My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 580: Unity and Sharing of Happiness
After all, Zhang Fei's depression can only be regarded as a small episode in the general promotion process of Liu Bei's camp.

After calming down, Zhang Fei could only accept it with a pinch of his nose. It was impossible for him to refuse the imperial edict - after all, other generals in Liu Bei's camp wanted to obey the imperial edict but couldn't. They could only wait until the imperial edict was rejected and then Liu Bei would privately seal and grant them the letter under the pretext that "the emperor was held hostage and the refusal was not the emperor's intention."

After all, Zhang Fei's seal is an authentic product sent directly from Xudu. He got a bargain and just had to accept this minor flaw.

Who made Lü Bu in this life, finally killed because he and Dong Cheng tried to rebel against Cao, and whitewashed at the end of his life? But Lü Bu's deep hatred with Zhang Fei in his early years could not be erased.

If it weren't for Lu Bu's secret retreat to Xiapi, Zhang Fei would have made a big mistake and been unable to take charge of the situation for nearly ten years. He wouldn't have had to wait until this trip to Sichuan to get the chance to show his talents. If it weren't for this revenge and successive achievements, even Zhao Yun's achievements would have surpassed his.

After these minor twists and turns, Liu Bei also discussed with Zhuge Liang and Pang Tong how to hold the subsequent ceremony to formally confer official titles on everyone.

Jiangzhou was a remote place in the Eastern Han Dynasty, and it was not decent to recruit civil and military officials here. Moreover, Liu Bei only controlled the new city north of the Jialing River. The old city south of the Jialing River and north of the Yangtze River was still in the hands of Yan Yan and Zhang Song.

Historically, after Liu Bei conquered Hanzhong, he was successfully promoted to King of Hanzhong. Of course, he had to go to Mianyang, Hanzhong to build an altar to offer sacrifices to the heavens and receive other rewards at the same time.

But in this life, Liu Bei only asked Liu Zhang and Yuan Tan to throw a stone to test the water, and after that he himself declined the offer. So going to Hanzhong was not legitimate and could easily be criticized, not to mention that Hanzhong's geographical location was too remote.

Finally, for the sake of safety, Liu Bei decided to go back to Wuchang. His current title was still Marquis of Wuchang, and his mansion was in Wuchang. Since he was to concurrently serve as Grand Commandant, and the position of Grand Commandant was above that of General of Chariots and Cavalry, he could not go to Hefei, the seat of the General of Chariots and Cavalry's shogunate, to do business.

Zhuge Liang had no objection to this decision, thinking that these were all trivial matters and as long as there were no mistakes, it would be fine.

Pang Tong was a little worried, and privately reminded Liu Bei: "My lord, if you leave Yizhou easily this time and try to find an excuse to come back in the future, it will easily arouse Liu Zhang's vigilance.

Now that Cao Cao has been repelled, he is powerless to threaten us in Hanzhong and Qinling. My lord, if you leave Yizhou, how can you come back next time under the pretext of defending against Cao Cao?"

Liu Bei disagreed: "If Liu Jiyu has no ulterior motives towards the Anti-Rebellion Alliance, why did I come back? If he really has ulterior motives, then there are reasons to punish him. Just do it in an upright manner."

Pang Tong sighed, "That's true, but my lord, if you leave Yizhou lightly, Liu Zhang will surely be alert when you come back, and we won't be able to take advantage of the surprise attack."

Upon hearing this, Liu Bei only privately admonished Pang Tong: "Military advisor, you should think less about sneak attacks. Although it may bring temporary benefits, it will be harmful in the long run."

After this topic was brought up, Liu Bei did not hesitate any longer and took a boat down the river a few days later.

He also personally led a second batch of 20,000 troops to withdraw from Yizhou in accordance with his previous promise to Liu Zhang.

As a result, before Liu Zhang submitted his report and after the imperial court responded, Liu Bei withdrew 20,000 troops in two batches, and Liu Bei withdrew 40,000 troops from Yizhou back to Jingzhou. The pressure on the supply of military food in Jiangzhou, Zitong and other places was also greatly reduced.

The relationship between the two sides eased again, and Liu Zhang's vigilance against Liu Bei was temporarily not as strong.

……

It is quite fast to go down the Yangtze River by boat.

Passing through the Three Gorges, it only takes one day to travel a thousand miles to Jiangling, so it only took seven or eight days in total to get back to Wuchang from Jiangzhou.

Zhuge Jin, Guan Yu and Lu Su had already been waiting in Wuchang. The three of them went to the dock to help Liu Bei get off the boat.

"Ziyu! Yunchang! How are you? It's been two or three years since we last met. In the blink of an eye, the situation in the world has changed so much. The strength ratio with Cao thieves has reversed. It really feels like a lifetime ago."

As soon as Liu Bei got off the boat, he started to chat with Zhuge Jin and Guan Yu without any airs.

Zhuge Jin could not lose his manners, so he reported respectfully: "My lord is in Shuzhong, busy with military affairs. We are in Guandong. Since we pacified Liaodong the year before last, we have been resting and recuperating. There has been no major incident for a year and a half.

Last year, only Jing and Yangzhou had a heavier burden, relying on the Yangtze River to provide some military equipment, money, and war supplies for Yizhou's war. From Xuzhou to the north, they all stayed in the local area, lightened taxes and levies to restore the people's strength.

Occasionally, there was corvée conscription, but it was all for the purpose of immigration and reclamation, or to develop the Three Hans, or to infiltrate the territories ruled by Gongsun Huang and Wang Lie.

After listening to this, Liu Bei nodded repeatedly. He was quite satisfied with the results of the recuperation and governance. By the way, he also asked Zhuge Jin some other details, and Zhuge Jin answered them one by one.

In the previous few years, the Guandong region, especially the northern battlefield, had been in a tug-of-war with Cao Cao, causing great damage. Especially before the contention between Cao and Liu, since the Battle of Guandu between Yuan and Cao, there has been a tug-of-war between the two parties, and there has been no rest.

After all, in the original history, Cao Cao had just defeated Wuhuan, destroyed the remaining forces of the Yuan family, and killed all three brothers of the Yuan family in the 207th year of Jian'an (), which is this year. Now it is Liu Bei's intervention that ended the large-scale war in the north two or three years ahead of schedule and turned to a stalemate. So the little time saved really needs to be spent on inaction and farming. Zhuge Jin has not done anything new in the past two years.

In the past two years, the territory under Zhuge Jin's rule has mainly promoted two long-term construction projects.

One thing is about Youzhou, which is to continue to deepen the border trade in Yuyang County, attract more Wuhuan, Xianbei, and Southern Xiongnu people to do business, and exchange fresh cattle and sheep for salt, tea, and pickled meat.

The principle of this trade has been analyzed before. It is to use the Han people's optimized management and mathematical coordination to reduce the feed waste caused by the Hu people in the grasslands "over-grazing and using more fodder in exchange for the cattle and sheep to live longer to keep the meat fresh."

With the Han people's open supply of salt, as well as the unlimited supply and exchange between live cattle and sheep and pickled meat, the various Hu tribes on the grassland became more and more confident. "When the cattle and sheep have grown enough meat, they should be slaughtered directly. Do not raise them beyond the prescribed time to prepare for the winter. Especially sheep, when they have grown enough fat, they should be killed immediately and exchanged for pickled meat so that they can survive the winter. There is also less risk and they don't have to rely on the weather."

This kind of ideological transformation of the various tribes on the grassland requires a process. Especially since the Hu people have a low level of education and cannot do math, when accepting new things, they cannot see the gains and losses at the moment, and need to wait and see before they can figure out the good and the bad.

Even a great sage and talent like Zhuge Jin took two years to popularize this idea.

Last year, the part of Youzhou under Liu Bei's rule achieved complete self-sufficiency in food for the first time. The part that was not enough to eat was supplemented by mutton purchased from the Hu people. In previous years, Youzhou had to rely more or less on Jizhou and Qingzhou to transport grain to subsidize its survival.

For example, the year when Zhuge Jin and Zhao Yun attacked Gongsun Du, Zhuge Jin used some negotiation skills and made some promises in exchange for Yuan Tan from Qingzhou transporting grain to Youzhou via the Bohai Sea route, thus ensuring that Zhao Yun and Zhou Yu's troops had enough food to complete the war.

After just two years, Youzhou no longer needed to rely on Yuan Tan for grain transportation, which was a remarkable political achievement. However, this kind of work was not very conspicuous, and the process was not very exciting, which could be regarded as "a good warrior has no outstanding achievements".

However, while Zhuge Jin was deepening the trade in Yuyang, he also needed to do a lot of construction work, because Yuyang would consume a huge amount of sea salt to pickle meat, and he had to sell salt to friendly tribes.

Before Zhuge Jin left, he made good arrangements and let Zhou Yu of Bohai County be in charge of the "Changlu Salt Field" in Tianjin and Cangzhou areas in later generations to promote the sea salt drying method.

With Zhou Yu's execution ability, he certainly would not make mistakes. In the past two years, during the slack season, Zhou Yu worked diligently to expand the salt field.

He recruited corvée laborers from several counties in the western part of Youzhou around the Bohai Sea and from Bohai County in Jizhou during the slack season, and put them in charge of building dams to expand salt fields and construct supporting coastal water conservancy projects.

The location of the salt field that Zhuge Jin chose for Zhou Yu was good, and it has been tested by history. The Changlu Salt Field later met the salt demand of the entire Bohai Rim region. In the Eastern Han Dynasty, as long as the technical means were appropriate, wouldn't it be a dimensionality reduction attack and crushing victory?
As long as Zhou Yu could keep up with the construction planning and execution, it would be like picking up money. After two years, hundreds of thousands of acres of cofferdam salt fields were added, finally keeping up with the consumption rate of pickled meat in Yuyang Market.

In addition to the construction of border markets and salt fields, another major task of the Qing and You people in the past two years was to continue to build sea-going ships in Da's shipyard and to create ports in anchorages suitable for deep-water ports along the coast of the Three Kingdoms of Korea.

This was obviously to cooperate with Zhao Yun's infiltration and control of the Three Han regions and to further develop the territory in the southeast of Liaodong. After two years of construction, Liu Bei's camp was even able to build the first free-range horse farm on Jeju Island, making full use of thousands of square kilometers of high-quality grassland.

Originally in history, the Han Dynasty's infiltration and control over the Three Kingdoms of Korea was of course very weak, but that was mainly due to the weak navigation technology. After the drastic transformation by the Zhuge brothers, the Han Dynasty's water transportation capacity has been greatly improved.

Especially since Mi Zhu was appointed as the governor of Youzhou, this kind of official who was born as a wealthy merchant would naturally push coastal water transportation to a new height. Therefore, the cost of dispatching manpower and materials for the Three Kingdoms of Korea by Liu Bei's army has been greatly reduced. The Three Kingdoms of Korea Peninsula, Han River and Taedong River Basin can be fully utilized as a fertile land.

(Note: In some states, the governors were split up and the governors and defense envoys were set up. This reform was mentioned in Chapters 430-450. If you have forgotten, you can go back and read the previous plot.)
Establishing border markets, building salt fields, ports, and seagoing ships, raising cattle and horses on a large scale, and ensuring that Youzhou was self-sufficient in food. These were the main achievements that Zhuge Jin and his colleagues had made in Qing and Youzhou over the past two years.

……

"Tzuyu is really knowledgeable in military and civil affairs. I have neglected to pay attention to the situation in Guandong in the past two years. I didn't expect you to do such a great thing quietly. For your merits in governing the country and the people, I think no one in the world will be dissatisfied if I recommend you as the Minister of State."

After listening to the report, Liu Bei was even more impressed and gave pertinent comments on Zhuge Jin's achievements and talents.

Zhuge Jin had to be modest: "My lord, you are one of the Three Dukes, so you are naturally what everyone in the world wants. As for me, I am a little terrified..."

Liu Bei patted his arm and said: "Why are you so nervous? During the reigns of Emperors Huan and Ling, the title of Three Dukes was only worth 50 million yuan. How many people have been Three Dukes?

This time Cao Cao abolished the three officials, which can be regarded as helping us clean up the old dirt. From now on, whether the position of Minister of State can be respected by the people of the world again depends on you, Ziyu. "

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PS: The war scenes are over for now, and there are some internal affairs scenes that need to be reviewed. After all, we have to summarize what Zhuge Jin has achieved in the past two years, so don't think it's too superficial. Bow.

(End of this chapter)