Guo Jia recalled the battle between the coalition forces and Da Gan, and found that even if Lei Gong did not have thousands of artillery pieces in the end, they would be defeated, because they could not defeat Da Gan's cavalry in the field. They wanted to rely on strong cities to resist Lei Gong, but they had no food and grass. And there are not as many as Lei Gong. If they persist for at most half a year, they will still run out of food and fodder and be defeated. It’s just that the consumption of Da Gan will be greater! Lei Gong will not have the strength to fight again within a year or two.
Guo Jia thought that now Daqian had occupied the five states of the Han Dynasty, and the huge desert was also in the hands of Lei Gong. What they faced was simply a combination of the Han Dynasty and the Xianbei Kingdom. Such a country with such a strong military power, even the violent Qin Dynasty back then Not so powerful, at least the First Emperor couldn't afford hundreds of thousands of cavalry!
He said helplessly: "The population of Daqian is ten times that of ours, and the land is dozens of times larger than ours. Lei Gong himself is a famous general in the world. Facing such a powerful enemy, it is normal to not think of a way to defeat it, so the lord will fight with us." Liu Bei and others unite to deal with Lei Gong!"
No wonder Tian Feng, as a celebrity in Hebei, could only think of dragging Lei Gong to death, because he found Daqian really disappointing! Although his lord Cao Cao also had outstanding abilities, he was too close to Hebei and had no time to develop. Even if Lei Gong attacks Sili next year and Yuzhou the year after that, in the third year at most, Qingzhou will have to face Daqian.
Three years was not enough time to bring about qualitative changes in Qingzhou. At this time, Guo Jia almost wanted to curse Lei Gong to death!
At this time, they found that the team suddenly became much noisier.
Xiahou Dun and Guo Jia discovered that not far from them, smoke and dust billowed, revealing a huge team, and that team was approaching them.
Guo Jia approached Bao Xin who was escorting them and asked: "General, is this your army marching?"
Bao Xindao: "These are people from Yanzhou's noble clan. Aren't you going to trade them back, so we escorted them to the border of Qingzhou!"
Sure enough, it didn't take long for them to discover that among this huge army, most of them were old, weak, women and children. These people were crying and obviously unwilling to leave Yanzhou like this!
Seeing this, Bao Xin sneered: "They are already lucky now, but they are not satisfied. You must know that the wealthy nobles in Hebei are either digging struvite on the islands, herding sheep in the desert, or in the Western Regions." Eat sand, now they can go to Qingzhou thanks to your Caozhou Mu! But this is good, we can also save a lot of food, and the fields in Yanzhou can be distributed easily after they leave!"
Bao Xin's words made the two of them feel chilled. They had always heard about Daqian's treatment of the nobles, but when they saw this scene, they realized that all the rumors were even more shocking than reading them. For the sake of the land of Yanzhou, they actually Drive away these masters, and this is not just one family or two families, but the entire Gaomen family in Yanzhou.
Compared with Daqian, Ling Emperor's party imprisonment was like scratching an itch, and they felt that it was nothing. They thought that if Qingzhou was captured by Lei Gong, their families would be the same as now, and they would be driven out of their hometown and exiled to several places. The thought of traveling to a desert thousands of miles away makes me shudder.
Bao Xin walked forward quickly, wanting to join the team in front.
Guo Jia led Xiahou Dun and whispered: "Seeing this scene in front of you, you should understand why we have to fight against Thunder Lord. This is not only for the Han Dynasty, but also for our own family! We and Thunder Lord are destined to fall. The next one, this will not end with surrender, but a life-and-death war!"
Xiahou Dun looked at the team in front and nodded firmly. All thoughts of being discouraged in Changyi were gone. Their war with Thunder Lord was completely different from previous wars. This was a war without surrender.
The words are divided into two parts! At this time, Xu Wei was receiving another group of people in the Changyi County Sheriff's Mansion. The house was very lively at this time!
"In power, we have lent you so much money to fight the war. We must be loyal to Da Qian!" Zhen An said!
Xu Wei smiled and said: "Of course, our current prosperous situation is indispensable for your contribution!"
Xu Wei was not just saying polite words, but it was a fact. He had been engaged in frequent wars in recent years. He often launched hundreds of thousands of troops on thousands-mile expeditions, and successively conquered Youzhou, Jizhou, Xiliang, and Yanzhou. Each of these battles was more intense than the last. The battlefield consumes a lot of money, and each battle is farther than the last. The finances of the army alone cannot support such frequent battles!
The main reason is that Xu Wei gave generous rewards. Soldiers who fought in a battle could receive tens of thousands of dollars in rewards, and civilians could also receive rewards ranging from thousands to tens of thousands. In this way, this expenditure alone would cost tens of thousands of dollars. Tens of billions of dollars. In terms of money, every war Xu Wei consumes in terms of grain and grass supplies is never less than 20 billion dollars. Moreover, after the war is over, billions or even tens of billions of dollars will have to be spent on recovery. This resulted in the consumption of Xu Wei in one battle, which was almost 10 years of tax revenue during Emperor Ling's period. Without more than ten years of accumulation, Emperor Ling could not even fight any battle since Xu Wei came out of Bingzhou!
Of course, these expenses are worth it, because the rewards for the soldiers are generous, the morale of the army is the best among the Han Dynasty, and the military discipline is also the best. Even Liu Bei's Jingzhou Army cannot compare with this.
And also because Xu Wei spent a huge amount of money to relieve local areas, places such as Youzhou, Jizhou, and Yanzhou were able to quickly recover after the war. Now, the prosperity of Youzhou and Jizhou is no longer inferior to that during the Ling Emperor's time, and the world was still in turmoil. . If it weren't for the war still going on outside, the people in these two places might have thought it was a time of peace and prosperity!
And this money alone is far from being able to support Daqian's battles in these years just by relying on Daqian's annual income of nearly 30 billion.
It was Xu Wei who used bonds to turn all the funds in the hands of Daqian businessmen into war resources to sustain Daqian's wars over the years. Now Daqian's bonds have expanded to nearly 80 billion.
Therefore, it is said that merchants like Zhen An used the money in their hands to enable Da Qian to have enough supplies to conquer the world. It is not wrong to say that they are great heroes!
Of course, this also brings about a very big trouble. Now one-fifth of Daqian's fiscal revenue needs to be used to repay the interest on these bonds! And judging from the current situation, as long as the war does not end, the interest will expand higher and higher. !
With such high interest rates, Old Man Wang, Old Man Niu and Niu Gui were all frightened, fearing that the debt crisis would ruin Da Gan's good situation!
But Xu Qiang was not too worried. Wherever he went, he saw debts higher than GDP. People were not living well. As long as the artillery fire came, who would dare to ask for debts!
Not to mention that Xu Wei also learned a lot of methods of cutting leeks from modern times. If the debt is really too high, he can set up a stock market and list all the textile factories, glass factories, and fish and meat canneries, and the market value will increase dozens of times. , this debt can be paid off easily! For Xu Wei, making money is not a problem at all.
Zhen An said sincerely: "The villain now has a win-win deal with Da Gan, and he needs the support of the ruling party!"
Jia Xu frowned when he heard Zhen An say these words. If this had been the case in Luoyang City when Dong Zhuo was in charge, Zhen An would have been killed long ago! Although Dong Zhuo valued people from the noble family, he despised merchants very much, otherwise Back then, there would have been no indictment that affected the entire Han Dynasty.
From Jia Xu's point of view, big businessmen like Zhen An are so wealthy that they have so much money, how dare they offer any support to the government!
Xu Wei asked with interest: "What kind of win-win deal?"
At this time, other big businessmen were looking at Zhen An and placing all their hopes on him.
Zhen An said: "The Central Plains has been the most important production area of silk since ancient times. However, the world has been in chaos in recent years, and Yanzhou has suffered from three years of drought. Now the people of Yanzhou have fled in all directions. The people who used to produce silk are now all thinking All the money has been spent on growing food! Now that we have finally opened up the Silk Road, we don’t have much silk to sell? Even the Central Plains no longer produces silk!”
Tian Zhong was even more distressed and said: "In power, we have spent tens of billions in Xiliang to open up the Silk Road. If there are no goods to sell, our money will be in vain! That's why we have to ask the power to restore silk in the Central Plains." production!"
Silk developed greatly in the Han Dynasty, and complex jacquard looms had been basically finalized. However, the production area of silk at this time was not the wild Jiangnan, but Qilu, Central Plains and Sichuan, which became the silk production centers of the Han Dynasty. , the main areas are today's Chang'an, Zibo, and Chengdu, and of these three major silk production centers, only Yanzhou is in their hands, so Zhen'an and the others want Xu Wei to resume silk production in the Central Plains!
Xu Wei said strangely: "Although our Daqian silk production is relatively small, we have a lot of woolen cloth, even enough for each tribe to have one. If you don't have silk in your hands, can't you sell woolen cloth?"
But Xu Wei remembered that Zhen An and the others were excited to open up the Silk Road as soon as possible and wanted to sell their own woolen cloth to the Western Regions. Why do they now want to become second-hand traders selling silk?
Zhen An smiled bitterly and said: "In power, the people in the Western Regions don't recognize our woolen cloth at all. They only like the silk of the Han Dynasty! Although we also sold woolen cloth in the Western Regions, we only sold less than a million pieces. This amount is compared to ours." You can’t even get back what you paid for!”
Then Zhen An told Xu Wei in detail what they had experienced in the Western Regions this year!
It turns out that Xu Wei's expedition of 5,000 miles last year completely wiped out the Qiang people who had been in turmoil for hundreds of years. All the big businessmen of the Han Dynasty came to Xiliang, wanting to be the first caravan to go to the Western Regions!
People like Zhen An paid Wang Dang to help Wang Dang buy weapons and equip camels! Then Wang Dang led an army of 20,000 to the Western Regions. At this time, the Han's prestige in the Western Regions had not completely dissipated. Wang Dang fought several battles in the Western Regions. After that, a large number of people from the Western Regions came to seek refuge with Wangdang, and Daqian made his fortune from the bottom of the people. With the help of these natives from the Western Regions, Wangdang destroyed the Cheshi Kingdom, and the prestige of the Han Dynasty shocked the entire Western Regions.
At this time, the people in the Western Regions did not know the situation of the Han Dynasty at all, and regarded Wang Dang's army as the Han Dynasty's army. However, Wang Dang found that the Han Dynasty had a very high prestige in the Western Regions, and pretended to believe that the Han Dynasty's army would help them take root in the Western Regions, so there was no explanation. , and they also promote themselves to the outside world as the Han army!
Wang Dang's victory made Zhen An and the others extremely excited. They formed a caravan and marched into the Western Regions with a large number of Han products! But they soon discovered that their main product, woolen cloth, was not as popular as silk in the Western Regions!
Because the Western Region is vast and sparsely populated, there are also a large number of sheep. The common people at the bottom use wool to tie it into threads and weave it into cloth. Of course, such cloth not only has a strong smell, but also scratches people and is easily broken. It can be said that the quality is extremely poor. In the Western Region wool Cloth is for the poor!
So when Zhen An and the others came with a large amount of woolen cloth, although their woolen cloth was of high quality, their preconceived notions made the nobles of the Western Regions rarely buy woolen cloth, and they still preferred glossy silk!
Although ordinary people in the Western Regions like woolen cloth, the price is too high and they simply cannot afford it. The price of woolen cloth in Xiliang will not exceed 1,000 yuan, but after the caravan traveled a long distance to the Western Regions, the price soared to 5,000 yuan. Money, but few families in the Western Regions can afford it, and those who can afford it prefer to buy silk.
Moreover, Zhen An and the others also have to face competition from local cotton cloth in the Western Regions. In this era, the Western Regions people have begun to weave cotton into cotton cloth, but the technology is not advanced enough. A piece of snow-white cotton cloth costs more than 3,000 yuan. In the Western Regions, only wealthy people can make cotton cloth. Just started using it.
So when Zhen An and the others were full of joy and transported a large amount of woolen cloth to the Western Regions, they found that the nobles of the Western Regions disdained woolen cloth, and they couldn't compete with the wealthy people's cotton cloth. They had no choice but to cut prices and carry out large promotions, and sell woolen cloth while preserving their capital. I gave it to local merchants in the Western Regions, and at the same time purchased some products and cotton cloth from the Western Regions and returned to the Han Dynasty!
It can be said that Zhen An and the others went to the Western Regions for business for the first time. Although they made money, they lost money on woolen cloth. If it weren't for the products of other big men this time, they made a lot of money, plus the jade from the Western Regions they brought back, Agate, diamond and other jewelry allowed them to earn dozens of times the profit. This time they came to the Western Regions and it was considered a complete failure.
This is completely different from the Western Region that they imagined flowing with gold and honey. If they follow this profit every time, they find that it will take decades to earn back their 1 billion license!
This made Zhen An and the others unbearable, but the solution they came up with was to follow the old path and sell silk, a specialty that was not available in the Western Regions!
And when they returned to the Han Dynasty, they heard that Xu Wei had occupied Yanzhou, and Yanzhou had been the most important place for silk since ancient times. If they found a way to let Xu Wei expand the scale of Yanzhou's silk industry, wouldn't they have completely opened up the Silk Road?
industrial chain!
So today Zhen An and the others came to Xu Wei, saying they wanted to congratulate Xu Wei for completely defeating the Han coalition and achieving a complete victory over the Han! In fact, they were trying to find a way for Xu Wei to develop the silk industry in Yanzhou!