At the end of the first lunar month in 198, Weiyang Palace in Chang'an.

Liu Bei, the Emperor Zhangwu of the Han Dynasty in Sanxing, has been very comfortable this New Year recently. From the first day of the Lunar New Year to the Shangyuan Festival, every day, he either feasts the ministers or plays with his concubines and children in Shanglinyuan, enjoying the various enjoyment measures invented by Li Sikong.

There were also some honest and straightforward ministers in the court who advised him to restrain himself, but Liu Bei just listened to the wise and polite people in person and controlled him for two or three days, but later he couldn't help it.

Zhang Fei, Xun You and other confidants and close ministers occasionally advised him privately, but he also hinted casually:

Isn’t this the world peace very well, so I enjoy it? This is to enjoy it with the people and show the confidence of the military and the people. Just like when Xiao He advised Emperor Gaozu to build the Weiyang Palace majestic and grand, it is to make the emperor’s majesty and make the world calm.

The emperor said this, and the people around him had nothing to say, too lazy to worry about these trivial matters. Anyway, the emperor spent hundreds of thousands of dollars a day and 100 million a year, and the royal merchants could withstand the income of the royal merchants.

The income structure of the Han Center is now quite strange. The income structure of the royal family and the industrial workshops run by nobles are not much lower than the regular taxes of the court. Moreover, it is not the kind of plundering people's business that competes for profit with the people. They are all dignified and rely on technology to liberate productivity.

From Shu brocade to cotton cloth, to large logistics transporters who earn standard freight, plus mechanical industries such as metallurgical forging, engineering contracting, looms, boats, and water trucks, which industry does not have a gross profit of several hundred million to two to three billion yuan per year?

In contrast, within the framework of renting and transferring methods, Liu Bei occupied 17 million people in the area, equivalent to 11 million adult tax-age males (more than 8 million tax-paying males, other adult women and boys aged 10 to 15 combined are equivalent to 3 million middle-aged men), and the annual tax payment is only 33 billion, which is not as good as the two or three most profitable royal industry incomes mentioned above.

Of course, under the system of renting and transferring merits, the part of collecting money and silk fabrics is not the big deal. The people in the occupied areas also provide 10 billion corvee labor worth 6.6 billion yuan of grain every year. These two parts are often extra and are paid into money.

It doesn’t matter if the royal family spends one or two hundred million more every year. Now is not the poor era of the Lingdi Dynasty without large-scale handicraft workshops.

The external factors that support Liu Bei is so confident and eager to boast about peace are mainly due to the success of the war between the north and the south.

The second brother and Kong Ming were very good. They killed 50,000 Yuan Shao's men last winter. Later, although they had no new progress for a month and a half, they kept secretly doing some careful work and heard good news that was difficult to get on the table.

For example, Yuan Shao's troops were depressed due to insufficient supply in winter. In order to expand the army and rectify military supplies, how did internal personnel conflicts deepen? How many confidant counselors and civil servants fight internal factional struggles intensify...

All of these made Liu Bei feel that his future is brighter.

He was also planning to ask several close ministers in Chang'an to discuss it when the New Year was just approaching, and further increase the titles of Guan Yu and Zhuge Liang.

For example, Guan Yu had just retreated from Hedong before Liu Bei ascended the throne and became emperor, so he did not get the position of general and was resigned. Liu Bei kept this in his heart, and thought that he could mention the general again.

As for Zhuge Liang, there is no need to dig into the idea of ​​deliberate rewards alone, because if Guan Yu was promoted to General, Zhuge Liang would naturally go from the Chief of the Grand Marshal to the General.

However, in the end, the matter was suspended with the persuasion of several more cautious ministers, because the battle against Yuan Shao had not been completely won, but the vanguard won a few small games, and the stalemate was still protracted. It would be better to have a decisive result and then move Guan Yu, who is already at the top level, to the top.

Of course, Zhuge Liang's official position is not very high, but he is too young and is not suitable for helping him grow. Therefore, if he does not move his position, he can add a title.

In the end, Liu Bei added Zhuge Liang the title of "Yangduting Hou" before the Lantern Festival, and his fief was the basic 300 households. Considering that he was just nineteen years old in the first month, this speed was already very fast (the sentence was "Yangdu (County) Ting Hou", not "Yangduting Hou". Zhuge Liang was from Yangdu, Langya.)

At the same time, although Boya's brother in the south was not as powerful as his second brother and Kong Ming in November and December last year, even Jiangling in Nanjun was taken away by Sun Ce.

Even if Li Su repeatedly asked Liu Bei to rest assured, saying that this was just his plan to seduce Sun Ce and Zhou Yu, and all the situation was under control. But at most, Liu Bei was not worried about Li Su. He would never lose his territory because of Li Su. Instead, he was happy to feel that Sun Ce was about to lose his territory.

Liu Bei has not yet achieved this kind of good mentality of "taking defeat as victory". The temporary fraudulent defeat is also defeat. He won back with the capital and profit, and officially put the money in order to be safe. During this period, Zhao Yun killed 20,000 enemies in Changbanpo, which was only a decoration for regulating his mood, so that Liu Bei would not be disgusted when he thought that Jiangling was still in the opponent.

However, after entering the first lunar month of this year, there were more good news about the heavyweight and practical goods from Brother Boya. On the 12th day of the first lunar month, Li Su sent an envoy to Beijing and rushed to Chang'an for three days from Jiangling, in order to catch up with the fifteenth day of the first lunar month and let the emperor and his ministers celebrate the festive Shangyuan Festival.

Li Su's memorial said that he had defeated the enemy several times in recent times, including Gan Ning's enemy-behind pirates fighting against Wei to rescue Zhao, the Baqiu blocking battle commanded by Taishi Ci and Huang Zhong, and even the Battle of Shaxian-Chibiri, which repeatedly damaged the enemy's main force and disrupted the enemy's rear.

Of course, Li Su posted this good news a little early, and the content was exaggerated. After all, he had not injured Sun Ce himself on the twelfth day of the first lunar month, and had almost wiped out most of Sun Ce's main naval forces. So he just wrote a "hard blow" in general, just to give the emperor a joyful and peaceful Shangyuan Festival.

When the victory was reported, Liu Bei immediately told the ministers and civil and military officials in Chang'an that they had increased the celebrations on the day of the Lantern Festival.

The Taipu Temple and Guangluxun were temporarily asked to discuss with the royal officials (who were in charge of the royal treasury money) and took out the treasury money to serve porridge in Chang'an City to ensure that every poor person was relieved. The specifications were very high. It was stipulated that red beans and mung beans should be added to the porridge, and pickles should be used, and bran should not be included.

If the bran accumulated in Taicang is indeed old and will deteriorate if it is not eaten, then use it to feed the horses in the royal stables of Taipu Temple. Even the war horses of the royal family and the capital garrison can enjoy the benefits of the whole world.

In addition to the relief porridge, Liu Bei also announced that when this autumn tax, the tax was calculated as a month of deduction, which means that the tax in Sanfu area was exempted from the first month of this year, which means that each strong man in Sanfu paid less than 25 yuan this year. This is equivalent to the emperor sending everyone a Lantern Festival red envelope, encouraging the people to spend the money they saved for consumption and celebration, adding a few dishes and a few pots of wine.

Finally, this year, Liu Bei announced the first time that the Lantern Festival celebrations of the Shangyuan Festival were implemented in Chang'an. The official gunpowder and firecrackers were used for the first time at the event. It also opened the eyes of the people of Chang'an, and it was also a measure for the emperor to enjoy the people and show that peace was coming.

The quality of the gunpowder used in firecrackers is of course not very good, because it was transported from Jianwei County, Yizhou. It was produced by the imperial court's military factory. After quality inspection, it was found to be slightly unqualified and could not be used for weapon-level purposes. Or it was stored for a long time and had insufficient storage experience before, and some were slightly damp and deteriorated.

This kind of thing makes weapons easy to cause accidents. In order to create mines, Li Su used to transfer gunpowder from Yizhou in the twelfth lunar month, which allowed people to conduct a comprehensive and thorough investigation of inventory and production safety. So Zhang Yi, the head of the left school in charge, took the scrapped inventory to Chang'an and sent it to the court for disposal, just in time for the waste to be utilized.

Because firecrackers and colorful lanterns are both the first year and there is no experience in holding them, in order to prevent fire from occurring in Chang'an City, the court stipulated that all firecrackers and colorful lanterns were produced by the court and released for the people to see. The people are not allowed to produce and purchase on their own, otherwise it would be considered a violation of the ban and over-the-counter.

Fortunately, since it is the first year, there is no custom among the people, so no one can do it. Everyone is happy to watch the emperor pay for everyone to show off their shows. After a few years, they will consider spending money to show off themselves.

For a moment, the Shangyuan Festival in Chang'an City was inspiring, and all kinds of metaphysical guesses about the general trend of the world were everywhere.

Liu Bei was originally a taboo for the spread of nursery rhymes among the people, and he did not like superstition or metaphysics. However, he was satisfied with his ambitions and folk songs, and this time, he was beneficial to him. It was also a bit lazy and even wavering.

Perhaps it is necessary to wait until Li Su returns to the court to face the sound of the situation before he can bring Liu Bei back from this trend.

As for the content of these prophecies and divinations, it is roughly the same routine. It evolved from the folk saying "There is a Han in the west, a Han in the east, a Han in the east, a Han in the east, a 12 emperors" five or six years ago, and promoted the cycle of governance and chaos.

The general idea this time was to say, "The Han Dynasty inherited the turbulent times of Qin. Qin won the world for 15 years with the law of tyranny. The killing and attacking were extremely serious. Therefore, people returned to the Han Dynasty and rested with the people.

The Later Han inherited the chaotic times of Xinmang. Xinmang also won the world for 15 years with his tyrannical laws. The people died in the wild and the people were calm, so they returned to the Han Dynasty and rested with the people.

Now that Your Majesty has been reviving the Yan Han three times, the destiny of heaven will also show that before reunifying the world, he will experience the chaotic times of the 15th year of the imperial system and the power of the court falls. The Yellow Turban Moth Thief did not overthrow the Han Dynasty. According to Li Sikong's palace, there is a blessing theory that is not considered within the 'the first initiative of the God-slaughtered those who later rebelled away from the rebellion'. Therefore, it should be calculated from the destruction of Dong Zhuo and overturned the heavy weapons, that is, the fifteenth year of war after the sixth year of Zhongping, the world will be reunified and cleared the false emperors."

Some of these rumors are forced to be nonsense by boring scholars among the people, similar to those keyboard prophets who want to play God's prophecy and become famous in later generations. Some simply think it is a coincidence, which can be used to flatter. As a result, after the Spring Festival, such rumors spread everywhere in Chang'an City.

According to this statement, Dong Zhuo's destruction and establishment led to chaos in the world, which can be regarded as 189 or 190. Then, with the lifespan of the Qin Dynasty and the New Dynasty, it should be the unification of the world in 204 or 205, or at least the destruction of the pseudo-dynasty in the east by a puppet of the rebellious ministers from other surnames.

If Li Su heard this statement, he would definitely be scolded, because the chaotic times in history did not end so quickly? It would not be chaotic for decades.

But there is no way, mainly because Li Su helped Liu Bei to rebel against the rebel minister in this life, and everyone really saw the hope that the world would be reunified for 15 years without any war. The people did not want to fight.

Who made the previous history so coincidental? The lifespan of the Qin Dynasty and the Xin Dynasty was exactly the same. For those who like to summarize the rules, they began to spread the rules randomly.

As a result, this rumor became more and more popular. Liu Bei believed it himself, thinking that the current situation was so good. Maybe he, like Emperor Gaozu Guangwu, only allowed the tyrant to rage for 15 years, and then restore peace in the world.

Of course, the specific interpretations of the people are different. Many scholars even criticize each other for this and want to be a prophet. Some people say that it is wise and powerful today, but how can it be used for so many years? It is still six years to 204 now, and it is even seven years to 205.

I guess with the current advantage over Yuan Shao and Sun Ce, I will win quickly in another two years! Cao Cao will surrender directly then! So it should start with the Yellow Turban Rebellion.

Of course, those with insight sneered at this statement, especially those who have read the latest official textbooks know that the Yellow Turbans cannot be regarded as "qualified first initiative" based on Li Su's palace and blessings.

On the other hand, some people say that even the rebellion between Dong Zhuo and Li Guo cannot be considered the official beginning of the pseudo-dynasty in troubled times. This 15 years should be counted from "Yuan Shu kills the lord", because everyone says that Yuan Shu is the most qualified "principal of God's reprimand". He succeeded in changing the dynasty. Although the previous years were bumpy, Liu Xie barely "revitalized" for a few years.

In this case, it should be considered a pseudo-DPRK starting last year. It will reach 212 for another 15 years, seven years more than the first statement.

As a result, because the focus of everyone's dispute became "when year this fifteen years starts", it led to those who questioned the evil saying itself being washed out by the public opinion field. Everyone was confused and thought that the troubled times should end in fifteen years, but no one knew the secret of heaven and did not know where the algorithm began.

Liu Bei even planned to write a letter to ask Li Su about this matter to see if he is known for his destiny and has any authoritative official academic conclusions.

Fortunately, before Liu Bei was stupid, Li Su's second good news and a piece of information from Cao Cao's territory sent by Gao Shun in the Kanto region were delivered to Liu Bei one after another.

This day was the 26th day of the first lunar month. It has been thirteen days since Li Su's troops severely attacked Sun Ce on the battlefield, and it has been eleven days since Sun Ce's official death.

However, in order to make up for the festive atmosphere of the Lantern Festival, Li Su's previous letter was slightly ahead of the news. The latter letter naturally had to make the situation solid, and the results were finalized to be settled, and then slowly report it.

Therefore, this battle report was issued when Li Su broke through Xiakou City and sent troops to surround Chaisang as if they were unstoppable. At that time, Li Su was in Xiakou, not only had he killed Lu Meng and confirmed the news of Sun Ce's death, but Zhao Yun and Taishi Ci had also forced Huang Gai and Han Dang to peacefully recover Jiangling, and determined the overall battle results data of "annihilation of 80,000 Wu troops in total".
Chapter completed!