According to ancient etiquette, after returning from a great victory, there must be a drinking ceremony.

Zhao State inherited the rituals of Yin and Zhou at the same time, and now the soldiers of the three counties have broken through the East Hu and returned, captured thousands of captives, hundreds of thousands of cattle, sheep and livestock, and made great contributions to the monarchs. Their blood and sweat were not in vain, and Zhao Hou was overjoyed and decided to take care of the generals and soldiers in Longcheng himself.

However, the drinking ceremony is very complicated, including ceremonies such as calling the court, drinking the ceremony, and jue, as well as activities such as the whole brigade, Kai Le, offering prisoners, offering food, and grand prizes. It takes some time to prepare, not to mention Zhao Wuxi. Also wanted to make the celebration more political.

Therefore, the date of drinking until the celebration is set on the first day of the seventh lunar month.

Before that, Zhao Wuxi first met his younger sister who had been away for five years.

Although it had been five years since the previous incident, Zhao Wuxi had always had a knot in his heart. The indifference to Zhao Jia was a manifestation of evasion, but he did not send Yulin guards to protect her. This expedition, Zhao The reason why Jia has been able to make extraordinary achievements is not unrelated to the fact that there have been many elite warriors of the Zhao State lingering around her.

However, after the meeting, the scene was not as embarrassing as Zhao Wuxi imagined. He was pleased to find that Zhao Jia had really grown up. Although the tender skin of the past was a little rough due to the sand on the grassland, the pair of Yanmei looked even more heroic. Extraordinary, the tall nose bridge is a bit like Zhao Yang's reincarnation.

After she met Zhao Wuxi, she did not act like a spoiled brat to him like she did in Changle Palace many years ago. Instead, she bowed to the head indifferently, performed the ceremony of meeting the emperor, and offered the Donghu sacrifice to Tianjin brought back from Chishan. Man and goddess.

A conversation between two adults is always better than unilaterally dealing with an elusive little girl. Five years ago, the brothers and sisters didn't say a word, they talked about the war, and didn't say anything about their affection.

But slowly, as the conversation deepened, the sense of estrangement faded, and the scene of brother and sister harmony in the past seemed to reappear.

When talking about Zhao Jia's five-year life in the grassland, Zhao Wuxi inevitably felt some distress and guilt; when talking about her retreating from the enemy with three arrows outside the city of Mayi, Zhao Wuxi not only cheered her, but also habitually reprimanded her. Hugh wanted to risk himself; Zhao Jia stuck out his tongue and continued to regret missing the Rao Leshui battle, but he didn’t know that it was Zhao Wuxi’s stumbling block, and told You Cheng and other generals not to allow Zhao Jia to participate too dangerous. 's battle.

Finally, when talking about Zhao Jun's direct attack on Chishan, and Shi Jigong, Zhao Wuxi couldn't help but admire:

"Slaughtering its city, burning its shrine, ploughing its courtyard, sweeping its caves, Yun Che swept away, leaving no residue... This is the so-called "one-time effort and long-lasting rest, temporary expense and eternal peace..."

He praised Zhao Jia's bravery and literary talent, and also laughed at her poetry and calligraphy classes in Weiyang Palace that she did not learn in vain.

However, although Zhao Wuxi admired the spirit of "those who violate China will be punished at a distance", he disagreed with Zhao Jia's opinion of "one-time effort and long-term peace, temporary expense and eternal peace". In his view, this farming and The nomadic war has just begun.

Zhao Jia was dissatisfied: "Ploughing the court, sweeping the dungeon, and leaving the county alone. If this is the case, wouldn't the Donghu be destroyed? Looking to the north, who else can threaten Zhao?"

Zhao Wuxi said, "Although the old nest of Donghu was destroyed this time, at most it is to let the people of Donghu escape and let the name of Donghu disappear from the world. Maybe the remnants of Donghu will come out from the deep mountains and forests in a few hundred years and have already changed their names. It is Wuhuan, Xianbei, and Khitan, but their impact on the agricultural land of the city will still be as continuous as their ancestors."

"This is only the Donghu lineage. I'm afraid you don't know how big the grassland is. It is 30,000 miles from east to west and 20,000 miles from north to south. The size is similar to that of the entire Kyushu. In Mobei, nomadic tribes are scattered, and there are hundreds of thousands of people who draw bows. Donghu is only a drop in the ocean. With the limited energy of Zhao State, it is very difficult to get out of the fortress. It is basically impossible to solve them once and for all. Yes, even if it can be suppressed for a while, it cannot guarantee that after a thousand years, Beidi will invade and China will not repeat the situation."

Not to mention the current state of Zhao, even if it is a strong man in history, he once slaughtered the city of Dawan, climbed the fortress of Wusun, climbed the rampart of Ai Korea, and pulled the flag of Liangyue, how majestic. But only the Xiongnu, although repeatedly defeated by the Han army, still failed to completely solve the northern frontier problems.

Seeing that Zhao Jia was still unconvinced, Zhao Wuxi knew that this far-reaching historical issue would be unclear for a while, so he simply went back to the source and said, "To explain this problem, we must first clarify what is nomadic herding. …”

...

"Nomadic, isn't it, a barbarian who has no city to settle down and cultivate the land, migrates by water and grass, and lives on livestock, whose etiquette, righteousness, integrity, and shame are not the same as those of China?"

Zhao Jia has been in Daibei for several years and is already familiar with the tribes on the grasslands, but if she was asked to explain what nomadic herding was, she could only give such an intuitive concept.

"Yes, when did nomadic herding begin? Why is its custom and nature so different from that of the farming people in the Central Plains?"

Zhao Jia spread out her hands and felt that this question was meaningless: "Isn't it because of ancient times?"

"of course not."

Zhao Wuxi clapped his hands and asked Yu Linwei to bring up the Chishan Goddess statue captured by Zhao Jia.

Made of red stone from Chishan, life-size, his face has high cheekbones, shallow eye sockets, a low bridge of the nose, and thin lips. The eyeballs are inlaid with crystal green round jade pieces, with bright eyes and high spirits, wearing a robe similar to dark clothes, sitting cross-legged, and inlaid with some jade pig dragons as decoration.

After looking at it carefully again, after picking up another jade pig dragon and playing with it, Zhao Wuxi was sure that it was not worse than his previous guess. This goddess statue was similar to the red mountain he had seen on TV in his previous life. Cultural pottery statues are exactly the same.

So Zhao Wuxi pointed at the statue and said, "Looking at his clothes, this thing is not something inherent to Donghu."

Zhao Jia Daqi: "But this thing was seized from the temple of the Donghu people."

Zhao Wuxi shook his head and said, "The Donghu people around Chishan have not existed since ancient times. Before the Donghu people, there was a small city at the foot of Chishan. The residents of the city could farm, hunt, and raise livestock, but they did not go around nomadic herding. Migration. Their era may be as old as the legendary Yellow Emperor and Yan Emperor, extending to the time of Xia and Shang. This statue should be the creation of those ancient residents."

"Why did your brother know?" Zhao Jia was slightly surprised. In her opinion, this stone statue with rough workmanship, how could Zhao Wuxi see a lot of connotations from it? Could it be that he is really so different from ordinary people that he can look up a hundred years and look down a thousand years?

For Zhao Wuxi, the reason why he knew this was because of his interest in later generations. After all, as one of the many sources of Chinese civilization, Hongshan culture is too famous.

As far as Zhao Wuxi knows, the history of the West Liaohe region for nearly 10,000 years can be roughly divided into three periods: Hongshan Culture, Lower Xiajiadian Culture, and Lower Culture.

Among them, the Hongshan culture and the lower Xiajiadian culture are mainly based on farming. The time corresponds to 6000 BC - 1500 BC. During this time, the West Liaohe River, like the rest of China, is going through a warm period. To the north of the Yellow River, rhinos and elephants can run. Bamboo and other southern plants also grow in abundance to the north of Yanshan. Chishan has abundant rainfall, warm and humid air, swamps, and overgrown grasses and trees. Relying on slash-and-burn cultivation, it can fully support a remote ancient city and give them enough leisure energy to create a magnificent culture such as Hongshan Yulong, which has profoundly affected Xia and Yin Shang.

In that warm and comfortable era, livestock could be farmed everywhere on the grasslands, and there were no real "nomads" in the world.

However, the change of climate has interrupted the peaceful life of the ancestors. From 2000 to 1000 BC, the continuous cooling of the climate had a profound impact on the north and the central plains. The farming culture in the Chishan area died out and was replaced by some people who could manage Ma'er, a tribe that lived on livestock meat and milk, their culture was overlaid on the previous culture, so it was called the upper Xiajiadian culture, which was later Donghu.

It can be seen that the era of nomadism actually came after farming. After the farming people in the Central Plains made use of all the land that was easy to reclaim and suitable for farming, the nomads picked up the remaining rotten land, and finally gave up in order to survive. The way of farming and animal husbandry started a nomadic herd that was more adaptable to the environment.

This is the origin of the numerous Hu tribes in the grasslands.

Another example is the differentiation of Ji surnames. The ancestor of the original surname, Hou Ji, was a master of farming and became an agricultural official in the Xia Dynasty. However, his descendants were differentiated. Some of them took root in the Wei River and became Zhou people, while others "moved to the Rong Di", entered the mountains and grasslands, and became Li Rong and Bai Zhai with the surname Ji, living half-farming and half-farming. Shepherd's life and habits are very different from those of the old relatives, Zhou people. It is conceivable that if a farming tribe with the surname Ji continued to enter the grasslands northward, they would have no choice but to nomadic herd.

Therefore, without natural nomads, all civilizations and social forms in the world are the result of adaptation to the environment. Although human beings have stopped evolving at the physical level for a long time, they will never stop in terms of survival.

"That's why, although the nomadic tribes on the grassland are very different from the Central Plains, it's not that they don't want to settle down and farm, but they are forced to do so. Except for the river line, the grassland is far less humid and suitable for farming than it was a thousand years ago. Going down, only nomads! This is the choice of nomads!"

...

"Brother's words made many of Jia's puzzles clear..."

Zhao Jia has been completely stunned, and even felt a sense of shame and filth. Over the years, she has often gone deep into the grasslands and met countless nomadic tribes, but her understanding of them is far less than that of her brother. Is it a sage and a wise man born to know it?

Admiration arose spontaneously. At the same time, after figuring out the source of the nomadic herd, her question also turned back to "how to completely solve the nuisance in Beidi".

Zhao Wuxi no longer regarded her as an ignorant little sister, but regarded her as a garrison who could help him rectify the northern border, and did not hide his secrets, and said: "Zhao's Taifu Ling Jiran once did the math for me. According to a written account, it takes less than 50 mu of land to support a family of five in Yecheng, and 100 to 200 mu in barren mountainous areas such as Shangdang and Taiyuan. However, on the grassland, it takes 6,000 to 8,000 mu. Grassland is fine! This is why the grasslands are vast and sparsely populated, and the tribes often occupy hundreds of miles of land."

Nomadic life is so hard, not to mention that there are large and small wind and snow disasters on the grasslands, the risk is far greater than farming. Therefore, from a purely anthropological point of view, the invasion of farming areas by nomadic tribes for their livelihood is also a "helpless choice" under the motive of human survival. In order to make the pastures larger, in order to obtain what is scarce in the grasslands in years of famine, they have an innate desire to expand and loot.

Of course, from the perspective of farmers, this kind of plunder was a heinous invasion. From the position of the uncle of the Central Plains, Zhao Wuxi naturally wanted to stop them.

But as he said, how vast the grassland is, Zhao State cannot monitor all of them. If the Donghu is destroyed, other Hu tribes will rise. History has proven this countless times. The East Huyue clan declined, but the Xiongnu rose in Yinshan. After the Xiongnu, there were Xianbei tribes and Wuhu chaotic China. After the Xianbei, there was Rouran, followed by the Turks, Xue Yantuo, and Uighurs. Until the rise of Mongolia, the grassland empire began to enter its heyday, and the golden family conquered half of the world.

Naturally militarized, and the cavalry came and went like the wind, giving them an advantage in confronting agrarian states. The fundamental purpose of stepping out of the hinterland of the grasslands is to plunder more space for nomadic herding, and turn the border area between farming and animal husbandry into a grassland full of cattle and sheep.

The farming nation must also guard these areas, and when the population grows, they also want to push the boundary between farming and animal husbandry to pastoral areas.

This cycle of repeated mutual promotion is the history of grievances and grievances between farmers and homeless people for three thousand years.

Throughout the entire Chinese history ~lightnovelpub.net~ Zhao Wuxi believes that the geographical pressure brought by the grasslands cannot be eradicated. The prosperous Han, Tang, and Ming all launched an active attack on the outside of the Great Wall, using more than 100,000 combat units, which greatly hit the nomadic regime. However, every time after the victory, they had to take the initiative to train and manage, and they could not be stationed for a long time. The reason is very simple. The climatic conditions in this area simply cannot afford the combat methods and logistical consumption of farmers.

For example, this time, Zhao Wuxi only sent 20,000 people out of the fortress, but the labor for their baggage and logistics was as high as 200,000! Seeing that for such a far-off war, the treasury was emptying day by day, and Ji Ran was about to jump.

So if you want to win a war or eliminate a big tribe, it will be effective once and for all. Zhao Wuxi is not as naive as Zhao Jia.

But in his heart, he does have a plan, a plan that can largely ensure that the Central Plains will solve the nuisance of homeless people.

Facing Zhao Jia's earnest gaze, Zhao Wuxi stroked his beard and said, "Although farming and nomadism are inherently contradictory and can hardly be reconciled, it does not mean that there is no chance for the two to become one..."

ps: Wang Mingke's "Nomad's Choice" is a very good book. It analyzes the origin of nomadic society from an anthropological perspective. If you are interested, you can read it. One more chapter tonight