Lu Bu: My wife comes from two thousand years later

Madam Liu and others settled down in Jinyang. Xu You was sent to Hongguang College as a teacher. Ju Hu and Tian Zhan also went to the college to study. Yuan Shang insisted on taking classes with Lu Qian in the Tulou. Yan Bing began to hang out with Juxiang all day long and even recommended herself to be Zhang Mo's female bodyguard.

However, Lu Bu did not agree. Amo and the two children were his biggest weaknesses. Although Yan Bing looked a little careless and had no scheming, she was the daughter of an enemy general after all. If one day she kidnapped Amo or stole one of the children, it would cost him his life. He would not let them enter and leave the earth building at will unless they were people he completely trusted.

Yan Bing was very depressed about this, but she also knew that Bingzhou and Jizhou had just finished a war, and her father was Yuan Shao's trusted general. It was already very good that the other party treated her as a prisoner so well. She could not ask for too much, so she begged Zhang Mo to let her and her daughter return to the mountain stronghold, and she wanted to continue training female soldiers.

Zhang Mo didn't care about it. As long as the girls in the village were willing, it would be nice for Yan Bing to train them. At least it would help them stay healthy.

Thanks to the speed of the flying eagle, Lu Bu could receive the news from there as quickly as possible without having to go to Hanoi in person. Qu Yi's troops had arrived outside Yewang County. Since Jiguan was blocked by a group of people and Song Xian's troops could not get through, Zhang Mo asked Taishi Ci to stay and take a look at the situation. If necessary, he could help Qu Yi.

Cao Cao's 45,000 troops now had 20,000 stationed in Yewang County, 20,000 stationed at Baixing to defend against Zhang Liao's army, and another 5,000 deployed as mobile troops. Since Yuan Shao had withdrawn from Shangdang, Cao Cao was no longer able to attack. He simply wanted to use Jizhou's grain to deplete Bingzhou's grain reserves, until Lü Bu could no longer sustain his forces and retreated to Bingzhou.

Originally, Lu Bu was anxious to seize Jizhou and did not want to waste time with Cao's army. However, after learning that Yuan Shao was providing food and grass to Cao Cao, he changed his strategy.

Of course, there is another reason that influenced Lu Bu to change his strategy, that is, the economic means used by Amo and Wang Ding in Jizhou have begun to show results.

At the beginning, Zhang Mo proposed the method of purchasing and pre-ordering large quantities of hemp raw materials in Jizhou, causing the price of hemp to rise, and then arousing the enthusiasm of the people of Jizhou to grow hemp.

However, no matter how rich Wang Ding was, he could not get all the hemp raw materials from all the counties in Jizhou at once. In the first year, he invested all his funds in Changshan and Zhongshan. The hemp in these two counties was almost bought out. Seeing the market, the people began to expand the hemp planting area last year. Wang Ding quickly wove the hemp he bought in the first year into cloth, and used the cloth to exchange for hemp raw materials from other counties in Jizhou, and placed orders for the second year, which made the price of hemp in Jizhou quadruple than usual.

In ancient times, cloth was a hard currency and could be used as money. People could also pay taxes in the form of cloth. So when collecting autumn taxes this year, officials found that people paid an unusually high amount of cloth.

A local official noticed something fishy and reported it to his superiors. The superiors sent people to investigate and found that the area of ​​hemp cultivation in the county was nearly one-third more than in previous years. The superiors then reported this to their superiors. Feng Ji immediately sent people to investigate the entire Jizhou, only to find out that this was the case everywhere. In some places, more than half of the land was used to grow hemp, and the phenomenon of growing hemp in the estates of powerful landlords was even more common.

Although so much hemp was grown, the amount of cloth circulating on the market did not match the output of the raw materials. Feng Ji sent people to investigate carefully and found out that it was a Bingzhou merchant who was responsible. The man bought up almost all the hemp in Jizhou in two years and even reserved for the next year.

Can hemp be eaten as a meal? Of course not!

Obviously, this merchant was most likely sent by the Bingzhou government. However, Feng Ji was puzzled as to why he was collecting so much hemp. Given the current textile production efficiency, it would take him several years to spin all the hemp in Bingzhou. Moreover, with an underpopulated and labor-intensive economy, he was essentially throwing money away.

Although he couldn't figure out the other party's purpose, Feng Ji still ordered people from all over the country not to plant more hemp next spring. This caused dissatisfaction among many people, especially some merchants. The other party had already paid a deposit, and if they failed to deliver the goods next year, they would have to pay triple compensation.

The government didn't care about these things, so the merchants could only transfer the losses to the farmers. If the ordered hemp could not be delivered, the farmers would have to pay the merchants five times the compensation. This made the farmers who accepted the orders very worried, so under the instigation of some people, the people formed groups to go to the government to make trouble.

The government had no choice but to give in and allow another year of planting next year, and also stipulated that all taxes next year must be paid in the form of grain.

However, next year will be a disaster year. Although there will be no serious drought in Jizhou, the locusts after the drought in Guanzhong are not picky about places. They will fly wherever there is food. No matter how much you plant, it will not be enough for them to eat. Yuan Shao is so generous in supplying food and grass to Cao Cao this time. When the drought and locust plague come next year, the people will have no food and the government will have no food to use for disaster relief. That will be the time for the people to rebel.

So after hearing the news from Wang Ding, Lu Bu decided to continue the confrontation with Cao Cao. He quietly reduced the number of troops stationed at the three checkpoints and sent Wang Ling, the governor of Hedong, to Hongnong County and Jingzhou to purchase more grain.

Lu Bu and Zhang Mo took out almost all their family assets, as well as all the cloth produced by the textile factory in the past two years, and exchanged them for grain. Lu Bu also borrowed money from all the wealthy people in Bingzhou through the Wang family in the name of the government.

Money can still be counted at this time, but when disasters occur in various places next year, money will be worthless and having food will be the most important thing.

Cao Cao was deeply puzzled by Lü Bu's decision to send troops but not engage them. What was Bingzhou planning? Was it trying to compete with Jizhou for food and fodder? Could Lü Bu win with the small territory he currently held? This was completely unlike Lü Bu's style!

Cao Cao initially thought that Lu Bu was going to secretly send troops to rob the grain road, but after waiting for a month, there was no movement, and he became more and more puzzled. He wondered if Lu Bu was going to attack Jizhou first, but Lu Bu's troops did not move at all. Cao Cao thought about it over and over again, and gathered all the counselors around him to guess, but he could not guess what Lu Bu was trying to do!

So the two sides remained in a stalemate, with only one or two small-scale military conflicts occasionally breaking out, which did not cause any major casualties.

Although Yuan Shao was puzzled by this situation, he thought it was a good thing for him that Lu Bu did not take action. The task he had previously assigned to Ju Su was about to succeed. Yuan Shao wished that Lu Bu would continue to fight with Cao Cao. In order to show his support for Cao Cao, he had been supplying him with food and grass.

This situation continued until the beginning of the following spring, when someone from Jingzhou sent a letter to Cao Cao saying that Bingzhou had recently sent people there to purchase a lot of grain.

After hearing this news, Cao Cao became more and more confused. Then today, when he was lying in bed thinking about Zhang Mo, he suddenly remembered something and his face turned pale with fright.

"My lord, what happened?"

In the middle of the night, Xi Zhicai was called out from his warm bed and hurried to see Cao Cao.

Cao Cao called people over in a hurry, but at this time he didn't say a word, just stared at the candlelight on the table in a daze. The dim light of the fire was reflected on his pale face, which looked a little creepy in the middle of the night.

"My lord, is your headache coming back again? Should I call a doctor?" Xi Zhicai asked a little nervously. Seeing his dazed look, it didn't seem like he had a headache.

"Tell me, is there anyone in the world who can accurately predict the future through astrology?" Cao Cao finally spoke.

Xi Zhicai replied, "Although I haven't studied astrology, I do know that some people can predict good and bad luck by observing the stars. For something as mysterious as this, I can only make an approximate guess and shouldn't take it seriously!"

Cao Cao said, "Back when she pretended to be a hermit and deceived Benchu ​​and me in Luoyang, she said that if Dong Zhuo didn't die, he would become the next Liang Ji. Within a year, Your Majesty died a violent death, and the imperial capital was destroyed by Zhurong."

He looked at Xi Zhicai, his voice trembling. "Everything has come true, even the timing is right. At the time, I thought this motto was said by her otherworldly master. Today, I suddenly feel that perhaps she doesn't have a master at all. She is the one who can predict the future through astrology."