For the Chu State, gathering the Tibetan tribes was nothing more than a casual matter.
There are only 1.3 million Tibetan people, and their household registration is less than that of a county in Dachu. It is not easy to resettle them.
It is now the twenty-fifth year of Shenwu, and a full thirteen years have passed since Lu Yuan unified Yangzhou and proclaimed himself emperor.
Thirteen years of peace have allowed the Chu State to completely get rid of the influence of the original troubled times. Not only are household registrations flourishing, but also money and food are abundant.
With the deepening of local development, countless products and commodities have emerged one after another.
According to the latest statistics from the Ministry of Household Affairs, as of this autumn, the registered population in the ten counties under the direct jurisdiction of Chu State has exceeded 45 million.
Among them, Xichuan County has 4 million people, Hanzhong County has 4 million people, Hehe County has 1.1 million people, Qianzhong County has 1.6 million people, Xiangyang County has 6 million people, Dongting County has 7 million people, and Henan County has 4 million people. There are 8 million people in Zhang County, 6 million people in Linhai County, 4 million people in Guangling County, and 2.6 million people in Jian'an County.
It can be seen from these figures alone that in the past ten years or so, the population of those counties and counties in the northern border of Chu State near Zhongzhou has basically increased by leaps and bounds.
The population of Dongting and Hanzhong counties doubled, and that of Xiangyang County tripled. The populations of other counties such as Xichuan, Yuzhang, Linhai, and Guangling also increased by more than one million each.
The reason why the population can increase so much is naturally attributed to the unswerving immigration project of Chu State over the past ten years.
The four counties of Jiuzhen, Tonghai, Yulin, and Nanhai in the south of Lingnan were abolished, and the Chu State moved six million people to the counties in the north along the Yangtze River.
After conquering the Xiliang Kingdom, they moved three million people to the counties along the Yangtze River.
During this period, the Tibetan people moved in and moved more than 1.3 million people.
The total number of people migrating from various places alone exceeds 10 million.
Coupled with more than ten years of recuperation and recuperation, people are gathering together, and various counties and counties have also experienced a population explosion.
Therefore, after the unification of Yangzhou, in the past thirteen years, the Chu State's household registration increased by nearly 10 million people.
Therefore, compared with the Chu State's population of more than 45 million, the Tibetan people with only a million people are really not many.
If these people break it down and spread it to various prefectures and counties in Chu State, they won't even be able to make waves, and it will be digested in less than ten years.
As for the money and food needed to support these immigrants, after the counties along the river were fully developed, the potential of grain-producing areas such as Xichuan, Jianghan, Dongting, and Pengli was fully unleashed.
Nowadays, there are more than 500 million acres of fertile farmland cultivated in Chu State, and the annual grain output is as high as 400 million shi. Based on the current average person needing to eat five shi of grain a year, Chu State's annual grain production is enough to feed 80 million people.
Even though the army used to consume a lot of rations and support all kinds of livestock and war horses, Chu State's excess food can still feed 70 million people.
At present, Chu State only has 45 million people, and the food rations are more than 25 million people.
Not to mention supporting more than a million immigrants, even if there are tens of millions more, Chu State can also afford it.
In fact, with the in-depth development of major grain-producing plains and the sharp increase in grain output in Chu State every year, all the granaries built in various places are full.
In order to deal with the excess grain, Lu Yuan first ordered each county to build Changping warehouses. Each warehouse could store five million dan of grain, but within two years they were all full.
Then he ordered the construction of Changping warehouses at the prefectural level, each of which could store millions of dan of grain. However, they were all full within a few years.
Later, county-level Changping granaries were built, each storing 200,000 dan of grain. As a result, these county-level granaries were also full in the past few years.
The three-level Changpingcang in Chu's prefectures and counties has so far stocked up to 350 million shi, which is enough to supply the tens of millions of troops for a three-year campaign.
But even so, there is still a large amount of newly harvested grain that cannot be digested every year.
In Changping warehouses in various places, the old grain stored in the warehouse is often piled up to rot outside the warehouse before the old grain is finished.
In the past two years, in order to solve the problem of excess grain production, Lu Yuan even had to take the initiative to send envoys to Wei and Liang to discuss the launch of grain trade with them.
Yes, it is the two countries Wei and Liang, and the Zhou Kingdom no longer exists.
After the continuous invasions and attacks by the Wei State and the year-round harassment by the Chu State in the southern border area, the Zhou State was finally overwhelmed by the war that lasted for nearly twenty years.
After losing the counties of Guannei, Nanyang, and Xiangyang one after another, the people of Zhou Dynasty, who were left with only one county of Henan, were exhausted. Even with the help and support of Liang Guo, it was no longer possible to maintain the war.
Five years ago, Wei soldiers invaded Heyin, captured the capital after it moved eastward, and completely destroyed the country.
At the time of its demise, the Zhou people had only a million people left in the country, less than 50,000 soldiers and horses, and only three Xiantian masters left. It can be said that all the blood was shed.
In this war to destroy Zhou Dynasty, the Wei people also gained greatly.
Not only did they capture Guannei County, the original capital of the Zhou Kingdom, but they also captured the two counties of Henan and Nanyang belonging to Zhongzhou in one fell swoop. It can be said that they have obtained the ticket to board the ship in this great catastrophe of the Nine Provinces.
No matter what happens in the future, as long as these two counties can be preserved, Weiguo and Zuo can still stay.
On the Chu State's side, they only captured the three prefectures of Xiangyang County of Zhou State, which were north of the Han River, and completely completed the territory of one county and ten prefectures of Xiangyang.
The main reason why he gained so little was that Lu Yuan considered that the future war in Zhongzhou would inevitably become more violent and cruel.
Rushing in at this time will only arouse the vigilance of Wei and Liang, attract the attention of both countries, and drag Chu into the whirlpool of war.
In that case, it would be a disaster.
Didn't Yongzhou overlords like Zhou Guo also suffer from exhaustion due to continuous wars and were destroyed in just twenty years?
This is the second overlord country in Kyushu to be eliminated after Ningguo.
The battle in Jiangbei was so cruel and the casualties were so heavy that Lu Yuan naturally felt wary and was unwilling to enter the battlefield so early and devote his precious strength to a meaningless war in the early stage.
Yangzhou, which has just been unified now, needs to recuperate and restore its people's strength.
Instead of sending troops to the battlefield and food to the front line, letting the people rush back and forth in hunger and fatigue, the last bit of Yangzhou's remaining heritage after experiencing troubled times was consumed.
Just thinking about the above scenes gives people chills.
Therefore, out of long-term considerations, after Lu Yuan cooperated with the Wei State to send troops, he only captured the three mansions of Xiangyang County, occupied a foothold in Zhongzhou, and then stopped moving forward.
As for the real fat, the two counties of Henan and Nanyang were given to Wei.
It is planned that this northern overlord will serve as a target to attract Liang Kingdom and other northern countries, and attract firepower for Chu Kingdom.
In doing so, the effect is remarkable.
After destroying Zhou State, he occupied the two counties of Henan and Nanyang.
Almost that year, Wei Guo and Liang Guo started fighting.
Both sides stationed millions of troops on the front lines of Henan and Nanyang, and launched fierce battles.
In the end, hundreds of thousands of people were killed and injured on each side, and both sides lost a lot of money. No one could get an advantage, so they had to call a truce.
But this truce is only temporary.
In the second year, the two countries began a larger-scale war. The total number of troops mobilized by both sides was almost three million. The vast number of troops almost filled the two thousand miles of border between the two countries. .
In order to maintain this war, both Wei and Liang countries could be said to have tried their best.
But both countries are hegemons of one state.
The Liang Kingdom occupied the entire Qingzhou and occupied sixteen counties. After years of multiplication, the population reached 80 million.
The number of soldiers and horses is still maintained at around three million.
Although Wei State originally had only ten counties, with his successive southern expeditions and the defeat of Zhou State, he captured the land of four more counties. Now he has occupied the land of fourteen counties in Yanzhou and Yongzhou.
Although the population is smaller, after annexing the Zhou Kingdom, it has reached 50 million people.
Due to the increased use of troops in recent years, the military strength has increased to 2.4 million.
In terms of national strength alone, although the Wei State has a weaker foundation than the Liang State, the gap is not too big. The two are still at the same physical level.
As for the external environment, the northern part of the Wei State is infested with grassland barbarians, and it is necessary to station 600,000 troops and horses in the northern border for a long time to protect the northern border.
The Liang State needed to station troops and horses along the Yangtze River and along the big rivers to defend Chu, Zhao and Xu. The two defense lines also required about 1.2 million troops.
Apart from border defense and domestic local guards, the two countries can almost maintain an army of about 1.2 million to 1.5 million on the frontline battlefield, and can sustain it for a long time.
As for the innate masters, Liang Guo has grown a lot in recent years.
First, when the Zhou Kingdom was destroyed, he received the support of the three innate masters of the Zhou Kingdom and received a wave of dividends from the Zhou Kingdom.
In recent years, he has trained and recruited some more, bringing the number of innates in Liang to fifty-one, which has exceeded half a hundred.
As for the Wei State, although it did not enjoy the innate dividends of the Zhou State, it still dominated Yongdong after its destruction of the Zhou State.
Yuchandao of Yuhuashan, who had been withdrawing from the outside world for a long time and had not come in to place bets, finally made up his mind and chose to join the Wei State.
So with the help of this Yongzhou Immortal Sect, Wei Guo's innate knowledge increased instantly.
Not only did Yuchandao directly send five Xiantian officials to Wei, he also contributed thousands of elixirs to the other party, cultivating two new Xiantian masters for Wei.
Just one Yu Chan Dao contributed seven innates to Wei.
In recent years, the Wei State has also defeated many barbarian tribes that migrated south in the north. Many of them chose to join the Wei State after their defeat.
Wei State also absorbed a lot of population and soldiers from the barbarians, and also had several innate masters, which can be said to have greatly enriched its war potential.
In addition, some people he has trained and recruited in his country.
Now the number of Xiantian Grandmasters in the Wei Kingdom has reached thirty-seven.
Although it is still not as good as the Liang State, there are fewer places to defend against the Wei State.
In addition to the necessary innate masters to defend the northern border and guard the country, Wei State can still mobilize about twenty innate masters to go to the front line to compete with Liang State.
In addition to the three border and domestic defenses, the Liang Kingdom could only mobilize this number of innate masters to participate in the war.
Therefore, such a large-scale border war is destined to be just a bad war.
The two sides fought for several years, with more than a million casualties and casualties, but they still could not decide the winner.
The battlefields on the front lines of Henan and Nanyang have become a meat grinding whirlpool. Wei and Liang have continuously invested military and horse resources there, slowly consuming their own potential, and are in a state of continuous blood loss.
And these are just the soldiers and horses used by the two countries to participate in the war.
In fact, in order to maintain the army of more than one million people, the two countries each mobilized two or three times the number of civilians in the rear to transport military supplies and supply the consumption of the army in front.
Both countries have five million adult males in each other's country. They were used in the front-line wars in Henan and Nanyang. They became pure consumption units and were unable to engage in production.
With such a huge war, so many people who are not engaged in production, and so many local production units missing, one can imagine the pressure on the two countries.
Among them, Liang Guo is a little better.
The battlefield is in Zhongzhou. It is very close to it. It is convenient to transport food and there is less pressure on supply logistics.
Moreover, a population of 80 million is enough for him to maintain 5 million non-production military units.
But it’s difficult on the Wei side.
The Wei State came from Yanzhou in the north. The core of the country was in Yanzhou, thousands of miles away from the front line.
One can imagine the difficulty and huge losses involved in transporting grain, grass and military supplies from such a distant rear to the front.
And if there is no transfer from the rear, the newly occupied land of Zhou will not be able to sustain the consumption of the frontline army.
Because the previous ten-year war had already destroyed all the counties in the heart of the Zhou Kingdom.
Shuofang, Guannei, Henan, Nanyang and other counties, not to mention providing food and grass for Wei's frontline army, actually required Wei to provide relief for the millions of victims who were waiting for food.
In the entire old land of the Zhou Kingdom, including the frontline soldiers and horses, there were seven to eight million people who wanted to eat from the Wei Kingdom.
That's not all.
In recent years, the cold wave in the north has become more and more influential.
Originally, it had been referring to Da Maotian, which was spread in the grassland. In the past two years, it has approached the border between the northern border of Yanzhou and the grassland.
According to this trend, maybe in three to five years, the big hairy sky that is said to swallow up all life will come to the land of Yanzhou.
Although Wei's territory did not touch the northern part of Yanzhou, those northern counties had already been occupied by barbarians who moved from the grasslands.
But Damaotian's approach to Yanzhou is still an extremely scary signal.
Because this means that there may not be much time left before the cold wave completely submerges Yanzhou.
Perhaps in another twenty or thirty years, Yanzhou will follow the footsteps of the grasslands and completely become a land of ice and snow.
With this terrible disaster approaching, how can the entire Wei state feel at ease?
Even the barbarians who moved south, under the threat of Damaotian, began to madly attack the northern border of Wei.
That was the determination to break the northern blockade and move south, almost at the cost of human life.
Wei may have to wait twenty or thirty years before it is swallowed up by Damaotian.
The barbarians who are at the southern border of the grassland and the northern part of Yanzhou have been devoured by Da Mao Tianzai!
If you stay in the north, you will die. If you break through to the south, there is still a glimmer of hope.
There is no need to think too much about how to choose this.
So it was shrouded in a serious crisis. Even the whole Wei State knew that now was not the time and the national strength could hardly sustain it, but they still had to push forward the project of emigrating south.
Nowadays, millions of people from the northern border of Wei State migrate south from Yanzhou every year and enter Nanyang County, Henan Province occupied by Wei State, where they take root again and build production.
And this is another huge expenditure on money and food.
And this expense is still expanding rapidly every month.
Because the population of Wei State migrating south every year is also increasing rapidly.
There are more than 30 million people in Yanzhou of Wei State.
All of the above people want to move to Yongzhou and Zhongzhou within 20 to 30 years. This is a large-scale project with an extremely tight construction period.
It is not so easy to complete it within the specified time and evacuate before the cold wave comes.
What's even more difficult is that Wei's national strength of 50 million people simply cannot support the current food consumption of tens of millions of people.
This means that Wei State has to use 40 million people to feed 10 million population units that are not engaged in production. What a desperate figure this is.
The Wei State alone cannot sustain it at all, as war and immigration will consume huge amounts of money.
If the other party does not want to starve its army and people to death, it can only seek help from outside.
Therefore, based on this demand, the Chu State's extra and inexhaustible food every year has an excellent place to go.
Even Liang State has begun to import grain from Chu State in the past two years, and the scale of imports is rapidly expanding year by year.
The reason is also very simple.
The Wei State felt threatened by Damaotian, and forced by this natural disaster, they desperately moved south.
Jizhou, where Zhao State is located, and Xuzhou, where Xu State is located, are at the same latitude as Wei State. At the same time, in the north of the two countries, there are also barbarians from the Northern Grassland and the Xuanyu Snow Forest.
Affected by the cold disaster, barbarians from these two regions also began to migrate on a large scale, with tens of millions of people moving south.
This huge pressure naturally forced Zhao and Xu to consider breaking through to the south and seizing Zhongzhou as a place to stay.
Therefore, in the past two years, small and medium-sized conflicts have begun to break out on the border between Zhao and Xu and Liang.
The Three Kingdoms are accumulating more and more troops and horses on the river border, and their guns may go off at any time, triggering another two wars that are no less big than the Weiliang Henan and Nanyang wars.
Under this situation, Liang Guo was naturally under great pressure.
For the security of the country, we had to strengthen the defense of the northern border and transport grain and grass supplies to the front line of the river.
At the same time, he also ordered that one million new troops were recruited in the country and drilled and trained in the rear camps as reserve soldiers for the three front lines.
The war will begin on three battlefields at once, and each battlefield will contain millions of soldiers and horses. The civilian labor force that needs to be mobilized in the rear also requires millions of people.
Such a large consumption naturally affected the production in Liang's rear.
Therefore, in order to reduce the pressure on food and grass, it is also to hoard more supplies.
Liang Guo, like Wei Guo, chose to purchase grain, grass and various materials from Chu, an outsider, to supply its own war consumption.
As a result, Chu's extra rations for more than 20 million people every year had a place to go in an instant.
The crisis of overproduction in the country was quickly resolved under the strong demand of Liang and Wei.
