Yang Xiu's mission this time can be regarded as a result of the success and completed the task in excess.

After having agreed to make good intentions with Yuan Shao, Yang Xiu actually said goodbye and returned home without staying in Yecheng for a few more days.

But even though Yang Xiu left so fast, Yuan Shao's first grain fleet that sold grain to Guanzhong even arrived in Guanzhong earlier than Yang Xiu, transporting tens of thousands of stones of grain.

The reason why it arrived so quickly was that the first batch of grain was sent from the Hanoi County controlled by Yuan Shao. Hanoi was much closer to the Guanzhong area than the Wei County where Yecheng was located.

The morning after Yuan Shao agreed with Yang Xiu, he sent a courier to Yewang County, the capital of Hanoi County, and asked the prefect of Hanoi, Zhang Yang, to personally supervise the surplus grain in Yewang, Huai County, Heyang and Shanyang counties, and organized a fleet and a guard to go to Guanzhong to sell it. After the autumn grain taxes for other counties in Hebei were collected, Yuan Shao would also organize the second and third batches of grain sales.

The fleet will follow the Yellow River to Dongyuan County, Hedong County, and then transport it by land for about 100 miles to Anyi. Wenxi, turn into the water, and go down the water to transport it from Puyangjin and then enter the Yellow River. Cross the river and arrive at the Wei River on the west bank of the Yellow River, and then you can reach Chang'an.

The reason why we have to go around it instead of walking the Yellow River throughout the journey is that anyone who knows a little bit of geography knows that it is to bypass Sanmenxia, ​​a Jedi that is impossible to pass through.

The cost of land from Dongyuan to Anyi is really higher than the other two sections of the Yellow River waterways of four or five hundred miles (400 miles to Dongyuan and 500 miles to Anyi to Chang'an). In addition, Yuan Shao also specially sent troops to protect this section of land from Anyi to ensure that the land route is not robbed by hungry Baibo thieves.

Chunyu Qiong, who was stationed in Liyang Port on the north bank of the Yellow River, was temporarily sent to protect Zhang Yang's grain convoy. When he arrived in late July, the local white wave thief Han Xian was not good at first and sent some troops to rob him. Sure enough, Chunyu Qiong repelled and killed hundreds of Bai wave thieves. Han Xian calmed down a little.

Guo Tai, the leader of the Baibo thief, is now mainly stationed in Pingyang County north of Hedong County, which is the Linfen area in later generations. In fact, he and Han Xian each set up their own territory, so they were too lazy to travel hundreds of miles to rob, and Han Xian did not ask him for help for this little thing.

Considering the secret alliance and sharing the spoils with Liu Bei, Yuan Shao planned to keep his promise and not be involved in Hedong County, so when he sent Yang Xiu back, he explained to Yang Xiu-

In addition to this first batch of grain, Chunyu Qiong will be escorted. In the subsequent sales of grain, Liu Bei's army will take Hedong by himself, or at least clear the road. Otherwise, if he is robbed by Han Xian halfway, he will still ask Liu Bei to calculate the money.

Of course, Yang Xiu agreed and praised Yuan Shao for his righteousness, saying that after he returned, he immediately told Liu Bei that he would send troops immediately.

Despite the famine and destruction in Guanzhong this year and the shortage of military food, the conclusions discussed by Liu Bei and Li Suxun You should not take military risks to reduce consumption.

But since the Battle of Hedong was to ensure the food supply of our own foreign trade, the nature was different, and even if we consumed more military rations, we had to fight. Moreover, as long as we fought to Hedong, we could garrison part of the troops there and eat directly from closer to Yuan Shao, so that the food eaten by these troops could be transported less and reduce the loss on the road.

However, considering the terrain in western Shanxi, in addition to some narrow river valley plains, there is the Luliang Mountains. Therefore, if you want to go deep into the mountainous areas to chase and suppress the remaining enemies of the Baibo thieves and fight guerrilla warfare, you will definitely not be able to withstand the loss.

Moreover, Guan Yu has also brought his main force back to Yizhou this year to reduce military rations consumption in Guanzhong.

So in the end, Liu Bei will send Xu Huang to his sidelines to kill him back to his hometown and control the four grain road counties along the coast of Puyangjin-Anyi-Wenxi-Dongyuan. As for the vast mountainous guerrilla bases in Hedong, we will wait until we recover next year and take Guan Yu to fight again.

Guan Yu is a native of Hedong. Five or six years ago, on the eve of entering Sichuan, Guan Yu swept through Hedong and killed Yang Feng and Li Le and other thieves. Now when he goes back, Guan Yu's reputation alone can make Han Xianguo dare not act rashly.

...

On the fifth day of the eighth month, on the 14th day after meeting Yuan Shao, Yang Xiu leisurely rushed back to Guanzhong, took the same route as the grain fleet, and went from the Tushui River to the Wei River through the Puyangjin Crossing River and arrived in Chang'an.

The first Yuan Shao grain fleet arrived the day before Yang Xiu arrived. Tens of thousands of stones of grain had been counted and put into storage. After the delivery, it was exchanged for a lot of high-end industrial products from Liu Beijun at the high price of "three stones of white rice can be exchanged for a batch of wide Shu brocade".

As Yuan Shao also joined the ranks of selling grain to support Guanzhong, Li Su in Chang'an City was raised to the official purchase price of 4,000 yuan per stone of white rice, and the external retail price of 5,000 yuan finally fell naturally due to the law of supply and demand relationship between the market economy.

Yuan Shao and Yuan Shu's merchants were competing to sell grain, and Li Su went with the flow to reduce the purchase price of white rice from 4,000 to 3,000 yuan, and the retail price in the market also dropped to 3,500 yuan, down 1,550 yuan from the peak two months ago.

Although it is still nearly ten times that of the year, it is still a way out and will not starve to death.

Moreover, the white rice has dropped to 3,500 yuan, so wheat is even cheaper, because Yuan Shao’s production area does not produce white rice, mainly wheat noodles. The retail price of flour has fallen below the 3,000 yuan per stone, and beans have fallen below the 1,000 yuan mark, and there is basically a way out.

This can be regarded as a feat of disaster relief in the late Han Dynasty. After all, even if there is a disaster relief, the disaster in Guanzhong this year has caused at least 2.8 million people to fail to receive nearly half of the food, which is the food for one million people a year.

Even if ordinary people do not need to eat a lot like soldiers when maintaining a minimum survival, the total amount is very exaggerated by the terrible population base and time length - according to the number of soldiers eating one and a half stone of food per month, the life of hungry people is several times more likely to eat at least one stone of food for three or four months, which is already a porridge.

A person can have at least three stones a year, and one million people are not three million stones - this is already several more than the total grain Gongsun Zan had stored in Yijing. Including transportation losses, it can be no more than five million.

If Yuan Shao and Yuan Shu support each other and sell grains with profits, it is actually impossible to block such a big gap. It would be great if the two companies can solve half of it together. Li Su thought of another way to make up for the people with tree bark, grass roots, grains and vegetables, and hoped that the people would encourage them to make up for a variety of quick crops at the beginning of next spring. The summer grains would be lowered early for two months, and they could barely get through it.

At this moment, the families in Guanzhong that always "watch politely" completely convinced Li Su's "macro regulation". It turned out that Li Su not only knew how to resist drought and eliminate locusts and disaster relief, but also knew how to "attract foreign trade imports and exports" to solve the food shortage. Two-pronged approach could stabilize the situation of a famine to this extent.

At the beginning, he criticized the people who "exploded the people to raise the rice prices so high", even though he was afraid to criticize them publicly, he always muttered in his heart. At this moment, everyone's muttering in his heart was completely calmed down.

Just like Fan Zhongyan's operation of "raising prices to lure outsiders to sell food" in later generations, after the truth was revealed, he finally gained a lot of reputation.

"It's a pity that the Right General is already the Chief of Jingzhao. Otherwise, if he could serve as the Grand Secretary, he would really benefit the people and the court. Now only the people of Jingzhao can benefit from such a good official. It's really a blessing for Jingzhao and a misfortune for the people of the world."

...

With Yuan Shao's large amount of food transported, Liu Bei was also deeply pleased. He knew the sufferings of the people, so he set aside a few days to personally investigate and understand the people's sentiments and explore the people's voices.

Five days later, on the tenth day of the eighth month, Liu Bei summoned Li Su in the Beigong with great satisfaction and also Yang Xiu, who wanted to reward him on his merits.

Some other civil servants were envious of the news when they received the news. Li Su had nothing to be promoted, but Yang Xiu had been promoted from an unemployed man to the official position. The first task was to convince Yuan Shao to be a powerful prince who was of great importance to maintain a certain degree of alliance with Liu Bei. Zhou Ji was in a hurry, and this was a great contribution. Everyone speculated about what official Yang Xiu could be awarded.

Before the reward, Liu Bei also asked Yang Xiu some other details, mainly about the effect of Xue Ti, the chess piece: "Da Zu, you said that Yuan Shao completely believed that Cao Cao, with Xue Ti, Wang must wait for internal response, obstructed Guanzhong's search for foreign aid to provide disaster relief, and obstructed us from connecting with Yuan Shao.

But now you have been back for five days, why haven’t you found out that Yuan Shao had rebelled against Cao Cao? Have you never heard that Yuan Shao sent at least an envoy to Hongnong to sue Cao Cao for 'away between the princes and blocking the king'?"

Yang Xiu answered: "King, Yuan Shao is willing to sell large amounts of grain to us without restrictions, which shows that his heart is clear. But I think Yuan Shao is greedy for immediate benefits and often does not want to be disrupted by sudden new goals. What's more, when I went on an envoy, I asked Yuan Shao how to buy grain without any restrictions, and the rest were in secret.

Yuan Shao didn't want to show that he had discussed this matter with me. He wanted to wait until the news of Wang Bi's case gradually spread to Hebei naturally. It was normal for him to react. I guess he would delay until late autumn and start to winter, then pretend to react, and then write to Your Majesty first to state the evil of Cao Cao's separation. But since it is not appropriate to use troops in the middle of winter, he will at least make some moves next year.

When I was in Yecheng, I investigated Yuan Shao's original intention. This year, he originally planned to be completely destroyed by Gongsun Zan, and then to annihilate Zhang Yan in Shangdang County with a large army. Zhang Yan first and Cao Cao also saved the army from rushing back and forth, wasting more marches and wastes."

After hearing this, Liu Bei sighed regretfully: Yuan Shao is still unable to see the interests in front of him. He only thought about what is the recent interests to eat first, and did not consider "whose enemy poses the greatest threat."

Forget it, if Yuan Shao can see through it and bet completely decisively, then it will not be Yuan Shao.

Only then did Liu Bei come up with a decree - of course it was not written by him, but he sent someone to Hongnong during the past five days.

Liu Bei just announced: "Ancestor De, I have submitted your remarks to Your Majesty five days ago. Your Majesty has officially replied and issued an order to allow it. In the future, we will continue to serve the court with good life!"

Yang Xiu was happy, and then he felt that this was what he deserved, and he thanked God with a decent manner.

The official position of "Daxing Ling" was very high in the early Han Dynasty. It was one of the nine ministers, who was in charge of the diplomatic affairs of the Han Dynasty to foreign vassals and barbarians. However, after Emperor Wu of Han, the "Daxing Ling" was renamed "Dahonglu", but instead the "traveler" under the "Daxing Ling" was changed to "Daxing Ling", replacing Shangguan's old name.

But even so, the current "Da Xing Ling" is still the third leader of the "Da Honglu", second only to Zheng Qianshi's "Da Honglu Chief".

Although the rank is not high, only 600 stones, this is the "third leader of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs" after all, and the real power is very considerable, responsible for receiving and responding to the specific work of all foreign missions.

Liu Bei also fell in love with Yang Xiu, a man with noble background, good eloquence, cleverness and intelligence, and is suitable for these diplomatic mediation matters, so he can be regarded as the best use of people.

Other civil servants and staff next to them whispered:

"The Yang family is really a great family. The general may have to be in the fifth generation and the third generation. Yang Dezu is only twenty-two years old. The first step to be promoted from a idle man is to make a big order. He went on a mission to ask for help. Tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk t

"We can't see it this way. They have been working for a short time, but this mission can be said to have at least saved hundreds of thousands of Guanzhong people who should have starved to death. Otherwise, Yuan Shao would be willing to sell so much food to us? Judging from this merit, it is not an exaggeration to give the Great Deed.

I guess if Yuan Shao hadn't turned against Cao Cao immediately, the king felt that he had not achieved his full achievements. Otherwise, it would be possible that he would not have been the Great Master of Lu."

After the meeting that day, many civil servants in the court, who were less than 1,000 stones, showed kindness to Yang Xiu, laughingly saying that he should treat him to celebrate his promotion.
Chapter completed!