My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 24 How can people dare to plant something they have never tried?
The trivial military matters mentioned by Zhuge Jin were arranged by Liu Bei himself, so he did not ask any more questions.

Zhuge Jin was just a guest official who offered advice, and he had other tricks that he had to think of himself and try out.

Regarding planting winter mustard, this was the most urgent matter, as it was necessary to seize the farming season. Liu Bei immediately gave instructions that day, and he asked Sun Qian, who had just arrived in Guangling, to be fully responsible for this agricultural promotion work.
Only if you really don't understand something can you ask Zhuge Jin for guidance, but don't trouble him too much.

In just a few days, Sun Qian obtained a large amount of mustard seeds in order to persuade farmers and people to try to grow them.

Sun Qian also took into account the people's acceptance. Fearing that it would not be effectively promoted to more people and more fields in a short period of time, Sun Qian concentrated all the mustard seeds he got in advance to cultivate the soil and seedlings, so that there would be no delay in waiting for the seeds to germinate.

In the following ten days or half a month, as long as the farmers and powerful farmers were willing to change their minds, the government could directly send them the already germinated seeds with soil. In short, we used a lot of methods to try to save time and plant as many varieties as possible, but after all, it was the first year, and how much effect we could get was up to fate.

While the domestic policy of persuading farmers was in full swing,

The military actions of Liu Bei and Guan Yu to fill in the gaps and expand the results of the battle were also carried out according to plan.

In just seven or eight days, some progress was made.

On the Huaiyin battlefield in the north, on August 14, Guan Yu, who was defending Ji Ling, made the first breakthrough.

Guan Yu used the cavalry left to him by Liu Bei to attempt a surprise attack on Xuyi behind enemy lines, forcing Ji Ling to waver and retreat, fearing that his food supply would be cut off and his lair would be stolen.

Guan Yu also used the news of Guangling's change of hands to spread various rumors to undermine Ji Ling's military morale, further urging Ji Ling to chase him, and finally half-scare and half-send him, forcing him completely out of Guangling County.

Ji Ling was always worried about the opportunity of "Xia Pi being stolen, which caused Liu Bei's soldiers to feel homesick and have low morale", and he was reluctant to let it go to waste.

But at this point, Yuan Shu's army had definitely lost Guangling, and the situation was very different from what it was at the beginning.

Ji Ling felt that Liu Bei should be able to stabilize the morale, and he had no choice but to give up no matter how reluctant he was.

At this point, Yuan Shu's offensive against Liu Bei that began this summer was completely over.

If Yuan Shu wants to fight again in the future, he will have to reorganize from scratch, and it won't happen so quickly. However, Guangling County will not be under military threat for the rest of this year.

After Guan Yu won a great victory, his cavalry was quite tired and could not travel hundreds of miles a day to report the victory. Therefore, the victory report took two days on the road and only reached Guangling County on August 16.

As for Liu Bei, it happened that on August 16, he finally managed to force a surrender and pacify Hailing County by using a psychological warfare strategy. A Sima of Yuan's army stationed there led his people to surrender, thus opening the city without bloodshed.

Liu Bei also obtained several thousand shi of surplus grain from the warehouses of a small place like Hailing, which provided a small supplement for his food.

But the problem was that because Hailing County surrendered peacefully, two thousand soldiers also joined Liu Bei and needed to be supported by Liu Bei from then on.

The several thousand shi of surplus grain was not enough to feed the two thousand people until the next summer harvest. At most, it was only enough for the local soldiers and officials to eat until the end of the New Year and the beginning of spring.

Liu Bei's troops were recovering and growing stronger, but the food crisis had not been alleviated at all for the time being. Instead, the number of mouths he had to feed was increasing.

Out of such worries, Liu Bei did not dare to delay any longer after taking Hailing, and hurried back that day.

He just wanted to see how Sun Qian in Guangling was promoting the planting of mustard greens.

Let’s take a look at Zhuge Jin’s other channels for increasing food revenue and see how they are going.

But no matter what, after Hailing was captured, Liu Bei's military defense pressure was indeed greatly relieved.

Because his territory was finally completely surrounded by the natural geographical barrier formed by rivers and seas,

To the north, it reaches the Huai River. Except for Mi Zhu’s hometown of Qu County, the rest of the northern border is south of the Huai River, with the river as a barrier.

Similarly, the west is the Han Canal, the south is the Yangtze River, and the east is the sea. Two rivers, one river, and one sea completely surrounded his territory on all sides. The enemy could not attack without a navy, so Liu Bei could temporarily farm in peace.

……

After marching for a night and a day, Liu Bei returned to Guangling County exhausted and fell asleep.

When I woke up the next morning, it was already August 18th.

He didn't even have time to listen to reports from all parties before going to bed last night, and he didn't even have time to read the victory report that Guan Yu's troops sent to Guangling two days ago.

Liu Bei quickly washed and dressed early in the morning, then drank some porridge while taking the time to read Guan Yu's report.

Seeing that Guan Yu had expanded his victory in the process of forcing Ji Ling to retreat and captured more than a thousand Yuan army prisoners who were slow to escape, Liu Bei didn't know whether to be happy or worried.

He is so poor that he can't even feed himself. After putting down the victory report, Liu Bei inevitably went over the recent changes in the size of the army, the casualties and the prisoners in his mind.

"Before the battle, our army had more than 14,000 people. The final casualties in the Huaiyin decisive battle reached 2,000 to 3,000. The casualties in the Guangling battle were less, all because Liu Ye cowardly retreated and did not fight to the death with our army. But adding to the peripheral battles when Yunchang forced Ji Ling to retreat and our army took Hailing, the cumulative casualties and escapes should be hundreds.

The total number of casualties was at least 4,000. Including the soldiers who fled, the total loss exceeded 5,000, and only 9,000 of the 14,000 veterans were left.

Even if there are one or two thousand lightly wounded soldiers who can slowly recover and return to the team later, there will definitely be soldiers who are homesick or who run away because their families are with Lu Bu. With these two factors offsetting each other, it will be difficult for our army's veterans to recover to more than 10,000 people.

When Yide defeated Leibo, he captured more than 600 prisoners, and recruited and reformed some of them. In the decisive battle of Huaiyin, he captured 2,000 to 3,000 people, and in Guangling, he captured more than 1,000 people. In Hailing, 2,000 people surrendered directly, and more than 1,000 people were captured when Ji Ling's troops retreated. With all these, the total available force in the future can be restored to a total of 16,000 to 17,000, which is a slight gain compared to before the war.

It’s a pity that these six or seven thousand prisoners of war are disloyal, and their families are in Huainan and Lujiang. I’m afraid they can’t be used completely without any worries within a year or two, but we still have to spend food to feed them. At most, we can let them help grow mustard greens, and then learn from Cao Cao to set up military settlements in the spring, but at least in the first half of the year, they can only go out and not come in…”

After Liu Bei took stock of his military situation in his mind, he was not worried about the current size of his troops. The total number of people would increase slightly after the battle, so he was only worried about not being able to feed them.

……

After taking stock of the current situation, Liu Bei felt that it was time to take charge of government affairs and supervise the progress of people's livelihood.

So after breakfast, he immediately found Sun Qian and asked him in detail about the situation of persuading farmers to grow winter mustard.

Sun Qian reported with a bitter face: "In the past five or six days, we have tried every possible means, but unfortunately no one in Huainan has ever planted crops like this before. Even though we heard that crops can be grown in Jiangdong, most people are still worried that it is too cold in Jiangbei.

I had no choice but to resort to expediency. On the one hand, I desperately used Zi Zhong's money and business channels to purchase a large amount of mustard seeds, and asked the idle soldiers in the army to cultivate the soil and grow seedlings to prevent delaying the farming season. On the other hand, I also learned from Cao Cao's military farming method and forced the soldiers to plant mustard according to military orders.

Especially those prisoners of war from Yuan Shu’s army. Now they dare not use them in battle, so they are all forced to farm first.

I have also sent a letter to Yunchang detailing the cultivation method, and sent some old farmers who know how to cultivate the soil and raise seedlings to help Huaiyin County to grow winter mustard, but I estimate that fewer people are willing to accept it than here."

After Sun Qian finished speaking, he finally gave an estimated statistical conclusion: if we only rely on soldiers’ military settlements, at most seven or eight thousand people can grow winter mustard.

The army also needs to maintain a state of combat readiness. It is impossible for all of them to disarm and return to their hometowns. Otherwise, if Yuan Shu and Sun Ce find out that Liu Bei's military is relaxed and launch a surprise attack, then everything will be over.

If he could successfully persuade farmers to grow crops and fully mobilize the people, Sun Qian estimated that the planting area would increase fivefold at most, and the military and civilians combined would be able to have 30,000 to 50,000 people planting crops.

Of course, the young and strong population in Guangling County is much larger than this, but Sun Qian had to take into account the urgency of time. The maximum number of counties they could influence through agricultural persuasion was two or three counties, and they could only count on the relatively open-minded people among them.

Unfortunately, the effect of persuading farmers is very poor now, and only a few thousand people can be persuaded.

If there is no new support, the final result may be that more than 10,000 military and civilians will grow winter mustard and harvest subsidized military rations by the end of February next year.

The difference between the upper and lower limits can be as much as 30,000 yuan in income from growing vegetables for a young man.

After hearing this, Liu Bei showed no emotion, but felt helpless.
He is well aware of the sufferings of the people and what they are worried about.

Although the government has offered great benefits to encourage farming, and Mi Zhu can buy seeds and give them away for free to farmers, the effort is ultimately borne by the people themselves.

Guangling has not been peaceful in the past two years. The people have suffered a lot and everyone looks pale.

If you don't bother with that, at least you can stay in bed for a few more hours during the winter when there's no farming work to do, which can reduce your basal metabolic consumption, make you hungry more slowly, and maybe even eat a pound less of coarse grain every day.

In years of war and famine, the people would like to save every bit of energy. If the white vegetable seedlings were frozen to death, their energy would be wasted and they might even starve to death.

Liu Bei lacked any immediate means to enhance his credibility.

It can even be said that there is a lack of a bit of "miracle" to enhance one's credibility among the people.

"Forget it, but we have to do our best and leave the rest to fate." Liu Bei sighed and exhaled the foul air in his chest. He looked very tragic. Then he remembered that Zhuge Jin seemed to have other tricks up his sleeve. He held on to the last glimmer of hope and asked Sun Qian,

"By the way, how is Ziyu doing? When we went to capture Hailing a few days ago, he said before we left that he wanted to find a way to improve fishing and hunting and increase military food supplies. Has it been effective?"

Sun Qian was not very knowledgeable, he just told the truth: "It seemed to be ineffective a few days ago, it should be improved. The teacher said that he was afraid that the effect would not be good, and if it was made public rashly, it would make people despise it.

I only know that he asked a lot of soldiers to cut bamboo everywhere, and also dismantled some damaged bamboo barriers in the army. I don't know what he is making, maybe fishing gear?"

Liu Bei thought about it and had no other hope at the moment, so he told Sun Qian: "Let's go, look around today, understand the people's feelings, and hear with our own ears what the people think about not wanting to grow winter mustard. Then go to Ziyu in the afternoon to see if there is any harvest."

This is also a desperate measure.

(End of this chapter)