Dragon of the Three Kingdoms

In addition to food, other aspects related to the economy are also developing steadily. Just looking at the numbers on the books of the counties, they basically decrease from north to south. Nanyang is the most prosperous, followed by Nanjun and Jiangxia, and finally Jingnan counties.

It's not that the officials in the south are not good enough, it's that Jingzhou's population is mainly concentrated in the north, which directly blocks the upper limit of Jingnan. The entire four counties in Jingnan, including Changsha where Cai Mao is located, occupy the key points of the waterway. , can be connected to the southeast, which has driven development to a certain extent, and can barely compare with Jingbei.

However, in the overall stability, there is one standout that is particularly conspicuous, and that is Li Yi's papermaking workshop.

When Li Yi left Jingzhou, there were only a few dozen people in the paper-making workshop, but now the paper-making workshop has expanded in size by more than ten times, and the number of workers in it alone has exceeded a thousand. This scale can be regarded as a large factory even in later generations. up.

As the scale expands, the output of paper will naturally increase. At the beginning, paper could only be used exclusively by Li Yi's officials, but now, paper has begun to circulate in the market, but the price is a bit expensive.

To be specific, the price of ordinary paper one foot square is almost the same as that of high-quality bamboo slips of the same size. After being resold, it is even more expensive, and ordinary people still cannot afford it. But even so, every time the workshop sells, It was snapped up by the long-awaited family or merchants, and this is still under the premise of purchase restrictions.

Moreover, it is not only Jingzhou locals who want to buy paper, but also people outside Jingzhou.

When Li Yi and the imperial court were still in the honeymoon period, every time Li Yi paid tribute to the imperial court, Li Yi would ask someone to send some "special offerings". There were also praises and criticisms for the elementary school classics Li Yi produced, but the paper Li Yi sent received unanimous praise from them.

As a result, paper quickly became popular in Chang'an. Not to mention that dignitaries like it, it is said that the little emperor even issued an imperial decree with paper, confiscating a penny and advertising it to Li Yi.

However, no matter how much tribute paper there is, it is limited. The little emperor can use it by himself, but it is not enough for the big brothers in the court. So, later, someone in Chang'an contacted Li Yi, hoping to buy it. Guo Jia was instructed by Li Yi He promised to sell a lot of paper in a short period of time. However, after the big bosses in the court thoroughly heated up the paper, and everyone in the world knew about it, Guo Jia's strategy changed. Jingzhou still sells paper, but not To collect money, you must exchange it for food!

When Li Yi first arrived in Nanyang, it was relatively easy to buy grain, but since the wars between Xuzhou and Yanzhou, the grain in the Central Plains has begun to be sold out. , simply don't sell it to Li Yi.

So Li Yi simply asked Guo Jia to exchange paper for food.

For ordinary people, paper is of little use for the time being, but for those aristocratic families, paper is not only a necessity, but also a matter of face. Otherwise, when others use thin paper to write, they still hold the bamboo slips, which is directly worse. A notch, as a human being, can this be tolerated?

Therefore, the food that Li Yi had to spend a lot of effort to buy was now delivered to the door by those big households.

According to Guo Jia’s summary, in the past three months, the paper trade alone has brought more than 20 shi of grain to Jingzhou.

Li Yi was very satisfied with this, and once again made up his mind that under his domination of the world, the price of paper would never drop, and he wanted to take a good bite from those aristocratic families. As for the popularization of education, it was up to him Things you don't think about until your big goals are accomplished.

While paper brought great benefits to Li Yi, it also brought some troubles to Li Yi.

Some people from Chang’an came to Jingzhou in the name of the imperial court to ask for the method of papermaking, but Guo Jia refused. Other local powers or aristocratic families also wanted to ask for the method of papermaking, or seek some cooperation, but they were basically rejected by Guo Jia. Jia declined.

Knowing that they couldn't come, some people couldn't help but resorted to some crooked methods. For this reason, Guo Jia killed many people. There was even a small family in Xiangyang who was imprisoned by Guo Jia for this. After asking Li Yi for instructions, the whole family was wiped out.

Guo Jia gave Li Yi some examples, but Li Yi only cared about two.

One is Kong Rong. As a great Confucian, Kong Rong is very interested in paper, but he knew that Li Yi would not deal with him, so he contacted Guo Jia directly, saying that paper can convey the way of saints and benefit the world. Yi seeks self-interest, and hopes that Guo Jia, as a disciple of a sage, will not live up to the teachings of the sage, and will not hide papermaking skills for Li Yi, hindering the great event of educating the people, or be careful to become a sinner through the ages.

When Guo Jia said this, his expression was very strange. For the sake of papermaking, many people took advice from him. After all, he has a high position and authority, but he has a bad reputation, so it is normal for people to be targeted.

However, when others came into contact with Guo Jia, they made generous promises about money, beauty, sex, etc., but Kong Rong, this guy didn't give him any benefits. .

So, Guo Jia charged Kong Rong's emissary casually with a crime, and asked him to redeem it with money.Kong Rong had no choice but to pay a sum of money, and then the money was embezzled by Guo Jia.

After listening to Guo Jia's narration, Li Yi almost had cramps in his stomach from laughing. He was really speechless about Kong Rong's way of doing things.

However, compared to Kong Rong, another person, Li Yi, really cared.

Liu Zhang in Yizhou also sent people to buy paper. However, since Yizhou is far away, the cost of sending food to Jingzhou is too high. Therefore, Liu Zhang’s people expressed the hope that they can buy it with money, but it is Li Yiding’s dead rule to trade food. Guo Jia couldn't change it, so he could only decline Liu Zhang's request.

Li Yi was quite concerned about this, he wrote it down, and decided to use it as an opportunity to contact Liu Zhang.

Speaking of the economy, another focus is naturally the military.

Because Li Yi has always led troops to fight, and he always keeps his word. Being a soldier can not only have enough food, but also pay for the army. Therefore, whether it is Jingnan or Jingbei, there are countless young people who want to join the army , as long as Li Yi nods, he can form another army of 10 at any time.

But Guo Jia knows that Li Yi will not have a major war in a short time, so even though the fighting spirit is very high, the number of soldiers and horses is maintained at the level when Li Yi left. However, Guo Jia is not letting the people His fighting spirit was wasted in vain, so he asked the local government to recruit young men in the name of training local bravery, provide them with food and a small amount of money, train them for two months, then send them back to the village, and train the next batch, and so on.

Although all the soldiers trained in this way are inferior soldiers, they are better than the large number of people. In the future, when Li Yi needs them, he can recruit them directly. With his previous foundation, he will soon be able to make them real soldiers.

Moreover, Guo Jia's rules are not rigid. He secretly gave some places to various places. If he finds good seedlings during training, he can accept them exceptionally and focus on training them.

Chapter 608 Family Love

Guo Jia's military arrangements actually have the shadow of Li Yi.

When chatting earlier, Li Yi mentioned the concept of "militia", and he also tried it for a while in Nanyang, but because the war broke out in Jingzhou not long after it started, Jingzhou urgently needed stability after the war, and such things were also ignored. Shelved it.

Guo Jia, on the other hand, promoted this matter based on the actual situation in Jingzhou, and even made it a long-term viable system, which greatly increased Jingzhou's war potential.

Li Yi was very satisfied with this.

Then, Guo Jia continued to talk to Li Yi about other things.

In this part of the aristocratic family, after Li Yi left Jingzhou, the Jingzhou aristocratic family was stable as a whole. Even if there were a few people who had other thoughts occasionally, they were the kind of small families that could not be ranked, such as the Kuai family and the Cai family, the top aristocratic families in Jingzhou. , They have a long-term vision and are very smart in doing things. Guo Jia's work can be carried out quickly and smoothly, and it is inseparable from the full support of those people.

However, among the recent aristocratic families, there is a more special kind of existence.

Now that Hebei has been fighting for years, and there is a pool of mud in Gyeonggi, Yanzhou and Xuzhou are also bloodshed. In such a chaotic situation, not only the people have to take refuge, but also those aristocratic families can't stop them. For the sake of their lives, they have to leave their homes. , I chose Jingzhou.

People from aristocratic families who moved to Jingzhou, no matter whether they are for their own livelihood or for their personal future, many people want to become an official in Jingzhou. For these people, except for those who are too ineffective, Guo Jia basically accepts them all. , made enough of an appearance that Li Yi is eager to seek talents, but in fact, he was quite careful when appointing them. Except for a very few outstanding ones, the others were basically placed on some that were not critical, but he would not feel slighted position.

Li Yi was quite concerned about this, and he asked Guo Jia to go back and sort out a list and hand it over to see if there were any celebrities among them.

Finally, Guo Jia and Li Yi talked about external issues, which is also one of the most critical issues.

Because of the battle between Lu Bu and Cao Cao, the life of the people in Yanzhou was miserable this year, and they couldn't farm well. Even if they were lucky enough to grow some food, it would be difficult for them to fall into their hands.

For example, Lu Bu's people came to collect food today, but Cao Cao's people called them two days later and collected them again. They even gave them the name of being dependent and rebellious, and took away all their food. Even the people themselves It is also regarded as a sin against himself, and he is sent to the army to serve as cannon fodder.

This war has caused devastating damage to Yanzhou's production. Maybe some people are kind-hearted and want to leave some room for the people, but in fact, there is no room for soft-heartedness in the face of a death-to-death war.

As a result, a vicious circle was formed. The common people could not live on and could not farm, and then both Lu Bu and Cao Cao gradually ran out of food supplies. After that, the comparison of this war was no longer whose elite soldiers were more , but who has more resources than who can consume who first.

Initially, Lu Bu had the advantage in this regard, but Yuan Shao intervened.

Yuan Shao provided Cao Cao with a lot of food and armaments, which greatly relieved Cao Cao's pressure. This made Cao Cao gradually move back to the disadvantaged, and even directly occupied the northeastern counties of Yanzhou. As long as this momentum continues, he will soon be able to occupy Yanzhou's initiative.

Lu Bu also saw the poor prospects, so he began to look for foreign aid.

It is said that Li Yi is Lu Bu's best foreign aid, but when Lu Bu was in high spirits, he hit Zhao Da, Li Yi's deputy commander of the bodyguard, and hurt Li Yi's face. Zhang Yang, the prefect of Hanoi who was also from Bingzhou.

Zhang Yang is more interesting, he is indeed helping Lu Bu, but the situation in Hanoi is the same, the help he can provide to Lu Bu is limited, and he cannot compare with Yuan Shao at all.

In desperation, Lu Bu finally decided to ask Jingzhou for help.

However, Lu Bu still couldn't bear to look for Li Yi. Instead, he contacted Jia Xu, who was still the prefect of Nanyang at the time. Although Lu Bu was not familiar with Jia Xu, he had worked with him before. I hope Jia Xu can give him some food to help him through the crisis. .

Jia Xu naturally couldn't agree, but he didn't refuse, so he agreed to the matter verbally, and then handed it over to Xiangyang to wait for approval. Even Jia Xu left by herself.

As a result, the matter of Lu Bu borrowing food was left alone.

Regarding the situation in Yanzhou, what Li Yi wanted was for the two of them to fight each other, not for one to overwhelm the other. Therefore, even if there was a crack in the relationship between Li Yi and Lu Bu, he couldn't let it go.

To intervene in Yanzhou, Li Yi has two plans. The first is to directly give money and food, and let Lu Bu and Cao Cao consume each other with Yuan Shao instead of him.