"The war situation is urgent, and the beacon tower must be repaired. If there is insufficient money and food, I will find a way first. After the repair is completed, I will ask the prefectures and counties for money."

Liu Bei also knew that the places were destroyed during the war, so it was certain that they were short of money.

But he is also quite military. In addition, he fought with the Yellow Turban Army in Zhuo County three years ago, so he has a very thorough understanding of the wonderful uses of the geographical advantage.

This is also the place where Liu Bei was born with an advantage over Zhang Chun. In ancient times, geography was underdeveloped, and foreigners came to lead troops. It was definitely better to be a local snake who had lived in the local area for decades.

The reason why officials in prefectures and counties refuse to squeeze money and allocate money is also related to their lack of understanding of the geographical advantage - the officials in prefectures and counties all came from other places, and many of them served for less than two or three years. They did not fully understand the cost-effectiveness of spending money to set up beacon towers along Yanshan.

The Eastern Han Dynasty had "three mutual laws" for the appointment of local officials, and Hebei was strict in control. Many officials at both prefectures and counties were from other places. The reason why Liu Bei was able to return to his hometown to become an official this time was that he was just a county magistrate and his level was too low.

On the other hand, it is also because he is a positive example of the current "abandoning officials to defend his hometown" established by the court, so he can relax a little. However, this kind of extrajudicial grace will at most allow him to reach the level of county magistrate in the future.

Before Emperor Ling of Han died, according to the court's laws, Liu Bei could not be promoted to the "Personal State" in Youzhou. (Even if allowed, he would not be promoted so quickly in just over two years)

Li Su is not around, and Liu Bei has no other cheating to open. He can do better than the same period in history, but only two things:

First of all, before Li Su left, including the overall viewpoints he provided to him in his later letters and communications.

Secondly, Liu Bei's understanding advantage over other officials.

County Magistrate Qi Jing is also a foreigner. He doesn't understand Liu Bei's enthusiasm for building the beacon tower. He tried his best to persuade him: "Mr. Liu, if you really pay this money, you will definitely not be able to come back in the county and county. This is equivalent to you paying it yourself."

Liu Bei insisted on the railway track: "Do your best and leave your fate. Even if you really don't come back, you can't take the lives of your brothers and take risks with the safety of your fellow villagers. You can calculate first, how much is needed, and I'll see if you can afford it."

Qi Jing was still neat in this regard, and soon made a rough calculation: "I don't know the specifics, but building a city is the most arduous labor. Each man needs a dou of millet every day, and it costs thirty coins in ordinary years. Now that the war is in chaos, the price of grain is rising, and it is not enough to have fifty coins. In addition, all the wood and tools are added together, and the daily expenses are also as if the labor costs of the man.

Building a rammed earth beacon tower two or three meters high on the mountain and erecting wooden buildings will require hundreds of civilians to work for seven or eight days. In short, the recruitment will require no less than 100,000 yuan, and the materials and equipment will also cost 100,000 yuan. After the completion, it will be possible to hide 20 or 30 soldiers. Here, it will be about 60 miles to reach the intersection of Changping Road. There must be beijings and smoke on the mountain. At least three must be built to ensure the transmission of military information."

No wonder that building a city in ancient times was the most expensive project. Building a Great Wall would make Qin Shihuang poor.

It takes 200,000 yuan to build a rammed earth base and wooden buildings, and three buildings cost 600,000 yuan.

If you use bricks and stones, the price will be at least several times more.

Fortunately, the county magistrate bought all 8 million yuan, and it is still affordable to repair a few communication fortifications of 600,000 yuan.

Liu Bei gritted his teeth and ordered Qi Jing to go to the county merchants to collect materials immediately.

As for civilians, let their soldiers make guest appearances. At worst, they can increase the rations for soldiers who participate in heavy labor service to a bucket - anyway, they have to eat military rations when they are idle.

Liu Bei still has five million in spare money on hand, which was told to him in a secret letter from Li Su yesterday. After Li Su made a lot of money in Luoyang, he saved five million from Zhang Liang, the manager of Zhenjia Business Office in Luoyang. He wrote it on the account of Zhenjia Business Office. When Zhang Liang asked Zhang Liang to write a letter to his father, he explained the matter and then collected it from Liu Bei in Zhongshan.

Therefore, it is equivalent to Li Su directly using Zhen’s family as a bank for deposits in other places.

Of course, there was no money shop or bill number at the end of the Han Dynasty, and there was no prototype of any remittance in other places. I could only be a collaborator with a good relationship and rely on trust to operate. There were no tokens such as "flying money" and "silver notes". They all rely on familiar handwriting among acquaintances to check the fire-lacquered seals of secret letters.

When Liu Bei first saw this operation in the letter, he also found it very novel, but then he found that this trick was so useful.

As long as Li Su has a lot of surplus in the future and Liu Bei is tight, he can even find the Zhen family on Wuji to overdraw. Li Su will save money in Luoyang, saving money from the round trip.

...

The beacon tower takes at least seven or eight days to work.

Therefore, after the project was deployed, Liu Bei ordered three teams of archery men to select 20 people in each team, and then the three beacon towers were stationed.

In addition, he asked Zhang Fei to station the camp at the mouth of Yongding River and transferred Zhao Yun alone to a team of 100 cavalrymen. Hu and Han were all elite shooting men, and asked him to station him among the three beacon towers to rush for help with maneuver.

If Zhang Chun sends a small group of scouts to cross mountains and ridges to explore the road and attack the beacon tower, Zhao Yun's men can also provide quick support. Liu Bei's mission is to deal with enemy reconnaissance units with a size of less than a hundred people.

After making these arrangements, Liu Bei took dozens of personal soldiers to Changping County to pay homage to Zou Jing, the chief general in charge of the siege battle, and reported his arrangements.

If you spend money, you can't spend it in vain. The leader has to know that you do your best, right?

If Zhang Chun did not steal or attack in the future, and there would be no need for the defenders at the three passes to respond quickly and assist in defense, then Liu Bei's beacon towers that were "precautionary" would be in vain in the result.

In order to prevent the simplicity of the cultivation, even if it is useless, you must first show off your skills and show your face.

On April 12th, about halfway through the beacon tower, Liu Bei arrived in Changping.

Zou Jing was not stationed in Changping County, but went to the mountain pass in the Juyongguan area in later generations and set up camp on the road. Of course, there is no Nei Great Wall or Juyongguan now, it is just a relatively dangerous mountain pass.

"Xuande, you haven't seen him for several years, and you have made great progress." As soon as Zou Jing saw him, he looked very familiar with him, and he looked like an old official.

Liu Bei was humble: "Being able to serve under the command of the benefactor again is a blessing. He dared to keep his strength in killing the thief to serve the country."

It turned out that when Liu Bei organized the township tyrants to participate in the attack on the Yellow Turbans of Youzhou three years ago, Zou Jing was already the lieutenant of the defeated captain in this prefecture. At that time, Liu Bei was still white and was promoted to the county lieutenant after the war.

So this is the old leader.

After talking about his love of leaving for several years, he also gave Zou Jing a private gift worth 200,000 yuan. Only then did Liu Bei talk about his deployment and introduced his plan and benefits of building the beacon tower.

After hearing this, Zou Jing praised it repeatedly, and felt that Liu Bei knew the local geographical advantage very well, but he was not able to promote it inadequate money and food.

"Xuande, although your official position is humble, you are a county magistrate and can mobilize local civil servants' money and food. We are just military positions. It is impossible for the governor and the county magistrate to build a city without allocating money and food. However, since you have practiced, you can try it first. If it is really useful, it is also easy to advise the governor."

Zou Jing didn't seem to respect the governor Tao Qian in his words.

His lieutenant was promoted by the former governor Guo Xun, but Guo Xun was killed by the Yellow Turban Army. Therefore, Tao Qian did not have any kindness to promote Zou Jing. In the past three years, he was still an official.

Zou Jing also coveted Gong Qi Chou's position and wanted to move it, but Tao Qian ignored it.

...

After reminiscing about the past, Liu Bei temporarily returned to Liangxiang to guard. He and Zou Jing did not have much time to spare because Zhang Chun's harassment came soon. The first harassment happened three days before Liu Bei's beacon tower was completed, and the beacon tower had not come in handy at that time.

Zhang Chun did not adopt a protracted battle posture of long-term and large-scale siege, but often left as soon as he touched it.

Liu Bei was a little uncomfortable at first, and Zhang Nan and Zhang Duwei from Yuyang County were also not used.

However, both sides suffered casualties, especially Liu Bei's side, where Liu Bei had a good geographical advantage and never allowed Zhang Chun to find benefits. The kill-and-death exchange ratio was at least five times more than.

As he fought, Liu Bei also roughly understood Zhang Chun's strategy: the reason why the enemy did this was related to the high proportion of the cavalry under Zhang Chun.

Because the Han army defenders in the three rivers and valleys had no city passes, only simple camps. Cavalry could not attack cities, but attacking simple camps was no worse than infantry.

As for camp fortifications such as horse-resisting horses and deer antlers, they are not allowed to rush up and kill directly. At most, they only delay the rhythm and speed of the cavalry and make the cavalry lose its impact.

Zhang Chun had many cavalry and Wuhuan people, so he hoped to use his strategic maneuverability to mobilize the defenders, so he often fought at Yuyang Valley and Liangxiang Valley. If it was empty, it was real and it was empty. Some of them seemed to be feint attacking, but if it was fake, it suddenly became fierce.

Some of them seemed to have a strong offensive at the beginning, and the attacked Gukou defenders urgently requested reinforcements. As a result, when the reinforcements arrived, the enemy had already run away, and most of the reinforcements were infantry, so they were mobilized by Zhang Chun and were very tired and complained.

But we can't be careless, because everyone knows that if the defenders tied all seven or eight thousand troops into one rope, refused to guard any of the valleys and defended to the death, Zhang Chun would not be able to break through with all his strength.

With such a terrain, even if you attack a camp, you will not be able to defeat it without more than five times the strength of your troops.

I am afraid that if I have been in a hurry, I will be able to break through once. If Zhang Chunzhen concentrates all his troops to attack one of them, and there are less than two other rescuers, he can still break through after a fierce attack for one day.

"There is sixty miles in a straight line from Liangxiang to Changping. In fact, there are still a circle of reinforcements. Bypassing Bijia Mountain, the journey is hundreds of miles. There are still seventy or eighty miles from Changping to Yuyang. We are all infantry. Zhang Chun hits Yuyang Road the day before and Liangxiang Road the day after. Ordinary soldiers run by two legs and run to death. This is not a solution. After a long time, they will definitely be depressed."

After another day, Liu Bei and Zhang Fei were grilling meat and warming wine in the village, and they felt that Zou Jing and others' stable defense strategies were not very good.

In terms of killing and injury ratio, the Han army is indeed much better than the rebels. At least three or four people are replaced by one person, but the key is that the absolute number of people killed is not large. However, the overall consumption of food, grass, physical strength and morale on the Han army is very huge.
Chapter completed!