When he got Yizhou, the first thing Yuan Shu thought of was to build roads.

Why is Yizhou easy to defend and difficult to attack? It's because the terrain of this place is so dangerous. Except for a huge Sichuan Basin, it is surrounded by lofty mountains, which is extremely inconvenient to enter and exit.

Traffic congestion has advantages and disadvantages for Yizhou, the disadvantage is that it is isolated from the outside world, which is not conducive to development, and the advantage is that it is also isolated from the world and easy to defend.

But for Yuan Shu, he didn't need the dangerous terrain of Yizhou at all. Because there are basically two ways to attack Yizhou, one is from Jingzhou and the other is from Hanzhong.

Hanzhong is located between the Guanzhong Plain and the Sichuan Plain, making it easy to defend. And Jingzhou needless to say, with the danger of the Yangtze River, if Jingzhou can still be lost, is it still necessary for Yuan Shu to defend Yizhou?

Yuan Shu is confident that he can at least divide one side, what does he rely on? It relies on the water army, as well as the Yangtze River. Yuan Shu did not have any advantage in land warfare, and although the shortcomings of the cavalry could barely make up for it, the gap between him and the northern princes was still not small.

After getting Yizhou and bringing the entire Yangtze River basin under his command, Yuan Shu can be said to have no worries.

Historically, the route of the Jin Dynasty to destroy Wu was to send a naval army down the river from Yizhou after the destruction of Shu. It is enough to see how difficult the Yangtze River natural danger is, and you have to go down from the source of the Yangtze River to take Soochow.

Therefore, opening up the road between Yizhou and Jingzhou is beneficial to Yuan Shu, and it can also prevent the separation of power in Yizhou.

And now more than two million people in Yizhou are cheap laborers, and they will lose money if they don't make good use of Yuan Shu. Feel free to arrange that before these people live a good life, it is better to pay for them to build roads, so as to benefit others and themselves.

When the people are at their poorest, it is actually the best time to build a large number of buildings. Like the people of Jiangdong who are now raising so fat, not many people are willing to travel thousands of miles to build roads, and would rather do some small work at home to support themselves.

Yuan Shu was not good at forcibly pulling a group of people into service, so the construction troops under his command were slow to repair roads and water conservancy. A national-level project such as opening up a smooth road between Yizhou and Jingzhou will not work at all in a few decades.

And now a group of people in Yizhou who have not even been able to get rid of food and clothing have become the best laborers in Yuan Shu's eyes. Spending money to hire hundreds of thousands, the speed of road construction can definitely increase several times.

Send another 20,000 army regiments to attack and use as bulldozers, maybe this project will be completed within a few years.

However, Yizhou has not yet been pacified, and all this of Yuan Shu is just an assumption. Wait until Guo Jia and them solve the Nanban and control Yizhou, and all this can be carried out.

Yuan Shu is now discussing the issue of a new military merit system with Jia Xu, Tian Feng and others.

The system of military merit and feudal marquis began with the Shang Dynasty reform of the Qin State during the Warring States Period, and the Han Dynasty completely followed this system, and finally ended in the late Han Dynasty. And it was none other than Cao Cao who abolished this system in history.

The military merit system can be said to be a system that determines whether a country attaches importance to literature or military force. There are pros and cons to this system, there are many disadvantages, and the advantages are also obvious.

There are three drawbacks to the military merit system.

First, the calculation of military merits based on the number of people has led to the corruption of military discipline, and many soldiers have killed each other on the battlefield for the sake of their heads, and there have even been many acts of killing good people and risking their merits.

The most typical is the soldiers of the Qin Dynasty, in order to snatch the head of the enemy's army, many soldiers of the Qin Dynasty went into battle in light armor, and did not even wear helmets. Like the soldiers under Dong Zhuo's command, it is a common thing to kill good people and take risks, and military discipline is extremely corrupt.

Second, there is the issue of rewards. Fortunately, in times of war, the land continued to expand, and it was able to distribute the fields and food to those who had made meritorious contributions. But once the world is peaceful, or the territory cannot be expanded, there will be no land to seal.

Like in the late Han Dynasty, land annexation was serious, and the feudal marquis only got a name, and it was good to give some wealth.

Third, class restrictions, soldiers at the bottom cannot get the high lord above the public seat.

In any system, promulgation is one issue, and implementation is another. Like the probation system, it was originally a well-intentioned and cultivated an atmosphere of social attention to honesty and filial piety, but due to the selfishness of the family, it gradually became corrupt. And the same is true of the military merit system.

At that time, Liu Bang shouted "Those who are not military merits shall not be crowned kings", but his wife Lu Pheasant directly violated this sentence and gave his relatives the title of marquis, which directly led to the title of marquis of many in-laws after the Han Dynasty, and the value of the marquis was greatly hit.

Moreover, like the military merit titles at the bottom, they can be obtained by donating money, which makes the military merit system decline.

However, even though the military merit system has all kinds of drawbacks, its merits cannot be erased. Like conscription, if you want to strengthen the country, you can use the military merit system.

The tyranny of Qin and the strong Han is based on the military merit system.

To put it simply, the military merit system prevails, and if the people want to live well, there are two paths, farming and joining the army to kill the enemy, everyone wants to kill the enemy and make meritorious contributions, soldiers are feared, and everyone worships soldiers.

And after the Wei and Jin dynasties, especially the Song Dynasty. Soldiers are disgusted and looked down upon, and if they want to live well, they go to school, and if they join the army, they will only be looked down upon. Reading and bragging, you can easily become an official, but not to mention the danger of killing the enemy as a soldier, you are still looked down upon, and you have to be two heads shorter in the face of civil officials at the same level.

The Han Dynasty was divided again, and fighting other races was the same as beating a son. Any heroic and famous person can gather the people and sweep away the Hu people.

And after the Han Dynasty, the status of the soldiers declined, and hundreds of Hu people dared to run rampant. In the final analysis, it is the martial spirit that no longer exists.

Rather than weakening the national blood, Yuan Shu would rather choose a military merit system that is somewhat reckless. Those who are not military merit are not allowed to be marquis, you are a literati, and if you want to be promoted, you have to go to the battlefield for me.

I don't want you to make meritorious contributions, but at least let you know how the battle was fought, how the soldiers were sacrificed, what the corpses looked like everywhere, and what the national blood was. Save these literati from being self-righteous, relying on their own fantasies and speculations for outsiders to command insiders.

However, this military merit system really needs to be improved, at least to open up the promotion channel of the low-level soldiers, maybe there will be a Wu Anjun again?

Yuan Shu has always treated soldiers well, and there are countless people who have always wanted to be soldiers under Yuan Shu. The military salary is high, the food is good, and there is security after the death in the war, and many young and strong people are rushing to join the army.

However, Yuan Shu's recruitment has always been rigorous, not that he is young and strong, and that he is not the only son in the family, and he has to go through hard training to screen out some of them before he can join Yuan Shu's army. Yuan Shu, who had a large population under his command, never worried about the problem of soldiers, so his requirements for soldiers were harsh compared to those of other princes.

However, this upcoming large-scale conscription, Yuan Shu has to plan carefully how to improve the specific system. In the past, it was okay to have few soldiers, but if there were too many soldiers, there must be a perfect system and arrangement, otherwise there will definitely be chaos in the future. Like the so-called 800,000 forbidden troops of the Song Dynasty, it is a lesson.