In the battle between Sun Jian and Yuan Shu, Sun Jian was the first to fail.
His background is still too poor. He doesn't have much base, especially the lack of food and grass. The battle with Yuan Shu lasted for more than two years, and the consumption of food and grass was a huge amount.
Sun Jian sent an envoy to ask him to send troops to deal with Yuan Shu.
Yuan Shu is powerful, another person might agree.
After all, Xuzhou is close to Yangzhou and Yuzhou, and is the place where the Four Wars were fought. If Sun Jian is destroyed, it may be difficult for Xuzhou to block Yuan Shu's attack.
However, Su Fan is different. His strength is actually higher than Yuan Shu's, but no one knows it yet.
With this confidence, Su Fan didn't care which of the two would be the final winner.
Although he may be able to kill Yuan Shu by joining forces with Sun Jian now, he will still have to take action against Sun Jian when the time comes. If he cannot do it in time, it will make Sun Jian bigger.
It's better to just watch the two of them fight to the death, and both sides suffer losses.
Even if one person wins in the end, he can take action immediately.
Therefore, it is certainly impossible for Su Fan to send troops.
But Su Fan needed Sun Jian to consume Yuan Shu's power as much as possible, so Sun Jian's support was still necessary.
Su Fan did not go to see Sun Jian's envoy. Even if the other party was Zhuge Jin, Wuhou's brother, it was not important to Su Fan.
First of all, the opponent surrendered to Sun Jian, and it would be difficult for them to defect to him now.
Secondly, he also had a lot of civil servants under his command. After he captured Xuzhou, his reputation increased again, and naturally a large number of talents came into his possession.
Zhuge Jin is very capable, capable of both civil and military affairs. He is first-class in domestic affairs and not bad in military affairs.
But that also requires him to reach the peak after more than ten years of experience.
Now he is naturally far behind Xun Yu and the others.
The fourth year of Chuping passed quickly. Throughout the year, except for a few places, most of the world was in war.
The people were displaced, which was a lot easier for Su Fan. Some of Su Fan's secret lords specialized in propaganda in various places, so there were two to three million refugees who poured into Donghai County this year.
Of course, this number is very different from the landless refugees caused by the war in the world.
During the war, some cities were shattered, especially the local armies of the princes, who had no military discipline. Everywhere they went, the most unlucky people were these people.
Those armies are like locusts. Tens of millions or even more people have been displaced due to the war.
Su Fan also tried his best to stay together, but the long journey itself was very dangerous, and there was nothing Su Fan could do.
I can only do my best.
Of course, after he captured Xuzhou, the whole of Xuzhou quickly entered peace. There may still be bullies in the local area, but at least there was no war, and the people at the bottom did not need to be displaced and could still survive.
Moreover, the army of the East China Sea Territory began to station in various counties and began to sweep away the bandits and bandits in the surrounding areas. In just a few months, the entire Xuzhou was wiped out in an instant.
Commerce and trade also became more prosperous.
After all, bandits and bandits like to rob horse caravans. Without these bandits and bandits, the caravans will naturally be more enthusiastic, and more caravans will enter Xuzhou.
Even many nobles' senses towards Su Fan have changed a bit. At least this is a good thing for Xuzhou and the nobles.
Although merchants have a low status, aristocratic families are also engaged in business. The original Mi family was a top business family.
The commercial base built by Su Fan in Donghai County has raised Xuzhou's business to several levels, especially the products produced in Donghai County, which are extremely popular throughout the Shenhan.
The Mi family is backed by the Donghai Territory, but they are making a lot of money. The Mi family, which was originally the lowest among the four major business families, is now almost second to none.
It's only been a few years.
The role of role models is very powerful. The aristocratic families in Donghai County saw that the Mi family was getting stronger and stronger, so they also changed their thinking.
He began to get closer to Su Fan. In the end, the nobles did not stop any of Su Fan's movements in Donghai County.
Even though a lot of their land was confiscated and they were asked to take out many illegal households, these nobles did not object.
Because Su Fan gave too much.
After commerce developed, they discovered that they could not make much money just from the land.
In the past, aristocratic families valued land because of food, and food was wealth.
But it does not exist in the East China Sea Territory, and it is difficult to link food and money, because there is so much food in the East China Sea Territory, and the price is outrageously low.
The nobles were not fools. When they saw that they could not make money, of course they were unwilling. On the contrary, all kinds of commodities in the East China Sea Territory were wealth, whether they were agricultural products such as salt and sugar, luxury accessories such as glassware, or fur clothing.
It's a hot-selling item.
So they drank the soup together, and each of them became rich. The family's wealth increased several times.
The nobles in Donghai County also had the strongest support for Su Fan.
As the Donghai County nobles communicated more and more with the Xuzhou family, some situations in the Donghai Territory became known to the Xuzhou family.
Even more people and caravans poured into Donghai County.
Su Fan's influence in Xuzhou is also increasing day by day.
This is a good thing. It boils a frog in warm water and slowly takes Xuzhou into its own hands.
In fact, it is not that no one has noticed this situation. There are many smart families, but Su Fan's method is fair and can be said to be a conspiracy.
Even if they discovered it, they would be unable to stop it. After all, the benefits Su Fan brought to everyone were really incomparable to the mere loss of some land and tenants.
The land may have been valuable before, but it is not valuable now, especially since Su Fan sent an army to continuously sweep away the surrounding bandits and bandits. At the same time, he also hunted the wild beasts and drove the wild beasts into the mountains and rivers.
Wild flat land can be developed into more land. Once there is too much of anything, it is really worthless.
Of course, in troubled times, when princes everywhere are short of food, food is still valuable.
However, Su Fan had made preparations beforehand to prohibit the flow of grain from Xuzhou. Anyone who was discovered would be punished ten times.
Not only that, he also asked Guan Hai to send a group of elites to guard some pipeline intersections leading to and from Xuzhou, specifically to rob the horse teams transporting grain.
After a few times, those caravans of nobles who secretly took risks no longer dared to transport grain out of Xuzhou after suffering losses.
Smart people all know that the bandits are from the Zhendong General's Mansion, but so what, the Governor's Mansion has issued an order that cannot be violated on the surface.
I was robbed privately, so I could only swallow this sad loss.
As time went by, no one in Xuzhou went out to transport grain.
In fact, although there is a food shortage in various places, you really can't make much money from selling food. In this era, the roads are just like that, and the food transport fleet may consume half of the food on the road.