At the end of October, Pegasus from Hegu County sent back the news that the 100 million taels of silver that the Snow Plains had promised had arrived in Heval County at this time.

Now Hegu County is sending 5,000 soldiers, under the personal care of the captain, and is arriving at Xichuan County overnight.

After arriving in Xichuan County, the forbidden army stationed there will also be divided into a part and sent to Baling along the Yangtze River waterway with the help of the sailor.

When Lu Yuan received the news, he couldn't help but attach great importance to it.

In the past few months, he first recruited five forbidden armies and 100,000 soldiers, but only for the initial expenses, he had already used up three or four million taels of silver.

Later, he sent troops to attack Hanzhong, although the war was rapid and did not take much time, but it also used more than 2 million taels of military expenses, as well as a reward for victory, and also issued more than 100,000 taels of silver.

Now he has ordered Hanzhong to form two new forbidden armies and local county soldiers, which are 70,000 people, and also cost more than 2 million taels of silver.

These bits and pieces add up, and in this month alone, the imperial court has spent nearly 10 million taels of silver.

Of course, the main reason for such a large expenditure is that the army has been expanded by 170,000 standing troops at once, settling-in allowances have been issued, all kinds of materials and ordnance have been purchased, and family funds have been purchased, so the expenses have become a bit larger.

When these armaments are fully purchased, they will only need to pay some daily military salaries in the future, and the monthly expenses will be much smaller.

But even so, so much money was spent on almost one-ninth of the state treasury.

Now the treasury savings of the Chu State have shrunk from the original 86 million taels of silver to 77 million taels of silver, which can be regarded as a visible shrinkage to the naked eye.

And the above shrinkage will continue to increase with the continuous expansion of soldiers and horses, and the further expansion of the war.

At present, more than 77 million taels of silver seems to be a lot, but in fact, it can't support it for a few years.

If we want to maintain our current expansion momentum, we must find new sources of income.

The 100 million taels of silver sent by the Fan people are related to the military expenditure of the Chu State in the next few years.

Whether Lu Yuan can continue to expand the army, and then launch a southern expedition to sweep Lingnan, depends on this silver.

Therefore, after receiving the news, he immediately ordered the newly canonized protector general Hanhu to personally lead 3,000 forbidden troops to take the ships of the sailors and rush to respond.

After giving this order, Lu Yuan was relieved.

There was an innate grandmaster who watched it personally, even if Xiao Xiao wanted to fight the 100 million taels of silver, it would never be successful.

Now I only need to wait for half a month, and then the silver can be sent to Baling, and then the storage will be safe, so I don't have to worry too much.

However, when it comes to the Tibetan people, the news from the Zhou State in the north has returned.

This autumn, the Tibetan people invaded again, and all the departments jointly sent 500,000 troops to plunder the river and Longer counties.

It's just that the result is still the same as in previous years, the general of the Northern Pillar State of Zhou, He Basheng, has a moderate command, and the cities are heavily guarded, and the people of Fan can't take any advantage at all.

Even because of his eagerness, he was ambushed by He Batsheng and fell into a trap and broke it.

In the end, more than 100,000 Tibetans were beheaded, and tens of thousands more were captured.

Because it had snowed heavily in the north, the road was impassable, and after the Zhou people won, they did not continue to chase deeply.

It's just that they didn't loot much supplies, and their own losses were so heavy, this winter, the Tibetan people had another difficult day.

It is estimated that hundreds of thousands of people will freeze to death and starve to death as before, and they will lose blood and be weak again.

According to this estimate, the Tibetan tribe on the snow field will decline and perish sooner or later.

However, Lu Yuan only looked at this and didn't pay much attention to it.

Perhaps in the past, he was still somewhat interested in uniting the Tibetan people and attacking the Zhou State.

After all, if you can take the two counties of He and Long, you can occupy a geographical advantage, condescending, and directly threaten the core of the Zhou people, Guannei County.

But now the catastrophe of heaven and earth is coming, and the four poles will be shrouded by natural disasters at that time, and the land of Yongzhou, which is occupied by the Zhou State, will also be difficult to spare.

He, Long, two counties, even if the Chu State is defeated, at most it will hold for more than 100 years.

When the natural disaster comes, most of Yongzhou will give up.

In this case, instead of spending effort now, it will take more than ten or twenty years to fight with the Zhou State, and then take down a territory that cannot be held for a long time.

It's better to concentrate and do your best to fight Yangzhou.

After the unification of Yangzhou, we will send troops north to seize Zhongzhou, the core of the future.

The land of Liang State, that is the territory that Lu Yuan fancies.

As for the rest, it's all chicken ribs.

"However, the two counties of Henan and Nanyang in the Zhou State also belonged to Zhongzhou in ancient times, and if there is a chance to take these two places, they may be able to take the opportunity."

Lu Yuan's thoughts flashed in his heart, but he didn't continue to think deeply.

As a hegemonic power, Zhou naturally knew about the Great Tribulation of Heaven and Earth for a long time.

In this way, of course, it is extremely important to the only two Zhongzhou land in China.

Just look at how difficult the Zhou State is now, but it is still in Henan and Nanyang counties, and has an army of 400,000, you can see the importance of the other party.

If the state of Chu wants to seize these two pieces of territory, the difficulty is far from being comparable to that of Hanzhong County, which is separated by mountains and forests, has inconvenient transportation, and lives in the south of the mountain.

The loss of Hanzhong, for the Zhou State, is only the loss of a territory in the south that is not very convenient to rule, which is like a broken foot.

Although the flesh pain is missing a place of wealth, it is not unacceptable.

But if you lose the two counties of Henan and Nanyang, it will not be a broken foot, but a direct head, which is fundamentally related to life.

If the State of Chu really dares to fight the idea there, believe it or not, the State of Zhou will directly give up the two counties of He, Long, and even Shuofang County in the north, and then shrink all the forces back to Guannei County, and then do everything to fight with the state of Chu?

The two counties of Guandong in the Zhou State have become taboo, and whoever moves around them will blow up this hornet's nest.

I didn't see Liang Guo, I just rubbed on the side, although I stopped the heavy troops, but I just took advantage of it, and I didn't go deeper.

Lu Yuan will not pump his brain up at this critical moment and take advantage of this little advantage that no one takes advantage of.

Therefore, he only thought about it and didn't pay much attention to it.

It's just that the four counties of Hexi, Longxi, Henan, and Nanyang of Zhou State, although Lu Yuan has given up his plan to capture them, but for these four counties, it is not without a place to profit from them.

For example, in the two counties of Hehe and Long, after Huang Xuan sorted out the military and politics of Hanzhong next year and initially stabilized this territory, he may be able to send a team of soldiers and horses to Helong, cooperate with the Tibetan people, and attack the Zhou State.

In doing so, Lu Yuan didn't want to lay a foothold and continue to expand to the northwest.

The main reason is that he covets the population of Zhou Guohe and Longer County.

Zhouguohe and Longer Counties, although after these years of military disasters and snow disasters, the population has suffered extremely heavy losses, and a large number of displaced people have fled every year.

Among them, Hanzhong County has received three or four hundred thousand people from Hehe and Longliu, which shows the heavy loss.

But even so, the remaining population of the two counties of Hehe and Long, there are still more than two million left.

With so many hukou, if you can take the opportunity to loot some of them back to Chu State, it will undoubtedly greatly enrich the local hukou of Chu State.

These people are all descendants of the Three Emperors and Miao, and their culture, beliefs, and customs are similar to those of the people of Chu, and there is no obstacle to assimilation.

After the Zhou people who were captured from Hanzhong moved back to Dongting and Xichuan two counties, it took only three or five years for the Chu State to completely digest it and become a Chu person.

At this time, these people were captured from the two counties of Helong, and it didn't take much effort for the Chu State to completely accept and use them.

Lu Yuan doesn't need much, if he can capture 500,000 people, he can make the development of Xichuan County go further and completely become the granary of the west.

Even about robbing people, in fact, he doesn't have to do it himself.

Directly with the Tibetan side, reach a trade consensus, let the Tibetan people start to rob people, and the Chu side can directly trade with them with grain.

In this way, without spending a single soldier, only spending some surplus grain in the Chu State, you can get a large number of people for nothing.

Waiting for the transaction to stabilize and deepen, maybe there will be no problem in using grain directly and buying their own population with the Tibetan people.

After all, hundreds of thousands of people in the Tibetan tribe starve to death and freeze to death every year, and they can't survive if they stay in the tribe.

Instead of letting them freeze and starve to death in vain, it is better to send them to the Chu State, which can not only exchange precious food for the tribe, but also let them live.

With such the best of both worlds, Lu Yuan believed that the Fan people should be happy to do so.

And there is another benefit to the grain trade of such a population.

That is, through food, the state of Chu can indirectly influence and control the people of the snow field, and through this trade, the people of Tibet continue to lose blood and weaken.

Cold disasters are cold day by day, and the wind and snow will be heavier every year than the previous year.

No matter how much the people send out every year and how much food they get back, the population of the tribe will inevitably decrease.

When they are weakened to a certain extent, Lu Yuan will call on them in the name of the Spirit Maiden, and maybe they will be able to directly absorb a large number of Fan tribes, so that they can directly become the people of Chu and use them for their own use.

"This matter is promising, or it can be used as a long-term national policy to treat the Zhou State and the Fan people, and it can make people continue to stare at it."

Lu Yuan thought about this in his heart, and immediately communicated with Huang Xuan through his divine thoughts, and then asked this clone to deal with this matter.

Huang Xuan, as the governor of the three western counties, according to the division of duties, has already been the prime minister for the affairs of the Zhou State and the Fan people, and this matter is just right for him.

After all, it is his own doppelganger, and he can communicate at any time if he has something, and there will be no delay and misunderstanding.

Handed over to others, people's hearts are separated from their stomachs, and Lu Yuan is still not at ease!

I have to say that in addition to the fast cultivation of the Taiping Daoshu, this Yellow Turban Lux magic power can be said to be the most satisfying to him.

Not only did it solve the difficulty of its own lack of manpower, but it could also communicate thousands of miles, have the same heart, be faithful and reliable, and there is no better person to use than this.

……

Just sent troops to Helong, took the opportunity to plunder the population, and started trade with the Tibetan people.

A few days later, with the urgent rush to Hanzhong County, preparations for the arrival of civil officials at all levels of the county government and county.

After the yamen at all levels sorted out the government affairs a little, the household registration atlas and wealth income and expenditure of Hanzhong County were quickly sent back to Baling through the Hanshui Express Boat.

In this way, there are now 326,000 households and more than 1,615,000 mouths in Hanzhong County.

According to the current tax payment of my Dachu, it can provide 6.1 million taels of silver per year, and the various expenses in the county need about 1.1 million taels of silver.

The remaining five million taels of silver can be sent to the court? ”

Lu Yuan flipped through the household registration account book, then looked up at the official sent by the Hanzhong County Government below, and asked out loud.

"Back to the king, it's true."

The official below was a young man, and he couldn't help but be a little nervous when he faced the king of Chu alone at this time, but he still forced himself to calm down: "However, Hanzhong County has just suffered a military incident, and the losses in various prefectures and counties are not small, and the local people have suffered some casualties and fled, so the specific household registration should be less than that on the register."

Fortunately, in Hanzhong County, there are many big families, who have more or less hidden household registration.

Therefore, the county keeper is ready to start the household registration check after the spring of next year.

At that time, the displaced people who fled the war should have also returned.

If the hidden households are found out, the population of Hanzhong County may be tens of thousands more, and the finance and taxes will be more. ”

Compared with the nascent Chu State, old overlords like Zhou, Ning, and Liang are all over the country, and these high-ranking families are married to each other, entangled with each other, and weaved a network of interests.

In this network, although the imperial power is great, it is far from being able to decide everything.

Even the imperial power itself is part of this network of relational power.

Therefore, under the constraints, a large number of vested interest groups will inevitably appear in various countries and localities, that is, family lords and wealthy families.

These upper-class figures hide the population and do not pay taxes, like parasites in the dynasty, who only know how to suck blood and do not know how to pay.

Therefore, hegemons like Zhou and Ning obviously have a deep heritage and great potential. But the strength that can be exerted in the end is far from worthy of their size.

The state of Chu has a population of only eight million, but its own military strength can be compared to twice that of the state of Ning.

Is this that the people of Chu are naturally stronger than the people of Ning, and the territory of Chu is richer than that of Ning?

Of course not.

More than ten years ago, many Chu people and Ning people still shared the name of Yue people!

can come from the same source, but the state of Chu can use half of the population to raise an army comparable to the state of Ning, and burst out twice the potential.

Where does this extra potential come from?

Or where did Ning Guo's remaining half of his potential go?

It was naturally eaten by the big families, by the local officials, and by the squires.

After eating this layer by layer, half of Ningguo will be gone.

Zhou Guo has not experienced the germination of an old tree like Ningguo, and it is listed on the backdoor!

The Zhou State, which has been established for hundreds of years, has not suffered the pain of annihilation, and the domestic corruption and the scourge of the wealthy are stronger than the Ning State.

Just since the state of Chu was established, Lu Yuan and his disciples were also from the grassroots, and they had little connection with those wealthy families.

Traveling lightly, he could naturally check the household registration without any scruples and crack down on the rule of officials, so that the state of Chu maintained a generally complete tax and clean government, and was not possessed by so many bloodsuckers.

Therefore, within the Zhou Kingdom, on the surface, it is said that it has a population of 20 million, but in fact, Lu Yuan estimates that it should be several million more than the actual population, and these people are hidden by those big families, and they will not appear on the official household registration at all.

However, in Hanzhong County, this phenomenon of concealment of household registration should not be so serious.

After all, more than ten years ago, Lu Yuan led the troops and walked around Hanzhong.

After a military disaster, it was the relocation of household registration, and the original intertwined roots of Hanzhong County had already been cleaned up.

Even if it has recovered a little in the past few years, it is not a climate.

When the officials are in place, and then Huang Xuan's heavy troops are pressing, one party will check it, and everything will be clean and clear.

Lu Yuan came step by step from the place, and he was very clear about this, so after commending a few words of praise for the officials of the court and the county guard of Hanzhong, he let people retreat.

However, after the people left, he continued to look through the household registration of various prefectures and counties in Hanzhong, and couldn't help but think about it.

Later, after reading all the data and verifying the tax revenue of Hanzhong County in detail, Lu Yuan issued another edict.

Ling Yousi drafted an edict, and Huang Xuan, the governor of the three western counties, recruited three more forbidden armies in Hanzhong County and trained with the locals. After the training is completed, it is convenient for the three old forbidden troops who were originally stationed in Hanzhong to return to Baling for repair.

As for Hanzhong, it was handed over to the five forbidden armies that were being newly trained over there to guard it.

Knowing the catastrophe of heaven and earth, Lu Yuan already planned to unify Yangzhou as soon as possible.

And this unification time, preferably within ten years.

With Ning's current 800,000 soldiers and horses, Chu wants to conquer the other side in the east, and it has to mobilize an army of 500,000 to say the least, which is already the most basic.

Therefore, while the period of the Eastern Crusade is not yet approaching, it has become inevitable to expand the army as much as possible.

It's just that the counties of Chu State, after years of recruitment, have basically digested the qualified soldiers.

The remaining ones are basically crooked melons and cracked dates, which are unbearable.

Hanzhong, which has just been laid, has a large number of household registrations, with more than 1.6 million people.

According to the ratio of one soldier from three households, it is enough to recruit 100,000 qualified soldiers and horses.

In the recruitment of three forbidden armies, counting the previous ones, the main force of the Chu State will be further expanded, and there will be a total of twenty-five forbidden armies, with a total of 500,000 soldiers and horses.

In addition, there are county government and county soldiers of the seven local counties, with a total of 200,000 people and 50,000 sailors.

When the expansion of the army is completed, the state of Chu will have 750,000 troops, which is almost the same as the 800,000 army of the state of Ning.

"Next year, I will send troops again to sweep Lingnan.

With a population of 5 million in the three counties of Lingnan, it is enough to easily recruit 200,000 or 300,000 soldiers and horses.

At that time, the whole country will have a million soldiers, and it will be easy to raise 500,000 troops for the Eastern Crusade.

It only takes three or five years to start the eastern expedition to Ningguo. ”

Lu Yuan secretly calculated and thought about it in his heart, and he had a rough prototype for the future strategic planning.

Then summoned hundreds of officials, planned and regulated, and ordered one after another, not long after the end of the Hanzhong War, the state of Chu secretly prepared a huge southern expedition.

However, this time there was no such thing as before, and the huge grain trade with the Zhou State was used as a cover-up.

Therefore, even if the news has been covered up as much as possible, some relevant flaws and omissions are inevitably detected by outsiders.

The surrounding forces could not help but be a little surprised.

In the midst of this chaos, on the eighth day of the 11th month of the ninth year of Shenwu, Hanhu escorted 100 million taels of silver back to Baling.

Lu Yuan asked people to count the number, confirmed that it was correct, and after it was put into the treasury, he rewarded a cold tiger and gave some money and treasures.

On 16 November, more than 10 large ships came from Jiangdong, entered the waters of Chu State, and arrived in Baling.

The Flying Frost Dao Master finally arrived in the Chu State with thousands of supporters.