Chapter 507: The shock caused by Luo Shi's death
Luo Shi passed away!
What's at stake is not just his own life or death, or his family's grief and sadness.
The death of any important figure will cause great changes in the political landscape, and even the life and death of a faction will depend on the leader.
The fact that the Luo family possessed a magical weapon was unknown to outsiders, and outsiders were only guessing about the Luo family's magical powers, not knowing how powerful they were.
But why are the emperor, nobles and officials still so wary of the Luo family and so respectful to them?
Ordinary people respect Luo Shi because of his legend and character.
But how could a creature like an official respect a person simply because of his moral character?
If this is true, then the person in charge of the Ming Dynasty should not be Zhang Juzheng, but Hai Rui!
When the Han Dynasty was first established, the Luo family was known as "Luo Half Dynasty" and "Luo and Liu share the world!"
It describes the power of the Luo family, which is as powerful as that of the royal family. This is not an exaggeration at all. It is the thinking of people all over the world, even the royal family themselves.
There were even some people with extremely dark minds who, during the period when Sanluo was assisting in the administration, suspected that the empress dowager would follow the example of Qin Shihuang's mother Zhao Ji and fabricate the story of Liu Bang's posthumous child to usurp the Han Dynasty.
Because at that time in the imperial court, even the founding heroes and meritorious officials were sitting on the fence between Luo and Liu. The founding heroes and major shareholders of the Han Dynasty, the Lu family, both favored the Luo family. How could the Liu family fight against the Luo family?
He can usurp the throne but does not usurp it, he can intimidate the lord but does not intimidate, he can monopolize power but does not monopolize it.
This is why Luo Xin was praised as the pillar of the sky by people of his time, and why Emperor Xiaohui Liu Ying and Emperor Xiaowen Liu Heng treated Luo Xin like a father, and honored him with the utmost posthumous honors, and even placed this trust on Luo Jing.
The Luo family has always possessed powerful political power and was able to protect humble scholars, such as Jia Yi, who could make hopeless soldiers become dukes and generals. They had money and connections, and this was why scholars and noble officials all over the world respected the Luo family.
During the Three Kingdoms period, both the Yuan family of Runan and the Yang family of Hongnong had three dukes for generations. Why didn't the Yang family have the same status as the Yuan family as a leader of the world's gentry?
It is because the greatest asset of the Runan Yuan family is not the so-called reputation of three generations of officials in four generations, that thing is worthless. It is because the Yuan family used that position to promote too many people, and the interests of too many nobles and officials were tied to the Yuan family. This is the way the Confucian classics family plays.
Luo Shi’s official title is Protector-General of the Western Regions, but the Protector-General of the Western Regions in this world is not an ordinary title.
But the King of the Northwest!
His status may not be as noble as the Three Dukes, and the energy he can exert may not be as great as the Three Dukes, but he is a true frontier official!
The population that Luo Shi can directly manage is as high as 500,000!
The population that can be mobilized is as high as three million!
Throughout the Han Dynasty, ever since the princes were enfeoffed, there have been no local princes with such great power.
If it weren't for the fact that the Western Regions are far away from Chang'an due to the high mountains and many dangerous passes on the road, even the emperor would have been uneasy.
Such a huge force not only provided invisible support to the Luo family, but also attracted many people to seek shelter in the Luo family.
The people in this world who are most worried about Luo Shi's death are not his children and relatives, but the nobles and rulers of the Western Regions.
Because there is a saying in this world that when people leave, the tea gets cold. When Luo Shi was around, the court treated the Western Regions quite well. But after Luo Shi died, the court's attitude towards the Western Regions and even Hexi would definitely change.
The attitude towards the princes and marquises who have established fiefdoms in the four counties of Hexi and the Western Regions will also change.
The letter Luo Shi wrote to the emperor before his death was about his worry that after his death, the emperor would reduce the rewards to the troops in Hexi and the Western Regions.
After all, the troops attacking the Huns this time included not only the troops from the Western Regions and Hexi, but also an army of 110,000 who were also fighting the Huns on the grassland. Without these people, even if the Huns' Chanyu was killed, it would be very difficult for a group of exhausted soldiers to retreat safely under the encirclement of the Huns' army.
This is why the nobles and officials of the Western Regions knelt on the ground and cried after hearing Luo Shi’s last words.
These people are just worried about the future, and there is only one person who is the most anxious!
The King of Dayuan East simply worships Luo Shi as his father.
It's not just the King of Dayuan. All of Liu Dan's sons who are still alive have been protected by Luo Shi.
Even if Luo Shi didn't speak, as long as he was still in the Western Regions, he still controlled the 100,000 troops in the Western Regions and Hexi, which was the greatest deterrent.
Even the emperor cannot ignore his will, let alone others.
But now that Luo Shi is dead, this umbrella of protection has been completely leaked. His aunt is dead, his uncle is dead too, and there is no one to protect him anymore.
Liu Xun was naturally very clear about these things. He was an emperor who was quite good at playing political tricks and was very familiar with various means of depriving people of power by adjusting official positions.
After Luo Shi passed away, the biggest problem facing him disappeared, and the rest were just trivial matters.
He flipped through the war reports casually, and then suddenly asked Huo Guang beside him: "Zimeng, who do you think should be appointed as the new Protector General of the Western Regions?"
Liu Xun would never hand over the position of Protector-General of the Western Regions to Luo Lan. The Luo family has occupied the Western Regions for two generations. It has been fifty years since the death of Emperor Xiaowu. If this continues, will the Western Regions belong to the Liu family or the Luo family?
Moreover, the Wushuang Marquisate was located where the Protectorate of the Western Regions was headquartered. This two-in-one system made the Protectorate of the Western Regions less like a court.
Huo Guang was stunned and secretly groaned in his heart, why did he ask himself such a question?
He knew what the emperor was thinking, so he said calmly, "Your Majesty is wise and decisive, and I dare not speak nonsense.
It’s just that the Western Regions are extremely important. As Wu Xianghou said in his letter, if the Western Regions are unstable, Guanzhong will be uneasy. We should send someone who is available, trustworthy, and capable of handling the situation there.”
Liu Xun glanced at Huo Guang with a smile, then said with a smile: “With the Wushuang Marquisate and the Wusun Kingdom in the Western Regions, the Protectorate cannot escape its shackles.
In the past, the orders of the Dong'a Marquisate were like imperial decrees. With the death of King Luo Wen, this privilege disappeared.
Now, the Wushuang Marquisate has ruled the Western Regions for two consecutive generations. As the saying goes, three times the limit, it’s time to end it.
Moreover, the Protectorate was originally stationed in the Wusun Kingdom in order to annex Wusun and then attack Dayuan for the purpose of war.
Now the Wusun Kingdom's war objectives have been largely achieved. The Dayuan Kingdom is surrounded by mountains, and the conquest can no longer be completed overnight.
From this perspective, the location of the Western Regions Protectorate is too far to the west, which is not conducive to the Han Dynasty's control over the entire Western Regions. I have decided to move the location of the Protectorate to the east."
Huo Guang immediately understood that this was to disperse the power of the Protectorate of the Western Regions and make the Wushuang Marquisate a normal garrison marquisate, rather than the uncrowned king it was before.
There was nothing wrong with the emperor's approach. When the Huns were defeated, the situation in the Western Regions changed, so the administrative system must change accordingly.
However, in the Western Regions, which is not the Central Plains, the emperor's card is not easy to use, especially the Temple Army. This army is more like a volunteer force or mercenaries, and the words of the Han court are not very effective.
Huo Guang didn't say anything. Anyway, these adjustments could not be completed overnight. The emperors of the Han Dynasty had never lived long. Only God knew how long the current emperor could live.
So he said directly: "Your Majesty is wise. The Western Region is extremely important. It can not only protect the safety of the Han Dynasty, but also send all the unstable people in the Han Dynasty out. It is crucial to fully control the Western Region."
The so-called unstable persons include refugees, ruffians, disaster victims, prisoners, beggars, and those who are on the path to law enforcement or have already violated the law.
Liu Xun's strategy was to learn the method of exile and send these people to those remote places to open up wasteland on time, which could not only reduce the population pressure in the Central Plains, but also open up more land for the Han Dynasty.
Over the past 20 years, the effect has been quite good. In the absence of major wars causing deaths or large-scale famines causing deaths, the contradiction between a large population and limited land has been effectively alleviated.
Liu Xun now completely controls the four counties of Hexi and the countries in the Western Regions in order to successfully establish various countries in the Western Regions.
Thinking of this, Liu Xun patted Huo Guang on the shoulder and said, "Zi Meng, you really understand me. The Western Regions are actually a small matter. After all, there are many natives there. If you want to completely conquer the Western Regions, you may have to destroy the Han Dynasty. I will definitely not do that.
My real target is the four counties in Hexi, where there are fewer native people and the Huns who once occupied there have all been expelled.
I want to migrate people to the four counties in Hexi, but for such a vast land, the population of the four counties is only one million, which is really too few!
I will relocate another two million people there, and let the Han people there both farm and raise horses. As long as the four counties of Hexi are in the hands of the Han people, even if we lose the Western Regions and Henan, we can still form cavalry and take back all the lost lands."
Huo Guang bowed and said, "Your Majesty, do you have a candidate for the Protector General of the Western Regions in mind?"
Having said so much, who should be chosen as the Protector General of the Western Regions?
All ideas ultimately fall on the shoulders of the person who executes them. Can the person you choose be able to take on the responsibility of carrying out your ideas?
Huo Guang asked this question because based on the emperor's choice of candidates, he could judge the emperor's attitude towards the Western Regions and the old ministers in Hexi, as well as his positioning of the Wushuang Marquisate.
This is very important to Huo Guang.
Unexpectedly, the emperor did not answer. Instead, he put down the battle report in his hand, stood up, walked to the screen, turned over the map on it, and a geomancy map of the Western Regions appeared on it.
Huo Guang watched as the emperor picked up a pen, heavily dotted the name of the Wusun Kingdom, and then drew three lines, directly dividing the Wusun Kingdom into three parts.
Split the country!
The emperor thought that the Wusun Kingdom, which occupied most of the Yishui River Valley, was too big, so he wanted to divide it into three parts!
"I don't want to be someone else's bride."
(End of this chapter)
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