Kettle off.

Genius is bright. Zhang Yi climbed the Huguan Tower.

Zhang Yi raised his eyes and looked down, and was suddenly startled, the black pressure under the pot was full of people, and there were five or six thousand under the visual inspection.

Zhang Yi's heart tightened, and he thought that someone was attacking the city, but then Zhang Yixian's black crowd was all ordinary people, dragging their families with their mouths, big bags and small bags, and they were covered in mud, and they knew at a glance that they had rushed over a lot. Some people are looking straight at the gates, others are dozing off with their burdens, and from time to time there will be children's cries.

Seeing that all the people who came, Zhang Yi breathed a sigh of relief. A few days ago, some people rushed to Huguan before dawn, hoping to enter the city as soon as possible, but there were not so many today.

"Someone, pass on my order, double the number of people at the city gate today, cheer me up, check carefully!"

"The last general obeys!"

"Yes." Zhang Yi nodded, and then said, "Go, go down with me." Tell the city gates to be opened! ”

……

The city gate opened, and the people immediately crowded into the gate.

"Stand in line, one by one!" A small colonel roared viciously, and the people suddenly became much quieter, and the people who walked in front of them consciously lined up.

An old farmer dragged two ** bags and walked in hobbly, looking very tired, in addition to the mud that had been dried up, he could see a blue and purple on his legs, which should have been injured.

The old farmer was walking, and one accidentally suddenly fell to the ground, and Zhang Yi next to him immediately walked over and helped the old farmer up.

"Thank you, General, thank you, General!" The old farmer thanked him repeatedly.

"Old man, you sit down and rest before leaving, come on, go get a bowl of water!" Zhang Yi said.

The little school immediately handed over a bowl of water, and the old farmer took the water and drank it all in one gulp.

"Old man, look at your leg, it's injured!" Zhang Yi asked.

"Yes, I was on the road overnight last night, and I didn't see it clearly and fell." The old farmer replied.

"Old man, it's inconvenient to travel at night, why don't you wait until daytime to walk!"

"Ah, General. You don't know, now in Jizhou, you don't dare to rush in broad daylight, the official road is full of officials arresting people, especially for people like us. How dare we walk during the day, only in the evening when the officials have rested, and then we will hurry. ”

"Arrest? What are they arresting people for? Zhang Yi asked puzzled.

"What else can you do, if you are young and strong, you will be arrested and become a soldier, and like me, you will be arrested and become a people's husband. I'm this age, and if I am arrested and sent to Tuntian to work as a man, I'm afraid that I won't be able to toss for a few months, and this old life will be lost, so I can only hurry at night. ”

Zhang Yi nodded, and then looked at the people who flocked in, most of them were old and weak women and children, and young and strong men accounted for a smaller proportion.

Seeing the faltering progress of a group of women and children, Zhang Yi beckoned to the small school behind him and motioned for him to come over.

"General. What are the commands? ”

"Set up a pot, boil some hot water, and give it to the people. These people were tired from the night's journey. Zhang Yi said.

……

On the shores of the Bohai Sea.

The fire in the salt works had long since been extinguished, but there was still smoke from the ruins, and a lot of salt had condensed into yellow lumps again in the burned salt warehouses, but there was a lot of sand and soot mixed in them.

Cao Shuang leaned down, grabbed a piece of salt on the ground that had been burned to the size of a palm, and smashed it fiercely, and the sand grains mixed with crystal salt grains scattered to the ground.

"Rubbish, a pile of rubbish!" Cao Shuang stomped his feet fiercely.

As a commander, Cao Shuang naturally knows the importance of salt. For these soldiers who fought the war, it was simply impossible to maintain combat effectiveness without salt. In comparison, Sima Yi's move is much more ruthless than A Dou.

"General, it's no wonder they're not to blame." Biqiu Jian walked over and said: "The Dongwu Navy is proficient in water warfare, and I have a long coastline, so it is impossible to cover everything, and it is impossible to garrison too many people in each salt field. ”

"Biqiu, it's not a way to go on like this, if the salt works are destroyed, won't we cut off the salt road. Jizhou is not as good as other Guanzhong and Bashu, although they are not close to the sea, but they still have well salt and pool salt. We only have Haiyan as a salt road in Jizhou. Are we really going to garrison troops in every salt pan? Cao Shuang frowned. Then he said, "Why don't we choose some places with dangerous terrain and build some salt works?" ”

"General, I'm afraid this method can't stop the Dongwu Naval Division. The coast with dangerous terrain can block the big ships of Soochow from approaching, but it can't stop the small boats, and the Soochow sailors only need to carry four or five small boats, and when they are near the sea, they use small boats to approach, and we can't hold the salt pans. ”

"Aren't we going to eat without salt?"

"General, I have a way, we can buy salt from Gongsun Yuan. Gongsun Yuan controls Liaodong and Samhan, the coastline is longer than ours, and Liaodong is vast and sparsely populated, so it doesn't need much salt. Let's buy salt directly from Gongsun Yuan. ”

"Gongsun Yuan, will he agree?"

"Don't worry, general, now that we and Gongsun Yuan are cold-hearted, Gongsun Yuan will definitely agree."

"We have a lot of population in Jizhou, and it all depends on buying salt, doesn't it cost a lot of money?"

"General, buying salt is only for a while, and we can ban illegal salt. Once the ban on illegal salt is lifted, I think the problem of salt shortage will be solved soon. At that time, even if the Jiangdong Navy Division attacked, it would be the people's small salt making workshop that would be destroyed, and the loss would not be large. And the rest of the people are for profit. Sure it will continue to swarm. Biqiu Jian continued.

"Ban on illicit salt?" Cao Shuang was shocked. This monopoly of salt and iron has been practiced for hundreds of years, and the imperial court can obtain a large amount of tax revenue from the salt tax every year. Once the ban on private salt is opened, it will still have a great impact on the tax revenue of the imperial court.

However, as Biqiu Jian said, once the ban on illegal salt is opened, the people can freely manufacture and sell salt, then there must be a lot of people who cook salt and sell salt privately for profit.

"This matter is very important, wait until I go back to play Your Majesty!" Cao Shuang said slowly.

……

In the days that followed, the tripartite fell silent again. No new war was started by anyone. And neither Adou nor Sima Yi found a new way to fight the Wei State.

In the blink of an eye, it is the autumn harvest season again.

Due to the destruction of the Ma Qiu cavalry during the spring ploughing, the grain production of the entire Jizhou fell by half, and the decline in grain production was soon reflected in the tax revenue. Coupled with the tax loss caused by the establishment of private salt, as well as the loss of Ding tax caused by the loss of the people, the tax loss of Wei State this year was as much as sixty percent.

Fortunately, Jizhou was already rich, and coupled with the taxes accumulated when Wei occupied the Central Plains in the previous years, Wei's finances were not tight.

After several expansions, the entire Wei state, excluding the Tuntian army, had as many as 400,000 people. Although this is far inferior to Yuan Shao in his heyday, it is enough to make Adou and Sun Deng dare not act rashly.

Cao Shuang's crazy expansion of the army has caused a very serious damage to the productive forces of Jizhou. 400,000 soldiers have passed the limit that Jizhou can withstand today. In terms of numbers, it can even be compared with the sum of the forces of the Great Han Dynasty and Eastern Wu around Jizhou.

Although there is no loss in terms of numbers and troops, it is much worse in terms of training and equipment. Seventy percent of the Wei soldiers were newly recruited in the last year, lacking training and experience in major battles, which was incomparable with the elite soldiers of the Eastern Wu Dynasty.

Another point is that there is a serious shortage of equipment. After all, there are 400,000 people, and it takes a lot of time to make equipment that can equip an army of 400,000 people, even if the materials are sufficient. Nowadays, many Wei soldiers still use bamboo poles for training.

For a year, there was no large-scale attack by the enemy, and the officials and people in Yecheng gradually got used to this situation, and if the enemy did not attack, everyone's lives would not be affected, and the officials and people became numb from the initial panic. In order to escape the war, many children of local clans fled to Yecheng, which also made Yecheng a little more prosperous than before.

Yecheng is prosperous, and the merchants in Yecheng can smile with their eyebrows, these children of the family who come to Yecheng for refuge are all rich households, and they are naturally lavish in spending money. This has also made the entertainment service industry such as restaurants, casinos, and Ji courtyards in the city unprecedentedly prosperous.

Time flies, and soon it is the time of the New Year, which is different from the bleak New Year last year, there is a sense of joy everywhere in Yecheng, those shops and merchants are even more colorful, and the rich and rich people in the city have also begun to purchase New Year's materials, and the whole Yecheng does not feel a trace of the current smell of the enemy.

After the New Year, it was spring again, and the crops in the fields were seedlings again, and at this time, Ma Qiu's Liangzhou cavalry made another large-scale sortie. This time, the goal is still the same as last time, which is to destroy the fields and burn the villages.

This year, Gongsun Yuan of Liaodong made a lot of money from the Wei State.

first sold horses, then sold salt, and then began to sell some minerals, in short, what could be sold, Gongsun Yuan would sell to Cao Rong. Although in terms of price, Gongsun Yuan gave Cao Rong a lot of preferential treatment, which reduced the profit a little, but it was better in terms of quantity and small profits.

Both sides can be regarded as taking what they need. Liaodong is vast and sparsely populated, and there are few taxes, so Gongsun Yuan is not rich, plus the 100,000 army of Deng Ai absorbed, this army is a money-burning thing, and it needs money everywhere, and the transaction with Cao Rong just makes up for this shortcoming.

And Wei has nothing else, that is, there is a lot of money, Cao Cao has unified the Central Plains for nearly 30 years, and whether it is Cao Cao, or later Cao Pi and Cao Ei, they are not extravagant and wasteful people, so the old foundation of Wei is still very rich. In exchange for money for much-needed strategic resources, Wei was also happy to do so.

Bought a war horse from Liaodong, Cao Shuang also trained in addition to the cavalry, after receiving the news of the reappearance of the local horse thieves, Cao Shuang immediately ordered the cavalry to dispatch to exterminate the horse thieves, in Cao Shuang's view, the horse thieves were helpless before, because the infantry was not good, and now they also have cavalry, and they will be able to successfully drive away the horse thieves who are in trouble in Jizhou.