Yuan Shao, the father of Fanghua in the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 260 Key Route
Mrs. Wu is disheartened now, and since then, she has never found a chance to escape.

But seriously, she was so confused that she almost gave up.

She felt that even if she fled back, she couldn't explain it clearly. If people really knew that she was out of touch with Yuan Xi, it would not only affect the reputation of the Sun family, but also affect Sun Ce's hegemony.

Mrs. Wu felt tired. After so many years, she raised Sun Ce by herself. Now that he has counselors and generals to help him, he will definitely achieve something. Why should she be an incompetent mother who lost Guangling?

It would be better not to go back!
Mrs. Wu didn't know if she was deceiving herself or not, but now she could only convince herself that this idea was right, otherwise she would not be able to face herself.

Hua Tuo came over again, took Zhen Mi's pulse, and declared that she was completely recovered, so Yuan Xi announced to everyone that he would pack up and set off on another day.

However, compared to the last time I entered Guangling from the mouth of the Yangtze River, the return journey this time is to go north from Hangou, enter the Huaihe River, and then go out to the sea and go north to Youzhou.

Unlike later generations, the Huaihe River in the late Han Dynasty had an estuary, and the coastline was completely different from that after 2000.

"Journey to the Tang Dynasty to Seek Law" records, "There is a Dahuai in the north of Chuzhou, which flows from west to east. The so-called Dahuai crosses and reaches the East China Sea."

In the Tang Dynasty, because of its advantages of "connecting rivers and seas to Tianjin, connecting merchants with boats, crossing the borders to Shu, meeting Min and Wu", the Huaihe River estuary became a port city for North Korean and Japanese merchant ships.

Of course, the connected water system was dug out by people of different dynasties over hundreds of thousands of years.

In 486 BC, the state of Wu dug the Hangou, which connected the shipping between the Huaihe River and the Yangtze River.

In 482 BC, Wu went north to fight for hegemony, excavated Heshui between Yutai and Dingtao, and connected the shipping between Sishui and Jishui, a tributary of the Huaihe River. Yellow River.

In 361 BC, the state of Wei opened a gap to connect with the Danshui (later called Bianshui), Suishui, Shashui, and Yingshui, the tributaries of the Huaihe River, forming a water transport network between the Huanghuai River and the Huaihe River.

Through these waterways, the Huaihe River maintains communication links with the Yellow River, the Yangtze River, and further with the Haihe River, Qiantang River and Pearl River basins.

In ancient times, the Huaihe River was not seized by the Yellow River and entered the sea, nor did it form Hongze Lake. Instead, it flowed downstream through Xuyi, Huaiyin, Huai'an, Lianshui, and Yuntiguan alone into the sea.

The Yunti Pass of the later generation is located in the Haixi territory at the junction of Donghai County and Guangling County. At that time, Yuan Xi did not take this waterway because Guangling City would be alert to ships going south, so Yuan Xi spared a large circle. From the mouth of the Yangtze River to Guangling South Wharf, the attack was successful.

The purpose of Yuan Xi taking this waterway this time is to explore the waterway by the way and prepare for the future layout in Guangling.

However, compared with the thousands of troops brought last time, the number of people who went back this time was much smaller. Excluding those who died in battle, and leaving two hundred elite soldiers to Guangling, there were only six to seven hundred people who could go back again.

Yuan Xi finally understood the meaning of the words "soldiers with iron battalions and flowing water". After many battles, even elite soldiers can last for more than a few years, not too many.

The recruits died in the battle and became the veterans, the veterans died in the battle, and then the recruits came in, and the cycle repeated, gradually the faces in front of Yuan Xi became unfamiliar.

The only thing that remains the same is the common goal of the people all over the world, which is to end the war as soon as possible and live a peaceful life.

Boxes of bamboo slips were carried onto the boat. This was what Yuan Xi valued the most. In the next ten, decades, or hundreds of years, whether the model of Youzhou Free School could spread to the whole world depends on these things. .

Then came the local products in the south of the Yangtze River. This time, Yuan Xi created a lot of flashy jewelry decorations and other luxuries for the first time.

This thing can't be eaten or used as a weapon, but the gentry like it very much, and the biggest use is to bribe them or pull money out of their pockets.

Then came the soldiers and generals, led by Tian Yu in a row in front of Yuan Xi. When they passed by, they all bowed their hands to Yuan Xi to return the salute, and Yuan Xi also bowed their hands to return the salute.

He looked at the familiar faces among the soldiers, mixed with some unfamiliar ones. This is the Xuzhou soldiers who performed well during these days, and they were also selected among the elite soldiers returning from the north.

Yuan Xi thought to himself that although some Jiangdong soldiers were fearful of war, there were also capable and brave ones. Like the Qi family army of later generations, the main force was composed of farmers from Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and they were also invincible.

Both southerners and northerners have their own strengths and weaknesses. If you want to make the best use of your strengths and avoid weaknesses, the key is to look at the coach.

After Yuan Xi thought about returning to Youzhou, he sorted out all the military classics he had collected, and then he could add some private goods to them, and try out new military training methods with a few generals.

For thousands of years, the thought of military art has been improving. Combining the current military conditions with the military training techniques of later generations, including the essence of military training from Li Jing to Yue Fei, from Qi Jiguang to Yu Dayou, the soldiers trained will definitely surpass the times. cognitive advantage.

The soldiers boarded the boat one after another, and the rest were Yuan Xi's officials and family members.

Escorted by Sun Li, Chen Gui and members of the Chen clan, Hua Tuo and his dozen or so disciples, Guo Jia and several concubines, then Zhen Mi and Huan's mother and daughter, Cai Zhaoji and Mrs. Cai's mother and daughter, all waited in turn. Boat.

Yuan Xi and Chen Deng Taishi Ci solemnly said their farewells, and finally boarded the big ship. The decks were folded up, the sails were hoisted, and in the icy cold wind, they began to slowly sail away from the pier.

Yuan Xi watched the figures on the pier getting smaller and smaller until they disappeared, thinking that the next time he would come back, he didn't know it would be a few years later.

This trip to Xuzhou can be regarded as the completion of his original plan and opened up the extremely critical stronghold of the southward route.

This is one of the four routes to the south of the Central Plains. As long as you occupy it, you can advance and retreat with evidence.

In the next few years, he will not be able to get a foothold in the Central Plains, so the layout of the outer seas will become an important part of the plan.

But when he thought of this, Yuan Xi became extremely depressed. Among his subordinates, there are still too few people who are proficient in this kind of professional knowledge!

The gentry possessed classics of knowledge, but were not interested in technology, while the lower-class working people wanted to change their destiny, but lacked knowledge. This status quo could not be changed in a short period of time.

Yuan Xi deeply felt how difficult it is to find like-minded people. After all, 2000 years have passed, and the worldview of most people who have become officials has already been fixed, and it is even more difficult for him to change.

If Yuan Xi wanted to impress them, he could only offer an official salary. After all, talking about such illusory things as ideals with people of this era is far less effective than practical benefits.

Etiquette, loyalty and righteousness are not unusable, but what makes Yuan Xi helpless is that excuses such as rejuvenating the Han Dynasty can be used by Cao Cao at present, but he cannot use them. Now everyone in the world does not know what the Yuan family thinks, and they follow the attachment Among the gentry, how many are loyal to the Han Dynasty?
What made Yuan Xi feel even more absurd was that unlike Guo Jia and Zhao Yun, who had their own ideas, the women who were close to him were closer to him in terms of ideals and goals.

Zhen Mi, Cai Zhaoji, Cao Xian and others have now become his right-hand helpers. On the one hand, it is because Yuan Xi rescued them from the predicament; Ideas are born with a sense of identity.

A large part of the reason why ancient gentry women married early was that they married into their husband's family when they were still young, and they were in the same environment as their husbands, so it was easier to form a similar outlook on life.

Yuan Xi thought in his heart that it was as if he was using his identity to trick these gentry women into paying for his ideals. Could it be that he wanted to take the road of conquering women and thus conquering the world?
When he was standing on the bow of the boat and thinking wildly, he heard footsteps behind him, turned his head and saw that Zhen Mi was coming.

Yuan Xi said: "It's windy and cold at sea, Madam is just recovering from illness, it's better to take a good rest first."

Zhen Mi smiled and said, "Okay, I'll stand with my husband for a while and then go back."

The two stood side by side and changed their heads, looking at the golden light shining on the sea in the distance, and the sun was slowly rising from the sea.

On the river in front of the fleet, the clear Huaihe River meets the blue East China Sea, forming a clear boundary line, which is the mouth of the Huaihe River.

To the north of the estuary, Haixi City is located by the sea, and boats like grains of rice are constantly coming in and out of the port.

Zhen Mi raised her hand, pointed to those boats and said, "A small half of those boats belong to the Zhen family."

"Amum now puts all her property on her husband, and she further gave up the land trade route, and bought more ships with the goods she exchanged."

Yuan Xi listened, nodded and said: "Don't worry, these will not be in vain, but it is a pity to give up all the land trade routes like this."

Zhen Mi sighed: "Mom is definitely not willing, after all, the risk of the sea route is only higher than that of the land route."

"But after the Zhen family became attached to the young master, their business in Jizhou was also suppressed. My mother decided to give up altogether, so as not to be used as an excuse to blackmail the Zhen family."

Yuan Xi quite agrees, he has some admiration for the Zhang family. When Zhen Mi was three years old, her biological father, Zhen Yi, passed away. After that, she was the head of the Zhang family for more than ten years. If she had no means, the Zhen family would have collapsed.

The fleet slowly approached Haixi Port, and now this extremely important sea port, because it was located in Guangling, already belonged to Yuan Xi.

The two of them looked at the boats coming and going, many of which had the signs of the Mi family's caravan. Seeing this, Yuan Xi couldn't help saying: "When I went to Tancheng, I heard that the Mi family handed over all the goods to Liu Bei. , now it seems that this Mi family still has a lot of good things."

Zhen Mi covered her mouth with a smile and said, "A merchant ship is something that money makes money, so how could it be possible to use up the water to catch fish?"

"My husband was thinking about the girl from the Mi family, but what I was thinking about was the property and business of the Mi family?"

"If the Mi family had provided more dowry at that time, the husband would have married the girl from the Mi family on the spot?"

Yuan Xi was sweating profusely, and said in an embarrassing way, "Am I that kind of person?"

Zhen Mi's eyes curled up like crescent moons, "Mi's girl is very pitiful."

"My husband and I got to know each other well before we got married, so I won't feel that my husband is just coveting the property of the Zhen family, which would lead to misunderstandings."

"But the girl from the Mi family has never met her husband a few times. Now that the husband is so ruthless, she must be complaining to him, right?"

"Why does my husband insist on doing one thing so mercilessly?"

Yuan Xi sighed: "But I am indeed greedy for these things. I don't want to hide it from you, and I don't want to hide it from her."

Zhen Mi sighed, "Husband thinks we girls don't know?"

"Which marriage is not about marriage?"

"Everyone has known it for a long time, but my husband doesn't understand the style, and insists on spreading this matter out, how can the girl from the Mi family get off the stage?"

"Besides, my husband left Tancheng without waiting for the Mi family's reply. I'm afraid it's too dishonest."

(End of this chapter)