After discussing with Guan Yu and Ma Chao, Li Su finalized the production plan and quickly got busy.

During the slack season in late April, almost all the labor force in Lintao County, as well as the surplus labor force of adult males in several other counties in Longxi County, were mobilized to go up the mountain to cut trees and process boards.

In ancient times, corvee levies were easily wasted a lot of time when traveling back and forth, so things that could be solved on the spot should be solved as much as possible. Therefore, it is normal for locals to be recruited to be higher, which is also very normal.

Guan Yu and Li Su's plan is that any boy over ten years old in Lintao County must go up the mountain together to pull a large saw. Women over fifteen years old are boys. However, considering that women are weak in physical strength, they are asked to divide wood relatively finely.

Except for other Longxi counties in Lintao, women and children don’t have to work for the time being, so they stay at home to handle chores.

The corvee service in Tianshui County next door doesn’t have to travel hundreds of miles. Anyway, you can do the work of logging and processing wood everywhere, so you just need to pull the wood over after finishing it.

Li Su didn't let them work for nothing, and strictly announced the rules of the rent and mediocre adjustment law. Anyway, the issuance period this year is relatively tight and there is no timeout. Even if there are occasional oversights or who should not be at the age of service, they will be exempted from household transfers and exempted from the copper coins and textiles they should have paid. After the exemption is enough, they will be put back, or the official will give money and silk to continue hiring labor.

Li Su also took the opportunity to brush a sense of presence on the cotton cloth that is only produced in Shu, changing the reward for sending silk to the people to send cotton cloth, or promising to send cotton after the cotton farming in Dazhong this year is harvested.

In theory, the cost of cotton is definitely much lower than that of silk, but because the people have never seen it before, and people in the bitter and cold places in the northwest do not care about the lightness, softness, and more about the furry and warmth. So Li Su bought labor with bargains and everyone was quite accepting, thinking that he had taken advantage of the government.

In fact, if cotton is planted on a large scale in the future and the cotton spinning industry becomes more than one-fifth of the cheapest silk.

Of course, considering the labor cost of textiles, it cannot be reduced to one-fifth of silk and weaving. Therefore, the final price of fabric is 30% of the cheapest silk, which is almost the same.

Cotton textiles also require one weft thread to be archived once, so the labor frequency of female weavers is not low. But in general, weaving a single area of ​​cotton can be archived half of the weft threads per unit area than silk silk, because when spinning cotton yarn, it can be twisted much thicker than raw silk.

For example, if it is twice as thick as the cotton yarn is only 20 weft threads per inch, and the silk may have 40 weft threads, which means that the female worker will do half the amount of labor. In order to save labor, Li Su also asked Zhuge Zhi to spin rovings as much as possible when discussing the spinning machine with Zhuge Zhi.

Of course, the cost of doing this is not completely lacking, because twice the thickness of the yarn means that the thickness of the cloth is also twice the thickness, the amount of cotton used per unit area is twice the amount, and the raw material consumption is greater. However, after Li Su comprehensively considered it, he believed that cotton would soon be worthless as long as it is planted on a large scale, so he decided to spin roving and weave thick cloth.

After all, cotton is grown directly inside, and the animal fibers of wool and silk are less than the first-level food chain transmission efficiency loss, which is five times or ten times cheaper. Moreover, the northerners in the late Han Dynasty were not like those in later Song Dynasty and Ming dynasties, after the commercial society was completely developed, they paid attention to extravagance and tossing and pursuing fine cotton cloth. They just needed to keep warm. The cotton cloth was thick and thick, just as it was filled with less cotton in the cotton jacket, and the amount of cotton was not much different.

According to this estimate, the five-foot-wide cotton cloth produced in large quantities in the future can be sold for about one thousand coins per piece. If you have no idea about this price, you can recall a few reference objects. Today, the price of five-foot-wide Shu brocade is still more than six thousand yuan, and the plain silk without patterns of five-foot-wide can also cost 2,500 to three thousand yuan per piece. Therefore, cotton cloth is already one-third of the price of silk.

As expected, after working overtime, the local people in the northwest received a few feet of cotton cloth given by the government and more white strips of "released cotton cloth after autumn harvest", or gave them priority to inventing the cotton seeds of the Year, so the local people were very happy.

"This new cloth is really warm and plush, and it is more comfortable to wear than silk. Only the wool cloth of the Western Qiang and the Kucha people in the Loulan people is better than this, but the wool cloth is precious."

"Yes, yes, Guan Jun Li Jun is really a kind person. If you help cut wood for ten or eight days, you will give you more than a few feet of cotton."

It must be said here - although there was no cotton spinning technology in the late Han Dynasty, wool spinning was already available, and it was popular in the Western Qiang. The first recorded mature wool textile fabric machinery in Chinese civilization was about the time when Ban Chao was in the Western Regions, and many countries were owned in the Western Regions where sheep and wool fabrics were raised.

As for the northern Huns, although the Huns also raised sheep, they did not cultivate sheep like the Qiang people. It was difficult to shave and rub velvet, so they could not weave cloth (wool also had to be long hair like sheep to make wool like long velvets in cotton, and cotton yarn in cotton. Goats cannot be rubbed wool, and cashmere can only be made in modern times)

Therefore, the people of Longxi still knew that "wool fabric" existed, but it was too expensive and unaffordable. Moreover, even though the Qiang people learned the textile technology of the Han people, their wool spinning equipment was still very primitive. Basically, they were spindles and twisted to make wool, and then used the baffle lifting device to control the opening and closing of warp threads like knitting cross-stitch. They stayed at the level of textile technology in the Han people during the pre-Qin and Warring States Periods, and they did not even have foot-pedal looms in the Han area. The price of wool fabric was actually more expensive than silk, but there was very little supply and demand.

Because the Han people did not raise sheep and did not have the need to spin and weave wool fabrics on a large scale, they were too lazy to develop machines for the Qiang people's failure. Anyway, there was no patent protection system in this era. Even if the skilled craftsmen invented a useful machine that was only useful to the Qiang people, the Qiang people would not pay the patent fee.

Li Su personally went deep into the people during the process of collecting corvee and logging, and noticed this problem. He couldn't help but sigh. He knew that he had Zhuge Zhi's spinning machine and cotton weaving machine, and those things could be changed to the same suitable for wool production with a slight adjustment. Since Xiliang is about to become his territory, it is also good to gradually spread some technology for his own people.

After all, cotton planting cannot be fully promoted within one year, and sheep raising cannot disappear in Xiliang. In this case, it is possible to make the wool from the people in the transition period fully utilized during the years. Why not do it?

Cotton needs a lot of irrigation, so you can only plant long and long fields on both sides of the river valley. The slopes on the high slopes of the Qilian Mountains and even weak water, and the large Gobi desert on the right bank of the waves are still not suitable for growing cotton. To the east of the Hexi Corridor, grasslands with slightly less precipitation will still have to raise sheep in the future.

...

Li Su was preparing for the war with Guan Yu, and frantically built logistics vehicles, wooden lathes, spare wheels, replaceable gun rods and arrow rods, and worked until early May.

The speed of building a car was slower than he expected. It was mainly for both amphibious and land use. The bottom of the car had to be made of several three-zone long arc-shaped thick wooden boards that went straight to the head and tail to ensure that the middle depression had a stable center like a ship, so it was much slower to process than the bottom of the flatbed car.

But there is nothing we can do about this. After all, amphibious and land use is the essence of the Western caravan. If the stability is not good in the river, it will be fooled. After the adjustment, Li Su estimated that by mid-May, he would build up to five or six hundred such caravans by the time the war started in mid-May. Even if the construction period is delayed until June, it will increase to seven or eight hundred.

The thousands of vehicles originally planned will definitely not be able to do it.

However, after recalculating, Guan Yu felt that five or six hundred big trucks were enough before fighting Wudu, and that in the future, it would be enough to make do with seven or eight hundred in Jiuquan in Zhangye. After all, the load of a single vehicle is so large, and a car is more than 15,000 kilograms per vehicle. Six hundred is equivalent to the load of three thousand traditional two-wheeled single-cattle carts.

By then, the cavalry troops pursuing in the second stage will not exceed 20,000, so they will be enough to provide supplies.

...

On the tenth day of May, he finally made a discussion with Li Su and asked Li Su to continue to be in Lintao Base Camp and continue the production tasks until early June, which means that the construction will continue to start for at least twenty days.

Guan Yu himself will take the main infantry force to prepare for attack within five days, and gradually advance north along the Tao River to the bottom of Jincheng City, and fight a few field battles with the possible Han Sui army. If Han Sui dares not fight, then he will complete the siege of Jincheng City in late May and start to build siege equipment to prepare for the subsequent attack.

As for other second-tier troops originally stationed in Tianshui and even Hanzhong, they began to move north on the tenth day of May and gathered in Lintao, requiring the entire army to arrive before May 20th.

Li Su had no objection to this arrangement. Anyway, even if he went to the front line, he would not have any help in the siege, so he continued to produce with peace of mind.

However, just as Li Su was farming peacefully, with the gathering of reinforcements, the newly arrived troops of Lintao also brought a lot of news from the east. There were also envoys sent by Liu Bei to reply to Li Su, mixed with the reinforcements and arrived in Lintao with the reinforcements. Calculated the days, Li Su wrote a letter to Liu Bei at the end of March before leaving Yizhou, requesting the establishment of the third envoy in Jiaozhou, Yizhou to abolish the prefecture. Liu Bei received the letter in April and sent it to Luoyang in late April for the emperor to discuss.

It is now May 10th, and it has been nearly twenty days since Emperor Liu Xie approved the order and issued it before the news reached Longxi.

To be precise, Li Su was not yet considered to have officially stepped down from the position of Yizhou governor and changed to the position of Yongzhou governor in the sense of the officialdom of the court.

It was obvious that the imperial envoy and Liu Bei's private messenger could not bring only this little news. Li Su asked Fei Shi sent by Liu Bei, how is the current situation in the east?

Fei Shi indeed brought the news and told him directly: "Cao Cao's attempt to show weakness to Yuan Shao last winter seemed to have failed. When the farming season began in early summer, Yuan Shao made an excuse to fight Cao Cao for a little while. Yuan Shao took down the entire Chenliu County, which is now bordering Yuan Shu's Yingchuan County and Chen County.

Chen Gong, an important subordinate of Cao Cao's sect in Chenliu County, took the initiative to rebel Cao to Yuan Shao's support and beg Yuan Shao to occupy Chenliu. At first, Yuan Shao seemed to be preparing to accept Cao Cao's suggestion of "cede the six counties and give up the Luowang Road" and had no excuse to expand the occupation. Chen Gong's affairs gave Yuan Shao an excuse to "comply with public opinion" to expand the occupation."

When Li Su heard this, he was slightly shocked: In this life, because there was no butterfly effect of Liu Bei saving Tao Qian, Xuzhou was taken down by Cao Cao faster, and there was no such thing as Lu Bu attacking Yanzhou.

Unexpectedly, Lu Bu did not take action against Cao Cao, which actually caused Chen Gong and other opposition parties to accumulate resentment from Cao Cao, and had nowhere to vent their feelings, and was waiting for the opportunity to betray Cao Cao.

Li Su couldn't help but become curious: What kind of hatred between Chen Gong and Cao Cao? So I want to betray Cao Cao? If I didn't change to Lu Bu and Yuan Shao, I would still surrender?

Although the incident of Cao Cao killing Lu Boshe's whole family is a historical fact, the incident of "Chen Gong let Cao Cao go in Zhongmu and exile with Cao Cao" was completely fabricated by Romance novels. It is impossible for Chen Gong to stubbornly rebel against Cao because of Lu Boshe's affairs. How much hatred does it have?

Li Su couldn't help asking: "What is Chen Gong and others who rebel against Cao? Are they not afraid of being ridiculed by the world? Why don't they announce the reason after they betray Cao?"

Fei Shi: "There is a reason to announce it. It is because Cao Cao's attempt to massacre the city when he attacked Xuzhou two years ago led to the famous scholars. Therefore, the prefect of Jiujiang, Bian Rang, condemned him. Cao Cao was furious and killed Bian Rang who condemned him. From then on, Chen Gong, Zhang Miao and others held grudges and secretly vowed not to kill innocent people in such a way. But he had no chance at that time, and finally waited for Yuan Shao for a year or two.

However, Zhang Miao had an old feud with Yuan Shao after all. When they were fighting against Dong, there was a factional dispute between the "January First Rebellion" and the "February Vocational Sect". When Zhang Miao was the prefect of Chenliu, he still relied on Cao Cao to protect him, so he was not liquidated by Yuan Shao, the leader of the "February Vocational Sect".

So now it has become Zhang Miao and Yuan Shao, and Cao Cao has both grudges. After Chen Gong insisted on surrendering to Yuan, Zhang Miao had nowhere to go on both sides. He fled to the Xuanzao County and asked the Zhu Yi defenders of Hulao Pass to surrender. He was willing to surrender to the general in several counties outside Hulao Pass. Zhu Yi, the emperor of Henan, was directly under the jurisdiction of the emperor. Zhu Yi also decisively accepted Zhang Miao's submission. Therefore, after Chen Gong led the way to Xuanzao County, Yuan Shao met the direct troops of the general Zhu Yi. Yuan Shao did not dare to act rashly on the court, so he stopped the troops."

Li Su really didn't expect that Chen Gong and Zhang Miao, the time bombs inside Cao Cao, finally exploded. This progress was so confusing that no one could have imagined.
Chapter completed!