Chaos of the Three Kingdoms Summons

Chapter 2691 Offering amnesty to bandits, combining merchant and bandit activities

But the boat!

Qi Jiguang's side wouldn't be able to spare many warships for him. This time, he wasn't cooperating in the battle; he was also one of the main attackers.

After all, he himself needed to use warships to carry a large number of troops to open up the sea battlefield and achieve a cross-sea landing.

Given this situation, Qi Jiguang was already struggling to use his own boats, so how could he possibly allocate more for transporting grain?
To support the food transport needs of such a large army, a considerable number of ships are required!

Therefore, Guan Zhong brought out all the reserve ships prepared for the navy from the southern shipyards, and repaired or patched up the warships that were originally discarded by the navy, as well as the warships that were defeated and abandoned by the Central Plains and Zhu Wu navies!

Repairing them is always easier than building new ones!

At this time, Guan Zhong also had to thank Zhu Yuanzhang for obtaining the blueprints for the treasure ships from his shipyard after the war in the south.

As a result, instead of wasting time and money on repairing those abandoned warships, they were prepared to build new treasure ships!
After all, different positioning naturally leads to different needs!

At that time, Zhu Yuanzhang's battlefields were mainly on inland rivers. Therefore, although they had the blueprints for treasure ships, they did not manufacture them on a large scale. Treasure ships were more suitable for the sea than for rivers.

After the Southern War, the next step for the Great Jin Dynasty was to focus on the sea, rather than the rivers and lakes.

Therefore, of the warships captured at that time, some intact ones were left alone, while those with some damage were not re-equipped. Instead, they were used to build treasure ships on a large scale.

Now, Guan Zhong, who was short of ships, thought of this group of ships that could be repaired and used as a makeshift vessel!
Although these boats are better suited for rivers than for the sea.

But it's better than nothing.

It's not like we're making them sail away from land on the open sea. We just need to transport them along the land to their designated destination, even if it's slow.

After all, even if the speed is slower, the energy consumption of traveling by sea is completely different from that of traveling by land.

In addition, Guan Zhong would naturally arrange for the ports along the route, including Jiaozhou and Qiongzhou, to provide support.

This is the only option left at this point.

In addition, Guan Zhong even encouraged the common people to come up with ideas in order to ensure that the grain could be transported by sea.

Let the people help them transport the grain, especially the merchants!
To this end, Guan Zhong did not hesitate to use the promise of lowering commercial taxes in Jiaozhou, Nanzhou, and Qiongzhou as bait to make these merchants willingly serve the Jin Dynasty.

Guan Zhong specifically created a contribution value system for them, using the amount of grain each household helped transport for the Great Jin Dynasty as the standard to divide them into different contribution levels, thereby determining the extent and duration of future reductions in commercial taxes.

Guan Zhong's approach served two purposes. First, it motivated these merchants to help the army transport grain.

Secondly, this method promotes the development of the southern states. After all, with commercial taxes being levied, these merchants are naturally more willing to do business in these regions.

Coincidentally, although the three prefectures of Nan, Jiao, and Qiong are currently lagging behind other prefectures in terms of development, it is undeniable that these places do have some rare items that are difficult to obtain in the Central Plains, and naturally they have commercial value.

In this way, it is entirely possible to achieve two goals at once.

It might even be possible to achieve three goals at once.

If a large number of merchants were to set foot here, some of them would solve the road problem themselves. After all, there are many such examples throughout history. For merchants, as long as they see a profit to be made and can see the future returns, they don't mind making some upfront investment.

Of course, this is far from enough to solve all the pressure of transporting grain.

Guan Zhong, in addition to focusing his attention on the common people, also extended his reach to the pirates, and even to the Zhu-Wu forces in Yizhou.

There are quite a few pirates in the southernmost islands of Southeast Asia. After all, it was impossible for the Jin Dynasty to conquer every single island in Southeast Asia during its previous southern expeditions.

After all, there were a lot of those islands! If we were to attack them all one by one, how many years would it take? At that time, we only attacked some of the larger islands.

Therefore, many pirates were not wiped out, especially after the fall of Southeast Asian countries, many people fled to these islands and became part of the pirates as well.

Now, Guan Zhong is preparing to use these people to help them do things, which is nothing more than luring them with benefits, or even directly offering them amnesty!
Some pirates were not beyond the capabilities of the Great Jin Dynasty to deal with, but it was simply not worth investing so much effort in them!

It's like using a cannon to kill a mosquito, but you still get nothing out of it. What's the point?
"When the cannons roar, gold flows like water. Do you really think that sending troops doesn't cost money?"

It's impossible to say that these pirates weren't afraid of the Great Jin Dynasty. They could wipe out the entire Southeast Asia, let alone pirates!

It already possesses sufficient deterrent power, making it easy to lure them with benefits or even grant them amnesty.

Previously, it wasn't that no one had considered using the policy of granting amnesty to deal with these pirates!

However, the military disagreed, and the princes of Qiongzhou disagreed even more.

Throughout history, the methods of granting amnesty have been numerous, but how could it be done so directly? Even in the Water Margin, it was only after several failed attempts to subdue the enemy that amnesty was granted.

If we start this without even fighting, then there's a clear procedural error! I'm afraid many people will become bandits in order to become officials! In the Song Dynasty, becoming a bandit was practically a profession.

Therefore, the military would never agree to it. To think of granting amnesty without even fighting would be a slap in their face!

Furthermore, this is also a military achievement!

After being granted amnesty, where did their military achievements come from?

As for the princes of Qiongzhou, the imperial court had already imposed strict limits on their military strength, with the largest number being just over ten thousand and the smallest only a few thousand. Even with all eight princes combined, they didn't have many soldiers.

If all these pirates were wiped out or granted amnesty, and the seas were calm, wouldn't the imperial court further reduce their military strength?

So, would they agree?

It was precisely for this reason that the Qiongzhou prince did not agree to the idea of ​​being granted amnesty, and even took over the military task of suppressing these pirates, but he did not take it seriously, and his main goal was to make reasonable use of resources.

In the past, for the sake of stability in the south, Guan Zhong wouldn't have bothered arguing with these vassal kings over such matters. After all, they were all sons of the emperor, and he didn't want things to escalate.

But now that matters of national importance have been involved, Guan Zhong naturally acted swiftly and decisively.

These pirates will either serve them or become traitors that the Great Jin Dynasty must eliminate in the future!
In any case, as long as some pirates are willing to join their Great Jin's warships, the other pirates will not have much room to maneuver.

They might not be able to find the hiding place of these pirates in the Great Jin Dynasty, but wouldn't they be able to find the other pirates as well?