Your Majesty, please spare Diao Chan; your yang energy is too strong.

"Does my lord mean you intend to betray our alliance?"

After a long while, Liao Hua finally opened his mouth and spoke.

"What does it mean to break an alliance? How can there be a break of alliance if there was no alliance?"

"I merely married Yuan Shu's daughter; what does that have to do with forming an alliance with him?"

"Besides, even if I really have some connection with Yuan Shu, what can the other warlords do to me?"

"Once I conquer Jianghuai, I will be qualified to contend for the world."

What does it matter what the world says?

Zhou Heng paused at this point.

"And don't forget, we are different from the others. The others are feudal lords, but in their eyes we are nothing more than bandits and outlaws, not worth mentioning at all."

"Even if they ally with us, I doubt anyone will take us seriously."

"If that's the case, then what does it matter?"

Zhou Heng asked.

"This...but..."

The two hesitated, as if they wanted to say something but then stopped.

But they didn't know how to refute it.

"There are no 'buts' about it. Besides, do you think the warlords will let us off the hook if we don't form a marriage alliance with Yuan Shu?"

"I'm telling you it's impossible."

"In the eyes of aristocratic families, this world belongs to them."

"They will absolutely not allow someone who is a commoner, or someone born as a remnant of the Yellow Turban Rebellion, to rise above their station."

"The reason they are ignoring us now is simply because they don't take us seriously."

"When we become powerful in the future, we will definitely want to eliminate them as soon as possible."

"His situation then won't be much better than Yuan Shu's is now."

"Since we're going to have to face each other sooner or later, why not take advantage of the great benefits now and face each other in advance?"

"To put it another way... if we take over Jianghuai, we will have to face the various warlords anyway."

"Then what's wrong with us facing off now?"

Zhou Heng said dismissively.

Since we'll have rivals sooner or later, we might as well face them even if it brings us no benefit in the end.

It would be better to expose it now while there are huge benefits to be had.

While early exposure may carry some risks.

But it was entirely proportional to his gains.

If that's the case, then what does he have to be afraid of?

Wealth and wealth are found in danger.

"Don't forget, our men were originally Yellow Turban rebels, and what they did was rebel."

"It's just a matter of redoing it now, so what's there to be afraid of?"

Zhou Heng said calmly.

"This is."

This statement came out.

The two hesitated for a moment, but finally nodded.

Because they discovered that Zhou Heng was absolutely right.

Anyway, what they did before was rebellion.

Cooperating with Yuan Shu now would simply be doing it all over again.

What is there to fear?

There are also such enormous benefits.

Not to mention, sooner or later we'll have to confront those feudal lords.

Having a legitimate title is far better than using the name of a bandit to confront them.

"Alright, my mind is made up, there's no need to say more."

"I will write a letter now and send it to Xuzhou immediately, instructing them to treat Yuan Shu's people well."

"Furthermore, I agree to this marriage alliance."

Zhou Heng waved his hand.

He immediately wrote a lengthy reply.

Within a few days.

Mi Zhu replied again, and things were progressing very smoothly.

The two daughters of the Yuan family also settled in Xuzhou as the matriarchs.

She was just waiting for Zhou Heng to come home and pamper her.

As for the enormous dowry, Mi Zhu had long since used it to develop his own power.

In order to give Zhou Heng the power to face the feudal lords of the world and successfully seize Jianghuai.

Mi Zhu used all his strength.

They practically emptied their savings.

In just half a month, they recruited nearly 10,000 people.

Why are they able to recruit so many people?

That's because the conditions offered by Mi Zhu were so compelling that no one in the entire Xuzhou could refuse them.

After all, in this era, ordinary people who join the army have trouble even eating, let alone receiving a military salary.

He served as a soldier under Zhou Heng.

Not only do they all eat three meals a day, but they also eat their fill at every meal.

They also receive a monthly salary.

About one hundred coins per month.

Keep in mind that at that time, one hundred coins was a lot of money, enough to buy a full one and a half bushels of grain.

It's enough to feed a family of three for a month.

With such terrifying financial support, do you think ordinary people wouldn't desperately join the army?

And this time, she received such a large dowry.

This will undoubtedly increase Zhou Heng's army size.

Mi Zhu decided that he must increase Zhou Heng's military strength to 50,000 within three months.

This does not include auxiliary troops.

And within a year, these 50,000 soldiers must be trained into one of the strongest armies in the world.

This enormous dowry can completely solve their immediate crisis.

You can imagine how excited he was.

A letter, in its entirety, recounts the changes that have taken place in Xuzhou during this period.

"Zizhong is indeed excellent."

"It seems that the decision we made back then was indeed the right one."

"However, given Mi Zhu's method of rapidly building up an army, even with such a huge dowry, it won't last long."

"We still need to get the Zhen family's support as soon as possible."

"We were able to gain the support of the Zhen family, thanks to the dowry from the Mi family, the Zhen family, and Yuan Shu."

"It will definitely allow the strength of my subordinates to experience explosive growth."

"It is not impossible to develop the military strength to 100,000 in a few years."

Zhou Heng muttered to himself.

Don't think that recruiting soldiers is a very difficult thing in this era.

It's actually not difficult at all.

After the Battle of Guandu, Cao Cao was able to recruit 200,000 soldiers in a small place like Qingzhou.

It is easy to imagine how many young and middle-aged people were involved.

According to historical records.

At its peak, the Han Dynasty had a population of 60 million.

At this time, during the late Eastern Han Dynasty, there had not yet been the several massive plagues in history, nor had there been any foreign invasions, and the wars among the warlords were not as brutal.

The population density is still very high.

It should be between 23 million and 40 million people.

If you put it on average in the thirteen provinces of the Han Dynasty, each province would have nearly two to three million people.

Excluding women, the elderly, the infirm, and the disabled, those aged fifteen to forty can be considered young and strong.

We can keep at least a quarter of it.

Converted, the number of young adults in a state is between 500,000 and 800,000.

Even though Xuzhou had been ravaged by Cao Cao before, he only slaughtered a few counties.

The number of people killed was actually not that many.

The reason why Xuzhou gives people the feeling of having a scarcity of talent and resources is that Xuzhou is a city with a shortage of talent and resources.

The main reason is that Xuzhou has few talented people, but that doesn't mean it has few ordinary people.

Even if Xuzhou has fewer than other prefectures, even half the number would still be enough to provide two or three hundred thousand able-bodied men.

With such generous rewards, recruiting tens of thousands of people would be very easy for Mi Zhu.

The reason it seems so difficult is not because we can't recruit them, but because we can't afford to keep them.

"Changshan is just ahead. If I remember correctly, Zhao Yun should be staying in Changshan Zhending right now!"