My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 693: The two Zhuge Liangs in the East and West, both civil and military achievements

After a thorough and in-depth talk with Zhuge Jin, Liu Bei no longer worried about questions such as when to launch the Northern Expedition and how long he would need to rest and recuperate.

With the timetable in mind, and vaguely realizing that he actually had the opportunity to trace the life trajectory of Emperor Gao, Liu Bei was satisfied.

Why should we rush? There are still seven years left, so we can just get it done as planned. If we can get it done ahead of schedule, that would be a pleasant surprise, but there is no need to force it.

The first month of the fourteenth year of Jian'an passed peacefully, without any other actions by either Cao or Liu.

The military offensive against Xinye and Wancheng was already on the timetable. But since it wasn't time to start the battle yet, there was no need to rush. We should first sort out the armaments and internal affairs for two months.

On Cao Cao's side, he was also busy making preparations for moving the capital and gaining a thorough understanding of internal opinions during the period from January to March.

At the same time, they were busy resettling the relocated people, expanding spring plowing and restoring the abandoned farmland.

Liu Bei also had to be busy with domestic affairs and complete the post-war reconstruction of Xiang and Fan areas so that the people of these two counties could resume production in time this year.

He also improved the inland waterway transport network to improve traffic conditions between Xiang, Fan, Jiangling and other places and the areas originally occupied by Liu Bei.

There is not much to say about the busy spring farming season of these two months, and time has quietly come to March of this year.

At the beginning of March, Liu Bei, who was in Xiangyang, received a routine report letter from Yizhou.

This letter was naturally written by Zhuge Liang who was stationed in Yizhou. It was sent in the first month of the year. Because it was not urgent, it was delivered via normal courier service and took about a month to arrive.

After receiving the letter, Liu Bei took a rough look at it, and then called Zhuge Jin to ask him to take a look at his second brother's "Annual Work Summary".

……

In Zhuge Liang's letter, he mainly mentioned the achievements of implementing new laws, replacing labor service money and rent and labor service in Yizhou in the past year.

By the way, he also mentioned that last year he readjusted the personnel in the three counties of Shu, Jianwei and Guanghan, promoted officials who supported the new law and had outstanding political achievements to high positions in the local area, so that the implementation of the new law could be smoother.

The opposition aristocratic families and powerful people who had originally obstructed the movement, such as Wang Shang and Chen Shi, were basically sidelined in just one year.

The letter also mentioned that the renovation of Dujiangyan was completed very well last year, and the well salt and fire well ironmaking workshops and steelmaking factories in Qianwei County were also well built. This year, we will continue to work hard to double the output of well salt and multiply the output of high-quality steel made from natural gas.

In particular, Zhuge Liang took advantage of the winter farming off-season and spent a large amount of money to impose excessive labor service nearby. The government provided food for the people who did the hard labor and also distributed rations so that the people could support their families.

Therefore, the people not only did not dislike corvee labor as they did during the reign of Liu Zhang, but they were eager to serve.

In particular, most of the people who served found that the government had been less troublesome to them - in previous years, when corvée labor was conscripted, in order to distribute the number of people to each county, people often traveled hundreds of miles to serve.

You should know that walking hundreds of miles during military service is not actually very far. It was normal in the Eastern Han Dynasty. Because the distance between adjacent counties was at least 30 to 50 miles, and many were 100 to 80 miles. In the same county, the distance from east to west might be hundreds of miles.

In the past, corvée labor was not paid, and since people in a county could not be extorted, they had to be recruited from other places. After Zhuge Liang changed the system to hiring people, all the work in Chengdu County could be done by local people in Chengdu County, and their residences could be only a dozen miles away from the construction site, saving all the time and labor wasted on traveling.

Of course, Zhuge Liang spent a huge amount of money and grain to do this, which required an environment with a relatively prosperous and developed commodity economy.

Otherwise, there would not be enough money to circulate, or even if the money was distributed, people would not be able to buy food or other daily necessities in time.

However, Zhuge Liang's ability to govern the country was unprecedented. Before the rent-and-labor system and the labor service money, he had already launched a wave of silver-plated coin exchanges, banned the direct circulation of silver, and used many scarce and monopolized materials in the government as the value anchor of the silver-plated coins.

Therefore, before he spent money on corvee labor, the supply of money and practical hard currency were both sufficient. With these two huge extra advantages that other ancient civil officials did not have, all of Zhuge Liang's ideas for governing Shu were able to be vigorously promoted, and no one could resist.

From silver-plated coins, to the wide Shu brocade monopolized by the government, high-quality steel made from natural gas, to the huge amount of well salt brought by the new well-drilling technology... the material basis for the promotion of new laws one after another was nested and paved perfectly, and the final promotion of the new laws was a natural result.

After a whole year of hard work by Zhuge Liang, Shu now not only has fair taxes and labor service and strict laws, but also has a large number of talented people with good achievements in construction who have been formally promoted.

In Shujun, Guanghan and Qianwei, there were talents such as Yang Hong, Zhang Yi and Wang Lian who supported the new law and they were promoted to positions of at least county magistrate.

In some counties, the post of prefect needs to be used to reward meritorious service and appease the elderly from Liu Zhang's era, so no action can be taken for the time being.

But Zhuge Liang was able to ensure that the county magistrates he supported and promoted had the final say in finance and civil administration. The governors could not obstruct or oppose them and could only take care of other things.

The promotion of Yang Hong, Zhang Yi and others naturally encountered some resistance at the beginning.

The main reason was that these people only focused on construction work, but lacked political achievements in other areas. According to the practice of the Eastern Han Dynasty for two hundred years, if one wanted to become a governor or at least a county magistrate, one must first have achievements in "pacifying the local area" and other aspects.

But before Zhuge Liang came to govern Shu last year, he had already made it clear that he only looked at achievements in construction, and that the collection of money and grain would be coordinated by the upper level, and that there would be two lines of revenue and expenditure. He did not look at achievements in local appeasement and public security.

As a result, the practice of "local tyrants using trouble and local unrest as bargaining chips to threaten the prefect/county magistrate to compromise with them in order to protect their own political achievements" that lasted for two hundred years in the Eastern Han Dynasty became completely ineffective under Zhuge Liang.

Of course, during this process, there were still many young people who did not believe in evil and were not well-informed. Seeing that Yang Hong, Zhang Yi and others did not consider their interests when promoting the labor service fee and rent and labor service, they continued to jump out and make trouble.

Unfortunately, the unrest and disturbances in these places against the new laws were also quickly resolved by Zhuge Liang's separate line of troops - after all, Zhuge Liang had left tens of thousands of elite troops in Yizhou last year, all led by generals who were once pirates, such as Gan Ning, Zhou Tai, and Jiang Qin, to maintain local peace.

In order to quickly govern Shu, last year Liu Bei's army was even willing to let a general like Gan Ning miss the battle of Jingbei. This investment cost can be said to be sincere.

Zhuge Liang's sharpness was rare in the world. He could always find clues that local powerful families wanted to cause trouble, and then he would deploy in advance and wait for the other party to jump into the trap.

In the end, all the resistance from the local tyrants was dealt with with ease, using both kindness and severity. The pragmatic officials that Zhuge Liang wanted to promote successfully secured their positions.

During the whole process, there were some small episodes - some of the local powerful families who resisted had close ties with the generals in Liu Zhang's old army who had surrendered.

Therefore, while Zhuge Liang used Gan Ning, Zhou Tai and others to lure people, evidence of some generals in Liu Zhang's old army abusing their power and colluding with local tyrants was also exposed.

Zhuge Liang certainly would not show mercy. For those who had clearly gone too far and deserved the death penalty, he ordered the execution without hesitation to establish his authority.

He also combined leniency and severity with other accomplices who were coerced, bewitched, and forced to commit crimes, and enforced the law moderately, which made people convinced and impeccable.

In this way, the 70,000 to 80,000 old troops left by Liu Zhang were also slightly reformed. Several officers who colluded for personal gain were killed, and the military power of more than a dozen others was deprived.

The reasons were all very sufficient, the trial was open, and the verdict was even more open. Everyone from top to bottom was convinced, and no one thought that Zhuge Liang's verdict was wrong.

After all the overt resistance was dealt with by Zhuge Liang, the last card the local aristocratic families could play was to secretly say some bad things from the perspective of public opinion.

Considering that Zhuge Liang had set up a "separate system of revenue and expenditure" to raise money for local construction, people like Yang Hong and Zhang Yi did not have to raise money themselves, but only spent money and spent it more efficiently. Therefore, those noble families could not accuse Yang Hong and Zhang Yi of amassing wealth. Therefore, they only had one last option left - since the money was raised by Zhuge Liang, they could accuse Zhuge Liang of taking the opportunity to amass wealth for his own benefit.

But this ridiculous statement soon fell apart.

Because in this life, Zhuge Liang also lived a life of luxury, and was blessed by his elder brother, so he had good conditions when he was young. But after entering Shu, Zhuge Liang changed his lifestyle. He lived a simple life in Chengdu for a year, set an example himself, and kept clear accounts of his finances.

Although he did not have the opportunity to write a letter stating that he only had "15 hectares of thin land and 800 mulberry trees" left in Shu, he also used other methods to publicize the personal wealth he had obtained after entering Shu. In short, he left those who criticized him completely speechless.

It can be said that all the resistance during Zhuge Liang's rule over Shu was crushed by him with his own moves, and it only took him more than a year, which was really a very easy task.

At the end of the letter, Zhuge Liang gave a brief summary of his political achievements:

After more than a year of tough governance, the new law has basically been put on the right track. The next step is to expand the scale and make adjustments.

The focus of Yizhou's domestic work this year is, on the one hand, to replicate last year's model, expand the scale of construction and corvee labor, complete the restoration of Dujiangyan, and further expand the production capacity of well salt and natural gas steelmaking in Jianwei County.

On the other hand, he hoped to have the opportunity to thoroughly reorganize the old army left by Liu Zhang, eliminate the dross and retain the essence, and select and train elite troops that could be truly used in the future Northern Expedition.

The old and weak were released as civilians, while those troublemakers, or those who had the tendency to desert the battlefield in the future, were punished by being sent to hard labor camps directly under the government's control if they were found guilty of crimes.

As for how to do these tasks planned for this year, Zhuge Liang said in the letter:

After he arranges the spring farming work in Shu, he will come to Xiangyang in person to report in person.

At the same time, he also hopes to get Liu Bei's authorization, and by the way, he can discuss and exchange ideas with his elder brother to find out the gaps and fill them in.

The letter was sent in March, saying that he would set off in March and might arrive in Xiangyang by the end of the month.

Zhuge Liang was granted full authority to govern Yizhou by Liu Bei, so he should not leave easily. However, it was reasonable for him to go on a long journey to report on his work only once a year.

Moreover, Liu Bei's army is currently in a window of interval between military operations, so it has just enough time to sort out its internal affairs.

……

After reading Zhuge Liang's letter, Liu Bei immediately gave it to Zhuge Jin and asked him to see what his second brother had written.

And he asked Zhuge Jin to help speculate how Zhuge Liang's words "I hope to have a chance to thoroughly reorganize the old army left by Liu Zhang, to eliminate the dross and retain the essence, and to screen and train them" would be implemented specifically.

"Ziyu, no one knows a brother better than his brother. Tell me, what is Kong Ming planning to do?"

Zhuge Jin put down his second brother's letter and knocked on the table with his fan bones a few times, like knocking a wooden fish. He thought for a while, then said thoughtfully:
"Perhaps, my second brother has also learned about the latest battle situation in Jingbei while in Yizhou. He estimates that after our army seizes Liu Jingsheng's former territory, we will temporarily cease fighting with Cao Cao and prepare for war. Therefore, some of the plans he originally envisioned are difficult to talk about. That's why he wants to take this opportunity to report in person to convince the lord."

After hearing this explanation, Liu Bei raised his eyebrows slightly, and roughly understood what Zhuge Jin meant:

"You mean, Kong Ming originally planned to wait until the situation in Shu was stable before mobilizing some troops and training and selecting soldiers? But Shu is located on the border. Does he want to send Yizhou troops out of Qinling Mountains to harass Yongliang?"

Zhuge Jin saw that his lord's first reaction was a little off, so he quickly thought of a better way: "That may not be the case. We need to find something for the old army in Shuzhong to do, reorganize the army with lower money and food expenses and a lower scale of troops, and find another enemy - maybe the barbarians in the south.

Moreover, the lord may have forgotten that in southern Xinjiang, although Shi Xie lost the Nanhai counties, he still occupied Jiaozhi County. He just gave up the coastal land and retreated to the inland of Pushui (Red River).

Before Lu Boyan was transferred to Hanshui to help, he and Bu Zishan had been in the South China Sea for several years, but they only had the advantage of the navy and could not penetrate deep into the jungles and hills, so they had not yet completely destroyed Shi Xie. As long as Lu Boyan advanced along the coast, Shi Xie could go upstream along the Pushui River and clear the fields to avoid fighting.

But if my second brother intends to use his troops against Nanzhong, or at least wants to intimidate Nanzhong, then our army can go down the Pu River from Nanzhong and directly attack and destroy Shi Xie. In this way, we can completely clear the southern border of our Han Dynasty."

Zhuge Jin's speculation was not because he was so smart and knew his second brother's thoughts. He also knew that since Zhuge Liang wanted to "train by fighting" and wanted to integrate the old army left by Liu Zhang at a low cost, he must find some weak persimmons to train.

This kind of military action will not be large-scale, nor will it consume too much money and food. In general, the goal is to control costs and hope to earn back the money through war profits.

Under such circumstances, Zhuge Jin knew that crossing the Qinling Mountains to the north would be too costly and disadvantageous, and he would definitely not do it with his second brother's intelligence.

Well, if we count on our fingers, we know that there are no other enemy options, and we can only attack the south.

In history, Zhuge Liang also wrote in his "The Second Letter to the Emperor" that "If we want to march north, we should first enter the south. So in May, we crossed the Lu River, went deep into the barren land, and ate only once a day..."

This is easy to imagine.

After listening to Zhuge Jin's analysis, Liu Bei roughly knew what one of the topics Zhuge Liang wanted to discuss this time.

However, he still felt a little sorry about the money and food, and always felt that the necessity of this matter was doubtful.

"Although the barbarians in the south do not submit to the king's rule, they had already refused to submit when Liu Zhang ruled Shu. They only submitted to the Han rule in name. It is not that they began to be dissatisfied after I annexed Liu Zhang. It is not necessarily beneficial to completely conquer them.

As for Shi Xie, although he has always been guilty and has not been thoroughly investigated, he has fled far overseas and is isolated by mountains and dense forests. He is no longer a threat to the Central Plains. What is the point of rushing to completely destroy him? Every penny of the money and food spent could have been used for the Northern Expedition the following year. "

Zhuge Jin did not directly refute Liu Bei's opinion. He just pondered for a while and said comfortingly: "I don't know the details. This is just my guess. Maybe my second brother has other ideas.

Let's wait until he arrives and discuss it in detail. Perhaps my second brother has another trick to control the scale of troops and the amount of money and food spent on the southern expedition, so that he can fight to support the war. It is also possible that he can coordinate other strategies, which I don't know for the time being."

Liu Bei thought about it and nodded silently. Brother Zhuge had some historical credit with him.

Since Zhuge Liang has some ideas, there must be some concrete reasons for them. When he arrives, we can have a frank chat and settle all the accounts.

If it can be combined with farming and the Northern Expedition in the next two years, and the cost is not high, it is not impossible to consider it.

-

PS: Sorry, due to the timeline, the battles of Xiang and Fan have been fought, and there will definitely be a farming period afterwards.

So the brothers Zhuge Jin and Zhuge Liang will take turns to appear. The transition chapter will be a little more diary-like, and will take stock of what Zhuge Liang did in the past year.

However, this time the two brothers will not be online one at a time, and there will be more interactions interspersed in the writing.

Friends who don't like reading about farming, please bear with me. The last two years are mainly about farming, and then there is the unification war. And the post-war system construction plot, extra chapters (I will increase or decrease the length of this part based on feedback, if you think it's boring, I will write faster)
(End of this chapter)