Prosperous Tang Dynasty

Chapter 312 Refugees Outside Qingzhou City

"My lord is young and promising. He broke the siege of Nanyang and Suiyang, and wiped out tens of thousands of rebels in a row. He is very powerful and very happy. We will wait—" All the generals of Henan Province came to the gate of Qingzhou to welcome Li Fei , the first thing they do when they meet is naturally some flattery.

After all, Li Fei is the Duke of Wu, the envoy of Anton Jiedu, the Grand General of the Fuguo, and has the right to control the military forces of Henan Province. As the generals of Henan Province, they dare not give Li Fei face.

Besides, Li Fei is much younger than them, only 22 years old, but Li Fei's record is beyond their reach. No one is foolish enough to think that Li Fei is a fool. They are more happy to wear small shoes.

Faced with this kind of superficial praise, but in fact behind the scenes, Li Fei was indifferent. He watched these people praise all the words that could be praised, and finally he nodded, with a subterranean smile, expressing that he was blown away. Very 'happy'.

After some flattery, seeing that Li Fei's mood seemed to be flattered by them, the generals of Henan Province expressed their 'worries'.

"My lord, Qingzhou City has a limited space. You have brought so many generals and refugees. If you rush into Qingzhou City at once, it may cause chaos in Qingzhou City. Moreover, Qingzhou City has limited grain storage——"

This is the fundamental reason why all the generals stood at the gate of Qingzhou City to 'greet' Li Fei.

Not to mention those captives, Li Fei brought so many refugees with him, they were afraid that Li Fei would take out the food from 'their' Qingzhou City for these refugees to eat.In just ten days and a half a month, they had to eat up all the food they worked so hard to hoard to support the army in Qingzhou City.

These Henan generals are not good at anything, and if they want to use food to relieve refugees, they don't have to wait until today.If it wasn't for the fact that these refugees were brought here by Li Fei and Anton Tieqi, they would have dispersed these refugees immediately and would never have allowed them to enter 'their' Qingzhou City.

No, there were more than 10,000 refugees who wanted to enter Qingzhou City outside Qingzhou City, but they all stopped them outside the city, and they did not give any relief, leaving the refugees to fend for themselves.If Li Fei brought so many captives and refugees into Qingzhou City, the 'destructive power' might not be much worse than the [-]+ refugees they stopped outside the city. Of course they were 'worried'!
Li Fei can naturally see the thoughts of these Henan generals, and he waved his hands and said, "You don't need to support the captives and refugees brought by me, and I won't stay in Qingzhou City for long. After two days, I will continue westward to Dengzhou. Although I control the military forces in Henan Province, I don’t want to interfere with what you do, but I also hope that you will not interfere with what I want to do.” Li Fei made it very clear, That is, we all do our own thing and don't interfere with each other.

The generals of Henan Province were almost stunned by this pie, and they were very happy.

What they are most afraid of is that Li Fei will interfere with them in the name of controlling the military forces in Henan Province. However, Li Fei has a powerful Anton Iron Cavalry in his hands. This is a powerful force that wiped out 10,000+ rebels in two consecutive battles. Well, relying on this strength, Li Fei really started to tell them what to do, and they were really not good at obeying others.

It's all right now, Li Fei's proposal of non-interference is just in line with their wishes.

"Where, where, my lord is joking, how dare we interfere with what your lord wants to do. As long as your lord has an order, we and the generals of the Henan Province will definitely support you." The generals of the Henan Province hurriedly stated their position, for fear that Li Fei would go back on his word.

It was said to stay for two days, but Li Fei stayed for a full four days.Because he also took a fancy to the hundreds of thousands of refugees who were intercepted by the generals of Henan Province outside the city of Qingzhou.

On the first day, Li Fei walked around fifty miles outside the city, and found that because there were too many refugees gathered outside the city of Qingzhou, they almost ate all the edible food outside the city, and began to feel weak. Many of the refugees starved to death, or died of suffering from eating poisonous weeds, bark, etc.

It's only September, and it's winter, not to mention food and clothes to keep out the cold. I'm afraid half of the 10,000+ refugees can survive.

Why every major war in history will cause a sharp drop in the population of millions, tens of millions, or even a direct loss of seven or eight out of ten.

At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, there were nearly 6000 million people, but after experiencing the Huangchao Rebellion, Dong Zhuo Rebellion, and various warlords, in the Three Kingdoms period, there were only more than 400 million people left, with a loss of more than 4000 million.

The Sui Dynasty also had a population of nearly 6000 million during the period of Sui Yangdi, but after the wars of the dynasty change, when the Tang Dynasty ruled the world, there were only about 2000 million people left, and more than half of them were lost.

Li Fei remembers that after the seven-year Anshi Rebellion in history, the Tang Dynasty only had a population of 4000 million, and lost more than 2000 million people in seven years.

In fact, in every war, the number of soldiers who actually died on the battlefield was far less than the number of people who were starved to death.

The real reason lies in the reduction of food production!
For example, Hedong, Hebei, Guanzhong, and both sides of the Yellow River are constantly fighting and looting. The people in this area can't grow food with peace of mind, and no one will grow it, because even if you plant it, it may be when the grain is mature. You will also be plundered by rebels, or stolen and robbed by other hungry people, etc., and you will not receive a grain of food.

This is also the fundamental reason why, in the event of war, the people will always flee. There is no peaceful environment for growing food, and it is useless to grow it. It is better not to grow it.

Without the large-scale grain-growing areas such as Hedong, Hebei, Guanzhong, and the banks of the Yellow River, the grain that could have been able to feed more than 6000 million people per year has dropped sharply due to the fleeing of the people due to the war.

In addition, the fleeing people also fled all the way and destroyed the food grown by the people in places that had not experienced wars, so that these people could not harvest the food they grew. After all, grain seedlings are edible, at least better than bark and weeds. Delicious', this further reduces the grain output, naturally cannot feed the population as before, and if there is not enough grain, some people will inevitably starve to death.

Just looking at the 10,000+ refugees outside Qingzhou City, although there are selfish and cold-blooded generals in the south of Qingzhou City, there may not be many helplessness among them. After all, the food stored in Qingzhou City is also limited, and the crops outside Qingzhou City are tens of miles away. It was basically 'destroyed' by these fleeing refugees, and Qingzhou City was only supported by the previous inventory and food shipped from other places. The refugees were relieved, so what about the people of Qingzhou City?What about the army under the command of the generals?Do you starve to death with the refugees?
Not everyone has Li Fei's 'prophet', who has stockpiled a large amount of food in the Anton Governor's Mansion in advance.

Before Li Fei rebelled in Anlu Mountain, all the money he earned was exchanged for food. Except for Li Fei himself, no one knew how much food Li Fei had hoarded in the Andong Governor's Mansion.

In addition to the accumulated food, in the past few years, under the auspices of Du Fu, the Andong Protectorate's Mansion has also used cement to build water conservancy projects and reclaim wasteland. It can be said that the population of the Andong Protectorate Mansion has long been unable to grow the Andong Protectorate. The government has now reclaimed the fields.

Li Fei needs people, and he can afford them.
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(End of this chapter)