Since the twenty-fifth year of Shenwu, which has lasted for more than ten years, there seems to be a problem.

First of all, in Hanzhong County in the northwest, there began to be barbarians from the north and from the west to invade the territory.

In order to ensure the safety of the border, the imperial court had to send two or three hundred thousand troops all year round to regularly sweep the two counties of Longxi and Hexi, which are close to Hanzhong, with hundreds of thousands of troops and a larger number of migratory barbarians, almost the entire five counties of Yongxi into a sea of corpses and blood.

Millions of barbarians are killed every year, and the imperial court is not much better, with no less than 50,000 soldiers killed in the northwest frontier over the years, and more than 100,000 wounded, and the losses can be called tragic.

But even so, those steppe barbarians and alien races in the Western Regions still seem to be unclean.

Every year, a group of people are killed, and the next year, more people will pour into the land of Yongxi, and then repeat what the previous group of people have done, and start a desperate struggle with the Chu State.

In order to survive, the firm will of those who want to live cannot be destroyed at all.

Because this is an instinct engraved in the bones of people and engraved in the culture of a group.

In order to survive, even if you know that the five counties of Yongxi have become a meat grinder of life for those who come, there are still a large number of people who are fighting for the survival of the race, rushing in one after another, asking for a chance in this life hunting ground.

The state of Chu can only passively join this war, following those barbarian alien races to fight in this survival field.

Just like the Zhou State back then, he was stumped by a second county of Helong, and was held by countless alien races who wanted to survive, and he was constantly bleeding and weak in this foreign land.

However, the Chu State is a little better than the Zhou State, that is, the Chu State is larger than the Zhou State, and the enemies it faces are fewer and weaker than the Zhou State, so even if it is constantly bloodletted, it is stronger because of its own hematopoietic ability.

Before the loss of blood could cause various effects on the body, more fresh blood was replenished, and the body was even stronger.

Perhaps it is precisely because of this that in the face of this cruel northwest war, even if the casualties and losses are so heavy, the state of Chu can unswervingly persevere, instead of choosing to shrink and be conservative.

If it is said that the death of Helong in the northwest is a painful but acceptable wound for the Chu State.

Then the Haikou Rebellion, which also originated in the 25th year of Shenwu and arose in the South China Sea, is a stubborn disease that makes people itch all over the body, but it cannot be cured.

Because the Antarctic fires have begun to break out, a large number of island countries living in the South China Sea island area have to go to sea by boat to the north, where there is no danger of ground fires, hoping to find a place to live there.

Therefore, although limited to the shortage of sea vessels, those southern island countries could not directly migrate to the whole country like the grassland barbarians and the alien races in the Western Regions.

However, with the environment of the South China Sea, there are many islands, and those island countries used to live in the past, they liked to travel by boat, like to hit big boats, and the traffic was mainly by boat.

If the countries of Kyushu were founded mainly by the army, then the countries of the South China Sea were mainly based on the navy.

Therefore, any small country in the South China Sea can basically come up with thousands of ships, of which there are no less than dozens of large ships that can pass through the sea area.

Some major countries in the South China Sea have tens of thousands of boats and thousands of sea vessels, covering the sky and the sun.

Like these island countries, this swarm of bees is rushing to the north, which almost means that the sea borders are eroding.

Among the countries of Kyushu, the state of Chu is already a great country with prosperous boats.

But even in the state of Chu, there will be no more than 100,000 ships in the whole country, among which there will be no more than 3,000 ships that can be called big ships and can pass through the sea.

With this strength, in the face of the overwhelming number of tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of boatmen in the South China Sea, they are simply stones in the waves, as long as they collide, they will be submerged in an instant.

Therefore, except for at the beginning, he still insisted on patrolling the sea area and cleaning up the pirates, and he held on for a while.

After losing more than half of the 200,000 sailors of the Chu State, they decisively withdrew to the port to preserve their strength.

Except for guarding some key areas, he never goes out again.

But in this way, the tens of thousands of miles of sea frontiers of Chu State have completely become a paradise for those bandits in the South China Sea, and since then they have been in flames everywhere.

Tens of thousands of ships and hundreds of thousands of pirates were active along the coast of the Chu State, and from time to time they went ashore to plunder, and even attacked cities and towns in serious cases, openly separating the territory.

After all, the essence of this pirate who came from the sea is to find a place for his own country and tribe, which is still very different from the ordinary pirates who only want to rob money.

However, this kind of behavior of wanting to occupy the territory was naturally severely attacked by the Chu State.

At sea, limited by the weakness of the ship's sailors, the state of Chu had to evade.

But if those South China Sea pirates go ashore and have no boats to rely on, the Chu army will not be afraid at all.

didn't even need the Chu army to make a move, those Linhai feudal states that were sealed in Lingnan led their troops to drive the pirates who came with them to grab the territory directly into the sea.

One on both sides wanted to go ashore, and the other was suffering from the bandits in the sea frontier, so they pulled on.

Even the three counties of Linhai, Guangling, and Jian'an of the Chu State had to abandon large and small coastal towns because of the Haikou people, and a large number of people were moved to the safer interior, except for a few heavily guarded large cities.

Within a hundred miles of the coast, it was abandoned.

Not only the Chu State, but also the Liang State, the Southern Zheng State, the Jin State and other countries in the north, like the Chu State, were also harassed by the Haikou Bandits.

It's just that because they are in the north, they are a little far away from the South China Sea, and the pirates from the South China Sea can't catch up that far, and the sea border is less troublesome.

It's just that on the side of Jin and Xu, the banditry of Haikou is more serious.

This is because there are not only pirates from the South China Sea, but also pirates from the East China Sea who have been driven by sea storms and have begun to migrate to Kyushu.

At present, these people have landed in the areas of Yuzhou and Liangzhou, and are frequently harassing the maritime frontiers of Jin and Xu, causing them great trouble.

Even the war in Yuzhou has been affected a lot.

In short, in the whole of Kyushu, all the coastal countries, there is no one who does not suffer from the never-ending harassment of pirates.

It's just that the luck of the Chu State is a little worse, there are grassland barbarians in the north and alien invasions in the Western Regions, and there are pirates in the South China Sea in the sea to make trouble and harass the coast.

Oh no, one more thing.

In the southwest, in the rainforests of the southern regions, some small tribes have recently migrated north.

It seems that in the southernmost part of the rainforest, too, ground fires are beginning to rage.

Some small tribes in the southern part of the rainforest have lost their homes and have had to migrate north in search of new habitats.

Under the influence of their migration waves, some national tribes in the southern and central rainforests have also been coerced to migrate north.

It's just that in the rainforest, the area where the earth fire occurs is still too small, and the coverage is not very large, so there are not many tribal countries affected.

The resulting migration wave, even if it had an impact, was temporarily blocked by the national tribes in the central and northern parts of the rainforest, and only a small part spread to the southwest of Chu.

These only influences were quickly solved by the feudal states of Dali and Nanzhao in the southwest, and there was no chaos.

It's just that this news was transmitted back to Baling, so that the imperial court could be prepared for this.

After all, everyone knows that the current riots in the rainforest are only a harbinger.

As the earth fire moves north, the entire rainforest will soon be affected, and eventually all the forest will be turned into a sea of fire.

Under this impact, all tribal nations that live in the rainforest will migrate north in order to survive.

At that time, the state of Chu will have to face the impact of the population migration tide of an entire region.

Even if the southern rainforest has fewer people living in it because of the environment, it may not be as good as the northern grassland.

But no matter how small it is, it is also a domain of people, and the number is in the tens of millions.

Such a migration tide is not like the steppe barbarians in the north and the alien races in the Western Regions, and there is also a Wei State helping to share the pressure.

The people in the forest of the Southern Rainforest can only be resisted by the Chu State.

Now more than a dozen small countries in the southwest, including the feudal states in Lingnan, have begun to make intensive preparations after learning of the changes in the rainforest.

Construct passes, repair city walls, recruit soldiers and horses, and hoard grain and grass......

For everything related to the war, the feudal states of the southwest and Lingnan began to prepare.

Because if the migration tide from the rainforest in the southern region does come, then the first wave will be affected by the southwest and Lingnan regions.

These vassal states are on the front line, and they can't escape if they want to, so they can only fight to the death with those people of the rainforest.

In this case, of course, they do not dare to slack off.

In short, the war in northern Xinjiang is in full swing, the bandits in the sea are continuous, and the war clouds in the southwest are shrouded, this is what the state of Chu has suffered in the past ten years.

Under the drag of these three major battlefields, the hinterland of Chu State, although it is still peaceful and prosperous.

But this prosperous era also brings a bit of haze, and it is really dark.

……

Baling City.

After more than 30 years of prosperous rendering, this imperial capital has gradually gained a bit of historical precipitation, revealing the heritage and wealth of a unique country center.

"What a prosperous dream!"

On the stargazing platform of the palace, Lu Yuan stood on the platform, climbed high and looked into the distance, looking at the almost boundless Baling City, and sighed.

Then he turned his head and said, "Brother Sun, did you say?" ”

Sun Siwen next to him nodded: "It is indeed a prosperous dream." ”

It has been 40 years of Shenwu, and it is 15 years of peace.

With the multiplication of the population and the convergence of people from all over the world, Baling City has grown in a circle again, and the population has once again climbed to a terrible number of three million.

In such a society that is still dominated by agriculture, it is almost unimaginable to exist in a giant city like Baling.

Not to mention in the Chu State, even in the entire Kyushu, it is the absolute first city in the world.

Because today's Zhongzhou overlord, once the first power in Kyushu, and now the national capital of Daliang, the population is just one million.

After more than 20 years of war, the Liang State was also exhausted, and the population of the national capital Daliang not only fell from 1.5 million at its peak to 1 million at this time.

Even the throne of the first power in the world of Liang has been pulled down and changed.

The prosperity of the Great Liang, just like its owner, confirms the rise and fall of an empire.

Of course, this is only the girder in practice.

In reality, in the eyes of outsiders, today's Daliang is still the first city in the world.

Liang is still the first country in the world.

Because the real first, the state of Chu, has not released important data on its population, soldiers, horses, money and grain output to outsiders for ten years.

"Fifteen years of savings, my Da Chu has been hiding his strength, using continuous soldiers and this prosperous dream to confuse the world."

Lu Yuan looked at Baling City, his thoughts drifted far away, and he counted in his mouth: "Seventy million people, three million soldiers and horses, an annual income of 400 million taels of silver, 600 million mu of land, 500 million stone of grain, and seventy-two people in nature."

In fifteen years, my Da Chu has accumulated these family funds.

But it has been hidden, just waiting for an opportunity.

In order to win the trust of the northern country, I raised troops year after year and gathered hundreds of thousands of people in Longxi.

Evacuate villages and abandon towns, and abandon tens of thousands of miles of sea frontiers.

Tolerate the southwest and let the forest people sit big.

Relying on these means that are close to self-harm, those people are finally reassured. ”

In recent years, the state of Chu has shown the outside world only the war in the north, the bandits in the sea, the beacon fire in the southwest, and the song and dance in the country.

And the behavior of Chu State not releasing its own data is more like being overwhelmed by the endless war, and the whole country is in internal and external troubles.

Everything at the moment is just whitewashing the peace.

Well, this is indeed the message that the State of Chu wants to convey to outsiders.

Otherwise, do you want to tell the true information of the Chu State to the people of the world?

In this way, it is indeed a great promotion of national prestige and a shock to the world.

But after the shock, it is destined to be a chicken feather.

Why......

If the state of Chu in the south is a country with internal and external troubles and many problems, then the countries of Liang, Wei, Zhaoxu and other countries in the north can naturally fight with confidence.

But if the state of Chu is a country with abundant money and food, sharp soldiers, worry-free inside and outside, and the foundation is the best in the world.

Just ask, such a strong country is hiding behind you, staring at yourself all the time, who is not worried in their hearts, who will not guard against a hand in their hearts?

Liang and Wei, Zhaoxu and other countries went to war, how could they go all out and leave no room for it.

Wei, Zhao and Xu are three kingdoms, will they be worried that when they and Liang Guo fight to lose both, Chu Guo will come to pick up peaches?

Therefore, if the doubts of these countries are not resolved, they will not fulfill the wishes of the Chu State and fight in Qingzhou.

No one wants to make a wedding dress for someone else.

This is also the reason why the state of Chu knew that it only needed to defend Longshan to blockade the northwest and protect Hanzhong at a very small cost, but it still had to send troops to Helong and fight to the death with the grassland barbarians and the aliens in the Western Regions.

If you are not willing to pay a certain price, how can you win the trust of others?

Like Chu, Wei faced the invasion and threat of steppe barbarians and alien races in the Western Regions, and it also suffered from this in the north and west of the frontier.

In order to defend against those alien races, the dead and wounded of the Wei State will only be greater than that of the Chu State.

Only by experiencing it can we know the pain.

Similarly, the Liang State, which was deeply affected by the bandits in the sea and frontier, could also understand the discomfort of the Chu State.

Therefore, for the remarks that the Chu State is constantly weakening in the endless border troubles, the four countries in the north are quite convinced.

Because they are faced with a side trouble, they are deeply tired and overwhelmed.

The state of Chu is facing three at once, which is almost equivalent to facing the siege of three hegemons, how can it be comfortable?

Liang Guo carried the siege of Wei, Zhao and Xu, and was beaten for more than ten years, and finally became poor and poor, wasted at home, greatly reduced household registration, and broke the armor of the soldiers.

Even if the state of Chu is better, how much better can it be?

It is precisely with this view that Chu has the same view as himself, so that there is a situation where Kyushu is tired now.

"And now, I have pointed out that I heard that the Wei State has given up all the Yanzhou land it occupies, and moved the people of the whole country into the two counties of Henan and Nanyang, focusing on defending Shuofang and Guannei, and running the original hometown of the Zhou State."

Lu Yuan continued to bring up the latest news.

With the passage of time, the earliest cold wave natural disaster in the north has approached the Yanzhou region after more than 30 years of evolution.

At this time, the entire northern part of Yanzhou has turned into a country of ice and snow.

The central part of Yanzhou is occupied by the grassland barbarians who have migrated south and the people of the small Yanzhou countries, and tens of millions of people are crowded there, frantically migrating southward every day.

The cold wave is constantly compressing their living space, and if they don't go south one day, they will be swallowed by the wind and snow the next moment.

This is no longer forced by the wind and snow, but the fire burns the eyebrows.

Therefore, in this case, after moving away all the Yanzhou people, the Wei State did not continue to hold on to it, but simply gave up all its Yanzhou land.

The land in the south of Yanzhou was given to those who moved south in a hurry.

It's just that it is about to be swallowed up by the cold wave, and the land of Yanbei, which has been moved by few people, can be given up casually.

But it is still an important grain-producing area, and in the next two or three decades, the eastern part of Yongzhou, which should still be stable, or the two counties of Shuofang and Guannei, can Wei give up?

At the beginning, these two counties, Henan and Nanyang counties in the rear of the Zhou State, were safe hinterlands, which could continuously produce money, food, and armor to support the war on the front line.

With this foundation, Zhou is still the hegemon of the world and can dominate the world.

And when the Zhou State gave up the two counties of Shuofang and Guannei, Henan and Nanyang became the front line, and the people of the two counties became face the war, and it was difficult to produce with peace of mind.

As a result, the Zhou State fell into the dilemma of a shortage of money and food and a large-scale famine.

It was no longer possible for the country to support a large number of troops, and it could not support more soldiers and horses, and in the end, even with the help of the Liang State, it was quickly wiped out by the Wei State.

The lessons of the past are just around the corner.

"With the example of the Zhou State, the Wei State should know that they have no way to retreat."

When Lu Yuan said this, his tone was emotional: "But the grassland barbarians from the north are easy to deal with." After decades of attrition, the grassland barbarians, who originally numbered tens of millions, are now less than 10 million.

Just like the original snowy people, there were too many casualties to become the climate.

In the end, it was either annexed by people, or it died out and then moved south.

But those alien races from the Western Regions from the west, they have just started to migrate.

With the vastness of the Western Regions, there are at least thirty or forty million people of these alien races. After converging with the grassland barbarians and the remnants of Yanzhou, the number of these refugees from the west may even reach 50 million.

And now in the Wei State, there are still 40 million people?

It has the Liang State in the east, the alien race in the west, and the Zhao State, an ally in the north, seems to be also ready to move against the Henan County of the Wei State.

How similar is the Wei State of today to the Zhou State of its time?

If Wei does not want to follow in the footsteps of Zhou, then it will inevitably need to make a trade-off, give up the battlefield with Liang, and make every effort to keep the country.

If it withdraws, it will be difficult for Zhao and Xu to compete with Liang.

My Great Chu's strategy of consuming the four countries will also be invalid. ”

Lu Yuan's tone was low, and there was firmness in his voice: "So, we have been waiting for decades, although the time is not yet ripe, but we are ready to send it."

The Northern Expedition is imperative. ”