Yuan Shao, the father of Fanghua in the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 48 How Do You Talk?

Early the next morning, upon hearing the knock on the door, Yuan Xi turned over and sat up, feeling angry and resentful when he got up.

He came back very late last night, finally fell asleep, and then dreamed.

I dreamed that I was rolling on the bed with a young woman in my arms, but I couldn't see her face clearly.

When Yuan Xi wanted to take the next step, there was a knock on the door, and the dream was broken.

Knock, knock Nima!

He cursed and opened the door, only to see Sun Li waiting outside with a young lady.

Yuan Xi recognized this young lady, she was spotted by Sun Li when she went out to harvest wheat a few days ago, and the two got married only a few days ago.

Yuan Xi looked at this young couple who were in the 20th and [-]th year, and became angry for no reason. The little boy has a wife, and he is a [-]-year-old son who is still single!

He said, "What are you doing here?"

Sun Li gritted his teeth and said, "I'm here to plead with Big Brother!"

"Brother Qu left the city this time, except for me, all the personal soldiers were selected by Brother Qu. He is looking down on people!"

"Although I am young, what point is worse than them?"

Yuan Xi said, "Didn't I tell your mother last night?"

"This trip is dangerous, don't bring anyone who has never given birth!"

"You've just got married, let's talk about it when you're a big fat boy!"

After hearing this, Sun Li was still unconvinced, "Brother is already old and hasn't married yet, so he still goes to the battlefield?"

Yuan Xi suddenly became angry. He was out of balance, and this brat is still pouring salt on his wound?
He said angrily: "Why is this kid like a stubborn cow? I won't tell you anymore. Hurry up and take your wife back. Don't let your mother down."

Sun Li murmured: "My mother said that our mother's lives were saved by the elder brother. If I don't follow the elder brother, I will not repay the favor!"

"Besides, my eldest brother is not married and has no children. If something goes wrong, wouldn't he be sorry for his parents?"

"dont you agree?"

He said the last sentence to the young lady beside him, and the young lady nodded quickly after hearing this.

Yuan Xi was violently attacked again, so angry he went up and kicked Sun Li: "You talk like that? Get lost, don't bother me!"

Seeing that Yuan Xi was angry, Sun Li had no choice but to run away with his young lady.

Yuan Xi sighed.

To be honest, as a soldier, Sun Li is not too young at the age of 15.

In troubled times, more than half of babies will die when they are born. Until they are 15 years old, they will experience hunger, disease, natural and man-made disasters, and half of them will die again. Very few survive.

It is very common for villagers like Sun Li to wash and cook at the age of five or six, and to work in the fields at the age of seven or eight.

If the princes and warlords raised their troops, the conscription in various places was often half forced and half lured to recruit strong men, who could withstand a wooden gun and waved it a few times, and they were already qualified soldiers.

This is also the reason why 10 soldiers can be drawn from a place with a population of less than [-].

Of course, this kind of recruits has not been honed on the battlefield, and when they encounter some armored veterans in training, they are really sent to death like cutting melons and vegetables.

The reason why Yuan Xi was unwilling to recruit soldiers was that on the one hand, he believed in the fact that soldiers were more expensive than elites, and that this kind of recruits would go directly to the battlefield to die instead of farming the land and becoming craftsmen.

In addition, he can't afford so many mouths. With his current resources, a few hundred armored soldiers is already the limit.

When Yuan Xi read the history of the Three Kingdoms, he discovered a cruel fact.

Whether it is soldiers or civilians, the more the better.

A rather counter-intuitive fact is that the population at the end of the dynasty was much larger than that at the end of the dynasty.

In ancient times, the technology of arable land was underdeveloped and there was no chemical fertilizer. The yield per mu of one Han mu was often only about three stones.

About four Han mu is equivalent to one mu of land today, and two Han Jin is equivalent to one catty today. If converted to modern times, the yield per mu of one mu of land is only about two hundred catties.

Excluding taxes, ten mu of land in the Han Dynasty could produce four hundred catties of grain, barely enough to support one person.

In the Han Dynasty, there were about five to ten people per household on average, and it took [-] mu of land to support one household, and there were often tens of thousands of households in a county.

There are often many hidden black households in various places, and there is not as much arable land as in later generations. The Yellow Turban Rebellion at the end of the Han Dynasty was due to population growth and insufficient arable land.

Then the only thing the farmers feared happened.

No food to eat.

This is also the most direct factor for peasant rebellion for thousands of years.

There was a joke on a certain day that there was no rain in a certain place for a year, the land was dry, and there was no harvest. The local villagers were so hungry that they couldn't help it, so they met to rebel.

Everyone selected a day, picked up hoes and kitchen knives, and flocked to the entrance of the village, ready to do a big job.

At this time, it happened to be raining in the sky.

Everyone at the scene immediately scattered, rushed home, and went to the field to sow seeds.

This is common people, as long as they have a bite to eat, they will not rebel.

Therefore, the law of the dynasty is that at the end of the dynasty, there will be a famine due to a large population, the world will revolt, and then kill each other, the population will decrease, and a new dynasty will be established.

The new dynasty had a small population but a lot of arable land, and it ushered in great rule. With the development and prosperity of society, the population grew explosively.

Hundreds of years later, the population is saturated and there is not enough arable land, and then there are natural and man-made disasters, foreign invasions, and insufficient food, so the world revolts and kills each other.

A new cycle begins again.

Therefore, rational and ruthless rulers will try to control the rate of population growth when commercial agriculture has not improved significantly.

In times of peace, rulers often have the illusion that the world is prosperous and the more the better, so they encourage childbearing and lower the age of marriage.

By the time the population exploded and the rulers reacted, it was already too late. Natural disasters and man-made disasters, thieves flocked, and the people were coerced into rebellion.

It was against this background that the Yellow Turban Uprising took place. When millions of Yellow Turban soldiers appeared in an area with a registered population of only a few hundred thousand, the Han Lingdi and his ministers, who were ignorant and self-conscious, were shocked. .

Ten years have passed since the seventh year of Emperor Guanghe of the Han Dynasty (AD 184).

After ten years of war, the population of various places has dropped sharply, and there is no shortage of land, but another problem has arisen.

Water flows to lower place, man goes to higher position.

In areas with serious wars and disasters, the economy has completely collapsed, and they are often harassed by soldiers and bandits. The people are miserable, so they migrate in groups to areas with stable economies and no wars.

So in the past ten years, the population began to slowly gather in the wealthy states.

For example, Yuan Shao's Jizhou, Tao Qian's Xuzhou, Liu Yu's Youzhou, etc.

That's right, although Youzhou is considered a place of bitter cold in this world, the land is fertile and the salt and iron are extremely developed.

Among them, Xuzhou had the best economy, Tao Qian managed well, and was hardly affected by the war. Many people came to settle in Xuzhou.

However, Tao Qian, who had long been allied with Yuan Shu, Gongsun Zan, was by no means a character without ambition.

Even in the fourth year of Chuping (AD 193), when Cao Cao and Yuan Shu were attacking, Tao Qian sent troops into the border of Cao Cao's Yanzhou and occupied the two counties of Rencheng and Mount Tai.

Although this matter has many twists and turns and disputes, Yuan Xi still prefers that Tao Qian premeditated.

Of course, Cao Cao couldn't swallow this breath, so he led his troops to counterattack Tao Qian, and defeated more than ten cities in a row.

During this period, Cao Cao massacred Xuzhou. Countless people died and the Surabaya River stopped flowing.

Yuan Xi felt that if Cao Cao didn't engage in massacres in this matter, he would actually have some reason.

Unexpectedly, he vented his anger on the people. Although he could inspire soldiers, he also forged a death feud with Xuzhou and continued to resist. Later generations did not have complete stability in Xuzhou until Cao Cao's death.

What Yuan Xi has to do now is to prevent Cao Cao's second massacre under the pretext of Cao Song's killing.

According to records, there may be hundreds of thousands of dead.

In later generations, because there were too many dead people in Xuzhou and other places, Cao Cao moved 10 people from Youbing, Bashu and other places to the interior.

If it wasn't for this reason, Yuan Xi really didn't want to fight Cao Cao.

Cao Cao put too much pressure on him.

Unlike the current Liu Bei, except for Guan Zhang, there are almost no advisers and generals, and it takes a long time to suffer losses before he can become successful.

Although Cao Cao is only in half of the state now, all the well-known counselors and generals are already under his command, and he is almost complete!
But just like this, Yuan Xi couldn't let go of this rare opportunity in front of him. If he succeeds, saving the lives of the people, gaining fame, and forming an alliance in private can be described as killing three birds with one stone.

Yuan Xi wanted to see, if Cao Song's family was still alive, how would Cao Cao attack Xuzhou without the most upright reason of filial piety?

(End of this chapter)