However, even if Chu lost two pillars in a row in just one month, this was not the end.
It seems that within the ninth year of Shenwu, God specifically targeted the Chu State.
Not long after, on the tenth day of August in the ninth year of Shenwu, news came from the southwest.
Since the death of Ji Hui, the three vassal states in the southwest and the two barbarian states of Nanzhao and Dali have frequently mobilized troops and horses, and there seems to be some changes.
In the southwest region, war may break out again at any time.
In such critical times, Qianzhong County must have enough troops to guard it, so as to protect Chu's interests there.
So in grief, Lu Yuan could only send Lan Cai'er to be the pacifier of the southwest county and the three countries. With the honor of the queen and the innate position, he replaced the kings to stabilize the southwest and pacify the place for the Chu Kingdom.
Then on the 19th of the same month, news of Ning's military expansion reached Chu.
Faced with the actions of this sworn enemy in Yangzhou, it naturally aroused the vigilance of the entire Chu State.
So after making some arrangements for state affairs, Lu Yuan ordered Sun Siwen, Cui Changqing's son-in-law and the right-hand prime minister of the DPRK, to supervise the administration.
Let this leader, who is now the civil servant of Chu State, integrate the domestic officialdom and smooth the political chaos after Cui Changqing's death.
Considering the other party's identity and status, and his qualifications which are not inferior to Cui Changqing's at all, it doesn't take long for good news to come.
The friendship between the kings and ministers of Chu State, especially between Lu Yuan and Sun Siwen, Zhou Qing, Cui Changqing and others, is definitely far beyond the imagination of outsiders.
They thought that after Chu State experienced successive shocks, it might take several months and half a year for stability.
But in fact, it may only take a month or two to completely stabilize the Chu State.
As for the Northern Expedition of Chu State.
However, when plans have been made long ago, the death of a left prime minister who has long been idle at home and not very involved in state affairs will have minimal impact.
Even on the day Cui Changqing left, the mobilization of troops, horses, food and grass in Chu State was proceeding in an orderly manner.
After more than twenty years, with the efforts of Lu Yuan, Sun Siwen, Cui Changqing and others, the efficient bureaucratic system created is not comparable to those countries that have been established for hundreds of thousands of years and have long been in decay.
This new political system is enough to burst out with brilliance that attracts the attention of the world.
After Lu Yuan made all these arrangements, he mobilized his troops and led his troops to the Baqiu Camp on the border of Chu and Ning, where he inspected defense, practiced troops and horses, and guarded the Chu State.
However, when leading the army to Baqiu, taking advantage of this opportunity to mobilize troops openly, a Chu State forbidden army rode a naval fleet and silently sailed up the river to Xiangyang.
This was hidden in the large-scale mobilization of troops and horses by Chu State, and no one noticed it, including Zhou State.
on the contrary.
After seeing the death of heavyweights one after another in the Chu Kingdom, and the southwest and eastern borders, there were huge turmoil and threats.
Even the right minister of the country and the King of Chu himself were dragged to two places. After learning the news, the only trace of wariness left in the hearts of everyone in the Zhou Dynasty court completely dissipated.
After the Chu State accepted these setbacks one after another, it was once again entangled in such big troubles. At this time, it was not enough to stabilize the country, and it definitely had no spare power to use troops externally.
And Zhou Guo can also completely remove its defenses.
The civilians who were originally preparing to mobilize in Hanzhong County all canceled their mobilization orders at this time.
Now that the state of Zhou is short of food, mobilizing 200,000 people at once, even if it is only temporary, will consume a lot of food and grass.
If you can save a little at this time, it will be good for Zhou Guo.
So just like that, in this grain trade, Zhou State, which should have been on high alert, finally canceled everything completely after news came back from Chu State one after another.
Even seeing the current chaos in the Chu State, many ministers in the Zhou Dynasty were wondering whether they should take advantage of the stability of the southern border to transfer the general of the Nanzhu State from Hanzhong County to Longxi County to deal with the increasing pressure there. The more intense the war.
However, the war in Longxi County was important, but as the southern border of the Zhou Kingdom, Hanzhong County's issues were also extremely important.
So this matter was just an idea that someone put forward, but it was quickly rejected by more people, and it didn't really happen.
Just a glimpse of the leopard.
The fact that such a proposal could appear shows that under the layers of fog in the Chu State, the Zhou State was completely deceived.
Lu Yuan's plan to conceal the truth was a great success under the sudden arrival of the right people and timing.
…
Time passed slowly.
While there was a lot of commotion outside, the surrounding countries all had a fun-loving attitude, watching as the Chu State continued to calm down the successive setbacks.
In the late autumn of September, the various armies that Chu State was going to use for this expedition also arrived in Xichuan and Xiangyang counties one after another as various places mobilized to sell Zhou State's grain and grass.
At this time, there was only one month left before the date when Zhou and Chu would meet for trade.
However, the grain and grass from various parts of Chu State have not yet been fully mobilized. They are mixed in the grain and grass, and the materials needed for the army to fight are not yet fully prepared at this time.
At the same time, Zhou Guo has not yet fully raised the money for the purchase of grain and grass.
Although Zhou was a hegemonic country with eight counties, a territory of 40,000 miles, and a population of 20 million, its annual fiscal revenue was said to be hundreds of millions of taels of silver.
But the state of Zhou had a lot of income and had many places to spend money.
There is a standing army of one million people every year. Even in peacetime, the annual military expenditure is more than 60 million taels of silver.
Nowadays, there is even more war, and it is normal for military pay to increase by 50% or even double.
Therefore, just for standing troops and horses, the current military expenditure of Zhou State is about 90 million taels of silver.
But in addition to standing troops and horses, Zhou also recruited about a million civilians.
Even if these civilians don't need to pay wages, you still have to prepare some weapons and provide them with daily food, right?
Even if we don't have tens of millions of taels of silver to support these millions of people in a year, we can't afford them.
In addition to the expenses of the Zhou Dynasty's court, the expenses of the local government of Zhou, the expenses of the Zhou royal family, and various other additional expenses...
To put it bluntly, Zhou Guo's annual financial expenditure is definitely more than 120 million taels of silver.
Comparing Zhou Guo's annual income of 100 million taels of silver, there is a direct annual deficit of 20 million taels of silver.
certainly.
The specific deficit scale cannot be so rigid, it will definitely fluctuate up and down.
The deficit may be larger in some years and smaller in other years.
But no matter what, Zhou Guo is now spending more than tens of millions of taels of savings every year to subsidize the financial losses every year. This is for sure.
Then here comes the problem.
How many years has the Zhou Kingdom been fighting against the Xueyuan people?
If Lu Yuan remembered correctly, the invasion of the Xueyuan people started with the flood in the summer of the sixth year of Shenwu.
It is now the late autumn of the ninth year of Shenwu. Calculating carefully, this battle has lasted for more than three years.
For more than three years, the annual subsidy was 20 million taels of silver, and at least 60 million taels of silver were taken out of Zhou's treasury.
With such a large amount of expenditure, no matter how strong the foundation of Zhou State is, it cannot withstand such a hemorrhage.
There are so many places where money is used, the three battlefields, the local counties, and the imperial ministries, all of them are crying for money and crying about poverty.
Now Zhou Guo buys 10 million shi of grain. Even if he buys it at the price of six cents per kilogram of rice, it still costs 6.6 million taels of silver based on the silver price at this time.
This amount is almost equal to one-third of Zhou's treasury savings and annual subsidies to the finance.
After more than three years of bloodletting, even with Zhou Guo's background, it was a bit difficult to come up with such a large sum of money in a hurry.
At this time, we had to raise funds from various sources at home, save an amount from various expenses, donate an amount, and then raise an amount from the ministers of the world. During this period, various exchanges of interests and intrigues were indispensable...
After many entanglements, Zhou Guo couldn't come up with so much money for a while.
So just like the Chu State, they took advantage of the March period and slowly prepared money.
As for this matter, Lu Yuan was happy to see it come to fruition.
Because according to the original agreement, the date for the trade of grain between the two countries was on the third day of October this year.
It has been mentioned before.
Today's climate and astronomical phenomena are getting colder every year.
According to the trend of the past two years, by late October, the first snow will fall in Jiangnan.
Hanzhong County is located in the Han River Basin, the junction between the North and Jiangnan. Even because it is blocked by mountains and mountains to the north, the climate is actually close to that of Jiangnan.
Therefore, if the trading time is postponed to October, then by the time Lu Yuan launches a surprise attack, by the time the Zhou people react, it will already be snowing in the North for half a month.
Hanzhong County, which has a Jiangnan climate, has almost received its first snowfall.
When the snow falls heavily and the cold wind blows, the sky and the earth become completely white.
In this cold season, heavy snow has sealed the mountains. Even if the Zhou Dynasty in the north wants to send troops southward and send people to support Hanzhong County, it can no longer be done.
Faced with layers of wind and snow, even if the Zhou people could gather hundreds of thousands of troops, they could only stand on the north side of the mountain, looking at the ice and snow that had blocked the road, and sighing.
In the end, he watched helplessly as Chu State calmly captured Hanzhong County and completely lost this southern territory.
At that time, there will be a buffer for the whole winter. After the Chu State captures Hanzhong County, it can also take this opportunity to calmly deploy its defenses, send men to occupy various checkpoints, and rely on natural and dangerous places to block the enemy from outside the country.
This confrontation lasted for two or three years. No, given the current predicament of the Zhou State, maybe within half a year, the Zhou people would have to give in and admit the Chu State's occupation of Hanzhong.
The Chu State could also accomplish the great gain of defeating the overlord and expanding the territory of a county at a slight cost.
Just perfect.
So with such a big vision ahead, Lu Yuan was naturally happy to delay the time.
Moreover, it would actually be good for the Chu State to start the war later.
In the domestic court, after recent months of rectification, Sun Siwen indeed lived up to Lu Yuan's expectations.
When he was leading troops to inspect the border, good news came from Baling.
After a combination of kindness and power, and with the support of Lu Yuan, Sun Siwen had completely stabilized the court and eliminated the impact of Cui Changqing's death.
Once the court is stabilized and some local government offices are left, it is only a matter of time before they return to stability.
The officialdom of Chu State has finally stabilized its position.
Now that Sun Siwen had completely taken over all the power, he had begun to mobilize various materials from the court and localities according to the original plan, and began to cooperate with Lu Yuan in the conquest of Hanzhong.
The most important things here are food, ordnance, medicine and other supplies.
Without these, in a big battle, one would lose 40% of the battle.
As for money, it is not that important to Chu State.
This time Zhou State raised 6.6 million taels of silver to buy grain. Such a large sum of money was enough to support Chu State in a war.
They are all going to fall out anyway.
At that time, there will be a direct raid, and the grain raised by the Chu State and the silver raised by the Zhou State will be used.
It also saves you the trouble of hard transportation, which is the best of both worlds.
Lu Yuan sometimes thought about it and couldn't help but feel proud of his plan.
…
The Chu State's preparations are becoming more and more complete, and the start date of the Battle of Hanzhong is also approaching.
Amidst the pessimism of the outside world, no one noticed that a war was about to begin because of Lu Yuan's deliberate concealment.
Even many people within the Chu State, including the officials in the court, except for a few people who had contact with specific things, were kept in the dark.
There is a saying in the Book of Changes: If the king is not secretive, his ministers will lose their authority; if their ministers are not secretive, they will lose their virginity; if their affairs are not secretive, they will suffer harm.
Although what Lu Yuan was planning was a military war, the principles were the same. Military secrets must not be leaked lightly.
Everyone knows the importance of intelligence.
After more than twenty years of fighting, he has always attached great importance to confidentiality and made no omissions.
Just when everything was about to be ready, at the end of September, on the snowy plateau, a group of sudden visitors entered Hehehe County, and quickly went down the mountain, crossed Xichuan, and took a boat down to Baling City.
Inside the palace.
After receiving the notification, as soon as these snowy guests arrived in Baling, Lu Yuan, who had just led his army back from the border, approached them.
"A few of you came from the west, traveled thousands of miles, traveled across the snowy plains, and came to Baling to look for orphans. What's the matter?"
After announcing their identities to each other, Lu Yuan asked in a calm tone.
While speaking, he also looked at the five people below.
There are five people below, four men and one woman. They all have braids on their heads and wear leather clothes, looking like grassland herders.
About half a month ago, these five people led a team of 100 people through the rugged trails between River Valley County and the Snowfield, and entered River Valley County.
After arriving at the place, he directly reported his family name and said that he was the four kings of the snow plains on the snow plateau, including the Huyan tribe, the Tieli tribe, the Zhenyan tribe, and the Duosi tribe, as well as the envoy of the Damo sect.
This time I came as an envoy to the Chu State on the orders of the Four Kings and Ling Nu.
The four kings of the Snowfield are all leaders of large tribes on the Snowy Plateau, with more than a million followers. Counting vassals, each king of the Snowfield can influence millions of people in the Snowfield.
The four kings combined can influence the number of Tibetan people who rule, which directly exceeds tens of millions.
As for the Damo Sect, it is the most widespread and oldest sect on the snowy plateau.
More than 99% of the Tibetan people in the entire snowy plain believe in the God of Damo, respecting him as the creator god of the snowy plain, the source of blood of all Tibetan people, and the ancestor of all spirits.
In the Damo Sect, the dual spirit system is implemented.
That is, the spirit master and the spirit daughter.
The spiritual master, the leader of the sect, is responsible for various miscellaneous matters within the sect and dealing with worldly affairs.
The spirit woman is the soul of the sect. She is responsible for worshiping the god Damo. She is dedicated to the Tao. She has nothing but faith and has a respected status.
Nowadays, the four kings of the Snow Plains and the Damo Sect are united, and they can almost represent the entire Snow Plains people. They sent envoys together, which naturally attracted the attention of the Hehe River County officials.
After the local county guard got the news, he almost immediately dispatched a thousand county soldiers to escort the delegation to Xichuan.
After hearing this, Huang Xuan, who was guarding the local area, also invited these envoys to meet him for confirmation and testing.
But these messengers are very strict with their mouths.
When facing Huang Xuan, no matter how many times they were tempted, none of them would let go and reveal their intentions for the mission.
In the end, Huang Xuan had no choice but to inform the main body of the matter through spiritual contact after confirming their identities.
Then they continued to send troops and horses to protect them and rushed to Baling.
This is also the reason why Lu Yuan was originally at the border of Chuning, inspecting defense and training his troops, but now he hurried back to Baling.
Because the identity of the representative behind this mission was really important, symbolizing the entire Xueyuan Tibetan power, he couldn't help but ignore it.
In the main hall.
The five envoys heard Lu Yuan's inquiry and looked at each other. Finally, the female Tibetan in the middle, representing the Damo Sect, stood up.
She bowed slightly to Lu Yuan, and then said: "Dear King Chu, I came here this time because I want to join forces with you to deal with the hateful Zhou people."
"Deal with Zhou people?"
Lu Yuan was not surprised when he heard this. After receiving the news these days, he had already made a guess in his mind about the purpose of these Tibetan envoys, but this time it was just confirmed.
Although he confirmed the other party's intention to come, he just smiled slightly at the other party's request and asked with interest: "I don't know if your envoy has heard that I, Da Chu, have just reached a deal with Zhou Guo and are preparing to sell it to them. Ten million stones of grain.
Nowadays, although Zhou and Chu are not allies, they still have good relations.
Under such circumstances, why would I abandon Zhou Guo and not do good business, but instead help you to deal with this powerful enemy of Zhou Guo? "
The world is prosperous, and everyone is here for profit. The world is full of hustle and bustle, all for the benefit of others.
Although Chu State had already planned and completed preparations, it was about to launch a war against Zhou State.
Even if these Tibetan people don't come, he will still take action against Zhou Guo.
But before taking action, if he can take advantage of the opportunity to extort a sum of money from these Tibetan people, this will undoubtedly be an additional gain for Lu Yuan.
These Tibetan people traveled thousands of miles and traveled across mountains and rivers. They were not so naive as to think that they could persuade the Chu State to send troops with empty words.
They must have a lot of benefits in their hands, and they are confident that they can convince themselves.
Lu Yuan expressed his expectation for this.
He wanted to know what these Tibetan people planned to use to convince him.
Before the war started, it was really an unexpected blessing to have such a windfall.
When Lu Yuan asked this question, the Damo Cult envoy looked solemn and said solemnly: "Gold, silver, elixirs, and women, as long as the King of Chu is willing to join forces with us, we, the Xueyuan people, are willing to offer these treasures."
