The surrounding countries have been disturbed, but the Chu State is a sole practitioner of internal affairs and ignores the wind and rain of the outside world.

After the beginning of spring, the winter wind and snow quickly subsided, and the terrible white natural disaster seemed to become a memory, and it was quickly forgotten by the people who welcomed the new year.

The new year is coming, and people who have been at home for a year of cats should also start their own busyness in this new year.

Farmers began to sow seeds and raise seedlings, city dwellers began to look for work in various workshops and shops, and traveling merchants began to travel from city to city with goods.

The court of Chu also began to work hard for the strategy formulated last year.

The first to start was naturally the many mines in Qianzhong County.

Hundreds of industries are headed by money, no matter what you do, the first and most important thing is naturally money.

Therefore, after the New Year's Festival, after the various departments of the court resumed their duties, Lu Yuan summoned many ministers, and after discussing with them, he specially sent the ministers to lead people to Qianzhong County and began to specialize in many mining affairs in this county.

As for the manpower and materials needed for mining purposes, the local government of Qianzhong County and many Yiren prisoners of war temporarily under the jurisdiction of the forbidden army were specially ordered to provide them.

With these supports and arrangements, coupled with the minister who went to handle this matter, he is also a capable officer, and it will not be long before good news comes from Qianzhong County.

The matter of the money bag is almost solved like this.

However, money and grain, money and grain have always been parallel, and they have been called together.

So after solving the problem of money, another problem of food was quickly dealt with by the court.

Chu now has two major grain-producing areas, namely the Jianghan Plain, where Xiangyang County is located, and the Dongting Plain, where Dongting County is located.

These two plains are both located in the irrigation of rivers and lakes, and the land is fertile, which is a first-class grain producing land.

Now these two places have been developed, and the remaining ones that have not been developed are also quite labor-intensive land.

Not only is it difficult to develop, but after the final development, the grain production is far less than the previous good land.

Therefore, for these places that are not easy to develop, the Chu State, which is now short of manpower, naturally has little interest.

In the future, when the population grows and the land is scarce, it may be possible to develop those inferior lands.

But now that the country of Chu is vast and sparsely populated, and there are good fields waiting to be developed everywhere, there is naturally no need to waste precious manpower in this kind of place.

Therefore, for the state of Chu, the development of Dongting and Xiangyang counties at this stage has reached the limit, and there is no power or need to continue to develop at a deeper level.

Therefore, if you want to increase grain production and expand the grain bags, it is useless to use methods in these two counties, and you have to go to other places.

And this place, naturally, is Xichuan County.

The Xichuan Plain owned by Xichuan County has no less potential than the Jianghan Plain and the Dongting Plain, if it can be developed, no, it has already been developed over there, and there is no need to make much effort to open up the wasteland, it should be said that it can be used.

As long as the existing Xichuan Plain can be utilized, then in less than two years, this will be another tax-paying place with tens of millions of stone of grain.

At its peak, Xichuan County had a population of more than 5 million, and it was able to support so many people because of the support of the Xichuan Plain.

Nowadays, there are not so many people in the Chu State to develop the entire Xichuan County.

However, as long as the initial development is carried out, the many fertile fields on the Xichuan Plain can be cultivated a little, and the grain produced will be enough to feed two or three million people.

Not only is it enough to feed the existing population of Xichuan County, but it can also produce a large amount of grain every year to supply the army of Chu or trade with foreign countries.

In recent years, Kyushu countries have been fighting each other.

Perennial wars have brought not only death but also famine.

A large number of young and strong laborers were conscripted into the battlefield, so naturally after the loss of these people, the local food production in various countries will also be drastically reduced.

Just like the State of Su next to the State of Chu.

After launching the war to conquer the southwestern Yi, the joint and vertical country, which participated in the original alliance, initially solved the problem of fiscal deficit, but because of the war, there was an extremely serious food shortage in the country.

Until now, even if the Soviet Union ended the war as early as the end of last year.

But until now, several months have passed, and the problem of food shortage in the Soviet Union has still not been solved.

In the Soviet Union, the price of grain has soared to the level of 40 wen a catty of rice, and a large number of people cannot afford to buy grain and rice, so in order to survive, they have to sell their land and even sell their children and daughters, just to exchange for a mouthful of rice to eat.

Many more fled to the mountains or simply to neighboring countries after they could not survive.

During this cold winter, the Soviet side received tens of thousands of Soviet fugitives.

In order to escape from the hell in their hearts, these people of the Soviet State even braved the terrible wind and snow last winter to travel thousands of miles to the border of the Chu State.

According to the report that Lu Yuan received.

Last winter, a massive wave of exodus broke out in the Soviet Union.

The number of Soviet citizens who participated in the flight was as high as more than 100,000.

The direction of escape includes Chu, Nanhai, Song, and even Dali, Kunhai and other countries.

The state of Chu is just one of the options.

And the more than 100,000 people who fled, at least 40,000 or 50,000 died on the way.

Last winter's snowstorm was not so easy. Especially in the wind and snow, it is a fatal thing.

However, Su Xuange, the king of Su, was reported to have been furious in the palace after learning the news of the flight of the local people, and disposed of several officials in a year.

Subsequently, the army was sent to various prefectures and counties to arrest fugitives.

Once discovered, they were punished on the spot, or even directly executed, and the corpses were hung in various key roads to deter people.

But this action not only did not stop this wave of flight, but made people everywhere more frightened, and more people fled because of fear.

Even some of the troops sent to hunt down the fugitives fled with them.

Many of those who fled were relatives of the Soviet army.

Now that his family wants to run away, can those Soviet troops still be ruthless and kill their relatives in a righteous way?

Let's not talk about whether Su Xuange has such a great personality charm, but even the treatment that Su Guo gave to those troops is not worth the price.

Forty pounds of rice is also an unbearable weight for the Soviet army.

Many Soviet soldiers' families are about to be unable to open the pot because of the soaring food prices.

Under such circumstances, they cannot be expected to be very loyal to the Soviet Union.

And under this wave of escape, the rivers and mountains of the Soviet Union also seem to be stormy, and the image of the death of the country is becoming more and more intense.

However, Su Guo is going to die, and that is something that Su Xuange should have a headache for.

For the Chu State, for Lu Yuan, the other party is now a good opportunity to make a lot of money.

A few years ago, the Soviet Union attacked Southwest Yi, although in the end the territorial gains were not much, only one county and four prefectures were developed, less than half of the county.

But in terms of money, the Su State has gained a lot.

Because of the newly opened Tonghai County, as well as the Dali Yinsheng area that the Soviet State led its troops to attack before, it was involved.

The political policy adopted by Su Xuange is similar to that of Li Xiong in Xichuan County before, completely ignoring the future, and purely trying to catch fish.

Specifically, no matter whether they are high or low, no matter the region, whether they are dead or alive, wherever the Soviet army passes, all the property, money, and food of the local people are plundered.

This cruel method, in addition to arousing a large number of Yi people to resist, also helped the Soviet Union obtain a large amount of money and materials.

With the barren and impoverished national strength of the Soviet State, it was able to maintain an army of more than 100,000 people in the southwestern Yi region for several years, relying on this kind of predatory oppression.

Now, although it has been fighting for several years, a lot of the money that was plundered at the beginning has been consumed.

But in the hands of Su Guo, there should still be a lot of money left.

At the beginning, Li Xiong was able to plunder hundreds of millions of taels of silver worth of property in Xichuan County.

Although the southwestern Zhuyi was a lot barren, and the place plundered by the Su State was only half of the county, according to estimates, Su Xuange relied on this war to obtain at least hundreds of millions of taels worth of property.

Even if a lot of money was consumed because of the war, there were still tens of millions of taels of silver left in the Soviet Union, which was already a huge amount of money.

Nowadays, the state of Chu has to use money everywhere, although according to the statistics of the Ministry of Households, after six years, the state of Chu will be able to achieve a financial surplus, with a balance of 12 million taels of silver per year.

But that was only six years later.

The current state of Chu is still in the current situation of fiscal deficit, and it has to subsidize the expenditure of 10 million taels of silver from the treasury every year, which is a huge gap.

Although the current treasury is enough to support six years later, when the fiscal surplus, the financial problems of the Chu State will not be too big.

These can be relied upon, but only under the condition that the existing conditions and environment of the Chu State have remained unchanged, can we barely maintain the current hole.

If there is a slight change during this period, then with the current treasury reserves of Chu State, there is a risk that it will not be able to support it.

Therefore, it is naturally a great thing for Chu to take this opportunity to make more money.

And the goal of making money is naturally the Soviet Union, which is short of food.

The Soviet State lacked grain and had money, and the Chu State had no money for grain, and the two sides just complemented each other.

Today, the main grain suppliers of the Soviet Union are the grain merchants of the South China Sea.

Those greedy guys, in order to make money, forcibly raised the price of grain in the Soviet Union to the level of thirty wen a pound of rice now.

It can be described as sucking the bones and sucking the marrow, without any mercy.

In this regard, the State of Su, and even the State of Chu and the State of Song, who had been pitted before, were itching with hatred.

That is, now, the situation of the South China Sea is special, and it is related to the game between Chu, Su and other countries and the Ning country, Lu Yuan and Su Xuange are not good at teaching the South China Sea country, which makes the other party proud now.

But now, Chu and Song and other countries have ended the war against Southwest Yi, and there is no huge army to consume grain and grass, and the grain pressure of Chu has been greatly relieved.

Naturally, a large amount of grain in the country can also be saved, or stored, or sold to the outside world.

For the Chu State, which can now harvest a large amount of surplus grain every year and will soon be able to develop the Xichuan Plain, as long as it does not encounter a large-scale harvest disaster every year, then the grain produced that year is enough for its own consumption.

The so-called hoarding of food is not a necessary thing to do in today's lack of money.

Therefore, it is more cost-effective to exchange excess grain for money.

Regarding this matter, after discussing with the ministers, Lu Yuan had already sent an envoy to the Soviet Union for preliminary communication.

The state of Chu was willing to sell the surplus grain to the state of Su at a price lower than the current "market price".

Well, after the price is reduced, it is about ten wen a catty of rice, which is equivalent to one-third of the price of grain sold in the South China Sea.

Although this price is lower than the international market price, it is still a big profit for Chu State.

Now that the war has stopped, the price of rice in Chu has quickly fallen back to the normal price, from the original five wen a catty of rice to the current three wen a catty of rice.

Therefore, even if the grain sold by the State of Chu to the State of Su was only ten cents and a pound of rice, it would be a net profit of more than 200 percent, which could already be called a huge profit.

And what Chu paid for this was only to collect and transfer a batch of rice from the country, and then send it to the border of the Soviet Union, which did not take much effort.

On the contrary, the sale of low-priced grain in Chu State can also deal a severe blow to those arrogant grain merchants in the South China Sea, suppress their unscrupulous arrogance, and directly cut off their way to make a fortune.

If you want to come to the Su country, after getting the goodwill of the Chu country, you should be very happy to see this.

After all, compared to spending a high price of 30 wen a catty, to buy food from those South China Sea profiteers who suck blood as fat sheep.

It is better to buy grain from the Chu State, which has always had an alliance with him, for only one-third of the price.

This deal, whether it is economic or emotional, Su Xuange has no reason to refuse.

"Today, there should be more than 1.5 million people in the Soviet Union, and these people are calculated according to the average consumption of one stone of grain per person a month and twelve stone of grain a year.

A person's annual food consumption is almost thirteen taels of silver.

1.5 million people, that is a market of more than 20 million taels of silver.

Even if these markets are available, it is impossible for the Chu State to eat them completely, and the Su State will slowly achieve self-sufficiency in grain as the local stability and production resumes.

But in the first few years of stability, the State of Chu earned 10 million taels of silver from the State of Su every year, which should not be a problem. ”

Lu Yuan calculated in his heart, and couldn't help but be very happy.

It is a happy thing to be able to harvest an extra 10 million taels of silver every year, and this income can last for several years.

"And not only Su Guo, Zhou Guo, in fact, can also try to do a grain business."

Now there are Fan people in the west of the Zhou Kingdom, Wei people in the north, Liang people in the east, and Chu people in the south.

In these four directions, except for the fact that the state of Chu is now making peace with the state of Zhou, it has maintained a state of peace.

The other three directions are all enemy countries of Zhou.

Now the Zhou State uses troops on three sides, except for the 100,000 soldiers and horses who stayed in Guannei County and Hanzhong County, the battlefields in the other three directions use 900,000 soldiers and horses.

If you count the people who transported grain and grass, and the militia villagers who were recruited, then the total number of Zhou State's army was close to more than two million.

Such a large-scale army is almost equivalent to one-tenth of the total population of the Zhou State.

In other words, one of the ten people in the Zhou State was conscripted to the front-line battlefield, and he was still a young and strong laborer.

With so many young and strong laborers missing, it is inevitable that there will be problems in the domestic production of the Zhou State.

According to the report of the Imperial City Division, the price of grain in Zhou has generally risen to five wen a catty of rice, and in some areas, it has even risen to ten wen a catty.

The food shortage caused by the lack of grain has already begun to manifest itself within the Zhou state.

And this famine and the soaring price of grain will increase year by year as the war continues.

If it can't be controlled in time, today's Su State is the next example for Zhou State.

For such a huge market that is being born, Lu Yuan is naturally extremely interested.

However, although he was interested, he did not act immediately.

First, between Chu and Zhou, the war has just ended, and the trust between the two sides is not enough, even if they want to do business, they don't have that foundation for the time being.

The second is that although there is a food shortage in the Zhou State now, this famine is not serious, and it can be fully supported by the heritage of the Zhou State.

At this time, if you find the other party to sell grain, you can't make much, at most you will make a hard money.

Thirdly, Chu State is now, and there is not much food on hand, and it is already the limit to meet one Su State, and there is no more grain to sell to Zhou State for the time being.

So considering these aspects, Lu Yuan chose to wait, and when the famine over there was serious, and after a few rounds of harvest on his side, there was more food, and then he would consider going to Zhou Guo to do business.

And for the sake of the two international markets of Su and Zhou, and even other more possible markets in the future, it is already urgent for Chu to increase its grain production.

Among them, the development of the Xichuan Plain is the top priority.

However, if you want to develop Xichuan, you naturally can't lack manpower, and the existing population of Xichuan is far from enough to develop the entire Xichuan Plain.

Fortunately, a snowstorm last winter caused serious losses to the people in Chu State, and even a large number of casualties occurred.

But in the same way, most of the people who were badly affected were poor people who had little wealth.

And these people are precisely the best immigrant population selected by the imperial court.

So after a snowstorm, the poor people at the bottom who had lost a lot of property, after accepting the government's invitation for relief, simply gritted their teeth and stomped their feet, and chose to participate in the recruitment and immigrate to Xichuan.

According to the data reported by the Ministry of Households, there are now about 50,000 households and more than 200,000 people affected by the disaster in all parts of Chu State, who have accepted the immigrants, and are being sent to Xichuan County one after another under the deployment of local governments.

And that's just the beginning.

In the future, as the work unfolds, more people will choose to immigrate.

Within this year, the imperial court will be able to immigrate at least 100,000 households to Xichuan County, more than 500,000 people.

At the strategy meeting for the next few years, the goal of resettlement to Xicheon County in the next six years was set at a strategic meeting last year, and it is very likely that it will be completed this year and next.

A snow storm doesn't seem to be entirely bad, but it still has some positive effects.

In any case, when 500,000 people arrive in Xichuan, then the entire Xichuan Plain will almost be initially developed.

At most, by next year, Xichuan County will become an important grain-producing area in Chu State.