My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 214 What is supposed to come will come.

On the endless Yellow Sea, a strip of dark gray square mudflats stretches regularly along the coast.

Millions of years of sedimentation at the mouth of the Huai River have resulted in the coastal waters in this area being very flat and shallow. In many places, even if you go ten miles into the sea, the water depth is less than ten feet.

But if you are in the East China Sea south of the Yangtze River estuary, you don’t even have to go dozens of feet into the sea before the depths are deep enough to drown you.

The superior and flat seabed terrain at the mouth of the Huaihe River makes it extremely easy to "ask for land from the sea."

The long mudflat that Liu Bei saw at this moment was still under the sea just a month ago.

Now it is surrounded by a simple earth embankment built by Zhuge Jin, which looks very heroic as if a "map editor" was opened.

The altitude of these plots is generally only minus three to five feet when the sea water reaches its highest point every day, but at low tide, it can ensure that it is slightly above sea level.

Liu Bei looked around and just felt a sense of conquering nature, but he was just there to watch the fun and had no idea how these experimental salt fields worked, so he had to humbly ask:
"How can salt be produced from these mud fields? Do we have to carry buckets of seawater to these empty fields and dry them in the sun like we did in the old days? It means that we have to change the boiling method from burning wood to drying in the sun, and everything else is the same as the old method?"

Zhuge Jin was already prepared to answer some relatively advanced questions about chemical principles, but he didn't expect that Liu Bei couldn't ask such questions at all and only asked some of the most basic questions.

This did suppress Zhuge Jin's desire to perform, but he still answered quickly and fluently:
“How can we use manpower to carry it? When the tide comes in, we can dig a small hole in the earthen embankment outside to let the tide come in. When it reaches the highest point, we can block it again. When the tide goes out, we can slowly dry it in the sun.

With current technology, a batch of concentrated sea brine can be produced by exposing it to the sun for four consecutive days on rainless days. The concentrated brine can then be taken back and the bitter impurities can be removed using the original brine sprinkling method or other techniques.”

After answering, Zhuge Jin realized that his use of natural tides had actually far surpassed that of the ancients.

It's just that he thought it was so natural that he didn't realize it was progress. Just like when he used the tides to catch migratory fish three years ago, in his opinion, that idea was something that even elementary school students knew and didn't need to be explained, but the ancients didn't know it.

Liu Bei: "What if it rains?"

Zhuge Jin: "During the rainy season, we stop working. If the brine has been dried for a few days and it is expected to rain, we can only collect the brine in advance and use the old method to boil the remaining brine.

Anyway, it is still under trial, and there is no expectation of a complete transformation immediately. The construction of salt fields is a long process, and we can only mobilize corvée labor for two months of construction during the slack season every year.

Therefore, in the next few years, we will use both drying and boiling, and it is impossible to achieve everything in one go. There is time to adjust many problems during the slow expansion of production. As long as we analyze the problems clearly, we can solve them one by one, from rough drying, brine pouring and filtering to final salt production. "

Zhuge Jin was very good at breaking down system engineering and complex problems into small, difficult problems to solve. He also knew that it would be extremely difficult to change the salt boiling method to the salt drying method in one step, and he could not expect to directly copy modern technology by relying on theoretical knowledge and working behind closed doors.

Although he is a top high school lecturer and has mastered all the knowledge in math, physics and chemistry textbooks, there is still a gap between him and engineering practice.

Therefore, the most pragmatic and feasible attitude is to break down a big problem into a bunch of small problems, solve them one by one, and optimize them a little at a time.

Even if it is not possible to produce salt entirely by sun drying for the time being, we can first use the sun to dry out most of the moisture, which is also a huge improvement.

After all, the salt content of ordinary seawater is only 3%, which is more than ten times lower than the solubility of saturated solution. After the initial sun exposure, if the salt is concentrated to 20% or even only 10%, it can save 70% to 80% of the original energy consumption or the amount of firewood used.

As for the brine-sprinkling method of removing impurities that ordinary salt workers of this era had already mastered, although Zhuge Jin was able to make slight improvements, there was not much room for improvement - he just understood the chemical principles behind brine-sprinkling method of removing impurities better than the ancients.

He knew that today's salt workers generally use plant ash to remove impurities, and the main component of plant ash is potassium carbonate. When potassium carbonate is added to concentrated brine, bitter components such as calcium and magnesium ions will turn into calcium carbonate and magnesium carbonate precipitation, which can be filtered out, thus removing the main calcium and magnesium salt impurities in seawater.

The salt produced by this method will have a higher potassium content than normal seawater boiled down directly. Although potassium chloride has no toxic side effects, if it is given to modern people who lack exercise, they are likely to suffer from hyperkalemia, especially those who suffer from the three highs and affluence diseases.

Fortunately, the general public in the late Han Dynasty were manual laborers who sweated a lot every day and had a high potassium metabolism rate, so they had little chance of getting high blood pressure.

Therefore, we only need to use two sets of impurity removal technologies to produce two types of salt, low-cost high-potassium salt and high-cost low-potassium salt, and let manual laborers and mental laborers choose the salt that suits them.

Liu Bei listened to Zhuge Jin's account of several major technical contradictions and solutions, and felt more at ease as he did not aim too high.

It is great to be able to break down big problems into small goals, where every small change can directly lead to improved efficiency, and savings in manpower and fuel.

"It seems that this method of drying salt is not something that can be accomplished overnight. It should be improved gradually by the craftsmen and the people on their own initiative, so that it can be solid and steady. After the autumn harvest is completed, we will first build a thousand hectares of tidal salt fields along the coast to test the waters. Then we can ask the craftsmen if there are any inconveniences, and naturally we can brainstorm and get advice from everyone."

After the inspection, Liu Bei asked people to pack a few packets of high-potassium salt and low-potassium salt respectively, preparing to try whether there was any difference in taste.

Liu Bei did not have to wait long. When he was having dinner that night, he immediately discovered that the dishes cooked with the expensive salt that was not removed by the brine method had almost no bitterness and tasted closer to the expensive rock salt.

……

The inspection of Haixi County's windmill flour milling and salt drying industries was just a small episode in this autumn harvest inspection.

Liu Bei stayed in Haixi for two more days, and then continued to go up the Huai River, passing through Huaiyin and Xuyi, and then went to Hefei in a roundabout way.

The fleet started sailing and stopping on the eighth day of September. When it arrived in Hefei, it was already late September. The autumn rice harvest, which lasted more than half a month, was basically completed.

Whenever he arrived in a county, Zhuge Liang personally inspected the rice harvest, then checked the accounts of the military farm officials, analyzed the data, and summarized for the military farm officials in each county what had not been done well this year and how to strengthen technical improvements next year.

In general, this year's rice harvest was good, with an average harvest of at least 0.3% of the normal single-season rice. The two counties have promoted more than to million mu of Han fertile land (Han mu is about times the modern mu), and the extra rice harvest has reached millions of shi.

Of course, most of the increase in income belonged to the people, not the government. In particular, there were 200,000 to 300,000 refugees in the two counties of Huainan who had fled from Yuan Shu's former territory in Huaibei. When these people came, they needed the government to help them borrow money to keep alive, even for seed grain and food during the lean season.

After finally having our first bumper harvest, we naturally had to store more food to prepare for famine.

Of the millions of shi of additional revenue, the additional land tax that could be collected by the government was only a few hundred thousand shi (not counting loan repayments), which was about enough for an army of 100,000 to fight a war for half a year.

Liu Bei was very satisfied with this result.

Since the expansion of the territory to seven counties, the population and size of Liu Bei's army have expanded again. This year, he occupied half of Jiangxia and gained 200,000 people. The entire territory of Xiapi and three counties including Tancheng in Donghai County have a total of 500,000 to 600,000 people.

Moreover, because Cao Cao was unpopular in Xuzhou, after his army captured Pengcheng and Langya counties, more than 100,000 people fled from Pengcheng and Langya alone to the area occupied by Liu Bei.

The total population of Liu Bei's camp has also increased from 260 million last year to 350 million. In comparison, Sun Ce's camp had 180 million last year and it is still 180 million this year. Time is clearly on Liu Bei's side.

As long as Liu Bei continues to develop, the gap in absolute strength between him and Sun Ce will only get bigger and bigger, and the later the war starts, the more desperate Sun Ce will become.

……

In order to celebrate the bumper crop rotation harvest in the two Huainan counties, Liu Bei and the Zhuge brothers stayed in Hefei for a few more days, and Liu Bei was quite reluctant to leave.

After leaving Hefei, they would go their separate ways. Liu Bei and Zhuge Liang would go to Wancheng and then Jiangxia, while Zhuge Jin would go south to Juchao and then to Wuhu.

And during the few days they stayed in Hefei, the long-awaited "follow-up developments in the incident of Yang Chou killing Zhang Yang" finally triggered a chain reaction.

The Xudu court, which had been silent for many days, received a series of important news.

It was September 24th, and Liu Bei was listening to Zhuge Liang's report on the autumn harvest in Lujiang County early in the morning when Sun Qian suddenly rushed in with a bamboo tube containing a letter in his hand.

"My lord! Urgent news from Xudu! Yuan Shao recommended Qu Yi as the Inspector of the Imperial Guards, but was rejected by the court. However, Qu Yi still led his troops into Henei County in the name of the Inspector of the Imperial Guards to attack Yang Chou, under the pretext that 'Yang Chou killed Grand Marshal Zhang Yang without authorization, and Inspector Qu came here outraged to quell the rebellion'!
Yuan Shao recommended Qu Yi's official position on the first day of the month, but it was rejected by the court on the ninth day. On the fifteenth day, Qu Yi sent troops. Four days later, the court in Xudu also responded. Cao Cao had sent troops to Henei to fight Qu Yi, but he did not dare to raise the banner of war with Yuan Shao. "

Liu Bei, who had been rather lax in the past month, finally got excited after hearing the news.

He briefly recalled the three possibilities that Zhuge Jin had deduced, and then substituted them into his own scenario. After a brief thought, he asked Zhuge Jin, who was standing beside him, for advice:

"Zi Yu, could it be that Yuan Shao's choice today is what you said that day, 'fight without declaring war, only fight without scolding'? Yuan Shao and Cao Cao don't have enough excuses and courage to fight each other directly, so they use Qu Yi and Yang Chou as shields?"

When Zhuge Jin heard the news reported by Sun Qian just now, he also felt a little dazed.

Because history was indeed completely different from what he originally knew - Zhang Yang had been dead for two months, and Sui Gu still had not been able to take action again to kill Yang Chou to avenge Zhang Yang. Instead, he unexpectedly waited for Yuan Shao's punitive army to arrive and personally seek revenge.

It seems that the change in Yang Chou's timing and situation did cause Sui Gu's second rebellion to encounter a lot of extra difficulties. Sui Gu could not find an opportunity to strike, so he lay low for the time being.

But because Yuan Shao was the one who suffered a loss and was humiliated, and with his character that could not stand being at a disadvantage, he took revenge!
And because Yuan Shao was indecisive and did not want to bear the bad reputation, he could only fight without saying anything. In the end, it became a "proxy war" that used Qu Yi's white glove to isolate the bloodstain!
In history, it was not long after Gongsun Zan was destroyed that Yuan Shao found an excuse to kill Qu Yi. The specific reason is unknown, but the public said that Qu Yi was too powerful to be killed, too successful to be controlled, and too arrogant to be controlled.

Now that Qu Yi is still alive, it is reasonable for Yuan Shao to continue using him as a white glove.

If Qu Yi's battle against Cao Cao continues to be successful, just like his battle against Gongsun Zan, then he will become even more powerful in the future and will be killed by Yuan Shao sooner or later.

Or perhaps Qu Yi sensed the danger and took the initiative to rebel against Yuan Shao and establish himself as the emperor.

If Qu Yi failed in his fight against Cao Cao and lost his reputation, Yuan Shao could also push all the blame for rebelling against the court onto Qu Yi and clear himself of all blame - Qu Yi had already appointed himself as the Inspector of the Imperial Guards and was not nominally a direct subordinate of General Yuan Shao, so what did his self-willed actions have to do with Yuan Shao?

As for Cao Cao, he obviously knew that he was not as strong as Yuan Shao, so when Yuan Shao supported an agent, Cao Cao was happy to turn a blind eye.

When beating a dog, you have to look at the owner. Only by pretending not to know the owner behind the dog can you avoid offending the owner.

Zhuge Jin sorted out these connections and felt that this should be the case, so he told Liu Bei his latest analysis.

Liu Bei nodded repeatedly after listening to this, and at the same time felt a little proud: this time, he answered the question before Ziyu could start his analysis.

He also used the three possibilities that Zi Yu listed last time to deduce and confirmed which of the three possibilities Yuan Cao's behavior belonged to.

This shows that I have become smarter! After Tzuyu told me the three options in advance, I was able to answer the multiple-choice question correctly!

After some discussion and sighing, Zhuge Jin soon discovered another problem, and asked Sun Qian who came to report the news: "But why did Yuan Shao suddenly think of recommending Qu Yi as the Inspector of the Imperial Guards and intervening in the Zhang Yang and Yang Chou case?
Could it be that Ju Shou or Tian Feng taught him this? But it is a little late to react now. With Ju Shou's wisdom, he would not have seen things so late. Zhang Yang has been dead for almost two months, and he is only now reacting. The people of Zhang Yang's old subordinates have been almost appeased by Yang Chou. "

As Zhuge Jin spoke, he felt in his heart: Yuan Shao was still too hesitant and missed the best opportunity to launch the attack. It is a little late to use this trick now.

However, Sun Qian soon explained to Zhuge Jin: "Zi Yu didn't know that Yuan Shao couldn't have used this trick earlier - because at the end of last month, the former Si Li Xiao Wei Ding Chong suddenly died. The cause of death was excessive drinking at a banquet, which caused his stomach to perforate and ulcerate. So the position of Si Li Xiao Wei was suddenly vacant.

Yuan Shao made this move to recommend Qu Yi after learning that the post of Inspector of the Imperial Guard was vacant, and then made a series of follow-up moves. But now Cao Cao has rejected this recommendation, and he is preparing to promote Zhong Yao to take over the post of Inspector of the Imperial Guard. "

(Note: Ding Chong had two sons, Ding Yi and Ding Yi, who later became Cao Zhi's followers in history. They were later killed when Cao Zhi was suppressed by Cao Pi.)
Zhuge Jin suddenly realized.

Is Yuan Shao still so prudent? He was too embarrassed to recommend someone else as long as the former Inspector of the Imperial Guards was still alive? This is too prudent. How can he defeat Cao Cao, who is unscrupulous?

Historically, Ding Chong died of stomach ulcer caused by drinking too much in the fourth year of Jian'an. It was not until December of that year that Zhong Yao took over his position as the new Inspector of the Imperial Guards, and the position was vacant for several months.

Now, because Yuan Shao wanted to appoint a new Inspector of the Imperial Capital and interfere in the affairs of Henei County, which belonged to the Inspector of the Imperial Capital, Cao Cao was forced to not let the position of Inspector of the Imperial Capital remain vacant for too long. Zhong Yao also turned a disaster into a blessing and took office three months ahead of schedule.

This butterfly effect is really interconnected.

Zhuge Jin figured out all these twists and turns, and soon another question came to his mind: How will this small-scale conflict end? Will it turn into an early Battle of Guandu? But there is no secret decree yet! Yuan Shao should not dare to openly engage in a full-scale war.

Who will Cao Cao send to deal with this "proxy war"?

　Sorry, the transition chapters are a bit rambling. But the timeline does need to be accelerated a bit. There is really nothing much to write about the two months in the autumn of the fourth year of Jian'an, so I can only focus on explaining it.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)