Yuan Shao, the father of Fanghua in the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 690 Severe Winter Difficulty
Zhuge Liang looked out at the streets of Wancheng through the window, frowned slightly and said, "It's very bad."

Huang Yueying had just brought the tea. She understood what Zhuge Liang was referring to and said: "It's like this inside the city, but it's even worse outside the city."

Nowadays, the streets are full of homeless people and beggars. Because of the continuous outbreak of wars in Yuzhou, Sili, many people's homes were destroyed and they were forced to become homeless and flee everywhere.

In addition, the remnant soldiers took the opportunity to escape and had no food to eat, so they turned into rogues and robbed the people along the way. Ma Teng and Han Sui's Xiliang army, which had lost military discipline, also did the same thing, which made the local people even more miserable. It was so unspeakable that I had no choice but to leave my hometown and flee.

Among the Sili states, the only one that is not in war is Jingzhou. Since the Dong Zhuo Rebellion, gentry and common people have been fleeing south to Jingzhou. Now a fixed channel has been formed. The fleeing people from Sili in Yuzhou will First enter Nanyang, the gateway to the north of Jingzhou, and then go south to the more affluent Nanjun and other places to find a place to stay.

Zhang Xiu, who was in Wancheng, was happy to see such a scene. Anyway, Jingzhou did not belong to him. If the refugees wanted to go, he had no reason to stop them. On the contrary, he could get a lot of benefits from it.

A large number of refugees have abandoned their household registrations and become black households in a practical sense when they go elsewhere. It is difficult for such people to make a living in a new place.

Because of their status, they cannot find land for cultivation, and even engaging in lowly occupations such as handicraft trading are greatly restricted. In order to make a living, they have only a few options to choose from.

One is to join the army, so that you can have a basic ration and salary to support your family.

This is also the choice of most young men. After all, if they become soldiers and survive a few battles, they will not be able to get promotions and salary increases. There are also many additional benefits, such as massacres and robbery.

The second is to sell themselves and their families to powerful landlords as slaves and maids.

Most of these domestic slaves originate from common people who have lost their land. In order to survive, they can only sell themselves into slavery. This identity is a gray area. Their names are not on the household registration, which is called hidden. household.

This is also the reason why local wealthy families gradually grow bigger. They annex land and make common people become slaves to depend on them. Then they grow in strength and acquire more apprentices, thus becoming stronger and stronger, and aristocratic families are born.

And aristocratic families with both status and wealth can amass wealth. This is true for several major businessmen in the world, such as the Zhen family and the Mi family, just like the thousands of Mi family slaves Liu Bei obtained in Xuzhou.

Yuan Xi is actually quite resistant to the practice of slave-keeping by large families, but in this era, there are also limitations and helplessness of the times. He cannot completely eliminate this unreasonable status quo in a short time, and can only find another way.

Under his operation, the remaining slaves of the Zhen family and the Mi family either became soldiers, distributed land and became good sons, or became traders on the trade route, restoring their status as common people, although they were still the lowest among scholars, peasants, and merchants. A businessman, but at least he is free.

But after all, Yuan Xi's approach is rare in the world. Now in Wancheng, it is Zhang Xiu and the local powerful people who are close to the water, first come first, and they will take the suitable young people among the refugees who enter Nanyang under their command first. .

Because there were wars in Sili, Yuzhou and Yangzhou around Jingzhou, tens of thousands of refugees fled to Nanyang in just one year. Zhang Xiu absorbed tens of thousands of young people among them and made them into soldiers, greatly increasing his strength.

There are wars in various states today, and all the princes are recruiting troops to prepare for war. Those who are not participating in the war are also increasing their troops just in case. Under this situation, many young and strong laborers in various places have become soldiers, resulting in a serious shortage of labor force, which in turn produces famine.

But in this situation, no one dares to stop. After all, if my neighbor expands his troops and I don't move, Chun Chun is waiting to die.

What Zhuge Liang is lamenting now is this scene of chaos in the world. The streets along the way are crowded with homeless refugees. These are not qualified to become sergeants and can only leave the city to find other ways out.

Zhang Xiu, of course, ignored the people he had no use for, and he would not provide relief food, otherwise these people would not be willing to leave when they were full.

His attitude towards these people was laissez-faire. If the refugees were starving, they would naturally leave Wancheng to make a living.

But now that winter has entered, these people who were originally in a difficult situation when fleeing were unable to travel far. After eating up the food and lack of clothing, they fell into a desperate situation.

Hungry, cold, and hungry, people continued to die on the roadside. Many people huddled on the roadside overnight. When morning came, they had become hard corpses.

Zhuge Liang was still willing to save him at first, and cooked some porridge and went out to give it away, but a few days later he discovered that it was only a drop in the bucket. The food at home was almost used up, but more and more people were dying outside the road. .

Zhuge Liang sighed: "I had a premonition that this winter would be colder than previous years, but I didn't expect it to be so cold."

"It's so cold in Jingzhou, how cold will it be in the Central Plains to the north?"

"I don't know how those people got through at the Youbin border further north."

“But it’s really inappropriate for so many people to freeze to death in Wancheng.”

Huang Yueying knew Zhuge Liang's thoughts and said: "Since my husband is determined to save people, why not agree to Zhang Xiu's call?"

"If you become a subordinate of Zhang Xiu, you can participate in Wancheng's internal affairs. Maybe you can save many people?"

After hearing this, Zhuge Liang sighed: "Things can't be that simple." "After all, Zhang Xiu was born in Liangzhou. In the past ten years, the Liangzhou army was almost the culprit of the chaos that followed the Yellow Turbans."

"I originally thought about coming here to see the situation in Wancheng first. If the government is in good hands, I would meet with Zhang Xiu and see what his ambitions and ideas are. But now it seems that it is not necessary."

Huang Yueying said: "His subordinates are still Jia Xu and Jia Wenhe."

Zhuge Liang shook his head, "This one disappoints me even more."

"Jingzhou is such a good place. There has been no war for many years. Logically speaking, it should be a good place to develop our ambitions."

"But now it seems that Wancheng's approach is the same as Liu Jingsheng's. He just wants to be rich and protect himself. He has not considered how to make the world a better place."

"I originally wanted to visit Jia Wenhe and ask him what he thought, but suddenly I felt that it didn't matter if I saw him or not."

"Although this person is good at strategy, I don't like his behavior. Let's forget it. Let's leave after the New Year."

Huang Yueying covered her mouth and said with a smile: "Although I say this, my husband is still a little unwilling."

"The other party is a person who stirs up the world. Your husband is somewhat curious about him, right?"

"Now that I'm here, wouldn't I have a lot of regrets if I don't see it with my own eyes?"

After Zhuge Liang heard this, he also felt some agreement in his heart. He said, "In that case, I'll write a famous thorn first and go visit him."

He found a piece of bamboo, chopped it off with an axe, split it into palm-length pieces, and then used a small knife to smooth the surface. Then he picked up his pen and wrote his name on it. Table of characters.

This is a famous thorn in the Han Dynasty, also called a visit. On one side, the name is written with the words "Langgan Zhiwen" and the other side is written with the name of the person to be visited, which is equivalent to a modern business card.

As he was writing, he saw horses stopped outside the door, and someone knocked on the door. Zhuge Liang ordered the boy to go up and open it, but it was a sergeant who said, "Who is Zhuge Liang?"

Zhuge Liang went out and said, "It's me."

The soldier looked Zhuge Liang up and down and said, "Jia Fujun ordered you to go to his mansion. Now come with me."

After Zhuge Liang heard this, he thought that this was a coincidence. As soon as he finished the assassination, the other party came to find him.

He turned back to the room and said, "Just wait, I'll come as soon as I can."

Huang Yueying responded in the house. Zhuge Liang ordered the boy to bring out the donkey and sit on it. When the soldier saw it, he also got on his horse and led the way.

The two of them walked along the street. It had just snowed, and the road was filled with foot-deep snow. Under the snow, you could see the corpses of people everywhere. They had already frozen to death, and only the remains were left behind after being covered by the ice and snow. The shape of the torso, which ranges from large to small to significantly smaller outlines, also plays a large part in this.

When Zhuge Liang saw it, he couldn't help but think of the shocking sights he saw along the way after following Zhuge Xuan to escape from Langya County a few years ago.

At that time, they escaped quickly. Cao's army had not yet captured the city, but several villages and towns they passed along the way had been looted by Cao's army. When the convoy passed through, they could not hear the barking of chickens and dogs. There were men, women, old and children everywhere. His corpse even blocked the road, which greatly touched the young Zhuge Liang at the time.

Later, after Zhuge Liang followed Zhuge Xuan to Yangzhou, he heard that in Cao Cao's second plot of Xuzhou, the casualties among the people were even greater than the first time. As a local wealthy family, the Langya Zhuge family also suffered many deaths, and many people were missing and separated.

Since then, Zhuge Liang has been extremely resistant to Cao Cao, and he was also extremely dissatisfied with Yuan Shao, who was still Cao Cao's leader at the time. Therefore, he fled to Jingzhou to avoid these two forces in the Central Plains.

But what made him feel conflicted was that he met Yuan Xi by chance while hiding from Cao's army in the city. After his life was inadvertently saved by him, Zhuge Liang also became somewhat interested in him.

Because it seemed at the time that Yuan Xi was in the name of saving Cao Song, but later Zhuge Liang recalled the consequences and found that the matter was not that simple.

Not only did Yuan Xi care about the lives of the people, but he also didn't seem to have a very good relationship with Cao Cao. Did he rescue Cao Song just to have an excuse for Cao Cao to retreat?

Zhuge Liang still hasn't fully figured out why Yuan Xi, as a member of the Jizhou faction, bothered to do such a thing to Xuzhou, which was still hostile. Maybe he will find out the truth when he meets him in the future, right?

The soldiers' horses in front stopped. Zhuge Liang recovered his thoughts and saw a mansion. He understood that this should be Jia Xu's residence.

(End of this chapter)