Mythic version of the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 6517: Bo Yi Le
This is what it means to be the third biggest person.

Sun Qian has always been a low-profile figure among these elders, and he doesn't like to participate in team-building activities. He has been building roads everywhere since before the Yuanfeng year, living like a migrant worker, either crawling through mountains or wading through water every day. But if you were to rank them among this group of elders, Sun Qian would definitely be in the top three.

Now that Lu Su has fallen, there is no doubt that there is no other way. Although Zhuge Liang has taken over Lu Su's work, it is impossible for him to sort it out, master it, and fully acquire Lu Su's former power and status in a short period of time. It is estimated that it will take several years.

In fact, this was also the reason why Chen Xi was furious in the Government Affairs Hall that year. Chen Xi's inquiry at that time was actually to make these elders make a choice between him and Lu Su's respective paths.

For Chen Xi at that time, if most of the elders chose Lu Su's route, Chen Xi would have accepted it. Anyway, he could go on either path and there would not be much difference in the future. But Sun Qian took the lead in being neutral, which directly confused Chen Xi.

After Sun Qian remained neutral, Jian Yong also remained neutral. As the two people who had just returned, they had no idea what had happened between Lu Su and Chen Xi. It was not because they lacked political sensitivity, but in the eyes of Sun Qian and Jian Yong, the problem had not reached that level. The eldest and the second in command have started fighting again, so we can just sit back and watch.

However, in Chen Xi's view, this attitude of simply not wanting to care is divisive. It's fine if you don't help me and Lu Su, but you also want to set up your own faction?

After all, under the circumstances at that time, Chen Xi would rather watch Lu Su lead a group of people to rebel against him than watch a group of people split into several factions and attack each other. The former at least shows that everyone is of one mind, while the latter shows that everyone is not of the same mind at all. What's the point of that!

Chen Xi was disheartened. Apart from Lu Su's reasons, a big part of the reason was that there were four or five factions within the political system at that time.

If the lack of ideological unity among the middle and lower classes can at most lead to rebellion, then there is no such thing as rebellion among the top classes, only division!
Chen Xi can accept this group of people besieging him, at least this is not a split, but his design is problematic. Lu Su's behavior is a bit violent, but at least there is a reason. He is afraid of losing, but when Lu Su charges, you see an opportunity and split into five groups. It would be strange if Chen Xi doesn't feel disappointed. This group of people besieged Chen Xi together, but Chen Xi will not feel disappointed, but will reflect on himself.

Currently, there are only three things that the Han Dynasty can provide for such work. One is the state-owned factories and mines represented by Chen Xi, one is the agriculture it already has, and the other is the infrastructure represented by Sun Qian.

Sun Qian is one of the few top bosses who has sufficient manpower in both the military and political fields.

But what is this split? It turns out it’s all my, Chen Xi’s, imagination.

To put it bluntly, this thing is really necessary and really important. And unlike later generations, Sun Qian is not only the leader, manager, but also the executor.

Because human beings live in society, they are destined to be in a situation where they will choose with their feet whoever gives them money and food and allows them to support their families.

Of course, if you want to replace the large concrete mixer, the talent strength required is quite high. But it doesn’t matter. It is normal for Sun Qian to lack other things, but it is impossible to lack veterans. On the contrary, if you really think about it, many times Sun Qian may still face the veterans’ lack of vision.

It was also after that time that Sun Qian began to realize that he should be cautious in his words and actions, not talk too much, and count his own manpower. It was also after that time that Sun Qian realized that he had 400,000 veterans.

Sun Qian had no real feelings about this, because his current size was too huge. It was just like after Lu Su fell, and Zhuge Liang and Li You each took on a bunch of work, they were still able to give Jiang Wan a position of minister. This was the meaning of the fall of a whale giving rise to all things.

As for why the fifth or sixth level guards would go to the construction team to do plastering instead of going to the local area to become a militia captain or something, this has to do with personal struggle and mentality. Li Tiao was also a plasterer in the construction team. Oh, if you think about it carefully, when Li Tiao was doing plastering in the construction team, he was also following Sun Qian. If you think about it this way, it does make sense.

In the past, this was exclusive to Chen Xi and Lu Su. Even after Lu Su gradually withdrew from the military field in the later period, the military personnel involved had gradually decreased. But Sun Qian was different. Sun Qian's status led to him being able to absorb a large number of soldiers and even officers in each round of demobilization and resettlement.

This kind of continuous accumulation will only make its own strength continue to expand before the age limit is reached. Under this kind of expansion, it is difficult for Sun Qian to clearly realize whether these groups are considered his own strength. In the past, Sun Qian thought that they were not, but Chen Xi's letter clearly told Sun Qian that they were considered, and they must be considered.

There are only these three things that can support people these days. Why can Sun Qian slam the table at Chen Xi? And whenever there are some talented people, large-scale young and strong people, Sun Qian will appear when he smells the scent, or directly crawl out of the ground. No matter who they are, he will grab a batch of them first.

However, the wisdom of the working people is endless, and various special ways of use have emerged as they use them, such as the spiral force field mixer, the white disaster condenser, the fantasy warrior submersible, etc. In short, all kinds of strange talents and various strange ways of use have effectively reduced the difficulty of construction.

Therefore, it is not a problem at all for five or six guards to do plastering. Some people can earn a lot by doing this. After all, the construction industry really emphasizes more work, more pay. Moreover, the talents of some guards are really suitable for plastering. Things like concrete mixers can really be replaced by the talents of the guards.

Especially in some dangerous areas, sending a fantasy soldier to open a perspective is much safer than sending a person through. If something explodes, it will just explode. At most, you will be a little tired. If a person goes through, he might die.

Of course, after Sun Qian returned to Sichuan to continue building the road, Chen Xi wrote a letter to inform Sun Qian. In this letter, he specifically compared the scale of power of the existing civil and military officers. In this secret letter, there was no Chen Xi or Lu Su, and Zhuge Liang and Jiang Wan had newly joined. However, after reading it, Sun Qian realized that he was actually the most powerful among all the civil and military officers.

This resulted in Sun Qian's power being in a state of expansion, which was why a part of Sun Qian's power was separated in the past few years to form a powerful minister.

After solving the problem of Lu Su, Chen Xi sorted out the logic and knew why Sun Qian was neutral at that time. He went back to find Sun Qian and told him to go back to repair the road and not show up in the Government Office unless necessary. He asked, "Do you know your position and how much political power you have?"

These veterans include those from the Ganges main combat corps and those from the Taishan era. The strong ones are at the level of fifth or sixth level guards, while the weak ones are blank slates with only a single talent.

Chen Xi, who was so angry at Sun Qian that he almost fainted, really didn't want to discuss the matter. He could only ask Sun Qian to go back to build roads and not get involved in such emergencies, so as to avoid being angry to death after getting angry.

Nonsense, Sun Qian's scale is of course the largest, but Sun Qian himself did not realize that the huge number of veterans in the construction team he managed was only one aspect, and the traditional militarized management of state-owned factories and mines was another aspect. In addition, there were the roads built since the Yuanfeng year, the states and counties connected, the alcohol consumed, and the cadres promoted.

So up to now, Sun Qian’s most high-end construction sites are all staffed by those functional veterans. It is all thanks to these people who are working hard to improve work efficiency. This is also an important reason why the Southwest Expressway can be completed earlier than originally planned.

After having these clear understandings, Sun Qian also clarified his own position: I, Sun Qian, am the third person of the Han Dynasty!

Therefore, when Sun Qian said that he had more than 400,000 veterans who had fought in the battlefield, Chen Deng was shocked, while Liu Bei was calm. This was almost the same as his estimate. It should even be said that it would be a big problem if Sun Qian did not have so many veterans.

According to Chen Xi's explanation to Liu Bei, infrastructure projects are an important reservoir for the Han Dynasty. They not only enhance the potential and management capabilities of the Han Dynasty, but also divert and guide the population. So when Liu Bei wandered around in the past few years, he basically determined the size of the veterans under Sun Qian when chatting with local veterans. After all, one out of two or three veterans went to build roads.

With such a simple estimate, considering the discharge certificate he issued, one can roughly estimate how many veterans Sun Qian has under his command.

"What if we include the young and strong?" Liu Bei asked thoughtfully. He was considering whether he should directly merge Sun Qian with Guan Yu and others to give the Kushans a heavy blow after Sun Qian built the road to the Ganges.

"There are probably more than two million young and strong people everywhere. I don't have anyone who is too old. After all, the workload is very heavy. If you are a little older, you may not be able to bear it. So I have an age requirement." Sun Qian gave a direct answer. All his subordinates are young and strong. There are no old men. There may be some who can help, but they are not on the list Sun Qian has.

"What about Sichuan?" Liu Bei thought about it, made a rough estimate, and felt that he could give it a try.

"You don't want me to join forces with General Guan directly after arriving at the Ganges River and then go attack the Kushans?" Sun Qian looked at Liu Bei in surprise. How could this be possible? The veterans under his command have been fighting for years. They haven't had regular military exercises for a long time, and there are gaps in many aspects.

"The militarized organization should be no problem. It will probably take about three months to reorganize. After all, we already have a lot of veterans." Liu Bei said with a smile. He was still confident about this matter. Sun Qian had a lot of excellent backbones under his command. By then, even the middle and lower-level officers would not need to be supplemented. The legion could be reconstructed just by reorganizing on the spot.

“Having said that, I’m really not optimistic about this. I do have some veterans with high smelting ability under my command, but to be honest, these veterans are no longer positioned for battlefield smelting in recent years, and I feel that the direction of their talent development is a little different from before, and they are not suitable for the battlefield.” Sun Qian said with a dry laugh. Not to mention his more than 50 mixers that were once at the fifth or sixth level of smelting and are now at the fourth or fifth level of smelting. They are really not very powerful!

When I first came here, these guys were very good at fighting, but now they are only good at mixing concrete and very efficient, but they seem to be unable to fight or anything like that.

Think about it, when they first arrived, they fought one-on-one or in groups, and even with a disciplinary patrol team, they couldn't control these troublesome old soldiers. But now, these troublesome old soldiers fight from dawn to dusk every day, and they feel numb all over. Even if they are provoked, they are too lazy to move. Can they still fight?
Of course!

The fact that these concrete mixers can maintain such a high smelting rate under the second round of God's curse is enough to explain the problem. Smelting is something that can actually improve basic qualities, and each level has a guaranteed minimum.

After the fourth or fifth level of smelting, in the current situation, if you go to Northern Europe, you can get a few heads of divine guards as a cushion. However, those whose fighting power was destroyed by Sun Qian are numb.

There is no other way. If you are asked to mix nearly a thousand cubic meters of concrete a day, anyone would be numb. A large mixer cannot mix so much concrete in a day. Generally speaking, a plant that can mix so many cubic meters of concrete is called a mixing station...

However, dozens of veterans stir and stir like this every day, exerting their own spiral force fields and their own power control to the limit, working for more than ten hours a day without stopping at all. How can they not be numb? It would be weird if they were not numb.

No matter what, talent is the reflection of collective will in reality. To use it to the extreme extent in a day requires a will of steel. If it is used in this extreme way for a few years, a new way of use should have been developed long ago. The only reason why it has not been developed is that Sun Qian only needs the stirring function and does not need any other abilities.

Even if you go to the battlefield, you can't need a high-melting veteran of the fourth or fifth level, who can fight all day long, at high intensity all day long, and use his talent to the extreme level!

Therefore, as a spiral force field that can stir more than ten cubic meters of concrete at a time, if it is used to stir people, basically no special operation is required. Just treat the opponent as concrete. Anyway, if dozens of tons of concrete can be stirred, a soldier of a hundred man team should also be able to stir it. At most, the concrete will not resist, but an enemy force of a hundred man team size will resist, but it is not a big problem.

"Is that so? We'll talk about it when the time comes." Liu Bei nodded upon hearing this, but did not reject his own idea. In his opinion, this was indeed a very good plan. It was really unexpected and the Kushans would find it difficult to defend themselves. And if the backbones from Sichuan and Shu alone could go there, the strength of Guan Yu's army could double.

Although the battlefield is not entirely about the number of soldiers, there is no doubt that having more soldiers means strength. With twice the number of soldiers, Guan Yu can use some of his previous ideas.

"Speaking of which, Commander, what brings you to Yizhou?" Chen Deng asked with some curiosity after seeing the two former friends, now big men, finish their conversation. "Of course, if it involves confidential information, then there's no need to tell me. I'm just a little curious."

"There is no secret. I just found something accidentally when I was inspecting the suburbs of Chang'an, so I ran over to take a look and talk to them." Liu Bei's face straightened slightly, and he spoke with some seriousness.

"Ah, Marquis Yangcheng and others are in trouble again." Sun Qian said with some fatigue. According to Sun Qian's experience, he went back to Chang'an five times, and saw Yuan Shu and Liu Zhang in prison three times. The remaining two times were basically when they had just been released from prison. It felt like the Imperial Prison was almost becoming the hometown of these two.

"It's not a crime. I just need to talk to them and confirm some things with them so that they stop messing around." Liu Bei said solemnly, which was a big change from his previous gentle expression. Even Chen Deng could see Liu Bei's displeasure.

"Captain, I can see the displeasure on your face. What have those two done wrong again?" Chen Deng asked with some curiosity. He still had a certain good impression of Yuan Shu and Liu Zhang. After all, during the period when he was in power, these two people built many roads in Sichuan and Shu, which reduced his management costs a lot and made it much easier to collect taxes than before.

Therefore, seeing that Liu Bei was somewhat dissatisfied with the two of them, he felt that they still needed some persuasion.

Liu Bei sighed upon hearing this, "It's basically like this. I met an old soldier in the suburbs of Chang'an. He was a veteran of the Guanzhong Army who had participated in the Northern Frontier War and retired early. I talked to him and found out that he had become a beggar because of gambling losses in recent years."

“???” Sun Qian had a lot of question marks on his head. What the hell, what does it mean to be reduced to a beggar? Who the hell are you kidding? Shit, in today’s social environment, you have hands and feet, but you can still be a beggar? Just say you don’t work. What does it mean to be reduced to a beggar?

"Leave this kind of gambler alone." Chen Deng sneered, "No matter how capable this kind of person is, it's useless if he gets addicted to gambling. Gambling turns people into ghosts. Leave this kind of guy who can't even control himself alone. He has lost so much that he has to beg for food? Humph, his mind has changed, what a thing."

"That's true, but I still felt uncomfortable watching it, so I went to look for it in the suburbs and found the casino. How should I put it, it is not compliant according to the regulations, but it is generally acceptable. Although there is gambling inside, it is not big. As you all know, I used to play small bets like cockfighting and dog fighting." Liu Bei said with a sigh.

"Then don't worry about it. It's obviously my own problem. These small gambling houses are just for fun. There are some in Yizhou as well. After all, people sometimes need to relax. I remember that Gongyou's team also has this kind of small gambling." Chen Deng said with a sneer, then looked at Sun Qian.

"Yes, there are. The single bet limit is fifty coins, and no more than five hundred coins a month." Sun Qian said casually, "Most of the time, the dealer will find two wild roosters and then place bets. Most of the time, it's only one or five coins, just for fun."

　I can't get up at all. It's killing me.

　　(End of this chapter)