"If my prediction is correct, I'm afraid that many people in your Tianxuan Society will not agree with my second brother's move this time, because you don't have the strength at all now! You even have to come to me to raise money and food. How long can such a war last?
Li Wanjiang can't do anything to you on Yizhou Island because the navy of the Great Zhou Dynasty is weak, but you take the initiative to attack..."
Doesn’t that give others a chance to annihilate you?
Your navy is strong enough to capture several ports in Minzhou County, and you can also occupy some cities and territories along the rivers, but what happens after that?
Whether you can gain a foothold in Minzhou County is the key to success or failure!
If I were Li Feng, I would pretend to be defeated, retreat steadily, use the depth of Minzhou County to lure your main force deep into the interior, and then lead my troops to cut off all the rivers and roads leading to the sea, completely surround you, and then capture you one by one.
Eat them all.
Qian Yunfei was speechless again, because every word of Xiao Chen's words made sense.
"It's not necessarily what the prince said, is it? Our Tianxuan Society also has many soldiers and horses in Minzhou County and other places. When the time comes, they will work together and cooperate with us inside and outside. They will bloom everywhere and make Li Feng suffer from enemies from both sides and be exhausted.
To deal with it... we are not fighting alone, and if the prince is willing to send troops, the chance of winning will be even greater."
Qian Yunfei's ideals are very full, but the reality is very skinny.
"What you said makes sense, but the premise of all this is that you can win a big victory and defeat Li Feng in one fell swoop! It's really a defeat. In that case, they will definitely take action one after another, icing on the cake and adding fuel to the fire! But you guys
If they lose, they may not be able to provide help in times of need, let alone fly into the flames, right?"
Let’s talk about my side.
Why would Li Wanjiang allow a mere 20,000 freshmen cavalry to run rampant without sending a single soldier to fight? He has tens of thousands of soldiers at Yanyunguan and tens of thousands of elite Black Dragon Guards at Wolong Pass. Is it impossible to deal with them?
Twenty thousand fresh people?
The reason why he gave up on Yanyun County was because he considered the overall situation.
He knew that these soldiers and horses could firmly guard Yanyunguan. No matter how many soldiers came from the northern tribes, they would not be able to move southward!
If the northern border is stable, he will have no worries and can deal with you calmly.
Don't think that if you work together, Li Wanjiang will be as anxious as an ant on a hot pot. He is very scheming, let me tell you!
Qian Yunfei was silent and looked at Xiao Chen with particularly complicated eyes.
"Do you regret not killing me now?" Xiao Chen chuckled.
"One moment, another moment." Qian Yunfei sighed, "At that time, killing you was like killing a chicken, but now I'm killing you like a tiger."
"Hahaha, Yunfei, you finally told me the truth today!" Xiao Chen laughed.
In fact, Qian Yunfei was wrong. Trying to kill Xiao Chen now is like slaying a dragon.
"By the way Yunfei, I heard that your Yizhou is rich in sugar cane, but why can't you sell it?" Xiao Chen's thinking was really jumping around.
"Prince, what do you mean by asking this? Do you still want to do business with us?" Qian Yunfei couldn't keep up again and couldn't think straight.
"Why not?" Xiao Chen said with a smile, "Benevolence and righteousness cannot be traded. As long as the price is fair and both parties are mutually beneficial, I can do business with the Lord of Hell, not to mention that we are still old acquaintances... I lost so much food.
Horses, you have to find a way to earn them back, right?"
"Haha, do you know how much sugar cane is produced in Yizhou and the nearby islands? You Yanyun County can't digest the production in one year in ten years!" Qian Yunfei means that there is no such thing as a small business.
How meaningful.
"The more the merrier, the more the better. I will take as much as you have. You can buy it with money or exchange it with things." Xiao Chen didn't buy sugar cane just for chewing. He wanted to buy it in large quantities.
Produce sugar.
Sugar has been available in China since ancient times, but it was not the white sugar we have today, but maltose.
"The Book of Songs, Daya, Mian" says: "The original Zhou Dynasty is so sweet, and the pansy tea is so sweet."
This is the maltose I’m talking about.
There are two forms of maltose, the flaky one is called glutinous rice flour, the sweet glutinous rice flour is called glutinous rice flour, and the thin and paste-like one is called glutinous rice flour, which is as sweet as glutinous rice flour.
The raw materials are not sugar cane, but wheat, barley and glutinous rice.
In the past and now, grain output has been very low, and the people did not even have enough to eat, so it was impossible to use it to make large amounts of maltose.
Therefore, caramel has always been a luxury product, and only royal nobles, wealthy landowners can afford it.
Do you still remember that Zhuge Xiaosheng once gave Duan Ling'er a box of malt candies? Duan Ling'er was reluctant to eat it, and was very sneaky when giving it to Xiao Ye for fear that others would see it... You know how precious this thing is, right?
A friend asked, there is not much food, but there is plenty of sugar cane, right? Why didn’t ancient people use sugar cane to make sugar?
This is a limitation of technology. People now don’t know how to extract white sugar from sugar cane.
Do you know what sugar cane is used for?
Feed the pigs.
The first person to extract sucrose from sugar cane was Asan Ge. Their extraction method was simple and crude. They squeezed the juice directly from the sugar cane, then dried it into a black syrup, boiled it at high temperature, and finally made a kind of sugar syrup.
Here comes the hard candy.
Do you know how this kind of sucrose came to China?
Then we have to thank Wang Xuance, that awesome figure in the Tang Dynasty who 'destroyed a country with one man'.
Back then, he casually borrowed thousands of people to destroy the Kingdom of Magadha, which had offended the Tang Dynasty envoy. He also captured its king and brought back their sugar-making technology.
How smart are the Chinese people? After introducing this kind of sugar production, they immediately improved it. In the Ming Dynasty, they finally invented a "sugar drenching method with yellow mud and water" to purify sucrose into white sugar that is almost the same as today.
This kind of white sugar was once popular all over the world, making many foreigners who had never seen the world overjoyed and were amazed by it!
Some historians even believe that the invention of sugar was as significant as the Industrial Revolution!
It can be seen that all human beings have the same love for sweetness.
Until the 20th century, sucrose was still an extremely important and precious commodity. Although its value was not as valuable as gold, it had always been a hard currency in market circulation!
Sugar is also an important military commodity and has been strictly allocated for a long time because the calories it can bring to the human body are unmatched by any other food.
Even in today's military food, sugar is indispensable.
As a person with experience, Xiao Chen knows the importance of sugar, and the first factory he plans to build in Yanyun County is a sugar factory!
Yanyun County cannot grow sugar cane, but it can grow sugar beets in large quantities. However, due to the local climate, the annual output is very limited.
If a large amount of sugar cane can be purchased from Yizhou, Xiao Chen can expand the size of the sugar factory several times or even ten times!
By then, Yanyun County will be rich with just this industry!
Moreover, white sugar can also be processed to make various other non-staple foods.
For example, milk candy, you know, Yanyun County has a lot of milk...
There are also cookies, cakes, drinks...even canned fruits.