Chapter 216

Liu Bei glanced at the city wall of Yecheng in the distance and waved his hand,

"The whole army, set off!"

Three hundred thousand people pushed four hundred thousand shi of grain and fodder, moving slowly.

This time, with the help of the Zhen family, Ju Shou, and others, Liu Bei recruited three hundred thousand refugees in Jizhou, which could be considered a full harvest.

He also obtained one thousand strong crossbows, several hundred sets of fine armor, and several hundred craftsmen who made bows, crossbows, and bed crossbows from Han Fu—the harvest was very rich!

Yuan Shao cursed Liu Bei for a long, long time for this!

Liu Bei looked at Zhen Jiang's carriage again.

This time, the Zhen family's dowry was very generous.

One hundred carts of dowry, about two thousand servants—from this, one can see the wealth of the Zhen family.

Of course, it mainly came with a peerlessly beautiful sister-in-law, Zhen Mi!

On the city tower of Yecheng,

Yuan Shao looked coldly at the migrating commoners outside the city,

"Liu Bei actually took away thirty thousand of my Jizhou commoners!"

Tian Feng also had a solemn face,

"My lord, Liu Bei is very popular, has high prestige, and his soldiers and generals are brave and skilled in battle. Having lived in Bingzhou for a long time, his ambition is not small, so we must be on guard!"

Yuan Shao remembered being slapped in the face by Liu Bei, clenched his fist, burning with hatred,

"Wait until I sweep away Gongsun Zan, and with the strength of three provinces, I don't believe I can't take down the small Bingzhou!"

Inside the carriage,

Zhen Mi's gaze passed through the window, quietly sizing up Liu Bei on horseback, biting her lip, not knowing what she was thinking.

"Little sister, what are you looking at?"

06 Zhen Jiang asked somewhat weakly; she admitted that she was indeed too young, still thinking about dreams and such.

Zhen Mi's body shook, as if she had been discovered,

"I'm looking at these commoners. Thirty thousand commoners are willing to follow brother-in-law to Bingzhou; brother-in-law's reputation is truly good."

Zhen Jiang's eyes held pride and admiration,

"Husband's reputation is naturally very good. These commoners lost their land in Jizhou, and hearing that husband's Bingzhou can distribute land and not pay taxes for three years, they are naturally willing to go."

"However, if it weren't for husband's reputation, many people wouldn't believe it."

Zhen Mi laughed,

"Sister, you are admiring brother-in-law more and more."

Zhen Jiang sighed,

It's impossible not to admire him, it's truly tiring! Wuwuwu!

"This time, Mother and third brother let you go to learn from the great Cai, you must work hard."

Zhen Mi covered her mouth and laughed,

"That's a must, I am a famous talented woman in Hebei."

One month later,

Jinyang City,

Liu Bei looked at the city wall in the distance and let out a long sigh of relief. Finally back, this time traveling with the commoners, the time spent on the road was much longer,

But there was also much more time to inspect the people's conditions along the way,

Henei Commandery, Shangdang Commandery, and so on.

On the way, they recruited tens of thousands of refugees, plus the two hundred thousand from Yuzhou, Bingzhou's population increased by a total of six hundred thousand.

Hedong and Bingzhou's population previously totaled about 1.2 million,

Luoyang's seven hundred thousand commoners, plus this time's, the population directly doubled!

Fortunately, Liu Bei had Bai Yuekui and Han Hao garrison troops to plant some potatoes, and previously purchased a large amount of grain, otherwise it really wouldn't have been enough to eat!

What does fighting in the late Han rely on? It relies on generals, money and grain, and population. Without people, what's the point of fighting!

What Liu Bei needs to do next is to continuously increase Bingzhou's population, reclaim wasteland, and develop the Hetao Plain!

Bingzhou Inspector's Mansion,

Liu Bei sat in the main seat, listening to Guo Jia report on the recent situation in Bingzhou,

"My lord, we now have about 2.55 million commoners, mainly distributed in Hedong and Taiyuan commanderies, and there are two hundred thousand Hu Ren slaves."

"Our army now has sixty thousand troops, including twenty-six thousand cavalry, thirty-seven thousand infantry... 1.5 million head of cattle and sheep, 120,000 horses..."

After listening to Guo Jia's introduction,

The newly joined Ju Shou, Xu Shu, Ju Yi, Zhang He, Shi Guangyuan, and others were all greatly encouraged.

They didn't expect that the Bingzhou, which was poor in their impression, had undergone such huge changes in such a short time.

Liu Bei listened to the report, his thoughts flying, but he was a bit distracted.

The late Han was a tragic era.

The Yellow Turban Rebellion killed many people, Dong Zhuo killed many more, and the subsequent warlord chaos caused the population to plummet even further.

In the late Eastern Han, there were fifty million people; by the late Three Kingdoms, they couldn't even gather ten million!

The "contributions" of the warlords here were not small.

Li Jue and Guo Si fought in Guanzhong and often went out of Tongguan and Wuguan to burn, kill, and loot!

Cao Cao had eight recorded massacres of cities.

Starting from avenging his father, he massacred hundreds of thousands of commoners in Xuzhou, and many counties were left without even chickens or dogs!

Breaking Zhang Miao, massacring the city again—Yongqiu,

Attacking Lu Bu, in the tenth month of winter, massacring Peng Cheng,

Attacking Yuan Shang, massacring Yecheng, and so on.

His subordinates followed suit.

Xia Houyuan massacred Xingguo and Fu'han,

Cao Ren massacred Wancheng!

The plague caused by the massacres killed even more people.

The so-called hypocrite Liu Bei and the morally inferior Sun Quan never massacred a single city.

As a modern person, Liu Bei could not accept these behaviors of Cao Cao.

Thinking of this, Liu Bei sighed. What he could do now was to receive more commoners while strengthening himself, and prevent those tragedies from happening as much as possible.

Along the way, the gratitude of the commoners and their simplicity were vivid in his mind.

Unknowingly, Liu Bei had gradually integrated into this world.

Hua Mulan and Bai Yuekui looked at Liu Bei's eyes and looked at each other; the captain really seemed to have changed.