When the army entered Wuwei County in triumph, Cao Cao, the governor of Wuwei County, went out fifty miles from the city to greet the army.
When Liu Bei saw Cao Cao, he no longer rode on a tall horse to show off as before. He jumped off the horse, patted Cao Cao on the shoulder, and was very friendly to him.
"The other prefects are all thirty miles out of the city. Why are you here fifty miles out of the city to greet me?"
"They are them, and I am me. If I don't do this, I can't express my inner respect for you!"
Cao Cao smiled, then straightened his robes and bowed.
"My subordinate, Cao Cao, the governor of Wuwei County, respectfully welcomes you on your triumphal return!"
Liu Bei nodded and reached out to help Cao Cao up.
"This battle is not dangerous. I am deeply aware of the strength of those barbarians. It is just because the Han Dynasty is in constant internal strife and has no time to look north, so the barbarians are rampant and continue to invade the south. Given time, I will send my army to the north to wipe out the barbarians on the grassland. The barbarians sealed the wolf in Xu, and restrained the stone Yanran, so that the northern frontier of the Han Dynasty would no longer have worries!"
"This is the great achievement of General Wei, Huo Qiaoqi and others!"
Cao Cao looked at Liu Bei with admiration: "If Xuande can achieve such great achievements, every household in the three states of Youbinliang will definitely build a shrine to Xuande, and Xuande will definitely leave his name in history!"
"This is exactly what I'm after!"
As Liu Bei spoke, he took Cao Cao's hand with a smile and immediately walked with him into Wuwei County to drink and have fun together to show their closeness.
During the banquet, Cao Cao was very envious when he saw the heroic Liu Bei. Thinking of Liu Bei's heroic ambition to wipe out the barbarians on the grassland, Cao Cao couldn't help but yearn for him.
The governance of a county and a state can certainly promote culture and education, highlight ambitions, stabilize people's livelihood, and win the respect of all people, but can we also achieve such goals by leading troops on the battlefield, winning decisive victories outside the territory, and promoting the power of the Han Dynasty to the enemy's territory? ?
Cao Cao couldn't help but often thought about himself as a general leading an army on the battlefield.
On the eighth day of July, Liu Bei successfully returned to Hebei County. Officials of the Hebei County Prefecture and Hanyang County followed Cao Cao's example, and under the leadership of Yan Zhong, left the city fifty miles one day in advance to greet Liu Bei.
When meeting Liu Bei, Yan Zhong highly praised Liu Bei's achievements, and all the officials saluted Liu Bei to show their respect.
"Congratulations on your triumphal return!"
They saluted and shouted collectively. Liu Bei enjoyed this kind of respect.
Liu Bei accepted it calmly, shook hands with everyone, and then enjoyed barbecue with everyone, and then returned to Hebei County together.
The benefits this battle brought to the entire Liangzhou were really great.
In less than two months, Liu Bei brought Liangzhou more than 1.7 million cattle, sheep, and horses, a Xianbei population of about 260,000, as well as a huge amount of gold, silver, copper, pearls, and jade, and countless more. Bone products, fur products, these are wealth.
An ordinary person would have been so happy that he couldn't even speak.
However, the Liangzhou officials trained by Liu Bei were all professional. After receiving the news, under the leadership of the ecstatic Yan Zhong, everyone immediately began to discuss how to digest this huge wealth.
First of all, of course, there is a wave of rewards, for soldiers, officers, and officials who perform logistics work. These all need rewards. Everyone has worked hard on the logistics front for the progress of this war. According to Liu Bei's regulations, generous rewards are natural. It should be.
Rewarding money, rewards, and distributing part of the captured trophies to those who participated in the war and made contributions is what Liu Bei has always done.
After all the rewards are taken into account, the remaining net income is still very large.
More than one million livestock can not only fill the vacancies in the livestock farms controlled by the state government, but a horse herd of more than 200,000 can also greatly increase the number of horses controlled by the Liangzhou state government.
At this point, Ji Jian is the happiest.
Not every horse can become a war horse, and war horses are also at the elite level among the horses, so he has always been worried that there are not enough horses to breed more war horses, so that the Liangzhou Army does not have enough war horses to use.
That was a dereliction of duty on his part.
I feel relieved now.
In addition to the horses, the remaining livestock can be used for grazing and multiplication, can also be used for banquets, and can also be sold to provide enough meat for the army, and some can even be put into the Liangzhou market.
Anyway, it has many uses.
As long as management keeps up, it's all about money.
According to Liu Bei's order, after recording the points of valuables such as gold, silver, copper, pearls and jade, the most precious and valuable ones were selected to be presented to the emperor, and a slightly inferior batch were selected to be presented to him. Elderly friends in the capital exchange feelings.
All the rest will be transferred to the state government’s public account and used for subsequent construction expenditures.
As for those grassland specialties, Liu Bei planned to select some of high value to present to Liu Hong, select another batch to give as gifts, and put the rest into public accounts for official expenses.
No matter what you do, don't forget to give gifts. No matter whether it is to please someone or to thank someone, this expenditure is necessary for a local military and political chief like him.
Finally, there are the 260,000 Xianbei people who are the most troublesome to deal with.
But although it is troublesome, it is not difficult to deal with it.
Nomadic tribes generally have the custom of valuing the strong and devaluing the old, and the average life expectancy is low. The so-called old people are actually a group of people who are running up to the age of forty. There are very few people who actually live to the age of fifty or sixty.
So in Liu Bei's eyes, they are all strong laborers.
Since it is a strong labor force, how can we not use it?
Liu Bei decided to treat them differently.
He considered that after a long period of war in Liangzhou, many families were broken up, and there were also many single young men.
Especially among soldiers in the army, there are many people who cannot marry wives due to various reasons.
So he decided to select the women of the right age among this group of Xianbei people and assign them to single young men in Liangzhou, but their status was not as wives, but as concubines. The young men could still marry Han women as their wives in the future.
This article is just to enable them to have children as soon as possible and increase the population of Liangzhou.
If you are a high-quality human male with strong fertility and the ability to have children, and if your family's financial situation is acceptable, you can apply to the Liangzhou government to obtain a Xianbei woman of the right age, even if you already have a wife.
As for all the remaining Xianbei prisoners of war, they were all registered as slaves under the control of the Liangzhou government, making them official slaves under the control of the Liangzhou government. They were used to engage in various heavy manual labor assigned by the government, such as various construction work. All kinds of mining work, and all kinds of excavation and filling work, etc.
The Liangzhou government will have a large number of water conservancy projects, road construction projects and city renovation projects to be carried out in the future. Previously, they had to negotiate due to lack of manpower.
Now that there are hundreds of thousands more strong laborers at once, and there is no need to pay them, these big projects must be planned and started immediately.
In this way, the burden on the people of Liangzhou can be effectively reduced. If there are more official slaves like this, the corvee that the people of Liangzhou need to bear will be less or even nonexistent, and they can produce with peace of mind.
Officials strongly support this.
Under the political reforms promoted by Liu Bei, the recovery of agricultural production is an important indicator for the assessment of administrative officials. If there are too many workers, what will happen to agricultural production?
Now that there are a large number of strong laborers sharing responsibilities with the people of Liangzhou, agricultural production can be considered safe. Farmers can continue agricultural production without worrying about being diverted from too much labor.
After the war, things were almost settled, and Liu Bei began to reward his subordinates who had made contributions to this battle.
Although the formal reward still needs to be reported to the court for approval, it is just a formality.
Liu Bei decided here how everyone would be promoted, and the court only had one more procedure.
What the imperial court can really bring to everyone is mainly the increase in titles, the increase in food estates, and a sense of glory.
As for material rewards, Liu Bei will also give them one, so that they can get two rewards.
Of course, for them, the most important thing is the military awards that Liu Bei can decide.
Liu Bei has the final say in Liangzhou's military affairs, and the army is under Liu Bei's strict control. Promotions in the army are decided by Liu Bei, and the Luoyang court basically does not participate in this process.
The promotion and derogation of military positions that really determine the level of power are all decided by Liu Bei.
PS: I ate some delicious mushroom and vegetable buns this morning. They were very fragrant, so I’ll add another chapter.
