The weather has become colder since autumn. At the Qingzhou Military Camp outside Handan City, one after another baggage trucks slowly drove into the camp. This was the arrival of a new batch of grain, grass and autumn clothes.
The soldiers distributed supplies in an orderly manner, and Qingzhou's agriculture developed rapidly. Coupled with the benefits of sea salt, Qingzhou became the richest state capital in the world.
Historically, Yuan Shao's Jizhou had the strongest foundation. It was said that he had millions of armored men and enough food and grass to sustain him for ten years.
But Qingzhou at this time was not too bad. Although the inherent disadvantage was too obvious, that is, there were more mountains and less cultivated land. However, after reasonable policies and continuous reclamation of wasteland, Qingzhou's grain production still increased significantly.
The most important thing is that the productivity of the Han Dynasty was not too bad, because based on a person's normal diet of three shi of food per month, the food needed for a year was 36 shi.
At that time, the average yield of millet and wheat was about three stones per mu. The Yellow River Basin in the north could produce two crops a year, summer millet and winter wheat. Normally, one person could provide for his own food and clothing by cultivating six acres of land.
Qingzhou has more than 40 million acres of land. Calculated in the most ideal way, it can easily support more than 6 million people.
But that's not how the accounts were calculated. Not only the harvest had to be taken into consideration, but also excessive taxes, natural and man-made disasters, manor landlords and other factors. After layer upon layer of exploitation, the people were left with very little. A family of five could not survive without fifty acres of land.
Therefore, during the period of Emperor He, the population of Qingzhou was 630,000 households and 3.7 million people. On average, each person needed to farm ten acres of land to survive, which was a relatively reasonable number.
Of course, this is only an approximate number, because Yin Tian and Yin Hu must also be taken into account.
Over the years, Qingzhou has been inspecting hidden fields, reclaiming wasteland, and absorbing the population. Over the past ten years, millions of acres of hidden fields have been identified, and more than one million acres of wasteland have been reclaimed. The overall cultivated land area has reached more than 50 million acres.
Then there is half of the cultivated land in Xuzhou. Calculating it this way, the total cultivated area currently controlled by the Qingzhou Group has reached 78 million acres. It can barely keep up with Jizhou's output and feed a population of more than six million.
At the same time, it can also support frontline battles.
All of this is inseparable from the operation of the Qingzhou Administration Secretary and Xun Yu and others who are sitting in the rear. It also requires a relatively strong bureaucratic system to maintain it, just like Liu Bang needs Xiao He. Without Xun Yu, Liu Bei would not be able to sustain it for long.
Fortunately, Chen Mu helped Liu Bei build a solid foundation. He used Haiyan to develop commerce, Taishan Academy to discover talents, crack down on powerful people, and rectify landlords. Although there were minor problems, overall he was able to maintain the healthy operation of the regime.
But now Qingzhou Group has begun to expose some problems, that is, Taishan Academy absorbs talents from all over the world, and with more and more graduates, the bureaucracy has begun to develop in a bloated direction.
The entire six counties of Qingzhou have 65 cities, one carrot and one pit. Under normal circumstances, it is the limit to fill more than a thousand officials, but now there are nearly three thousand officials, and the ratio of officials to citizens is 1:2000.
Although it is not comparable to the redundant officials of the Song Dynasty, the ratio of officials to civilians in the Han Dynasty is generally around 1 to 8,000. This number is still much higher than the average level of the Han Dynasty. Therefore, it is foreseeable that the current bureaucratic group actually hopes that Liu Bei's influence will be extended outwards.
This will make their cake bigger.
This is an inevitable problem, just like the conflict between the Jingzhou interest group and the Yizhou interest group when Liu Bei was in Sichuan and Shu in history. Therefore, during this period, I hope Liu Bei will solve it as soon as possible. Yuan Shao's official documents are like snow flakes heading to Jizhou.
deliver.
After Liu Bei had dealt with the day's affairs and distributed all the grain, grass and baggage brought from the rear today to the various camps, he returned to the tent and saw the mountains of official documents. He smiled bitterly and said: "They are here to urge me to attack again.
"
Chen Mu basically burned these official documents as firewood. When he saw Liu Bei coming in and the autumn wind blowing on Xuan'er causing the candles in the tent to sway, he put down the official documents in his hand and said with a smile: "It's about his own interests."
"Can't these people, one by one, think about national affairs besides their own interests?"
Liu Bei sat back down in his seat angrily. Suddenly he caught a glimpse of Jushu, who looked a little embarrassed. He asked curiously: "My lord, what's going on?"
Chen Mu joked: "Many people in the Gongyu family have not been assigned jobs after graduating from the academy. Now they can only serve as local officials or have nothing to do, farming and producing at home. The Ju clan leader urged Gongyu to do it in front of his elder brother.
Let’s talk, while we are united and sending an official message of persuasion to this side without our orders.”
Otherwise, it was Jushu's younger brother Juzong. The interest group is like this. Just like when Cao Cao attacked, countless people persuaded Sun Quan to surrender. What they were afraid of was that once the war started, their interests would not be protected. After surrendering, Sun Quan would lose power anyway.
Their local aristocratic families still retain their fields and official positions, and whether Sun Wu dies or not is none of their business.
The same is true now. There has been a situation of redundant officials in Qingzhou. The Qingzhou bureaucracy is eager for Liu Bei to "open up the territory" so as to extend their influence outwards and allow the children of their own families to serve as officials, instead of like now
There is still a queue, so it is reasonable to write a letter to persuade Liu Bei to wipe out Yuan Shao as soon as possible and capture Jizhou.
But now Liu Bei already knows that if Yuan Shao will be eliminated soon, his value will be reduced a lot, and the court may also start to take action against him, so of course he does not want to attack Yuan Shao as soon as possible, even if the official document of persuasion comes one by one
After sealing it, various explanations were used to reason and emotion, but anyway, they just ignored it and continued to put it off.
Liu Bei shook his head and said to Jushou: "I understand their mood. There is no need to worry about the public."
"Thank you Ming Gong."
Jushou breathed a sigh of relief, he was also quite embarrassed about this matter.
In fact, he is not the only one, many middle and high-level officials in Qingzhou are involved in this way. It is inevitable that human affairs accidents cannot be escaped.
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! Liu Bei sat down in his seat, stretched out, and took a long breath: "The weather is also strange. It is sometimes cold and hot. Sometimes it is so hot that it kills me during the day.
, people freeze to death at night. A few days ago, several sentries on duty outside contracted typhoid fever, and they had to instruct military doctors to boil more decoctions to be careful of epidemic diseases."
"Yes, I understand. This matter has been ordered. However, there is not much storage in the warehouse. If you want to cook the decoction to prevent the epidemic on a large scale, you have to wait for a new batch of medicinal materials to be delivered."
Chen Mu said: "In today's world, it's hard to buy medicinal materials. The fleet spent a lot of effort to get a batch of new medicines from Lingnan. Wen Ruo told me last time that it had been delivered to Qingzhou and it would be delivered to Qingzhou soon.
The front line should be arriving soon."
"That's best."
Liu Bei nodded, and they chatted for a while about official military affairs. When the army is stationed in one place, food, clothing, housing and transportation are all problems. It costs tens of thousands every day. Thanks to Qingzhou's rich heritage, it can afford it. Otherwise, it would have been a long time ago.
Can't stand it any longer.
The three of them were chatting when someone outside suddenly shouted: "Urgent report!"
"Come in."
Liu Bei quickly asked people to come in.
A soldier came in and knelt down on one knee and said: "Ming Gong, a white cloth has been erected on the top of Handan City. There are cries in the city. General Zhang suspects that Yuan Shao is dead. He ordered me to report to Ming Gong. What should I do now?"
Now outside Handan City, in addition to Liu Bei and Chen Mu, there are also a total of seven troops including Qianzhao, Zhang Fei, Zhang Liao, Gao Shun and Xianyu Auxiliary. These troops range from ten to twenty thousand to four to five thousand.
, scattered and surrounded and stationed around Handan City.
Chen Mu's defense area is to the northwest of Handan City, and Liu Bei's defense area is to the south of Handan City. The reason why they are together today is because after the new supplies arrived, Liu Bei asked Chen Mu to come over to handle the distribution of supplies.
Some of their troops are relatively far away. For example, Liu Bei's troops are on the periphery, about ten miles away from Handan, and some are close. The closest one is Zhang Liao's tribe, which is about four or five miles away from Handan City.
In addition, there were countless sentries, scouts, and scouts around Handan City. Zhang Liao also built some hills outside the city and built high oars to observe the movements in the city.
Although Yuan Shao is a grasshopper after the autumn and will not be able to reach it for long, Handan City and Ye City are two big cities after all. They have high walls, thick walls, and moats. It is not that easy to break through. The most important thing is that Bingzhou is still Yuan Shao's nephew.
In the hands of senior officials.
The governor of Yanmen, Guo Jian, died in office the year before last. The Guo family of Taiyuan fled south to Luoyang, and Gaogan joined forces with the Xiongnu, Xianbei and others to occupy Bingzhou.
Historically, he had 50,000 troops to provide Yuan Shao with food, fodder and soldiers' supplies. The same is true now. He has tens of thousands of troops under his command, plus Xiutu's various tribes, which can be said to be a strong force. From time to time, he unites with the Huns and Xianbei to send troops to Hedong to threaten Luoyang.
Fortunately, the name of the Eight Passes of Luoyang is well-deserved. Jiguan is an important pass at Zhiguanxing, one of the Eight Passes of Taihang. It just separates Hedong from Luoyang. Therefore, although high officials tried to threaten Luoyang through Hedong many times, they were all stopped at Jiguan.
It is difficult to threaten the hinterland of Luoyang.
But even so, by arriving at Shexian from Fukouxing in Shangdang County, and heading east to Wu'an, you can still reach Handan. Now the senior officials have stationed 30,000 troops in Shexian, eyeing Handan, and it seems possible to send troops to rescue uncle Yuan Shao at any time.
Therefore, the Qingzhou Army and the three coalition forces from Luoyang and Youzhou surrounded Handan Ye City with three layers inside and three layers outside, in order to prevent Yuan Shao from resurrecting and unite high-ranking officials to cause something.
Unexpectedly, Yuan Shao suddenly died of illness at this time. This was, at least on the surface, great news for the coalition forces.
"Yuan Shao is dead?"
Chen Mu was in a daze for a moment. He had some doubts about the authenticity of the matter, because he remembered that Yuan Shao died two years later in history. Now that he died early, he was not sure of the authenticity.
But history itself has already undergone tremendous changes with his participation, and it is unpredictable whether the characters will die early or late.
For example, Liu Yu should have been killed by Gongsun Zan long ago, but he is not dead yet, which has proved everything.
Who can say for sure that Yuan Shao, who was supposed to die of illness two years later, would be defeated early because he contracted a serious disease after the Battle of Jieqiao?
What makes Chen Mu dumbfounded is that now that Yuan Shao is dead, the Yuan family has basically lost all hope of making a comeback. It will be easy to deal with Yuan Tan and Gao Gan, and it won't take much effort.
In that case, considering the interests of the imperial court, a new Jizhou shepherd will be sent over soon, and then the household registration and genealogy information of the descendants of Emperor Zhang in Hejian will be sorted out, and a new young emperor will be selected. Then it is very likely that Liu Bei will take the throne normally.
Smaller.
At that time, I am afraid that I will have to follow Cao Cao's path and be the prime minister for decades. In the future, I will wait until the generation of Liu Feng and Liu Hou to consider usurping the throne?
To be honest, this was a bit difficult for Chen Mu to accept.
Liu Bei was also shocked when he heard the news and asked: "Is the news true?"
"Absolutely true."
The scout replied.
Jushou said quickly: "Ming Gong, you still have to go and see for yourself."
"Well, prepare your horses and go to Handan to see what's going on."
Liu Bei didn't care about anything else. Yuan Shao's death at this time was indeed not good news for them.
The three of them hurriedly got out of the tent and headed for the front line surrounded by heavy black armored cavalry.
Zhang Liao was stationed in the east of the city. When the three of them arrived outside the city, they saw more than 20 or 30 large and small earthen hills erected about two miles away from the city gate.
A large number of high oars were built on the earth mountain. It seemed that someone on the high oars had been watching with telescopes. Zhang Liao had learned about Liu Bei's arrival in advance and had already greeted them before they came near.
"Ming Gong, Shaofu, Military Advisor!"
Zhang Liao came in a hurry, dismounted, knelt down on one knee and saluted.
Lu Shang, who Liu Bei was riding on, raised his hands and said, "Wenyuan, please get up. How is Handan?"
"You will know if you go and take a look, Ming Gong."
Zhang Liao got up, got on his horse and led the way. As he walked, he said: "Today I was inspecting the camp and looking into the city with a telescope. Suddenly I saw a piece of silk hanging on the city wall. I became suspicious, so I sent someone to get closer. I only heard crying at the city wall.
There was a lot of howling, and someone shouted that Yehou was dead, so I immediately sent someone to inform Duke Ming."
"Um."
Liu Bei nodded.
Only Chen Mu and Jushou looked at each other, and there were many doubts.
Yuan Shao is dead. If the people in the city want to continue to resist, in order to prevent the morale of the army from being unstable, they will definitely choose not to mourn him secretly and not announce the news of his death to the public.
Because as the backbone of Jizhou, once he falls, the morale of the entire army will collapse, and the Yuan family will have only one way to defeat.
But now there is a big fanfare in the city, hanging silk hangings, and still crying at the top of the city, hoping to let everyone know that Yuan Shao is dead. Unless the guards in the city are extremely stupid, otherwise, there are only two situations.
First, the city has already planned to surrender and break the pot, and has no intention of continuing to resist.
Second, it’s a scam.
Chen Mu and Jushou are both smart people, and they believe it is the latter.
But now is not the time to think about this issue, let’s wait and see first.
The group came to Tushan. Zhang Liao took Liu Bei and Chen Mu Jushou up to Tushan, climbed to the high oar, and watched with binoculars.
Then they saw that the city head was as plain as Zhang Liao said. There were only a few troops that were supposed to be heavily guarded. There were still people beating the city head and crying.
After a while, the east city gate suddenly opened, and more than ten people wearing white clothes slowly walked out of the city. Some of them were holding swords, some were holding seals, and the person in the front was holding an official document with both hands.