Yining, a place once destroyed by war.

As the gateway to the capital of Xiangyun Province, Yining once enjoyed a unique prosperity because of its location on a major transportation route.

Any caravan entering Cambodia needs to make final rest in Yining. This is not only because the caravan has just passed through the mountains in the southwest and the people and horses are tired and really need to rest, but also because this is the customs office closest to Cambodia when the Chen Dynasty ruled the southwest. All people need to be inspected here and goods need to be taxed here before they can go straight to Mengyang along the official road.

To put it bluntly, any city, as long as it is at the core node of this re-export trade, is bound to get rich. Even a small fishing village can grow into a metropolis.

Too many years of peace and prosperity have made the people of Yining believe that everything is as it should be, and money grows naturally like crops in the fields.

Oh no, it's different. The crops in the field still need you to take care of them, plowing in spring and harvesting in autumn, facing the loess and back to the sky for a whole year, before you can harvest the food. If you accidentally encounter a natural disaster or man-made disaster, there is even the risk of getting nothing.

But in Yining, it was much more convenient. All they had to do was open the city gates and the caravans would come.

As long as there is a roof over one's head, there will be wealthy merchants looking to buy, sell or rent it;

Even if you have nothing, it doesn't matter. The Yining County government has a regulation that all foreign merchants who want to trade locally must employ at least one-third of the local people in the caravan, and local employees are not allowed to leave the area...

To translate this, if you want to do business here, you must hire locals, and at least one-third of them must be locals. However, the local population is limited, and in a buyer's market, you can't just hire people whenever you want. If you can't pay more than twice the price of an out-of-town employee, rest assured, you won't be able to hire a single one...

As a result, people from Yining became popular in Xiangyun Province. Many people from other Xiangyun provinces tried every possible means to transfer their household registration to Yining, hoping to become Yining people. Unfortunately, the southwest is mountainous and densely forested, and the pronunciation often varies from place to place. Outsiders are often recognized by their accents...

This blissful existence lasted for centuries, during which time countless wars raged across the continent. Rumors of a potential conflict between the Khmer and Chen dynasties in the southwest terrified the people of Yining. Indeed, war is a drain on wealth. If a large army were to pass through, the prosperous Yining would be reduced to mere ruins.

Although people from the southwest had basically no say in the Chen Dynasty court, the wealthy people of Yining had their own ways.

First, he bribed the court heavily and asked it to transfer the garrison near Yining. This would effectively prevent Yining from becoming a target of military attack, and at the same time reduce local military expenditure. The money saved could even be used to build a new goods distribution market twenty miles east of the city, which was simply killing two birds with one stone.

Then, he'd generously bribe the Khmer officials. Everyone fights for money, right? You're just robbing me for money. Now, I'm just giving you the money, saving you the effort of fighting. What's wrong with that? If the Khmer king truly wants to fight, Yi Ning's lobbying group will do everything in their power to get the Khmer army to attack other parts of the Tran Dynasty. If that doesn't work, they'll even provide intelligence and military funding, guaranteeing victory...

In this way, Yining, who was unarmed, lived a particularly happy life in troubled times.

Then the Khmer army arrived.

This time, the Khmer king did not want money, he wanted land, he wanted the entire southwest. He couldn't just leave an enclave for the Chen Dynasty here in Yining, right?

After accepting the generous gift from the Yining Chamber of Commerce, the Cambodian army easily broke into the defenseless Yining City. Fortunately, they did not do anything too drastic. After all, this place would be their home in the future.

The people of Yining, who had just gotten used to living under the Khmers, had not yet had a chance to catch their breath when news came from the front that the Chen Dynasty army had launched a massive counterattack and the Khmers could not hold on.

On the night of the Khmer withdrawal, the Khmer army organized and systematically looted and destroyed the entire Yi Ning. They killed and looted as many people as possible. The official reason was to avoid these people and wealth "assisting the enemy."

The rest of the story is very simple. The Khmer, Chen Dynasty, the later Liang Empire, and even the Xia Kingdom all came for a period of time. The four forces fought back and forth in the southwest, and the legendary rich Yining was always listed as the first target to be attacked. After all, everyone’s military expenditure was not very abundant.

By the time Lin Hai rules Xiangyun, Yining will probably only have ruins and a few refugees hiding in the mountains who dare not come down, as well as mice and rabbits.

Even bandits don't come here because there is really nothing to steal.

After several years of reconstruction and recuperation, Yining now has a hint of prosperity again. However, Cambodia is now part of Qinghe's territory, so there is no need for the caravans to stop in Yining for rest. Although it is still a must-pass place, it is just a must-pass place - it may be a little more prosperous than other places, but it will never return to its original splendor.

So if we say that since Qinghe ruled the southwest, people's livelihood has been restored, and the country has been governed with great efforts, and there is peace everywhere, and the people are full of praise - then in Yining, at least for the surviving old Yining people, this is definitely not the case.

"If it weren't for Lin Hai's ambition and his rash decision to defeat the Khmer, we would still be the largest trading post in the southwest, and we wouldn't have fallen to this point."

This was discovered by the Qinghe Supervision Department during its internal public opinion management. It is what the old Yining people like to say the most.

"So, this is the situation. Relying solely on public opinion propaganda is really useless."

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