Chapter 114 The alliance agreed that the Northern Expedition was busy

On these issues, Zhuge Jin has wronged Liu Hou a little, such as on the issue of food consumption. Three catties of rice in the Han Dynasty were equivalent to 750 grams, which was actually not much, and a heavy body lì labored, and 750 grams of grain per day could only barely be maintained.

Because at that time, there were not so many non-staple foods such as melons, fruits, fish, and meat, and they all relied on grain to fill their stomachs, so the consumption of food was generally large. Soldiers are considered heavy laborers, especially Liu Hou's Hong army, which has a great intensity of training in peacetime and is more consumed when marching and fighting.

Therefore, in the Hong Army, an average of three catties of rice per person per day is not enough, and many people can eat more than four catties (1,000 grams). In the Hong army, unless there is a shortage of food, food control is generally not implemented, and the soldiers almost let go of their bellies to eat, so many soldiers are tall and strong.

Another example is the monthly salary per person, three times is the minimum standard, which is the salary of the lowest recruits, and most people get more than this amount. Therefore, Liu Hou is already very realistic, and he has given Zhuge Jin a lot less.

"Don't hide it from Your Majesty, our country has been using troops in the past few years, and it is vigorously developing the navy, and the money and food are also very tight, such a huge amount of money and food, I really can't get it."

"Hmph, Mr. Ziyu, if you can't be the master, then please ask your Wu State to send someone who can call the shots to talk to me. You Wu Guo said that it was a peace talk and an alliance, but there was no sincerity at all from beginning to end. From beginning to end, you have been trying to deceive me, do you think you can fool me by taking a few women? How can state affairs be child's play, do you think I am a faint king? Do you think I will be swayed by my children's personal feelings? Immature! ”

Liu Hou said, got up and brushed his sleeves away, leaving behind the three ministers of Shu with strange faces and Zhuge Jin with a mournful face. Not long after Liu Hou returned to the imperial study, Zhuge Liang hurriedly chased after him. Liu Hou asked calmly:

"Prime Minister, is Mr. Ziyu gone?"

Zhuge Liang said: "The minister has already given in to send my brother back to the post house." ”

"How is my watch today?" Liu Hou asked again, obviously, the appearance of being angry in front of Zhuge Jin just now was pretended, and he is very calm now.

"Except for the later asking price, which was too high, the other tables of Majesty Xiàn are all excellent. With this Mingjun, the Han Dynasty is promising. Zhuge Liang sighed.

"Haha, it doesn't matter, I deliberately offered a high price, just waiting for the Dongwu people to make a counteroffer. Isn't there a saying: 'Ask for a lot of money and pay it on the spot'? If I start with a low offer, then they bargain and we'll have little left. ”

"The truth is this, but the minister knows this brother very well, he is sometimes a very dead-eyed person, I am afraid that he now believes that you have set this price, especially your majesty in the end, he thinks that you have a firm position, thinking that this is your bottom line.

The people of Soochow will never agree to this price because they can't afford it! The minister was worried that once the people of Eastern Wu felt that they could not meet our demands, they would simply break the jar and break the jar, completely break the mind of peace talks with us, and even seek an alliance with Wei instead, which would be troublesome. ”

"It's okay, isn't there still a prime minister, prime minister, you and Zhuge Jin are brothers, you can greet him in Chengdu these days, he will definitely ask you for help, figure out that you can intercede with me to see if you can lower the price."

Prime Minister, you can just sell him a favor, and you say that for the sake of brotherhood, you must find a way to try your best to dissuade Your Majesty.

Then the two sides continued to test and negotiate, and negotiated step by step to find a price that could not only be accepted by the Dongwu people, but also maximize the interests of our country. In this way, you can not only make your eldest brother owe you a favor in the future, but also be able to do things well, which is really a double win. ”

"Your Majesty is wise!" Even Zhuge Liang sighed at the wisdom of this little emperor, although it was a little insidious and a little thicker, but this was indeed a good plan.

Even Zhuge Liang was a little moved, this little emperor personally went into battle to sing black face, let himself sing white face, and finally let himself get cheap and sell well, so not greedy for credit, regardless of his personal reputation, it is really rare for an emperor to become a courtier.

From this point, it can also be seen that the little emperor has absolute trust in himself. Zhuge Liang took the order and thanked him and left. There is still a lot of waiting for him. In the next few days, he and the two brothers Zhuge Ke and Buqi entertained Zhuge Jin to play and drink in Chengdu together.

Bu Qi and Zhuge Jin were good friends when they were in Soochow, so he also participated in this reception. The two also told each other about what happened after parting, and Buqi specially asked about the situation of his clan. Knowing that Sun Quan did not embarrass his family and clansmen, Bu Qi was very happy.

The reason why Sun Quan did not embarrass Buqi's family and clansmen was largely due to the fact that Buqiu had his two sons abscond north before the city of Panyu was broken, and brought a letter to Sun Quan. Among them, the youngest son Bu Xie failed to escape, was captured by the Shu army, and now follows Bu Qi to fulfill his filial piety, while the eldest son Bu Xie traveled thousands of miles and successfully escaped back to Eastern Wu and dedicated the letter to Sun Quan.

The letter analyzed the weaknesses of the Shu army, especially the firearms unit and hot air balloons, as well as some of his own suggestions for dealing with these troops, as well as some analysis of the general situation of the world, and even some views on the governance of people's livelihood.

Sun Quan was very moved after seeing this letter, he could see Buqi's loyalty to Eastern Wu, and also understood that he must have had a last resort to surrender Shu.

As a result, Sun Quan did not blame the Bu clan for Buqi's rebellion, and still left Bu Xie to serve in the court. During the Three Kingdoms period, it was not uncommon for fathers and sons or brothers to belong to different camps like this, such as the Zhuge family. They all seem to be very professional, and generally no one will talk about this, fearing that these people will betray the lord because of their affiliation.

In addition to playing and feasting these days, Zhuge Jin also went to the Zhou Mansion to visit the captured generals of Eastern Wu. It's a pity that these captives are only relatively free, and they can move freely in the Zhou Mansion, but they can't get out of the mansion. Seeing the strict guards around the Zhou Mansion, Zhuge Jin had no choice but to dismiss the idea of rescuing them.

During the negotiations, Zhuge Jin really begged the second brother who was the prime minister of Shu many times, hoping that he could say a few kind words in front of the little emperor of Shu and reduce the amount of food and salary supplied by Eastern Wu.

Zhuge Liang made a full gesture, at first his face was embarrassed, and then he was half-pushed and half-done, and after drinking too much at one time, he felt a little "gaffe", recalling the life of the three brothers when he was a child, telling about the love of brothers, and pouring out the feelings of missing the three brothers for so many years, and finally patted his chest and said, fighting the tiger does not leave the brother, the brother's business is his own business, and he will definitely do his best to help the brother complete this mission.

Therefore, the negotiators of the Eastern Wu Mission and Shu Han (that is, Zhuge Liang), it was in this friendly atmosphere that they conducted many consultations cordially and warmly, during which they naturally needed to ask their own lords, in order to be able to quickly transmit news from Chengdu to Jianye, Shu even used the flying pigeon transmission channel between Chengdu and Jingzhou to help Wu transmit the message.

Exactly a month later, the results of the negotiations finally came out, and the two countries finally signed an alliance. Don't think that this time is very long, in fact, it is already fast, and the time is mainly consumed in the communication between Zhuge Jin and the Eastern Wu court. After all, in the end, it was the Dongwu Dynasty and Sun Quan who could make the decision.

The result of the alliance was that the two countries would join forces to defeat Cao, and first of all, the two countries would jointly issue a letter on the destruction of Cao, which was necessary, so that they could stand on the commanding heights of morality and obtain the name of righteousness. In these years, everything needs the name of righteousness, similar to the sayings of later generations, such as "holding high the banner of something" and "under the guidance of what doctrine".

Then, the Shu Han sent troops to attack Cao, and the Eastern Wu was responsible for the crusade against the Shanyue barbarians, creating a stable and united rear environment for the Shu Han to the Northern Expedition. This section is purely a cover cloth for Soochow.

Dongwu crusaded against the Shanyue tribe in their own territory, as for whether they really fought or faked, and how many people went to fight was their own decision, and no one could control it at all.

The third point: In view of the economic difficulties of Shu, out of the principle that the two sides should be friendly and mutually helpful, Soochow gave full play to the spirit of internationalism and supported Shu with a batch of grain and wages, including 300,000 stone of grain, 1.2 million yuan of copper coins (or gold and silver of equivalent value), and 5,000 stone of salt.

Using this reason to send food and salary to Shu Han, this is still one of the ugly cloths belonging to the Dongwu people, and they proposed to say a little more high-sounding on the reason, so as not to make people feel that Dongwu is paying compensation and ceding land. Therefore, Liu Hou didn't care what kind of name it was, as long as he could get benefits.

As for the amount of food and salt paid, it was reduced to almost one-third of what Liu Hou had originally proposed, which was the result of unremitting negotiations between the two sides during this period.

The Three Kingdoms have been fighting for many years, the people's livelihood is withering, and the people of Dongwu are actually very difficult, it is already the limit to be able to come up with such a little thing and send it to Shu, and they will have to fight hard with Shu, so although they are not very satisfied with such a small amount of materials, Liu Hou had to reluctantly sign this contract in the end.

The troops of Shu have already been reorganized, and now they are stepping up their drills day and night, actively preparing for war, and various war materials such as grain, grass, weapons and ammunition, and weapons and armor have also been transferred to Chengdu one after another from various places.

Although the little emperor had just regained the throne, everyone knew that he had in his hands a powerful army far beyond any army of this era. After seeing his means of taking down the impregnable Chengdu in only a short time, no one dared to underestimate his might.

Even if after he came to power, he did not purge the old officials and did not use large-scale bloody means to control the government, but in the eyes of all officials, the power of this little emperor was not weaker than that of his father Liu Bei, which was based on the great military exploits of the little emperor.

No one believed that the little emperor who could defeat hundreds of thousands of Eastern Wu troops and attack countless cities and plunder countless lands did not dare to kill people, and he would be soft when he killed people, the question was whether he wanted to kill or not.

"Decisive killing" is the evaluation of Liu Hou that circulated among officials during this time. Liu Hou didn't know that the murderous aura he unintentionally revealed would have such a big impact, it may be that he had been planning to attack Wei during this time, so the murderous aura often leaked out intentionally or unintentionally.

The emperor often has a shock to his body, and his domineering spirit is exposed, and at this time, all the officials are holding their tails and behaving, especially those officials who have taken refuge in Xu Jing and Wu Yi before, and they don't dare to see through the atmosphere, so they just bury their heads in things.

All officials did not dare to slack off, the entire Shu country was running at high speed, whether it was officials at all levels or ordinary people, they were mobilized and actively prepared for war, and a cloud of war shrouded Chengdu and shrouded the entire Shu country.