In the blink of an eye, September is coming, and the autumn harvest is imminent.

The farm tools created before, Liu An has given priority to the county towns that are far away.

Today, after the last batch of farm tools is produced, all of them can be distributed to local farmers in Jiuyuan.

Wait another two days for the field crops to be fully ripe.

Taking advantage of the last two days of leisure, Liu An organized a large-scale search for stones that could be used as stone bullets and transported them to the four walls of Jiuyuan City.

At the same time, Liu An opened official grain stores in Wuyuan counties in the name of Taishou Lin Fang.

In addition to selling grain and stabilizing market prices, the official grain stores have also added a new function - grain storage.

All people are allowed and encouraged to deposit grain in official grain stores, and for those who have been stored for one month, the court will pay an additional reward of one thousandth of the stored grain, calculated on a monthly basis, and the reward will be accumulated for each additional month.

But the reward is not the point.

The key point is that after the grain is deposited in the official grain store, all the risks are borne by the imperial court, whether it is a fire or a Xianbei invasion, the imperial court bears its own losses.

The depositor can take the grain at any time, and the amount of grain is also decided by the depositor, and the remuneration is settled when the grain is taken.

During this period, no matter how much the grain store lost, it had nothing to do with the grain store, and the grain storer only needed to hold the receipt given by the grain store at the time of grain storage and bear the exclusive seal of the imperial court, and he could take the grain in full.

In addition, when the grain depositor takes the grain, he can also convert the grain into money according to the price of the grain at that time, and withdraw the money directly.

The reason why Liu An opened an official grain store was for two purposes.

First, reduce the losses of the people of the Five Plains.

The Xianbei invasion was imminent, and the people outside the city were inevitably plundered by it, Liu An could only hold on to the city, and he could let all the people outside the city enter the city to avoid it, but Liu An could not guarantee that his property was intact.

When Xianbei invaded, if the people outside the city took refuge with all the money and food at home, it would inevitably be too late.

If they can be allowed to deposit grain in the grain store in advance, a large part of the loss can be avoided.

But food is the foundation of the people's survival, and before the news of the Xianbei invasion reached the local area, they may not be able to hand over their food to the authorities with peace of mind.

After all, the previous parents were not all good officials like Liu An who had nothing to do with Minqiu.

To put it bluntly, the long-term contradictions between the government and the people are deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, and even if Liu An has practiced benevolent government since taking office, he cannot bring back the inherent impression of the government in the hearts of the people.

He could only use the two generous policies of saving grain as a reward and a risk to the imperial court, and induce the people to deposit as much grain as possible in the grain store.

Even so, Liu An did not think that it would be possible to smoothly get all the people to deposit grain in the grain store from the beginning.

Second, the war with Xianbei was imminent, and Liu An's army needed sufficient food to ensure logistics.

Although he could let Haoqiang supply grain to the army, but during this time, Haoqiang gave grain and money, and returned the tenant rent to the farmers, plus this year Liu An ordered that he could only collect 30% of the tenant rent, and Haoqiang had to raise many private slaves in his family, in case it was not enough, he could use the food stored by the people for emergency.

Liu An is not short of money now, and many gold cakes made by blacksmiths are produced every day in the northern mountains.

After the autumn harvest, Liu An can use the money to go to Linjun and even the rich counties of the Central Plains to buy grain.

It's just that it takes time to buy and transport grain from all over the country, and the battle with Xianbei is imminent, and it is obviously too late in time.

After the grain shop was set up, Liu An asked the local managers to go to the countryside to publicize the benefits of the official grain store, hoping that after the grain was harvested, it would be effective.

After two days, the crops in the field finally matured.

Liu An immediately stopped the training of the soldiers, and asked all the soldiers except the cavalry to help the farmers harvest the grain together.

Metallurgical operations in the northern mountainous areas have also stopped, and those who have fields at home go home to farm, while those who have no fields receive the wages given by Liu An to go to various places to help farmers harvest crops.

Xianbei is coming, and it is also dangerous for these people to continue to metallurgize in the mountains.

At the same time, Liu An also gave orders to all the soldiers, asking them to try their best to persuade the people to deposit the collected grain into the official grain store.

Each county also sent many small officials, with weighing tools, horse-drawn carriages, and receipts printed with Liu Anxin's seal for grain storage only and the official seal of the county magistrate, to collect grain from grain stores in various places.

The most obvious effect is Jiuyuan City, where Liu An is located.

The local people are grateful for Liu An's benevolent government, and many of them are loyal to Liu An, and I heard that it is the grain shop opened by Liu An, the county magistrate, and many people are convinced.

After learning about the benefits of the grain shop, half of the people immediately put the dried grain in the grain store.

With the farm tools distributed by Liu An and the help of many soldiers, Wuyuan County completed the grain harvest in five days.

However, farm tools are not distributed free of charge to farmers, but are only rented.

Liu An knows that if it is too easy to get, he will not cherish it, as well as the truth of fighting Mien and promoting Mi Hatred.

If he gives his farming tools to a farmer today, he may easily sell them to others tomorrow when he needs money.

And if you give farm tools this year, the farmer will be grateful, and if you give farm tools next year, he will feel that this is the right thing, and if you don't give farm tools the year after, he will see you as an enemy.

Overflowing grace will only lead to great disaster.

The system specified by Liu An is that farmers can lease farm tools for one year free of charge, and if the average yield per mu of their fields is comparable to this year's, they can renew the lease for another year.

If the average yield per mu can be increased by 30%, and for two consecutive years, the farm tools will be rewarded to that family.

On the contrary, if the average yield per mu is reduced by two percent, the farm tools will be recovered.

Liu An has a lot of farm tools, such as harvesting crops, sowing crops, plowing the ground, etc., and he believes that with the reward and punishment system, even the lazy and lazy people will be diligent in order not to be taken back from the farm tools.

Except for Jiuyuan, the grain shops in other counties did not harvest much, and only collected less than one-fifth of the people's surplus grain.

The grain stores are settled on a monthly basis, and the grain depositors choose to keep two months' grain storage for daily food, and all the rest are deposited in the official grain stores.

But there are still many people who have never deposited grain in the grain store, and Liu An has no way to do this.

He has done his best, those people don't believe in the government, and would rather put the grain in their hands and be robbed by the Xianbei people, be occupied by the township tyrants, than save it in the official grain store, what can he do?

It can only be said that the prestige of the Han court has been seriously lost, and it has reached the level that the people do not trust officials.

Of course, if Liu Anruo forcibly asked all the people to deposit grain in the grain store, the people would not dare to resist, and would only obey their orders.

After all, they have been enslaved and oppressed for too long, and this kind of operation is the most accustomed and effective for them.

But this will only exacerbate the loss of Dahan's prestige, and it will also make Liu An's prestige accumulated in the past two months directly drop to a negative number, which he does not want to see.

After the crops are harvested, they also have to go through the steps of threshing and drying, and the time for the crops to ripen is different.

On the fifth day after the start of the autumn harvest, all the crops were finally harvested.

At this time, those that were harvested early had even been dried and stored at home or in official grain stores.

It was on this day that Liu An received a message from the cavalry who had gone out to inquire for information.

The carrier pigeon flew directly to Cheng Ze's breeding farm, and after Cheng Ze took down the letter, he rode a horse and quickly sent it to the county government to hand it over to Liu An.

Liu An opened the letter handed over by Cheng Ze, and a line of small words was written on it:

Xianbei sent more than 5,000 cavalry and set off to the south lightly. - 500 miles northwest of Jiuyuan City.

The annotation at the end is the approximate geographic coordinates of the sender at the time of sending.

5,000 cavalry...... It is 500 miles away from Jiuyuan, and it is as short as three days and as long as five days, and the troops will come to the city of Jiuyuan.

The letter stated that Xianbei set off lightly, which meant that he did not carry a large amount of food.

I thought that he only brought the food needed on the road, and after reaching the Han realm, he relied on plundering the Han people to supply himself.

In this way, Xianbei's march was very fast, and Liu An only had three days to prepare.

After receiving the news, he immediately sent the news to the counties of Wuyuan, so that the local county magistrate was ready to deal with the enemy.

and ordered:

Residents outside the city are allowed to bring bedding rolls and tableware to take refuge in the city, but they will not make trouble and do not disturb the residents in the city.

Those who can't find a place to live can choose to spread a mat in the corner of the house in the city, barely spend the night, and the county government will give porridge during the day, and all households outside the city will be uniformly distributed with food.

On the third day at the latest, all residents must enter the city, and from the evening of the third day, the city gates will be closed and not opened without an order!

With the order issued from the Prime Minister's Office, starting from Kuhara Castle, the entire Gohara County gradually moved.

Those peasant households who had been hesitant to deposit grain in grain stores were first frightened when they heard the news.

They thought of their relatives and friends who had been ruthlessly murdered by the Hu people in previous years, and they were heartbroken and worried that they would be like them this year, and they would be brutally killed because they didn't have time to escape.

Immediately after that, he carefully chewed the contents of the edict, and thought that he could enter the city to hide this year, and he suddenly felt a lot more relieved.

But...... The millet that has just been harvested...... Thinking of this, their faces showed reluctance, after a hard year, they finally had a harvest, so they abandoned it?

Immediately thinking of the official grain stores that have been hyped in the countryside in recent days, in desperation, I can only hold the determination that I will not be able to collect it, and choose to store the grain in the grain store.

In short, even if it is lost by the imperial court, it can't be cheapened by those Hu people!

With this in mind, most of them found the officials in charge of collecting grain and deposited their own grain in the grain store.

Although they didn't believe the government in their hearts, when they received the receipt with two red official seals, they still carefully stored it.

For three days, two of them, the people were busy stockpiling food.

They haven't seen the Xianbei army yet, and they don't know when the Xianbei people will come, but their own food is in front of them, and they can't leave the food alone, so they take the blankets and take refuge in the city with their families.

The three-day deadline given by the imperial court would not close the city gate until the deadline expired, and before that, those who wanted to store grain in the grain store were lining up to store grain in the grain store.

The officials in charge of collecting grain, due to the obscenity of Liu An or Lin Fang, could only endure the fear and stay outside the city to transport the grain to the granary in the city before Xianbei was about to invade.

On the second day after receiving the flying pigeon's message, Liu An received a similar message, but this time the distance became three hundred miles.

The deeper you go into Jiuyuan, the more mountain roads there are, and Xianbei's march on the grassland is faster, but Liu An is not worried.

Sure enough, on the third day, Liu An received news again, and the distance was one hundred and forty miles.

Although there was still some time to see the distance, Liu An did not wait any longer, and the gates of each county were closed tightly in the evening in accordance with the order three days ago.

Fortunately, the three days were sufficient, and all the households outside the city had taken refuge in their respective counties, and the county government also began to give porridge in the evening.

Now that we have just entered September, the weather is gradually getting cooler, but it is not yet cold.

The people outside the city can cope with the evening with straw mats and a thin quilt, but they are certainly not as comfortable as at home, and it is not a long-term solution.

However, as long as you survive Xianbei and retreat, it is a little uncomfortable, and compared with the small life, it seems insignificant.

At noon on the fourth day, all the cavalry sent out by Liu An had returned to Jiuyuan.

Zhang Fei brought back the news that the Xianbei army was less than twenty miles away from Jiuyuan City.

After that, there are 500 Xianbei soldiers carrying military supplies on the way, and they will arrive in Jiuyuan City about the day after tomorrow.

Hearing the news, Liu An immediately ordered all the foot soldiers to climb the city wall.

In the morning, Liu An also recruited 2,000 villagers, who also climbed the city wall to prepare for the enemy.

Now all the people of Jiuyuan have gathered in the city, and all the people know that this battle is about their lives, so they are recruiting faster than ever.

Zhang Fei and Lu Bu led their cavalry and stood by in the city gate.

Liu An ascended the north city wall, at this time a large number of stone bullets were piled up on the four city walls, and after the soldiers and villagers climbed the city wall, one hundred and thirty medium-sized throwing cars were loaded with stone bullets in turn.

Two thousand two hundred foot soldiers and two thousand village warriors, under Liu An's arrangement, were divided into four parts and scattered on the four city walls.

Among them, the north city gate was personally defended by Liu An, the east and west city gates were handed over to Gao Shun and Liu Bei respectively, and the south city gate was defended by Cheng Ze.

Liu An asked the soldiers in charge of the positioning of the 40 medium-sized throwing trucks to adjust the direction and temporarily set the position at a distance of 110 meters from the city gate.

[Ding - The system detects that the manor is in crisis, and after thirty minutes, it will usher in the Xianbei invasion, temporarily unlock the wartime lottery plate, and the host can overdraft 100 manor contribution points for the wartime lottery plate.] ]

Hearing the prompt sound of the system, Liu An also determined that the Xianbei army was indeed planning to loot the residents outside the city to supply themselves.

It's just that this time it's destined to disappoint them.

Now the outside of Jiuyuan City is empty, and they have no benefit except to borrow the residents' houses for the night.

Liu An calmed down, silently calculated the time, about twenty minutes after the system prompt, Liu An saw the sand and dust brought up by the Xianbei army in the distance.

After a few breaths, Liu An saw the Xianbei army in motion.

Five thousand war horses galloped, with a fierce momentum and extremely fast speed, and in an instant, they approached Jiuyuan City.

But they did not rush to attack Jiuyuan, but dispersed, entering the houses scattered around Jiuyuan, preparing to raid it.

Liu An vaguely saw that those Xianbei people had just entered the houses, and it didn't take long for them to leave the houses and move to the next place.

I guess I didn't find anything, so I went to the next one in a hurry.

Liu Anxin sneered, the surprise is far more than that, and there are bigger surprises waiting for you later.

He carefully prepared for March, and it was for this moment!

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