Amidst the ice and snow, accompanied by the howling wind and snow, the ten years of Shenwu passed quietly, and the time has come to the eleventh year of Shenwu.
Lu Yuan spent this New Year's Spring Festival in Jiangxia City.
Like many other expeditions in the past, he was unable to return to Baling, nor could he be with his wife, children, and family, and he didn't even have any friends here.
Living in this troubled world, living in this world where disaster is coming, everyone involved in it has no way to be independent.
We can only passively follow the tide of the times, pushing forward wave after wave, striving for a glimmer of hope.
This is no exception even if Lu Yuangui is now the King of Chu and the lord of thousands of miles of mountains and rivers.
Fortunately, since he first cultivated Taiping Taoism and decided to embark on the path of conquering the world, he had been prepared and expected all of the above.
Now fifteen or six years later, most of the years have been spent on the road. Lu Yuan is used to this kind of life and doesn't feel any discomfort anymore.
Besides, he now lives in Jiangxia City.
This city is surrounded by mountains and rivers. Standing on the highest attic, you can overlook the snowy scenery of the Yangtze River and thousands of miles of mountains and rivers at a glance.
Having such a stable residence with beautiful scenery is infinitely better than living in the harsh mountains and water in the wind and snow.
Therefore, he was overjoyed and sympathized with the hard work of the soldiers. During the New Year period, Lu Yuan directly ordered that the military meals should be increased by 50% compared with the fixed New Year meals, and more rewards would be given out, so that the soldiers could have a happy New Year. .
Nowadays, the treasury of the Chu State can be said to be extremely rich after receiving the 100 million taels of silver donated by the Tibetan people.
Although in the past two years, a lot of money and food were spent due to the Hanzhong War and the current Jiangnan War.
However, the Chu State had a strong financial foundation. It originally had 80 million taels of silver saved, and later received another 100 million taels of silver. The treasury's savings amounted to more than 180 million taels of silver.
Two wars only wiped out a fraction of the 80 million taels of silver in the treasury, and there are still 100 million taels of silver in the treasury.
Eighty million taels of silver were spent in two years, which seems like a lot, but compared to Lu Yuan's previous expansion of 230,000 troops, he now mobilized nearly 800,000 troops and recruited an additional million civilians. , in fact, it’s not much.
Moreover, in the past two years, as the Chu army continued to plunder people in Zhou Guohe and Long counties, it has now successively resettled four to five million people in Xichuan. This is also a large amount of expenditure, including the eighty million taels of silver. middle.
Being able to spend this money to accomplish so many things, Lu Yuan thought it was worth it.
However, the cost is so high that with Chu's current savings, it can only last for three years at most.
After three years, the 100 million taels of silver in the treasury will be exhausted, and the Chu State will also be financially bankrupt.
This financial problem was also one of the reasons why Lu Yuan chose to be top-light and heavy-footed at the beginning of the war, distributing the main force in three remote battlefields and executing that risky strategy.
With the Chu State's background, it could not maintain an army of one million for long, which was the reason that prompted him to make this choice.
A war of this scale could only last for five years at most by relying on tinkering.
After more than five years, even if the Chu army is not defeated on the frontal battlefield, it will have to shrink due to a shortage of money and food, abandon many strategic locations, and retreat to the country.
This is almost equal to defeat without defeat.
Something must be admitted.
Although Chu State has risen and become a hegemonic country with a radius of 30,000 miles and a population of tens of millions.
Among the nine states, the limelight has exceeded the Ningguo front line, and it has the charm of the first country in the south of the Yangtze River.
But in terms of its heritage and accumulation, Chu State is really not as good as Ning State, which has been in Taiping for more than ten years. It has a well-established household registration, rich money and food, and almost all the nurturing lands under its rule.
At least Ning Guo dared to propose an army expansion of two million, but now that Lu Yuan has expanded his army to one million, he is still hesitant and hesitant to even mention such an idea.
The wealth gap between the two countries is so disappointing.
It was this desperate gap that made him never think about fighting a war of attrition with Ning Guo or trying to maintain balance.
Because of the strength and consumption, Chu State was no match for Ning State.
A quick battle, relying on the aggressive attack style of the Chu army, quickly defeated the opponent, causing the opponent to be wiped out by Chu before he could mobilize all his forces.
This is the style of the Chu army and the Chu country’s chance of victory.
Fortunately, now all this has been realized.
The possible stalemate situation that might have arisen has been completely broken with the successive victories on the three battlefields in Jiangbei and Lingnan, and is no longer possible.
As for the victory of the two Lingnan armies, Su State, Nanhai State, and even the capital were besieged, and they were destroyed in an instant.
The Lingnan War may be over in the eleventh year of Shenwu.
This made Lu Yuan see the hope of wiping out Jiangdong and unifying Yangzhou within the next three years.
As long as Jiangnan can be unified within three years, then the so-called financial crisis will naturally disappear.
The Chu State, which owns the entire Yangzhou in the south of the Yangtze River, can naturally afford to raise an army of one million, or even the two million troops proposed by Ning State.
There is no need to wait until Jiangnan is unified.
Now, as the two armies from Lingnan swept across various countries, especially after wiping out the Nanhai Kingdom, they continued to break into cities and plunder the manors of powerful families, and the Chu Kingdom had already gained a lot.
When Lu Yuan led the Hezong Alliance to attack the southwestern Yi, the Nanhai Kingdom was engaged in grain trade, but it severely sucked the blood of the Chu, Su, and Song Kingdoms.
In particular, the Su State gave almost all the gold and silver they obtained when attacking the southwestern Yi to the Nanhai State.
These vampires who are speculating on high food prices are making a lot of money, no matter how fat they are.
In addition, after a long period of recuperation, Nanhai Kingdom has not heard of war in its territory for nearly twenty years.
Twenty years of peace have created unparalleled prosperity in Nanhai Kingdom, which is almost comparable to Jiangdong under the rule of Ning Kingdom.
Such a piece of fertile land supported countless wealthy landowners, gentry and gentry.
These people accounted for almost 80% of the wealth of the Nanhai Kingdom, plus 10% of the Yan royal family. As long as they were tortured, the Chu Kingdom would be fattened.
Therefore, since the army entered the South China Sea, the spies from the Imperial City Foreign Affairs Department who were originally stationed there began to jump out one by one according to Lu Yuan's orders.
He took the lead and led the army, according to the list that had been prepared, to attack and plunder various manors and mansions, confiscate homes and exterminate clans, and harvest money and food.
For this reason, when the cold winter came and the land was covered with wind and snow, which was not suitable for attacking the city, Qingyunzi led the main army to surround Nanhai City, and then asked the original troops to attack the soldiers and horses at the border between the eastern part of Nanhai Kingdom and Ning Kingdom. No need to rush back.
Instead, he cooperated with the spies of the Imperial City Division to search for money and food in the local area to raise military expenses for the Chu army.
The head coach of the side army on this road is Li Xiong. This man was a rebel back then. In order to raise military expenses and help himself break through, he directly turned Xichuan County, a wealthy country in Yangzhou that ranked among the top three, into the bottom. Poor county.
It can be seen that this person's ability to squeeze money is at its peak.
Although there are restrictions from the Chu State now, it is impossible for Li Xiong to kill the chicken to obtain the eggs and destroy Nanhai County.
But even so, I think that with him here, the wealthy gentry of the South China Sea, who have become more and more disgraceful in recent years, and the wealthy businessmen from all over the world can understand what it means to have reincarnation in the way of heaven, and who will be spared by heaven.
Everything they have eaten over the years has to be vomited out, and they have to take their own share with them, so that they can count their capital and profits.
Lu Yuan has left this matter to Qing Yunzi. I believe that this clone who can understand his own thoughts will not disappoint.
And that's pretty much the case.
Now it is only the preliminary torture and plundering of various prefectures and counties in the South China Sea, but the soldiers and horses led by Li Xiong have already plundered more than 30 million taels of silver.
With further digging, the amount of silver is expected to rise to 60 to 70 million taels.
The above are not the limits.
Because of the huge wealth of Nanhai Kingdom, a large number of top ministers and nobles took their family savings and fled to Nanhai City, the safest place, long before the war began.
If one could break through Nanhai City and rob the families of these nobles, as well as the Nanhai treasury and the royal family's savings, the expected harvest would be no less than that of the local prefectures and counties.
That is to say.
As long as the Nanhai Kingdom can be successfully robbed, the Chu Kingdom will be able to earn at least 100 million taels of silver, in order to obtain a large amount of manpower and material resources, as well as a grain-producing land.
If we capture this place, even if we continue to consume it on the current scale of the war, Chu will be able to survive for another three years.
The wealth of the South China Sea is evident from this.
However, compared to the wealthy Nanhai Kingdom, the Soviet Union, which has been going through wars and turmoil in recent years, is extremely poor.
There were originally only a million people in the country, and the land was sparse and poor.
Now after a war, the population has suffered serious losses, falling directly below one million.
With its brutal and militaristic methods of oppression, the local people, even those powerful families, were all reduced to poverty and could not squeeze out any money.
Therefore, after conquering this place, Lan Cai'er's gains along the way, apart from territory and population, were not much.
This battle was basically a loss.
Fortunately, apart from the Su Kingdom, the Song Kingdom has been managed well by Xie Ning in recent years. It not only has a prosperous population, but also has sufficient money and food savings.
If we can capture the two counties in this country, it should be enough to make up for the money and food consumed by Lan Caier's army in sending troops.
However, if you want to attack the Song Dynasty, you must first break through Yulin City and destroy the Su Kingdom.
But now the world is extremely cold, and even Lingnan has been snowing heavily. The army has difficulty moving. No matter how eager it is, it can only huddle in the camp built outside the city and besiege the city shivering with cold.
Only those selected teams with strong martial arts skills, specially used to attack manors and loot money and food, can walk in this cold winter without fear of wind and snow.
When the entire Northern Kingdom fell into silence, the land of Lingnan, located in the south of the world, became more noisy and bloody.
And in this calm, yet somewhat turbulent atmosphere, time quickly came to the beginning of February of the 11th year of Shenwu.
…
"Hahaha……"
On this day, in a manor and residential area halfway up the mountain in Jiangxia City, a burst of hearty laughter spread instantly.
Such a big movement naturally quickly attracted people's attention.
Even because the manor area here is specially provided for the residence of the generals of the Chu Kingdom who came with the army, there are also special sergeants patrolling and guarding it.
At this time, the sergeants heard the noise and quickly came to the source of the sound under the leadership of the patrol captain.
"This is General Wei's residence."
"General Wei, is he laughing?"
"What happened here? Is General Wei still okay?"
The patrolling soldiers came to the door and asked the general guard's soldiers guarding the mansion. As a result, both sides were confused for a while, and they obviously didn't know the cause of the matter.
However, looking at the cheerful look of General Wei's smile, everyone was certain that General Wei who made this noise must have encountered something good, not trouble.
In this case, facing the top ten generals of Chu State, the soldiers did not dare to disturb him. They said a few words to each other and prepared to leave.
Fortunately, when they started to disperse, the laughter in the mansion had stopped and did not continue to disturb the people.
This made many patrol soldiers feel relieved.
No matter what, it's a good thing that my responsibilities are not affected.
While they were relaxing, many people couldn't help but be curious about why General Wei was laughing.
With a person as high and powerful as General Wei, what else in the world could make him lose his temper like this?
For a time, various thoughts appeared in people's minds, but everyone wisely did not speak out and openly discussed the general's privacy.
Instead, I chose to guess in my heart, which is a little fun.
What everyone didn't know was that General Wei, who they had a lot of suspicions about at this time, had already left his mansion and was no longer in the house when the laughter disappeared.
"General Wei Chu Wei, please see the king."
After Chu Wei left the mansion, he went all the way to the top of the mountain, and then outside the gate of a requisitioned Taoist temple, he informed a eunuch stationed outside of his purpose.
Soon, he was led in and came to the quiet backyard house.
"Disciple has met Master."
After entering the room, the chamberlain retreated, leaving only Chu Wei and Lu Yuan, whom he had requested to see.
Seeing this, Chu Wei knelt down directly, prostrated and said, "I have lived up to Master's earnest teachings and practiced for a year. Today I finally broke through to the innate realm. I will never forget Master's kindness."
Lu Yuan was practicing calligraphy at this time.
This is a little hobby that he awakened during the war in the past year. It can cultivate his sentiments, calm his mind, and help him think better. It can be regarded as a little hobby.
After slowly writing the word "Tao", he put down the brush and looked at Chu Wei who was kneeling on the ground, with a smile on his face: "There is no need to be so polite. Get up quickly and let me take a good look at you."
"yes."
Chu Wei responded and then stood up.
Lu Yuan looked at his disciple, looking up and down, looking at the other person's true intentions that had not yet been fully contained due to his recent breakthrough, as well as the occasional external phenomena that were leaked out, and couldn't help but nod with satisfaction.
"Not bad."
Lu Yuan praised twice in succession and said, "My teacher is indeed right. Among the many disciples under my sect, you are second only to Xiao Qing. It has only been a short time since you stabbed the elixir, and you have already achieved your innate breakthrough."
Calculate carefully, it has only been one year since I called you five brothers together, right?
Breaking through Xiantian in one year is faster than Xiao Qing. "
When Zhou Qing broke through Xiantian, it took him nearly a year and a half to break through Xiantian. It took a long time.
However, when Lu Yuan trained Zhou Qing, Zhou Qing was still young after all, only in his early thirties. Regardless of his character or cultivation accumulation, he was far inferior to Chu Wei and others at that time.
Moreover, at that time, Lu Yuan was busy conquering the southwestern barbarians and had no time to give advice and guidance like he taught Chu Wei every day.
Therefore, it is understandable that Zhou Qing's breakthrough speed is a bit slow.
"Disciples dare not compare with senior brother."
Chu Wei also knew Zhou Qing's position in Lu Yuan's heart, and had never thought of replacing him with this senior brother, so he humbly said: "Senior brother is extremely talented. He can break through the innate talent by himself alone." .
Disciples rely on Master's daily advice, so they can be lucky enough to be happy, but they really dare not take credit for themselves. "
When Lu Yuan heard this, he couldn't help but smile: "That's all, that's all. Now that you have broken through the innate world, from now on, you will be a first-rate martial arts master. Not only can you master the martial arts, but you can also defeat thousands of armies.
Even one's own lifespan can be doubled as that of ordinary people, extending to one hundred and fifty years.
It's so magical that it can be said that it is a land fairy.
You are my disciple and the pillar of Great Chu. In the future, when I, Great Chu, compete with the world, I will have to rely on you. "
Lu Yuan said meaningfully and expectantly.
Compared to outsiders such as Feishuang Dao's Three Cold God Generals, Chu Wei and other disciples who were trained by himself and had the status of master and apprentice were naturally more valued by him.
Between the two, they are also their own people.
Now with Chu Wei's innate discipleship, Lu Yuan finally has one more disciple besides his clones and harem group that he can rely on in the future.
It can be said that the strength is getting stronger day by day, which is naturally worth looking forward to.
Chu Wei was also very sensible, or in other words, he was very grateful to his master who personally helped him with his innate ability. He immediately expressed his position: "This disciple will live up to the expectations of his master. In the future, he will definitely fight for Chu in the north and south, across the rivers and seas, and Thank you Master for your kindness."
Lu Yuan nodded, then took out a letter of appointment from the side of the desk and passed it on with a wave of his hand: "Ning Ren has been moving a lot recently, and it seems that they are imitating the previous sneak attack on Changsha Mansion, and intending to divide the army to attack Dongting.
Luyang Prefecture has no innate guard so far. It can be said that it is the most empty and weak place among all the prefectures east of Dongting.
Since you are already gifted, you can be entrusted with a great responsibility.
This is an appointment to mobilize troops. From now on, you will be the garrison of Luyang and command one hundred thousand troops there.
I hope that I can live up to the entrustment of Wei Guzhi and protect this important land in southern Xinjiang for our great Chu. "
These days, with the beginning of spring, the wind and snow are getting thinner.
Ning Jun, who had been silent all winter, became more and more active.
The spies of the Imperial City Department of Chu State even inquired about the movements of the 100,000 troops left behind in the Pengli camp of Ning State.
Based on the information on material mobilization in various places in Yuzhang, it was deduced that the Ning army planned to divide its troops and attack Luyang and Hengyang prefectures.
So after receiving the news, as early as ten days ago, Lu Yuan asked the spirit girl to leave early and rush to Hengyang Mansion to guard it.
Now that Chu Wei is here again, the last line of defense in Luyang Mansion is finally complete.
"Yes, I obey."
When it came to military and state affairs, Chu Wei also changed his title and respectfully accepted orders.
"Go. You have just broken through and your cultivation is not yet stable. You can rest in the city for two days to stabilize your cultivation, and then it is not too late to rush back."
Lu Yuan waved his hand and asked people to leave, and continued to practice calligraphy.
Chu Wei bowed again, then quietly exited the room and left the Taoist temple where the master lived.
After coming out, looking at the majestic heaven and earth, the majestic mountains and rivers, I couldn't help but feel a sense of pride in my heart.
"From today on, I am also a master figure."
He muttered to himself, smiled, and walked towards the mansion down the mountain.
