Established a thousand-year family from the end of Qin Dynasty

Chapter 330 Shu Han ([-])
five months later
The first year of Xingping (194)
Xuzhou
Tancheng (Xuzhou Donghai County Government)

"Cao Cao! Cao Cao!"

Tao Qian gritted his teeth, and could only vent his anger by cursing Cao Cao's burning, killing and looting in Xuzhou.

His soldiers were not as good as Cao Cao's in terms of quantity or quality, so he could only shrink his troops to defend the richest cities, and let Cao Cao plunder other cities.

However, Cao Cao just left after robbing, and did not choose to occupy the city for a long time.

Going away after grabbing and occupying for a long time are two concepts.

You only need to be able to fight well after you grab it. Long-term occupation requires an early investment, a good relationship with the local powerful gentry, and a scattered force to defend the city. It is very troublesome and easy to be defeated by the enemy one by one.

"Your Majesty, Cao Cao's father, Cao Song, is preparing to go to Yanzhou. I don't think so!" Captain Zhang Kai suggested, and made a murderous gesture after speaking.

"No!" Counselor Chen Deng hurriedly dissuaded: "If we do this, we will completely offend Cao Cao. What if he comes to retaliate against us?"

Tao Qian just glanced at Chen Deng's suggestion. Tao Qian understood very well that these aristocratic families only cared about their own families, and they didn't kill Cao Song because they were afraid that Cao Cao would harm their interests in Xuzhou.

Tao Qian sneered and said, "Could it be that if I don't kill Cao Song, Cao Cao won't come to plunder Xuzhou? I heard that Cao Cao has recruited a million yellow scarf thieves, so many mouths to feed, whether we kill Cao Song or not, in order to Cao Cao will come and rob us if we feed those millions of Qingzhou Yellow Turban thieves, so we might as well kill Cao Song, so that at least some money can be robbed to be used as military expenses, thereby boosting the morale of the soldiers.”

"Ming Gong is wise!" Zhang Kai laughed, he had already set his sights on Cao Song, he was extremely rich, the goods in the convoy were worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

For Tao Qian, he dared to form an alliance with the rebels who blatantly proclaimed the emperor. If he killed Cao Cao's father, he would kill him. He was afraid of this and that, and he didn't dare to do this. , I don’t dare to do it, so I’m still a warlord, just kneel down and surrender as soon as possible.

However, he was not unprepared. While ordering Zhang Kai to rob and kill Cao Song's convoy, he also sent envoys to Pingyuan to ask for help from Liaodong prefect Liu Bei and his ally Beihai Prime Minister Kong Rong.

In the past, when Tao Qian was the governor of Youzhou by relying on his military achievements in exterminating the Qiang people, he also joined the horse smuggling trade of Gongsun Zan and Liu Bei, and made money with them. Because I have known Liu Bei for a long time, an old acquaintance.

Today's world is roughly divided into three camps, namely the Yuan Shao camp, the Yuan Shu camp, and the neutral camp.

Yuan Shao camp: Yuan Shao, Cao Cao, Liu Biao, Liu Yu

Yuan Shu camp: Yuan Shu, Sun Ce, Tao Qian, Gongsun Zan, Kong Rong

Neutral camp: Li Jue, Guo Si, Ma Teng, Han Sui, Liu Yan, Shi Xie, Wang Lang, Hua Xin, Liu Yao, Zhang Ji, etc.

Liu Bei belonged to Gongsun Zan's subordinates, so he was in the same camp as Tao Qian.

The two brothers of the Yuan family fought internally, causing the princes from all walks of life to stand in support of their internal struggle.

Half a month later
plain country

Plain County

"Tao Shijun asked for help, what should I say?"

After receiving a request for help from his old boss Tao Qian, Liu Bei pondered for a long time and asked Jian Yong, the only counselor, for his opinion.

Although Liu Bei is the prefect of Liaodong, it is obvious that the Wang family got him the prefect of Liaodong only because of the restrictions of the "Three Mutual Laws", which prevented the Wang family from being the prefect of Liaodong, so Liu Bei, an old acquaintance, was allowed to be the prefect of Liaodong. It is convenient for the Wang family to continue to actually control Liaodong.

Under such a background, Liu Bei naturally did not dare to really run to rule Liaodong. Therefore, after serving as the prefect of Xuquan for a year, his senior brother Gongsun Zan gave him a good job and asked him to go to Pingyuan Kingdom When he was Prime Minister, he helped Gongsun Zan attack Yuan Shao from behind.

It's just that this plain country is extremely difficult to govern.

To the west and north of the Pingyuan Kingdom is the battle zone between Gongsun Zan and Yuan Shao, where the fighting was very fierce. To the south of the Pingyuan Kingdom is Taishan County, where a large number of Yellow Turban thieves have been entrenched all the year round. The east side of the Pingyuan Kingdom is slightly better. Liu Bei and Kong Rong are allies in the North Sea country.

However, the Pingyuan Country has been suffering from wars and turmoil in recent years, and the livelihood of the people has long been withered, especially the farming cattle. There is almost no farming cattle in the entire Plains Country, and the local people can only use people to pull iron plows to plow the fields.

Asked the reason, it turned out that the Liaodong Wang family had been buying farm cattle all year round in various places in Qingzhou, as long as the price was not too outrageous, they wanted as much as they had.

In Qingzhou today, a farm ox is worth [-] fish, and a horse is worth [-] fish.

However, Pingyuan Country is not without advantages, that is, as long as they are willing to cooperate with the Wang family, they will basically not be short of food, and they can eat pickled sea fish every day.

Exchanging population for salted fish of the Wang family is something that all the princes and warlords in Qingzhou are doing. Even Gongsun Zan is secretly exchanging population for salted fish of the Wang family.

Although the Wang family sided with the Yuan family, this did not prevent the Wang family from selling food and weapons to the Yuan family's enemy, Gongsun Zan.

Make money, it's not shabby!
"Qingzhou is not a place to stay for a long time, Fujun, you can just take this opportunity to develop in Xuzhou." Jian Yong planned.

There are too many bigwigs around Qingzhou, the Wang family, the Yuan family, a large number of Yellow Turban Army main forces, and Gongsun Zan of the White Horse Yicong. There is too much pressure to develop in Qingzhou. Jian Yong suggested that Liu Bei go south to Xuzhou to try his luck.

"Hmm..." Liu Bei thought for a while, then nodded and said, "So, let's mobilize all the troops we can and go south to rescue Tao Shijun."

"Move out all the salted fish we have accumulated in the past few months, and transport them all to Xuzhou. We will not return to Qingzhou. Don't stay here to make others cheaper."

"Each soldier is given ten fish to boost their morale."

Liu Bei's total force is 3000 men, including [-] cavalry and [-] infantry.

Leaving the prime minister's mansion, Liu Bei headed for the school grounds. When passing by Fangshi, he saw many soldiers trading bags of salted fish and fish meal.

With the disappearance of the central court by Dong Zhuo, the various local princes also boldly minted their own coins. The coins they minted were all short of weight, deliberately reducing the weight of copper coins, causing bad coins to drive out good coins in the market.

Inflation is also very serious. In the past, a stone of rice cost only two hundred yuan, but now a stone of rice costs tens of thousands of dollars.

Even a sack of copper coins cannot be exchanged for a slap of rations.

In this case, many places stopped using currency and went back to bartering.

However, because the Qingzhou area is close to the Wang family, a large amount of Wang family salted fish is imported.

Over time, some small local vendors simply use salted fish as a general equivalent. If you want to buy my things, you can use your salted fish in exchange.

Copper coins will become useless if they depreciate, but pickled fish is not afraid of depreciation. No matter how depreciated, it can at least be eaten, unlike copper coins, which cannot be eaten.

Gradually, more and more small traders used pickled fish as a general equivalent. Some rich merchants also realized that pickled fish was more valuable than copper coins, so they used pickled fish as currency one after another.

When Liu Bei gave the soldiers salaries, they also gave pickled fish. They could eat the pickled fish themselves, or they could use it as currency in the market to buy things.

Although there is no shortage of food, no one in Pingyuan Country has starved to death, and it has become a rare paradise for big men.

But the corresponding consequence is that there are no cattle, no horses, no artisans, no doctors, and very few scholars, all of which were brought by the local princes to the Wang family for salted fish.

The thousand cavalry in Liu Bei's own hands are almost all the horses in Qingzhou.

(End of this chapter)