Chapter 21 Year, New Year

As mentioned last time, Liu Hou held a meeting to discuss some future governance policies in the southern and central regions. After the meeting, everyone acted intensively according to the plan.

Liu Hou temporarily stayed in Zhuti County, while continuing to train and reorganize the army, while dealing with the political affairs of Nanzhong, and at the same time always paying attention to the battle situation on all fronts, and most importantly, he was already planning an expedition to the Lingnan region.

For Lingnan and Jiaozhou, he is bound to win, not to mention that Shixie dared to fight his own idea of Nanzhong, even if there was no such thing, Liu Hou coveted this fertile land for a long time.

However, it is still too early for the expedition to Lingnan, and we must wait for the situation in Nanzhong to stabilize. At the very least, we have to wait until we have finished the clowns who jumped off the beam and the marshal of the three caves before we can consider the matter of the labor expedition. Otherwise, a bad one will cut off the way of retreat.

In this campaign, Liu Hou's harvest can be described as rich, not to mention tens of thousands of barbarian soldiers, but also captured a large number of materials, including gold, silver, dan, lacquer, ploughing cattle, war horses, leather and so on. Liu Hou ordered people to transport all these things back to Chengdu for sale, and raised a large amount of money and grain to transport them back to replenish military funds. Anyway, because Liu Hou's army was stationed in Zhuti County, there were still 20,000 heavy soldiers who had nothing to do, and now it came in handy.

Within a few months, they continued to travel back and forth between Zhuti County and Chengdu, transporting a large number of supplies, transporting a large number of local products from Nanzhong, and transporting all kinds of grain and military materials from Chengdu.

Later, after the pressure on the transportation of military materials was relieved, Liu Hou sent people to buy the specialties of the local natives, in addition to Dan, lacquer, leather, Nanzhong Mountain Forest also produced a lot of mountain delicacies, such as a variety of mushrooms and matsutake mushrooms, a variety of herbal supplements, etc.

Of course, there are also some rare birds and beasts, such as iron beasts (giant pandas), etc., these living creatures are not easy to get back, but once you successfully get one alive back, it can still cause a sensation and make money. Since the first iron beast was auctioned for a sky-high price of 1,000 taels in Chengdu, the nobles of Yizhou are proud to own an iron beast. Of course, Liu Hou secretly hid behind this trend, counting the money and counting until his hands cramped.

In this way, the baggage team continued to have something to do, they transported the purchased local products back to Chengdu for sale, and then transported various commodities produced by the Ministry of Industry such as soap, paper, books, glass products, etc. to sell to the local natives.

Later, the baggage team almost became a caravan, but it also earned Liu Hou a lot of money, which made it easy for Liu Hou to feed this not small army and support the army to continue the war.

With the advance of the four troops, they captured more and more villages and caves, seized more and more property and people, and the scale of the baggage team became larger and larger, and the business was getting bigger and bigger. The officials in Chengdu all thought it was very strange, it has always been an act of burning money to fight, why did the prince go out to fight, except for a little start-up capital at the beginning, he never asked the court for a penny later?

Not only did they not ask the court for money again, but they also kept shipping things back, although these things were sold and not handed over to the imperial court, but were exchanged for other military funds and flowed back to the army of the Southern Expedition, but many people couldn't help but blush when they looked at this large number of materials and gold and silver treasures. Could it be that Nanzhong is really so rich? Is it really that profitable to fight wars?

As the baggage team sold back some local products from Nanzhong, some officials and businessmen who were about to move could no longer sit still, and they also sent people to Nanzhong to inquire about the truth and see if they could find any business opportunities.

Of course, Liu Hou didn't care what these people thought, even if he knew, he would only support them, because if he could attract more businessmen to Nanzhong to do business, it would undoubtedly only be good and not bad for the prosperity of Nanzhong.

In November, Liu Hou finally heard the good news that the personnel who had been sent to Taohuashui to prospect reported that an iron ore mine had been found near Taohuashui, the reserves of which were unknown. Liu Hou knew that this area was rich in iron ore, and its reserves must be very large, but it could not be proved by current means.

Liu Hou was overjoyed when he heard the news, and immediately sent people back to Chengdu to transfer a large number of experts and equipment in mining and smelting, intending to start a one-stop production of mining and smelting here. Because the Nanzhong area is actually rich in coal mines, as long as coal mines are found, then the problem of smelting will be solved. Even if you don't find it, there are plenty of forests here, and you can cut down trees on the spot and burn charcoal for the initial smelting of ore.

Anyway, the iron ore will be built first. There was a shortage of workers digging the pit, so Liu Hou gave an order, and when the men and horses attacked the barbarian tribes, they not only robbed them of their property, but also grabbed the whole family and sent them to the mining area to mine.

Liu Hou clearly marked the price of the population, 2 taels of silver for each young and strong, 1 tael for each of the old and weak women and children, as long as the prisoners were handed over, Liu Hou immediately distributed the silver taels to the troops in the form of rewards. The various troops combed back and forth in the mountains and forests like chicken blood, looking for the tribes of the barbarians.

Gradually, it was no longer their main purpose to defeat the tribes and punish the culprits of the rebellion, but to plunder the population was what they wanted to do most.

Looking at the steady stream of "captives" being transported to the mining area, Liu Hou sighed, and he deeply sympathized with Sun Quan's constant attacks on the Shanyue people.

By the first month of the 2nd year of Zhangwu (222), the various troops had already won the victory, and they returned to Zhuti County one after another for the New Year. Meng was captured alive, Jinhuan Sanjie was killed in battle, Dong Dana was captured alive, and Ah Huinan surrendered. It can be said that after this war, the last bit of resistance in the southern and central regions was eradicated.

The number of captured barbarians reached as many as 150,000, of course, there were only more than 30,000 young and strong, and the rest were old and weak women and children. In addition, all kinds of gold, silver, jewelry, and valuable materials were seized.

Liu Hou selected some young men from the captives to replenish the battle losses of each army, and the others all rushed to mine. Villages of miners soon formed in the vicinity of the mining area. These miners' villages are not slums.

Liu Hou asked the graduates of the college to standardize the management of these villages, and the buildings in the villages were well planned, and each house was built in horizontal and vertical rows. Although it was not as good as the original Ministry of Industry built, these students did refer to many of the Ministry of Industry's urban planning ideas to build these villages.

At least enough public toilets have been built, and the standardized treatment of excrement and sewage is not comparable to that of any other city in the world except Chengdu. There are also these barbarian miners, who live almost a collective life, a life under the public ownership system.

Each of them has to engage in the labor within their ability, of course, because many are old and weak, women and children, so the labor intensity is different, of course, the young and strong must be engaged in the most labor-intensive labor, such as mining, digging holes, etc. Those who are weak will arrange light body labor, such as sewing and mending, cooking, collecting firewood, and so on.

They also eat in a big pot in the public cafeteria, although the food is not good, but it can basically feed them. This alone makes these barbarians feel grateful, and they can't give birth to a rebellious heart.

After the war, their family was destroyed, their homes were destroyed, they were homeless, and they thought that they would starve to death if they did not die in battle, so they could only wander around. was captured here by the Shu army, thinking that what he was facing must be a miserable life, but he didn't expect it to be a stable life.

Here, as long as you do the easiest labor, you can get a full meal, and if it is a high-intensity labor, like those young and strong, you can earn a little wage. Even the clothes and shoes are uniformly distributed, and this kind of life, even if they used to live in the village, is almost the same.

Moreover, the Han people here do not oppress them, and the imaginary situation of being forced to do hard labor by the leather whip has never appeared, and I have only seen the people who were lured by the copper money to mine, and I have not seen the people who were forced to mine by the leather whip and the big stick. Not only did no one whip them, but when they were sick or injured, they were treated free of charge by doctors, but they had to help with their work when they were cured.

What shocked these barbarians the most was that there was also a school here, and anyone with children in the family could go to school, which once made them suspect that they were not captives, but a good family in the Central Plains.

They feel that the legendary prince is too good, or too stupid, to spend so much money to feed them, even if others want labor and population, they will only want to be young and strong, but this prince is different, whether it is young or strong, old, weak, sick and disabled, all of them are gathered up, and all of them spend food to feed, they often think, is this prince too much money and nowhere to spend?

But what they didn't realize was that they were actually supporting themselves. Let's just say that the set of clothes and shoes they distribute every year are actually made by some of them, but they are just organized, set up a clothing and shoe workshop, and make them through the guò assembly line production method.

The house they live in is also built by themselves, but it is also built in an organized and unified manner.

The food they ate was also part of themselves, and they were used as canteen workers, and the food was cooked by them.

Of course, it was true that the grain for cooking was bought by the prince with money, but they did not think that the money to buy grain came from the ore dug up by the miners and sold it.

They didn't think at all that only part of the wealth produced by these people would be used to feed them, and part of it would be used to build hospitals, schools, and public facilities. And the largest part was earned by the prince whom they thought was stupid. Maybe they will never know what surplus value is. All they know is that life is not bad now, even better than returning to the mountains and forests.

The New Year is here, this New Year's Liu Hou is out on the battlefield again, this time it's not bad, after all, he is still stationed in a city, the last New Year in Jingzhou, he spent it directly in the march, and he didn't even know when it was the first day of the new year.

This time, the problem is basically solved, and I can finally spend the New Year in peace. The county guard of Juti County was full of lanterns, and Liu Hou and a group of civil and military officials had a reunion dinner on the 30th of the Chinese New Year's Eve.

The teams that happened to go out came back, and the generals also came over to have this reunion dinner. The banquet was even more staggered, and the meal was not happy. Especially the heroic generals such as E Huan and Guan Suo, they drank and drank arrogantly.

After the vulture bone was returned, he always followed Liu Hou's side, and Liu Hou did not let him go back to the tribe, saying that he would follow him to be a big official and a general. The vulture bone was flickered by him, and gradually dispelled the idea of returning to the Ugo country to be the king of the mountain, and gradually integrated into the circle of the Shu army.

This banquet is the most arrogant of him, and whoever catches him has to drink three bowls with others, even Liu Hou did not let go. You must know that the distilled liquor served at Liu Hou's banquet is not the same as the previous bad wine. Where had the vulture drunk such a high level of alcohol in the tribe, and it wasn't long before he got so drunk that he lay unconscious on the table.

Liu Hou is not stupid, what he prepared for himself was precisely bad wine, that kind of thing had a very low degree, at best it was an alcoholic drink, so his face did not change after being poured three bowls of vulture bones.