The hustle and bustle of the world is for profit, and the hustle and bustle of the world is for profit. Whether it is war or politics, whether it is a sword or a decree, the root cause of all disputes and contradictions in the world comes from interests. The decline of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty was not just the beacon fire lit by King You of Zhou, nor was it necessary to throw all the hatred of the Zhou Dynasty on the invading barbarians and the princes who were not loyal enough. It's just that the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, the co-ruler of the world, has already had conflicts with most of the various forces with sufficient capital, which are difficult to quell in terms of interests. However, it lacks the power to settle disputes.

Sharp swords certainly possess great power, and blood and death are the best lobbyists recognized by all forces. No one would feel that any profit was more valuable than life, and of course, the princes were willing to believe that in this world, force is the most important thing.

And Guan Zhong, who was born in the market, found another powerful force that is enough to subvert the world in this era of continuous war, this power does not come from strong arms, and it cannot seem more effective than swords. However, this power has the powerful effect of controlling people's hearts and driving the sword. This is the power of wealth.

In this era, heroes have to prove themselves by swords, but heroes can't help but eat the fireworks of the world. There is no army that does not need to be supplemented with salaries and materials to be able to dominate the world. However, killing alone does not make wealth appear in a vacuum, and swords piercing the land do not grow food. The world is so big, relying on force alone cannot make everyone feel at ease to be lambs to the slaughter. No matter how tragic the war is, for the producers and the people, they still have to live with hoes. When the destruction of the production chain by the predators reaches a critical point, they are either violently counterattacked, or no one continues to produce.

Wealth, on the other hand, has enough power to drive the people to produce with peace of mind, to control the ownership of the government and the army, and in this world, nothing can stop and hinder this desire from the human desire and survival instinct.

Since the collapse of slavery, every king has had to deal with the rolling tide of the times. The princes of all parties, who could no longer benefit from the slaves of the past, naturally had to adopt various means to amass wealth and faith.

Guan Zhong seemed to have touched the pulse of the times, feeling the interests flowing in the veins of fate, which was madly hot. Guan Zhong, who was accustomed to using interests to guide and take advantage of the situation to achieve his goals, scoffed at the behavior of the princes who always liked to grab if they couldn't get it. Because he understands that the reason why the anger from the masses is not burning is just that the strength of the oppression is not enough, and once the bottom line of most people's bearing is broken, then all the plundering by force will inevitably lead to burning.

Therefore, he chose to use the power of wealth to guide people's hearts and satisfy their desires.

The state of Qi occupies the north, and the state of Chu stands proudly in the south of the Yangtze River. Moreover, the brave Chu people have always believed that there are no two days in the sky and no two masters in the country. There is more and more friction and disputes between the two great powers. When Qi Huan Gong worriedly asked Guan Zhong how to solve this problem, Guan Zhong made a puzzling plan.

A small city was soon established on the border of Qichu, and in this small city, there was no huge army, only a group of wealthy merchants.

There are special deer in Chudi, which are numerous and not precious. And in this newly built small city, a large number of Qi merchants suddenly walked out, and they were in a hurry. As soon as he arrived in the state of Chu, he immediately began to release news:

"Buy live deer at a high price!"

The Chu people were very strange, the deer was not so precious in their eyes, why did the Qi people spend a lot of money to buy it? Isn't there some conspiracy?

There was a lot of discussion among the people, and most of the people waited with a wait-and-see attitude for the state to characterize this strange event. After the king of Chu got the news, he was also very suspicious, so he sent some intelligence officers to find out the news.

"The king of Qi wants to build a hunting pasture on a large scale", "several favorite concubines of the king of Qi are noisily asking for deerskin clothes every day" and other gossip were slowly revealed by some businessmen with inside information under the painstaking spying of the Chu people. The king likes it, and the favorite concubine asks for it, so naturally the business opportunities are rolling, and no businessman will do it with money. Besides, since it is needed by the monarch, it is really a good deal that will not lose money.

The king of Chu could hardly hold back his laughter, the state of Qi had just risen from the quagmire of political struggle, but he was a poor and extravagant and incompetent king. It seems that he was born in sorrow and died in peace, thinking that when the son Xiaobai was down, he didn't see how arrogant and lascivious he was, Guan Zhongyan tried his best to save some money for Qi Guo, and he saw that he was about to be defeated by the faint monarch again.

The officials of the Manchu Dynasty applauded one after another, and the great enemy of the Chu people in the north, Qi State, was about to die because of the deer! Everyone praised the wise and wise King of Chu and slandered Qi Huan Gong Xiaobai. seems to have seen it, a generation of faint kings, drunk and dreaming of death, wine ponds and meat forests, his land, full of devastation and starvation.

Since the monarchs and ministers of the Chu State have determined the nature of buying deer for the Qi people, it would not be against the will of heaven to make a lot of money from the Qi people. So, the king of Chu ordered that the whole country hunt deer and sell them to the Qi people.

Although the monarch of Qi was deaf, their merchants were very reputable. Moreover, it is said that this crazy transaction was led by their big official Guan Zhong, and it seems that Guan Zhong also spared no expense in order to curry favor with the monarch!

Everyone recognized this "fact", and with the king's affirmation and support for this action, and with such a lucrative benefit, no one doubted anything anymore. All the people of Chu began a huge deer hunting operation.

There are leaders who have opened a legal channel to move forward towards a better life, there are special deer given by God to the Chu State, and there are those Qi people who are stupid and have a lot of money to buy at a high price. The people of Chu are all red-eyed, and in comparison, all other affairs can make way for it. Among them, spring ploughing is naturally included.

Although the deer is a favor from God to the people of Chu, it is obvious that not every deer is standing there waiting to be caught by humans. This animal does not have enough lethality against humans, however, the deer with a blue nature, lack sharp claws and a fierce temperament, but has an advantage that other beasts do not have - agility and good running.

Of course, no matter how clever a wild deer is, it is not as smart as a human, and no matter how good it is at running, it cannot escape the capture of a human who can properly use tools. It does take a lot of thought and effort, but what is it compared to the jaw-dropping price?

The reputation of the merchants of Qi was good, and the wariness of the people of Chu against the Qi people slowly dissipated. At first, only the folk merchants entered the Chu region, and gradually, some Qi officials also quietly went south. This group of Qi officials is not only not arrogant, but also easy and friendly, just like the Qi army in the eyes of the Chu people, looking like a group of pot-bellied old rich people. However, they are different from those merchants, although they also pay high prices, but they do not accept live deer, but only old grain.

Anyway, the rich Qi people have those enviable wealth in their hands, and food is also very cheap anyway, and they will make a lot of money in the future, are they afraid that they will not have food to buy? At this point, in fact, Guan Zhong's plan has shown its fangs, and the terrible thing is not that the Qi people buy grain from the people of Chu so easily, but that the king of Chu is also like the common people's idea, with money, they can buy food.

Inexplicably, the monarchs and ministers of the Chu State fell into Guan Zhong's trap and slid into the abyss step by step according to a terrifying trajectory. The sufficiently high benefits and relatively easy and low costs make all Chu people rush to it. A large amount of Qi capital rushed into the Chu State, and a deformed and sick economic boom quietly arrived.

Soon after, the State of Qi suddenly announced that it would no longer buy Chu Lu, and the Chu people who participated in this feast were naturally happy, and the Chu people who had not been able to benefit from it were sad. However, although Qi spent a lot of money, it did not reach the extent of emptying his family. The taxes brought by the state-owned salt and iron state provided sufficient capital support for this "international trade" that made the Chu people crazy. Subsequently, the Qi people, who had made good connections between various countries, suddenly pulled up the banner of Zhou Tianzi and began to ask countries to embargo the resources of Chu, and at the same time, the coalition forces led by the Qi army also marched towards Chu.

The king of Chu did not look down on this coalition army, and no alliance could avoid mutual suspicion. What's more, the strong combat power of the Chu army gave him enough confidence to give the enemy a head-on blow, and the money he saved from buying and selling live deer before also gave him a little more confidence out of thin air.

Something unexpected happened.

The people of Chudi, who did not know why, began to be confused, and for a while, the people's hearts were shaken and public opinion was overwhelming. Maybe it was the monarch who did something wrong to make the group of kind Qi merchants stop buying deer at a high price? Maybe it was the group of guys in the court who only cared about making money for themselves, who made enough wealth, but offended others, and let the war come without warning?

Of course, the king of Chu understood that all this was directed by Qi Ren, but he didn't care too much about the surging public opinion below. The world does need to be reasonable and faithful, but there are many times when it is ultimately necessary to rely on force to distinguish between right and wrong. He's ready to gather his troops and shut up and down the guys.

The state of Chu quickly began to mobilize and prepare to meet the enemy, but although the army was still there, the non-commissioned officer in charge of logistics and materials was shocked to find that the spring ploughing and farming were cut off due to deer hunting, and the Qi people secretly collected a batch of stored grain, at this time, it was no longer possible to collect military rations! This cruel news was far more painful to the King of Chu than the fact that the Qi people no longer bought live deer at a high price. If the private grain is forcibly collected, it will inevitably lead to violent conflicts; However, without military rations, why should the army fight bloodily?

The Qi people no longer bought deer, and the Chu people were cut off from their financial routes, but they could barely make ends meet. And the coalition forces pressed the border, and the Chu State collected the already small amount of grain from the people, which would definitely cause a mutiny.

The king of Chu decided to use the wealth from selling deer before to buy grain and grass, but unfortunately the Qi people had already exhausted their last resort, and they were pressing step by step, so how could they leave a flaw here. For a time, the countries that had been integrated by Qi began to isolate the Chu people in trade, and the Chu State was completely unable to buy food from abroad to survive the crisis.

The army slowly pressed the border, and the whole state of Chu panicked, for ordinary people, money at this time was far less important than life and food, let alone loyalty to the country. The people of Chu fled one after another, and for a time, a large number of people switched to Qiren, and the foundation of the Chu State was hit with unprecedented violence. The king of Chu, who had no choice, had no choice but to cede the land and pay reparations and ask for peace in a low voice.

This war without gunpowder came to an end quietly.

It's not that the king of Chu is deaf, and it's not that the people of Chu have no loyalty to the country. Qi people's money is like a key that unlocks the locks of desires and principles. When the Qi people inexplicably offered to buy live deer at a high price, the king of Chu did not let down his vigilance, he knew that there was no free lunch in the world. However, when this wealth was heavy enough, the so-called news spread by the merchants of Qi that "the king of Qi was arrogant and lascivious, built pastures for his own selfish desires, and squandered national wealth to buy live deer for the sake of his concubine", which made the king of Chu extremely convinced.

The king of Chu may have already seen through the tricks of the Qi people, but he was not willing to convince himself to question it. Because that true answer is contrary to the desires of human nature itself. The reason why the coin toss can often make a choice for us is not the guidance given to us by providence, but the fact that in the process of the coin flying, we already have our own hope for this divination in our hearts.

So Chu Guojie planted a big heel, how accurate Guan Zhong's judgment of human greed is! Perhaps he just used economic means to launch a sneak attack on the enemy country, however, this sneak attack is destined to be successful, and it has nothing to do with wealth, only about human nature.

Guan Zhong, who is good at controlling people's hearts, has repeatedly used economic levers to hype up a special product of an enemy country, and then exerts pressure with economic power after disrupting the economic foundation of other countries. Set off stormy waves on the battlefield of wealth. Whether it is buying a fox to descend or serving a silk to break Lu Liang, it is much the same as buying a deer to make Chu. It was not that the monarchs of the countries failed to see these deadly traps, but that they could not control their desires, so they rushed to the simple trap one after another.