My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 22: The Zhuge Family Knows Everything
Liu Bei started his army and served as an official for twelve years, so it was easy for him to understand the basic principles of gains and losses.

I just woke up from sleep because I was too tired after two days and two nights, and my mind was not clear, so I was confused about the current situation.

After Zhuge Jin's concise summary, Liu Bei quickly recognized the reality and discovered that the problem could be summarized so clearly and completely.

All those things that seemed complicated and confusing to him if he thought about them himself, seemed to be in order after Zhuge Jin sorted them out, with only a few core issues left.

"So now, for our army, the casualties are actually smaller than expected, we have preserved more combat power, and captured more prisoners. The only thing is that we are at a disadvantage in terms of grain seizure than expected." Liu Bei stroked his mustache and concluded thoughtfully.

To use the popular saying of later generations, all these unexpected variables made the situation Liu Bei faced have an upper limit higher and a lower lower limit than he had expected in his initial plan.

The original plan was more like a stable plan that guaranteed a stable income regardless of drought or flood.

When plans cannot keep up with changes, the situation becomes “the bigger the storm, the more expensive the fish”. If you handle it well, you will win more; if you handle it poorly, you will lose your capital.

We still have to find a way to get food!
And try to redeem the detained family members of the soldiers!

As for the military issues, we cannot say that they are now definite and have come to an end, but at least in the short term we do not have to worry about Yuan Shu organizing a new large-scale offensive.

Even if Yuan Shu still wanted to deal with him, more than half of the 40,000 troops attacking Huaiyin had been defeated, and a part of the 5,000 defenders in Guangling had also been lost. After losing so many troops, Yuan Shu would definitely have to regroup his troops, so he could still be quiet for a few months.

Well, the only variable lies with Guan Yu. Let's see if he can trick or force Ji Ling to retreat, so that Ji Ling will completely give up and go back to defend Xuyi.

But Liu Bei felt that military issues were not a big problem and Guan Yu could handle them.

But how to get food? Liu Bei was so depressed that he almost pulled his hair out.

He couldn't help but cast a pitying look at Zhuge Jin, and even felt a little embarrassed to ask for advice.

He is just a customer and has helped him so much.

Internal affairs and finances, this is an area that the other party has never been exposed to before. Isn't it a bit too much to ask again?
Fortunately, Liu Bei quickly remembered that he had sent Mi Zhu away ten days ago to prepare military supplies.

Liu Bei then asked politely, "By the way, is Zi Zhong still in Haixi? Do you know what he is busy with recently?"

Zhuge Jin then roughly updated Liu Bei on the progress of logistics preparations in Haixi: "Zi Zhong originally wanted to buy grain from Kong Beihai and ship it from Jimo and Buqihai to Haixi. But later I heard that Kong Beihai had been conquered by Yuan Tan before the siege of Huaiyin.

Zi Zhong then made another plan to go to Kuaiji Wang Lang to buy food. It might take more than a month for him to come back. By the way, the general can send a fast boat to Kuaiji to look for him. If he can be notified, he doesn’t need to go back to Haixi on the way back, but can go directly to Guangling. Maybe he can save five or six days of wasted journey and arrive earlier. When he set out, he didn’t expect that our army could take Guangling so quickly. "

When Liu Bei heard that there was grain in Kuaiji, he felt relieved and a little more hope. He muttered to himself, "I wonder how much surplus grain I can buy from Wang Jingxing. Is it enough to make up for the shortfall in Guangling's grain reserves..."

Zhuge Jin interrupted the other party's fantasy directly: "It is definitely not enough. Wang Lang is also on guard against Sun Ce now, and he must reserve military rations for possible subsequent wars. Although Sun Ce is still fighting with Xu Gong of Wujun, given Xu Gong's incompetence, I am afraid that within a month or two, all parts of Wujun will be controlled by Sun Ce.

Even though winter is not suitable for military operations, Sun Ce will definitely attack Wang Lang during the slack season after the spring plowing next year. In addition, given Sun Ce's vigilance against Wang Lang, it would be a good idea for us to buy food from Wang Lang once, and we can also smuggle it when he is least prepared.

If this continues, most of the southern bank of the Yangtze River will be Sun Ce's territory, with only Dantu County on the other side of Guangling still in Liu Yao's hands. Sun Ce is nominally a member of Yuan Shu's army, and we are fighting Yuan Shu. Wouldn't Sun Ce intercept and seize our merchant ships that are buying grain?"

This was like a bucket of cold water, which made Liu Bei realize the reality: Wang Lang was only for emergency relief, not poverty relief. The risk of shipping was also high. To be safe, one had to sail close to the coast. If one sailed close to the coast in enemy-occupied areas more than once, the second time one might be intercepted by armed forces. To avoid being intercepted, one sailed to a distance where the coastline could not be seen, and the wind and waves might capsize the ship.

When Zhuge Jin came up with this idea, his original intention was to solve the problem of military rations during the attack on Guangling, not to let Liu Bei rely on Wang Lang for half a year. However, plans could not keep up with changes, and Guangling was successfully attacked, and the battle was over before Liu Bei could eat the rations bought by Wang Lang.

After hearing these explanations, Liu Bei almost despaired again.

The little mustache on his upper lip was not enough for him to pull, so he started to pull his hair. If no one stopped him, he didn't know whether he would have pulled his hair into a strong man's hairstyle.

Fortunately, Zhuge Jin was kindhearted and could not bear to see his friends pulling his hair, so he took the initiative to share with Liu Bei some solutions he had thought of in the past few days.

After all, Zhuge Jin realized how critical the situation was ten days earlier than Liu Bei, so he had ten more days to think about countermeasures and even had time to do some experiments.

At this moment, he couldn't bear it, so he first told Liu Bei a little bit: "General, please be patient. The food in Guangling is enough for our army to eat for at least two months. It will definitely be enough to last until we buy food from Wang Lang. It will be enough to last until the twelfth lunar month.

If the soldiers' rations are further reduced and they have to drink two meals of thin porridge with some herbs and vegetables every day, it is not impossible for them to survive until the New Year - of course, this requires ensuring that Yuan Shu does not attack in the future and the soldiers do not have to train for combat. They can only eat less during their free time, otherwise they will not be able to sustain the physical strength.

Therefore, our army only needs to find another way to solve the problem of food from the first month of next year until the end of the spring famine and the harvest of summer grain, and we will be able to overcome this difficulty."

Zhuge Jin also saw that Liu Bei lacked quantitative analysis of the problem, so he first helped the other party sort out the severity of the problem from a data level so that his opponent would have a clear idea.

People of this era were too insensitive to numbers and looked at money and grain issues too generally. They were completely incomparable to Zhuge Jin, who later became a gold medal mathematics lecturer.

Liu Bei was very anxious just now, but after listening to Zhuge Jin's few words to clarify the numbers and time nodes, he calmed down a little and couldn't help but ask urgently: "Then how can we increase revenue and reduce expenditure after the first month of next year?"

Zhuge Jin then analyzed carefully: "I was in Haixi a few days ago, and I had nothing to do, so I took some time to inspect the farming work of the people in Huainan, and I have some experience.

Before my father became the prefect of Taishan County, he also traveled all over the country. In his early years, he was friends with Anping Cui Shi, the author of "Monthly Orders for Four People". My family has a large collection of books of various types, and I have a little understanding of the differences in farming between the north and the south. "

Zhuge Jin first laid out the source of his knowledge and found an excuse to prevent the other party from being surprised at his omniscience.

"Monthly Ordinances for the Four Classes of People" is an important agricultural book in the late Han Dynasty. It is also the most comprehensive work on industry and agriculture before the appearance of "Essential Techniques for the People of All Trades" in the Southern and Northern Dynasties. "Monthly Ordinances for the Four Classes of People" also includes a lot of content on handicrafts.

The author, Cui Shi, was from Anping, Jizhou, and had been dead for more than 20 years. However, Zhuge Jin said that his father, Zhuge Gui, had met him when he was a young student. This is completely reasonable and there is no way that it could be exposed.

According to Zhuge Jin, his father was able to sit and discuss philosophy with Cui Shi and inspire each other, so it was completely reasonable that his Zhuge family also had some knowledge of the logistics of workers and peasants.

Just a few words made Liu Bei dizzy: "How come the people of Zhuge family know everything? They even dabble in these unconventional studies? They are really unfathomable..."

However, Liu Bei still had some doubts. He wondered if it was too far-fetched to expect to solve the food shortage problem by improving farming technology.

Even if the current food could last until the end of the year, Liu Bei still felt it was unreliable.

It is hard to imagine.

(End of this chapter)