Soldiers come to the world

"What did you say?" Sun Quan didn't fully understand the meaning of Zhuge Jin's words, he looked at Zhuge Jin in surprise.

"What I mean is that the real Liu Jing died many years ago. This Liu Jing is a fake. His real identity is unknown. This person has been pretending to be Liu Biao's nephew."

"absurd!"

Sun Quan would not believe such nonsense at all, he shook his head displeased, "If he is a fake, can he hide it from Liu Biao? Liu Biao will let the fake nephew be Jiang Xia's prefect, Ziyu, where did you hear these nonsense?"

Zhuge Jin sighed, he knew that this kind of thing was hard to believe, even he himself didn't believe it at first, let alone Wu Hou.

"My lord, this is what Liu Bei told me personally, and Liu Biao has never met his nephew before. Liu Jing's parents died, so he was taken to Jingzhou, and the only uncle's family who knew his identity was also a few years ago. The loss of life in the fire is really suspicious."

Sun Quan thought for a while and said nothing. As Liu Bei, he would not do such childish and stupid things. Is there really a problem?

He picked up two letters and read them carefully. They were letters from Liu Du and Liu Panzhi. The letters said that Liu Jing broke his leg when he was a child and was slightly lame. Lame state.

Also, the current Liu Jing didn't have a Shanyang accent at the time, and Liu Bei helped him cover it up. Liu Du had already noticed something was wrong, but he didn't dare to speak nonsense.

Although these evidences did not completely convince Sun Quan, at least he was a little shaken. He knew that there would be no groundless rumors, and he believed Liu Bei's testimony [-]% in his heart.

After pondering for a long time, Sun Quan returned the letter to Zhuge Jin, and said to him: "Whether Liu Jing is true or not is not important to Jiangdong. We should care about Jiangdong's interests. It is more in Jiangdong's interests to form an alliance with Jiangxia. That's it. Just act as if it never happened, understand?"

"But..." Zhuge Jin still had some moral worries, how could Jiang Dong form an alliance with a liar?

Sun Quan stared at him coldly, "I've already said that Zhuge joined the army, so let's pretend it didn't happen. I hope you don't publicize it to the outside world, and don't harm Jiangdong's interests because of your brother Zhuge Liang."

Sun Quan said this very seriously, Zhuge Jin's face turned pale, and he shook his head, "I will never abolish the public because of personal interests, it's just a matter of morality, if revealing Liu Jing's identity will harm Jiang Dong's interests, then I will not treat you well." No one leaks this."

Sun Quan also felt that his words were too serious, so he relaxed his tone and said to Zhuge Jin earnestly: "Ziyu, there are some things you don't know yet. The emperor has appointed Liu Jing as the shepherd of Jingzhou, and Cao Cao allowed Liu Jing to surrender. As the king of Xiangyang, his descendants will always be the shepherds of Jingzhou, if Liu Jing surrenders to Cao Cao, it will be a fatal blow to Jiangdong, so I must firmly tie the interests of Liu Jing and Jiangdong together."

Zhugejin suddenly realized that the master was afraid that Liu Jing would surrender to Cao Cao, and he was also a man of insight. He immediately thought of the consequences of Liu Jing's surrender to Cao Cao. He nodded silently, and asked after a while, "What about Liu Bei?"

After pondering for a moment, Sun Quan said slowly, "I will visit Liu Bei now and have a talk with him."

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The Tao family has two big houses in Jiangdong, one is in Soochow City, and the other is located in Dantu County by the Yangtze River. The Tao family also has more than [-] large warehouses in Dantu County. Dantu is the economic center of the Tao family. , and Soochow City is just for the convenience of contacting the government.

Tao Lie's third son, Tao Yuan, is currently in charge of the Tao family's trade in Jiangdong. However, he just went to Xuzhou these days and is not in Jiangdong. Even so, Liu Jing's move into Tao's house was not affected in any way.

The Tao House covers an area of ​​about [-] mu and is located in the west of Dongwu City. At the entrance is a river that can accommodate [-]-stone cargo ships, which leads directly to the Xu River and finally to the Yangtze River.

Long before Liu Jing's arrival, the Soochow Tao Mansion had received Tao Sheng's order, and began to decorate it early to prepare for my son-in-law's move-in.

The housekeeper of the Tao family, surnamed Han, is a middle-aged man in his 40s. He is thoughtful, extremely shrewd and capable. He even prepared a residence for Liu Jing's soldiers.

"Master, please don't worry, our house is very big, there is no problem to accommodate 600 people, and Guanyunlou, the largest tavern in Soochow City, is also owned by our Tao family. I have arranged everything, and board and lodging will definitely not be a problem."

Liu Jing's entourage of about 200 soldiers and more than [-] war horses were all arranged by Steward Han. The soldiers shared a room with each other. The food and accommodation conditions were very good, and the war horses were also taken care of by special grooms. Jing is very satisfied, he really feels like going home.

"Thank you, Steward Han, for letting you bother."

"My aunt, you are welcome. My aunt is our glory. We all look bright when we go out. It's too late for everyone to be happy."

Steward Han was very good at talking, so he arranged Liu Jing to live in a single courtyard with a dedicated maid, while Li Fu and Jiang Wan lived in the courtyard next door.

After lunch, everyone took a nap. After washing away the fatigue from the journey, Liu Jing washed up for a while, and then walked into the small courtyard next door with his hands behind his back. This is the residence of Li Fu and Jiang Wan, but only Jiang Wan was seen, and Li Fu was not there. gone.

Liu Jing asked with a smile: "Where did Master Li go?"

Jiang Wan hurriedly said: "Mr. Li went out at noon and said he was going shopping, and he will be back soon."

Liu Jing heard Liu Min talk about one of Li Fu's hobbies. He probably went to find a woman. He also asked more questions, so he sat down and asked Jiang Wan with a smile: "I probably wrote two letters to Gong Yan in February. I wonder if Gong Yan received the letter?"

Jiang Wan shook his head, "After offering sacrifices to the ancestors at Zhengdan, I left home and never went back. I'm sorry, but I haven't seen your letter."

Liu Jing nodded and said with a smile: "Actually, I want to share with Gongyan the way of governing the country. I heard from Liu Biejia that Gongyan has unique experience in governing the country. He also recommended it to Jingzhou. Unfortunately, the state shepherd thinks Gong Yan is young and refuses to use it, but I am willing to listen."

Jiang Wan is an open-minded person. He knew that Liu Jing was sincerely asking for advice, so he said with a few words of humility, "I said with a smile, "Ruling a big country is like cooking a small fish. Many people think that the people's wealth can make the country strong. In the short term and long term, a country’s strength lies in its abundance of materials. In the short term, it can be traded and sold, and can be mined to make money. In just a few years, the country’s warehouse will be sufficient. This is actually buying materials from other countries. Once other countries react and cut off trade, the financial resources will also be cut off, so it can only be done in the short term.”

"What if it's long-term?" Liu Jing asked again.

"The long-term key lies in the size of the population. There must be a sufficient population. Some people farm, some do handicrafts, some do business, some people raise animals, people live and work in peace and contentment, and wealth gradually accumulates. After ten or twenty years, how can the country not be strong?"

After a pause, Jiang Wan saw that Liu Jing was listening intently, so he continued: "The Yellow Turbans rebelled at the end of the Han Dynasty, warlords rose together, and fought against each other. It was the common people who suffered. I have traveled abroad for many years, and I deeply feel that the population of various places has dropped sharply, especially in the Central Plains. I often walk more than ten miles without seeing any people. The villages are barren, the fertile land grows grass, and it is extremely desolate. On the contrary, Jingzhou, Bashu and Jiangdong are populated due to less war and chaos. surpassed the Central Plains."

Liu Jing nodded silently, and he sighed, "But I feel that Jingzhou's population is still too small."

"No!"

Jiang Wan shook his head, "Jingzhou's population is not large, the key is that the government's household registration population is small, and a large number of people have been reduced to powerful vassals. The vassals controlled by Guang Huangzu are nearly [-], not to mention the big families such as the Cai family and the Kuai family. , if you can break the tyrannical regime that controls Jingzhou, the strength of Jingzhou will definitely rise to a higher level."

Jiang Wan's words touched Liu Jing's heart. He is worthy of being a famous figure of the Shu Han Dynasty in history. He saw the problem very thoroughly. Sir can help me."

Although Jiang Wan did not receive Liu Jing's letter, he received a letter from his master Liu Xian two years ago, asking him to become an official in Jiangxia. Liu Min and Zhou Buyi also wrote letters to invite him.

It's just that Jiang Wan felt that he hadn't completed his studies, so he didn't go to Liu Jing for a long time, and this time the meeting in Jiangdong was a matter of course. Seeing Liu Jing's sincerity, he smiled and said: "If you don't think Jiang Wan is stupid, I would like to follow my example. A dog's work."

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Just when Jiang Wan finally decided to be loyal to Liu Jing, Sun Quan was talking happily with Liu Bei in Dongwu Gui Hotel. Liu Bei's reputation was well-known all over the world, known to all women and children, which made him charismatic and made people willing to associate with him.

On the other hand, when Liu Bei quelled the Yellow Turban Rebellion and attacked Dong Zhuo, he had a close relationship with Sun Quan's father, Sun Jian. From this point of view, Sun Quan respected Liu Bei very much.

However, no matter whether it was respect or a happy conversation, Sun Quan never talked about serious matters with Liu Bei, but only talked about friendship, which was also a compensation for Liu Bei's neglect in the past few days.

Making a special trip to visit is actually a gesture of respect, which gave Liu Bei enough face and wiped away Liu Bei's dissatisfaction due to being left out in the cold.

"Hehe! Thinking back to the ancestors of Marquis Wu, they were really brave and powerful. I still remember that my ancestor Lu Gong and I were surrounded by tens of thousands of yellow scarf thieves. We couldn't get out of the siege several times. At the time of crisis, it was your lord who led a thousand elites to kill us. , The momentum was like a broken bamboo, and tens of thousands of yellow scarf thieves were defeated. Thinking about it now, it seems like it happened yesterday, but almost 20 years have passed in a flash."

Sun Quan listened very attentively. He worshiped his father since he was a child, but he didn't know much about his father's deeds. It was rare to hear something from Liu Bei. Only then did I realize that the uncle and my father had such a deep relationship, Zhongmou was rude."

Liu Bei quickly pretended to laugh and said, "You are welcome, Marquis Wu!"

Beside Sun Quan, apart from Zhuge Jin, Zhang Zhao was also present at the same time. He and Liu Bei were also old friends, so he specially accompanied Sun Quan to visit.

Seeing that it was getting late, Zhang Zhao coughed lightly, reminding Sun Quan that it was time to talk about business. Sun Quan knew it well, so he changed the topic to business.

After pondering for a while, Sun Quan smiled and said, "Actually, the reason for inviting Uncle Emperor and Young Master Jing to come to Jiangdong this time is mainly because I want to be a peacemaker to facilitate the reconciliation between Wuchang and Jiangling, so that you can form an alliance and jointly attack Cai Mao."