Silver Fox of the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 307 Internal Affairs and Diplomacy
At the end of the 15th year of Jian'an, after Liu Bei obtained Yizhou and Jingzhou, a series of internal adjustments began.

The first is to carry out military rectification.

Yizhou was pacified, and Liu Bei got a large number of Yizhou soldiers.

Among them are Zhang Lu's surrendered soldiers and generals, as well as a large number of Liu Zhang's soldiers who surrendered because Liu Zhang chose to hand over Yizhou.

Especially Yang Huai, Gao Pei, Deng Xian, Leng Bao, Zhang Ren, Liu Gui, Fu Jin, Xiang Cun and other generals who were unwilling to submit to Liu Bei in history, because Liu Zhang abandoned the city and fled, he abandoned them, so that he was disappointed. They defected to Liu Bei one after another.

In this way, the total number of Zhang Lujun and Liu Zhangjun is about [-] to [-], plus the left-behind garrisons scattered in the rear of various places and the soldiers led by fleeing generals such as Pang Xi and others, there are nearly [-] people.

These people need to be reorganized, weed out the old and weak, and train elite soldiers.

Now Guan Yu, Pang Tong, Xu Shu and the others are doing these things. It took more than a year from the acquisition of Yizhou in August last year to the end of this year.

By the 15th year of Jian'an and 210 AD, including the 5 troops in Liu Bei's headquarters, about two-thirds of them had been eliminated.

Yizhou has a total of about 15 people, and in the end there are only about [-] elite soldiers left.

These elite soldiers can be said to be the best of the best. Almost 30% of them are young and strong between the ages of [-] and [-], and they are also veterans of many battles. They have rich experience and belong to the first-class soldiers.

About half of the soldiers who were eliminated were older or younger, and they were all soldiers under the age of 20 or over 35 years old.

These people were given fields so that they could reunite with their families and become taxpayers.

The other half are age-appropriate, but the situation is not good.Either they are new recruits with little experience, or they are tired of fighting, don't want to participate in wars anymore, and want to disarm and return to the field.

For this group of people, Zhuge Liang, Pang Tong, and Xu Shu, who were in charge of the government, also made arrangements.

Some were left and placed in Shu County, Qianwei County, Ba County and other places to become county soldiers, some went to other places to serve as county government servants, and some were given fields to return to their hometowns to cultivate.

After more than a year of restructuring in this way, about 15 of the original approximately 5 troops have become the main force in Yizhou.

The remaining [-] people returned to the countryside, and more than [-] people were scattered in various counties to become second-line county soldiers or county government servants.

In this way, the soldiers and horses that can be mobilized in Yizhou are about [-] main forces plus [-] county soldiers, for a total of [-].

But actually it will be more.

Because Liu Bei got Jingzhou and Yizhou, the treasury was extremely rich, and the rewards for soldiers were also very high, so many elite soldiers from Jian and Ba also joined the army enthusiastically.

After Zhuge Liang arrived in Bashu, he conducted on-the-spot investigations and found that the barbarians who were willing to surrender were available, and the barbarians who were not willing to surrender needed to be subdued. Therefore, he planned to build a barbarian army and selected [-] elite Jinren and Baren to become the main force.

As a result, in addition to the [-] main elite soldiers and [-] county soldiers, there are also [-] ethnic minority troops who can cross mountains and ridges as if walking on flat ground.

In this way, all the soldiers and horses that Yizhou can use add up to a total of [-].

of course.

The current situation is that this ethnic minority army is still in preparation and needs time to select and train.

Now a large number of Ji people and Ba people living in difficulties have been relocated to the plains, got the land to cultivate with the Han people, and integrated into the Han nationality.

Liu Bei also fulfilled his promise to make the leaders of the Yi kings with seven surnames become officials from various places. If they really have no governance skills, they will be given corresponding status and wealth.

And according to the policy, if you make meritorious service in battle, you will not only be promoted, but also rewarded with a lot of coins, silk, and land.

In this way, when the leader was wooed and the low-level people got land and benefits, the enthusiasm of the people to join the army was very high, and many people signed up to join the army.

There are countless low-level people and Han Chinese who want to join the army and leap up the class, and the conscription offices everywhere are full.

The situation is very good.

It's just that Zhuge Liang also knows that the reason why Liu Bei dares to throw coins wantonly now is because he got the treasury accumulated by Liu Biao and Liu Zhang for many years.

Liu Bei is not a stingy person, he can use all the coins in the treasury for rewards.

But Zhuge Liang knew that if all the items in the treasury were really rewarded, the government would not have a large amount of inventory as a guarantee. In the event of an emergency, financial difficulties would easily occur, and the people would be poor and the country would be empty.

Therefore, amidst this false prosperity, Zhuge Liang wrote to Shen Chen many times to exchange opinions and adopt a series of economic measures and internal reforms.

For example, vigorously develop Shu brocade, set up a brocade official under Shen Chen's suggestion, improve looms, and increase varieties of mulberry and hemp.

Then he took aim at Hanjia Gold and Zhu Tiyin, and sent people to Hanjia County and Zhu Ti County to set up gold officials, silver officials and copper officials to explore undeveloped minerals and mine developed gold, silver and copper mines to fill the treasury loss.

At the same time, the monopoly of salt and iron led Mi Zhu and Zhou Lin to establish official salt merchants and grain merchants to transport grain from Jingzhou, which is rich in grain, to Yizhou, and well salt from Yizhou, which is rich in salt, to Jingzhou to promote economic and trade between the two places.

Although the implementation of a series of policies has not yet seen immediate results, after two or three years, the land of Yizhou and Jingzhou is bound to be enriched, the treasury will be filled, and the poverty of the people will be greatly improved.

We must know that in today's era, the economy of the north under Cao Cao and the Jiangdong under Sun Quan's rule almost collapsed, the people stayed in the period of bartering, and commerce was close to stagnation.

Only Jingzhou and Yizhou were not seriously affected by the war in the north, and the situation is much better. There are still commercial exchanges on the Yangtze River, so it is not possible to exchange things.

Now the Nanyang Basin continues to produce grain, and Shen Chen introduced Champa rice, which has made Jingzhou a lot of grain income in the past two years. Almost [-]% of the people in Jingzhou can have enough food, unlike the north where there is starvation. .

Therefore, through the complementarity of food and salt between Jingzhou and Yizhou, and valuables such as Shu brocade, gold, silver and copper as national credit guarantees, the folks will maintain commercial prosperity without worrying about financial collapse.

If the government has money, it can hire the common people to build water conservancy projects. At the same time, it will distribute salaries to officials and military pay to soldiers, so as to stabilize social order and guarantee the foundation of governance.

Therefore, even if Zhuge Liang's reform has no effect now, it will be of great help to the Liu Bei Group in the future.

In this way, the current military situation in Yizhou is that there are 5000 elite soldiers, of which 5000 are under the command of Guan Yu, the general of the bandits, assisted by Xu Shu, the military adviser, and guarding Hanzhong, and another [-], of which [-] are stationed in Chengdu. Ten thousand were stationed in Jiangzhou.

Then there are [-] soldiers from various counties, each with a guard.In the end, there are [-] Jianren troops that are still under construction, and the thousands of cavalry currently led by Zhang Fei, which is the current military situation in Yizhou.

The situation in Jingzhou is similar.

Liu Biao had a population of more than 20 during his time, but he relied on Shen Chen's help to obtain the Nanyang Basin and a large number of people. He became rich overnight through farming and became a big fat man.

After pacifying Jingzhou, after two years of weight loss, more than 10 people were also reduced to about [-].

Among them, Shen Chen led 5 of them, under the jurisdiction of Wenpin and Ganning Departments, stationed in Nanyang and Xiangyang respectively to guard against Cao Cao.

Liu Pan, with about 2 people, was stationed in Changsha, and another [-] Jiangxia navy and thousands of elite infantry, led by Huang She, were stationed in Jiangxia County and Lujiang County in Xunyang County.

Moreover, Jingzhou's background is much stronger than that of Yizhou. In addition to the 17 main soldiers, there are about [-] county soldiers and thousands of embroidered cavalry.In addition, the Wuxi barbarians who surrendered also selected [-] elite soldiers to form an army, and Jingzhou had [-] soldiers and horses at their disposal.

In this way, the entire Liu Bei Group can use 26 soldiers and horses, 15 main soldiers, [-] second-tier county soldiers, and about [-] ethnic minorities and seven to eight thousand cavalry.

It seems that there are not many, because before the battle of Guandu and Cao Cao's battle of Chibi, the total strength of Yuan Shao must have exceeded this number.

Yuan Shao's total strength at that time may have been more than 25, and Cao Cao had more troops, which should be more than 30.Otherwise, if there is no large defensive force in the rear, it is impossible for them to dispatch more than [-] troops to launch two large-scale battles.

But Liu Bei is different from Yuan Shao and Cao Cao.

At this time, the Liu Bei Group was the total number of troops after the reduction of the elite and the restructuring of the army.

If you only consider the number of troops without considering the combat effectiveness of the army, with the current population of tens of millions in Jingzhou and Yizhou, it is no problem at all to pull out an army of 50 million.

Therefore, these armies are to maintain the current peaceful situation, not only to ensure that Yizhou and Jingzhou will not be invaded, but after completing a series of internal reform policies to strengthen the state, Jingyi will become richer, more populous, and have more food and grass, so they will consider continuing Expand the army and start foreign wars.

The military rectification process lasted for one to two years. Hanzhong was garrisoned by general Guan Yu, with [-] soldiers, [-] county soldiers, and [-] cavalry from Zhang Fei's department. This is the current military strength of the entire Hanzhong.

On the Nanyang side is the [-] Jingzhou Legion led by Shen Chen, plus Zhang Xiu's thousands of cavalry, and Huang She's Jiangxia Navy, which is the overall external situation of the Liu Bei Group.

After military reform came domestic and foreign affairs.

Liu Bei handed over Yizhou's internal affairs to Zhuge Liang and Pang Tong. Zhuge Liang was in Jiangzhou, not only handling Yizhou affairs, but also handling official documents from Jingzhou.

Pang Tong is in Chengdu, responsible for the actual management of Yizhou's affairs, and has to travel around to inspect the local situation.

Jingzhou's internal affairs were handled by Fazheng Zhang Song and Jia Xu.

According to Zhuge Liang and Shen Chen's suggestion, Liu Bei wooed the eight great families in Jingzhou and gave their juniors official positions, allowing them to formulate laws, manage people's livelihood, and have a higher political status.

The major aristocratic families reciprocated, handing over a large amount of land and population, and compiled the existing population into the book, and paid taxes uniformly.

It looks like a win-win situation, but in reality the family suffers a blood loss.

Because what Liu Bei can give them is only a part of power.

But what they lost was the ultimate goal they had obtained by using power.

The Chinese people's obsession and nostalgia for the land will always be something that Westerners cannot understand.

Throughout the dynasties, the first thing most businessmen do after making money is to buy land for themselves, and return to their hometowns to become big landlords with peace of mind.

Many scholars have studied hard for decades. Once they become officials, the first thing they do is to use power for personal gain to obtain land.

Kuang Heng, the protagonist who chiseled the wall and stole the light, stole the light when he was a child, and stole the land when he grew up, owning more than 30 mu of land.

Xu Jie, who brought down Yan Song, a corrupt official of the Ming Dynasty, was portrayed as an upright official in many TV dramas of the Ming Dynasty in later generations. In fact, Xu Jie was more corrupt than Yan Song, owning more than 40 mu of land.

How did the aristocratic family come here?

Any one of the ancestors became a high-ranking official with two thousand shi, and started to engage in land property, and the family members prospered, and then concealed the population, hid the land, embezzled state property, and became a rich man.

So in this era, being an official is to engage in land. What the aristocratic families want to own is land and power in parallel. Just like Cao Cao was forced to compromise with the Yingchuan and Yanzhou aristocratic families, they got official positions, family land and population It won't be checked, it's as simple as that.

Under Liu Bei's rule, although the official position and power were obtained, the family's land and population were checked out. This is an unacceptable thing for the aristocratic family and it is easy to cause civil strife.

Fortunately, there are not only a large number of corrupt officials in this era, but also great sages and hermits like Mr. Pound, Sima Hui, and Huang Chengyan.

They don't pay much attention to fame and wealth, and to some extent, they can be regarded as class traitors. With their help, the Pang family and the Huang family took the lead in surrendering a large amount of land and population. The relationship between Kuai and Yue also cut flesh and blood.

Afterwards, the Ma, Xiang, Yang, and Xi clans followed suit to pay land property and population. Almost half of the land and population were confiscated, and the remaining land and population were also registered and began to pay taxes.

A series of actions meant that as much as the Pang family and the Huang family did, the other six families must follow suit.

But the gentry's money does not need to be returned in full.

A large amount of land and population were liberated, which eased the government finances of Yizhou and Jingzhou. The wealth of Liu Bei Group far exceeded the imagination of Cao Cao and Sun Quan Group.

The Eight Great Aristocratic Families are just the eight largest Aristocratic Families in Jingzhou. The reason why they were dealt with was that they were supported by sensible people like Pang Degong and Huang Chengyan.

Not only in Jingzhou, but also in Yizhou.

In this case, Zhuge Liang, Pang Tongfazheng, Zhang Song and others could only raise the butcher knife in their hands.

In August of the 16th year of Jian'an, the Lou clan in Nanyang rejected the New Deal, and secretly sent someone to Yecheng to collude with Cao Cao, intending to act as an internal support for the Cao clan, but was discovered by Fazheng and ordered to exterminate the three clans. the main house.

Because there are often hundreds or even thousands of family members in aristocratic families, and there are many people with lofty ideals among these people who are willing to accept government orders, but the control of the clan is in the hands of the master.

Just like the second Deng and Shen clans in Huangmenting, although the two clans have intermarried for many years, they are like a family, but the real control is in the hands of the masters of Deng Mao, Deng Hong and their brothers. When encountering this kind of government policy that wants to seize their fields, misjudgment will also occur.

Therefore, in order to avoid harming the innocent, the method Shen Chen chose was to kill those masters who disobeyed the government's order, and support the class traitors among the aristocratic families as masters.In this way, one faction fights the other and divides those aristocratic families, which can reduce the possibility of wanton civil strife.

It's just that this kind of thing is after all cutting the flesh of a large family, and we can't expect every family to have enlightened people.In ancient times, the interests of the clan were above all else, and often the whole clan would go to battle together, fighting against the government and starting a rebellion.

From the end of the 15th year of Jian'an to the 20th year of Jian'an, the government decrees have been followed by others, with negative attitudes, superficial promises and actual procrastination, and countless aristocratic families who even directly confronted the government.

For example, in February of the 17th year of Jian'an, the Wang family of Linxiang and the Huan family, the Li family of Quanling, and the Zhao family of Zhaoyang conspired to launch a rebellion, wanting to separate Jingnan and defect to Sun Quan.

Fortunately, Sun Quan actually sent someone to inform Liu Bei in advance, and Liu Bei immediately notified Fazheng, and Fazheng gave Liu Pan an order to quickly cut through the mess and eliminate hidden dangers.

Also, in September of the 17th year of Jian'an, many aristocratic families and Nanman uprisings in the southern part of Yizhou also sent people to calm down for Zhuge Liang.

This kind of situation has happened from time to time in the past five years. Almost wherever the policy is implemented, the rebellion will not stop there.In just five years, more than [-] great families were wiped out, thousands of people were killed, and tens of thousands of people were implicated.

But the achievements made in the past five years are also remarkable. The total population under Liu Bei's rule is more than 1000 million, among which there are millions of barbarians, such as Wuxi Man, Jin people, Ba people, Nanman, Qiang people and so on.

It covers a large number of ancestors of Tujia, Miao, Dong, Dai, Yao, Bai, Zhuang, Yi and other ethnic minorities in Hunan Province, Guizhou Province, Yunnan Province and Sichuan Province.

Excluding these ethnic minorities, the real Han population may be only 900 million.

At least half of them are controlled by aristocratic families.

Now that the policy is issued, more than 300 million people will be liberated. At the same time, the liberated land and newly reclaimed land will bring about an unimaginable increase in the finances of Jingzhou and Yizhou.

It's just that these are things in the future. At the end of Jian'an 15th year and the beginning of Jian'an 16th year, their work has just begun.

Liu Bei sits in Jiangzhou, and at the end of the year, he summons the chief generals and officials from various places in turn, and seals the officials.

Except for Shen Chen, Zhuge Liang, Pang Tong, Xu Shu, Fazheng, Zhang Fei, and Guan Yu, the seven great heroes each had five hundred catties of gold, one thousand catties of silver, fifty million copper coins, one thousand pieces of Shu brocade, and countless treasures, the rest of the officials and soldiers also There are many awards, and the rewards reach huge billions, almost emptying the treasury.

And also set up a large number of generals, Liu Bei Group's generals are flooded with names, basically starting from here.Civil and military ministers and generals numbered as many as forty people. In addition to the miscellaneous generals that existed in the Han Dynasty, there were more than twenty more.

Zhao Yun wrote to dissuade him, hoping not to award so much money and so many generals.But Liu Bei still insisted. In the end, because he offended too many people, Zhao Yun was sent to Lujiang County as the prefect of Lujiang and became the general of Xunyang County.

Outsiders thought it was distribution, but they didn't know it was Shen Chen's suggestion.

During this rewarding banquet, Zhuge Liang, Shen Chen and the others kept silent, allowing Liu Bei to squander.

Because they knew that Liu Bei had nothing to do.

The first is the issue of rewards.

As an outsider, Liu Bei has no roots in Jingzhou and Yizhou, and there will inevitably be conflicts between the local faction and the foreign faction in the two places.

Just like in history, when Liu Yan went to Yizhou, it also triggered many Yizhou family rebellions.

Differences between the two sides are inevitable.

Therefore, in order to win them over and get the support of their land and population, they must not be stingy in rewards, and the rewards that should be given must not be less.

For example, someone like Yang Song, Zhang Lu's original counselor, is obviously a villain who betrayed his master, but he did help Liu Bei get Hanzhong.

Therefore, Liu Bei, such a villain, could not kill him. Instead, he wanted to reward him greatly, which had the effect of buying horse bones with thousands of dollars.

Otherwise, when Cao Cao is attacked in the future, who will choose to surrender?
Then there is the issue of office.

Liu Bei is now a general of the left, although in the ranking of official positions in the Han Dynasty, the generals of the front, rear, left and right are second only to the generals, generals of hussars, generals of chariots, and generals of Wei, ranking above Jiuqing, and belong to the senior generals of the Han Empire.

But he couldn't give a position beyond this position, just like the later generation Ka Dazuo was only a "colonel" when he came to power, he couldn't award a general to come out.

Therefore, except for the prefects and county magistrates in various places, the rest of the high-ranking ministers can only be placed with miscellaneous generals.

For example, Mi Zhu has worked hard and made great achievements. He spent all his wealth to help Liu Bei, so he was awarded the position of General An Han.

Zhuge Liang is now the general of the army and the prefect of Banan. He is in charge of the affairs of the left general's house.

Guan Yu was the general of the Dangkou, in charge of the Hanzhong military.

Zhang Fei was the general who conquered the captives and the prefect of Bazhong, in charge of the military affairs of Bajun.

Shen Chen is the general of the town army and the prefect of Nanyang, in charge of the Nanyang military.

Zhao Yun is the general of the Yi Army and the prefect of Lujiang, in charge of the small half of the Lujiang military that the Liu Bei Group obtained from Sun Quan.

Huang She is the general of Hengbo and the prefect of Jiangxia. He inherited his father's position and took charge of Jiangxia's navy.

Liu Pan is the general of Jianwei and the prefect of Changsha, in charge of the Jingnan military.

At present, these six people are the chief generals of the six major military distribution areas in the two major theaters.

According to Shen Chen's strategy, Yizhou only needs to defend, not to take the initiative to attack, and the geographical location is good for defense, so there are only two small theaters in Hanzhong and Berkshire, and Jingzhou has four small theaters to deal with Sun Quan and Cao Cao.

The reason why Guan Yu did not concurrently serve as the prefect of Hanzhong was because Liu Bei had previously promised Yang Song to be the prefect of Hanzhong. For the effect of buying a horse bone with a thousand dollars, he pinched his nose and gave him the post of prefect of Hanzhong.

However, the new decree is that the status of generals in the war zone is higher than that of the chief executive, so Guan Yu's rank is higher than Yang Song, so there is no need to worry about Yang Song's troubles.

Wait a year or two, and then find an excuse to get rid of Yang Song, or send him to Jiangzhou.

After the enfeoffment of all officials, Jingzhou and Yizhou tended to be stable.

The new policy has started to be implemented. Although some aristocratic families are dissatisfied with launching civil strife, it is within the acceptable range, so everything is developing in a good direction.

At the same time, Sun Quan has been urging Liu Bei to marry Sun Shangxiang, so at the end of the 15th year of Jian'an, Liu Bei accepted the marriage and sent people to Jiangdong to discuss the specific matters of the marriage.

At the beginning of the 16th year of Jian'an, Liu Bei finally married Sun Shangxiang two years later than in history, and took Sun's family to live in Jiangling.

The reason why Sun Shangxiang lives in Jiangling is because she said that she doesn't want to be too far away from Jiangdong, and she doesn't want to go to Yizhou.

In fact, Sun Quan ordered her to stay in Jiangling and observe the military situation in Jingbei and Jingnan, thinking that she should respond internally.

Including his betrayal of the rebellious family in Jingzhou, it was also to gain Liu Bei's trust. Once the war between the North and the South changed, Liu Bei relaxed his vigilance against him, and it was time for him to attack and backstab him.

Liu Bei is naturally aware of this, and he also knows that Zhuge Liang's promotion of this marriage is in the meaning of scheming.

So he just went along with the flow, built a palace for Sun Shangxiang in Jiangling, and did not restrict her movement, and often went to stay for a while, so that outsiders would think that he had a deep relationship with the Sun family, so that the Sun family believed that he trusted the Sun family.

Unexpectedly, Sun Shangxiang was not too barbaric when he came here, but was knowledgeable and virtuous.

This is also normal.

In history, her marriage to Liu Bei is a marriage.

At that time, Liu Bei was in exile and had no stable territory, which was far inferior to the Sun family's separatist regime in Jiangdong.

Therefore, Sun Shangxiang's unruly and willful nature was exposed, which aroused everyone's disgust.

Now that Liu Bei is powerful and the Sun family is weak, no matter how unruly and self-willed it is, it is not good for Jiangdong, not to mention Sun Quan's repeated exhortations, she can only hide her nature and pretend to be virtuous and virtuous.

So the husband and wife seemed to be in harmony on the surface, but in fact they started a secret contest in the midst of intrigue.

(End of this chapter)