Liu Bei rewarded the heroes lavishly after the capture of Yizhou, and I also received a large amount of gold and silver from him. I gave all the copper coins to the soldiers who entered Shu with me, leaving only the gold and silver locked in the treasury for future military expansion.

Liu Bei spent too much money to his subordinates, which caused the emptiness of the Chengdu treasury and laid many hidden dangers for him to run government functions in the future. In the end, it was Liu Ba who solved this problem for him, and Liu Ba's solution was to mint coins, regulate the market, and change the private market to the official market. After a long period of time, Liu Bei's treasury was enriched.

During this time, I began to gradually become familiar with the armament situation of Wuling City, since Liu Bei recruited troops from the four counties to Nanjun and took them into Shu, in addition to the 500 personal soldiers I brought back, there were only 5,000 old and weak soldiers left in Wuling City. I asked Gong Zhi to recruit more young and strong people, and he only recruited another 1,000 people. When asked why, he told me that he was afraid that there would be too much recruitment, and that there would be no one to collect grain during the autumn harvest and no one to cultivate during the spring ploughing.

I was reminded of the method of military cantonment that I had read in a book, that is, to gather some relevant civilian officials for discussion, and finally worked out a set of methods to involve soldiers in farming. Later, he ordered Gong Zhi to recruit another 2,000 soldiers, and separated eight battalions with the original 6,000 soldiers in the city, with 1,000 people in each battalion, and they were guarded by tenants. The soldiers were separated from their families, and the wasteland outside the city was reclaimed, and the tithing system was adopted, that is, two-tenths of the soldiers returned to visit relatives in a prescribed time, ensuring that eight-tenths of the soldiers were always engaged in farming and warfare. All the grain collected is handed over to the officials of the system for safekeeping and distribution, and the sergeants' daily necessities such as food, clothing, etc., are allocated from the collected grains, and the sergeants' families can also receive food from these grains on time according to a fixed proportion.

Because when he joined the army, he not only had food, but also had additional subsidies for the family's food, so as soon as this order was issued, the sergeants' enthusiasm for reclamation was very high. Although we will not see results in a short period of time, I believe that in less than three and five years, not only will the military rations in the city be solved, but the warehouses in the city will also be full.

However, in this era of frequent wars, it is difficult to have a period of peaceful development. After Liu Bei seized Yizhou, Sun Quan immediately sent Zhuge Jin to Chengdu to find Liu Bei to ask for Jingzhou because of his previous promise to Lu Su. Previously, Liu Bei promised Lu Su that he would hand over Jingzhou to Sun Quan after seizing Yizhou, which naturally refers to the entire territory of Jingzhou, including Wuling County. Liu Bei and Kong Ming both drew a charge on that agreement, and coupled with Liu Bei's previous name of benevolence and righteousness, Lu Su was deceived back.

But after Liu Bei captured Yizhou, Sun Quan naturally wouldn't watch Liu Bei become bigger and stronger, and then occupy Jingzhou and not pay it back, and he was only nesting in the six counties of Jiangdong. So he sent Zhuge Jin to Chengdu with the documents that Liu Bei had drawn at the beginning, and asked him for Jingzhou.

Zhuge Jin, whose name is Ziyu, is a native of Langxiyangdu (now Yinan, Shandong) like Zhuge Liang. He is Zhuge Liang's elder brother and Zhuge Ke's father. Before Kong Ming left the mountain, he was recommended by Lu Su to work for Soochow. This person is broad-minded, gentle and honest, no matter how he talks or advises Sun Quan, he never speaks out in a hurry, but only slightly expresses his tendencies, roughly expresses his intentions, and points to the end. If there was a disagreement with Sun Quan's mind, he would give up the ongoing content and move on to other topics, and gradually start from scratch with other things, and seek Sun Quan's approval with his views on similar things, so Sun Quan's thoughts were often opened, so he has always been deeply trusted by Sun Quan.

But this time, in order to return to Jingzhou from Liu Bei, Sun Quan listened to Zhang Zhao's plan, imprisoned Zhuge Jin's old and young, and made him go to Sichuan to beg Zhuge Liang, so that he could give Jingzhou to Eastern Wu from Liu Bei.

Since Zhuge Jin entered Sichuan, I have been sending people to Shuzhong to inquire about the news, and sure enough, it is similar to what the book says, and the news soon came from Sichuan that Liu Bei deliberately delayed on the pretext that Liangzhou was undecided, Yizhou was unstable, and he wanted to help Ma Chao completely drive out Cao Cao's forces in Liangzhou before returning to Jingzhou. Later, he was really embarrassed to directly regret the original document in front of Zhuge Jin, coupled with Zhuge Liang's "bitter begging", he was willing to return the three counties of Changsha, Lingling, and Guiyang to Sun Quan first, and wrote a letter with a military order to ask him to go to Nanjun to find Guan Yu to deliver.

Unexpectedly, Zhuge Jin was frightened by Guan Yu after arriving at Guan Yu, not to mention begging for the three counties, and even his soul was scared and lost a few points. After he went back, he naturally inevitably complained to Sun Quan about Guan Yu's rudeness. Who is Sun Quan? How could he suffer a loss like this, so he directly sent officials to take over the three counties of Changsha, Lingling, and Guiyang under our jurisdiction, but they were all bombarded back by Guan Yu's order.

Sun Quan saw that the text was not good, so he came to Wu. Directly sent Lu Su and Lu Meng to lead the Jiangdong generals to raise 50,000 elite troops out of Lukou and attack the four counties of Jiangxia, Changsha, Lingling and Guiyang. Among them, Lu Su led 20,000 troops to Tun Yiyang to resist Guan Yu, blocked him from sending reinforcements to the three counties, and secretly sent Lu Meng to lead 30,000 troops to seize the four counties. Because Liu Bei had transferred most of the troops in Nanjun when he took Shu, as far as I know, Guan Yu's total strength in Nanjun is now less than 20,000 people, which is still the number after Jiangxia's left-behind troops were blocked by Sun Quan and encircled and annihilated after the river was surrounded and annihilated according to Guan Yu's instructions.

Guan Yu, who defended Nanjun with this force, can be said to be very difficult to protect himself, let alone divide his troops to save the remaining three counties after Jiangxia was lost. And Lu Su only guarded the main roads in Yiyang and confronted Guan Yu, and did not fight with him, he just wanted to entangle him. So soon, Changsha and Guiyang surrendered, and Lü Meng's army quickly approached Lingling.

I have the heart to send troops to save Lingling, but the disparity between the strength of the enemy and us is too great, my controllable army in the whole city plus my own soldiers is only more than 8,000 people, and because I left Zheng Liang to Liu Bei, there is not even a fierce general who can assault the enemy's formation. On Lu Meng's side, Gan Ning, Ling Tong, Han Dang, Ding Feng, etc., etc., except for Liutai Shici and Cheng Pu to suppress the formation for Lu Su, the rest of the Jiangdong generals are here.

Gong Zhi bitterly persuaded me to defend the city for self-protection, saying that using the troops in the city to save Lingling was tantamount to hitting a stone with an egg, and when the time came, not only Lingling could not be saved, but even Wuling would be difficult to defend. At this time, there was news from the direction of Yiyang that Lu Su was a little precarious and difficult to support under the strong attack of Guan Yu's troops, and there was also news in Shu that Liu Bei had mobilized an army to prepare for a battle with Sun Quan in Sichuan. So I listened to Gong Zhi's advice and pinned my hopes on Lü Meng to give up Lingling to aid Lu Su, so that the siege of Lingling would be relieved. After all, the book says that during this period, Liu Bei and Sun Quan finally reached an agreement to separate Jingzhou with Xiangshui as the boundary.

In fact, at this time, Sun Quan did order Lü Meng to abandon Lingling and quickly rescue Lu Su, but Lü Meng had already led his army to Lingling City when he received the order. He sent lobbyists to use the strategy of "making something out of nothing" to persuade Lingling to surrender to Hao Pu, and when Hao Pu surrendered, Lu Meng clapped his hands and laughed and deliberately took out Sun Quan's edict to Hao Pu to see, which made Hao Pu regret it.

Lu Meng, who had obtained Lingling and merged the army in Lingling City, did not want to let go of the land of Jingnan, the last county of my last county, and came to Wuling County with dozens of fierce generals and 30,000 troops under him.

Obviously, the easy submission of the three counties before made him think that I would be like Hao Pu, and I would easily dedicate Wuling County to him.