Daqin Engineering Corps

"What's more, the harvest is less than two months away, why should the prime minister be so worried?"

Lis replied:

"Your Majesty, although there is a lot of food in Ruyin and Shouchun, it is only enough for Shouchun and our army."

"There are still hundreds of thousands of people in Chu who have no food or clothing."

"Although the harvest is less than two months away at this time, according to the calculations of the minister, even if all the grain we produce is used for the common people, it can only last for two months."

"When……"

There is no need to say more about the next question.

If all the harvested food is only enough for more than two months, how can it be maintained until the next harvest?

At that time, let alone fighting, the survival of the people will be a problem.

And if people's lives become a problem, the political situation will inevitably be unstable, so there will be great chaos everywhere...

Ying Zheng didn't dare to continue thinking, and his expression gradually became serious. He got up and walked back and forth before the case, and then asked:

"So in the opinion of the prime minister, how should we solve it?"

Lis replied:

"To the king."

"As far as I know, the crops in the north of Yan Kingdom cannot survive the winter due to the cold winter, so the crops are usually planted in spring and harvested in autumn."

"It's spring at this time, if we can use the crops of Yan State as seeds to sow in Wei, Chu and other places...the harvest will be harvested in a few months."

"At that time, I will have no worries about food."

Ying Zhengdang agreed:

"It's a clever plan, so act according to this method."

"The widow will ask the King of Yan to send some food!"

If the King of Yan heard this, he would feel another ten thousand horses galloping past in his heart.

It is said that Yan Wangxi originally aroused public grievances in order to make up for the food requested by the Qin army... This time the public grievances were not as easy to appease as usual.

Because this is the food that the people used to save their lives in the winter, and if the people can't live, they will steal, rob, or become bandits.

However, it is still a small number of people who fall into the grass and become bandits. The winter in Yandi is extremely cold, and "falling into the grass as bandits" in the wild is almost courting death.

But even so, the result is not optimistic, because the number of homicides in Yan this winter has increased by dozens of times compared to previous years.

Most of the people who were robbed were rich and well-fed merchants and officials, and there were even several small-scale riots.

Yan Wangxi almost turned the capital upside down but failed to find many rebels.

The reason is that the soldiers of the army are often poor people, and many of them are victims themselves, so the officials and bandits became a family...

This may not seem like a big deal, but it already shows that the people of Yan Kingdom have lost their minds.

There is a saying that "the heart is like a wild horse, easy to let go but hard to take back". Once the heart is scattered, it will be difficult for Yan Wangxi to get it back.

Under such circumstances, Ying Zheng asked King Yan to send food again, wouldn't it make things worse?

But of course, what Ying Zheng said was not "send", but "borrow" very politely.

However, everyone knows that this food is borrowed but not repaid.

But King Yan couldn't help it. If he didn't send food, the Qin army would come to the city again in another day.

At this time, Yan Wangxi dared not offend Qin.

You must know that Qin State defeated Wei State and Chu State one after another after attacking Yan... This almost made King Yan's jaw drop in surprise.

On the other hand, he was secretly rejoicing: Fortunately, he surrendered early, otherwise he would have been captured like King Wei and King Chu.

Among them, King Wei was beheaded after he surrendered... This may be because Yingzheng did not shame King Wei for his fake behavior.

On the other hand, Yan Wangxi scolded Prince Dan again in his heart:

"This guy has no vision. He also said that by uniting several armies, he can defeat the Qin army and help Zhao regain the lost ground."

"Unexpectedly, the Qin army can not only defeat the coalition forces of Yan and Dai, but also defeat Wei and attack Chu."

"It's easy for him to die, but the widow is left in a dilemma."

Yan Wangxi didn't even think about it. The reason why the Qin army was able to attack Wei was entirely because of the large amount of food he provided.

Because of the extreme fear of Qin State in his heart, Yan Wangxi did not dare to refuse Yingzheng's "borrowing food".

And its speed is extremely fast, and the first batch of grain will be prepared immediately and transported upstream from the Yellow River to Handan...

At this time, it has entered spring and the temperature is warming up, and the mouth of the Yellow River has thawed.

Moreover, although the Yellow River has flood seasons in four seasons, spring is the mildest and shortest flood season, so spring is most suitable for shipping and building water conservancy facilities.

The transportation of wheat seeds is also not a problem. Yingzheng directly transports these wheat seeds from the Yellow River to Daliang, and then enters Shahe River from Bianshui to all parts of Chu State.

Starting from Bianshui in Daliang, it is going down the river, so it doesn't take long.

The problem on King Yan's side has been solved, but there are still problems on Li Si's side:

"Wei State is lucky to say that its people have enough labor force, so as long as it is deployed properly, it is not difficult to overcome difficulties."

"But the state of Chu...has food but no labor to cultivate it."

"Our army is fighting against the Chu army on the front line of the Huaihe River, and it is impossible to garrison all the fields..."

Ying Zheng thought for a while and replied:

"Using the prisoners of war of the Chu army as labor force to garrison the fields."

Li Si shook his head:

"Even so, it is far from the number of farms."

Ying Zheng also said:

"Let the women also go to farm..."

This statement may be reasonable, it is the moment of life and death, why can't women farm the fields?

However, this is just wishful thinking of a high-ranking person like Ying Zheng.

Women in ancient times did not have nothing to do at home. They either weaved at home or "threshed rice" all day long, otherwise the whole family would not be able to eat.

Chapter 263

Even Ying Zheng panicked.

As the saying goes, "Food is the most important thing for the people", if this saying is placed in modern times, it may not be deeply understood.

But in ancient times when productivity was extremely backward, it was really "heaven", because not having enough food meant starving to death, and it was still starving to death in pieces.

Yingzheng immediately called a group of ministers to discuss countermeasures.

However, what can be done about the shortage of labor force?

Can you still recruit heavenly soldiers and heavenly future to garrison the fields?

On the other side, Chu Wangqi, who had already arrived at Dongting in the starry night, was also waiting for this moment.

It is actually related to him to take out a large number of laborers in the Huaibei area. Before that, Xiang Yan originally only moved the laborers to the front line of Ruyin.

The reason is that the fief further south belongs to the nobles of Chu State. Wouldn’t it be cheaper for those nobles to bring their labor to the south?

But at that time, when King Qi of Chu was still Lord Changping, he suggested:

"Arranging this much labor in Ruyin will consume a lot of food and grass, and secondly, if Ruyin falls, wouldn't they be slow-moving prisoners of the Qin army and used by the Qin army?"

"Now the Qin army's attack on Rushui may only take a day or two, and it is possible to move the labor force south to be cultivated by the nobles."

"The nobles are envious of me and other generals. I'm afraid these labors won't catch their eye."

Xiang Yan thought it was right.

What's more, with the deterrent power of the king of Chu, there is no problem in wanting to return to labor.

As a result, most of the labor force was transferred to the south.

At this time, when the group of them fled to Dongting, they took these laborers and went south together... Dongting area is a barren land, and these labors are needed to open up new land.

At this time, Mr. Changping can be said to be hesitating or waiting and watching.

If Qin cannot solve the labor shortage problem in Huaibei, a large number of Chu people will starve to death... To be exact, the Chu people in the Qin army's occupied area will starve to death.

Then Chu Wangqi can raise his arms and shout:

"That's how Jiang Qin ended up."

"Anyway, it's death, why don't you fight to the death with Qin Jun..."

So the people of Chu will soon gather under his banner, the new king of Chu.

At that time, even the nobles will have to fight against Qin with him due to the situation.

The reason is very simple, the hearts of the people are the most important thing, if the nobles are not popular with the people, then the common people will turn against them, and the nobles are afraid that they will die in the hands of their own people.

Second, it is precisely these nobles who bear the brunt of the Qin army at this time, and they are actually the ones who hope to unite against Qin.

Xiang Yan still has more than 40 troops in his hand, and the nobles have more than [-] troops in their hands. By then, they can gather another [-] troops.

The Qin army only had more than [-] soldiers.

Coupled with the fact that a large number of Chu people in Huaibei were starved to death, and the people were united by the same enemy, Chu State may not be able to make a comeback.

However, Mr. Changping frowned and remained silent.

Xiang Yan couldn't help but wonder:

"Why is Your Majesty so frowning?"

King Qi of Chu replied:

"The general doesn't know something. I have some personal relationship with Shen Bing. This man is full of resourcefulness and wonderful ideas."

"With him here, if I want to defeat Qin Jun, I'm afraid..."

Xiang Yan's face turned cold when he heard Shen Bing's name, how could he not know how powerful Shen Bing was after being defeated by Shen Bing several times.

But this time Xiang Yan was not as worried as Chu Wangqi.

Xiang Yan said:

"What the king said is that the subordinates also know that Shen Bing is not an ordinary person."

"However, Huaibei is short of manpower this trip, so Shen Bing has three heads and six arms, can he still conjure up manpower?"

Chu Wangqi nodded slightly in agreement.

He thought so too, but he was still a little worried.

So he sent spies to Huaibei to investigate and monitor Shen Bing.

All kinds of news spread to King Qi of Chu from all directions, and the news in the newspaper was the same:

"Shen Bing is letting the soldiers rush to build the water tanker."

"The wheat seeds transferred from Yan State have arrived in Shouchun, but they have not been cultivated yet."

……

Hearing these news, Chu Wangqi felt a little relieved, and said:

"This Shen Bing is strange. Shouchun has no shortage of water. What's the use of this Shen Bing rushing to build a large number of water trucks?"

Chu Wangqi also said this.

The area around Shouchun is the Huaihe River system. Not to mention the tributaries, many irrigation facilities have been built. In addition, there is no drought like Zhao Guo, and most fields do not need waterwheels.

This is also one of the reasons why waterwheels are not popular in Chu State. Only some special areas such as fields higher than water sources were previously abandoned for planting. After the introduction of waterwheels, these high fields can be planted.

However, what Chu Wangqi did not expect was that the waterwheel was the most useful.

In the past few days, Shen Bing first made a waterwheel and used hydraulic blowing.

This is a very simple thing for Shen Bing.