The Qinling Mountains and Daba Mountains in winter are really not a good place to go out and roam.

Starting from mid-November, heavy snow gradually closed the mountains, limiting people's range of activities to relatively warm, humid and isolated valleys. It is very difficult to communicate with each other.

The Qinling Mountains around Hanzhong are not as severe as those in the north, but they will last about two months, and the snow will melt and thaw until about halfway through the first month of the next year.

Therefore, in the past few months, nothing major happened in Liu Bei's camp. Everything was based on the farming plan planned in early winter, and it was steadily hoarded grain, opened terraces, built water trucks, and did some complicated and repair infrastructure work.

Throughout the winter, at five water transport transit farmland sites along the Jialing River, a total of tens of thousands of slack farmers were summoned. Not only were refugees placed in the local area, but also local people in the counties of Langzhong and Jiameng. The government sent grain to hire people to work, and a total of more than 100,000 acres of terraced fields were built, equivalent to more than 30,000 acres in later generations.

Liu Bei also allocated money and grain to build a new shipyard in Langzhong County, and used the benefits of the middle-class tour to build ships. The original plan for repairing terraces around the surrounding area was to cut down trees and cut out isolation belts, and then set fire to the mountains to form black soil. Later, it was changed to directly picking out all the big trees and cutting down ships. Only useless waste trees burned the terraces to repair terraces, which also restricted the speed of repairing terraces in the first year, but in the long run, it was still profitable.

The upper reaches of Guangyuan, Jiameng and other counties also made adjustments and cut down all the big trees that could build ships and transported them downstream. Because the Han Dynasty had no precedent experience in transporting wood on long-distance waterways in Shu, the loss was quite large at the beginning, so they had to use ready-made ships to load the wood.

Later, after Li Su went to inspect himself, he discovered this problem. He remembered that the wood transported in the mountains of Sichuan that he saw on Douyin in later generations were directly discharged and drifted. He taught the woodcutters to learn to directly tie down the cut trees into large wooden rafts and put them down. A civilian could easily transport hundreds of big trees by holding a pole and adjusting the direction.

In this way, Liu Bei's army's efficiency in building ships was suddenly several times higher than that of Liu Yan's army downstream. Liu Yan also set up a small shipyard in each county and made small fuss according to the laws of natural economy. However, Liu Bei could concentrate the wood from several counties at a low cost and manage it in an industrial manner, so that craftsmen also had an opportunity to learn from each other and even improve efficiency by dividing the labor.

Sun Qian, who was responsible for the project on the front line, was very happy and surprised when Guoyuan discovered this new way to transport wood along the waterway. He secretly praised Li Zhonglang for his quick talent and a quick idea. He could only make a quick move to the working people's experience over the past thousands of years. Little did he know that Li Su also liked to watch short videos from all walks of life in his later generations.

The grain stored in the official warehouse is almost distributed at a scale of tens of thousands of shi per month, and the money is also a monthly subsidy of tens of millions of yuan. Before Liu Bei entered Sichuan, the amount of funds he saved, and even the start-up funds Mi Zhu had already spent, and now it is mainly supported by the seized money and grain of Zhang Lu's treasury.

Fortunately, Zhen Yao, the second son of the Zhen family, immigrated to Nanzheng with his five sisters, and also brought a lot of Zhen's assets, which could be borrowed and relocated to Liu Bei. This kind of spending speed of farming investment will be fine for another two or three years.

However, building terraces, water trucks, and improving navigation, these infrastructures must be completely repaid, at least a decade of recycling cycle. Even if the money from Zhang Lujia and Zhen’s family can make such a large-scale infrastructure for three years, it will still be far from the ability to make the internal circulation of the economy in three years. Liu Bei must gradually swallow Liu Yan’s population territory in these few years before he can push the balance sheet back to a healthy state.

...

Winter is gone and spring is coming, and time is coming in early April of the first year of Chuping (190).

After more than five months of hard farming, the results were outstanding. More than 100,000 acres of terraced fields along the Jialing River have been completed with spring plowing and irrigation and fertilization, and the supporting water trucks are also operating very stably and well. After a summer growth period, the first harvest will be ushered in.

On the Jialing River, Liu Bei's army also built more than 200 civilian transport wooden ships of all sizes and thirty warships in the past six months. The siege of Diaoyu City in the downstream lasted almost two months.

Since early February, after the ice and snow melted, Liu Bei's army sent thousands of vanguard troops to strengthen defense on the front line of Dianjiang County, crossed the Jialing River, and completely surrounded Diaoyu City along the south bank of the river.

However, because of the existence of Diaoyu City, the water transport on the river was blocked. If Liu Bei's army ships dared to walk from the river, they might be thrown away by the defenders on the city through large wooden slides to sink the ship. Therefore, the "last twenty miles" logistics route of the besieged army cannot be completed by water, but transported troops and grain to the other side of Dianjiang County and unloaded the ship, and then used a car to pull the last bit of the journey.

Diaoyu City is not much stronger than Jianmen Pass, but after all, it is a "city", and Jianmen Pass is a "gate". The biggest disadvantage of the city is that it can be cut off from the food road. If you encounter a pass, you can't even surround it.

After the siege of Liu Bei's army began, there was only the initial stage. Because the Liu Yan army bullied Liu Bei's army with a small number of vanguards, they even dared to send thousands of reinforcements from Jiangzhou to head north, trying to attack inside and outside with the 4,000 defenders in Diaoyu City, and eliminate Liu Bei's army besieged on the south side of Diaoyu City.

At that time, the total size of Liu Bei's army's besieged troops was only seven or eight thousand, and there were only three thousand on the south side. Liu Xun, the garrison general of Jiangzhou, sent 5,000 people to cooperate with the attacks in the city.

As a result, the commander of the 3,000 soldiers of Liu Bei's army was Guan Yu, and his 3,000 people were also elite soldiers of the Danyang soldiers who had fought for many years. Liu Xuan and Liu Mao were soon taught to be human beings and knew the simple truth that "wars are not counting numbers."

The two spent a total of six or seven thousand troops to attack Guan Yu, but they were still beaten by Guan Yu to cry and cry. Those new recruits of the "Dongzhou Army" who had never fought were not the Danyang elite soldiers who fought from Youzhou to Yizhou and turned to fight through the entire land of China.

In the end, Liu Xi's troops were defeated. The remnants were afraid that they would not escape back to Jiangzhou and would be chased and killed by Guan Yu. In a panic, they all rely on Liu Mao to send a boat to support him and retreated directly to Diaoyu City.

A month and a half later, there was no field battle on the battlefield of Diaoyu City. Both of them learned their lessons completely and knew that even if all the soldiers from Jiangzhou were transferred to the field battle, they would probably not be able to defeat Liu Bei's army.

It’s better to die and defend the city.

However, Liu Xi's battle was not completely beneficial to Liu Mao, at least it added some troops to Diaoyu City. During the winter before the war, Diaoyu City had only 4,000 guards, because Liu Mao also knew that Diaoyu City was too small and the garrison was just starting to garrison, and there was not much savings.

If too many soldiers come here to garrison for many years in peace, eating too fast food is not a good thing. Therefore, the best solution is to "stay less frequently and let the main force eat in Jiangzhou, the county seat. When the war really breaks out, then increase the troops in Diaoyu City."

After Guan Yu besieged the city, Liu Xuan fought a battle with Guan Yu. Although he was killed in battle and seriously injured, he was captured in total one or two thousand people, but after all, he brought five thousand people, and the remaining three thousand people were safely entering the city, and the defenders expanded to seven thousand.

Liu Mao felt that it would be too stable to have 7,000 people guarding Diaoyu City. Even the gods could not attack it.

But he also knew that if there were too many soldiers, the issue of food storage would have to be paid more attention to. Starting from the second half of last year, Diaoyu City had 150,000 stones in one after another. According to the estimated consumption of one stone per soldier for 20 days, it would be about 4,000 people for more than two years. Now it has increased to 7,000 people, which is only enough for more than 400 days, about a year, two or three months.

This is not a fault for not stocking up more food. After all, Diaoyu City was a newly built city last year, and it was originally a piece of wild land that was poor and deserted.

Ba County is not a rich place now. Jiangzhou is a mountain city. It is far less prosperous than Chengdu in the agricultural era. Within a few months, it transported 150,000 stones of grain to a new city that rose from the ground. It also had to pay for the daily wages of guards. Liu Mao had already worked very hard to hoard.

Now he has to face a problem: if there is no other source of food, Liu Bei will completely surround him like an iron barrel. After a year and a half, he can still starve the people in this strong city to death!

Of course, Liu Mao can also implement the grain distribution system in advance when something is wrong, reduce the daily rations of soldiers, and allow them to sleep heavily and reduce consumption. It is not impossible to last for two years.

But it is certain that you can eat the whole country.

Liu Mao had to carefully consider the possibility of "open source" in Diaoyu City.

...

One day in early April, Liu Mao personally inspected the farmland that was already existing on the high cliffs in the west of the city, as well as the Xinshan fields that were just reclaimed last winter and early spring this year, hoping to see how much grain and vegetables can be recovered in the land in the city after the autumn harvest, and how helpful it will be for long-term combat.

In other cities, it is rare to farm in the city because the city is full of construction land. If the enclosure is larger, the circumference of the city wall will be longer and more guards will be needed. In the end, the account will not be settled.

But Diaoyu City is a pure military fortress starting from scratch. It originally had farmland, so it is an exception - Diaoyu City can only be attacked in the north section of the east wall, and the other seven-eighths are cliff terrain along the Jialing River, so multiple enclosures will not lead to an increase in the perimeter of defense, nor will it lead to a significant increase in the required guards.

Liu Mao had a map of the city. He knew that the place was twelve miles long from east to west, and the width from north to south was three and a half miles wide, and it was bone-shaped, thick at the ends and thin in the middle. But half the city to the east was Diaoyu Mountain, which was too rugged and there were no travelers around Liu Mao, so he could not cultivate these places, and he could not even grow vegetables, so he concentrated the construction land and warehouse land in the city.

Half of the city to the west is relatively flat, which means there is a three-mile-by-six-mile agricultural land, which is approximately equivalent to more than 6,000 acres (more than 20,000 acres) in later generations. Because I can’t make terraces, a small half of these fields have a relatively large slope, so I can only grow fruit, trees and vegetables. All of them are converted, roughly equivalent to the supply grain of 15,000 acres of grain fields.

"Han hundred acres can feed five strong men. Ten thousand acres are the food for 800 soldiers. If you save some, you can only give them one thousand people to eat. There are now 7,000 people in the city, and eating while planting, which only delays the consumption of food storage by one seventh..."

Liu Mao calculated the calculation in his mind. This simple math problem is like the calculation of a math problem in the third grade of elementary school, "A pool is filled with water for three hours, and the water is empty for eight hours, and how many hours it takes to fill it while filling it." In the late Han Dynasty, it was a difficult question in "Nine Chapters of Arithmetic". Liu Mao asked the minister of money and grain around him to help calculate it. It took him a long time to figure it out.

There is no way, the backwardness of farming technology in the Han Dynasty was an important reason why Wang Jian, the guardian of the Southern Song Dynasty, could hold on to Diaoyu City for more than 30 years, but Liu Mao could not do it.

Later Southern Song Dynasty had to rely on half of the country to support nearly 100 million people, but at the end of the Han Dynasty, only 50 to 60 million people had already entered the Malthus trap. Therefore, the degree of meticulous farming in the Song Dynasty was incomparable to the Han Dynasty. A strong laborer in the Song Dynasty opened up and basically could only plant one-third of the land of the Han Dynasty farmers. The Han Dynasty's farming technology was too extensive.

Therefore, in the specific environment where "saving and using land, intensive farming and increasing yields", the Han Dynasty defenders could not farm and self-sufficient, not to mention that Liu Mao had already expanded his strength to exceed the critical line of self-sufficient in Diaoyu City because he had hosted Liu Xu's defeated troops.

What's more, the people of the Song Dynasty would open terraces, but the people of the Han Dynasty would not. The effective arable land area in Diaoyu City was more than twice as different.

If you keep surrounding me, you will starve to death sooner or later. This is an irreversible premise.

Therefore, Liu Mao must find another way out.

"Will you take the risk of relying on waterways in the future, from Jiangzhou to the water gate to Diaoyucheng to meet? Or do you think of other ways? The strength of Liu Bei's naval army is as strong as their army. It is estimated that they have just occupied the Jialing River route, and there are many dangerous shoals upstream and shallow waterways, so they will definitely not be able to build large warships.

Our Jiangzhou Navy has a large Yangtze River ship. Relying on the good of the ship, it should be able to make up for the disadvantage that the soldiers are not as brave and good at fighting as Liu Bei's army. Forget it, if there is really a shortage of food at that time, try to replenish the water route. As long as the replenishment is successful, it will greatly blow the morale of the continuous siege of Liu Bei's army!"

Liu Mao thought it very clearly that the key to the siege is not to really starve people to death, but to convey to the enemy a message that "I can starve you to death" or "You can't starve me to death". As long as this mathematical model deduction assumption can hold its foothold, it will have a major blow to the morale of the unfavorable deduction.

...

However, Liu Mao did not know that while Liu Bei was sieging Guan Yu, he also encountered new problems in his rear, which forced Liu Bei to devote his energy to deal with and defend. The military operations on Diaoyu City could only focus on continuing to siege and cut off food, and would not take any powerful attacks that would fill people's lives in vain.

Because after two months of delay in Shu Road, the news that "the outside world has begun to challenge Dong" finally reached Hanzhong, and Liu Bei had to take sides.

As a relative of the Han Dynasty with a high and powerful position, it is not appropriate to challenge Dong. After all, it is easily suspected that he has "ambition of the rebellion of the seven kingdoms of Wu and Chu" and "wanted to usurp the throne under the name of clearing the emperor." In history, Liu Yan and Liu Yu did not criticize Dong, but only Liu Dai expressed his attitude.

However, for Liu Bei, he had no reaction and did not conform to his loyal personality. Even if he was just a diplomatic condemnation and acted against Dong Zhuo without taking the scene, it would be better than doing nothing.

After all, the attitude of beating Dong itself is a good opportunity to further strengthen its prestige and reputation. In history, Cao Cao and Sun Jian won many good reputations in the world by relying on "resolutely beating Dong", and Liu Bei himself must also understand this superficial truth.
Chapter completed!