The twenty-level military merit system and the rumors released by the imperial court made Cao Cao feel like he was facing a formidable enemy.
Did Cao Cao know that Yuzhou was a trap?
Of course he knows.
But he had to drink poison to quench his thirst and swallow this thorny trap.
The reason is also said that if he does not take Yuzhou, he will have no way out and will be completely surrounded by the imperial court.
The twenty-level military merit system frightened him even more.
To be honest, Cao Cao still doesn't understand where the imperial court got the money and confidence to restore the system of the Pre-Han Dynasty that almost caused Emperor Wu to collapse.
You must know that the essence of this system is to use money to buy the lives of soldiers and use large amounts of rewards to make soldiers fearless of death.
Dare to do this, first of all, the national treasury needs to be extremely abundant.
The reason why Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty dared to launch so many wars was entirely because of the foundation laid by Wenjing's rule.
It took two generations of emperors seventy years to help Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty create a sufficient treasury. Before Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty took over, the treasury had piles of coins.
Even so, the big man was almost killed in several battles.
But now it is the chaotic times of the late Han Dynasty, and the imperial court is even more short of money. It is spending money to fight wars everywhere. Even if Qingzhou has the advantage of sea salt, it will never be able to support the enthusiasm of the twenty-level military merit system.
Where did the imperial court get its money?
Could it be that there is a giant gold, silver and copper mine in Qingzhou that is easy to mine?
This issue has been lingering on Cao Cao for a long time. It is not that he has no insiders in Qingzhou. Most of his father and some clans are in Qingzhou.
There is no news about this at all.
I only heard that Qingzhou promotes brass and uses brass to make coins, and this brass is made from bronze.
This gave Cao Cao three judgments based on this issue. First, Liu Bei discovered a large gold, silver, and copper mine elsewhere, and it must be open-pit and easy to mine.
But this possibility is very small, because there are countless minerals in the Han Dynasty for four hundred years, but they are not so easy to mine and find.
Second, the imperial court used a small amount of bronze and other minerals to refine brass, thus reducing the cost of bronze and replacing the original bronze five-baht coins, so that brass coins could be issued on a large scale.
But what mineral can be combined with bronze to produce brass?
Gold?
And if the proportion of copper is too small, will the people be willing to use it? What will be the consequences of indiscriminate distribution? Will it lead to the emergence of iron coins like Gongsun Shu in the late Han Dynasty, causing prices to skyrocket and people's livelihood to be difficult?
Third, brass is still bronze, but it has been washed using a special method, just like iron is black but becomes silver-gray after being smelted into steel.
In that case, it means that the imperial court did not increase its coin storage.
Liu Bei is tightening his belt and plans to use the past few years to recuperate and accumulate some foundation in Qingzhou and Jizhou to level him with the twenty-level military merit system.
If that's the case, then everything makes sense.
The imperial court is still the same imperial court, and it does not have a large amount of coins. Liu Bei wants to use the current reserves to burn everything and capture Henan as soon as possible!
Dingtao County.
This time many of Cao Cao's advisers gathered together.
In the past, these counselors all had positions in various places, but now they gathered together for meetings.
The content of the meeting was to first confirm his intention to go to Yuzhou.
Although drinking poison is said to quench thirst, it is also a last resort.
Everyone does have a lot of worries, but now that the situation is like this, there is nothing they can do.
The content of the second meeting was naturally to discuss the purpose of the imperial court's military campaign.
The twenty-level military merit system seems to be just a system, but its power is quite powerful at this time, because it can greatly improve the morale and morale of soldiers.
In the cold weapon era, the number of people is often not the decisive factor in fighting. The right time, place and people are the three magic weapons of war.
The weather is not as good as the right place, and the right place is not as good as the people.
Here, "humanity" can be understood as the people's morale, and it can also be understood as the military morale.
If soldiers sacrifice their lives and fight hard, they can often achieve the effect of one against ten.
The Battle of Julu and the Battle of Jingxing are typical examples.
When morale is high, it is not unusual for an army of 1,000 to defeat an army of 10,000 without any fighting spirit.
Therefore, after discovering that the imperial court was more powerful than him and even activated the twenty-level military merit system, which was a killer weapon, Cao Cao was also very panicked and had to find out why the imperial court dared to do this.
"Most of the gold, silver and copper mines in various parts of the Han Dynasty are located in the south. For example, the gold mines are in Hanjia, Poyang, Yuzhang, Lingyang, Yongchang and other places. The silver mines are even less. Only Zhuti produces silver and has more copper mines.
But after hundreds of years of mining, the output of northern copper mines cannot increase dramatically overnight."
Xi Zhicai analyzed: "As for whether the imperial court discovered large-scale gold, silver and copper mines somewhere, this should be impossible. The areas currently occupied by the imperial court are all Han Dynasty. It has been one or two thousand years since the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. How could anyone have discovered it?
not found?"
Cao Cao nodded with deep understanding and said: "Yes, although Qingzhou has the advantage of sea salt and is richest in the world, it is impossible to collect a large amount of coins in a short period of time, so I am also wondering what the imperial court is doing?"
"I heard that there is brass money in Qingzhou. Could it be made by combining some other minerals with bronze?"
Chen Gong asked.
"This possibility cannot be ruled out."
Xi Zhicai said: "Bronze itself is made of copper and lead. Maybe other methods were used."
"Impossible, absolutely impossible."
Cao Cao shook his head and said: "Copper is originally red and yellow, but it turns blue after being smelted with lead. Qingzhou brass is as bright as gold. Could it be that gold is mixed in it? Where did Liu Bei get so much gold?"
Xi Zhicai said: "What Ming Gong said is indeed reasonable, but it is also true that Qingzhou is now issuing brass five-baht coins on a large scale, which makes people confused."
Cao Cao pondered: "Perhaps some method was used to wash away the green color of copper, just like iron is originally black but becomes as bright as silver after being made."
The ancients' metallurgical attainments can be traced back to before the Shang and Zhou dynasties. Bronze is not pure copper, but an alloy of copper and tin. The ancients called tin lead, and the ratio was tin, three, copper, and seven. Bronze was synthesized to create bronze vessels and bronze swords.
Popular in the Shang and Zhou dynasties.
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! Since the popularity of ironware during the Warring States Period, bronzeware has withdrawn from the stage of war. However, its significance as coins, ceremonial utensils, decorations, cooking utensils and furniture has still remained.
Especially coins, the five baht coins of the Han Dynasty were made of bronze.
The brass coins made in Qingzhou are similar to gold. If they are alloys, they are made of gold and copper. The price of gold is countless times more expensive than copper. No matter how wealthy you are, it is impossible to do this.
Therefore, Cao Cao did not believe that the brass coins were some kind of alloy. He believed that the original cyan color of the brass coins was washed away through some special method and turned into bright yellow.
Xi Zhicai thought: "Ming Gong means that no large-scale minerals were discovered in Qingzhou, but that the original bronze was refined into brass?"
Cao Cao nodded: "This is the only possibility. Otherwise, if there were new minerals, or they were smelted from certain minerals, how could no one have discovered it before for more than two thousand years from the Shang and Zhou dynasties? I prefer to believe that the imperial court now has
The property is not much different from before."
"If this is the case, then we have to consider another issue. That is, the imperial court's treasury is not as large as we imagined. So what is the reason for the imperial court to restore the twenty-level military merit system?"
Chen Gong said: "Aren't they afraid of resorting to military violence, which will eventually lead to the empty treasury and national turmoil like during the reign of Emperor Wu?"
"Gongtai is right. Although the twenty-level military merit system is powerful, it can cost countless amounts of money and food. Soldiers will be rewarded with a large amount of coins for killing one person. The accumulation of merit for killing three or even ten people is enough to purchase dozens of acres of fertile land."
Cheng Yu also pondered: "Since the imperial court has not discovered a huge reserve of gold, silver, and copper minerals, does that mean that the imperial court intends to use force to march into Henan?"
"I suspect that the imperial court wants to use the twenty military merit system to boost morale, seize Henan as soon as possible, and stabilize Guandong!"
Cao Cao expressed his speculation.
A wave of flow?
The same idea came to everyone's mind.
It's not that these three words appear in everyone's mind, but that this is what everyone thinks.
In the Battle of Changping that year, Qin and Zhao both followed this style of play. Both sides tightened their belts and competed for national strength. In the end, Zhao was defeated miserably.
So is there anything in Henan that is worthy of the imperial court’s expense?
have!
In the entire Guandong region, Henan and Hebei are the richest. If Henan can be captured quickly and the entire North China Plain is in hand, we will be in an invincible position.
After a few more years of cultivation, you will be able to regain your strength immediately.
By then, Jiangdong, Jingzhou, and Yizhou will be annexed sooner or later because their overall strength is not as good as that of the Central Plains.
"What we fight for is national strength."
Xi Zhicai said in a deep voice: "The imperial court plans to use the whole country to attack Henan."
Cao Cao thought it was very possible and immediately said: "If this is the case, as long as I persist, does it mean that the imperial court will be in a state of collapse?"
"It depends on how much knowledge the imperial court has accumulated in the past three years."
Xi Zhicai replied.
Everyone suddenly fell into deep thought.
Guo Jia remained silent and has not spoken a word until now.
The rest of the people were thinking, if the imperial court really planned to resort to violence, how long would they last until the imperial court collapsed?
You must know that even Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, relying on the foundation he had laid in the 70 years of Wenjing's rule, almost caused the country to collapse due to several wars. It was only by suppressing all the forces that the former Han Dynasty was not defeated early.
Later, Wang Mang usurped the throne, which was not without the consequences of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty's aggressive military campaigns.
However, the current imperial court was established from the great chaos, and its foundation is pitifully weak. Even if Qingzhou becomes rich due to the profit from sea salt, how long can it sustain its wealth?
The only thing that is needed to fight a war is financial resources. Even though the situation is such a big one, it is still necessary to resort to military force and choose the twenty-level military merit system to reward soldiers and forcibly improve morale. Then once the war becomes tense and the enemy is still unable to be defeated, the financial resources of the court will be wasted.
.
The output of gold, silver, and copper mines in the Han Dynasty was very limited. Copper mines had the highest output and were more or less found in all counties in the thirteen prefectures of the Han Dynasty. Silver mines had the lowest output. Only Zhuti in Yongchang County produced silver, and its location was in later generations.
Zhaotong area, Yunnan.
Zhuge Liang once said, "The gold from Han Dynasty and the silver from Zhu Ti are not enough to feed oneself.".
Therefore, as a precious metal, silver has almost no circulation value. This does not mean that it cannot be circulated, but that its output is too low. It has a price but no market. It is so small that it can hardly be used as currency. It can only be purchased with copper coins to make silver.
Quality jewelry.
Therefore, although the official currency of the Han Dynasty was the five-baht copper coin, silver was the same as silk and silk. Because of its higher value, people used it to exchange items, which was almost equivalent to coins.
The same goes for gold.
The output of gold in the Han Dynasty was slightly higher than that of silver, because all historical records from the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period to the Han Dynasty recorded that large-scale silver mines were only found in Yunnan, while there were several large-scale gold mines, such as Yizhou, Jingzhou, Yangzhou, Huaibei and other places.
, all have records of large-scale gold mines.
If these places were replaced by later maps, they would be Sichuan, Hunan, Hubei, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Jiangxi and Fujian. Almost all of them are in the south. There are no records of any large-scale gold mines in the north.
Because of this, during the Western Han Dynasty, the princes and nobles had a large amount of gold jewelry as burial objects. For example, the gold unearthed from the tomb of Haihunhou alone amounted to more than 120 kilograms.
But the problem is that these gold and silver mines are currently outside the control of the imperial court, and it is unrealistic for the imperial court to make money from gold and silver.
There are copper mines in the north, but the main copper mines in the Han Dynasty were also located in the Huaihe Yangtze River Basin and Sichuan. The copper mines in the north were small and medium-sized mines with not much output.
Therefore, the imperial court must now be in a stage where it cannot make ends meet. At the same time, the war has caused a large amount of money to be lost. Even if the excavation is at full power, it is already difficult to barely maintain the current regional economic system controlled by the imperial court.
For example, in history, Yuan Shao used mulberries and dates to pay his soldiers. Yuan Shu was even more unique and gave his brothers water plants and snails. Cao Cao was more conscientious. Due to the relationship between farming and farming, the food and grass were quite sufficient, so he gave them to the soldiers.
During meal time, some food is also distributed.
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! As for money?
It costs a life, but it costs money.
From this point of view, we can see how bad the economic system was at that time.
The situation at the end of the Han Dynasty was that productivity was low and the people did not have enough to eat. There was no minting system, coins were missing, and there was no money in the hands of the people and the government.
Therefore, after Liu Bei entered Shu, he implemented hundreds of money policies, and the government stabilized prices, and he was able to barely control Jihan's economic system.
To a certain extent, among the three kingdoms of Wei, Shu and Wu, Shu is the most economically prosperous country.
The same is the case now.
Liu Bei's court relied on Qingzhou's heritage and the large amount of land in Jizhou to provide free population to the people, absorb the refugees, and let the Baibo Army and the Black Mountain Army colonize the fields, thus restoring productivity.
But the monetary system should have also collapsed. After all, money is not grown through farming. There are few copper mines in the north, and the economy cannot recover so quickly.
But Liu Bei still dared to implement a twenty-level military merit system and spend a lot of money to motivate his soldiers. In Cao Cao's view, this was a typical militaristic move that would bring down the entire country.
He thought for a long time and said slowly: "If, I mean if, if the court does not have enough money, once a war breaks out, what will be the consequences if a large amount of money is given to the soldiers?"
"It will cause the national treasury to be empty and there will be no money available."
Xi Zhicai replied.
"Then what will the court do if it has no money to spare?"
Cao Cao asked again.
Xi Zhicai pondered: "The value of coins lies in commodity transactions. If the court has no money, it must either impose heavy taxes or mint small coins."
"What will happen?"
"The prices are soaring, and people are struggling to make ends meet."
"What's the explanation?"
"Dong Zhuo destroyed the five-baht coins and minted small coins. This kind of coins flowed into the people in large quantities, and its value was not equal to the five-baht coins. As a result, the price of grain skyrocketed and the people were miserable."
"Does this mean that if I can hold on longer, the imperial court will collapse faster because of the twenty-level military merit system?"
Every time Cao Cao asked a question, the light in his eyes became brighter.
Xi Zhicai knew a lot about economics. He nodded and said: "During the Han Dynasty, all the money in the treasury was used to fight wars. In order to solve the problem of the emptiness of the treasury, Han Wu imposed heavy taxes, which caused the price of private goods to skyrocket and the country was almost collapsed. During the Wang Mang period, the country was on the verge of collapse.
Without money, iron coins were minted everywhere, and the people had no means of living."
Anyone who knows a little bit about economics should understand the meaning of the terms inflation and deflation.
One is that productivity is insufficient and the country prints money aggressively, causing prices to rise higher and higher.
One is that productivity is high but the country has very little money, resulting in lower and lower prices.
"Book of Han·Shi Huo Zhi 1": "If the stock is too expensive, it hurts the people; if it is too cheap, it hurts the farmers. If the people are hurt, they will be separated; if the farmers are hurt, the country will be poor."
The Han people have long understood the consequences of inflation and deflation.
At present, Liu Bei's court relies on recuperation, and Chen Mu attaches great importance to agricultural production and vigorously develops science and technology, creating many tools that are beneficial to farming. Coupled with various policies, the productivity of the north is sufficient, and the court's food and grass are very sufficient.
But sufficient food does not mean sufficient money. Once there is not enough money, Liu Bei dares to use the twenty-level military merit system and spend all the money. The result will be a fiscal deficit and the national treasury will not have a cent.
Even people who don't understand economics should understand what the results will be.
Cao Cao has many capable men. Although he doesn't know professional terminology, he still understands these relatively simple economics, so he knows very well that if Liu Bei is so eager for quick success and wants to conquer Henan by spending money freely, it's okay if things go well, but if it doesn't go well,
, the longer the stalemate lasts, the more uncomfortable he will feel.
So after hearing Xi Zhicai's words, Cao Cao immediately became energetic and said: "If I take a defensive stance, I will definitely bring down the imperial court!"
Xi Zhicai asked: "What does Ming Gong mean?"
Cao Cao looked deeply to the northwest and said coldly: "I plan to block the enemy in stages in this battle. The longer it takes, the better it will be for us!"
Everyone looked at each other, slowly raised their hands and said: "I will obey the Ming Dynasty's order!"
Cao Cao smiled.
Liu Bei wanted to spend a lot of money to kill himself.
Then you will hold back and drag down Liu Bei's finances!
However, Cao Cao never imagined that he was not fighting a poor court.
Instead, they are at war with a gold mine, a silver mine, and several copper mines.
Japan is an island country with very few resources.
It is only rich in gold, silver and copper mines.
During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, a large amount of gold, silver, and copper flowed into our country. Several famous gold, silver, and copper mines, such as Sado Gold Mountain, Iwami Silver Mine, Ashio Copper Mountain, and Besshi Copper Mountain, have not been exhausted until modern times.
So Cao Cao thought that Liu Bei's twenty-level military merit system to attack him was a stupid move, but he didn't know that he didn't have any mines at home, so how could he dare to spend money so freely.