I seek economic hegemony in the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 434 Who is Master Wang?

On the fifth day of May in the sixth year of Yanxi, the weather was fine in Pengcheng County, Xuzhou.

Early in the morning, farmers who were preparing to go to the fields to harvest summer wheat were shocked to see countless people pouring into the road ahead.

These people lined up in a long line, mighty and mighty, walking among the fields.

The farmers who live here have never seen so many people in their lives.

They hid in the wheat field tremblingly, not daring to make a sound.

I don't know how long it took before these people left.

At Shen time, people doing farm work gathered under the big tree to eat and feed, and some people gathered to discuss.

But at this moment, a group of cavalry came in a hurry.

The leading cavalry shouted to the surrounding farmers: "We have been ordered to collect a batch of military rations. Now put down the bowls in your hands and pack the grains without mistake."

"That's him!" said another, pointing to that one.

"Someone is deliberately destroying unity. They are going to harm us all! Come on, arrest this person and hang him on a tree. No water or food is allowed!"

"Who said that just now?" The officer came over with a knife.

"Recruit some, don't ask how much!"

The farmers under the tree were frightened. Someone asked, "Sir, how much grain will be requisitioned?"

"Quick! Bring all the food here, now we have to fight, and the court needs troops to protect you!"

"Why can't you understand the court's good intentions?"

Some well-educated scholars stood up and told everyone not to panic. Now that the imperial court was using troops, a batch of food was quickly and temporarily mobilized.

Everyone had to act obediently.

Watching batches of wheat being piled up, someone shouted sadly: "What shall we eat next..."

It wasn't until dark that the countryside became quiet.

He yelled, quickly covered his wound, and huddled to the side.

On the sixth day of May, there was a lot of discussion in the village. The food suddenly disappeared by half, and nervousness began to spread in the village.

Other farmers who wanted to ask questions immediately shut their mouths.

"Sir, please forgive me, I was confused just now..."

"Can this kind of thing be confused for a moment? Hang him up!"

"How much is that?"

That whip cracked the farmer's face to pieces.

Others around him said nothing and continued to pile up food.

The officer rode over on horseback, stared coldly at the farmer in front of him who asked two questions, and then whipped him without any warning: "What is your identity? Don't ask too many questions that you shouldn't ask!"

The officer walked over coldly and said: "The Shu thieves will kill us all when they come. Who is the court sending troops for now? It's not for you!"

It’s difficult for the court too, we have to be considerate of the court!
You see, the imperial court has left half of it for us. Once the Shu thieves are defeated, there will be peace!

As soon as he finished speaking, another army of troops came from the north.

The number of this army is obviously larger than yesterday's, and there are more cavalry.

As soon as the officer came in, he immediately ordered everyone to collect food.

"We are the king's division. We have come to Xuzhou to reinforce and fight against the Shu thieves. We are now ordered to collect food."

"Didn't we collect yesterday?"

"There was no collection yesterday."

"It was clearly collected yesterday!"

"This is an order from the imperial court! How dare you disobey! Come on! Arrest him!"

"This is our last food. You have taken it all away. What will we eat..."

A group of farmers gathered around, and some even went into the house to get farm tools.

"Rebellion! Rebel! We worked hard to come from Qingzhou to reinforce and protect you! You guys are not even willing to support us with a little food!"

The farmers in the countryside were also excited. A soldier went over and stabbed a young man less than twenty years old to death, and said angrily: "Take out all the food! We are here for reinforcements!"

The other soldiers immediately became red-eyed: "You won't let us get it ourselves!"

"Isn't this bad?"

"I came all the way to come for reinforcements and didn't even give you a bite of food! Don't blame me for slaughtering you!"

At noon, Shi Bao, the governor of Qingzhou, had just finished writing a letter to Hu Zun when the chief official, Liu E, hurried over and said, "Captain, it's not good."

"what happened?"

"Our people went to collect grain and grass, and they clashed with the people in the village. The other party resisted fiercely. We made a mistake and killed someone."

Shi Bao frowned slightly: "How many people died?"

"Hundreds of people."

"Tell me carefully, why do you want to kill someone?"

"The villagers were unwilling to give food. They gathered together and took up arms. Our people were forced to fight back."

Shi Bao sighed and said, "Take someone to deal with it."

"How to deal with it, Governor, we have no money now and we are still short of food."

"Go and bury it." Shi Bao's face was full of exhaustion, "With the enemy in front of us, who can take care of this!"

"Then when the court finds out..."

Shi Bao was silent.

Liu E rolled his eyes and said, "Let's just say that some of those people were instigated by Shu thieves to ambush Master Wang on the way."

"Just make arrangements."

After more than half a month, the Qingzhou soldiers finally arrived in Xuzhou.

Although they were supplying food along the way, not many people along the way were willing to spend a sum of food that could feed tens of thousands of troops in one go.

Along the way, Shi Bao was quite angry.

He was already numb to the hundreds of civilians killed today, and he even said in his heart: Well done! We came all the way for reinforcements, but there was nothing!

After collecting all the food in this area, Shi Bao rushed to Pengcheng angrily.

As for the hundreds of villagers who died, someone reported it to the county. The county magistrate closed the door and said he knew nothing.

Of course, far more than a few hundred people died along the way.

When a very huge crisis suddenly strikes and requires multiple organizations to coordinate with each other, it is difficult to quickly coordinate internal resources.

As a result, there will be internal conflicts. When the pressure becomes more urgent, various internal factions will use extreme methods to compete for resources to protect themselves.

Typical cases of this kind are the shameful foreplay of Jingkang in the late Northern Song Dynasty and the Jisi Incident in the late Ming Dynasty.

There are already more than 200,000 soldiers and horses from the Xuzhou headquarters gathered in Xuzhou, and Qingzhou has recruited another 50,000 soldiers and horses.

Xuzhou alone could accommodate an army of 300,000 people.

There are 300,000 mouths, and we need to eat and drink every day. If we don’t eat for a day, people will panic when they are hungry.

If 300,000 people go hungry without eating for one day, they will not panic, but go crazy.

What's even worse is that these 300,000 people have now gathered in Pengcheng.

Even if a Pengcheng digs out the grain roots from the ground, it cannot attack 300,000 mouths in different places to eat every day.

A large amount of food was quickly wasted in Xuzhou, and the people's livelihood in Xuzhou was greatly affected in a short period of time.

What's even more terrible is that on the seventh day of May, Wang Ling's elite troops had easily captured Lu County, which is dozens of miles southeast of Pengcheng.

Unlike the Wei army who was temporarily pulled over, the Han army showed a style of moving like the wind.

Even when they pass by the countryside, they occasionally help the countryside harvest wheat.

At first, the villagers thought those people were here to steal food and hid.

As a result, in the evening, I found that the wheat in the field had been harvested and piled there.

(End of this chapter)