Chapter 76 Digesting the Result "You have worked harder, but fortunately we have gained a lot this time, and it's all worth it." Tian Ze looked at the tired faces of several people and felt guilty. He hurriedly stepped forward, patted their shoulders, and gave each of them a few more strands of spiritual energy. He made a fortune from the Yellow Turban Rebellion. A population of nearly three million! You must know that before the uprising began, the people under his rule were no more than 700,000, and the number of hidden households was no more than million. And the number of people attracted this time is actually much larger than the original total population! In order to properly accommodate these people, Chen Gong and others worked day and night, eating and living in the government office every day, and did not dare to slack off for a moment, for fear of any unexpected situation. The original militiamen have all been transformed into soldiers, patrolling the newly built villages day and night. The supplies that had been stockpiled earlier were quickly distributed. However, such a large population size was completely beyond their initial expectations. For this purpose, Chen Gong had to use the grain and supplies stored in the government treasury, and speed up the production of clothing and the construction of houses, almost consuming all the resources at hand, and only then was he able to barely accommodate these people. While Chen Gong admired Yu Tianze's foresight in purchasing grain in preparation for a rainy day, he couldn't help but feel secretly fortunate.
If more refugees were recruited this time, I'm afraid Liaodong's supplies would not be able to hold up. You know, that's three million mouths to feed, and the food consumption alone is at least four to five million dan a month. It's only November now, and there are still at least six months until the next summer harvest, which means nearly 30 million dan of food. Chen Gong made a rough calculation and found that by then the grain reserves in Liaodong might be less than 10 million shi. And this does not include the additional military expenditures. With so many new people this time, Cheng Yu will definitely expand the army. Although the supply of other materials is temporarily insufficient, it has little impact on the people. Moreover, with Liaodong's productivity, it can be made up quickly as long as there is no problem with food. As for food, fortunately there is still enough time for autumn planting. Chen Gong and Guo Yuan began to prepare seeds, farm tools and other supplies without stopping, waiting for Tian Ze to arrive. Tian Ze looked at Chen Gong's expectant eyes and nodded. He had accumulated enough spiritual energy this time, so the cultivation and harvest of this batch of grain would definitely not be a problem. As long as he could hold on until the summer harvest next year, he would no longer have to worry about food. With a population of more than four million, each person has an average of 20 mu of land. One mu of land can produce more than 3 dan of winter grain, which is nearly 300 million dan of grain! Even if the grain to support the autumn harvest is deducted, there is still a surplus of more than 200 million dan of grain. He no longer had to worry about food shortages, and he could finally switch from imports to exports and sell food on a large scale. Today, Liaodong is able to be self-sufficient in many aspects, and the development of commerce has also brought huge income. However, there was still a huge gap in food and war horses. In addition, a large amount of money was spent on attracting refugees, and the army had been in a state of loss for the past year. Although Tian Ze has a solid foundation, he cannot last too long. He can only hold out for about a year at most, because attracting people and purchasing war horses are imperative. There must be an income that can at least offset these losses, and that is food. The Yellow Turban Rebellion, which lasted for a year, caused war to break out across the Central Plains. The people could not concentrate on farming, and a huge famine had occurred in the Central Plains. The price of grain had soared to five thousand coins per stone, and there was still no sign of it falling. Because there is no food in the Central Plains, there will be more refugees. If there are too many refugees, they will be instigated by the Yellow Turbans to cause chaos, resulting in more people still being unable to farm. Next year's grain production is also not optimistic. And if nothing unexpected happens, there will be another large-scale plague this year. Under this vicious cycle, the Central Plains region will be in a state of famine all year round and food prices will remain high.
In a sense, this is a good thing for Tian Ze. He only needs to get through the most difficult six months, and by the time of summer harvest, he will have enough food, which he can sell on a large scale and make huge profits. Tian Ze and his advisers had already made detailed plans for his future, but at the moment, they had no intention of considering these long-term plans. With the resettlement of three million refugees and the takeover of the territories of Xuantu County and Lelang County, Tian Ze and his civil and military officials were all extremely busy. The entire Liaodong was mobilized. All previously trained manpower was mobilized, all reserve materials were distributed, and all factories were operated at full capacity. In order to gather enough money and supplies, Tian Ze immediately carried out another thorough purge of Xuantu and Lelang counties, confiscating all the money, grain and supplies. At the same time, he used the grain in the warehouse as collateral and borrowed a large amount of copper coins from Mi Fang at a relatively high interest rate to purchase supplies and offset the cost of attracting refugees. The wealth under his command was almost completely squeezed out by Tian Ze, and he could only barely maintain the normal life of the people. Tian Ze was not worried about not being able to pay back the money, so he did not feel much pressure about this overdraft behavior. After all, this was only a temporary difficulty, and after the summer harvest next year, his treasury would be full again. But he couldn't help but feel a little alert in his heart. This was the first time he had really faced the situation of the warehouse being empty, which undoubtedly sounded a wake-up call for him. Liaodong seems prosperous today, but it is supported by countless money and grain. Once there is a shortage of money and grain, it will trigger many serious problems. Tian Ze must be fully prepared and never let this kind of shortage happen again. Trying to swallow an elephant with a snake often comes at a huge price. If you don't do it right, you may even end up in an irretrievable situation. In order to ensure the safety of his rule and prevent the surrounding Xianbei, Goguryeo and others from taking advantage of the opportunity to cause chaos, Tian Ze, following Cheng Yu's well-considered advice, expanded the army again, recruited the militia and refugees from Liaodong into the army on a selective basis, and directly doubled the army. Now the emperor has tacitly allowed local warlords to develop their own armed forces. The Yellow Turban Rebellion will continue in the future, and Tian Ze is no longer worried that he will be targeted by the court. As long as he took out a small amount of money and paid the full tax revenue of the four counties to the court, no one would care about the situation of the four counties of Liaodong. In order to ensure the orderly management of the people, Tian Ze, who originally planned to appoint the best candidates, had to re-employ all the newly trained reserve candidates for officials in the Ministry of Education. Officials who were already in office were promoted based on merit. Some village officials who performed well were promoted directly to county governors under such special circumstances. There's nothing we can do, we're really short of people. The three million refugees nearly doubled the number of officials originally planned by Tian Ze. In order to ensure that each of the three million refugees was provided with twenty acres of black soil, Tian Ze had accumulated a year's worth of spiritual energy, but almost squandered it all, leaving only a small amount to barely maintain the spiritual rain technique, and also to provide farmland for the refugees who would arrive next. Fortunately, the population base is large, and a considerable amount of spiritual energy can be provided every day. Moreover, because of the existence of breeding techniques, Tian Ze no longer needs to frequently consume a large amount of spiritual energy to perform the spiritual rain technique, otherwise the subsequent attraction of refugees will inevitably be delayed again. The grains bred through breeding techniques will inherit their characteristics after being planted, which means that Tian Ze only needs to develop some good seeds by himself, and the rest can be carefully cultivated and promoted by the Ministry of Agriculture. In order to ensure that these high-yield seeds are not used by the enemy, Tian Ze strictly restricted the growth environment of the seeds, and they can only grow normally in extremely fertile soil such as black soil. There might not be any land suitable for cultivation in the whole world, so Tian Ze doesn't have to worry about leakage at all. In this way, half a year of hard work slowly passed. The four counties of Liaodong are all in the midst of bustling construction, just as busy and hopeful as Liaodong was a year ago.
All the people under Tian Ze were so busy that Jia Xu couldn't help but feel resentful again when he looked at Tian Ze. What happened to the promised relaxation? Instead of a few months of rest, I had to work overtime day and night for another six months. (End of this chapter)