When the spy academy had just extended its power to Yanzhou, and then wanted to go north to Yuan Shao, it had to give up these ideas because the capital chain was broken.

In the past two years, Tao Ying has been fighting everywhere, and the land has expanded a lot, but Pengcheng's economy is declining every day. The annual war consumes countless amounts of food and soldiers, and every year it spends a lot of money in the academy and carries out various scientific research, and the economic income that Pengcheng relies on is only papermaking and food income.

Now that they are fighting wars, they have to use their own grain, and naturally they don't sell much, and their income is obviously less than half. Not to mention the huge pollution brought by papermaking, because there is no mechanization, except for labor, materials and transportation costs, the price of each piece of paper is about to rise to one or two silver.

How much can a tael of silver buy? Therefore, those who can use it are all people from the big family, and the people of the big family don't dare to use it too much, which has become a luxury ornament, and the paper money sold every year is not much left except for various expenses.

Now those who can barely make a living are the novels written by Tao Ying published in Pengcheng, but this year the piracy is serious, and many storytellers have memorized the novels backwards, and then went around telling books to make money.

In order to be able to support Pengcheng's expenses, Zhang Zhao has been disarming every year, and now Pengcheng's soldiers and horses have been reduced to less than 7,000 people. Zhang Zhao stretched out his claws of disarmament to Peiguo again, where is Peiguo Lu Qian willing? He took over the mission of the previous state minister, and kept recovering the territory of Peiguo, especially now, in February, the weak Cao Cao wanted to make a comeback and strengthen himself, so he wanted to start a war against Xuzhou.

However, the strategist admonished that now Xuzhou is strong and strong, and Lu Bu, Liu Bei and Tao Yinghu are among them. It's better to let it take a long time, and naturally they will attack each other for the sake of profit, and when the time comes, the snipe and the clam will compete with each other, and the fisherman will benefit!

So Cao Cao began to expand his territory to the west and south under the advice of his advisers, and in February, Cao Cao led his troops to attack Liu Pi in Yuzhou, Liu Pi was defeated, and Cao Cao gained a large area of fertile land in Yuzhou.

Cao Cao occupied Yuzhou, Lü Qian was attacked on both sides, Lü Qian had already had nearly 30,000 or 40,000 troops in Peiguo, occupying seven or eight county seats, but under the compulsion of Zhang Zhao, Lü Qian had to be disarmed, and finally the soldiers and horses were reduced to less than 10,000 people.

Without soldiers and horses, Lü Qian had no choice but to transfer 5,000 to defend Cao Cao in the south of Peiguo, while garrisoning 3,000 troops in the northwest to defend Zhang Liao in Lu, and garrisoning 2,000 troops in Xiaopei, the county capital, to defend Xiaopei.

Lu Qian, the vanguard general in the early stage of Cao Cao, began to switch from offense to defense.

The newly appointed Juye County Commander is the most outstanding student in the Pengcheng Officials School who has just graduated, and he has just taken office as Xuzhou's Juye County Commander who focuses on supporting six big cities, and this guy has just taken office and has written to Pengcheng every day to urge him to have a special support fund of 100,000 taels per year.

Pengcheng's treasury has long been empty and unable to make ends meet, where can I get so much money, because there is no money to give, this guy skipped the initial stage of state-owned enterprises, and directly encouraged private capital to invest in the construction of shops, money villages, factories, etc., although these policies once made Juye City take the lead in the rise of the six key cities, but at the same time brought a lot of hidden dangers.

Chen Deng came from the north and relayed the news of the emptiness of Pengcheng's treasury to Tao Ying, and at the same time conveyed Zhang Zhao's economic strategy. Zhang Zhao and Chen Deng and other Pengcheng staff members have the same opinion, that is, to keep the north, the policy is stable, the war is exempt for three years, and the recuperation is recuperating. It will take three years for this state of deficit to turn into a profit and get on the right track, and then it will be ready to go on the expedition.

Three years of austerity politics made Tao Ying a little hesitant. From 196 to 1991, in the past three years, maybe Sun Ce will rise. How many princes were annihilated by Cao Cao, and Yuan Shao would also go south, and the battle of Guandu was about to break out.

No, maybe the three years of self-cultivation are the most important, isn't what I'm waiting for is the battle of Guandu? The small fights next to it are all floating clouds, and only the four northern states are the biggest cakes! If Cao Cao gets this big cake, everything will go!

After thinking about it for two nights, Tao Ying nodded and agreed to their suggestion. However, when accepting this suggestion, Tao Ying still had one more thing to do, that is, he must capture Wu County.

Wu County is the Suzhou generation of later generations, this place is the most important rice production base, Suhu harvest, the world is full! And this is also the most prosperous place in China in later generations, as well as Shanghai, the Yangtze River Delta, I don't know if under my own leadership, this place can become the economic center of the country again.

After spending less than three days in Jiangdu City, Chen Deng walked around Guangling and other places, and then strongly suggested that the capital of Guangling County be moved back to Guangling City. Jiangdu City is close to the Yangtze River, easy to attack and difficult to defend, and is not the place where the county governs. This is not the case with Guangling City, which has a waterway up to the Yangtze River, and there are rivers as barriers, which is where the natural governance lies.

Tao should strive for everyone's opinions, in the past, he was ready to develop to the south, so it was more reliable to move the administrative office, but now the entire policy of Xuzhou has to be defended instead of attacking, so the administrative office must be moved back.

April was spent in preparation, and May was gradually coming. The day was a little hot, and in the shade of the trees, Tao Ying watched from the Yangtze River.

The spies came to report that Wu Jing had already led the army to attack Qu'a, and Wu Jing sent an envoy to Jiangdu City to negotiate peace. Tao Ying received the envoy at the Jiangdu Mansion, and Wu Jing invited Tao Ying to jointly attack Qu'a Liu Xuan, and then divide Liu Xuan's land equally.

Tao Ying refused the envoy's request, but the two signed a non-aggression pact. At this time, Wu Jing didn't need to be wary of Tao Ying attacking Liu Xuan with all his might, and after two months of preparation, Tao Ying also led the fleet to prepare to take the opportunity to go south to Wu County.

At the beginning of May, after allocating grain and grass, Tao Ying appointed Zang Ba as the marshal of the Southern Expedition, Gan Ning and Jiang Qin as the vanguard, Zhao Yun and Xu Sheng as the left and right strategies, and Zhuge Jin as the transportation officer, and began to conquer Wu County.

In order to be able to hit Yan Baihu unexpectedly, Tao Ying even asked people to contact the Lu family, a big family in Wu County, and promised to give them family privileges, and after getting Wu County, they would not touch any of their property.

In the second week of May, Gan Ning led a naval army from Beijiang towards Taihu Lake, and Jiang Qin led another naval army around the south to attack Wu County from Songjiang.

After crossing the Yangtze River, Tao Ying sat in the Chinese army, and on land, Zhao Yun went to attack Biling as the vanguard. Biling is only a small county town with weak defenses, and it is a city controlled by bandits.

Hearing that the northern overlord Zhao Butcher led an army of 4,000 to attack the city, Zhao Yun did not arrive, and the county order lost Biling and fled to the mountains. Zhao Yun won Biling without much effort, and led his troops stationed in Piling to defend Liu Xuan's military horses to the south.

Zhao Yun got the tomb, and Xu Sheng led the troops to the city of Wuxi. Wuxi City was guarded by Yan Baihu's younger brother Yan Yu at this time. Yan Yu had nearly 5,000 soldiers in Wuxi City. Xu Sheng led his troops to surround the city of Wuxi, and attacked the city for ten days without capturing the city.

Zang Ba ordered Xu Sheng to besiege but not attack, cutting off his grain route.