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

Lu Wan has also had a lot of work to do lately, as he is compiling textbooks for training accountants.

The most important thing in playing the financial game is to have a strong sense of numbers and calculation ability. Nowadays, only those from wealthy families have this ability. After all, compared to the super popular works of Confucian classics, mathematics is a very niche subject that most people would not study.

Lu Wan wasn't worried about these people falsifying accounts, because during the selection process, she discovered that many of them lacked proper skills. If an accountant couldn't even keep accurate accounts, they were even less likely to falsify them; they could only produce bad or shoddy accounts.

Since there were no readily available financial professionals, Lu Wan had no choice but to temporarily fill in these positions, as their abilities could be gradually cultivated through practice.

Liu Bei had been enjoying himself outside for a while, but Lu Wan eventually pulled him back.

Not only for the talent development plan, but also for the issuance of national debt, this top leader needs to be brought over. Furthermore, Lu Wan also plans to instill this knowledge into Liu Bei's mind as simply as possible, because being a leader means knowing a little about everything, otherwise one is easily deceived.

Take the tax vouchers mentioned earlier as an example. If Liu Bei didn't understand these things and just issued a huge amount of them, then Xuzhou would have to go into a state of war to plunder in order to fill the hole. Otherwise, there would be plenty of people in Xuzhou who would want to revolt.

For Liu Bei's regime, national debt was an indispensable financial product and the cornerstone of the entire financial system.

Any regime that wants to accomplish something will inevitably need money. The old trick is to collect taxes. Want to build roads? Want to manage rivers? Sure, save up the money slowly. But by the time they've saved enough, the emperor might have already changed. The whole country is very conservative economically, only doing what it can afford.

Then government bonds came into being. Initially, government bonds were a stopgap measure, invented to cope with the shortage of funds during wartime. Later, it was found that this thing was really useful for macro-control, so it was retained.

The primary goal of a regime is to carry out infrastructure development and ensure people's livelihoods, creating a safe and stable environment for the general public. Later states have offered two solutions for this: one is to issue national debt. Now, if infrastructure projects are needed, such as road construction, the relevant departments will release a certain amount of national debt for sale.

The wealthy bought government bonds. Although they had less money and could no longer buy things as freely as before, they were able to enjoy long-term benefits. With money, the rulers would start to promote the implementation of projects.

The construction workers received their payments and began work. During construction, because they were paid, they could spend more freely, buying nice things to eat. This increased food consumption, causing food prices to rise.

Meanwhile, the construction team uses tools and building materials during the project, and because these resources are being consumed in smaller quantities, their prices have increased. However, the project will eventually be completed. Once the project is finished, food consumption will be lower, and tools and building materials will no longer be needed. At that point, the prices of these items will gradually return to their previous levels.

Moreover, as infrastructure improves and people's living standards rise, they are more willing to have more children, which increases national tax revenue, creating a virtuous cycle.

Another simple way is to just print money and paper!

They printed a lot of money and used it to pay workers' wages. The workers continued to buy good food as usual, causing food prices to rise. The consumption of tools and building materials also increased in price. Manufacturing tools and building materials requires raw materials, so suppliers of those raw materials also raised their prices.

Then the farmer came here, wanting to buy some farm tools to work with, only to find that the prices of everything in the market had gone up. Although the tools had become more expensive, the farmer still had to buy them; he couldn't very well dig holes with his bare hands. In order to balance his expenses, he had no choice but to raise the price of grain again.

Then food became more expensive, and other people spent more money on food, so they also had to raise the prices of what they provided.

And just like that, without creating any new value, everything became more expensive, and the person who issued the currency also lost their horse.

Do you see the difference between the two? The difference lies in the amount of money injected into the market. Government bonds are eventually withdrawn, making the currency more stable. Excessive money printing, on the other hand, can lead to hyperinflation, and in severe cases, even cause people to disregard the value of money and resort to bartering.

After listening to Lu Wan's explanation, Liu Bei was momentarily confused: "The more money you have, the more things you can buy. The more things you buy, the higher the prices will go. The higher the prices, the fewer things you can buy. Buying less is equivalent to having less money. So, the more money you have, the less money you actually have?"

"That's not entirely true. In the long run, price levels will adjust themselves to match the levels of money demand and money supply. So as long as no more money is injected into the market, prices will gradually stabilize." Lu Wan shook her head and added:

"By the way, my lord, having more national debt isn't necessarily a good thing. If we can't repay it one day, all industries will collapse."

Government bonds are essentially IOUs issued by the government. If a country can't even repay these, it indicates a serious problem. The majority of those who subscribe to government bonds are banks and corporations. Offending these entities essentially cripples the country's financial system, forcing it to be rebuilt from scratch.

"It seems that finance is too dangerous. Maybe we should just give up." Liu Bei was genuinely worried. What if things went wrong?

Lu Wan understood that it was normal not to trust someone you had never seen before. He earnestly explained to Liu Bei, "My lord, farming little by little is too slow. Everyone is farming to accumulate strength. If we don't speed things up, the longer we farm, the bigger the gap will become with others."

This is like playing a game where both you and someone else recover 10% of your health each time, but the other person has a longer health bar and recovers more, so the longer the game drags on, the more pressure you face in the later stages.

Liu Bei understood and said helplessly, "It seems that even knowing this is a very risky plan, we have to bite the bullet and do it."

"Of course, my lord, and when we promote the 'Jian'an Tax Bonds' and national bonds, we must also expedite the formulation of relevant laws. At the very least, violating basic rules is unacceptable!" Lu Wan knew how terrifying a market without control could be, so she suggested this to Liu Bei.

"...I didn't even know that business had rules." Liu Bei had seen too many unscrupulous merchants during his travels. These guys were lawless and had a very peculiar attitude towards the law. When others committed crimes, they would argue, "I didn't know it was illegal." But these people would say, "I know I broke the law, but I'm not afraid."