The king behind the empress

Chapter 58 The East End of the Deadlock

The land in Xunzhou is fertile and the area is not small, but the actual population is not very large. Except for Xunyang City, there are basically no people there.

There are few people, so naturally there is not much arable land. Except for some particularly fertile land near Xunyang City, which has been cultivated, other places are basically wasteland, and no one cultivates it at all.

As for the reason, it is also very simple. If the reclaimed land in the pass is not planted, fools come to open up wasteland.

The government said that whoever cultivated it counted, and there was a tax reduction policy, but this was only said by the government, not by the local powerful family.

If Haoqiang doesn't nod his head on these things, it doesn't count if the government says it.

So when you worked hard and finally reclaimed the wasteland without confiscating even a crop of grain, the land was inexplicably owned by the aristocratic family.

All the efforts in the early stage are in vain, and the time cost and money cost invested in opening up wasteland will not be recovered.

Ordinary people can't stand such a torment. Basically, after this set of toss is over, the pioneer will sell his family and become a tenant from a good free body.

This is because Mo Zizai's father abolished his humble status, otherwise he wouldn't even be a tenant, at most he would be a servant.

Therefore, most of those who can come to Xunzhou, except for some who can't survive, are from powerful families who are pioneering wasteland.

However, those aristocratic families opened up wasteland, but it was not a good thing for the court.

Because of the arable land they reclaimed, at most one mu of land per [-] mu can be reported to the imperial court, and the worst thing is that the imperial court will give them tax exemption for three years and half tax for five years in accordance with the regulations.

After so many times, the common people still have no land to grow, and the court still has no money to collect. Those who are fat in the middle are these aristocratic families and the corrupt officials who colluded with them.

Therefore, although Xunzhou was defeated by the Great Zhou more than 20 years ago, in fact, except for the vicinity of Xunyang City, other places are still a wasteland.

And this is also the reason why Zhenyuan Hou abandoned the city so decisively before.

Because the cities he gave up were farther away from Dazhou and had fewer people, so it was only necessary to relocate the people in the cities, and then the army withdrew, leaving only empty cities in the Three Kingdoms.

After confirming that Mo Zizai really wanted to trade Xunzhou for food, Tang Weiyi was silent for a moment, carefully weighing the pros and cons of this matter in her heart, and after a while, she said: "Now we are the only ones who know about natural disasters. They don't care much about the food, and it would be a good idea to use Xunzhou to exchange some food from the Three Kingdoms while they don't know about it."

According to Mo Zizai's calculations, once the Little Ice Age enters, natural disasters will occur frequently, and the food that can be produced by then may not even be able to feed half of the current population.

At that time, the "great hunger, people eat each other" recorded in the history books will no longer be just recorded in the history books, but will actually happen in the Great Zhou Dynasty.

In order to deal with this situation, the best way is to store a large amount of food, the more the better, preferably enough to deal with this disaster in the past.

But food did not appear out of thin air, and the total amount of food that Da Zhou could produce was also limited, so Mo Zizai immediately thought of the three "good neighbors" in the east who wanted to visit.

The Three Kingdoms fought in the eastern border of the Great Zhou for three full years, and they took back all the sixteen prefectures of Youji except Xunzhou and Fan Yang, but in fact, apart from expanding their territory, they also Didn't get any real benefits.

When the Marquis of Zhenyuan retreated, let alone people, he didn't even leave a dog behind, let alone money and supplies.

So the Three Kingdoms are actually feeling very uncomfortable now. They didn't get any benefits, thinking about eating all the two cities of Xunzhou and Fanyang in one go, and then Dazhou didn't have a strong city to defend, so they could drive straight in at will.

At that time, whether it is directly destroying the Great Zhou or capturing some territories of the Great Zhou, they will be able to pay back their capital.

However, when they hit this penultimate city, they were a little timid.

Because Marquis Zhenyuan is so vicious, since he started defending the city, he has always looked for a country to fight, and the unlucky country he has looked for is Zheng Guo.

Whenever Zheng Guo attacked the city, Zhenyuanhou would directly call out all the elites to fight against Zheng Guo, and throw all kinds of ordnance on Zheng Guo's army as if they didn't want money.

After a few battles, more than half of Zheng Guo's [-] troops who were deliberately targeted directly suffered casualties, so the coach of Zheng Guo knew that this was the conspiracy of Zhenyuan Hou, so he directly put down the pick.

If the fight continues, Zheng Guo's army will be gone, and even if they can take down Da Zhou, it will have nothing to do with their Zheng Guo. Even after Da Zhou is destroyed, Lu and Wei will swallow their Zheng Guo backhanded. possible.

Therefore, the commander of Zheng Guo used the reason of excessive casualties and refused to send troops to kill him. Even if he was forced to go up to attack the city, it was just a formality.

Zheng Guo’s siege is so perfunctory. Although Lu and Wei have opinions, they have nothing to do. After all, Zheng Guo has already wiped out half of the army. If he forces people to send them up, I am afraid that Zheng Guo will directly withdraw from the Three Kingdoms Alliance. .

So seeing that there were only two cities left, the Three Kingdoms could not be moved.

But at this time, the interior of the Great Zhou was empty, and civil strife was frequent. This was a golden opportunity for the Three Kingdoms, which had been suppressed all the time, so they were definitely unwilling to give up their attack.

But the hearts of the Three Kingdoms Alliance were not in harmony, and no one dared to go up and take down Xunyang City at the risk of huge losses, so the war fell into a stalemate for a while.

And Mo Zizai's idea now is to directly give up the Xunzhou city that they can't chew, in exchange for a large amount of food, which can be used to deal with the famine that may break out in the future.

"But there are still some problems here."

After Tang Weiyi sorted out her thoughts, she began to ask her own questions, "First of all, if the Three Kingdoms are willing to 'buy' Xunyang City, it must be to take down Fan Yang directly."

"If Xunyang is let out, when there is only Fanyang City left, they will definitely not be as stingy with their troops as they are now, and they will definitely take down Fanyang City at any cost."

"So, if you want to 'sell' Xun Yang, you must have the ability to guard Fan Yang, otherwise you will be in big trouble."

"That's no problem." Mo Zizai nodded, and said, "Even if we want to abandon the defense of Xunyang, it will be next year. By then, with Yu Zhisi around, it should be nothing to block the Allied Forces of the Three Kingdoms."

"Well, next year?"

Tang Weiyi calculated in her heart that it is now July, and next year will be at least five months. With Mo Zizai's accelerator ability, five months is enough to train Yu Zhisi initially, so Tang Weiyi nodded, "If Next year, there is really no problem in defending Fan Yangcheng."

"But apart from these, there is one more critical question."

"That's public opinion."

(End of this chapter)