Although He Lian is a bit useless, he is not stupid either. He was already very wary of Gongsun Zan, and with Tadun's threats and seductions, he was immediately won over by Tadun.

According to the current situation, Gongsun Zan will hit them in the face sooner or later. Instead of sitting back and waiting for death, it is better to take the initiative to attack.

The two sides quickly reached a consensus and prepared to join forces with Yuan Shao to attack Gongsun Zan. To be on the safe side, Tadun had the mentality of treating a dead horse as a living horse doctor, and also contacted the southern Xiongnu of Bingzhou.

Despite the fact that the Southern Xiongnu were beaten to a pulp by Yuan Shao's aristocratic families, most of the entire Bingzhou had fallen. But after all, they still had a certain foundation. Although a lot of territory was robbed, the Southern Xiongnu did not injure many soldiers.

Because most of them are cavalry, and they are basically a mess. When they encounter the wolf-like private soldiers of aristocratic families, they basically have no idea of ​​fighting, and most of them just choose to flee north. After all, Bingzhou is not their base camp, the grassland is theirs.

The foundation of Bingzhou was just to facilitate plundering. The family also closed in when it was good. They only occupied the four southern counties of Bingzhou and did not kill all the southern Xiongnu.

Of course, this is not because the aristocratic families are afraid of the southern Xiongnu and they will fight to the death. With the aristocratic families' madness for the fiefdom, they only have hundreds of thousands of private soldiers, which is completely irrelevant. What is it compared to the fiefdom?

In such troubled times, the most worthless thing is human life. Which big family in Jizhou does not have nearly ten thousand private soldiers and tens of thousands of young men?

Even merchant families like the Mi family and the Zhen family have tens of thousands of children under their command, and they can easily help Liu Bei raise an army of tens of thousands, let alone these big families in Hebei.

The aristocratic families in Jizhou were not afraid of the southern Xiongnu, nor were they afraid of serious losses of soldiers, but because it was not worth it.

Bingzhou itself is a bitter cold land with a sparse population. The land and climate are far less suitable than those in Jizhou and are not suitable for farming. The four states in the south have basically occupied about 60% of the land in Bingzhou, and the population exceeds 70%. And in the north

The remaining states are all bitter and cold areas on the frontier. Not only are the populations sparse, but the land is not suitable for farming at all, making them useless to the aristocratic families.

Bingzhou is not a good territory, otherwise it would not have had any sense of existence in the history of the late Han Dynasty. This place was influenced by the Hulu, the folk customs are fierce, and it is not suitable for farming. If you take it, you have to be on guard at all times.

The invasion of the foreign tribes from the north was completely harmful rather than beneficial, so there has never been a decent leader. Yuan Shao and Gongsun Zan also turned a blind eye to this place.

Most of the land in Bingzhou is enough for the aristocratic families to share. The remaining places are not very attractive to the aristocratic families. And there is no need to be so hasty. The population they have now cannot use such a large area.

There is no point in fighting.

Although the world is in chaos and homeless people are everywhere, the noble families in the north don't pay attention to it! Normally, who would care about these untouchables? The more people die, the better, so that the pressure on the noble families will be less.

What's more, there is a big human trafficker like Yuan Shu. With the help of the southern aristocratic families, he bought an unknown number of people in the north. The northern aristocratic families were also happy to see this, and exchanged some untouchables for money and food. Even though they made money, they also had little money.

Without the pressure, there is no need to worry about these untouchables revolting or having to give them land.

With the consent of both parties, the population in the north continues to lose a lot. In the past, the aristocratic families in Hebei did not realize that the development of their own fiefdoms was now involved. They suddenly discovered that the population was not enough!

The aristocratic families who had always been worried about too many people back home are now the masters of their own affairs and run an area as their own small country. Only then have they realized the importance of population.

No matter how big the land is, what's the use of having more wealth? No one will plow the land for you, no one will create wealth for you, and you won't be able to develop at all. Population is the core!

After reacting, the Hebei aristocratic families immediately interrupted their transactions with the southern aristocratic families, cursed each other in their hearts, and even offered to buy back the population at twice the price. Some of the Hebei aristocratic families with a longer-term vision had already been in Yuan Shu's release of the feudal country.

They took this into consideration as soon as the news came out. They had already quietly stopped human trafficking, soliciting people everywhere, and even pretended to be a southern family to buy people from other families. At this time, they were all secretly happy.

The Hebei family came to their senses, but the Jiangnan family is not stupid! They have been running Yizhou and Zhuyazhou for so many years, and they know better than anyone else the importance of population. Not to mention twice, even five or ten times.

Won't let go.

In the past few years, the population in the north has been reduced by countless numbers due to the continuous purchases of Jiangnan families. A rough calculation is that it is at least five million. This does not include Yuan Shu's own actions at the beginning. It can be said that now Yuan Shu's people

The population could reach more than half of the entire Han Dynasty, and these aristocratic families played a very important role.

After the Jiangnan Family discovered the alarm of the Hebei Family, they immediately gave up on the population market in Hebei. They were extremely decisive and turned directly to the Central Plains. Because they knew that they could not compete at all in this base camp of the Hebei Family. So they directly

Turning the gun around, before the Zhongyuan Family and the Hebei Family could react, they increased the price of human trafficking several times and frantically raided the people in the hands of the Zhongyuan Family, preparing to enjoy this final feast.

The Hebei Aristocratic Family also reacted quickly, directly stopped selling its people, and used various means to acquire people in Hebei and the Central Plains.

Under the competition of the aristocratic families, Hebei and the Central Plains set off a crazy population grabbing war. The population that has always been least valued by the aristocratic families has now become a hot commodity. Even now, even the hair of the fiefdom has not been touched.

The Zhongyuan family also responded and directly refused to sell their people.

They are not stupid. If they sell it now, where will they find people when they have a fiefdom? No matter how much money they make, they will not sell it.

Similarly, the crazy plundering of the population by the aristocratic families also aroused the vigilance of princes such as Yuan Shao and Cao Cao. They also began to pay attention to the importance of population, and immediately began to restrict the outflow of the population and conduct census management to ensure the number of people under their command.

Avoid being stolen by red-eyed aristocratic families.

This invisible war of population plunder came to an end in just over a month. In the end, the Jiangnan family, who had been well prepared under Yuan Shu's reminder, won, and finally made a huge profit, and again recently.

Millions of people were accounted for and fell to the south.

The outbreak of the population war this time was actually within Yuan Shu's expectation. Land and population are fundamental, and Yuan Shu has always believed in this. The reason why he allowed this war to break out was not to delay it for another year or two until the war in the north

If more than a few percent of the population is lost to the south, it is because the population in the south is already barely enough. If we move further, it will actually be meaningless. Anyway, the entire Han Dynasty will be our own in the future, and then the southern population will have to be moved to the north.

Why bother?

Even if these people were left to Yuan Shao and Cao Cao, they would not be able to increase their combat power much, and they would still be a burden in a short period of time. What's more, a family is a family, and princes are princes. The strength of a family does not mean that the princes will also become stronger. Sometimes it is just the same.

On the contrary, as the families under his command become stronger, the fighting power of the princes will be weakened.
Chapter completed!