"Your Highness, the situation outside is even worse than what Lord Zhang described. Due to the decrease in Nanzhao's financial revenue over the years, the soldiers' salaries have been declining. Many have already left the army. After all, Nanzhao has been peaceful for a long time, and those in the army haven't had a chance to show their talents. With just their regular salaries, they can't even support their families. Therefore, the army is losing a lot of talented soldiers."
Matters concerning the military are of top priority no matter where they are, so when Long Wu was investigating, he sent the most manpower to the army. The information he has obtained now is also the most accurate. According to some local soldiers, the original generals were still quite dignified, but the current generals are all newly appointed, and some of them have never even fought a battle.
As for these soldiers, let alone them, the veterans have all gone out to make a living, and the new recruits have not received proper training when they arrived at the army. This is mainly because the Nanzhao Kingdom has not had a war for decades. In this situation, who can remember some things about the army?
"What about Annan, Pyu (Myanmar), and Siam, south of Nanzhao? What's the situation there?"
Li Xiang thought of some countries in South Asia. They could not be called countries now, but were just some relatively large city-states. The Tang Dynasty did not have many records about them, and the envoys sent by these countries came in waves. Sometimes when they remembered them, they would go to Chang'an City to pay tribute, and when they didn't remember them, the matter was over.
According to the thinking of the rulers of the Central Plains, these people live in a barren land anyway, and it is probably not easy for them to survive in that place, so it doesn’t matter whether they come or not, and they don’t want to have any dealings with them anyway.
"There aren't many border clashes between the two sides. Even if there are, they only involve a few hundred people. This is mainly because those areas don't have a strong ruler. Aside from Annan once occupying Jiaozhi, the others have little to do with us. To put it bluntly, when we are strong, they retreat, and when we are weak, they advance."
Long Wu's summary is very accurate. The southern countries are still in ambush and they do not have a strong organization. Some of them know about the Tang Dynasty culture, and some do not know it at all. Therefore, these people are not to be feared now, but this is also the best time to take them down. If some powerful countries are established, then we may have to start fighting again.
"However, according to our investigation, the environments in the southern countries are extremely poor. Even some people in Nanzhao have no interest in those places. We..."
Long Wu said, somewhat curiously, "Though the Tang Dynasty may not be utterly wealthy, at least we've occupied all the useful lands. Those places are useless. Why does His Royal Highness keep heading south? Could those places bring us any improvement?"
Li Xiang turned his head and looked at the people around him, including Zhang Jiuli. They all looked confused. Of course, this was normal. Nowadays, everyone pays attention to the Celestial Empire, and the most important thing is the Central Plains. As for other regions, no one looks down on them. Take the Tuyuhun and Turks for example, they don't even look down on those places, let alone the more distant South Asian countries.
In their view, the people there could not be called barbarians, only the Sichuan chieftains were barbarians.
The people of South Asia can only be regarded as monkeys. In the minds of many people in the Tang Dynasty, these people still eat raw meat and live in trees every day. What's the point of taking down such a place? It's nothing more than a waste of our money and food.
"I know you have a doubt in your mind, but if I tell you this, I believe your doubts will be alleviated. How many times a year does the grain harvest in northern my country?"
Li Xiang asked a very simple question, and Su Dingfang answered it very well. Take Liaodong as an example. At most, there is only one harvest a year, and the yield is not high. The main reason is that the weather is too cold. Although there is a lot of reclaimed land now, the grain output still cannot be increased.
"So what about Chang'an and the Central Plains?"
No one realized the significance of Li Xiang's question, and they all answered honestly that this area could achieve three harvests in two years, and the grain output was much better than that in Liaodong.
"So what if we go further south to the Jiangnan area?"
Everyone's eyes lit up when I mentioned this. Everyone knows that Jiangnan was the richest place in the world, even during the Sui and Tang dynasties. Why did Emperor Yang of Sui dig the Grand Canal? It was because there was not enough food in Guanzhong, so they had to use the Grand Canal to transport grain from the south. The grain here can basically be harvested twice a year, and the output is more than twice that of Liaodong. It is not an exaggeration to say that it was the granary of the entire Tang Dynasty.
When he heard everyone's answers, Li Xiang nodded with satisfaction. Since Li Xiang took over these people, he asked them to learn the knowledge of the entire Tang Dynasty. So far, their learning has been pretty good. It doesn't mean that the commanders only take care of military affairs, and the officials only take care of their own affairs, but everyone must understand it.
"You may not have heard of the following, but you may have heard that further south from Jiangnan, in our country's Lingnan region, some places here are guaranteed to have two harvests a year. If you're a little more diligent, three harvests a year is possible. Of course, this isn't guaranteed for all, but the countries we're talking about, such as Annan, are able to achieve three harvests a year."
When Li Xiang finished speaking, everyone present was stunned. They originally thought that these areas were barren and had not thought of including them. But if they had land that could produce three crops a year, then this would be completely different, even better than the Jiangnan area.
In today's agricultural society, whoever has more food can guarantee a larger population, whoever has a larger population can guarantee a prosperous society, and whoever has a prosperous society can also guarantee a stronger overall national strength. Why was the Tang Dynasty able to make neighboring countries bow down? It was because we occupied a large amount of grain-producing areas, which increased our overall national strength.
"Your Highness, if it is really as you say, then these countries should be extremely powerful. But why don't they even have a unified centralized power now?"
Zhang Jiuli said with some surprise.
