My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 712 Give Zhuge Liang three years and I'll give you a new Yizhou
September, the fourteenth year of Jian'an.

Zhuge Liang returned to Chengdu again, where he was convinced of his governance.

I was away for five months. When I left, the spring plowing had just ended, and when I returned, it was already the autumn harvest season.

The golden late rice that stretches across the entire Minjiang Plain has been harvested and bundled, leaving only a small piece of straw stubble sticking out, allowing the entire field to still maintain its golden color.

As the fleet sailed upstream along the Minjiang River, looking at the rice fields on both sides of the river, one could clearly feel that this was another year of bumper harvest.

"God bless the Han Dynasty! After so many years of famine, we finally have such a good harvest. If we can save up military supplies for a few more years, we can help our lord launch a full-scale northern expedition and drive out the Cao thieves."

Several generals accompanying Zhuge Liang, such as Zhou Tai, Jiang Qin, etc., could not help but express such emotion along the way.

These "ignorant" remarks were naturally refuted by fellow civil servants and staff.

For example, Yang Hong, the prefect of Shu County, was not originally a member of Zhuge Liang's entourage. Instead, he found out the return date of Zhuge Liang's fleet in advance, went to Jiangyuan County in person to greet him, and then accompanied him back to Chengdu.

At this moment, hearing the sighs of those uneducated generals, Yang Hong proudly corrected them: "The harvest in Shu in the past two years has been obviously better than usual. This is all due to Lord Zhuge. Why should we attribute it to luck?

Your Lordship's rent and labor system and the money for labor service have made it possible for the people to make full use of their strength. Those with land will not be overworked, and those without land can work all year round to make a living. If the old method of repairing Dujiangyan was used, how could it be completed in two or three years? Even if it could be completed, the money and grain wasted and the degree of disturbance to the people would be much higher than it is now."

The more Yang Hong spoke, the more proud he felt, and he casually recounted in detail Zhuge Liang's detailed achievements in developing water conservancy projects in Shu.

The military generals did not quite understand these details, but they could roughly feel that Zhuge Lingjun's political measures were definitely more careful and fair than those of the ancients.

Zhuge Liang himself was obviously not complacent at all. He stood at the bow of the boat and looked at the rice fields on both sides, gently waving the feather fan in his hand at a steady pace.

However, he did not spoil Yang Hong's fun. He waited until Yang Hong was tired of boasting before Zhuge Liang casually asked about some other details:
"Has the Dujiangyan Irrigation System been completely repaired? When I left Sichuan in April, it seemed to be a little short of completion, right?"

Yang Hong quickly reported: "There are indeed some finishing touches to be done, but during this winter's farming off-season, we will definitely be able to complete the repairs completely."

Zhuge Liang asked carefully, "Did you use the money and grain from the neighboring counties? Or can you complete this project entirely with the surplus grain in Shu County? There shouldn't be any extra expenses that will affect the future southern expedition against the barbarians."

Yang Hong: "It is enough to rely on the materials and surplus grain of Shu County. This year, the land tax and grain of Shu County are not enough. But because of the good harvest, the surplus grain of the people is very sufficient, and the people with more land have grain to sell.

The measures that your lord had thought of to prevent the wealthy and powerful from hoarding grain were implemented effectively, so grain prices were relatively low.

The output of the numerous Shujin workshops and other factories run by the government was also very stable, and the people had high demand for salt, tea, silk, and iron. Just by selling these materials, we could buy enough food from the people for corvée labor."

In just a few words, Yang Hong vividly described the economic development achievements of Shu County in the six months after Zhuge Liang's departure.

To put it bluntly, the key is that all industries have received sufficient investment and a relaxed business environment. Then the labor force has been fully released, and vagrants without land to farm are almost non-existent in Shu County now, and they can always find work.

The original contradiction of too many people and too little land during the reign of Liu Zhang was basically resolved by spending money to buy labor service and develop handicraft industries.

Moreover, a large number of high-quality handicrafts were put back on the market, which also attracted wealthy families and powerful people to "upgrade their productivity tools", and completely unleashed the consumption power of those wealthy people who had originally hoarded gold, silver and copper coins.

The money used to buy salt, tea, silk and brocade is certainly consumer money.

But the money spent on buying steel equipment and tools is obviously for the purpose of "improving production efficiency."

Of course, the rich families in Shu County purchased a large number of steel production tools, expanded production, built water conservancy projects, and built new workshops. In this process, the goods they needed were not all produced locally in Shu County, but also had to be supplemented by large-scale trade between counties and the exchange of "comparative advantages".

After all, Shu County had few iron mines, and the iron smelting industry had not made any new developments. In contrast, the neighboring Qianwei County had been given special attention by Zhuge Liang in the past two years, and had devoted all its efforts to building the well salt and steel industries. Fire well steel mills were built one after another, and steel production was growing at a crazy speed, doubling almost every year.

There are many new factories in Shu County, and the repair of Dujiangyan will consume a lot of steel tools. More than half of the steel produced in Qianwei County in the past two years has been sold to Shu County. Naturally, the rich families in Shu County also need to pay enough real money to buy it.

Considering that Jianwei County does not need too much Shu brocade and tea for consumption, and the industrial products produced by Jianwei are all "urgent needs" in Shu County, so according to normal trade, the hard currency of the rich households in Shu County will soon be lost in large quantities, forming an "inter-county trade deficit."

However, with the timely management and control of capable officials such as Yang Hong, Zhang Yi, and Wang Lian, and Zhuge Liang's far-sighted and foresighted prevention, this problem was successfully resolved during the actual operation.

Zhuge Liang had long taken into account the relative "inflation/deflation" caused by trade between counties and among the people, so he specifically used the government's credit to make Shu brocade into a hard currency that could be forcibly bound to gold, silver-plated coins, and copper coins.

Even if the steel merchants in Jianwei County do not need so much Shu brocade, they can collect the Shu brocade as currency/payment and stockpile it, since the government has provided them with acceptance anyway.

Moreover, the salt and iron industries in the Han Dynasty were originally government-run monopolies, but under Zhuge Liang, at most, they were made a little more flexible, becoming "government-run and privately operated," allowing the private sector to exercise some "subjective initiative" and giving them some profit-sharing incentives to increase their enthusiasm.

Therefore, it was easy for Zhuge Liang to ensure that all salt and iron factories were willing to accept Shu brocade as currency. Administrative orders alone could solve 70% to 80% of the problem, and the remaining minor problems could be solved by the "invisible hand of market regulation".

Under such prudent regulation, trade between counties in Yizhou operated smoothly and efficiently. Everyone was able to work at full capacity, and the people could easily achieve a win-win situation. From factory owners to employees, everyone could live a more prosperous life than before.

By this time, no one in the society would miss the era under Liu Zhang's rule anymore - although the era under Liu Zhang had one biggest advantage, which was that the local people of Yizhou did not have to fight for hegemony among the princes of the outside world, and the local manpower and material resources of Yizhou could be spent on the local people.

However, Zhuge Liang had only been in power for two years, and the new productivity he liberated, which improved the lives of local people, was enough to offset the money and grain saved by Liu Zhang's "not contributing to the outside world" during his rule over Shu.

The income from Zhuge Liang's increased revenue exceeded the income from Liu Zhang's cost-saving by not fighting wars. After the people saw this clearly, they naturally became completely convinced of the rule of Liu Bei's camp.

In a stage where the growth rate of "productivity investment" is constantly rising, all kinds of contradictions can always be covered up. Zhuge Liang was only vaguely aware of this truth.

However, after discussing the ways of managing internal affairs with his elder brother a few years ago, his elder brother helped him sort it out in a concise manner. After being influenced by him for a long time, Zhuge Liang's understanding of this became more comprehensive and thorough.

Although the hoarding of the proceeds of exploitation by the rentier class may lead to considerable unfairness, at least they do not choose to hoard the proceeds after exploitation.

As long as they are willing to spend the money and let it flow back into society, allowing the landless and impoverished people to make a living through employment and labor service, many conflicts can be eased.

What will really lead to idle labor and the poor being left with no place to live and unable to survive is that after the rentiers exploit them, they do not use the money to resume production, but directly store it in cellars. This is when big problems are most likely to occur.

After years of war and chaos, the Eastern Han Dynasty's socioeconomic and productivity were significantly damaged, leaving ample room for investment and restoration. As long as the rulers could find a way to put the proceeds of exploitation into practical use, people's livelihoods could recover quickly.

Although other fairness issues are also important, things have their priorities. In the final few years of the sprint to destroy Cao, those are not the main contradictions for the time being.

……

After returning to Chengdu, Zhuge Liang spent a few days sorting out the internal affairs of various counties in Shu during the time he was away.

He also gave clear and concise suggestions for where adjustments needed to be made, and issued them to all counties for immediate implementation.

The repair work on Dujiangyan had consumed a considerable amount of grain and ironware. Although it did not require support from other counties, it had also used up most of Shu County's grain reserves.

According to the plan Zhuge Liang had asked Liu Bei for instructions when he went to Xiangyang, he had originally intended to use the two winters to rectify the barbarian forces in the four southern counties that refused to obey the king. Now that Shu County was short of food, it would be a bit rash to mobilize troops this winter.

So after the autumn tax accounts were roughly settled, Yang Hong took the initiative to ask: "May I ask your Majesty whether we need Guanghan County to escort a batch of military rations to Shu County for use in the campaign against Yuexi County this winter?"

Zhuge Liang carefully evaluated it and finally decided to reduce the trouble and adjust the plan:

"That's not necessary. At most, we can just cut back on some of the troops we'll be deploying this winter. The plan to attack and pacify Yuexi from Shu County will be shelved until the short farming off-season after the spring plowing next year.

This winter, we will only carry out the plan of advancing eastward from Qianwei County, pacifying Zangke and opening up the Qianzhong Road. In this way, we can pacify Qianzhong this winter, pacify Yuexi at the turn of spring and summer next year, and then attack Jianning and other places next winter. This will ensure that the scale of troops deployed at the same time is not too large, and there will always be soldiers to train. "

Zhuge Liang's fine-tuning can be considered very pragmatic.

Anyway, pacifying the Southern Barbarians is not a task that requires rushing. The pros and cons of all preparatory plans must be measured by the standard of "achieving the goal at the lowest cost."

Because victory is certain to be won, this is a series of training battles. In order to support the war through fighting, we must pay attention to cost reduction.

Even if the distance is not far, it will still be an extra loss if the grain from Guanghan County is transported to Shu County with great effort.

It would be better to let the main garrison in Shuzhong stay in Guanghan for a few months, eat food and train locally, and let the troops do some construction labor and settle locally in their spare time. In short, the cost of maintaining the troops in peacetime should be reduced as much as possible.

Even if the farming truce ended and the counties in Yizhou still had surplus grain to transport out to support the Northern Expedition, they could also go directly downstream along the Fu River from Guanghan County, and go out of Sichuan to Jingzhou via the Yangtze River, at least saving the loss of making an extra detour to Shu County.

In any case, Zhuge Liang's plans were all carefully calculated, trying to be as economical as possible and minimize all unnecessary losses.

However, Guanghan County had sufficient farmland and lacked wasteland. With the large number of idle garrisons, there was not enough plain land to be reclaimed. Zhuge Liang also had a solution for this, which was to properly develop the local hilly slopes and use the underdeveloped gentle slopes in the Longquan Mountain area to plant a variety of tea and fruit trees.

During the Eastern Han Dynasty, the level of agricultural development in hilly and mountainous areas was always very low, even in Shu, where there was a large population and limited land. As long as one wanted to grow tea and fruit, there would definitely be suitable land available for additional development.

In an era when the "commodity economy" was not well developed, a variety of fruit trees might not be able to significantly subsidize the people's food needs, because fruits are too perishable and difficult to transport and trade over long distances. And fruit farmers cannot feed themselves by eating only fruits.

However, in Shujun and Guanghan under Zhuge Liang's rule, the current commercial trading environment is far from comparable to other periods and regions in the Eastern Han Dynasty. Local short-distance trade has been very developed, and with the implementation of the labor service payment and rent and labor system, ordinary people have more or less the motivation to participate in commercial transactions.

Apart from other things, in order to pay the exemption fee, the people often had to sell some food to exchange for money.
In the era when these new laws did not exist, a considerable number of grain farmers hardly ever dealt with commercial trade in their entire lives. They either ate the grain they grew themselves, paid rent, or paid taxes. In short, many people did not sell it, and they had no surplus grain to sell.

Today, the scale and depth of grain trade have been fully activated, which can also give rise to more vegetable and fruit farmers who grow purebred vegetables or fruits.

Their fields may not be flat enough, low enough, or difficult to irrigate, so they cannot be turned into rice fields. In the old days, even if these people could not grow rice, they would have to grow some dryland crops to ensure food for the whole family and avoid starvation.

However, after the commodity economy and grain trade gradually became popular, they could completely stop growing food and focus on growing vegetables and fruits. They then earned money by selling vegetables and fruits, and went to neighboring villages and towns to buy rice to make a living, and bought rice to pay land and grain taxes.

In this way, the benefits of "social division of labor brings efficiency improvement, and comparative advantages liberate productivity" are realized subtly.

Although even Zhuge Liang could not clearly explain the economic principles behind it, this situation does indeed improve the productivity of the people.

……

After carefully adjusting the timetable and scale of the southern expedition to the Nanman in each county,
As well as the deployment of garrison training in peacetime and the planning of land reclamation and labor in the army's idle time.

Time soon came to October of the 14th year of Jian'an.

Counting the days, it is now early winter. Shu County's deployment of troops against Yuexi County has been temporarily suspended due to adjustments.

It is time to put the action of advancing eastward from Jianwei County to pacify Zangke County on the agenda.

According to Zhuge Liang's original plan, the total number of troops deployed each winter should be controlled within 30,000. This number is definitely enough to deal with the barbarian kings in the southern counties, and any more would be a waste of money and food.

Since there has been a temporary adjustment this year, we will not fight against Yuexi County and will only fight against Zangke, so the total number of troops has been further compressed, and it is planned to use only 20,000 people.

As for the enemy, it was naturally Zhu Bao, the local emperor of Zangke County. During the reign of Liu Zhang, Zhu Bao, as the chief of a local noble family, was already the county magistrate, but he held the real power of the county. The governor of Zangke appointed by Liu Zhang was actually sidelined by him.

Historically, after Liu Bei replaced Liu Zhang, he did not adjust the personnel arrangements in Nanzhong at all, and recognized all of them posthumously. After Liu Bei's death, Liu Chan promoted Zhu Bao to the position of governor in accordance with Zhuge Liang's suggestion in order to appease the local area, but even so, he still failed to stop his ambition from expanding further.

Seeing that the time to send troops was approaching, the main civil servants around Zhuge Liang and some generals in Shu secretly wrote letters to discuss the matter. Some offered suggestions and some requested to go to the battlefield.

However, Zhuge Liang had already made plans about who to send and what troops to use, so he rejected all requests from generals who wanted to fight with their own elite veteran troops.

Of course, Zhuge Liang was still very reasonable. While refusing to refute, he also patiently explained the reasons so as not to hurt morale.

"Our army is composed of veterans and elite soldiers, all seasoned in battle. Even here in Yizhou, they've fought Cao Cao's main force in Hanzhong. Their military discipline and experience are sufficient.

The barbarian soldiers in the south have no discipline, but training opportunities are rare. In principle, the main force of the southern expedition in the past two years will be the surrendered troops left by Liu Zhang. Our elite veterans can only participate in the war as generals' guards and key officers.

The main soldiers must be selected from Liu Zhang's former subordinates. In this way, when we go north to fight against Cao Cao in the future, Liu Zhang's former subordinates will have the strength to fight and will not be wasted. "

Zhuge Liang spoke these words sincerely, so the generals who requested to fight, led by Gan Ning, all accepted his suggestion.

Gan Ning even agreed not to bring his direct Jinfan Battalion to participate in the war, or to bring only one or two hundred people as guards and officers, and the rest would be Liu Zhang's old subordinates who had just been reorganized in the past two years.

Seeing that all the generals had a unified view, Zhuge Liang no longer blocked their path to achievement.

Finally, he agreed to let Gan Ning be the chief general, and first lead his troops to Qianwei County to gather the troops, and then from Baidao County (Yibin) of Qianwei County, follow the Yangguan River, a tributary of the Yangtze River on the south bank, through Zhuti County (now Zhaotong, Yunnan) into Qianzhong Road, and pacify Zangke County.

(Note: After reaching Zhaotong in Yunnan from Yangguanshui, you can go over a section of mountain road and enter the Liupanshui area in Guizhou today, then go downstream to today's Anshun and Guiyang, and then to Qilan County, the seat of Zangke County at that time. This was also the conventional route for entering Shu via Qianzhong Road in ancient times. This mountain road can be connected to Lingling County in Jingzhou.)
After receiving the order, Gan Ning immediately dispatched and organized the troops according to Zhuge Liang's latest requirements, and updated the equipment in a targeted manner.

The enemies in the south have no powerful crossbows at all. The killing kinetic energy of bows and crossbows is very weak, and they mainly rely on poisoning arrows to increase their lethality. Therefore, when fighting in such a place, the defensive coverage of armor is far more important than the strength of the armor.

The steel-forged plate armor that shone so brilliantly in the Central Plains War was completely useless in the humid and rugged South China, and it also hindered climbing and marching. It would be better to change to a full-body leather armor, which at least ensured that even the hands, feet and wrists were covered and would not be hit by poison arrows.

With Zhuge Liang's thorough thinking, he had of course thought of all these problems long ago.

Even if he had not thought of it at the beginning, he would consult the naturalized officials and soldiers from the local area, humbly organize and come up with countermeasures. He also took care of the military workshops in Qianwei County to produce the additional equipment needed for tropical mountain warfare in advance.

When Gan Ning arrived, everything was already prepared.

(End of this chapter)