Chapter 681 Choosing a Stand
In Hedong County, the new county magistrate Zhuge Liang revisited his hometown and inspected Pingyang County.

Pingyang’s population is as dense as that of a county town, and there is a shipyard nearby, which gives Pingyang an even greater advantage.

Zhuge Liang came to the paddy fields on the outskirts of the city. In May, the rice fields stretched as far as the eye could see.

Tenants, self-employed farmers, slaves or temporary hired laborers were mixed in everywhere, pulling out the tares.

Zhuge Liang looked into the distance for a moment and felt even more pressured.

It turned out that he only needed to consider the development of Pingyang or Chencang County, and he could even siphon population from surrounding counties.

However, the current household registration management is strict and population mobility is inconvenient, so households hidden in the mountains and wilds have been gradually screened out.

If you want to develop Hedong, you can’t use the old ideas.

The Hedong Salt Lake was directly managed by the shogunate, and the Sijin Duwei Mansion was planning to build a smelting base in the surrounding area based on Pingyang, which would be second only to Hancheng in size, so as to use coal and charcoal from Taiyuan and Xihe nearby.

Zhuge Liang could see the benefits of industrial development at a glance.

But there are also disadvantages. Workers and miners gather around Hancheng. In recent years, the miners have been able to take vacations, use their reward money to drink and relax in the brothels.

In order to make money, many men from the surrounding areas of Hancheng came to Hancheng to work as government employees. Although they were richer than the surrounding counties, they could not raise their babies as well as the surrounding counties.

With the current population of Hedong, it is already difficult to support a Pingyang Shipyard.

If they wanted to build another smelting plant of a similar scale to the one in Hancheng, they would have to transfer people from other places. There were no surplus population in other places, so they could only transfer people from the slaves directly under the control of the shogunate.

These people come to Hedong, become free men after they have acquired proficient skills, and most of them will return to their hometowns, which is not conducive to the local development of Hedong.

Therefore, Zhuge Liang decided to submit a memorial to delay the construction of the Hedong smelter, and agricultural production should be maintained for now.

Without the additional military burden, the order in Hedong was good, and the people either worked as hired workers or actively had children during their spare time from the busy farming season.

Hedong should accumulate as much food as possible to facilitate the supply of military rations when advancing into Guandong.

Even if Zhongtiao Mountain was a barrier, it would be impossible to transport grain directly to Shaanxi and Tianjin.

The transport fleet can go via Fenshui River in the north or Sushui River in the south, and can transport grain to Shaanxi and Tianjin at low cost and high efficiency.

After the Sanmenxia Canal was opened, even the grain from Taiyuan could flow down the Fenshui River and the Yellow River to supply the army on the front line.

Many people optimistically believed that the big families in Guandong and Hebei would flee to the sea and that the whole country could be swept under the influence.

How can things be that simple?
The big families simply split up and fled to the sea for refuge. For such a huge ancestral foundation, even if the main line gave it up, there would be small branches that would stand up and inherit and take over.

Based on Da Sima’s strategy towards Guandong, these people will definitely defend and fight to the end.

The idea of ​​taking food from the enemy lacks room for implementation.

If the food and fodder cannot keep up, the hundreds of thousands of troops on the front line will run out of food and be wiped out in one battle, and the good situation will be gone.

If they don’t want to collapse, they must compromise with Kanto… Obviously this is inconsistent with the ultimate pursuit of the shogunate, nor is it in line with Zhuge Liang’s philosophy of governing the world.

If we compromise with Kanto, then what’s the point of insisting on everything we do now?
Therefore, Hedong must develop agriculture and try its best to store food and fodder for the troops that will conquer Guandong.

So when Zhuge Liang first inspected the counties after taking office, a memorial entitled “On the Storage of Grain in Hedong” was delivered to Black Bear via a steam transport ship in Pingyang, which took two days.

At this moment, Black Bear further delegated power to the secretariat, and handed over routine county-level documents to them for processing. He was mainly responsible for key financial expenditures and correspondence.

Correspondence with grassroots organizations can play a key supervisory role.

A centurion or county magistrate who knows about the incident can choose not to report it, but if he asks, he must give an explanation.

Middle and low-level officials are relatively divided and have not yet achieved a grand unification.

The Hundred Households System runs in parallel with the County System, and issues involving each other, or even internal colleagues, can often be reported to Black Bear truthfully based on information “heard”.

Holding this memorial from Zhuge Liang, Black Bear could feel the psychological pressure Zhuge Liang was under when he submitted the memorial.

He had reduced the manpower for digging the Xinmen Canal by half, and the officials and scholars from Guandong were eager to pay money to hire workers to help with the digging.

Even though they knew that after digging through the Dizhu, Guanzhong would be able to strengthen its management over the Central Plains and Hebei in the future, these people still gritted their teeth and accepted it.

Staying in Chencang for more than two years and managing Liangzhou and Yizhou at close range naturally accelerated the interaction and integration between these two regions and the center.

The people of Guandong felt the pressure and were even eager to start a war of unification of the Central Plains and Hebei.

In contrast, fanatics began to emerge among the scholars in Yizhou, wanting the first war to break out in Yizhou.

Wherever it breaks out first, that place will be the first to merge with the shogunate and will be able to seize the high position.

Zhuge Liang proposed that Hedong should focus on developing agriculture and storing grain for war preparations… This would naturally slow down the progress of the war in Hebei and the Central Plains. Pushing over cities one by one, crushing and digesting them, would naturally be met with stubborn resistance from the natives of Guandong.

What relationship does this broken-down and digested Guandong have to the current officials from Guandong in Chang’an?

Even their roots would be crushed by the shogunate’s war of eastward expansion.

They could accept the shogunate’s strengthened management and tolerate the necessary losses during war, but if their roots were worn down, they would become orphans of the world.

Even its future development potential is not as good as that of the rebellious tycoons in Hedong and Taiyuan counties.

No matter how unlucky these two counties were, they were swallowed up in one gulp and became a complete “seed”.

However, Kanto is too large and the shogunate could not swallow it all in one go.

From the moment Zhuge Liang submitted the memorial, he basically stood against the prominent families in Guandong and most of the scholars in Guandong.

Black Bear was somewhat moved. He thought that soon all kinds of rumors would attack Zhuge Liang and his wife and Zhuge Jin.

Zhuge Jin was very special. He always served as the Secretary-General and was a bit like the Shogunate’s chief steward.

There are a lot of vicious rumors spreading now, and they are about to involve you.

According to some exaggerated rumors, Zhuge Jin and his brother, as well as Huang Yueying, were eaten by him.

Rumors need a breeding ground to grow, so I have killed fewer people during this period.

Black Bear stuffed Zhuge Liang’s memorial into a secret box without responding or passing it to the secretary’s desk for decision.

As long as he did not oppose this memorial, Zhuge Liang would naturally promote agricultural development.

Xuan Liang, Chen Yang and Xu Lin only need to slow down the industrial expansion here and not interfere with Hedong. Hedong will naturally develop according to Zhuge Liang’s will.

Three years is enough to roughly restore agriculture.

Taking into account the savings and reserves from other places, we really won’t need to rely on puppets and signs like Zhong Yao in three years.

I just hope Liu Qi can stay away.

As for Liu Ye, he must also be kept, and a few ministers with the surname Liu must be left behind to appease Liu Bei.

After guiding Liu Bei to move to Xiying Island, wanting to come back…how could that be so easy?
Therefore, starting from this autumn, we will use limited military force in Hebei, nibble away at it bit by bit, and gradually expand through military settlements.

The captured population must either be relocated, expelled, or reorganized on the spot to serve as civilian or military settlements.

Completely destroyed the original regional clans inherited from the pre-Qin period.

Unfortunately, Yuan Shang ran away too fast and his determination to develop the navy was too strong.

Probably during this expedition, Yuan Shang would decisively lead his people out to sea, transporting and migrating to Jiaozhou regardless of the consequences.

This war of encroachment on Hebei was no longer a war between the shogunate and the Yuan family, but a war with the powerful and wealthy people in Hebei.

Black Bear was calm and walked to the window to look at the airship that was about to take shape.

I just hope Zhong Yao won’t let me down too much. This guy should give me a little surprise.

If he was forced to change his surname to Liu and he himself was not satisfied, how could people like Zhong Yao be satisfied?
Eventually, there will be another collision until the other side is completely shattered and reassembled according to the other side’s wishes.

After consulting various parties, he began to worry about Liu Bei. Once Liu Bei was tricked out to sea, Zhong Yao could die.

Although I am very curious about how Zhong Hui was born, I really can’t wait.

If this time goes on, this guy Zhong Yao will tamper with the perception through public opinion… It seems as if the foundation of Guanzhong was really established with this guy’s tolerance, indulgence and secret support.

If this continues, the new generation of students who are unaware of the situation might actually mistake this old man for a contemporary saint.

This was not something that Zhong Yao took the initiative to promote. It was driven by many forces, and it could not be interrupted by Zhong Yao’s personal refusal or statement.

The scholars needed a moral role model to take credit for their achievements, and Zhong Yao was the most suitable person, and that was all.

After serving as the Minister of the Imperial Court and the Inspector of the Imperial Guards for more than a decade, the children of Zhong Yao’s former officials and students were about to enter officialdom, forming a reserve team.

Once the substitute team spreads everywhere, it will be more difficult to deal with, and it will be painful if you take action.

So within three years, Zhong Yao must die and be torn to pieces.

(End of this chapter)