Chapter 328

Hearing that Cai Yong was willing to help him, Lin Yang thanked him quickly!

"Still calling me Teacher?"

"Uh, thank you, Father-in-law!"

Hearing the words 'Father-in-law', Cai Yong finally smiled!

If Lin Yang weren't his son-in-law, Cai Yong would never have gotten involved in this matter!

Once this was done!

Their Cai family might be cursed to death by the noble families!

"You go; I'll call you when the wedding date is set!"

Saying this to Lin Yang, Cai Yong decided that this time, he would drag in his few friends!

He wasn't the only great Confucian of the time!

Relying on the white paper in his hand, even if he had to trick them, he would get those people over!

He couldn't bear the curses of the noble families alone!

Half a moment later

"Phew!"

Taking a long breath, a smile rose on Lin Yang's face!

Cai Yong was willing to help personally!

That saved a lot of trouble!

Now!

Just wait for the academy to be established and recruit students!

"Report, my lord, a military report from Peng Cheng!"

Just then, a soldier hurried over and handed over a letter!

For a moment, looking at the content of the letter, Lin Yang's brows furrowed tightly!

"Let's go, return immediately, and notify Fengxiao, Gongjin, and Zijing to come to the Provincial Governor's Mansion for a meeting!"

Saying this to his personal guards, Lin Yang strode toward the Provincial Governor's Mansion!

Half a moment later, in the main hall of the Provincial Governor's Mansion

"My lord, why did you summon us so hurriedly? What happened?"

Zhou Yu and Guo Jia arrived, and seeing Cheng Yu and Lu Su already seated, their expressions tightened!

Lin Yang summoning the four of them meant something had happened!

"Come, take a look at this!"

Handing over the intelligence, Cheng Yu, Lu Su, Zhou Yu, and Guo Jia all examined it!

When they saw the intelligence, their brows furrowed slightly!

"This Cao Mengde really cannot be underestimated; he actually defeated Lu Bu!"

Guo Jia finally had some realization at this moment!

No wonder Lin Yang said before!

That the only heroes in the world were him and Cao Mengde!

In less than a year, not only did he pacify the Lu Bu rebellion!

But he also recovered quite a bit of the Sili territory!

"This Cao Mengde is worthy of the name of a hero in troubled times!" Zhou Yu also sighed!

The situation of the warlords in the Han world was becoming clear one by one!

"My lord, Lu Bu heading south straight for Yuzhou is probably a problem for us!" Cheng Yu frowned, looking at the direction of Yuzhou on the map!

Yuzhou was Yuan Gonglu's territory!

The Yuzhou occupied by Yuan Gonglu couldn't be compared to a place like Yanzhou!

Yuzhou not only had a large population but also fertile land!

Yuan Gonglu had over three hundred thousand troops under his command!

If Lu Bu defected to Yuan Gonglu, it would be a huge threat to Lin Yang!

Although Cheng Yu had been recruiting new soldiers in Xuzhou for the past half year!

Even so, the troops in Xuzhou had only recovered to one hundred and forty thousand!

When Lin Yang went south to Yangzhou, there were only ninety thousand troops left in Xuzhou!

Cheng Yu recruited forty thousand new soldiers, trained them, and expanded them into each commandery!

Although Lin Yang had plenty of grain, some things couldn't be obtained immediately just because you had grain!

The Han world now only had a population of fifty million!

Xuzhou, having received a large number of refugees and disaster victims, only had a population of four million!

Now there were one hundred and forty thousand troops in Xuzhou, plus the fifty thousand-strong army in Qingzhou, approaching two hundred thousand troops!

Although it wasn't as militaristic as a ten-to-one ratio, the burden on the people was still very heavy!

In ancient times, a household generally had at least five, or even ten people!

A twenty-to-one recruitment ratio meant that for every two households, one able-bodied man had to be sent to serve as a soldier!

Lin Yang, Yuan Gonglu, Yuan Benchun, and others were basically maintaining this ratio!

As for what would happen if this ratio was exceeded, like ten-to-one or ten-to-two!

The best example was Bingzhou!

Bingzhou forced recruitment, leaving the entire province empty!

Finding two people in one household seemed like it wouldn't be a big problem!

But this was ancient times, and there might only be two or three able-bodied men in a family!

Once the men went to be soldiers, the children, wives, and mothers couldn't farm or support the family!

The outcome awaiting them was very likely death!

The farming methods adopted by the Eastern Han were different from the intensive farming of later generations!

The amount of land a household had to farm was extremely large!

It was even possible for one person to farm one hundred mu of land!

This number might be a bit exaggerated, but it wasn't far off!

Because this era didn't have the concept of intensive farming!

Often, they just planted seeds and waited for them to mature naturally!

This was why!

Even though the Han Dynasty didn't have a population of one hundred million!

It needed seven hundred million mu of land to support over fifty million people!

While in modern society, only 1.8 billion mu of land could support nearly one billion people!

The low land utilization rate meant labor had to be consumed for large-scale farming!

Although Xuzhou now had the support of rice, most people still hadn't been liberated from land labor!

Lin Yang needed to reserve a certain amount of grain before he could recruit on a large scale!

"Hmm, Zhongde's worry is not without reason!"

Slowly withdrawing his focus and thinking about the troops in Xuzhou, Lin Yang felt a bit of pressure!

In the original plot, Xuzhou should have been occupied by Liu Daer!

Lu Bu should have come to defect to Liu Bei!

But because of his existence, Lu Bu had gone to defect to Yuan Gonglu!

Yuan Gonglu's army, combined with Lu Bu and Chen Gong, could not be underestimated!

Especially Chen Gong!

This person's planning and scheming were also top-notch!

He almost caused Cao Boss to die!

"My lord, Zilong can withstand Lu Bu's bravery, but that Chen Gongtai is good at strategy and needs someone sent to guard against him!"

Although there was no news yet that Lu Bu had defected to Yuan Gonglu!

Everyone present had prepared for it!

"Hmm!" Lin Yang nodded, then looked around, "Zijing has always had brilliant plans; this time he can oversee Xiapi and work with Zilong to block Lu Bu!"