At present, the relationship between Datang and Tuyuhun is actually very poor, and Tuyuhun often invades Datang from time to time and harasses the Datang border. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 info This is a border trouble of the Tuyuhun Datang, and later the Tang Dynasty sent troops to defeat Tuyuhun, and Tuyuhun split. However, the result of the division of Tuyuhun was that the pressure on Tubo was suddenly reduced.

Shi Bufan also felt a little emotional about the relationship between the Tang Dynasty and Tubo, after the Tang Dynasty defeated Tuyuhun, then he really knew the existence of Tubo. However, at that time, Tubo had already become a climate, and Songtsen Gampo had completed a lot of reforms, so that Tubo had begun to rise rapidly, and there was not much room for the Tang Dynasty to manipulate.

However, Shi Bufan, who is familiar with this history, still avoided the division of Tuyuhun, and a divided Tuyuhun could not bear the heavy responsibility of containing Tubo. Tubo is the biggest opponent of the Tang Dynasty in the southwest, and other Tuyuhun roots do not flow. But it is also good to use Tuyuhun to contain Tubo. At least for now, Tuyuhun cannot be extinguished and must stay.

"Your Majesty, I think it's still the same sentence, we have to choose the right main contradiction. Tubo poses a greater threat to us, so it is not suitable for us to completely destroy Tuyuhun for the time being, and even to a certain extent to protect Tuyuhun from splitting. The main contradiction and the secondary contradiction are not one layer of constant, and we can solve the Tubo first, and then solve the Tuyuhun. Although Tuyuhun may be extinguished, at least not at this time. Shi Bufan said.

Then Li Shimin asked, "Then what are you going to do?" ”

"Actually, it's very simple, if you want to contain Tubo, you must use Tuyuhun. However, Tuyuhun is currently not on good terms with our Tang Dynasty, and he married the princess of the former Sui. But this is actually not a problem, if we follow the normal routine, don't we also want to send a so-called princess over? Shi Bufan said.

Li Shimin then asked: "You say, I Datang is also going to send a princess over?" ”

"No, no, no, no, I didn't mean that, I at least emphasize that it doesn't make much sense to send this princess, because this is a routine, since it's all a routine, why bother?" Shi Bufan asked.

Send the princess, can you say this thing? This is going to send the author a blade, does he dare? But it's actually useless to send a princess, this kind of matter of national interests, as a king, sometimes even your own life can be sacrificed, let alone a woman. Between the interests of the state, the king sometimes has to sacrifice personally, and these are involuntary. The king is only a spokesman for an interest group or even an entire public, and if he makes a profit for the collective or even the whole country, then he will definitely be replaced.

This can't be solved by marrying a princess, and marriage is of little use.

"Your Majesty, I think we can actually subvert it from within. Internal subversion, which not only saves a lot of money compared to sending troops, but even has the highest benefits. Compared with the benefit of sending troops, it may not be much lower, and even in the future, we will have to send troops to rule, and there are various ruling needs, and the cost is endless. As for the present, we are not able to effectively develop there, so it is better to keep Tuyuhun for the first time and not change the living environment at the end of the year. ”

"But this does not mean that we will do nothing, we can subvert that Tuyuhun from within, directly support their cronies from within, let them follow us, and we will seize power by supporting them. In fact, we can strive to subvert from within, so that we pay very little price, but the benefit is great. ”

"On the contrary, if we send troops, we will force and unite the people within them to a certain extent. In the face of the fact of foreign enemies, many times people in the same country can give up their contradictions and fight against foreign enemies together. And we support from within, which is their own internal matter, we can pay less and get high. ”

Shi Bufan has always thought that sending troops is the last resort, and at present, Tuyuhun is there, which is the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau! Qinghai is also a plateau area, and the losses of rash troop dispatch are definitely not small. Altitude sickness is enough to make many people unbearable, so we must be cautious about the affairs of Tuyuhun and even Tubo, and do not rashly start a war against them before being prepared enough.

In particular, this Tuyuhun will become an important pawn to contain Tubo, and it is impossible to destroy them directly. Keeping Tuyuhun can avoid direct conflict with Tubo, avoid Tubo from directly expanding in the direction of the Tang Dynasty, and let the Tang Dynasty free up its hands to solve the Goguryeo problem first.

As for subverting and controlling Tuyuhun, Shi Bufan did not oppose this, because this Tuyuhun regime must be in his own hands. Although the skin may not need to be replaced, the kernel must be replaced. If the subversion work is done well, then it is completely possible to take this opportunity to directly change the outer layer in the future, and it will be enough to become the territory of Datang.

The cost of such a subversion of Hu Fei is very low, and the benefits are very large, and it is even better to occupy the local area directly through this kind of moisturizing and silent means, which is much better than directly fighting for it by force. In fact, this kind of means is such a means in many powerful countries in later generations, because such means have low costs and high benefits, and even prevent them from uniting with the outside world.

Shi Bufan then pointed in the direction of Tuyuhun and said, "Your Majesty, there is actually another benefit to controlling Tuyuhun. That's salt, as far as I know, there is a Qinghai Lake in the Tuyuhun area, and this Qinghai Lake is a saltwater lake, a saltwater lake with a high salt content. By taking out the water from this Qinghai Lake and drying it, we can get a lot of high-quality salt. At that time we can get it nearby, and it will be in abundance. ”

Li Shimin really paid attention to Tuyuhun at this time, in the past, he wanted to destroy Tuyuhun because Tuyuhun invaded and harassed the Tang Dynasty, but now Tuyuhun actually has salt, and there is such a huge amount of salt, which makes Li Shimin tempted.

Food, water, and salt are all necessary for human evil, and although the consequences of salt deficiency are not as serious as those of food and water, they are also very deadly. Without table salt, human beings are all weak and unable to live. Needless to say, the importance of this table salt is clear to everyone.

At present, the population in the Guanzhong area of Datang is becoming more and more dense, but there are not many places in Datang that can produce salt in large quantities. Table salt generally comes from sea salt, well salt, rock salt and so on. The Guanzhong area is too far from the coast, and the cost of salt transportation is high. And from the Jiannan Road, that is, the later Sichuan area to transport salt, on the surface the distance is closer, but the Shu Road is difficult to go to the blue sky, this era is not good for the development of Bashu, the road is not difficult than the cost of the coastal cloud tooth.

At present, the Tang Dynasty salt is not the salt official camp implemented by the vast majority of dynasties, and the Tang Dynasty during this period actually used the free transportation of salt by the people and the free trade of salt. It was only during the Anshi Rebellion that it was changed to an official camp. However, the source of salt is far away, which is also a difficult problem to solve. No one dislikes the fact that there are many sources of salt, and human beings never dislike the fact that there are many sources of salt, food and water, but they wish that there are more sources, the better.

Anyway, the salt of this Qinghai Lake must be obtained as soon as possible, and no one will dislike that there are many sources of salt, and there is one more.

"Your Majesty, I think you can take advantage of this salt procurement matter to go deep into Tuyuhun. We can form a large profit group by purchasing a large amount of salt in Tuyuhun and then building up with their own nobility. We control the market, they are heavily dependent on our market, and when the time comes, once they get a lot of money from selling salt, they will soon swell up as well. ”

"At that time, we in turn controlled the way we purchased salt, and they suffered huge losses, and they all had to compromise with us. When the time comes, we can launch a mutiny from within and help our trusted people seize the throne of Tuyuhun, then we can naturally directly support our people to go up. ”

"We can even send some people up to the Tuyuhun plateau, so that a group of soldiers can familiarize themselves with the local environment and climate. Let people investigate the local environment and climate, and study how to solve this method of fighting altitude sickness, so that we can conquer Tuyuhun and even Tubo in the future. “

Shi Bufan's method is actually to support an interest group within Tuyuhun, and by supporting the interest group within Tuyuhun that profits from salt, many benefits can be seized. This method of supporting interest groups on the ground is commonly used in many countries. These interest groups are naturally dependent on foreigners, and they can only sell their own national interests to obtain greater benefits.

By purchasing Tuyuhun's salt, it not only provides Datang with an additional salt procurement channel, but can even support a group of people who profit from the salt trade with Datang within Tuyuhun. They profit from the salt trade with Datang, then they are also Datang's natural allies, and they have to follow Datang in everything. A little Datang reduces the amount of purchases, then they will lose a lot. And if they are obedient, Datang doesn't mind increasing the procurement ratio, they don't mind gnawing bones.

"Not only can we make a profit for the nobility, but we can hire a group of employees from the locals, and through those employees we can develop our intelligence network, develop our spies. Even once the vast majority of the local people rely on us, then we are tantamount to tying most of the Tuyuhun people to us, then they will inevitably become our supporters. Once we stop buying salt, they will all lose their jobs because of it, so they will definitely follow us. But our two countries are getting closer and closer, and they are getting stronger and stronger for us, so they don't mind merging with us. Shi Bufan said.

By strengthening economic exchanges in the direction of Tuyuhun, it will help to make them dependent on Shangdatang. Just like the Turks, the Turks did not have close trade and economic contacts with the Tang Dynasty, and the two sides could not establish effective channels for economic exchanges, which caused the two sides to have to solve the problem by force.

However, by strengthening economic exchanges, the Turks became much more dependent on the Tang economy, and could even break their courage to settle disputes by force. As long as they know that the cost of a solution by force is far greater than the cost of a settlement by peaceful means, they will naturally give up the use of force.

In the final analysis, the origin of most of the wars in this world is for survival, and most of the wars of human beings are essentially for survival, including various oppressed uprisings within countries, as well as countries to open up territories and seize more territory for their own people to gain more living space.

When your survival is dependent on others, how can you have the courage to go under the knife with the other party? The Turks are all like this at present, and Shi Bufan seems to have given the Turks a lot of benefits on the surface, but he has successfully broken their courage to solve problems through material resources. The use of force became the last resort of the Turks, because the loss of using force to solve them would definitely be greater. Because once Datang stopped purchasing their dairy products, what they plundered was far from enough to offset the loss of value in terms of dairy products. Even the plunder was disposable, they could not have been so stupid.

In the same way, this kind of person can be supported in Tuyuhun. After purchasing salt to make Tubo insiders benefit, and through purchasing Tubo so that their insiders can get enough benefits, they continue to curry favor with Datang, hoping to get benefits from Datang. If one day, Datang wants to merge Tuyuhun into it, then as long as the interests are sufficient, the interest groups according to the discipline will not mind merging with Datang, but maybe because they will get more preferential treatment after becoming a family. It is impossible for them not to be unmoved by this tangible benefit, and they will certainly not oppose it. After all, this world is the most important thing to survive, and if you can't even survive, then what kind of country is it.

"Your Majesty, through this kind of moisturizing and silent means, they will completely rely on us, then they will definitely not object to taking the initiative to merge with our Datang in the end. In this way, not only do we not have to pay for war, but we can even avoid all kinds of risks after occupation, and we can expand our territory relatively peacefully. The risk of expanding territory through peaceful means is much greater than that of war. The war was for those who could not be reconciled, such as the Turkic Goguryeo. There are also some natives in Nanyang. Because this country and we do not have much necessary connection with each other, and they are still savage, they cannot be talked to, only through war. ”

"Therefore, I think the emperor can consider setting up the post of salt transport envoy to be in charge of this affairs. Not only can it subvert Tuyuhun, but it will be of great help to us in the future. We can even have a group of soldiers go up in various capacities to familiarize themselves with the local climate and prepare for future operations on the plateau. Shi Bufan said.

(To be continued.) )