always been a levy and conscription, and I have heard that the government pays people to do it.

"You don't have to worry about this, I will find a way to solve the problem of money and food, you just need to do a good job of recruiting and organizing them to work. Oh, by the way, there is another way to build roads, which is mining. There are many copper, iron, coal and other minerals in the southern and central regions, and barbarians can also be widely recruited to mine these deposits at that time. Liu Hou added.

"His Royal Highness the Prince, Yi heard that in the land of Nanzhong, there are Jiao, Yong, Lou, Jiao, Meng, Liang, Mao, Li and other big clans, and they are generally supported by the local Yi people. We don't let them govern, as long as we don't let the locals be the rulers. However, it is still possible to appropriately recruit the sons and daughters of these well-known local clans and let them fill some less important positions, and as long as they are properly controlled, such a method will still be conducive to our rapid stabilization of the situation in the southern and central regions. Fei Yi also came out to speak at this time.

"Well, that's okay too. Local officials must only be officials from different places, and this will become the norm in the future, yes, and they must be rotated frequently, every five or ten years, so that the officials will not become local landlords, and they will not sit in one place, and they will have a lot less basis for rebellion.

This is true not only for officials in barbarian places, but also in other places. Mr. Fei, you write down this opinion, go back and think about it slowly, see how to improve it into a system, and then suggest it to your father. ”

"No, His Royal Highness the Crown Prince's suggestion is really clever, and I will definitely think about it when I go back." Fei Yi replied.

Everyone didn't expect this prince to be so powerful, and casually put forward a very useful proposal in terms of the official appointment system, and they were all amazed, how old is this prince, is it really as precocious as the legend?

Ps. Ask for collections, ask for all kinds of tickets.