My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 125: General Zhuge Jin

Although Zhou Yu was not captured by Liu Bei, this little episode was not a complete loss for Liu Bei's camp.

At least Zhou Yu's presence made it easier for Liu Bei to capture Chu County and Tangyi. The original plan was to fight sieges in these two counties, but now Chu County was just a free gift, which reduced casualties and increased surrenders.

On the other hand, Zhuge Jin's plan of "first pretending to be Sun Ce to launch a surprise attack and force the Yuan army to land in Chu County, but failing. After Liu Bei's camp discovered Sun Ce's intention, he would take over and attack to avoid giving Sun Ce and Yuan Shu a chance to collude" might have seriously offended Sun Ce's camp.

Although this plan may not be leaked immediately after the war, if it is kept secret until the day of leakage, it will still have considerable side effects.

Now, although the plan was leaked at the first time, Sun Ce quickly showed his magnanimity by returning Zhou Yu's family, and he felt embarrassed to worry about these trivial matters anymore.

After all, this incident only damaged Sun Ce's friendship with Yuan Shu. But since Sun Ce had returned to the Han Dynasty, his friendship with Yuan Shu no longer existed.

Yuan Shu should hate Sun Ce more or less, Sun Ce is already a debtor and does not worry about it. Liu Bei can use him to increase hatred, and just pay off Gongjin's family.

……

For the next few days, both sides naturally lived in peace.

Yuan Shu also soon learned the news of the fall of Tangyi and Chuxian.

Because Sun Ce did not come out to clarify or object, Yuan Shu's understanding was completely consistent with Zhuge Jin's propaganda.

Yuan Shu was furious when he learned that Sun Ce was trying to attack Tangyi and Chuxian to gain a bridgehead in the north of the Yangtze River because he "did not want to gain any benefits from besieging Yuan Shu for territory in the future" so as to expand his territory in the future.

It is said that in the imperial palace in Shouchun, Yuan Shu smashed several pieces of jade and angrily called Sun Ce an ungrateful and ungrateful person.

Later, he heard that Sun Ce was forced to retreat because his fleet was discovered by Liu Bei's patrolling navy while he was attacking the two counties. Liu Bei was also inspired by Sun Ce's actions and decided to capture Tangyi and Chuxian in order to completely cut off the connection between Sun Ce and Yuan Shu.

After gradually accepting this narrative, Yuan Shu was no longer so angry. Instead, he had a subconscious thought:

"In that case, it would be a good thing to lose Tangyi and Chuxian, which are surrounded by enemies on three sides. If we don't lose them, Sun Ce will be able to border me. If Cao Cao and Liu Bei attack me in the future and the situation is unfavorable, Sun Ce will take advantage of the situation and take a bite.

Although I have lost two counties now, I have separated my territory from Sun Ce's by pretending to be Liu Bei. From now on, I only need to be wary of Liu Bei in the southeast, and I can be wary of one less enemy. This is a good thing."

After realizing this, Yuan Shu was no longer in a hurry to send more troops to the eastern border. He knew that Liu Bei's deployment was defensive and blocking, not that he suddenly had more ambitions for his territory.

Liu Bei is still a kind man.

Yuan Shu was betrayed in this way, and he occupied two counties for nothing, but he did not hate Liu Bei any more. Sun Ce did not hate Liu Bei for this either.

Letting Zhou Yu go and returning his family resulted in a temporary easing of external relations in Liu Bei's camp. It can be said that good things come to those who do good.

……

Liu Bei was also quite surprised to learn that he had gained a small piece of land for free without provoking any hostile backlash.

At the same time, I have a deeper understanding of Tzuyu's superb control of people's hearts and grasp of the situation.

In the following days, Liu Bei had to personally go to Tangyi and Chuxian to inspect and pacify the people, so as to restore local order as soon as possible and allow the people to return to their livelihood and production.

Because it was already late September and the autumn harvest was over, there was no traditional farm work to do, so Liu Bei transplanted Guangling's mature internal affairs management team over there, allowing local people to work in exchange for relief, and to take advantage of the slack season to improve irrigation conditions, or to teach them to grow a season of winter mustard like the people of Guangling.

At this time last year, Liu Bei had just captured Guangling. At that time, military rations were extremely scarce. Zhuge Jin taught him the Jiangdong method of growing winter mustard. In order to stagger the planting time with rice, the mustard seeds could be cultivated in the soil indoors for ten days to half a month in advance, and then sown in the fields with soil after they sprouted slightly. This provided the people of Guangling with more food sources after the beginning of spring this year.

This tactic would of course also be transplanted to Tangyi, Chuxian and Xuyi, which were newly occupied by Liu Bei, so that the fields that were originally completely abandoned and unproductive in winter could barely produce enough extra vegetables to feed the local farmers for one or two months.

(In fact, vegetables and whole grains are mixed together. Originally, the whole grains for two months can be eaten with vegetables boiled into mixed vegetable porridge to barely last for three or four months. Eating only vegetables is not enough.)

In addition, due to time constraints, it was actually too late to cultivate mustard from the seed stage in mid-to-late September. Therefore, the mustard seeds used in Chu County were semi-finished products that Zhuge Jin had specially transported from Guangling. They had been cultivated with soil for more than half a month and were ready for the farming season.

Anyway, the cost of the seed and soil cultivation stage is very low. In order to be prepared for any eventuality, Zhuge Jin made preparations to "breed an extra batch of rapeseed" in advance before planning to capture Chu County. As soon as the city was captured, the seedlings were immediately sent to local farmers for white seeds. It can be said to be a one-stop service. This also shows his absolute confidence in taking this place easily.

Refugees from the upper reaches of the Huainan River were still pouring down the river from Yuan Shu's rule to Liu Bei every day.

Even if Guangling has a good harvest this year, if we do not make every effort to expand food production, even if we use drift nets to catch Yangtze River fish and sea fish on a large scale, it will not be able to feed so many people.

In addition, while Zhuge Jin suggested promoting the planting of winter mustard in Xuyi and Chuxian, he made adjustments in Guangling. This year, he specifically suggested that Liu Bei set aside about one and a half counties of land in Sheyang County between Guangling and Huaiyin, and in the southern part of Haixi County at the mouth of the Huai River for a new pilot project.

These two counties were not originally extended the winter mustard planting last year (last year due to lack of time, only Guangling County and Huaiyin County planted winter mustard), so the relevant planting techniques had to be learned from scratch. In this case, we might as well not learn it and directly learn how northerners plant winter wheat in winter.

Zhuge Jin later learned a lot of geography and knew that the Huai River was the geographical dividing line between the north and the south. Therefore, the areas north of the Yangtze River and south of the Huai River, as well as the area along the river north of the Huai River, were all perfect for interplanting rice and wheat. Both wheat and rice could survive.

It is just because before the Tang and Song dynasties, the growing seasons of wheat and rice conflicted - after wheat was planted in winter, it could not be harvested until April or May of the following year, which is from early summer to midsummer (winter wheat in the north matures even later the following year because of the cold weather in the north, and winter wheat in Huainan matures the earliest)

Rice planted in spring must be sown at least in March. Therefore, the wheat harvest season and rice planting season overlap for at least one and a half months, making it impossible to intercrop. However, in history, after the Tang and Song dynasties, rice transplanting technology was developed. Rice no longer had to occupy large fields during the first two months of breeding. It could grow in small seedling fields for two months, and then plant the seedlings in the large fields after the winter wheat was harvested and the fields were vacated.

In this way, it is possible to grow wheat in winter and spring and rice in summer and autumn, and harvest two staple foods a year.

Since Zhuge Jin had invented the technology of growing winter mustard last year, and had cultivated a large number of farmers among the people who knew the idea of "breeding in advance, accumulating soil, and waiting for germination, and then transplanting to the fields", it would not be so difficult to transplant this technology to rice seedling cultivation.

It is nothing more than changing last year's "early cultivation of mustard seedlings" to "early cultivation of rice seedlings".

Moreover, once this technology is invented, there is no need to worry about Cao Cao or other northern princes benefiting from it, because the weather conditions in the north are not suitable for growing rice, and the climate environment in the south is not suitable for growing wheat. Only the Huainan area is located on the geographical dividing line between the north and the south, which happens to be the climate and geographical environment where both wheat and rice can grow well.

In other words, after this technology is invented, theoretically the biggest beneficiary next year will be Yuan Shu, because Yuan Shu's territory is completely in this climate benefit zone. It's a pity that Yuan Shu will not know about this technology in the first place, nor will he pay attention to it. By the time Yuan Shu knows about transplanting this technology, he is probably no longer in this world.

Apart from Yuan Shu, the second biggest potential beneficiary of this technology was Liu Bei, who happened to occupy the most fertile northern Jiangsu plain in the lower reaches of Huainan.

In addition to these two big players, there are some other scattered beneficiaries who may be able to gain some benefits from this technological advancement in the future, but those princes must be located on the geographical dividing line between north and south China.

For example, in Liu Biao's Xiangyang County, as well as the northernmost part of Nan County where Jiangling is located, and the narrow plain area on both sides of the Han River, winter wheat and summer rice can also be planted together.

There is also the Hanzhong Basin and the upper reaches of the Han River, which are now occupied by Zhang Lu and are also areas suitable for growing rice and wheat.

In addition, other princes in the world cannot benefit from the rice planting method because the geographical environment is not suitable.

Liu Biao and Zhang Lu were not to be feared. In addition, with the speed of information flow at the end of the Han Dynasty, it would take at least many years for these agricultural technologies to become popular, so they would not be considered as aids to the enemy.

However, Zhuge Jin had never farmed in his previous life. He only raised and planted rice seedlings in the countryside of Zhuge Town, Lanxi, when he was in elementary school. Later, he was admitted to the best middle school in the city and lived in the school instead of farming. So after more than 20 years, he had almost forgotten how to control the timing of raising and planting rice seedlings.

Therefore, he did not dare to promote it across the entire territory this time. In the end, he only selected one and a half counties as the first batch of pilot projects in the third year of Jian'an.

Even if it failed, at most the rice harvest in the second season would drop sharply, but the wheat in the first season could still be harvested in full. It would just waste a few more months of labor for the pilot people and bear some of the yield difference between wheat and rice (the yield per unit area of wheat is lower than that of rice, and Zhuge Jin's experiment can only guarantee that the earlier crops will be harvested, and the later crops may have a reduced yield at the wrong time).
If the pilot is successful and a sufficient number of farmers who have learned the rice planting and raising techniques are trained, the technology can be further promoted to various parts of Huainan under Liu Bei's rule by the spring of the fourth year of Jian'an.

……

Since Zhuge Jin was absorbed in planning and researching the rice planting next spring and the rotation of rice and wheat twice a year, Liu Bei's camp adopted a posture of seeking stability in all aspects after taking over the Chuxian Basin.

All the generals stopped their activities and just trained their soldiers and guarded their places. Some of the idle soldiers were even assigned to rectify irrigation, or to help cut wood and process hemp, and to expand the production of new fishing boats and gillnets.

The entire Guangling County has temporarily returned to the rhythm of farming development.

Half a month passed in a flash, and soon it was the end of September and the beginning of October.

The envoys of Sun Shao and Jian Yong also arrived at Xudu smoothly. After a brief negotiation with the court of Xudu, the decrees for the rewards of other generals except Liu Bei himself were quickly obtained.

This is also because Liu Bei has not yet been able to persuade Cao Cao and Lu Bu to make peace, and Liu Bei's own reward is linked to the results of his mediation. Cao Cao also hopes that Liu Bei will put in more effort, so he has to delay it for the time being.

It is estimated that Liu Bei's official position would not be determined until Zhuge Liang successfully mediated in Hebei and got Yuan Shao to put pressure on Cao Cao.

But Cao Cao couldn't just take credit for the contributions of the warriors below him, as that would easily anger the public. Besides, the size of the official positions of those grassroots generals had no impact on Liu Bei's development at all. Cao Cao didn't need to be a villain, so he agreed more readily.

On the third day of October, Sun Shao and Jian Yong attended a court meeting and received the first imperial edict.

"Danyang Governor Zhuge Jin was promoted from General of the Central Army of Pingyue to General Fubo and was granted the title of Marquis of Zhuting for his merit in defeating the rebel Zu Lang."

(Note: "Zhu Ting Hou" here means "Ting Hou who was granted the title in Zhu County". There was a Zhu County in Langya County, which was located on the border between Langya County and the neighboring Beihai County of Qingzhou.

The ancestors of the Zhuge family lived in Zhu County and were surnamed Ge. Later, Zhuge Feng of the Western Han Dynasty moved to Yangdu County. Because there were also wealthy families surnamed Ge in Yangdu County, the Zhuge family was called "Zhuge" to distinguish themselves from the Ge family that moved from Zhu County. Zhuge Jin's last title was Marquis of Duting last year, see Chapter 87.)
"Guan Yu, the commander of the army, was promoted to Lieutenant General and granted the title of Marquis of Duting for his merits in defeating Liu Xun and Qiao Rui." (Previously, he was Marquis of Guannei)

The only thing that surprised Jian Yong was that because of Liu Bei's achievements boasted in advance in his memorial, such as "destroying Chu County and Xuyi, and threatening Shouchun", Zhang Fei was also successfully appointed as a miscellaneous colonel, the same as Taishi Ci.

Zhao Yun was promoted to the rank of miscellaneous commander, which meant he caught up with Gan Ning - but this was mainly due to Gan Ning's main contribution this time. In order to conceal the depth of cooperation between Liu Bei and Zhuge, some of it was transferred to Guan Yu. Therefore, the small victory of blocking the Yangtze River alone was not enough for promotion.

In other words, even though they are both captains, there are actually differences in their "realms". To use the fantasy saying, Gan Ning is now at the "peak of the captain realm", and he is just a little bit away from becoming a lieutenant, while Zhao Yun is only at the "initial captain realm".

After Jian Yong confirmed the good news, he finally breathed a sigh of relief and immediately sent his servants to rush the appointments back to Guangling, so that the promoted people would be happy. As for himself, he had to stay in Xudu and wait for Liu Bei's decision on the reward.

While Sun Shao and Jian Yong were operating in Xudu.

Zhuge Liang and Zhao Yun finally took the sea route around the Shandong Peninsula and arrived at the Bohai Bay. They were about to land in Qingzhou to start negotiations with Yuan Tan.

　Because I added more chapters last night, this chapter was updated an hour late this morning. There is no other way. I didn't save any drafts. I got up at 6am and wrote it now.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)