Three Kingdoms: My Strategy Simulator

"Father, you're not drunk?" Jia Mu, who was pouring a cup of water to help Jia Xu sober up, couldn't help but be a little stunned and asked.

Jia Xu narrowed his eyes and replied matter-of-factly.

"When out and about, how can one get drunk?"

"Father, have some water."

Jia Mu placed the cup of water in front of Jia Xu, then asked, "Then everything Father said at the banquet just now was deliberate?"

"Naturally."

The reason Jia Xu specifically brought Jia Mu with him this time was to take the opportunity to guide him.

Previously, Jia Xu was more than capable of protecting himself when he was alone, but there was no opportunity to bring Jia Mu with him to teach him.

Now that Jia Xu has joined Liu Bei's command, and Jia Mu is approaching adulthood, the safety is naturally very different from the past.

Even if Jia Xu didn't want Jia Mu to learn poisonous schemes, he didn't want Jia Mu to be too naive and simple, so he took this eldest son with him to Lu Jiang to teach him a lesson.

"Words spoken in drunkenness are the easiest to have room for maneuver, suitable for testing or conveying information," Jia Xu replied.

Jia Mu said with some lingering fear, "Just now, I was really worried that Prefect Lu would turn hostile on the spot."

"He wouldn't."

Jia Xu said with a smile, "That Lu Kang has the demeanor of a gentleman and wouldn't do such a thing."

"It's rare for Father to place his hopes on the other party's character, which shows Lu Kang's nobility," Jia Mu said with some emotion.

Jia Xu smiled faintly and said.

"The main reason is that most of Lu Kang's clansmen are still within Wu County. Even if he had a hundred times the courage, he would never dare to attack us."

After a pause, Jia Xu seemed somewhat emotional as he pulled out a bamboo slip from his sleeve, which recorded relevant information about the prefects of various counties in Yang Province, and said.

"Rumor has it that Li Zikun has a special organization under his command responsible for intelligence gathering. It seems that it's not just hot air, otherwise there wouldn't be such accurate intelligence records on it."

"It is because I know all the information about Lu Kang, the Prefect of Lu Jiang County, that I am certain that no matter how angered Lu Kang is, he would never risk his clansmen being retaliated against to turn hostile against us."

"I have to say, Li Zikun's vision is indeed far-reaching. Such an organization dedicated to intelligence gathering can play a huge role in all aspects."

"If I could get involved…"

However, just as Jia Xu subconsciously uttered this thought, he shook his head and denied it.

"I am not Li Zikun. He and the Lord started from humble beginnings. With this kind of intelligence gathering organization in Li Zikun's hands, the Lord can rest assured that he is in control. But if it were in my hands, I would inevitably be feared… and die an early death."

"Can't touch it, can't touch it…"

Almost in an instant, Jia Xu realized that this was a huge pit.

Not to mention that holding the Embroidered Uniform Guard is extremely easy to be feared by the lord and colleagues, but sometimes knowing too much is not necessarily a good thing.

I'm afraid that even under Liu Bei's command, only Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, and Li Ji can get involved and still be completely trusted by Liu Bei.

Jia Mu silently listened to Jia Xu's muttering, secretly recording all the words, and refilled Jia Xu's empty cup with water again.

"Mu'er."

Jia Xu discarded his previous thoughts and continued, "Do you know the purpose of what your father said at the banquet just now?"

"Please enlighten me, Father," Jia Mu cupped his hands and said.

"Li Zikun's goal for me is to divide 200,000 refugees into the five counties of Yang Province except for Wu County, which is about 40,000 people per county. However, among these 200,000 people, there are no young and strong males. Women and children account for about 90%, and the remaining 10% are older people."

Jia Xu knew these details like the back of his hand.

Although the refugees have not all gathered in Wu County, Jia Xu only needs to investigate the proportion of refugees remaining after screening in the refugee camp to roughly know the final composition of the refugees that need to flow into the other five counties of Yang Province.

"Then why did Father say 130,000 when only 40,000 refugees need to be accepted? Moreover, Lu Kang has always had the demeanor of a gentleman in the past, loyal to the emperor and patriotic, and has also been benevolent to the people. If it is 40,000 refugees within his ability, Lu Kang is not expected to refuse."

Jia Mu was a little confused. The difference between these numbers can be described as worlds apart.

It's not to say that Lu Kang's ability to govern is very high, but his reputation in the local area is not bad. However, resettling 130,000 refugees is indeed far beyond the capacity of Lu Jiang County.

Not every county can have a county assistant like Mr. Zikun, who can bring about earth-shaking changes in Wu County in a very short period of time.

"Of course, Father knows that Lu Kang will not be too resistant to resettling 40,000 refugees. What about the other counties? What about the four counties of Jiujiang, Danyang, Kuaiji, and Yuzhang?"

Jia Xu's rhetorical question made Jia Mu fall into deep thought.

The situations in the counties are different, and the ideas of the county prefects are also very different.

If a court decree could make the local county prefects completely obey, then the Han Dynasty would not have reached its current precarious state.

Although the various places of the Han Dynasty still follow the court's decrees as a matter of principle, the court is often unable to verify how much is actually implemented locally.

What's more, such things from top to bottom have always been a matter of having policies at the top and countermeasures at the bottom.

"Son, I still don't understand the purpose of Father's claim that each county must resettle 130,000 refugees," Jia Mu cupped his hands and said.

Jia Xu pondered for a moment and asked, "If Mu'er were the Prefect of Lu Jiang County facing the current situation, what should he do?"

Jia Mu thought for a while and said helplessly.

"There's nothing I can do."

That's right, this is Lu Kang's situation!

A gentleman can be deceived with principles.

Lu Kang is originally a person who is loyal to the emperor and loves his country, and his clansmen are all within Wu County. Rescuing refugees is also an act of benevolence. In both public and private, Lu Kang has no excuse to refuse.

However, in reality, Lu Kang knows very well that Lu Jiang is unable to bear so many refugees.

In this way, Lu Kang is naturally helpless.

"Then if Lu Kang knew of a way to reduce the number of refugees arranged to Lu Jiang County from 130,000 to 40,000, how would he choose?" Jia Xu asked again.

"Then naturally he would hold on to it tightly!"

Jia Mu said instinctively, but suddenly realized.

Jia Xu smiled and continued, "With the example of Lu Jiang County in front, would the other four counties choose to actively follow suit when considering violating 'righteousness' and resettling refugees within their capacity?" Jia Xu asked again.

This method is undoubtedly another trick that Jia Xu is accustomed to using, which directly points to human nature.

It's like the government comes up and says that it wants to demolish your house without any compensation. You will definitely be unwilling and can only fight with your life.

But if in this situation, you have one more choice, which is to take money to a certain government office to dredge the relationship, and then after demolishing your house, you can also have a new house and a sum of money as compensation, then as long as you are not a stubborn person, you will naturally do your best to dredge the relationship, instead of stubbornly fighting with your life.

"Father is indeed insightful into people's hearts," Jia Mu said with emotion.

"Just a little trickery."

Jia Xu waved his hand dismissively, and then said.

"Mu'er, tomorrow you can take the opportunity to visit Lu Kang and hint that the affairs of the large Wu County are all controlled by Li Zikun alone, and the number of refugees allocated can be adjusted completely through Li Zikun's relationship."

"At that time, Lu Kang, as an old man in the officialdom, will naturally know what to do."

Jia Mu nodded, his expression becoming more and more filial and respectful as he added water to Jia Xu again.

Jia Xu then took out a bamboo slip, wrote on it, and handed it to the accompanying soldiers, sending a fast horse to send the bamboo slip to Li Ji as soon as possible.

When Li Ji received this bamboo slip three days later, he glanced at the contents and couldn't help but chuckle.

"When it comes to cunning, Jia Wenhe is truly unprecedented."

"He ran to Lu Jiang County and acted as a great loyal and patriotic official, a deadhead who only knew how to implement the court's decrees to the end. In the end, he threw the trouble back to me and asked me to mobilize the Embroidered Uniform Guard to spread the news of the Lu Jiang County government in other counties."

"In the end, he seems to have gone to the counties of Yang Province for tourism and sightseeing, but I have become someone who can be won over by other county prefects to change the rules at will."

Li Ji sighed repeatedly helplessly. Jia Xu really didn't take any losses.

Perhaps, with "righteousness" in hand, and with only a mere 40,000 refugees to be resettled in each county, Jia Xu still has a better way to solve this matter, but Jia Xu definitely chose a decision that would allow him to get rid of his own involvement the most.

In this way, Li Ji will have to pretend to be hypocritical with the officials sent by the county prefects, and finally accept a lot of gifts before reluctantly agreeing to change the number of refugees to be resettled.

For a time, this originally proper policy contradiction is about to become an unwritten rule in the officialdom, and Li Ji has become the one who unwritten rules others.

However, Li Ji slightly weighed it and flipped through the content reported by Jia Mu, but he did not deny Jia Xu's choice.

Accepting with a pinched nose and accepting while claiming to have taken advantage of it, the psychology of the county prefects is different, and the attitude towards those refugees is also completely different.

In this case, as long as Wu County sends more supervision, the other counties will not say that they will properly resettle every refugee, but at least they can guarantee basic jobs.

In the case where most of them are women and children, I am afraid that other counties can basically solve the problem directly by arranging marriages to local single men.

In addition to this, Li Ji saw a huge amount of manipulable space in this choice.

Wu Commandery absorbed six hundred thousand refugees in one go, three times more than the total number of refugees absorbed by all the other commanderies in Yang Province combined. This number was already somewhat frightening.

A little concealment would undoubtedly avoid a considerable amount of trouble and attention.

Apart from the high profile recruitment of talent, Li Ji theoretically hoped that the entire Wu Commandery would develop at a fairly low-key pace. (End of chapter)