After Marrying a Vegetative Princess, I Went Crazy With Joy!

Chapter 260

The northwest was barren, and Li Xueyan’s arrival still brought some happiness to the unhappy Princess Changle. Nowadays, the northwest belonged entirely to the Tang Dynasty, or more specifically, to Su Li.

From Jiuyong Pass onwards, it’s all of Su Li’s territory. The territory was vast, even larger than the heartland of the Tang Dynasty, but it was genuinely desolate.

Throughout history, many grassland adversaries aspired to conquer the Central Plains, such as the Huns, Turks, and Xianbei…

The commonality among these foreign tribes was their desire to rule over the Central Plains when they prospered. The fundamental reason was that the northwest was extremely barren and desolate.

In the Central Plains, any unified regime typically had a population of at least thirty to forty million. But the barren lands of the northwest, whether under Genghis Khan or Xiongnu Shanyu Maodun, could not support tens of millions of people.

The entire northwest had been in a perpetual struggle for resources among various groups. This was the brutal reality of life beyond the borders.

Since Su Li established control over the northwest in a single battle, the Tang Dynasty initiated a comprehensive development effort. First, they used their military to continue suppressing small tribes and nomadic peoples in the northwest who refused to submit.

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The vastness of the northwest, combined with the challenges of remote warfare, had made it impossible to eliminate rebellious forces.

Second, they invested significant resources in building cities and cultivating farmland. However, the northwest’s harsh environment made large-scale development challenging.

The last issue was agriculture…

The barrenness of the northwest was evident. Even with many agricultural officers, extensive farming in the harsh climate remained unfeasible. Now that the northwest was Su Li’s territory, he could not ignore it.

In reality, Su Li’s control over such a vast territory in the west made him practically an emperor. The northwest wasn’t just his fief. It was his nation. His relationship with the Tang Dynasty was nominal. Su Li had full authority over the military and governance of the northwest without tribute or taxation. The Tang Dynasty couldn’t interfere with the Northwest’s internal affairs. It was entirely Su Li’s independent kingdom.

Su Li sat at his desk, pushing aside the scattered documents.

“The first issue is that there are still numerous ethnic groups in the northwest who resist our rule, reject Sinicization, and resist cultural assimilation.”

Although Su Li defeated active resistance in the northwest, it remained vast, and many slipped through the cracks.

The northwest had at least several million people, and Su Li could not eliminate them.

After this battle, many surrendered, but some refused to submit or harbored ill intentions. The Tang Dynasty had been exhausted by repeated conflicts. The northwest’s vastness and the ability of those resisting to escape captured them a matter of luck.

Su Li took over the northwest, and these non-submissive or potentially dangerous groups became the first problem he needed to address. As long as these groups exist, the northwest could not develop properly, as they pose a constant threat.

Su Li didn’t expect to exterminate these people. Those who assimilated into Chinese culture became part of it, while those who remained outside were considered foreigners. Chinese culture was defined by its cultural distinctions, not racial ones. Furthermore, it was still not enough when he looked at the entire planet, even with tens of millions of people in the Central Plains.

The second issue was the economic problem. People without stable incomes lack stability. Even if Su Li could become the leader of these foreigners, if he didn’t address the core economic issues, conflicts would continue to arise.

The third issue was food. People considered food their top priority. The challenge facing Su Li now was that when you added up all the arable land in the northwest, it could barely support a population of ten million. Even if they were to cultivate crops like potatoes and sweet potatoes exclusively, they could only sustain about twenty million people. It was too little!

The population was insufficient, and the northwest could never truly develop with such limitations.

The fourth issue was a cultural one. Su Li didn’t want to be the ruler of foreigners. He needed to promote cultural assimilation and abolish various foreign systems, ideologies, languages, and scripts. Implementing significant cultural reform was a daunting task.

“Thinking about it seriously, even Qin Shi Huang took several decades to achieve something like this…” Su Li patted his head, realizing the enormity of the challenge. This difficulty was no less than Qin Shi Huang’s cultural unification and reform. It might be even more challenging given the vastness of the northwest, its lower population density compared to the central plains, and the difficulties of gathering people.

Compared to these formidable challenges, Su Li no longer worried much about Changle’s feelings due to Li Xueyan’s arrival. Matters of love and relationships seemed trivial by comparison.

The news of Su Li’s arrival in his new territory had just spread. For the barbarians of the northwest, it was like a bombshell. In reality, establishing true control over the entire northwest was very challenging for the Tang Dynasty. The region was too vast, exceeding the limits of effective communication, with a sparse population distributed across vast expanses. It was difficult to establish effective governance. Therefore, after Su Li’s return to the Tang Dynasty following his victory in the northwest, the Tang Dynasty engaged in a protracted struggle with the northwest barbarians.

The Tang Dynasty took advantage of the weakened state of the barbarians to capture the most fertile lands. The barbarians had two choices: either enter the deserts or mountains, seeking an escape route out of North America for a chance at survival, or remain in the region, avoiding confrontations with the Tang Dynasty but settling for less fertile lands.

However, the barren lands couldn’t sustain a large population, and food shortages were inevitable. Faced with the threat to their survival, the barbarians had no choice but to continue raiding the Tang Dynasty. Whether they won or lost, the result was the same: those who survived would have enough to eat, and those who didn’t would have more food for the rest.

This pattern repeated throughout the two-thousand-year history of the barbarians. When the population reached its limits, conflicts with the Central Plains authorities became an inevitable choice. In this barren land, peace was nearly an unattainable concept.