Chapter 275: One Step, Two Steps Toward The South, Following The Vine To The Conquest Grounds
After arriving in this world, Xuan Chong has always felt a barrier toward Xian Han’s ruling machine. After all, his transmigrated predecessor suffered because of that!
The identity of a Vassal King’s son could not provide protection; and precisely because of his identity, the interpersonal relationships he encountered and the matters he could provoke were none simple.
As for provoking commoners with the identity of a Vassal King’s Heir? That would be like sticking one’s butt out to poke an ant nest. The ants might be unlucky, but sticking out one’s butt is asking to be kicked. If the big hat of “Heaven’s Will Contradiction” is pinned on, that means lifelong confinement.
Looking back at Liu Haoxing’s experience, he was gradually led step by step into the villain role in Yandu.
That year, due to flooding in Yandu, automobiles from dozens of car dealerships were damaged and submerged; Lin Yang and others confronted Liu Haoxing publicly, demanding that Dongtu Kingdom make a donation. (Donation is for good reputation, but forcing a donation means the good reputation belongs to those who force it so publicly)
Facing this condescending demand, Liu Haoxing naturally felt rebellious and unwilling, and was thus labeled as “not understanding the people’s sentiments.” Then Lin Yang and others openly gathered local Yandu people to bully him.
This was still because he was young and received preferential treatment; because of his youth and ignorance, the bullying stopped at him. If he were an adult caught in a vulnerability, it might even implicate his Dongtu Kingdom behind him.
The Vassal King level appears to be the glamorous top tier under the ritual and law system; but at the bottom, under Xian Han’s industrial hegemony system, they are the scapegoats of backward regions and agents for industrial product dumping zones.
During exchanges with Qin Tianyi, Xuan Chong learned: Vassal Kings seem backward, but they actually match the productivity of certain regions perfectly.
Xian Han’s territory is vast, with highly uneven development across regions; from the perspective of those Xian Han scholar-officials who view “the common people as straw dogs,” making the “governance level” top-tier everywhere would be waste. Even scholars and juren are not enough.
Non-industrialized regions do not need complex modern social structures.
For example, Dongtu Kingdom has only one advantageous industry, whaling. Does this industry need a large number of departments and bureaucrats to specially plan? If hundreds of departments are designed to manage regions with few industries, those departments would have nothing to do and eventually turn into bureaucratism.
Xuan Chong thought about it and agreed: Even if his industrial monopoly is broken and individual businesses in the region are allowed to participate, after competing intensely for ten years, many would go bankrupt, and the remaining few would merge into one whaling company, still unable to invest and compete in other industries.
And this final large company, after two generations of inheritance, if not constrained by ritual and law morals and regularly returning funds to the citizens, would turn into a feudal system where family disciples fight over equity.
…Perspective shifts to Southeast Asia…
Xian Han’s “no enfeoffment without the Liu Clan” seems to support privileged families in peripheral regions, but actually gives peripheral countries a protective talisman.
Two hundred years ago, the Liu Clan in Luzon of Southeast Asia was overthrown due to popular resentment; local magnates then imitated Europe’s latest company system and established a merchant state.
As a result, decades later this merchant state fell into chaos, continuing to this day. — With no Liu Clan, ritual does not reach the commoners, and various forces in this land of freedom rely purely on money to stir up trouble!
Because Luzon has no unique core advantage in development compared to surroundings; the output of one large industrial zone in Guangzhou tops the entire national output of Luzon planting palm oil.
Thus, Luzon, encouraged by external merchants to independently establish a country, was ultimately devoured clean and abandoned. So much so that in harvest years, Luzon still relies on selling slaves and maidservants to survive.
Those selling themselves are the poor, while those who drove away Luzon’s king back then were local magnates, so the rich can lord it over others?
No, Luzon’s main export is palm oil. A daily price fluctuation from sea merchants can bankrupt large numbers of Luzon’s merchant-farmers, leading to land sales and reversion to smallholder grain farming economy.
Luzon maidservants have always been the main group in mid-level service industries for Eastern Shu and some Xian Han middle-class families. And in Southeast Asia mines, Luzon slaves consistently make up over twenty percent.
Speaking of which, when Xuan Chong learned this, he suddenly glanced at his own whale oil business!
His own whale oil currently maintains highly stable international prices. Not because merchants are kind, but because he follows rules under the ritual and law system, making merchants dare not speculate.
In this rapidly changing era, the whale oil industry persists purely because some luxury markets specifically require whale oil as raw material, such as eternal lamps for ancestor worship. In other words, if one day he gets arrogant, Dongtu Kingdom is doomed.
…Luzon ulcer…
In the past fifty years, Luzon intellectuals have realized; two hundred years ago, those fools on the island believed barbarian priests’ commercial freedom nonsense and flipped the table to break from kingly transformation, which was like sheep entering tiger’s mouth. Now these intellectuals have been trying to welcome back the expelled Liu Clan to restore the country.
However, even though the Liu Clan descendants from back then have been found, they are pushing back, saying their ancestors “lost virtue and failed the people, cannot return.”
Luzon’s many magnates’ young elites now recall: Back then, the lord was not that immoral; it was we ministers who erred.
With such polite overtures, even Luzon magnates have offered: willing to pay fifty thousand silver dollars annually in royal family funds; even if you won’t return, at least welcome back the late king’s memorial tablet first. No need for Your Majesty to spend; we’ve built the temple ourselves.
Speaking of which, even at this point, no one from the Luzon royal family returns? Why?
The core is that Xian Han Imperial Court has not tacitly approved.
Although Xian Han has not openly opposed Luzon king’s descendants returning, it also has not openly stated or urged them to return.
Clearly, the Imperial Court is setting a negative example to make each vassal state behave; warning each vassal state’s Liu Clan not to stir trouble locally, as it won’t cover for messes.
Moreover, Luzon is a strategic heartland, surrounded by other vassal states, rich in island resources but lacking strategic resources. And the natives are not warlike enough, with no united front value.
Dongtu Kingdom is different; as Xian Han’s northeasternmost seaside segment, a vassal state must be established here to ensure borders do not retreat without permanent corps garrison.
Speaking of which, Xian Han’s first-generation founding emperor wanted to set up a vassal state even further north in the icy sea hundreds of years ago.
But it was truly unsuitable for human survival, so it was abandoned.
Thus, even if civil unrest occurs in Xuan Chong’s homeland, Xian Han would likely still send troops to cover it and re-support a vassal king.
But in Luzon, without clear edict from the Imperial Court, if Luzon Liu Clan rashly returns, eighty percent chance of maritime mishaps.
Because only Luzon native intellectuals hope for Liu Clan’s return, while large numbers of sea merchants do not.
Sea merchants have invested heavily in Luzon: gold and silver, copper and iron mines, even plantations squeezed for profit; Luzon island’s over thirty million population exports forty to fifty thousand maidservants annually. Such huge profits are enough for sea merchants to manufacture accidents!
Rumors say: Xian Han Imperial Court has actually given certain promises to Luzon king’s descendants, that it will support their restoration when necessary.
As for when is necessary? Qin Tianyi shrugged, saying no clear message, but her blinking big eyes hinted Xuan Chong could think about it.
Xuan Chong half-asked half-answered: “That is, when Xian Han feels it necessary to reclaim most Luzon resources into state ownership?”
Qin Tianyi continued blinking, prompting: “Then when does it become state-owned?”
Xuan Chong followed her line of thinking for strategic judgment: When Southeast Asia’s border control line advances further south, and the Imperial Court needs to consider executing stable long-term management strategies locally, then a Vassal King can appear there.
Qin Tianyi praised Xuan Chong and revealed a truth: Luzon king’s descendants know they cannot return, because enfeoffment requires blood tax!
And Liu Dayang (Xu Xi) is now on a mission: if successful, the final reward is this Luzon throne.
Xuan Chong: “Oh, is Liu Dayang from Luzon’s branch?”
Qin Tianyi: “Do kings, marquises, generals, and ministers have innate kind? Among Huaxia branches, who lacks nobles?”
…Ancestors cleared thorns and chopped brambles; every piece of land came with blood and calculation…
Qin Tianyi’s family is not simple; her identity and bloodline relate to Eastern Shu Qin family force in Southeast Asia, a branch that sided with Han court due to Eastern Shu internal strife.
Southeast Asia was originally Eastern Shu’s territory; in the recent century, Xian Han’s influence gradually pressed from Southeast Asia’s thousand islands to Eastern Shu. Among this, Qin Tianyi’s family helped Xian Han thread the needle. Only then did Xian Han gradually take over Eastern Shu-era economic and livelihood development in Southeast Asia islands.
Qin Tianyi is qualified to explain.
Qin Tianyi: Southeast Asia uses a dual kingdom system of enfeoffment and autonomy. This comes from Eastern Shu; in Eastern Shu’s official textbooks, they built grand cities in coastal areas, inviting native chiefs into cities to deliberate state affairs together.
Using official seals and promises to win over local native chiefs. Native chiefs originally living inland on islands were very pleased after receiving Eastern Shu’s seals.
When Xian Han arrived here and recognized this narrative, it further advanced Sinicization strategies, even more conciliatory policies, but natives feared authority without gratitude. A representative event seventy years ago: Luzon native families expelled the Liu Clan; after taking Imperial Court seals, they imitated Europe demon priests’ federal system thinking, angering Xian Han and sanctioned to this day.
Hundreds of years ago during Eastern Shu’s Southeast Asia reclamation, on South Ocean islands, after ports were successfully built, huge profits made native chiefs envious; these sealed officials moved collectively to cities, enjoying rent collection life in ports.
However, while these chiefs entered cities to bathe in Sinicization, Han culture also went to the countryside. Eastern Shu used immigration and official allocation strategies, bringing tens of thousands of Han Chinese into islands for reclamation.
Xuan Chong understood this: The reason Han ethnicity endures continuously is the high efficiency of “land for food.”
While other ethnicities’ religions still used war cohesion to create war gods for worship; all major Han Chinese customs and habits relate to farming. So even if a region has only dozens of households after disaster, it can still proliferate and fill the space.
When native nobles collectively abandoned natives and control over island interiors; Eastern Shu dispatched tens of thousands of Han Chinese households for internal plantation industry development, and sent bureaucrats versed in astronomy and calendars to set customs.
In this process, large numbers of actively and passively Sinicized natives, while accepting advanced agriculture farming knowledge, watched helplessly as Han family farming organizations from the North robbed their farming niche.
Qin Tianyi: When it comes to farming this trade, we really compete hard.
Xuan Chong nodded in agreement: “Natives just emerging from slash-and-burn cultivation, how can they compete with clans honed in the North through farming?”
For Han Chinese, Southeast Asia’s water and heat conditions are too good; building canals, using oxen to pull curved plows, yields excellent paddy fields. One year, two years, three years, grain output increases, then in disaster years exchange for land, resulting in Han Chinese land growing over generations.
Natives resisted too, but their original tribal ruling class had all entered cities.
Meanwhile Xian Han and Eastern Shu forces are strong, unlike main timeline letting Western forces meddle. Native resistance is much weaker than Xian Han historical high-intensity “Heaven has died” activities.
After Luzon Liu Clan lost the country, Xian Han thoroughly “Hegemonic Way” suppressed the region.
Sha Yue vassal state’s State Lord once asked a Han great scholar: “Does native uprising count as disharmony with Heaven’s Will?”
That Zhou-surnamed great scholar studying Hegemonic Way in Southeast Asia gave a profound saying: “Those who sharpen wood into weapons and shout in unison are humans; those howling in forests, human or beast? If human howls, it’s madness from rotten food.” (Translation: You dare claim Heaven and Man Contradiction? You won’t even farm the land; your disease is just from eating rotten meat. How can it be our governance problem?)
Sha Yue’s Han Chinese great clans thus took turns for generations, helping cure natives’ madness. Truly great kindness.
Native islanders went seaside to embrace civilization, entering sailor industry in large numbers, urban lower service industries, ethnic spread to Indian Ocean rim, but thousand islands formed unique Huayu cultural zone.
Xian Han insists on “Heaven’s Will Harmony” political correctness, steadily raising Han Chinese proportion in Southeast Asia. Confucians won’t go limitless like “international four major grain merchants.”
Except lost-country Luzon; sea merchants in Luzon have free rein, artificially creating grain market crises, fertilizer crises. All because Luzon is outside “kingly transformation.”
Guan Zhong used economic warfare, but for hegemony. Consequence: Qi state filled with speculation, chaotic after Guan Zhong’s death.
For “Hegemonic Way” factions, using such big moves on this vassal minor state for petty gains is shortsighted. This tactic is for Eastern Shu.
…Qin Tianyi helps turn book pages…
Xuan Chong gazes at Hang Fu sea surface, large cargo ships docking one after another. Xian Han has consistently bought Eastern Shu’s milk, iron ore, and coal mines for decades!
Eastern Shu also builds battleships, has finished steel products; but Xian Han not only doesn’t use Eastern Shu steel products, but blockades all zones in control area from using them. Any vassal state daring to import Eastern Shu steel products can expect sanctions. Industry-commerce based Eastern Shu now faces a contradiction: its own iron smelting loses money, while selling high-quality iron ore makes profit.
As for milk and other animal husbandry! Low unit labor high-profit industries, but lowest output value per unit land.
Large pastures produce forage for animal husbandry. Forage through cattle (lowest meat-feed ratio project) yields meat and milk. And Eastern Shu doesn’t export beef, only opening milk market externally. (Dairy is substitutable product.)
Eastern Shu’s large arable land cannot adjust to optimal “farming and war” state. This situation has persisted for many years.
Qin Tianyi tacitly agrees and says this is joint participation by Southeast Asia forces (this coordination is an imperial examination topic).
Xuan Chong silently: Once he didn’t care about land private ownership, thinking industrial age land annexation harmless!
But seeing Eastern Shu now with ninety percent land controlled by less than one-thousandth of people, he realizes Xian Han’s hegemony faction “harbors ill intent” too greatly.
Xian Han has always encouraged Eastern Shu to develop large farm industry.
Xuan Chong asks Qin Tianyi again: “Eastern Shu has no ritual law, right.”
After learning Xuan Chong wants to know Eastern Shu’s “land private system” situation, Qin Tianyi slowly said: “Eastern Shu once had factions insisting on ritual law; two hundred years ago, these Eastern Shu natural clans, facing market fluctuations, held pants waists, even abandoning some clansmen, but wouldn’t let go of land. Ultimately couldn’t endure, land finally controlled by chambers of commerce.”
Qin Tianyi enunciated: “Eastern Shu is commerce-based state.”
Note: In Xian Han, if “fertilizer” “seed” fluctuations occur in farm production links, that’s Heaven and Man Contradiction. Even before industrial revolution, Han bureaucrats in disaster years could confiscate grain trade under “hoarding for profit” name. Xian Han ruling intensity reaches modern levels; major grain shops, fertilizer dealers, all under official bigwigs’ “ruin family exterminate clan” deterrence.
This history cycle of governance and chaos has looped five times; Xian Han scholar-officials exhausted themselves maintaining for four hundred years.
In Confucian discourse system, producing “Heaven’s Will Contradiction” is already incompetence; deliberately creating “Heaven’s Will Contradiction” equals demon; once labeled, eternally unemployable, with stigma for generations.
“Heaven’s Will Contradiction,” Xuan Chong enunciated silently reciting this concept; it’s also a key imperial examination item, sure to have a question.
As someone from another historical spacetime, Xuan Chong always viewed Xian Han internal court ministers’ intense struggles over “Heaven’s Will Contradiction” and “Heaven’s Will Harmony” as a spectator; but now Xuan Chong is getting serious.
…Jump back to his era thinking…
With Qin Tianyi’s help, Xuan Chong begins supplementing his theory: After industrial revolution, land concentration can concentrate production efficiency.
But if land production materials completely detach from population, falling into very few hands, then land output strategy is irrelevant to over ninety percent of national interests. Then it can be manipulated externally.
(Qin Tianyi as later generation person critically reflects on American large farm system, because this system let East fully observe why Mediterranean civilizations had such short national destinies)
Eastern Shu’s agriculture strategy now secretly manipulated by Xian Han; this country is finished!
Xuan Chong: “Eastern Shu of Dian Continent indeed has reason to be exterminated!”
