Chapter 388 A policy that combines both firmness and flexibility!
An Miaoyi's words can be said to have opened a new door for Ye Mingsheng and opened up a direction to deal with Cui Shaoxin...
After thinking for a while, Ye Mingsheng seemed to have thought of a good plan. A fleeting gleam of light appeared in his eyes. He nodded to An Miaoyi and said with a smile:

"Thank you for your advice, madam! Your words are more powerful than thousands of troops!"

"For such a great contribution, of course your husband will reward you. I wonder what reward you would like?"

"It's just my humble opinion. It's nothing serious, so don't take it seriously."

When An Miaoyi was about to say something and Ye Mingsheng thought she was going to refuse, An Miaoyi suddenly changed the subject, a trace of blush appeared on her delicate and fair cheeks, and she leaned close to Ye Mingsheng's ear again and said in a seductive and soul-stirring voice:

“Since I have married into the Ye family, it is natural for me to carry on the family’s bloodline, so my husband, can you give me a child…”

As An Miaoyi spoke, her hands began to move. How could the hot-blooded Ye Mingsheng resist such temptation and he immediately jumped on the horse.

Half an hour later, Ye Mingsheng fell into a deep sleep on the pillow, while An Miaoyi quietly opened her eyes and looked at Ye Mingsheng who was so close to her.

Looking at Ye Mingsheng's angular face, the expression in An Miaoyi's beautiful eyes gradually became complicated and resentful. Although she grew up in Kunshan Marquisate and experienced the power struggle of a large family when she was young, she was more mature, calm and rational than ordinary girls.

But as a young girl, An Miaoyi dreams deep in her heart that her lover will be a great hero like in the legend, who will come to marry her on a colorful cloud, and then the two of them will be together for the rest of their lives, never leaving each other, and their feelings will be sincere and pure without any interest factors involved.

Although Ye Mingsheng's appearance was not particularly outstanding, with regular facial features and a slender figure, he rose from humble beginnings to success at a young age. He commanded a large army and ruled over a thousand miles of territory and millions of people. He was definitely the kind of legendary young hero who was admired by thousands of girls, so he met the prerequisites.

Although An Miaoyi knew very well that it would be difficult for a tyrant like Ye Mingsheng to live up to her imagination, but since marrying Ye Mingsheng, Ye Mingsheng's meticulous care and consideration for her made An Miaoyi feel a little true love for Ye Mingsheng and fantasize about their sincere feelings...
However, although An Miaoyi had expected Ye Mingsheng's sudden test today, it also destroyed the fantasy in An Miaoyi's heart, making her realize that the man who shared a bed with her was still wary of her deep in his heart. This undoubtedly made An Miaoyi feel a little lost.

Therefore, An Miaoyi, who has faced the reality, can only hope to use a child to bind Ye Mingsheng's heart!

As the supreme commander of the Fengzhou Army and the local emperor of the Liaoyang region of the Great Zhou Dynasty, Ye Mingsheng has no children and no heirs. This means that if An Miaoyi can successfully give birth to a son, he will be the eldest son.

As someone who comes from a big family, An Miaoyi naturally understands the importance of the eldest son in the feudal society and family inheritance, so she must seize the initiative in this regard. If it weren't for her personality, how could she be so proactive in offering her beauty and say such embarrassing words...
In addition, although An Miaoyi is very confident about her beauty, she has been accustomed to seeing the elders in her family having three wives and four concubines and having secret affairs since she was a child. She also understands that for men, a wife is not as good as a concubine, and a concubine is not as good as a secret lover. They eat what is in the bowl and think about what is in the pot. Even if it is dog shit outside the house, it is fresh and exciting.

What's more, beauty fades with age, and using beauty to please men is ultimately a lowly way, so An Miaoyi also needs a child to help her consolidate her position in Ye Mingsheng's heart.

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The next morning, Ye Mingsheng had already made up his mind. After having a quick breakfast with An Miaoyi, he came to his study room faster than usual.

When he arrived at the study, he didn't wait for Qi Dechao to report today's arrangements. He immediately gave the order:

"Go tell He Jingyun that after the emperor's envoy arrives, I will hold a victory parade to celebrate our army's capture of Liaoyang. The scale must be grand. Ask him to come up with a plan as soon as possible!"

"Yes, my lord!"

Upon hearing Ye Mingsheng's instructions, Qi Dechao immediately recorded his request.

After explaining this, Ye Mingsheng leaned back in the armchair with a faint smile on his face. An Miaoyi's words on the bed last night made him realize the weaknesses and opportunities of the local faction. Compared with the expected violent means, he could use a smarter way to win over and divide the local faction camp, so as to achieve his own goals.

And the first step is to use a military parade to demonstrate strength and show off the muscles of his Fengzhou Army soldiers, so as to deter those with ulterior motives and those who are plotting ill, and to strengthen the local faction's determination to support Ye Mingsheng and their optimism about the development potential of the Fengzhou military regime.

After completing this step, the next step is to use the two peaches to kill three warriors routine, throwing out the power cake to make the local factions fight for it, and then use this to cause conflicts among the local factions, and finally use the conflicts between them to slowly disintegrate their seemingly common hatred and indestructible alliance.

In this way, Ye Mingsheng's reform goals can be achieved, and a smooth transition of the Liaoyang regime can be ensured, so that the people of Liaoyang will no longer suffer from war.

Just as Ye Mingsheng was gradually perfecting his plan in his mind, Qi Dechao, who was standing beside him, said tentatively:

"Sir, yesterday General Lin met with the representatives of the Shiwei people according to your order. Regarding the Shiwei people's request, General Lin did not dare to make the decision, so he drafted a report for instructions..."

Ye Mingsheng nodded upon hearing this and said:
"Bring it here. Let me see what they have to say!" After getting Ye Mingsheng's permission, Qi Dechao immediately handed over the document with both hands. Ye Mingsheng glanced at the document and immediately became furious. He picked up the document and smashed it to the ground, cursing in a deep voice:

"These damned Shiwei barbarians, who do they think they are?"

"Why do they dare to ask me for this?"

"Give Lin Huaiwu an order to lead his troops to fight and kill all the Shiwei barbarians in Liuhe County without leaving a single one alive!"

In the face of Ye Mingsheng's shock and anger, the frightened Qi Dechao immediately agreed to Ye Mingsheng's order and prepared to leave the study to avoid the limelight. However, he turned around and took less than two steps when he heard Ye Mingsheng's voice.

"Wait a minute!"

Qi Dechao turned around quickly upon hearing this, waiting for Ye Mingsheng's explanation. At this time, Ye Mingsheng, who had calmed down, pondered for a moment and said:

"Forget it, let Lin Huaiwu capture as many of these Shiwei people as possible!"

"Got it!" Qi Dechao nodded and left.

After Qi Dechao left, Ye Mingsheng rested his head on his hands and rubbed his Qingming acupoint. His mood in the morning was completely ruined by these Shiwei people...

The reason why he was so angry this time was entirely because the Shiwei people in Liuhe County were so hateful!

They not only fantasized about asking Ye Mingsheng to release them, but also wanted Ye Mingsheng to fulfill the promise made by the Zhenwu Army to cede the two counties of Jizhou and Lelangfu to them! If Ye Mingsheng did not agree to their conditions, the Shiwei people threatened Ye Mingsheng that they would join forces with the Luobei and Khitan people to jointly seize Liaoyang.

Now Ye Mingsheng finally understood why the Shiwei people turned against them and helped the Zhenwu Army to kill Song Wenhui!

In order to mobilize the support troops from the Shiwei people, Song Wenhui was willing to give them Jizhou. The reason why the Shiwei people turned against him was because the Zhenwu Army promised that on the basis of Jizhou, they would cede two counties from Lelang Prefecture to them!

You have to know that Lelang Prefecture only has the territory of Jizhou plus five counties. Even if the Zhenwu Army gave away most of Lelang Prefecture in one go, it really is like a son selling his father's land without any regret at all...
Ye Mingsheng didn't care about the threat from the Shiwei people at all. During the time when Ye Mingsheng was marching into Dongning Prefecture, the Khitans had been attacking Fengzhou with all their might under the temptation given by Shen Jianzhong.

However, with the Fengzhou army well prepared and supported by the red cannon, they did not even reach the county seat of Xinfa County as He Jingyun had analyzed. They could only send a small group of cavalry to harass the hinterland of Fengzhou. Finally, after hearing the news of the defeat of the Zhenwu army, they ran back to the Songmo area in shame.

Now that Ye Mingsheng has basically controlled the entire territory of Liaoyang, the size of the Khitans no longer poses any threat. Even if they invade, it will only be scratching the surface. Now Ye Mingsheng’s biggest enemy in the northeast, and the only alien race that can threaten the survival of his regime, is the Luobi people!

However, the Robe people were not having a good time either. The Kipchak Khanate in the northwest had always wanted to rule the entire grassland, so they regarded the Robe people as their biggest enemy. The Kipchak people had been actively sending troops eastwards, wanting to completely occupy the most fertile land on the Elunqin grassland.
Under such circumstances, the Luobi people also wanted to avoid fighting on two fronts, so in the past ten years, except for a battle with Da Zhou in Gongdu, they have rarely invaded Liaoyang and Youyan areas on a large scale. At most, when they ran out of food and couldn't stand the cold on the grassland, they would come to grab some food and valuables and then run away...

Although he doesn't care about the threat from the Shiwei people, as a leader Ye Mingsheng cannot act on impulse for the sake of momentary satisfaction. He must remain rational and consider the overall situation!

Ye Mingsheng could easily ask Lin Huaiwu to kill the Shiwei people who were blocked in Liuhe County. Lin Huaiwu, who was equipped with various firearms, was fully capable of doing this. As long as Ye Mingsheng gave the order, Lin Huaiwu would faithfully carry out Ye Mingsheng's order and make the blood of more than 10,000 Shiwei people in Liuhe County flow like a river.

Ye Mingsheng would be happy to do this, but it would also bring new problems. That is, the Shiwei people living in Jizhou, Posuofu and other places would certainly share the same hatred for the enemy, regard the Fengzhou army as their blood enemy, and fight the Fengzhou army to the end.
To be honest, Ye Mingsheng doesn't care about this. The population of the Shiwei people, including the old, young, women and children, is no more than 200,000. If someone really makes him, Ye, angry, he doesn't mind cutting the weeds and eradicating them completely, and making the Shiwei people a part of history, appearing only in books!
What Ye Mingsheng really cared about was the impact of this incident. Before the invention of machine guns that enabled nomadic peoples to become good at singing and dancing and hospitable, nomadic peoples had always been one of the biggest enemies of farming peoples.

Because of the characteristics of the nation, even if the farming nation paid a great sacrifice and drove away the Huns like Emperor Wu of Han did, new overlords would be born on the grassland. Driven by the cold and hunger, they would continue to move south to plunder the farming nation...

This cycle has been going on for thousands of years. Before the arrival of hot weapons, it is almost impossible to change this pattern. And in a region like Liaoyang, which is on the frontier of the empire and has many ethnic minorities, Ye Mingsheng needs to be cautious in dealing with ethnic minority issues!
On the one hand, he had to maintain his strength so that the other ethnic groups would not dare to covet and be greedy. On the other hand, he had to be gentle and reduce the conflicts caused by hatred between the two sides, and maintain the peace and stability of Liaoyang's external environment. This would be beneficial to Ye Mingsheng's next reforms in Liaoyang, as well as Ye Mingsheng's ultimate goal - to enter the pass!
Eradicating the Shiwei people was a small matter, but the post-war impact was great. The Shiwei people, the Khitan people, the Luobi people and other ethnic minorities were closely connected to each other because of the great ethnic integration on the grassland. If Ye Mingsheng destroyed the Shiwei people, it would inevitably make these other ethnic minorities feel grief-stricken, and produce some unnecessary adverse effects, which would not be conducive to Ye Mingsheng's subsequent implementation of his policy of combining hardness and softness against ethnic minorities...

Ye Mingsheng could destroy one Shiwei, but there were more than one Shiwei in Liaoyang.
Therefore, Ye Mingsheng could not act on impulse. He had a plan for these Shiwei people before. He wanted to capture as many of them as possible, and then use these prisoners of war as a condition to require the Shiwei people living in Jizhou and Posu Prefecture to move inland, so as to accelerate the integration and development among ethnic groups and reduce the threat.

These Shiwei troops who were blocked in Liuhe County were all young and strong men among the Shiwei people. The entire Shiwei ethnic group had a maximum of 200,000 people, and there were no more than 30,000 young and strong men of the right age. Previously, in order to obtain the rewards promised by the Zhenwu Army, they had dispatched more than 20,000 people to participate in the war. After several battles, they suffered heavy losses and only had more than 10,000 people left. If all these 10,000 people were thrown into Liuhe, the Shiwei people would be finished. Lacking young and strong men, they would sooner or later be swallowed up by other ethnic groups.

Therefore, Ye Mingsheng is very confident that for the continuation and inheritance of the ethnic group, the leaders of the Shiwei people will accept his conditions and lead the ethnic group to migrate inland. Although Liaoyang is poor and not as prosperous as the Central Plains and the south of the Yangtze River, it has a lot of wasteland, which is enough to accommodate these Shiwei people. After decades of assimilation, who can tell them apart?
(End of this chapter)