"The Great King is benevolent."

"With the help of the king, I waited for tens of millions of people in the snowfield, and I was finally saved."

The five envoys below couldn't help but be overjoyed when they heard the promise given by Lu Yuan himself.

Some of them were so excited that they burst into tears and fell directly to the ground.

No wonder they are so excited, it is really the help of the Chu State, and it is of great significance to them, the people of the Snow Plains.

Lu Yuan's previous estimate was actually correct.

In the past four years of war, they have suffered extremely heavy losses in the snowy fields.

However, the slight difference is that they have not actually lost as many fighters and people as advertised.

For example, Lu Yuan calculated that the Zhou people had lost more than 1.5 million soldiers in the snowy plains, but of course there were not so many.

You must know that the tribe of the four kings of their snow field has a population of only one million.

If Xueyuan had directly lost 1.5 million warriors, their Fanren tribe would have collapsed a long time ago, how could they hold on until now.

In fact, in the past four years, although the soldiers and horses killed and annihilated in the war belonged to the servant tribe or the slave tribe, and even simply the young and strong slaves of the Zhou people who were captured when they attacked the Zhou towns.

These are the majority of the losses in all previous wars, all of which add up to more than 800,000.

Of course, although most of the head was taken up by those cannon fodder, as the core of the war, the Four Kings tribe and the core tribe of the Fan people, which were subordinate to them, suffered considerable losses.

In the case of the Four Kings tribe who sent the envoy in front of them, each of them lost fifty or sixty thousand, or even seventy or eighty thousand warriors, these are the strongest men in a tribe, and the true essence of a tribe.

The loss of so many brave warriors at once almost made the Four Kings tribe lose more than three or four percent of its strength.

As for the sub-core tribes other than the Four Kings Tribe, the worst thing is that they have directly abolished seventy or eighty percent of the tribe's strength, and they are not far from extinction.

The total loss of soldiers and horses of the core tribes of the above snowy people is about 500,000.

Well, in the four-year war, the number of troops lost by the Tibetan people, excluding those Zhou slaves who were temporarily forcibly recruited during the invasion, was just about one million.

Compared with what was said in the Zhou people's war report, even if you count those powerful Zhou servant armies, it is far from it.

Of course.

Nowadays, in such a world of great controversy, all countries advocate bravery, and soldiers are rampant everywhere, falsely reporting war exploits, killing good and risking merits, and it is not uncommon everywhere.

Even if the Chu State founded by Lu Yuan has not been in the war in the past few years, although the army has not been able to kill good people and take risks, there are also many things that falsely report their military exploits, but they are not so serious.

Everyone has selfish desires, everyone wants to climb up, and this kind of thing can't be solved.

At most, we should maintain the system with a more standardized system and a stronger will, and curb it a little.

In contrast, in the past four years, the Zhou people only falsely reported the number of enemies destroyed by 200,000, but in fact, they were already very honest and honest, worthy of the court of Emperor Zhou.

The words are a bit of a stretch.

Regardless of whether the Zhou army was corrupt or not, let's just say that on the side of the Tibetan people, the four-year war directly lost millions of men, which is almost equivalent to a devastating blow to the Tibetan ethnic group with a population of only more than 10 million.

After a war, not to mention that every household is clothed with linen and every family has filial piety, it can also be said that among all the Tibetan families, there is a relative who died in battle.

Reflected in the Tibetan society, that is, the most vigorous and vigorous generation, the generation of men between the ages of twenty and thirties, all of them died.

The rest are all under 20 and over 30 old, weak, sick and disabled.

At most, the loss of the Four Kings tribe is small, and there may still be some elite men in their twenties and thirties, but compared to the overall situation, it is actually useless.

And that's just the number of people who died directly in the war.

In recent years, the weather has become colder and colder, and the growing date of the grass on the snow field has been shortened from February to October in previous years to March to October, which is a full month shorter.

Reflected in life, that is, the time that cattle, sheep and horses can eat enough has become less than usual.

There are often cattle and sheep who lose fat and even starve to death because they can't eat enough grass.

When there is not enough to eat, the number of cattle and sheep to reproduce is naturally less.

At the end of the year, when winter comes, each tribe has to stock up on more hay to feed their cattle and sheep. But often the hay stock is not enough for all the cattle and sheep to eat.

Eventually, in winter, the herders had to slaughter a herd of lean cattle and sheep to save hay and stock up on an extra crop of food for themselves.

But in this way, the tribes on the grassland naturally have fewer and fewer cattle and sheep every year.

There are fewer cattle and sheep, and the milk, goat's milk, beef, and mutton that can be provided to the tribe will naturally decrease.

In addition, because of the cold weather, barley rice, which could have been planted for two seasons, can now only be planted for one season, which further causes the shortage of grain.

Up to now, the annual food on the snowy fields is only enough to sustain the current sixty percent of the population, and the remaining more than four adults are in a situation where they do not have enough food and will starve to death at any time.

And this kind of hungry population is still increasing year by year with the advent of the cold wave.

Almost every year, more than 560,000 old and weak tribes on the grassland are selectively expelled and abandoned by the tribes, and directly freeze to death and starve to death on the snowy grasslands.

In the past four years, more than two million people have died because of this reason.

In addition, the Zhou people also sent some light cavalry from time to time to penetrate deep into the snow field to attack and slaughter the Fan tribe, which also caused heavy losses to the Snow Plains Fan people, losing three or four hundred thousand people.

All of the above add up, war, hunger, massacre, the entire snowfield people have lost about 3.5 million people in the past four years due to natural and man-made disasters.

This is equivalent to two percent of the total population of the original snowfield.

Although there are still about 12 million of the remaining Snow Plains people, after losing a large number of adult males and the old and weak, their strength is less than sixty percent of the original peak.

And the remaining sixty percent are still weakening at a very fast rate.

Judging from this situation, I am afraid that it is really as expected by the Zhou people, as long as the war lasts for another two or three years, these snowy people will not be able to support it, and they will be completely destroyed and wiped out.

Let's ask, the danger of the dead is just around the corner, how can these Tibetan people not be in a hurry, how can they not despair, how can they not be afraid?

And because of this.

When the Tibetan people found out, the state of Chu was engaged in a grain trade with the state of Zhou, and it seemed that they were ready to support the war of the Zhou people against the people.

At the same time, on the side of the snow field in the river valley, there was also a small number of Fan people who had been attacked by the Chu State, and they escaped to the core of the Snow Plains Fan people through those dangerous paths, bringing the news that the soldiers of the Chu State had bordered the Fan people.

Under the oppression of the Zhou people, the Tibetan people, who were defeated one after another, could not sit still at all.

Just facing one Zhou State has already made them almost exterminate.

At this time, if there is another Chu State that is not inferior to the Zhou people, then the Tibetan people will no longer have any hope, and the extermination of the clan is already a sure thing.

Fortunately, the spies arranged by the Fan people in the Zhou State sent back the news, as if the relationship between the Zhou State and the Chu State was actually not good.

Ten years ago, there was a war between the two sides.

Four years ago, in Hanzhong County of the Zhou State, both countries almost fought.

At that time, the war between the Fan and the Zhou State had just begun, which made the Fan people in the snow field regret it after learning about it.

At that time, if there was a Chu State to help them deal with the Zhou State together, why would they have been so miserably defeated now, almost on the verge of extinction.

But fortunately, at this time, they learned about the existence of the Chu State, and learned that the relationship between the Chu State and the Zhou State was not as good as it seemed on the surface.

It is still too late to draw the state of Chu to deal with the state of Zhou together.

They have the hope of defeating the two counties of Longxi and Hexi to survive this catastrophe.

Alliances, must be alliances.

This is the consensus reached by many high-level leaders of the Xueyuan people after comprehensively evaluating the strength of themselves and the Zhou people after integrating all aspects of information and in-depth evaluation.

And in order to forge alliances.

The various tribes contributed money and efforts together, and made up 100 million taels of silver and 500 divine pills.

Even in order to ensure the stability of the alliance, and at the same time to get closer to the king of Chu, he also persuaded the spirit daughter of the Da Mo Sect to make this goddess agree to marry the king of Chu as a concubine for the future of the people of the snow plain.

In order to win over the Chu State, these people can be said to have paid nearly half of their families.

Of course, some people may wonder why the Tibetan people have so much money, so they don't go to someone to buy food, and use the purchased grain to survive this snow disaster?

On the contrary, at the risk of such a big loss, for four consecutive years, he had to smash the two counties of Hexi and Longxi in the Zhou State, and vowed not to give up if he did not fight here.

This is a matter of reality.

Question, before the war, what was the original population of the Tibetan people?

Answer, the entire snowfield adds up, and the number of people in Tibet is about 15 million.

Question: Because of the snowstorm, about 40 of all the Tibetan people are short of food, and how many are 40% of the population of 15 million Tibetan people?

A: There are about six million people.

Ask, how much food is needed to feed six million people in a year?

Answer, even the most basic state of starvation and immortality requires at least 50 million to 60 million stone of grain a year.

Then the question arises.

Even if the grain trade between the Chu State and the Zhou State is now, a pound of grain costs six yuan, which is about a moderate grain price in times of relative famine.

10,000,000 stone of grain will cost about 6,600,000 taels of silver.

If you buy 50 million stone of grain, it will be 33 million taels of silver.

In other words, to maintain the most basic survival needs, the Zhou tribe on the snow field spends 33 million taels of silver every year to buy food from the outside world.

And according to the trend of the increasing number of hungry people in the snowy fields every year, the silver spent on buying food every year will continue to grow.

100 million taels of silver, at most it will last for three years.

How much money can a snowy man have?

With their poverty, even if they empty their families, they will buy food for six or seven years at most, and then they will have no money at all.

If you don't have money, don't you have to starve to death?

Not to mention.

With six million people fed, and the number is growing rapidly, who can provide it?

Lu Yuan's Chu State also had only 8 million people, and in addition to the food produced for the national consumption, the annual grain production was at most surplus for more than one million people.

Except for a part of the grain sold to the Soviet Union, all of this grain has been stored in the grain depot, and the total is only 40 million stone of grain.

This accumulation is not enough for the hungry people in the snowy fields to meet the needs of a year.

And although the state of Chu borders the snow field, there is no avenue connecting each other, and there are some winding and rugged areas, and even small roads that are difficult for ordinary people to walk.

Even if there is grain in the Chu State, it will not be able to transport it to the snowfield.

Therefore, the path of Chu State can be regarded as broken.

Then the Chu State is not good, outside the snow field, the only ones who can provide them with food are the Xiliang Kingdom and the Zhou State.

Xiliang Country is located in the west of Yongzhou, the land is more grassland and wind and sand, compared to the snow field is not much richer, the whole country is only more than three million people, is a real barren land.

And like the people of the Snow Plains, the Western Liang Kingdom also fell into the dilemma of lack of food because of the snow disaster.

Although it is a little better than the people of the Snow Plains, and it will not be forced to starve to death, it is almost far from this step.

At the same time, the people of Xiliang are brave, even more than the Zhou people and the Fan people.

If they don't come to rob Zhou Guo and the snow field, they should burn high incense on both sides.

How stupid must the Tibetan people be to rob these poor and hard guys.

Therefore, the way of Xiliang Kingdom has also been broken.

Chu State and Xiliang can't do it, and the only way out for the Tibetan people is Zhou.

But it is also the same as the Chu State, the Zhou State has a population of about 20 million, and the surplus grain that can be produced every year can supply the rations of up to three million people.

Of the extra 3 million people's rations, Zhou Guo himself had to raise 1 million troops, and in the end, what he could save was only the rations of less than 2 million people.

But these saved rations, not to mention whether the Zhou State was willing to give them to the Fan people to fund a strong enemy in the southwest.

Let's just say that Zhou Guo is willing, and the rations of two million people are far from enough to meet the gap of six million people.

In the end, there were still 4 million people, close to one-third of the total population of the Snow Plains tribe, and they could not escape the situation of starvation.

So the problem now is that the money of the Tibetan people is not enough for them to buy food for a long time.

The surplus grain of the Zhou State was far from meeting the needs of the Tibetan people.

This is simply an unsolvable situation.

And if both sides want to live, then there is only one final result.

War.

Taking advantage of the fact that they still have some family background, the Tibetan people poured out of the nest and plundered the rations that originally belonged to the Zhou people through war.

At the same time, the surplus population is consumed through the war in order to save export food for the remainder.

In four years, the original 6 million hungry people of the Tibetan tribe have been consumed by 3.5 million people.

It is only because of the continuation of the cold and the effects of the war that the remaining 2.5 million hungry people have not only not continued to decrease, but have now increased somewhat.

Today, there are still about 3 million hungry people in the Tibetan tribe, and the day when it will be solved is far from being solved.

And Zhou Guo's side.

Also because of the war in the past few years, countless people have died, Hexi and Longxi counties, every family is clothed in linen, and every household wears filial piety.

Every one of the people who survived had a blood feud with the Tibetan people.

The army gathered from all over the country, and a large number of robes, died in the war with the Tibetan people.

It can be said that the whole country of Zhou has already formed a blood feud with the people of the Snow Plains, which can be described as endless.

It is also this hatred that even if the Tibetan people want to stop fighting and negotiate peace at this time, it is impossible for the Zhou State to agree.

Too many people have died, and too much has been paid.

If you can't wipe out the Tibetan people, wash it with the blood of these snowy people, and make up for the benefits plundered after the victory of the war, it will not be able to soothe the hearts of the Zhou people at all.

The people of Fan and the state of Zhou were destined to fall on one side, and then use their corpses to turn into nutrients, so that the victors could recover from their wounds and become stronger even stronger.

No one wants to be the one who falls.

At this time, Chu State has become an outsider who affects the situation of this war.

The state of Chu helped the state of Zhou, and with the food aid of the state of Chu, the people of Fan who had no follow-up force would surely die.

The state of Chu helped the people, and the state of Zhou, which had done its best, could not stop it at all in the face of a knife stabbed in the chest from the south, and it was difficult to escape the fate of defeat in the war.

It is precisely to understand this point and understand the importance of the Chu State.

So at this time, when I heard Lu Yuan's personal promise, these people in front of me were so happy and out of shape.

Because it represents the continuation of the race, the survival of the tribe, and the life and death of oneself and its people......

With such a big significance, how can you not be grateful?

And Lu Yuan is naturally happy to see this happen.

The more grateful he is to himself and the more dependent he is on himself, the easier it will naturally be for him to take control of the other party in the future.

He just agreed to unite with the Tibetan people and attack the Zhou State on a northern expedition.

But he didn't agree, it was a Hanzhong County that was attacked, or the entire Zhou State.

The state of Chu just wanted to take down Hanzhong County and improve the defense in the northwest direction.

Before the unification of Yangzhou, Lu Yuan did not have the idea of continuing to develop to other states, nor did he plan to fight with Zhou.

Therefore, after capturing Hanzhong County, his most likely choice is to continue to support the Tibetan people, so that these people driven by hunger will continue to trouble the Zhou people and bleed the Zhou State endlessly.

This consumes each other for eight, nine, ten years, and when both sides are drained of blood and exhaustion of strength.

The Chu State also eliminated the Ning State and unified Yangzhou.

At that time, the troops will be divided into two ways.

All the way up the Hanzhong, contact the people of the snow field, out of Longxi, Pinghexi, and occupy the two counties in the west of the Zhou State.

All the way, you can go along the Han River, out of Xiangyang, and conquer the two counties of Xiangyang and Nanyang of the Zhou State.

In this way, the two roads went out together, and the Northern Expedition of a million heroic divisions had already been weakened because of years of war, what could the Zhou State use to resist?

And if the Chu State can seize the two counties of Longxi and the two counties of Hanyang of the Zhou State, relying on these two places of beauty, and continue to the north, it can destroy the Zhou State and dominate Yongzhou.

If the division goes east, it can cooperate with the Jiangnan Navy Division, and the southwest second road will fight against Liang Guo and march into Qingzhou.

Either of the above points can make the Chu State occupy an absolute advantage in the future Kyushu hegemony.

Zhuge Liang's Longzhong in the previous life is nothing more than that.

And unlike Liu Bei, who only has a city in Xinye, Lu Yuan's capital is much thicker now.

Five counties and three kingdoms, millions of soldiers, six congenital people, the foundation of the overlord.

With this strength, the Longzhong pair that Shu Han could not complete, but the Chu State was easy.

"What I want to do at this time is to go down the river after conquering Hanzhong County, completely destroy the Ning State in Jiangdong, completely unify Yangzhou, and solve this worry.

In this way, I don't have to worry about others crossing the river in white, and I can only rest assured that I can go north and compete with the heroes of Kyushu. ”

Lu Yuan thought so in his heart, and then looked at the envoy below, and continued to discuss further details of cooperation.

For example, when can the benefits and conditions promised by the Tibetan people be delivered?

The Chu side is about to send troops, and the Fan side will also cooperate with the troops and horses to help attract the firepower of the Zhou State.

All of the above are related to core interests and are worth arguing.

Even if it is an ally, it is necessary to not give an inch.

For a while, after the alliance was formed in the palace, the ministers who were called by Lu Yuan to meet the envoys quarreled with those envoys.

Lu Yuan also quietly retreated during this period and left this place of spit in time.