Chapter 344: The Revenge of the Han Army

Ziling, Shangshu Room of the King of Chu Palace.

Xiang Zhuangzheng convened five civil and military ministers, including the imperial court Xiang Da, General Xiang Tuo, General Wei Bi Shu, Military Advisor Bai Li Xian, and Shangdafu Wu She, to convene an imperial meeting.

Xiang Zhuang first asked Xiang him: "Ziyi, have the bounties from the meritorious soldiers paid?"

This time, the Chu State made a big move, dispatching 200,000 prefecture troops, 30,000 imperial guards, and the Han army and Qi army fought hard. The price paid was not bad. More than 50,000 casualties were killed or killed in the Huainan battlefield, but the harvest was also quite good. Not to mention occupying the large granary of Bashu, the Linjiang Kingdom was annexed on the way back to Jiangdong!

Now, the land area of ​​Chu has increased by more than four times, and the population has surged from more than five million to nearly seven million, and the number of strong men has exceeded one.5 million. In contrast, the Han Dynasty, due to the loss of the two counties of Bashu, not only has a lot of land area, but its population has also dropped sharply from seven million to more than five million.

Even on the battlefield in Huainan, the Chu army did not gain nothing.

Facing the 400,000 army of Han Xin, the "Immortal of Military Arts", it is already a victory for the Chu army to be undefeated!

It can be said that in this battle, the State of Chu basically realized the strategic intentions formulated before the war, so when rewarding merit and paying bounties, Xiang Zhuang was also very generous, and he asked Xiang to pay according to the highest standards! As for the title rewards of meritorious soldiers and the pensions of fallen soldiers, they had to be handled strictly in accordance with the regulations.

Xiang He bowed his hand and said with some pain: "Report to the king, it has been distributed."

Can Xiang not be hurt? According to Xiang Zhuang's edict, the 50,000 troops expedition to Bashu, the 160,000 troops expedition to Huainan, and the 50,000 troops remaining in Meishan and Huai River were all given first-class credit. In other words, each soldier who went on the expedition had a reward of ten gold coins, and the soldiers with records of killing the enemy would be judged separately, and the bounty would be added!

After calculation, the 260,000 troops participating in the war actually distributed more than 5.6 million gold coins!

There are also pensions from the fallen soldiers, with more than 20,000 people each of them being one hundred gold, and more than two million gold!

What a good guy, Xiang has accumulated over ten years, and he has only saved more than 20 million gold in the entire treasury. Now the whole family has gone nearly half of it. How can Xiang not be heartbroken? The king is not in charge of the family and I don’t know how expensive the firewood and rice are. Is it easy for him to save this little property? But the king is better. As soon as the gold mouth is opened, the gold coins flow out like flowing water.

Xiang Zhuang certainly knew what Xiang was thinking. He patted Xiang on the shoulder and said, "Ziyi, you can't just see that 10 million gold coins are missing in the treasury. You must know that after these 10 million gold coins are distributed to the meritorious soldiers, they will not disappear out of thin air. In the end, they will still flow into the treasury."

As an ancient man, Xiang was not familiar with commercial circulation.

Xiang Zhuang also does not understand economics and finance, but he read a classic debate before traveling through time.

Before Xiangzhuang traveled through time, China had just held an Olympic Games, and the investment was as high as 400 billion yuan. There were many criticisms from the government for spending so much money to hold such a luxurious sports event. Among these critics, a small number of people were ulterior motives who were afraid that China would not be confused, while others were following the crowd. It seemed that if they were not scolded, they were not Chinese.

In fact, the government invested 400 billion yuan to host the Olympic Games, and the direct output value generated by infrastructure, building materials, services and other industries is at least 4 trillion yuan, and the number of jobs created is at least 40,000. In the end, most of these 400 billion yuan will turn into profits, wages or service exchanges into the pockets of Chinese people.

In other words, the 400 billion yuan invested by the government will flow into the pockets of the people through profits, wages, service exchanges, etc. In the meantime, there will be ten or even hundreds of times the output value, creating a large number of jobs, leaving behind a beautiful city and a large number of sports venues, which is definitely not a waste.

To use a term from that time, this is called the Olympic economic stimulus plan.

The reason why other countries spend less money on hosting the Olympics is not that they do not want to imitate Beijing, but that they have no strength to imitate it at all. Even the United States, which is the best in GDP, cannot do it either. This is the difference in the system, or the difference in the system. The system of China is to concentrate financial resources and manpower to accomplish major tasks.

Therefore, Xiangzhuang is not worried at all, so he will not worry about the treasury. What can I worry about? After the treasury is distributed to the families of meritorious soldiers or the families of fallen soldiers, it will greatly drive the development of industry and commerce in Jiangdong, especially the winemaking, textile and construction industries in Jiangdong, which will usher in an unprecedented golden period!

You think that after the meritorious soldiers receive the bounty, they must enjoy themselves, celebrate with great celebration, call on friends, and find a few friends who are close to each other to drink and have fun! Then, the soldiers will definitely build a big house for themselves, and then buy a few decent outfits for their wives, children and young people. The nobles should be like nobles, right?

The prosperity of the winemaking, textile and construction industries will drive the prosperity of the cotton grain planting and civil engineering industries. Most importantly, the development of all these industries will drive the development of the transportation industry. At that time, large and small car dealers will emerge. These car dealers and ship dealers alone will provide considerable liquor to the national treasury every year!

In other words, the treasury expenditure of 10 million gold will generate at least 10 million gold output value, and the economic scale of the entire Jiangdong and even the entire Chu State will be greatly expanded. At that time, the newly added tax on likin will far exceed that of land tax. This result is much better than putting 10 million gold into the treasury and moldy.

Xiang naturally didn't understand these things, but just shook his head without complaining.

Xiang Zhuang did not explain much, and asked Xiang Tuo again: "Zi Yan, has the selection and assessment of the imperial guards been completed?"

In this war, the three camps of the Imperial Guard played a main role. It is no exaggeration to say that if there were no three camps of the Imperial Guard, the results would be completely different, and with the increase of Chu's national strength and the surge in land area, the expansion of the Imperial Guard was imminent.

The imperial guards will be expanded into three armies of Tiger Ben, Tianlang, and Knight Cavalry. Each army will be under the left and right battalions. The troops of each battalion remain unchanged, and there will still be 10,000 cavalry. In this way, the imperial guards will be expanded from 30,000 cavalry to 60,000 cavalry, and nearly 40,000 veterans need to be selected from the government soldiers. Fortunately, there are enough veterans who have participated in the Battle of Bashu or Huainan.

In addition, the Tianlang Left Camp will be stationed in Jinniu Pass and the Huben Right Camp will be stationed in Jiangling. Both places have been incorporated into the State of Chu. It would be obvious that it would not work if there was no elite army that could conquer and fight.

Xiang Tuo said: "Report to the king, the 40,000 veterans have been selected."

"Well, okay." Xiang Zhuang nodded happily, and then turned to Bi Shu and said, "A lot of soldiers were killed in learning swords, the Battle of Bashu and the Battle of Huainan. The imperial guards expanded and picked out 40,000 veterans. The vacancy of the government soldiers of each county was large. You must urge each county and county to make up for the vacancy of the government soldiers as soon as possible. As well as the four counties of Linjiang and the two counties of Bashu, the government soldiers should also be trained as soon as possible."

Bi Shu replied: "Don't worry, I have appointed two generals from Ziche Shi and Xiqilie to Linjiang and Bashu to be responsible for the training of the government troops. As for the vacancies of the government troops in the four counties of Jiangdong, they will be able to make up for them within half a month. However, due to the lack of training for the temporary government troops, the combat effectiveness of the entire army may be reduced."

Xiang Zhuang nodded silently, unable to help but the soldiers in the palace were like this, but he was afraid that the combat effectiveness of the imperial guards would also decrease. However, this was not a problem. As long as an army had a considerable number of veterans, its combat effectiveness would be restored soon and even enhanced. Therefore, Xiang Zhuang was not worried about the combat effectiveness of the imperial guards and the Jiangdong palace soldiers at all.

However, it is not to mention whether the government soldiers of the four counties of Linjiang and the two counties of Bashu can recruit enough troops. Even if the government soldiers of these six counties can be quickly trained and formed, it is probably difficult to form combat effectiveness within three years. In other words, within at least three years, the State of Chu must continue to transfer troops from Jiangdong to Linjiang and Bashu.

Once the Han army changes, the Chu State needs to mobilize a large army to Linjiang or Bashu.

After pondering for a while, Xiang Zhuang suddenly asked Baili Xian, "Ziliang, do you think Liu Bang will give up?"

"I'm afraid not." Bailixian shook the feather fan and replied, "If nothing unexpected happens, Liu Bang will definitely fight back."

Xiang Zhuang nodded and walked slowly to the screen hanging on the map. Xiang He, Xiang Tuo, Wu She, Bi Shu, Baili Xian and other civil and military ministers also stood behind Xiang Zhuang. Looking at the map and pondered for a while, Xiang Zhuang said in a deep voice: "If the Han army wants to take revenge, which direction will they start?"

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Almost at the same time, Liu Bang also held an imperial meeting at the Weiyang Palace.

The Han army retreated to Guanzhong more than half a month ago. Gao Chu, a general of the Chu State, forced the conquering tens of thousands of civilians in Hanzhong and built a fortress at the intersection of the Taurus Road, known as the "Talkniu Pass". Liu Bang personally led a large army to attack for more than a month, and suffered countless soldiers and generals, but he was unable to capture the Taurus Pass. As he had no choice but to retreat to Guanzhong.

The atmosphere of the meeting was a bit solemn. Although Liu Bang had a gloomy expression, the faces of important civil and military officials such as Xiao He, Chen Ping, Bai Mo, Zhou Bo were not good-looking. This time, the Han Dynasty suffered a great loss and devoted all its troops to the north. Although it recaptured Jiuyuan County, the Chu army also took advantage of the situation to attack Ba and Shu counties. No matter how it was calculated, it was a big loss.

Not long ago, we received news that the Chu army actually destroyed Linjiang Kingdom on its way back!

After the Chu State annexed the two counties of Bashu and the four counties of Linjiang, the land area expanded by an entire multiple times, and the total population and number of strong men also increased sharply. Compared with the Han State, there were only a lot more and less!

Only Zhang Liang looked calm and said, "Why don't you know that it's a blessing to lose your horse?"

Liu Bang frowned and said unhappily: "Zifang, can it be a blessing if you lose Bashu?"

"It depends on what the king thinks. From the perspective of the matter itself, our Han Dynasty lost the two counties of Bashu. Not only did the land area shrink by more than half, but the population also dropped sharply by nearly two million. This is indeed not a good thing." After saying this, Zhang Liang said again, "But then again, after Chu occupied Linjiang and Bashu, he also gave up his strategic initiative."

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Chapter completed!