After the annexation of the Yan State, the population of the Zhao State once again exceeded five million, and even if the five million population had the bonus of animal husbandry - the east of the Taihang Mountain of the Zhao State was the same as the Central Plains, but many of the Zhao people were settled and naturalized by the nomadic department, and they also raised livestock while farming, and the country still consumed 90 million stone millet a year. What's even more helpless is that the battlefield is in Zhao itself, and the result of the war is that the grain is consumed faster. A year later, Zhao ran out of food, and the Qin army would starve to death if he did not attack Zhao.

To save Zhao, the most dangerous thing to solve is food, and the key to food is transportation. Pingyuanjin had been occupied by the Qin state, and the land routes that could connect the Zhao state were Fuyang and Zhongyi east of the Hejian Land and at the mouth of the Yellow River (both of which were on the boundary of Cangzhou, Hebei Province, one south and one north across the river). In the past, Zhongyi was a tributary of the Yellow River injected by Hutuo water, and it was 900 miles along the tributary to Handan.

The ferry port of the Yellow River, a tributary of the Yellow River north of Linzi to the north of Zhongyi, traveled more than 500 miles by land, and unless a four-wheeled carriage was used, the cost of transporting grain by land would be difficult for any country to bear. The best way to do this is to go out of the water to the Bohai Sea and go north along the coast of the Bohai Sea. Although it is more than 200 miles away, the cost is relatively low, but the tonnage of Qi Guozhou is only four or five thousand tons, and it cannot be transported much in a year.

Chu State to Zhongyi is farther away, Yingdu down the Huai River to the East China Sea, and then from the East China Sea to Langya Port is already 1,400 miles. There are two roads after arriving at Langya Port, one is to shorten the barge to Qijing, so that there is no need to bypass and bypass Chengshanjiao, saving at least 900 miles; The other is the sea route, which detours more than 1,500 miles to reach the mouth of the Jishui Sea.

If the grain is transported, the Zhou Ji of the State of Qi is insufficient, and the grain of the State of Chu is also worthless when it is transported to the Qi Territory, and it can only be transported by the Zhou Ji of the State of Chu to the north of Zhongyi of the State of Zhao. Inland river transport is not better than sea transport, the Bohai Sea, the Yellow Sea and the coastal flow to the south, the north needs to go retrograde, the best transport route is still the Cao transport route of the Yuan Dynasty: the Huaishui enters the sea directly into the deep sea, and then along the black water ocean to the Bohai Sea, and finally arrives at Zhao State, the whole journey is 3,800 miles.

Xiong Jing gave the example of transporting grain by warboat, but in fact, he would never use a warboat to transport grain as a last resort. The bottom of the warship was not covered with copper, and once it was drilled into by the ship maggots, the entire war boat had to be scrapped (which also means that the Chu warships that entered the Qi State either returned to the Chu State from Jishui through the Qin realm, or they had to wait until winter to return to the Chu State by sea during the non-breeding season of the ship maggots).

Although copper cladding is expensive, it is not impossible. The Royal Navy's copper-clad experimental vessel HMS. Bellona used about fifteen tons of copper, an average of three hundred copper plates, and only fourteen tons of copper per 74-gun gunboat after improved technology [Note 3: Roger (2004), p. 375]. ]。 The 74-gun standard gunboat had a displacement of more than 1,600 tons, in other words, a gluttonous cargo ship would consume up to four tons of copper.

The state of Chu was famous for its copper production, and the annual output of copper in Tonglu Mountain alone exceeded 2,000 tons [Note 4: The paper "The Ancient Copper Mine of Tonglu Mountain and the Prosperity of Chu State" believes that the annual output of Tonglu Mountain in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period was between 1700-2500 tons. ]。 The metals used in Chu now are mainly giant iron and pig iron, and the output of copper has been greatly reduced. Even if it is reduced, it is enough to cover copper for 250 sea boats a year. Xiong Jing did not take into account that the warship went to sea, but the construction of the war was too urgent before, and there was no effort to wrap the warship with copper, although there was plenty of time after the war, but three or four tons of copper were packed, and the cost of a warship with wings would be increased to one hundred and thirty gold. The probability of going to sea is very small, and many counties are reluctant to cover copper in order to save this money.

As many as 6 or 700 warships could not go out of the sea for grain, and the remaining ships could carry up to 10,000 tons of tonnage, transporting 750,000 stones at a time. And these boats can only be transported along the coast, at most twice a year, plus the Qi State boats, can not transport three million tons a year.

The only hope is gluttony. Although only three boats were launched last year, this year two Suzaku-class flying shearboats and 12 glutton-class cargo boats will be launched. As more and more timber dries to a acceptable moisture content, and more and more dry docks are expanded, more than 20 Gluttony will be launched next year.

The main thing that restricts the speed of shipbuilding is the drying of wood, especially the keel, because the keel is the thickest and cannot be sawn. Including the sea boat launched this year, it is still made of wood that has been dried for more than ten years from the palace houses of the Chu State. The first batch of Dazhang dredging from next year has been drying for more than five years, and large-scale shipbuilding is possible.

If it is not dried again during construction, the construction time of a gluttony is about six months, and now shipyards generally lay the keel before the autumn, install the ribs before the winter, install the hull plates at the turn of the spring and summer of the following year, and launch the water before the autumn.

A taotao transports 30,000 stone millets at a time, at least four times a year - four times is a conservative estimate, this is Xiong Jing's memory of the Qing Dynasty sand boats, which are generally transported four times a year on the Beiyang route [Note 5: "Archaeological Extracts of Traditional Crafts and Science and Technology in the Past and Present" p390], transporting tens of millions of soybeans and soybean cakes from Northeast China to Shanghai. One stone in the Qing Dynasty was six times that of the Warring States Stone, which was equivalent to more than 60 million stones of goods traveling to and from the sea every year.

There are definitely more sails than sand boats, and the downwind speed is also faster than that of sand boats (Shanghai sand boats can reach Tianjin in six or seven days downwind), and their ability to resist wind and waves is also stronger than that of sand boats. Even if it can only be transported four times a year, the volume of twenty-five gluttonous ships can reach the total volume of Qi Chuzhou. Eighty-four ships were required to transport 10 million stones, and about ninety-five ships were required after subtracting the wreck.

If it was only to defend the city and evacuate the old and weak women and children who were not suitable for fighting in the rear, 10 million stone corn could barely be used by the Zhao army to stabilize the defense line of the tributaries of the Yellow River, namely Handan, Lieren, Guangping, Julu, Shadune, Changcheng, Xiabo, and Wuqiang. However, to support the Hutuoshui defense line (north) against Jingcheng and the Lushui defense line south of Yi'an, it is necessary to add 10 million stones. Moreover, this is only for the supply of the army, and the common people are no longer in it.

The Tao Tao launched 12 ships this year, 25 ships next year, two years at the same time to build docks, equipment, training workers, the third year launched 30 ships can meet the grain transportation of 10 million stone (including the volume of 3 million stone of Qi Chu Zhouji), the fourth year if the number of ships launched reaches 50, the sixth year can transport 20 million stones.

According to the estimation of the Great Sima Mansion, the Qin army attacked every three years, and rested for two years in the middle. At the beginning of the second expedition of the Qin army, that is, in the fifth year, Zhao imported more than 10 million stones, reached 20 million stones in the sixth year, and 30 million stones in the eighth year. If you don't lose millet and transport the husked rice, you will reach the limit of Chu Qiwei's annual surplus grain in the seventh year: 40 million stones. If you want to increase it further, you can only ship rice from India.

After Ge De's first meeting, he met several times in a row, and during the next few meetings, Qi Xiangtianjiao, Xiang Yan, who came from Yingdu, Li He of the Operations Division, Bei Ji of Zhibi Division, and E Zhuo of the Transportation Division were all present. Xiang Yan's conclusion was that it was too late to build a boat, and if he wanted to save Zhao, he could only send troops. But whether it is building a boat or sending troops, Zhao Guo will hold on this year.

In addition to this, taking grain and shipbuilding as a reference, the two countries should not only form a unified command mechanism in intelligence and military affairs, but also form a unified deployment mechanism in economic, material, manpower, and military production. For example, corn, Chu State planted less mulberry hemp and more corn, and Qi State should also grow as much millet as possible in addition to satisfying the clothes and shoes of Chu and Wei, so as to increase the surplus grain of the three countries. And the clothes and shoes of Qi can only be sold in the three kingdoms of Chu, Zhao and Wei, and outside the three kingdoms, they need to barter goods, and no longer accept gold and money.

In view of this, Xiong Jing also believes that the four kingdoms of Chuqi, Zhao, and Wei must form a mechanism financially. That is, the Chu State ant nose money and the Qi State knife currency implement a fixed exchange rate, and the fixed exchange rate cannot of course be statutory, unless the Qin State controls the production and operation of the whole country. The practical approach was to set up a money bank in charge of exchanging money, and inject gold and silver into the bank with the treasury of the two countries to stabilize the exchange rate between the ant-nose money and the exchange rate of gold and silver with Qidao, that is, to stabilize the exchange rate between ant-nose money and Qidao.

And Wei, if the dynasty does not attack Wei, the Wei copper coins must be revalued to determine a new and suitable gold and silver exchange price—Wei has lost the most land, and there are a large number of Wei sword coins in the hands of the Qin. Another very crucial thing is that the coinage rights of Wei must be temporarily surrendered, and the coinage will be controlled by the money exchanger.

The treatment of Zhao State was similar, and Zhao State also had a lot of sword coins in the hands of Qin State. The sword coins of the Zhao Kingdom must also be revalued to determine a new gold and silver exchange value; At the same time, the coinage rights of Zhao State were also to be temporarily handed over to the control of the money exchange bank.

In a state of war, the stability of the currency is extremely important. If the value of the currency is unstable, the merchant hoards and sells, the price soars day by day, you can buy a cow today, you can only buy a rabbit tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow the coin can only be melted and sold as blister copper. Such an economic environment simply does not allow for a long-term war. As long as the traffic is not blocked, the strength of each individual can be incorporated into the economic system and form an extremely powerful force.

This is another set of methods that is different from the Qin state. The concentration of Qin's state power depended on millions of officials across the country, and the meticulous and comprehensive Qin rules were the rules, or software, for the operation of these officials.

Since the state of Chu could not annex the state of Qi, the state of Wei, and the state of Zhao in a short period of time, as long as the four countries could form a unified economic system, it was not impossible to compete with the state system built up by millions of officials of the Qin state.

However, in order to achieve this, the stability of the currency exchange rate of various countries is only one of them, and the laws related to production, trade, and even property in various countries other than finance must be unified to a certain extent. Finally, the most important thing that has been solved, which has been solved, requires an innumerable amount of gold, silver, or goods.

This is also a shortcoming of the economic system, which is overloaded to a certain point and collapses. The essence of war is to burn money, and to a certain extent currency inflation, the economic system begins to fall into inefficiency or even complete failure. The bureaucratic state system is different, as long as the lives of the common people are not cared for, the whole system can continue to work until an uprising breaks out.

The state of Chu had already opened maritime trade routes to Central and West Asia, and many goods other than silk could also obtain extremely high profits. Large-scale inflows of gold and silver can cool the economic system and keep inflation within reasonable limits. In other words, the economic system of the four countries was not inferior to the state system of Qin composed of officials.