Zhu Yuanzhang felt that Liu Bang had a point.
From this, he also guessed that Liu Bang, like him, had yet to tell anyone else about the Rebel Army Group.
Considering that his questions were not urgent and having Liu Bang relay them would cause no delay, he agreed.
[Zhu Yuanzhang: Han Gaozu, you copied down all the answers in the group just now about "how to give medicine its due importance and develop it," didn't you?]
[There are some terms in there, like microscope, spectrometer, anatomy, physiology, and biochemistry, that I don't understand. So I'd like Zhang Liang, Xiao He, and the others to help puzzle them out.]
[Also, I'd like Great Ming's annual revenue in money and grain to increase. I hope Xiao He and the others can offer some advice on that too.]
[Liu Bang: As for your first request, I can relay it, but I can't guarantee that Zhang Liang, Xiao He, and the others will be able to figure those terms out.]
[As for the second, I'm not afraid to tell you that Great Han is so poor its empty pockets rattle. Xiao He has tried every means to increase our annual revenue, and it still isn't enough. In your era, you can probably look up all the methods Xiao He used to increase Great Han's revenue in the history books. If you ask him now, I'm afraid he won't be able to come up with anything new.]
[Besides, our eras are more than a thousand years apart. Local conditions and customs have probably changed enormously. Even if he can think of a method, it might not suit your time.]
Things were indeed as Liu Bang said, so Zhu Yuanzhang fell silent for a moment.
Once again, he felt he had gotten the short end of the stick in their three-way alliance... As someone who lived after the Han era, he could do so much to help Liu Bang and Zhang Jiao, yet there was very little they could do for him.
He could not help feeling that the scales were unfairly tipped.
Whether Liu Bang had guessed what Zhu Yuanzhang was thinking or not, he sent more text into the group.
[Liu Bang: Old Zhu, if Great Ming has other problems that need solving, you can bring those to Xiao He and the others for advice too.]
[Zhu Yuanzhang: Forget it. There are plenty of matters in Great Ming that I can't explain to you in just a few words. You were right: our eras are more than a thousand years apart, after all, and conditions and customs have changed enormously. Some things would take far too much effort to explain.]
The front hall of Changle Palace.
Liu Bang propped his chin on his hand, feeling troubled.
"Neither Zhang Jiao nor I can do much to help Old Zhu. If this goes on for long, I'm afraid he'll stop helping us."
"Just yielding to him during the quick-answer rounds in the group's quizzes might not be enough to keep him tied to us. I need to think of something."
But no good idea came to him just then.
Unwilling to waste their group-chat time, he continued typing.
[Liu Bang: Old Zhu, Zhang Jiao, would you like to know why Chen Ping presented that portrait of a beauty to the khatun when he devised his plan to lift the Siege of Baideng?]
If Liu Bang had not brought it up, Zhu Yuanzhang really would have forgotten.
Since Liu Bang could not help him with anything else just then, hearing about some history he did not know and learning a little wisdom from his predecessors would be worthwhile too.
[Zhu Yuanzhang: Why?]
[Liu Bang: Chen Ping sent someone to see the khatun with that portrait and a large sum of money. The messenger told her that if she wouldn't help persuade Modu to let us go, then once I was captured, I would have Great Han offer beautiful women to Modu.]
[When the khatun saw that the woman in the portrait was far prettier than she was, she feared the women Great Han sent would compete with her for his favor. So she agreed to persuade Modu.]
[Since the army of Han Xin, King of Han, had still not appeared, while Great Han's main forces were on their way to Mount Baideng, Modu was already considering withdrawing. After the khatun spoke to him, he opened a corner of the encirclement on the seventh day and let us leave.]
So that was how it had happened.
After reading Liu Bang's account, both Zhang Jiao and Zhu Yuanzhang were moved.
[Zhu Yuanzhang: The histories say Chen Ping excelled at covert schemes and reading people's hearts. His reputation was certainly deserved.]
[Zhang Jiao: Though Chen Ping wasn't one of the Three Founding Heroes of Han, he was still tremendously capable.]
[Liu Bang: By the way, the animation Zhang Jiao received earlier, "Transmigrating as Zhang Jiao: Thunder Lord, Aid Me," seemed to mention that Eastern Han was followed by the Three Kingdoms, then the Wei, Jin, and Northern and Southern Dynasties, and the Uprising of the Five Barbarians. Does that Uprising of the Five Barbarians mean that barbarians invaded the lands of Huaxia?]
As early as the Western Zhou, "Xia" and "the various Xia states" had been used to refer to the states of the Central Plains. The Zuo Commentary, written during the Spring and Autumn period, even contained the phrase "Chu lost Huaxia." Thus, Liu Bang, who had lived from the late Warring States period into the early Han, understood the meanings of "Hua" and "Huaxia."
Zhang Jiao also took notice of this matter.
During his years of preaching, he had mainly been active in Ji, Yan, and Yu provinces, but he had also visited You Province and traveled through the frontier commanderies. He knew all too well how much harm barbarian incursions inflicted on the Han people.
He could therefore imagine how miserable the common people would be if large numbers of barbarians entered the Central Plains to plunder.
Zhu Yuanzhang did not know when the group chat would close. With no other questions for the two of them just then, he did not mind discussing history.
[Zhu Yuanzhang: At the end of Later Han, the Yellow Turban rebellion and the wars between rival lords drastically reduced the population of the Central Plains. To replenish their population, Cao Wei, which held the north, and later Western Jin continually recruited and appeased barbarian peoples such as the Xiongnu and Xianbei, encouraging them to migrate inland.]
[By the Western Jin period, in places such as Guanzhong... Bingzhou and Hebei, barbarian peoples such as the Rong and Di accounted for almost half the households.]
[Later, the War of the Eight Princes broke out in Western Jin. The Sima Clan's princes fought over the throne until they battered each other's brains out. Not only did they exhaust Western Jin's elite troops and national strength, they each brought in barbarian forces to aid them.]
[When the barbarians saw how far the Han people had declined, their ambitions swelled. They stopped obeying the Sima princes and began taking cities and territory in the Central Plains, plundering and massacring. Their powerful leaders even founded independent states, forcing the Sima Clan to gather numerous aristocratic clans and great families and flee south of the great river.]
[Since these barbarians mainly came from the Xiongnu, Xianbei, Jie, Di, and Qiang, and established sixteen states in the Central Plains over that period, later histories called it not only the "Uprising of the Five Barbarians," but also the "Sixteen Kingdoms of the Five Barbarians."]
[At that time, the barbarians slaughtered the Han people of the Central Plains in vast numbers. Some even captured Han people on a massive scale because they lacked food, treating them as two-legged sheep...]
At this point, Zhu Yuanzhang felt he had strayed too far and stopped.
But Liu Bang and Zhang Jiao were already staring in shock, which quickly gave way to anger whose source even they could not explain!
The words "two-legged sheep" in the group were especially searing to their eyes. Even without Zhu Yuanzhang explaining them, both men instantly understood their bloody, horrifying meaning.
The front hall of Changle Palace.
Liu Bang abruptly sat upright, even reaching involuntarily for the Scarlet Firmament Sword beside him.
"I thought the Xiongnu were brazen enough when, after Qin fell, they took advantage of Great Han's weakness in its infancy to raid the borders of Yan and Zhao again and again. Who would have thought these later barbarians would be even more brazen, bringing such humiliation upon our Huaxia!"
"And that Sima Clan was a pack of stupid bastards too! Not content with fighting among themselves, they actually competed to invite wolves into their own house!"
Guangzong City.
Zhang Jiao sat motionless in his study.
"Cao Wei and Western Jin encouraged the barbarians to migrate inland because the wars of Late Han had drastically reduced the population. Could it be that, if we trace the Uprising of the Five Barbarians back to its source, it was actually caused by me leading the Yellow Turbans in rebellion?"
At this thought, Zhang Jiao felt guilty, and his confidence faltered even further.
Had he been right to lead the Yellow Turbans in rebellion against Han?
Almost instantly, that question became his inner demon.
With nowhere else to seek an answer, he could only place his hopes in the Rebel Army Group before him-since he had been allowed into this group, surely some unseen power had granted him a measure of approval?
[Zhang Jiao: Brother Zhu, do you think I was wrong to lead the Yellow Turbans in rebellion against Han?]
Zhu Yuanzhang had not expected Zhang Jiao to ask this and was briefly taken aback.
When reading histories of the Yellow Turban rebellion in the past, he had never really considered that question.
But Liu Bang answered first.
[Liu Bang: Zhang Jiao, don't tell me you're blaming yourself for the Uprising of the Five Barbarians? You mustn't think that way!]
[From what you said earlier, not only did Later Han's great families and powerful clans seize farmland and oppress the common people, but its emperor was also thoroughly incompetent. It was just like the end of Qin. Even if Chen Sheng and Wu Guang hadn't been the first to rise against Qin, someone else would have done so sooner or later!]
[So, in your time, even if you hadn't led the Yellow Turbans against Later Han, other common people who could no longer survive would have done the same sooner or later.]
[Besides, the Uprising of the Five Barbarians was clearly caused by the incompetence of the Jin Dynasty founded by that Sima Clan. What does it have to do with you?!]
Zhu Yuanzhang had also recovered by then. He felt Liu Bang's words made excellent sense and even found himself admiring him a little.
After all, Later Han had also been ruled by the Liu family, yet Liu Bang had not favored its emperors on that account. Instead, he had offered these honest, fair-minded words.
[Zhu Yuanzhang: Zhang Jiao, Han Gaozu is right. Take Late Yuan, for instance. It was bad enough that Mongol Yuan treated us Han people as third- and fourth-class subjects, but it also had one incompetent emperor after another. Most of its officials were corrupt and useless too, brutalizing the common people.]
[The Red Turban Army I joined fought the Mongol Yuan Tartars and other rebel armies. Even the different Red Turban forces fought and slaughtered one another. Who knows how many common people died in those wars.]
[But were we supposed to willingly starve, work ourselves to death, or die of sickness under the oppression of those Tartars and corrupt officials, just so no one would die?]
[Since ancient times, rebellion has meant risking your head. In the vast majority of cases, unless we common people had been driven into a dead end, why would we rebel and risk execution?]
[Take me. Back then, my mother, father, and elder brother died one after another from sickness and hunger. We didn't even have a plot of land to bury them in. My second brother and I could only flee separately to stay alive.]
[I entered the Imperial Enlightenment Temple as a monk, but before long I was forced to wander and beg for a living. I begged for more than three years. Countless times I nearly starved, died of sickness, or was killed by evildoers, yet I still didn't rebel.]
[Later, I returned to the Imperial Enlightenment Temple. Soon afterward, I received a letter from a childhood friend in the Red Turban Army, inviting me to join. Other monks in the temple found out and threatened to report me for colluding with rebels. Only then was I forced to flee and join the Red Turban Army in rebellion against Yuan.]
[Tell me, can you blame me for that? If I hadn't rebelled against Yuan then, what path to survival would I have had?]
After Zhu Yuanzhang finished "speaking," he found that the group had gone quiet.
Both Liu Bang and Zhang Jiao had been stunned by Zhu Yuanzhang's humble origins and experiences.