Chapter 327 Maritime Silk Road, World Map In July of the fifth year of Jian'an, taking advantage of the Battle of Guandu, Qin Zhen sent troops to Jiaozhou to attack Zhang Jin on the charge of colluding with foreign races. Less than two months later, Zhang Jin was killed by his subordinate general Qu Jing, and Cangwu County fell. After obtaining this place, Qin Zhen's mission in Jiangdong was mostly completed and he could hand it in. However, pacifying Jiaozhou was only a nominal matter, and the real control of Jiaozhou was still in the hands of Shi Xie. Therefore, after Qin Zhen captured Cangwu County, he did not lead his troops away, but first came to the city to meet Xue Zong, Xu Jing, Shi Huang and others. As for the purpose of meeting the three people, it was to prepare to use political means to achieve control over Jiaozhou. Among the three, Xu Jing and Shi Huang were both in the mansion, but Xue Zong returned home. Qin Zhen then visited him in person, intending to recruit Xue Zong to serve as an official. When Xue Zong saw Qin Zhen coming to visit him in person, he said with a look of shame: "I have no title, no talent, and no ability to save this place from war. How can you allow me to come to you and invite you?" In fact, before this, he did not have much good feelings towards Qin Zhen. After all, he had lived in Jiaozhou for many years and there had never been a war here.

But Qin Zhen was a typical ambitious man who directly brought war to Jiaozhou and made the people uneasy. However, after seeing Zhang Jin's series of actions, he realized that even without Qin Zhen, something would happen to Zhang Jin sooner or later! Because compared to Zhang Jin, although Qin Zhen brought war, he did not harm the people. In a sense, Jiaozhou is much safer when it is controlled by Liu Bei's army than in Zhang Jin's hands. So thinking about how he had gone against Zhang Jin and Qin Zhen before, he felt a little ashamed. However, Qin Zhen saw this and took Xue Zong's hand to comfort him: "When we met in the army in the past, it was because the two armies were fighting, so it was a crime of disrespect!" "Now I come to ask for your help, not to win over the people's hearts, but for the sake of the millions of Han people in the nine counties of Jiaozhou." "Jiaozhou is a remote place. Although our army is strong, there will be a time when we will leave. How can Jiaozhou be safe at that time? It all depends on the governance of local officials." “So we should choose wise and virtuous people to govern, so that we can spread our policies far and wide and clear the minds of officials.” "Jingwen has extraordinary talent since he was young. I have heard of it myself. I came to invite him now for the sake of the country, not for myself!" "I am serving the country, so why are you talking about selfishness? Just follow me and don't say anything more!" When Xue Zong heard this, he felt even more ashamed. He immediately nodded and agreed, and served in Liu Bei's army. After convincing Xue Zong, Qin Zhen met with Xu Jing, Shi Huang and others. The reason why he wanted to meet these three people was one of Qin Zhen's political means to seize Jiaozhou. The situation in Jiaozhou is now rather complicated. Shi Xie has a very high prestige and his people are very cooperative, so we cannot directly use military means to seize the remaining territory. Since the army cannot be mobilized, the only option is to sideline Shi Xie and weaken his current power by winning over these Central Plains scholars. Then, by gradually taking control of Jiaozhou's military power, you can gradually complete your control over Jiaozhou. Among them, Cangwu County is the most important one. Together with the people from the Central Plains who fled south here, Cangwu is actually the largest county in Jiaozhou. The population here is over 500,000. Although the terrain is not flat, it borders Jingzhou. As long as Cangwu is firmly in hand, the overall situation in Jiaozhou can be controlled without any changes.

In the original process, because this place was out of reach, Sun Quan separated Guangzhou from Jiaozhou. This move also indirectly led to the later generations choosing to divide this place into states for management. But in Qin Zhen's view, dividing the state into different regions did reduce the chances of rebellion in this area. However, it also greatly weakened Jiaozhou's power to expand outward and led to Jiaozhou's independence in later generations. Therefore, he is now preparing to vigorously revitalize Jiaozhou, and while controlling Jiaozhou, turn this place into a frontline position and economic center. Continuously increasing the economic proportion will ensure that the new imperial court in the future will pay enough attention to Lingnan. With such a goal in mind, Shi Huang naturally could not serve as the prefect of Cangwu again! Qin Zhen planned to appoint Xue Zong as the new governor and pair him with Lu Dai. As for the former Cangwu prefect Shi Huang, he planned to bring him back to Jiangdong and assign him a casual idle position for his retirement. At this time, Shi Huang had escaped death, so he dared not challenge Qin Zhen and directly agreed to Qin Zhen's proposal. As a result, Xue Zong was appointed as the prefect of Cangwu, and Lu Dai was promoted to the lieutenant of Cangwu County, and Cangwu County became stable. After dealing with the affairs in Cangwu, Qin Zhen led his troops south into Hepu County. In the hot weather of September, Qin Zhen met Hepu Prefect Shi Yi and Zhou Yu. Compared to Cangwu County, Hepu has only more than 20,000 households and less than 100,000 people, and Shi Yi is just a skinny old man. However, Hepu has one of the most important cities in the Han Dynasty - Xuwen County! Speaking of this county town, it is not very famous in later generations, and is even not as famous as the surrounding counties. However, Xuwen is the well-deserved starting port of the Han Dynasty Maritime Silk Road. As early as the time of Emperor Wu of Han, sailors were recruited to reach the Bay of Bengal, connecting Huangzhi (India) and Yibucheng (Sri Lanka). This led to the emergence of the Maritime Silk Road, through which silk and other products passed through India and were sold to Central Asia, West Asia and the Mediterranean. At the same time, the Han Dynasty would also use gold to purchase various rare products from these countries. This made the Maurya Empire, as the middleman, earn a lot of money and prospered for a time. Qin Zhen's trip south this time also intends to inspect his old place and eliminate the middlemen. However, when he arrived in Xuwen County, he found that the place had long been in decline. Not only was there no large seaport, but even the town had degenerated into a small fishing village. Seeing this, Qin Zhen looked at Hepu Governor Shi Yi and said with a smile: "I once heard a proverb in Lingnan: If you want to get rid of poverty, go to Xuwen." "It is clear that this place was prosperous in the past, but now it is so desolate. Why is it so?" When Shi Yi heard this, he thought Qin Zhen was blaming him for his poor governance, so he hurriedly said: "Your Excellency is indeed well-informed and knowledgeable, but the land of Xuwen has already declined early!" As he spoke, he explained to Qin Zhen in detail the reasons for Xuwen's decline. It turns out that Xuwen had flourished for quite a long time during the Western Han Dynasty.

However, the laws of the world always rise and fall, and the prosperity of Xuwen did make Jiaozhou's economy flourish for a period of time. Because of the prosperity, local officials acted recklessly and imposed heavy taxes. In addition to taxes, some officials began to commit suicide for the sake of face and comparison. For example, Zhuyazhou, also known as an official from Hainan Island, saw that the natives had beautiful hair, so he cut off some of their hair to make wigs. This led to the rebellion of the natives on Zhuyazhou, who directly killed these officials in rebellion. Until now, Zhuyazhou is still under the control of the natives, and no court institutions have been established. In addition, there was Huang Gai from Nanhai (not the one from Jiangdong), who beat the chief clerk to death as soon as he took office because the other party’s etiquette was not solemn enough. Dan Meng, the governor of Jiuzhen, beat Gongcao to death because he refused to dance when Gongcao invited him to. The former Jiaozhou governor Zhu Fu was even more outrageous, promoting his fellow townsmen recklessly. If the people caught a yellow croaker, they would be taxed one bushel of rice, which made the people miserable. All these things caused tensions with the surrounding ethnic groups, and they often came to plunder. Over time, Xuwen, the starting port of the Maritime Silk Road, gradually declined. In short, all the evil things were done by the previous officials, and Shi Yi had nothing to do with it! After Qin Zhen heard him explain the reason, he pointed to Zhuyazhou in the south and said with a smile: "They have committed crimes, why don't you punish them, but let them do whatever they want?" Shi Yi saw that he did not blame him for his administration, but instead asked why he did not punish him, and he hurriedly complained: "Your Excellency has lived in the Central Plains for a long time, and you don't know the suffering we are going through here." "There are 200,000 or 300,000 barbarians in total. We don't have enough troops. How can we defeat them?" Qin Zhen heard this and turned back to look at Zhou Yu, smiling and saying: "If I let Gongjin govern this place, how many troops would I need to conquer it?" Seeing him asking, Zhou Yu looked at the other side of the river carefully and thought: "If I were to rule this place, three thousand naval forces would be enough, and within a year, the barbarians would surrender." "But if we want to maintain long-term peace and stability, it will take several years of hard work!" "A few years is too short. It must be several decades. This is a plan for a hundred years!" Qin Zhen shook his head, looked around the islands surrounding Jiaozhou, and sighed: "Even though we can send our troops to places like these, we are afraid that our descendants will find it difficult to defend them, and foreign invaders will take advantage of them!" Zhou Yu heard him talking about foreign tribes and couldn't help but say: "Before we met, I thought you didn't like killing, so you treated the captives well." "Later, I saw you plundering foreign tribes, and then I realized you just don't like the people at home." "But the foreign tribes around us are all raw meat eaters and blood drinkers, so we are not a threat." "Why do you have such deep hatred towards them, and are so wary of them?" To be honest, he no longer has as much resentment towards Qin Zhen as he did before. Because Qin Zhen has always done things impartially and seldom has any resentment mixed in.

But after getting to know Qin Zhen carefully, he discovered that Qin Zhen was two different people to the outside world and to himself. Whenever it comes to internal affairs, unless the crime is serious, Qin Zhen will basically show leniency and not kill everyone. But when it comes to outsiders, they are extremely tyrannical, slaughtering and killing at will! This is obviously completely contrary to the Confucian attitude of emphasizing self-awareness within and humility toward the outside world. But the problem lies here. The surrounding ethnic groups are all a group of uncivilized barbarians. Why should Qin Zhen be so afraid? This point has puzzled Zhou Yu for a long time, and he just can't figure it out. Seeing Qin Zhen so emotional at this time, he simply took the opportunity to express his doubts. However, Qin Zhen smiled slightly when he heard him ask this, and took out a piece of cloth from his sleeve and said: "I guess in Gongjin's eyes, the foreign races around us are all barbarians." "Our Han Dynasty has a vast territory, a large population, and strong soldiers and horses. There is no need to be afraid of it." "Then, Gongjin, do you know how many foreign races there are in this world? And how many tribes there are?" When Zhou Yu heard this, he frowned and thought about counting carefully, but felt something was wrong, so he simply took the cloth and unfolded it. He looked up with confusion and saw that there were a lot of areas separated on the cloth. However, in a small area in the middle, there was a big Chinese character written in official script. He was such a smart man that after just one look, his eyes widened and he looked up at Qin Zhen: "What is this?" "This is a topographic map of all the countries in the world. The Han Dynasty is the territory of our Han Dynasty!" Qin Zhen's eyes met Zhou Yu's, and he pointed at the map and said with a smile: "I wonder if Gongjin can still say that foreign races are not a threat after seeing this picture?" Facing Qin Zhen's gaze, Zhou Yu looked at the map in his hand again, frowned in a trance and said: "Where did you get this picture? How do you know if it's real?" Although there were more foreign exchanges during the Han Dynasty, at that time, foreign exchanges had not yet been truly explored. Not to mention a complete world map with specific boundaries marked! Therefore, the shock he felt when he saw this world map was like discovering a new continent. He knew that the north was an extremely cold place, but he didn't know that the area was so vast. He also knew that where he was now was the "End of the World", but he didn't know that there was a series of islands to the south. Even in the far south, there is a large island whose territory is no less than that of the Han Dynasty. On the East China Sea east of the Han Dynasty, there are not Fangzhang, Yingzhou and Penglai, but two continents. Not to mention that the western part of the Han Dynasty actually had a territory several times larger than that of the Han Dynasty!

All of this impacted Zhou Yu's worldview and allowed him to break free from the confinement of the Han Dynasty. Therefore, he immediately doubted the authenticity of this picture! But after hearing this, Qin Zhen turned around and walked towards the cabin and said: "This picture was drawn by me personally. Gongjin can confirm the authenticity of the picture by himself." "When I leave this time, I can lead three thousand brave warriors with Gongjin!" "As for whether you want to expand your territory or stay here, it all depends on Gongjin's wishes!" "Today I will submit a letter to appoint Gongjin as the governor of Nanyang. All future affairs of the southern land will be handed over to you!" Having said this, he went into the cabin without giving Zhou Yu a chance to refuse. Zhou Yu was left alone, facing Shi Yi's congratulations, looking at the world map, silent for a while. (End of this chapter)