“Just trying to get by.”
When Hua Xiong gave that answer, a sudden sense of foreboding welled up in Mengde’s heart.
She frowned slightly and asked, “What do you mean by that? Don’t tell me that even as soldiers under the commandery, you don’t get food?”
“We used to get food…”
Hua Xiong replied with an embarrassed look on his face.
“But ever since General Duan Jiong pacified the Qiang rebellion around here two years ago, the court stopped sending military funds to Liangzhou. Naturally, we stopped getting meals too.”
“I see…”
‘Just as I thought.’
Mengde nodded subtly as she mused to herself.
Liangzhou had originally belonged to the Western Qiang.
After the Han dynasty took over the region, the native population naturally resisted.
From the moment Emperor Wu of Han established Liangzhou, the Qiang rebellions had never truly ceased.
In the Western Han, these uprisings were small and scattered.
Even in the early Eastern Han, they weren’t much more than localized unrest.
But starting from the mid to late Eastern Han period, the Qiang uprisings in Liangzhou began growing in scale and frequency.
Every time the Western Qiang were subdued, it only took a couple of years for another rebellion to flare up.
The conflict dragged on intermittently for over a hundred years without any signs of ending.
The Han court spent hundreds of billions of coins suppressing the rebellions over time.
For reference, the total Han population in Liangzhou was under a million.
If you evenly divided those hundreds of billions of coins, it would mean the state spent tens of thousands of coins per person in Liangzhou.
The exact population of the Qiang people wasn’t recorded in history, but it was certainly smaller than the Han population—otherwise the Han dynasty wouldn’t have been able to maintain nearly 300 years of control over the region.
Even if we assume the Qiang population reached as high as 500,000, that still means each Qiang person cost the Han court nearly 100,000 coins to suppress.
And what does 100,000 coins mean, in real terms? For comparison, a high-ranking official—one of the Nine Ministers—only earned 100,000 coins a year.
Even the wealthiest self-sustaining farmer in the Eastern Han could harvest about 100 shi of grain per year, which, when converted entirely into cash, still wouldn’t amount to more than 10,000 coins.
Despite spending all that money over the years, the Han court never truly succeeded in quelling the uprisings.
The Qiang people were like weeds—cut them down once, and a new crop would sprout up before long.
They just couldn’t be wiped out.
Mengde couldn’t help but feel the urge to complain: ‘If the court had simply offered a bounty of 20,000 coins per Qiang head, the Qiang people might have disappeared from Liangzhou within a few years. And it would’ve cost the court far less than the prolonged military campaigns.’
Of course, one can’t just look at the surface-level reasons.
There were also deeper internal issues.
The Han dynasty’s failure to suppress the northwestern Qiang rebellions had many causes.
First of all, those hundreds of billions of coins weren’t spent all at once.
The money was spread out over a hundred years or more.
That meant the court was spending, at most, around 1 billion coins per year.
With spending spread so thin, the Han court could never concentrate its resources enough to strike a decisive blow.
Each campaign lasted a few years, followed by a few years of peace, giving the Qiang time to recover and regroup.
Second, it’s doubtful that all those funds actually made it to the front lines.
Once an empire enters its later stages, corruption among officials becomes inevitable—and in the Eastern Han, corruption had already become deeply entrenched.
Mengde’s own father, Cao Song, in recorded history, spent 100 million coins just to buy the title of Grand Commandant.
There’s no way that kind of money came from honest labor.
It must have been embezzled during his time as Minister of Finance.
At least officials in the Western Han and early Eastern Han still tried to get the job done while lining their pockets.
But by the mid to late Eastern Han, that was no longer the case…
Finally, there was one more reason the Qiang uprisings in Liangzhou never truly ended: Liangzhou needed the uprisings.
Mengde’s gaze toward Hua Xiong grew a little deeper.
***
During the reign of Emperor Wu, Liangzhou had still been fertile.
After all, the Han Dynasty was going through a warm period at the time—so much so that rhinoceroses could be found even around the Qinling Mountains.
Naturally, that meant the climate in Liangzhou wasn’t bad either.
But over time, the region’s temperature began to drop year by year.
By the 3rd century AD, the temperature across the Eurasian continent would hit its lowest point in Chinese history before the Little Ice Age at the end of the Ming Dynasty.
As the temperature declined, Liangzhou’s local agricultural output dropped as well.
With over a million commoners trying to survive in worsening conditions, they had no choice but to find ways to cut costs and increase resources.
Cutting costs meant eating less, of course—’but how to increase resources?’
The hundreds of millions in funds the Han court spent may seem outrageous if viewed as military suppression costs, but if seen as a kind of state-level financial aid or regional subsidy to Liangzhou, it starts to make more sense.
Less than a billion coins a year in aid, honestly, wasn’t much.
Soldiers like Hua Xiong could expect guaranteed rations and pay during wartime—after all, the court had to maintain military strength—but during peacetime? Well… nobody really cared.
And this attitude didn’t just apply to the soldiers.
The court’s attitude toward officials in Liangzhou was even more indifferent.
There had always been a saying throughout the two Han Dynasties: “Civil officials come from east of Hangu Pass; generals come from the west.”
Meaning the Central Plains produced prime ministers, while the rough lands of Liangzhou produced generals.
Take the famed “Three Bright Stars of Liangzhou” during the reigns of Emperor Huan and Emperor Ling—they were all born in Liangzhou.
But generals like that… ‘weren’t they only useful during times of war?’
Take Duan Jiong, for example.
During the Qiang rebellion, he had the full backing of the court—whatever he asked for, he got.
His reputation soared.
But once the rebellion was temporarily suppressed, he had to rely on eunuch factions just to maintain his political standing in court.
The stark contrast between his wartime glory and peacetime vulnerability would make anyone sigh in pity.
The generals of Liangzhou, in their quest for political power, would naturally pressure their own families to stir up trouble with the local Qiang tribes—forcing them into rebellion.
Then, once rebellion broke out, these same generals would step in to suppress it.
This was another form of “raising bandits to grow in prestige.”
But if the Han court had treated these generals better in the first place, would they have needed to resort to such methods?
Who would want to end up like Duan Jiong—relying on eunuchs to survive, and finally driven to suicide when his political backers fell?
All of this was a result of the Han court’s own policies.
In the end, from the high-ranking nobles to the common folk, no one in Liangzhou truly wished for peace.
And in a situation like this, how could true peace ever come to Liangzhou?
***
Liu Bei glanced over at Mengde, who had fallen silent beside him, and asked curiously, “What are you thinking about, my lady?”
“Nothing much,” Mengde replied softly.
“I’ve just finally understood why the Qiang rebellions in the northwest have lasted over a hundred years without being resolved…”
“Huh? My lady, you know the reason?”
“I do now.”
Mengde gave him a slight smile, then leaned in close and whispered her deductions into Liu Bei’s ear.
“So that’s what it is!”
Liu Bei’s eyes widened in shock as he muttered to himself.
Until now, he had always believed the unending chaos in the northwest was simply due to incompetent officials and generals.
He had never imagined that the roots of the Qiang rebellions ran so deep.
‘Does Liangzhou… need the Qiang rebellions?’
After hearing the girl’s insight, Liu Bei suddenly felt like his view of the world had broadened dramatically.