Chapter 647

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A faint scent of sandalwood permeated the study.

Niu Ben pondered for a moment, his expression worried. “Your Imperial Majesty is absolutely right. If the Prince of Huainan acts, it will save us a lot of effort, and at the same time, it can weaken the Prince of Huainan’s strength. If Yan, Liang, and Zhao are all destroyed, then north of the Yangtze River, only the Prince of Huainan and Prince Yong will remain. But is Your Imperial Majesty prepared to let the vassal states continue to exist? After all, this internal strife in the Great Yu Empire clearly shows the harm of vassal princes to the Great Yu Empire.”

“What General Niu can see, I naturally can see too. However, since Prince Yong and the Prince of Huainan have submitted to me, I cannot easily use military force against them. The current plan is to appease them and then implement a policy of weakening the feudal lords after the Great Yu Empire is stable. In this way, the common people can be spared the suffering of war, and the problem of the feudal lords can be resolved without bloodshed. Furthermore, the great barbarian menace has not yet been eliminated. I only wish to quell the rebellion as quickly as possible,” Xiao Ming said thoughtfully.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to solve the problem of the vassal princes once and for all. It was just that everything required a strategy. Since he could pit one against another, why would he challenge all the vassal princes alone?

Moreover, an important issue was that if the war continued, the Great Yu Empire would be completely devastated. Those killed and wounded in the Battle of Yunzhou City were all able-bodied young men of the Great Yu Empire.

Leaving aside the number of deaths in the Battle of Yunzhou, the common people who transported provisions for the allied forces of the three princes also suffered many deaths. This doesn’t even include the subsequent plundering and killing of common people by routed armies.

Saying that the allied forces of the three princes were defeated is easy, but in fact, it caused serious war problems for the Great Yu Empire.

To understand this problem, one only needs to look at the contemporary Middle East issue to clearly see what the people in the north are experiencing.

During World War II, soldiers found pleasure in wantonly killing civilians. In this largely uncivilized dynasty, killing during wartime was simply commonplace.

This time, Niu Ben’s battle report from the Yunzhou campaign lay on the table, while the news collected by Wang Xuan was hidden beneath it.

According to information provided by the Secret Guard, this time, the allied forces of the three princes were very sinister. Most of the civilian laborers they conscripted came from the occupied imperial prefectures and counties. At the same time, the provisions and supplies for this campaign were also forcibly imposed on the common people of these prefectures and counties.

During their occupation of cities, the common people of these prefectures and counties had already suffered their massacres, and now they were enduring even greater hardship.

If barbarians were to attack at this moment, he truly doubted whether the common people in these areas would eventually assist the barbarians, because these vassal princes might not treat them any better than the barbarians.

Based on these considerations, after much thought, he decided to win over the vassal princes who had submitted, and stabilize the country as quickly as possible. After all, the Great Yu Empire’s true enemy was constantly watching him, and having the north completely ravaged was not in his interest at all.

Although these submissive vassal princes were a hidden danger, at least they could maintain stability in their respective regions.

Moreover, after eliminating Prince Yan, Prince Zhao, and Prince Liang, Prince Yong and the Prince of Huainan would not pose a threat to the central government and could be slowly assimilated.

“Your Imperial Majesty is farsighted. I seem to have worried too much.” Niu Ben breathed a sigh of relief.

Xiao Ming glanced at Niu Ben. In the past two days, officials like Pang Yukun and Zhan Xingchang had all mentioned this issue, and their attitude was different from that of Fei Ji and other old officials from Chang’an.

Xiao Ming understood after a moment’s thought. After he ascended the throne and became emperor, the Chang’an officials and the state officials like Pang Yukun were increasingly at odds.

One reason was that Chang’an officials still valued pedigree at heart and looked down on officials from common backgrounds like Pang Yukun. Secondly, these officials were ideologically conservative, unlike the open-minded state officials.

And Pang Yukun and others were beneficiaries of Xiao Ming’s elimination of powerful families. Psychologically, they instinctively harbored a vigilance against powerful families, fearing that if powerful families gained power, they themselves would be purged.

After all, the powerful families of Qingzhou and other powerful families in the Great Yu Empire also had intricate connections, and they held strong opinions against Pang Yukun and others.

Secondly, Pang Yukun was attempting to revive Legalist thought, while these officials from Chang’an still carried strong Confucian ideas, making the two fundamentally opposed.

From Xiao Ming’s perspective, he naturally leaned towards Pang Yukun. However, the territory under his jurisdiction was constantly expanding, and he had no choice but to rely on the existing officials to govern the prefectures and counties for him.

He also had a headache facing this contradictory problem, but currently, there was no solution. After all, it had only been five years since he came to Qingzhou.

His achievements in these five years were unprecedented and unrivaled in the Great Yu Empire. But even so, the number of officials he could train was limited. Despite this, there were still some officials trained by Bowen Academy who were inconsistent, still adhering to Confucianism in their hearts, just like conservative officials such as Fei Ji.

However, he was very displeased that this issue was brought up by Niu Ben, because he deeply knew that the army should not have its own ideology, otherwise, it would easily cause trouble.

No matter how much the officials squabble, it’s just talk. A modern army acting rashly can cause trouble.

So he said sternly, “General Niu, you are overstepping your bounds. Soldiers only need to obey orders and do not need to concern themselves with government affairs.”

Niu Ben’s heart trembled upon hearing this. He immediately realized, “Your Imperial Majesty, I am guilty!”

“Do not commit this offense again! I know what you are worried about, but you are overthinking it. Do not forget that it was my idea to slaughter the powerful families back then. Some people cannot cause trouble.” Xiao Ming’s words seemed to carry a hidden meaning.

“With Your Imperial Majesty’s words, I am at ease.”

Niu Ben bowed and said that Xiao Ming was now the Emperor, and he gradually felt Xiao Ming transforming into an emperor.

“That’s right. I will reward you all for your merits in a few days,” Xiao Ming said with a smile. He still expected these generals to continue fighting for him, so appropriate appeasement was necessary.

Bowing, Niu Ben turned and left the study. At this moment, Xiao Ming put down the brush in his hand and stood up.

Watching Niu Ben’s figure as he crossed the stone bridge, Xiao Ming sighed softly. Only after becoming emperor did he realize that being a foolish monarch was simple, but being a wise monarch was extremely difficult.

Because balancing a group of subordinates was already tough enough. At the same time, he also had to worry about the army. After all, in this era, generals disobeying orders and holding their own power was simply commonplace.

Even in contemporary times, some countries frequently experienced military coups, the fundamental reason being that the army became the private force of certain generals.

And this situation was very common in feudal dynasties. Precisely because of this, emperors placed many restrictions on military commanders.

Now Xiao Ming also encountered this problem. He absolutely could not allow a general to easily rebel with the army when he wanted to kill that general.

After a moment of thought, he felt that the solution to this problem was the nationalization of the army. If so, he would have to crack down on the military historians.