"Brother Lu, then let's go first, and when I have time, I will come to see you again."

Shangguan Haiyue also reluctantly let go of Lu Yuan's hand at this time, and said with a little reluctance.

In fact, this time his brother and sister left, ostensibly because his father had a trick and had to go to the army to serve.

But in fact, his brother and sister are just second-rate strength, how much effect can they play in the battle of hundreds of thousands of troops?

The reason why he said goodbye this time was actually due to Yang Jing's persuasion afterwards.

For Yang Jing and the imperial court, the most urgent thing at the moment is to gather the ten great masters, and then rebel internally and defend against the enemy country externally.

And in order to achieve this goal, it is undoubtedly very important for Lu Yuan to break through the innate sooner.

Therefore, after knowing that Lu Yuan was about to break through the innate nature, in order to prevent him from being affected by the Shangguan brothers and sisters, especially the personal affairs of his children, Yang Jing forced the Shangguan brothers and sisters in the name of Uncle Shi not to disturb Lu Yuan during this time.

This is also the reason why Lu Yuan didn't see the Shangguan brothers and sisters running to make do with it during the entire conference.

Then Yang Jing passed the book to Shangguan Ming, Chen Ming was very powerful, so there was a scene before today's recall of the army, and the two sides were separated.

"After pacifying the thieves, Guangbai, Haiyue, we can get together at will." Lu Yuan nodded with a smile.

In fact, he could probably guess a little bit about the reason for the departure of Shangguan's brothers and sisters, but he didn't keep it.

Just as Yang Jing considered, although Lu Yuan now has the intention to marry those families, the top priority at present is to break through the innate first.

Therefore, at this time, any factors that will affect his breakthrough must be compromised for this.

That's what happened at this point.

After saying goodbye to each other, the Shangguan brothers and sisters quickly hit the road and headed west.

They rushed to Baling City, and the journey was much closer than Lu Yuan's return to Luyang.

To the west, you only need to pass all the way through Yuzhang Mansion, and you can reach Yueyang Mansion, where the imperial army is located, and it is only four or five hundred miles on both sides, which is very close.

Lu Yuan needs to go south along the waterway, pass Yuzhang Mansion, Yichun Mansion, Luling Mansion, and then turn southwest to reach Luyang County, there are more than 1,000 miles of water and land on the road, and it is more than 1,000 miles more than the Shangguan brothers and sisters.

On the way back, there is no comfort when you came.

Lu Yuan was worried about the battle situation in Dongting County, afraid that something would happen to his basic plan. Qi Yun was also worried about the safety of his apprentices under the war.

Therefore, the two of them hurriedly stepped up, wore the stars and the moon, traveled day and night, and it took more than ten days to finally rush back to Luyang Mansion.

During this period, when Qi Yun was in Luling Mansion, because of different roads, he separated from Lu Yuan and returned to Hengyang Mansion on his own, without going down together.

However, with the ability of two people, in this troubled world, even if you are alone to protect yourself, you are safe.

That's not a big deal.

……

After two months, returning to Luyang Mansion City again, Lu Yuan was surprised to find that the appearance here was very different from before leaving.

There are many construction sites outside the city, and the government is organizing farmers who have been barren to farm this year to start building water conservancy and leveling roads.

A large number of men sweated on various construction sites, completely pacifying these people who might become unstable due to the disaster.

…

The fields on the side of the road also grew lush green seedlings, and the second round of autumn rice after the rush to plant was growing vigorously at this time.

Entering the city, the streets are not as depressed as before, but become bustling with people, and many business travelers have emerged.

Listening to these accents, not all of them are native to Luyang, but there are also a large number of foreign dialects. Some of them, Lu Yuan is quite familiar with, are from half of his hometown Luling Mansion.

Seeing this scene, Lu Yuan couldn't help but feel very pleased.

The fact that Luyang Mansion can recover so quickly is undoubtedly an enhancement to his strength.

Handing over Luyang Mansion to Sun Siwen was indeed a very correct decision.

And this, after returning to the government and meeting with Sun Siwen, made Lu Yuan more confirmed.

"In the past two months, with the reconstruction and improvement of local government offices, local production has also resumed. The autumn rice has been planted, and in another month or two, it will be harvested.

At the same time, with the money allocated by Brother Lu, I also began to build water conservancy and roads in the local area, and gathered many people who could not survive in the locality.

This series of projects cost a total of 150,000 taels of silver.

At the same time, this year, the summer rice in Yuzhang County is ripe, it is a good season, and the grain price is much cheaper than in previous years.

Therefore, I wrote to the prefectures of Yuzhang County and sent people to buy new rice there, and now a total of 500,000 stone grains have been collected one after another, which is enough for 100,000 people in the province to eat for a year.

Even if it is to supply the army, it will be enough for 20,000 people to feed for four years.

However, after buying so many meters, the cost of silver taels is also very high. Nowadays, there are wars in various places, and even if the summer rice in Yuzhang County is ripe, the price of rice is six cents a catty.

500,000 stone of grain was purchased, and at today's silver price, a total of 300,000 taels of silver were spent.

And before Brother Lu left, he instructed that the displaced people should be collected as much as possible to enrich the local population.

In the past few months, Yueyang Mansion in the north has been fighting repeatedly, and even Changsha Mansion has been deeply affected.

The two provinces are in turmoil, and many people have been displaced and fled to all sides.

Although most of the displaced people from the two prefectures have fled to Yuzhang County, many have fled to the south.

I sent people to collect some, a total of 10,000 households, more than 40,000 people, and now they have been placed in various parts of Luyang Mansion. It also cost fifty thousand taels of silver.

Taking advantage of this opportunity, I ordered the local government offices to count the household registrations of each county, and found that there were more than 34,000 households and more than 145,000 households in the 10 counties of the whole prefecture. Counting the newly acquired 10,000 displaced people, there are 45,000 households and 190,000 people in the whole province.

However, whether it is a local person or a homeless person, they all need relief from the government, and most of the 500,000 stone of grain newly bought this year must be invested, and at most 100,000 stone of grain and grass can be left to supply military supplies.

In the past few months, the soldiers of various prefectures and counties and the officials of the prefectures and counties have also spent 200,000 taels.

In this way, these items are combined, and in the past six months, the whole government has spent a total of 700,000 taels of silver.

Because of the purchase of food and the pacification of the displaced people, the expenses were much higher than originally expected. The 800,000 taels of silver allocated by Brother Lu before are now only 100,000 taels left, which can only last for two months at most.

Therefore, if you want to ensure today's development trend, it is inevitable to increase the investment in silver.

This requires Brother Lu to allocate funds again.

…

However, the current displaced people have almost been gathered, grain procurement has ended, and local production is slowly resuming. There will be no such major expenses in the future.

In the future, the expenditure of the whole government should be maintained at 50,000 taels a month, and there will be no increase. ”

In the mansion, in the study, Sun Siwen took out a thick account book and reported to Lu Yuan that he had been working for half a year.

Lu Yuan listened while looking at the account book and nodded from time to time.

I have to say that Sun Siwen's achievements in serving as the prefect for half a year are very outstanding, although this outstanding performance is based on the premise of a large amount of silver investment.

But whether there is money or not is one thing, whether you can use it well is another.

Even if you give someone hundreds of millions of dollars, he won't be able to do anything big, he will only squander and achieve nothing.

If you can use the money well and use it in practical things, that is also a skill.

Sun Siwen has this ability.

And Lu Yuan was also very satisfied with his friend's ability, so he nodded at this time and said, "You don't have to worry about money." Later I will allocate another 1,000,000 taels to you, and you can use this money to buy more food. ”

Sun Siwen was a little puzzled when he heard this: "Now the grain and grass in the county are enough, enough to appease the displaced people and supply military supplies." You don't need to spend money anymore to buy food. ”

Sun Siwen is a civil official, and from his point of view, now that Luyang Mansion has revived, everything can resume production next year after this year.

At that time, not to mention grain and grass, even if the financial input, there is no need to find Lu Yuan to support, and the government itself can provide finance and taxes to feed Lu Yuan.

Therefore, buying grain at a high price at this time is not a cost-effective business no matter how you look at it.

Lu Yuan can understand his friend's thoughts, but as a military general, he is also the master of power, and he also has the ambition to cultivate the Taiping Dao Book, which cannot be considered like this.

At this time, he explained: "Now there is continuous war in the county, and even the Zhou soldiers have crossed the river to the south to confront the imperial army's army under Baling City, and the battles are continuous day and night.

Shaoyang Mansion is also in continuous war, although the Five Poisons Sect Lan Zhaoyun has led 50,000 troops north to Baling City, but in Shaoyang Mansion, there are still 60,000 Miao soldiers left, and now they are also fighting with Shaoyang Mansion.

Even in Yangshan Mansion south of my Luyang, the Miao people have gathered 30,000 troops and peeped into the mansion at all times.

Now the Miao people have stationed heavy troops in three battlefields in the county, with 170,000 soldiers, plus the soldiers who crossed the river and Zhou, and there are 230,000 thieves in the county.

And the soldiers and horses of the court in the whole county, there are 30,000 soldiers in our department and 40,000 militia regiments in the prefecture and county. In the north of Hengyang and Changsha, there are 20,000 county militias. The imperial court had 100,000 soldiers.

The sum of these three departments is only 190,000, and there are still 60,000 prefecture and county militia groups that cannot go out to fight.

There are only 130,000 soldiers and horses who can really go out to fight, which is a full 100,000 fewer than the thief soldiers.

The thieves are almost twice as large as me, and it is difficult to defeat them.

Moreover, the Zhou people intend to destroy me, and now they can send 50,000 people to cross the river to the south, who knows if they will send another 50,000 people, or even 100,000 people, to cross the river in the future?

Therefore, in my judgment, if you want to quell the rebellion in Dongting County and repel the Zhou people, it will have to be three or five years. ”

Lu Yuan analyzed his views on the situation in the county.

…

Judging from the strength on the surface, the strength of the Zhou and Miao coalition forces is almost twice that of the imperial court. With the current strength of the imperial court in Dongting County, it is almost impossible to defeat this enemy army.

Therefore, unless the imperial court continues to invest troops and horses, or if there is any sudden change, the disparity in strength between the two sides will be reversed, and the victory will be decided quickly.

Otherwise, this war can only be a long-term war of attrition, and it depends on who can't support it first.

And with the current strength of the Yue Imperial Court, if it can make up an army of 100,000 to recruit seedlings, it is already six surnames and seven clans smashing pots and selling iron.

After all, the imperial court had been fighting with the Liang people for three years, and five or six hundred thousand troops were mobilized before and after. Later, it supported tens of thousands of Pingnan troops and fought with Jinghai Kingdom for nearly three years. Previously, it was the Pingshu army of tens of thousands, which also supported it for more than a year.

The scale of the four use of troops before and after has reached a million yuan, and the cost of money and food can be imagined.

And in this million-strong army, after countless battles, more than 400,000 people were killed in battle.

In four years, so many elites have been lost. No matter how thick the foundation of the six surnames and seven clans is, no matter how rich the court is, it can't bear to make it like this.

Therefore, the 100,000 imperial court soldiers and horses led by Shangguan Ming are already the last batch of conquest troops that the imperial court can put together after smashing pots and selling iron.

In the future, it is impossible to form a new army in three or five years, or even ten years.

On the one hand, there is no silver tael, and on the other hand, there is no way to find more qualified soldiers.

The nine counties of the imperial court, Jian'an, Nanhai, Yulin, Jiuzhen, Dongting, Xichuan, and Guangling, were either trapped by thieves, war-torn or newly attached, all of which were places with heavy population losses, destruction of local production, and inability to provide soldiers and goods.

Therefore, the only ones that can provide money and food to the imperial court are its core territories, Linhai County and Yuzhang County.

It was these two counties that provided seven or eight hundred thousand soldiers and horses to the imperial court, as well as countless money and food to supply these soldiers and horses, helping the imperial court maintain the current situation.

And with such a big blood, even if these two counties are rich, it will be difficult to provide more soldiers and money and food.

After relieving the local situation and the new generation growing up, the imperial court is unable to form more armies.

It is precisely because of this that the conventional forces cannot reverse the situation, and those six surnames and seven clans began to move the idea of the top ten grandmasters.

intends to crush the enemy from the high-end combat power to turn the situation around.

For this reason, he did not hesitate to cut out the land of the two counties, just to win over the innate masters on the rivers and lakes.

And if the imperial court wants to negotiate with the grandmasters on the rivers and lakes and draw them into its own camp, it will not take two or three years, it is impossible.

After all, they are all from the rivers and lakes, and they are innate sects, so they have their own basics.

Even if the imperial court does not give them half of the county's land, the influence and interests that people should have in the local area will still be there. Some powerful innate sects have no worse influence on the local area than the Five Poisons Sect in Dongting County.

Do you dare to move other people's cakes?

Aren't you afraid that these Jianghu sects will immediately raise troops and repeat a rebellion of the Five Poisons Sect?

Therefore, people themselves have enough money, and they may not be able to see the face given by the court.

…

In a land of only half a county, no one really needs to look at it.

That is, Baifeng Temple, an innate sect in Linhai County, the core of the six surnames and seven clans, is always squeezed by these big families and is out of breath. After hearing the conditions of the imperial court to move its nest, it rushed up and came up.

This kind of condition, if you change to other innate sects, it is not so easy to speak.

Otherwise, it has been a year since the imperial court released the rumor that it wanted to win over the Xiantian sect.

In a year's time, except for one Baifeng Temple, how could there be no movement from other innate sects?

That's why others can't fool around.

It was also Yang Jing who rushed over after seeing that Lu Yuan had the potential to break through the innate and took the initiative to pull him into the Top Ten Grandmaster Program.

It's not because other Jianghu masters have families and businesses and don't look down on the imperial court. So in desperation, I can only choose Lu Yuan, a potential stock like Lu Yuan who has just started a business and has not yet achieved innate potential.

It's all reality.

All of the above are all things that Lu Yuan slowly figured out on the way back.

And in response to this, some of his original strategies for dealing with the imperial court have also changed.

Since the imperial court is more demanding of itself, and now that it understands the reality of the other party, the deterrent power is naturally greatly reduced.

So when he was bluffed by Yang Jing at the beginning, some of the conditions promised would naturally have to be changed.

For example, the place where the country is closed can be changed from Jiuzhen County to Dongting County. And the territory of the feudal country, can it also add one or two more prefectures from the original land of the five prefectures, or even directly occupy a county?

After obtaining the Taiping Dao Book, Lu Yuan felt that whether it was for his own cultivation or his strength after cultivating immortals, it was enough to ask for more.

Hence these words.

Of course, Sun Siwen didn't know what Lu Yuan was thinking, and he didn't know that his friend had reached a cooperation with the imperial court and had the idea of sealing the country.

However, after listening to Lu Yuan's analysis, his eyes also changed from the original limitation to one mansion, and slowly expanded to the entire county, and even the whole country, and naturally discovered the crisis.

Therefore, after pondering deeply, Sun Siwen nodded and said: "If you want to quell the rebellion and repel the enemy army, it is indeed not a short-term effort, and it takes a long time. ”

Lu Yuan thought deeply and said: "If you want to level the thief, countless years of work will not be possible." For such a long time, agricultural production in the county will be affected, and the food shortage will not be far away.

At that time, if there is no food and grass to help the people, even if the place is peaceful, it will be lively again.

Moreover, in order to deal with the thieves and soldiers and assist the imperial court to quell the rebellion, I intend to expand the army by another 20,000 and raise 50,000 soldiers to cope with the changes in the situation. This also requires food and grass support.

Therefore, the grain outside the county can be bought if you can, and there is no need to hesitate.

If you don't have enough money, you can come to me at any time to get it.

I still have three million taels of silver in my hand, and even if I allocate one million taels to you, there will still be two million taels of silver left, and no matter how much we squander them, it will be enough for a year.

A year later, I had my own way to make new money. ”

Now that another way of thinking has been changed, the original conservative strategy will naturally not become.

Although he has a foundation of immortal jade tablets, after breaking through the innate by himself, he can cultivate immortals at worst.

But how much fairy qi there is in the jade piece is still an unknown number.

For the sake of conservatism, to meet the conditions of a million people, to sacrifice to the Heavenly Pillar, and to receive the aura of heaven and earth, it is still impossible to let go.

Therefore, Lu Yuan had already decided to expand his army by 50,000, and then led his troops to attack the three prefectures of Yangshan, Jiumi, and Lingling, which were occupied by the Miao people in the south of Dongting County.

Although these three prefectures are mostly mountainous and very poor, they add up to 780,000 people. Even if those Miao people are removed, there are three or four hundred thousand local Yue people.

If you can lay down this place, counting the two prefectures of Luyang and Shaoyang, you will almost be able to gather a million people and meet the minimum conditions for sacrificing the Heavenly Pillar.

And through external expansion, Lu Yuan can also expand his territory, get more money and food, and raise more soldiers.

The land of the two provinces cannot afford to raise an army of 50,000. But if you change to the land of five mansions, it may not be impossible.

Therefore, external expansion, after obtaining the Taiping Taoist Book, has become Lu Yuan's established strategy that cannot be changed.

Sun Siwen saw that his friends had expressed their attitudes like this, and it was indeed not a bad thing to buy food, so he nodded at this time and said, "Yes." There is still a lot of food in Yuzhang County, and I can find a way to buy more. I dare not say more, two or three hundred thousand stones, it can still be guaranteed. ”

Lu Yuan smiled: "Then please ask Brother Sun." ”

At this point, the strategy of the Lu Yuan camp in the next few years has been decided.