He originally intended to surrender to Wei, so why did he end up restoring Han?

After finishing her discussions with Mi Zhu, Lu Wan rushed to Liu Bei's residence without even having time to rest.

At this time, Liu Bei was also overwhelmed by documents, scratching his head and dealing with official papers. Xuzhou was currently launching a series of projects, including land reclamation, papermaking, commerce, and military reorganization. Officials of all ranks in Xuzhou were working non-stop.

In the past, there might only be one matter that required these people's attention every few days. Back then, officials would read books, drink tea, and wait to go home after get off work. Now, they are so busy that they don't even have time to rest. The number of documents they have to process each day is so many that they have to count them in cartloads.

Take Chen Qun as an example. Ever since he reconciled with Liu Bei, he's been incredibly energetic, practically sleeping in his office every day. Moreover, because Chen Qun was in charge of the supporting legislation for policies, he had all the relevant books passed down from the pre-Qin period collected, allocating a portion to each subordinate as reference for the legislation, while he himself was responsible for reviewing them.

Furthermore, to prevent people from being passive in their work, Chen Qun ordered everyone to be assigned a number, and the letters were also numbered accordingly. If anyone was perfunctory and handed in something utterly nonsensical, they would inevitably be scolded by Chen Qun.

Chen Qun didn't always exploit his employees. Every day, he would spend money to have various kinds of meat delivered to his subordinates to increase their nutrition. If they were unwell, Chen Qun would grant them leave to rest and then help them with their work.

Over time, Chen Qun's subordinates developed a mixture of respect and fear towards him.

Gradually, everyone in Xuzhou adapted to this work rhythm, and the city began to recover its vitality at a visible pace. However, along with the increase in efficiency, the quality of officials at all levels was declining rapidly.

This doesn't mean that the recruitment standards were lowered due to a shortage of officials. Everyone now understands that Liu Bei is indeed capable of securing Xuzhou, and local powerful families have entrusted their most capable members to him. Rather, it means that officials at all levels are becoming irritable, restless, and more aggressive under immense work pressure.

Imagine this: you have so much work to do every day, and the price of all that hard work is that even more work will be assigned to you the next day. You have to take turns eating with others, and sometimes the food gets cold if you arrive late. When you return to your seat, exhausted, you find that the calligraphy brush you always use has been borrowed by someone and hasn't been returned.

Everyone in Xuzhou now has the temper of Zhang Fei, but this has also brought some unexpected benefits. The people of Xuzhou are very sensitive to changes in their superiors, and the officials who were previously in charge of civil litigation, after receiving instructions from Liu Bei, are now trying their best to make fair judgments.

This did improve the atmosphere among the people of Xuzhou, but it also led to a large number of trivial cases. People made a huge fuss over trivial matters, and some even reported someone to the authorities because their chicken ran to their doorstep and ate a few grass seeds.

Undoubtedly, such a large number of cases not only wore down the officials who were handling the cases, but also prevented those who truly needed legal assistance from receiving timely legal aid. To put it simply, the people of Xuzhou launched a DDoS attack against the officials of Xuzhou.

Lower-level officials were already tired of doing these useless chores, and now the rapidly increasing workload had finally snapped them.

In similar cases, these officials would deal with them severely. The specific economic disputes might only involve a few coins, but the officials would fine the defendant half a string of coins. The people who were just bored would become timid and dare not report the case to the authorities again once they saw that their superiors were going to take such drastic measures.

Getting back to the main point, seeing someone arrive, Liu Bei quickly sat up straight.

"Wen Yuan, what's the matter that's so urgent? Come, come, have some water and rest." Liu Bei hurriedly called out to Lu Wan, seeing her exhausted appearance.

Lu Wan took a few sips of her drink, and then reported all the contents of her discussion with Mi Zhu to Liu Bei, which drew a sidelong glance from Liu Bei.

This agreement is far too idealistic. The Mi family is providing Liu Bei with a large sum of money, sending a caravan to handle the transportation, and only taking 10% of the profits. This is not just getting a bargain; it's a multi-million dollar subsidy for Mi Duoduo!

At this point, Liu Bei's admiration for Lu Wan was like a surging river, never-ending. In his view, Lu Wan was not only capable of devising strategies, but also of presiding over negotiations.

Is such a versatile talent something I, Liu Bei, can possess?

But that's not all. Lu Wan also made an agreement with Mi Zhu that the Mi family's fleet would help Xuzhou purchase grain, but the specific route needed to be confirmed.

There are currently three options. Going north, one could purchase grain from Yuan Shao and Yuan Tan, but the downside is that Yuan Shao is still locked in a fierce battle with Gongsun Zan and can't provide much grain. Yuan Tan has just occupied Qingzhou and is also short of supplies.

You could also go west to buy grain from Liu Biao, but that would involve passing through a stretch of water controlled by Liu Xun. Given the relationship between Liu Bei and Liu Xun, you couldn't say they were brothers; they were at least sworn enemies.

Another option to the south was Wang Lang of Kuaiji, but this trade route also had its problems. Sun Ce was now almost completely controlling Jiangdong, and in August Wang Lang was attacked by Sun Ce, losing the battles of Guling and Shanyin in succession. While fleeing to Dongye, he was pursued and surrendered, but the news had not yet reached Xuzhou.

Even without relying on Lu Wan's knowledge of later history, Liu Bei would not have chosen Wang Lang as a trading partner. The risk was too high. Even if Sun Ce did not cause trouble along the way, Wang Lang might not be enough, and he might even have to ask him for food.

After much deliberation, only doing business with Yuan Shao and Yuan Tan could sustain this business.

After discussing the food issue, Lu Wan handed over the prepared schematic diagram of the new salt fields to Liu Bei.

During the Han Dynasty, seawater salt production involved single salt ponds. The only advantage of these salt ponds was their simple structure, as they could be dug easily. However, they had many disadvantages.

First, the production efficiency is low. It takes as long as fifteen to twenty days, or half a month, for a pool of seawater to be saturated into a solution from which salt crystals can precipitate. Moreover, the salt pools must be emptied and seawater must be introduced again when the salt is harvested, which results in only six to eight batches of salt being produced each year.

Another challenge lies in using a single salt pan, which means doing all the processes in one place, like washing vegetables, stir-frying vegetables, cooking rice in one pot, and then using it as a basin to wash dishes.

Sediment deposited in seawater mixes with crystallized salt, resulting in a typical impurity content of about 10% to 15% in the produced salt. Sulfates such as calcium and magnesium also crystallize simultaneously with the salt, causing the sea salt to taste bitter. In addition, the brine becomes stagnant water after a long period of stagnation, allowing algae and halophilic bacteria to grow, causing the sea salt to turn red and smell foul.

The biggest problem is that this job is completely dependent on the weather. It needs to be sunny for at least ten days. If it suddenly rains, half a month's work is essentially wasted.

This is why sea salt has always been unpopular; only poor people would eat it, while those with a little wealth would eat well salt from Yizhou.

All those gleaming copper coins ended up in Liu Yan's pocket in Yizhou—it's utterly a sin!

Lu Wan designed a multi-stage evaporation pool system without involving any groundbreaking scientific advancements.