In order to control prices, Liu Bei ordered the transportation of grain from Sanfu, purchased grain from Chenliu County, Yingchuan County and other places, and simultaneously promoted the collective farm policy in some areas of Luoyang.
He used the cleared industries and land controlled by officials of the Yuan Group to resettle the refugees who had wandered to the Three Rivers area, build collective farms, arrange for them to farm, and resume agricultural production as soon as possible.
At the same time, he mobilized the officials of the ancient literature school in the court to attack external officials who were driving up prices, and strictly prohibited hoarding, which restricted the insects within the ancient literature school.
Then, he mobilized members of his salt-selling circle all over Sanfu and Sanhe to fully support his material transfer, and cracked down on families who hoarded goods and drove up prices, and established legal provisions to prohibit hoarding and raising prices.
Whoever hoards them will be able to swarm them and tear them apart as long as Liu Bei gives the order.
After severely punishing several families that took the lead in not complying with the regulations and suppressing ill-intentioned objections from both the government and the public, grain prices in Luoyang, which had risen briefly in May and June, finally returned to the level lasted in the past five years.
Through this struggle, Liu Bei successfully proved to the people of Luoyang that he was not only tough in military matters, but also politically tough as he had many supporters.
In order to get rid of the Modern Literature School, the Ancient Literature School essentially recognized Liu Bei as the leader of the Ancient Literature School and was willing to support him and restrain the behavior of family members.
Local families with whom he was involved in the salt trade were willing to support him.
Hongnong County, under Yang's influence, did not oppose him.
Zhang Rang clearly asked the ten permanent servants not to go against Liu Bei at least at this time.
At this strange moment, Liu Bei is the only trustworthy person who can safeguard the interests of the eunuch. If Liu Bei is angered, the eunuch's political future will be very gloomy. You must not let him know that some people among the Shi Changshi forces are at this time.
Go up the price, otherwise internal punishment will not be lenient.
Jian Shuo's power was the weakest. After much deliberation, although he wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to make a fortune, he was intimidated by Liu Bei's prestige and did not dare to take action.
Then there are indeed not many forces that can oppose him and influence him economically and materially.
Not to mention that he still has more than 100,000 troops at his disposal. Under such a strong deterrent, at least the insects around Luoyang did not dare to jump for a while.
So Liu Bei gathered a lot of troops around Luoyang, but there were no problems with food prices and material transportation. Everything was running smoothly, and army training was in full swing.
And Liu Bei was indeed right.
Compared with him, who has rich experience in governance and struggle, Yuan Shao and Yuan Shu are like political amateurs.
Yuan Shao and Yuan Shu had never led a large-scale army in battle. Their original learning and practical experience were focused on the position of a leading general, and did not involve anything deeper.
But their current position requires them to be commanders-in-chief.
The commander-in-chief has too many things to take care of.
Apart from anything else, the transportation of grain and fodder in the army's logistics requires the commander-in-chief to arrange people to coordinate it. Before, Yuan Shao and Yuan Shu were just generals, responsible for fighting on the front line. Food and other things were naturally managed by other people in charge of logistics. In general,
He Jin is doing support.
But this time, He Jin, who has moved his head, obviously can no longer provide them with any effective support. They can only rely on themselves, so when the number of troops is still small, they can still support it. After the number of troops increases, problems arise.
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Yuan Shu's army expanded relatively quickly, so problems appeared relatively quickly, such as lack of food, money, and daily necessities.
The Yuan family does have a solid foundation and money, and if they spend it all, they can indeed support many armies. But the problem is that they can't spend all the money. How can they live a luxurious life after all the money is spent?
Apart from anything else, a guy like Yuan Shu, who has been well-fed since childhood, is willing to use his own living expenses for the army?
So the problem arises. We have money, but we will not use it for the bulk of the troops. After the number of the army exceeds 30,000, let alone other things, just talking about food, just talking about the loss of people eating horses and chewing, then every day will be a big loss.
of numbers.
A person needs at least one kilogram of grain a day to maintain basic survival, which is 30,000 kilograms of grain a day, which is the most basic loss of the bulk of the combat force.
In addition to the front-line fighting warriors in combat units, there are also a large number of technical arms in the army, represented by crossbowmen and cavalry. The rations of these technical arms are often better than those of the front-line fighting warriors.
So if you add a little more to the 30,000 jins of grain, it will be almost 40,000 jins of food per day.
In addition, there are thousands of officers at all levels in the army, civil servants in the army, and personal guards of generals. Their food standards are getting more and more expensive, which is completely different from that of the big-headed soldiers.
From personal guards to high-ranking officers, these people consume several times more food than the bulk of the army. There is no upper limit, and with slightly better treatment, these more than 1,000 and nearly 2,000 officers and men can consume more than 10,000
The loss of supplies required to reach 20,000 large soldiers.
The supplies of a minimum of 10,000 kilograms of grain were spent.
In addition to the main soldiers, the army also needs auxiliary soldiers to help with chores, transportation matters, civilians, etc. Of course, these are not often provided, and mainly appear during wars, but once they appear, the number will often exceed that of the combat troops.
The base is at least 40,000, and there is no upper limit.
During the war, they lost another 40,000 kilograms of food every day.
In addition to people, there are also livestock. The army needs war horses and other livestock to help with transportation, such as horses, donkeys, mules and the like.
There are tens of thousands of them, and the amount of wear and tear is often several times more than that of a large soldier, especially the war horses, which is more than ten times.
This part of the expenditure on food and fodder is too large, and the losses in the stationary state and the marching state are also different. If the fodder is not enough to be fed solely with grain, 10,000 livestock will be enough to consume 50,000 large soldiers.
Calculated piecemeal, Yuan Shu needs to spend almost 100,000 kilograms of food a day in order to maintain these 30,000 soldiers in a static state.
If it is a marching state or a war state, this number will double.
One hundred thousand kilograms of grain, for a behemoth like the Yuan family, the amount of money converted into it is not amazing. They can definitely afford to buy this grain. As long as there is grain, they can buy it, and they can still buy it.
a long time.
The Yuan family is very wealthy.
But the problem is that people don’t want to spend too much money.
Because life safety was bound to Yuan Shu, everyone had no choice but to provide Yuan Shu with a huge amount of starting funds and materials. This was the main basis for Yuan Shu to raise an army of 30,000 people within two months.
It is no exaggeration to say that only an established family like the Yuan family can afford this expenditure of money and supplies.
And this is almost all they can support. If they go further, they will start to reduce their living standards to help Yuan Shu fight the war. After all, there are tens of thousands of mouths to eat.
Are they willing?
Not very willing.
Members of the Yuan family can easily accept one more dish on their table, but cannot accept one less dish on their table, even if they don't eat that dish at all.
Although they are now facing a life and death dilemma, they will not voluntarily bleed more until the knife is placed on their necks.
So two months later, when Yuan Shu found that his troops were unable to make ends meet, he became anxious. On the one hand, he asked the family for money, and he behaved all kinds of tricks, rolled around, and cried, just asking them for money, but he couldn't give it to them.
On the other hand, Yuan Shu also realized that although this method of crying for poverty could get some money, it was too inefficient and too slow, making it inconvenient for quick wealth accumulation, and it also required a lot of favors.
Then Yuan Shu suddenly remembered the call from that bastard Yuan Shao.
He was very reluctant to admit that Yuan Shao's method was very useful, but the fact was that this method was really very useful.
Runan County has a large number of eunuch industries, and even if Runan County is gone, Nanyang County and Yingchuan County, two famous and wealthy counties, still have a large number of eunuch industries.
The Ten Permanent Attendants, represented by Zhang Rang, had a large number of properties in Hebei and the Central Plains. The Central Plains was also the place where many eunuchs were born. Once they were rich, they would return to their hometowns to buy properties, and they bought a lot of them.
By acquiring all these properties, not only can he live a more luxurious life, but he can also feed the top soldiers in the army and give them more meals of rice porridge.
Therefore, Yuan Shu was drooling over these eunuch properties.
So he called Yan Xiang, Yang Hong and other counselors who were planning for him, and consulted them about the feasibility of doing so.
Of course, Yan Xiang did not support it. He felt that doing so was too direct, shameless, and might cause some unexpected problems, which would not have a good impact on Yuan Shu's reputation.
Yang Hong knew the actual situation in the army, and after much deliberation, he couldn't find a good solution. How could a single county in Runan and a stingy Yuan family support an army of 30,000 people?
"Although this method is slightly inappropriate and can easily cause widespread concern in the local area, if the army does not have enough rations, it will also cause mutiny and the consequences will be more serious. Mr. Yan, whichever is the lesser of two evils, let's do this.
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Yan Xiang was helpless. Although he still didn't support it in his heart, the actual situation was stronger than others.
So after thinking about it, Yan Xiang came up with a compromise - don't publicize it publicly, do things in private, rob quietly, don't use guns, carry out precise attacks on the eunuch industry, don't make things happen like Yuan Shao did to the world.
Everyone knows.
Moreover, Yuan Shu has his own righteous claims and his own basic base. He does not need to learn from Yuan Shao to win the support of some people. He can monopolize these benefits.
All in all, come quietly, don't make it public, and then see how the local government reacts. If the local government acquiesces, then of course it's best. If not, you still have to be careful.