My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 328: Death of Yuan Shao - Part

It was already the end of February or the beginning of March in the seventh year of Jian'an when Lu Su, Zhou Yu and others set out to go north to take up their posts. It would take at least mid-to-late March for them to arrive in Langya and Donglai.

With the temporary completion of this "Early Spring Navigation Talent Training Class", Zhuge Jin's cultivation of navigation technology in Wu has temporarily passed a peak, and will subsequently shift to daily operations with less resource investment.

Neither the cultivation of talents, the expansion of shipyards, nor the research and development of new ships can affect the busy spring farming season starting at the end of February.

The grain harvest in the three counties of Wu and Hui last year could only be described as average. After all, the battle to defeat Sun Ce was still underway in the first three months of last year. The part of Huiji County south of Zhejiang was not completely occupied and cleared until June and July.

Later, Zhuge Jin reorganized water conservancy and shipping, built polder fields, and built large shipyards. He also built large-scale buildings during the slack season, which also led to a large increase in grain consumption. All the taxes collected with great difficulty had to be spent. Last year's fiscal revenue had no grain surplus at all, and the final expenditure was balanced.

Therefore, we must focus on encouraging farmers this year, and not waste any time on farming. We should rest with the people and try to save some food so that we can use the army next year and prepare for the big war.

Fortunately, Linyi rice, which is the Champa rice of later generations, has not been discovered yet, so the busy farming season in the south of the Han Dynasty came later than in later generations. Basically, the land was cultivated in late February, and sowing was done in early to mid-March. The seeds were sown directly in the fields without raising seedlings, transplanting and transplanting.

The rice of the Han Dynasty was equivalent to the later late rice and japonica rice, while Linyi rice was the later early rice and indica rice. If double-season farming was adopted, not only would the busy spring farming season start half a month earlier, but it would also last longer.

In ancient times, the time it took to grow rice seedlings was much longer than that of modern varieties. Not long after the early rice was planted in the large fields, late rice seedlings would be densely planted in small fields. After the early rice was harvested, the late rice seedlings would be transplanted into the large fields.

Therefore, if we follow the later methods of double-season rice and only extract the fertilizer from the same large field, not only will the soil fertility be quickly depleted, but the farmers will also be extremely hard-working because they will be working intensively throughout the spring and summer and will not have any time to rest.

Even if Linyi rice is discovered in the future, how to use it and how to plan it still need to be discussed, and we cannot adopt a one-size-fits-all approach.

For example, in areas with vast land and sparse population where land reclamation is not difficult, if the land is indeed worthless, then the fallow rotation can be expanded, and early rice and late rice can be completely staggered in time and land.

That is to say, if a farmer has two fields, A and B, and the areas are so large that they cannot be fully planted, he can plant early rice in Field A and late rice in Field B. This also saves the trouble of pulling out the seedlings from Field B and planting them back in Field A in the future.

This is equivalent to saving manpower at the cost of temporarily wasting some land resources and allowing farmers to "use their labor in off-peak hours."

In addition, if it is a remote area with developed water transportation, the daily corvée of the local population will not help improve the combat effectiveness and comprehensive strength of the camp. Then this method can be used to expand the labor input of the people in agriculture, reduce the pressure of the people on corvée, and let them pay more grain and serve less.

As long as these places have developed water transportation, the extra grain can be transported out by water at low cost, and can also contribute to the front line.

This is like the story of Chen Sheng and Wu Guang, where Daze Township is too far away from the front line in Yuyang. If so many people from the inland areas were sent to serve in Yuyang, they would be late and there would be a lot of variables.

If Qin Shi Huang had better mathematical and coordination skills, he would have asked the local people in Yuyang to stop paying taxes, provide them with food, and assign more people to serve in the frontier. Then he would have asked the people in the inland areas far away from Yuyang but with high grain production and convenient water transportation to stop serving in the frontier and pay more taxes.

Zhuge Jin's future governance ideas for Yangzhou were obviously the same: Yangzhou was too vast, with mountains and hills crisscrossing, as well as fertile plains, but they were all separated into pieces.

So we should first improve the canal network. After that, we should sort it out to see which places are suitable for producing grain. Then we can concentrate on farming and not worry about anything else.

For some places that are not suitable for transporting grain to the front line and the transportation cost is too high, then more people will be recruited into the army, or more people will be recruited to perform labor in other places and the government will provide them with food.

The specific situation is very complicated and cannot be explained clearly in a few words.

Even if Zhuge Jin had the mathematical coordination and management thinking of later generations, he still needed to sort it out slowly. Anyway, Linyi rice has not been found yet. These are all later stories. We need to discover and solve problems little by little in practice. There is still time.

……

The words are divided into two parts.

Lu Su and Zhou Yu traveled north for more than half a month and finally arrived at the counties of Langya County.

Lu Su was appointed as the governor of Langya, so this was his residence.

Zhou Yu's current assignment was to serve as Taishi Ci's deputy general, so he could only stay in Langya for a while before continuing to cross the Shandong Peninsula and head north to Donglai.

However, considering that Zhou Yu had just married Zhuge Lan, he was now Zhuge Jun's brother-in-law. When he passed by Zhuxian, he had to say hello to Zhuge Jun, the county magistrate. No one would blame him if he stayed a few more days.

Zhuge Jun was already eighteen years old. When he heard that his twenty-three-year-old second sister had finally gotten married, he felt "gloating". He really wanted to see what the final result would be after his second sister had spent so many years being picky.

Because he was young, Zhuge Jun did not have much contact with people in official circles. He just started working last year. He had never seen Zhou Yu and did not know what he looked like.

On the day when Lu Su and Zhou Yu arrived in Zhuxian, Zhuge Jun was very considerate and personally went to the dock of Rizhao Town to welcome the ship - this place name was just newly chosen in recent months.

The Han Dynasty originally had a very desolate area at the root of the southern coast of Shandong Peninsula, with very sparse administrative divisions. A county was equivalent to the area of a semi-prefectural-level city in later generations. It was only after Liu Bei began to gradually assist and puppet Yuan Tan that the construction of a seaport town in the later Rizhao area began.

Everyone met at the harbor pier. Before they had time to go ashore and introduce themselves to each other, Zhuge Jun looked at them from afar across the shore.

He had seen Lu Su, because Lu Su often hung around his elder and second brothers, so he knew that the remaining one who was younger than Lu Su should be Zhou Yu. As for his second sister, she did not show up on the deck and should be hiding in the cabin.

"I didn't expect Zhou Yu to be good-looking. He is even more handsome than my eldest brother, but not as tall, handsome, and dignified as my eldest brother. But compared to my second brother, he is inferior in every way. It seems that my second sister has no choice, after all these years."

Zhuge Jun made a fair evaluation in his heart, and he finally understood his second sister's difficulties.

The women of the Zhuge family, after all, have high standards because their men are so handsome.

A man who seems to be "average-looking" to outsiders may be considered ugly in the eyes of the women in the Zhuge family.

The eldest sister was better off because she was three or four years older than the second brother. When she was old enough to look at men, the second brother was still a child, so there was no comparison. So the eldest sister thought that any man who was more handsome than the eldest brother was handsome enough.

It’s enough that Zhao Yun is slightly more handsome than Zhuge Jin.

The second sister and second brother are very close in age, so the reference system is even more outrageous.

When Zhuge Lan met Zhou Yu this time, he felt that "this is finally acceptable. As long as I have a good face, I can get married again."

Zhuge Jun was still young and could not fully understand his sisters' ideas, but it didn't matter anymore, the matter was resolved anyway. After the gangplank was set up and Lu Su and Zhou Yu got ashore, Zhuge Jun went forward to pay his respects in a very respectful manner, without being arrogant at all because of his elder and second brothers' awesomeness.

He knew very well that he was only a county magistrate. He had been in charge of the counties for three or four months. Now that his direct superior had finally been sent over, he should handle the matter impartially.

Lu Su had only met Zhuge Jun a few times before, so he was only familiar with his face, but he was not clear about his personality and character.

Over the years, he had always heard Zhuge Jin or Zhuge Liang mention from time to time that "the third brother is not studious and is not a material for advancement", and Lu Su was also worried about encountering a playboy who was difficult to deal with.

Now it seems that there is still a sense of hierarchy. At least he knows his limits and is an honest man.

It doesn't matter if they are a little dull in talent. How can every member of a family be extremely smart and efficient?

If you have poor talents, just do the work of passing orders and running errands. Lu Su will personally take charge of the difficult tasks.

"Ajun finally acts like an official. Have you gotten used to it after these four months? Have you found any signs of Cao's invasion or instability in the counties?" After returning the greeting, Lu Su casually started chatting with Zhuge Jun about official business, starting with the local defense.

Zhuge Jun also talked about his experience as an official for more than four months: "Everything is fine now. Cao's army has made occasional movements, but they are all strictly inspected by General Gao to prevent them from happening again. Cao's bandits dare not make any more moves.

Our army set up a number of temporary outposts along the Yishui River Valley and in relatively dangerous areas of Mount Meng, each with a beacon warning and appropriate food storage.

In addition, the heavy snow in the Mengshan Mountains had not yet melted, so such a dike was enough to withstand the winter and early spring. However, doing so would cost a lot of money and grain. Langya was poor, and by conscripting local people for labor service, they could gather enough manpower to tame the Yishui River and build outposts, but the food for the laborers had to be mobilized from the rear of Xuzhou.

In the past few months, Lord Mi of the East Sea has spent a lot of food. Sometimes the official accounts cannot cover it, so Lord Mi also collects food from the family estate in his hometown of Qu County and transports it to Rizhao Port using the Mi family’s own merchant ships. "

There is not much farming or civil affairs to do in Langya. It is just the Yimeng Mountain area and a few narrow arc-shaped bay plains.

Therefore, the most important things here are defense and transportation. Maintaining communication with Yuan Tan will, if nothing unexpected happens, be the greatest political achievement.

As for how much grain and commercial taxes can be collected, and whether the army can be self-sufficient, it doesn’t matter. Anyway, other rear areas along the coast will provide Langya with military rations.

The top priority is to build a good seaport and improve the transportation conditions from the seaport to the county town and various outposts.

One is to defend the land, two is to build roads, nothing else.

Although Zhuge Jun did not have any brilliant ideas or good policies this time, he did answer every question and shared his experience as an official for the first time.

After hearing this, Lu Su nodded with satisfaction.

Although he is not as evil as Zhuge Jin and Zhuge Liang, it is still acceptable to give him a "common" evaluation.

It is impossible to manage all aspects of a county well, but at least we know how to focus on the key points and tackle the two biggest ones.

As for the process of doing things, the efficiency of using money and grain is a bit low. It is normal for an eighteen-year-old young man to not be able to handle it.

To sum it up in one sentence, "he can effectively advance the key tasks he is assigned to. It's just that his efficiency is a bit low, and he spends a lot of money and food."

For young people, encouragement is still the main thing. Lu Su also made a pertinent comment:

"It is not easy to grasp these essentials within a few months as an official for the first time. The rest can be practiced slowly. Ziyu and Kongming would surely be pleased if they saw this.

By the way, why didn't General Gao show up? I just mentioned that he was very careful in guarding the place."

As Lu Su was talking, he thought of Gao Shun. If Zhuge Jun hadn't mentioned it, he would not have thought of it for a while.

Zhuge Jun quickly helped explain: "General Gao felt that this place is close to the front line, and it is not appropriate to send out both civil and military forces. He is worried that Cao's spies have infiltrated Zhuxian and Juxian. Once they find our flaws, they will act rashly, so it is better not to give them a chance."

Lu Su and Zhou Yu nodded repeatedly, and Lu Su immediately changed his words: "It is I who am too rigid about etiquette. This is indeed the truth. General Gao is upright and puts military affairs first, which is admirable."

Zhou Yu, who was standing by, was more observant and took the opportunity to ask, "Have the Cao army's unusual movements become more frequent recently? To the extent that they could take action if our army's defenses were slightly breached?
Being able to put on such a posture, does it mean that he is not worried about going to war with both Yuan and Liu at the same time? With Cao Cao's wisdom, it shouldn't be like this, right? Or... Hebei has finally undergone another major change? Is Yuan Shao..."

Zhuge Jun knew what Zhou Yu was asking, and without waiting for him to explain in detail, he answered directly: "There is no definite news yet, but we have been communicating with Master Yuan. Recently, even Master Yuan has been unable to find out about his father's recent situation. Maybe something unexpected has happened, but we don't know yet... Even if it hasn't happened yet, it will probably be a few days.

Master Yuan wanted to go to Yecheng, but Cao's army was in the middle of Jizhou, so he had to take a detour from Youzhou. It was said that in Jizhou, Zhongshan County, Changshan County and other counties bordering Youzhou and Jizhou were also controlled by Shen Pei's troops.

There are rumors that unless Young Master Yuan starts a civil war against Su You and Yin Kui, the defenders of Zhongshan and Changshan, they will not let Young Master Yuan take a detour back to western Jizhou from Youzhou. "

Lu Su and Zhou Yu had been drifting on the sea for more than half a month and were not well-informed. Not long after they came ashore, they heard such a bombshell piece of news and were shocked.

The two looked at each other, and Lu Su sighed subconsciously: "Shen Pei actually dared to use force to prevent Master Yuan from returning. He is so bold and determined. Who gave him the authority?"

Zhou Yu pondered and said, "From the news in the past few months, Shen Pei would not do this in his own name when the time came. He must have interfered in the name of Yuan Shao's wife Liu.

The mother's command can naturally restrict her children, for example, "Yuan Tan is entrusted by his father to defend Bohai. How can he leave his post during the war? It is unfilial." If it is just a delay, any excuse can be used! "

Zhou Yu's speculation immediately made Lu Su and Zhuge Jun agree with it, and they felt that this was very likely to happen.

No one expected that things would develop to this point.

Because the Zhuge brothers intervened to help Yuan Tan early on, the butterfly effect was amplified, making Yuan Tan the actual controller of the eastern region of Yuan Shao's camp, and the final division between the east and the west became a foregone conclusion. The tactics used by the Liu family in this time and space to deal with Yuan Tan also gradually began to move closer to the direction of the Cai family in the parallel time and space to deal with Liu Qi.

Yuan Shao and Liu Biao, this pair of funny guys, really have more and more similarities.

(End of this chapter)