After Liu Bei and Li Su and Liu Ba and others discussed, within just over a dozen days, a number of visiting personnel were sent to Chang'an City to investigate the circulation costs of business and tourism in various places under Liu Bei's camp, counting historical data, and preparing for the subsequent comprehensive implementation of the reform of renting, mediocre and transferring.

The two fastest groups were those who went to Jiaozhou to inform Lu Su, and those who were preparing to transport grain for Yinchuan County and Shang County in Sanfu and Hedong.

While Liu Bei's camp made the above actions, in order to pursue legitimacy, it also officially expressed this request for reform to the Luoyang court, hoping that the court would support it. In fact, the emperor certainly could not interfere with Liu Bei's administrative details of the area he ruled. This kind of "representation" was just like showing official positions.

There are two main reasons why Liu Bei did this, and it was also the decision after discussing with Li Su and others:

First of all, Liu Bei hoped to further consolidate his image of "exercising all his efforts to think about the Han Dynasty". He was idle and made outstanding intellectual contributions and political innovations to "solve the root causes of the continuous rebellion in remote areas during the rebellion of the Han Dynasty during the reign of Emperor Huanling."

As long as the content of this reform is made public to the world and other princes cannot follow up, Liu Bei's reputation for loving the people will undoubtedly rise to another level, especially for the people in remote prefectures and counties under the hands of other princes, it will be of great appeal to Liu Bei as a commoner. If his hometown is too remote, he can deduct less freight when paying supplies to the court central government, and if he is the commoner of Yuan Shao, Yuan Shu and Cao Cao, but he cannot enjoy such deduction and exemption, does that mean that Liu Bei is more "light taxes and taxes"?

Of course, if it were the people of the three North China Plain Prefectures, Jizhou, Yanzhou and Yuzhou, Liu Bei's reform would definitely be of little appeal to them, because they were close to the center of the world, and the geographical environment was convenient, and the transportation loss was not large. Liu Bei's reduction was also in vain.

Liu Bei's policies are mainly attractive to Youzhou, especially Liaodong, and even the southern part of Yangzhou, and the Shandong Peninsula in Qingzhou. These transportation is particularly inconvenient, and are of great appeal.

The second reason why Liu Bei's open reform initiative is also related to the above point, that is, he knew that Yuan Shao and Yuan Shu would definitely not be willing to "reduce and exempt the transportation losses in taxes" for the people. The geographical environment determined that the two Yuan would not learn from him, so Liu Bei was not worried that this reform would improve the mobilization and dispatching capabilities of other competitors.

What is going on in the end? Whether the clown is Liu Bei or Yuan Shao depends on the test of practice.

As the wheel of history entered September 196, the war clouds in the Hetao area were completely spread out, and local logistical pressure began to emerge.

Coupled with the stimulation of the previous reform news, the princes of the world stared at the Hetao battlefield. Although the news was not very timely, they were at least curious about "will Liu Bei's reform bring a real improvement to his logistics efficiency in using troops in remote areas, or will it cause fraud disasters and low administrative efficiency."

...

On the second day of September, in Yinchuan County, in the camp north of Yinchuan City, Ma Chao was carrying out the final pre-war preparations.

A few months ago, Ma Chao stationed less than 10,000 cavalry in Yinchuan County. However, since July, as the frequency of Hu cavalry appeared and the size of the troops became larger and larger, Ma Chao also increased his troops in time, and the Han cavalry in Yinchuan County once increased to more than 20,000. Many of the last elite cavalry backbones of the Western Liang army captured from Guo Si last year were also photographed.

Ma Chao's increase in troops led to the increase in combat power ratio between the two sides. The Hu side was not sure, so they had to continue to increase troops, and the battle did not break out in full swing.

Today, at the mouth of the Yellow River Valley of Helan Mountain north of Yinchuan County, and the Hetao Plateau east of Yinchuan County, across the Yellow River, have gathered more than 50,000 Hu troops, and the number is still expanding.

They were unable to attack Yinchuan County for the time being, so they wanted to seduce Ma Chao for a while. They used the logistics disaster to force the Han court to hold on themselves and force Ma Chao to take the initiative to attack and seek war.

Anyway, the Hu people live by water and grass. After eating the grass in a place, they can change the place and eat it wherever they go. The logistics pressure is much less. Even if they can't grab too much food for the time being, at least the horse's forage can be used to take advantage of the horse's forum. If the grass around Yinchuan County is not eaten up, the Hu people will not retreat at all.

After more than a month of stalemate, at least the horses around Yinchuan County have been gnawed out a barren land isolation zone of at least fifty miles thick, and the autumn grass between the two armies has been gnawed out.

Because Ma Chaojun is on the defensive position for a while, he can occupy a relatively small area of ​​grassland, so he has eaten a small amount of weeds in the Yinchuan Valley. Now he is eating the rice straw left after the autumn harvest to replace some horse feed.

The Hu chiefs were very curious about this issue. On this day, in a camp on the Hetao grassland 80 miles northeast of Yinchuan, the pseudo-Huns and the Khan of the Legion of Guduhou, the King of Xianbei, who was temporarily joining forces with him on this matter:

"Why didn't Ma Chao take the initiative to attack and seek a decisive battle with us? We have a lot of people, so we can spread out and occupy more grasslands. We can rotate some of the reserve teams to find grass in the area slightly behind. Ma Chao raised a number of cavalry in Yinchuan County that far exceeds Yinchuan County's affordability, which is impossible to last.

Fortunately, you are also here with Wuyuan reinforcements. Our troops have increased a lot, and our chances of winning are getting bigger and bigger."

It must be said that the total number of cavalry that the Ma Chao army could dispatch by Liu Bei's army was no more than 25,000, of which 10,000 were captured by Guo Si's army last year.

Because the Marquis of the Lotus Gudu could not escape, his base was in the Hetao area, so the pseudo-Southern Xiongnu still had 70,000 to 80,000 combat power, of which 40,000 or 50,000 horse-ridden horses all had to gather to guard against Ma Chao and Huchuquan.

Because the Marquis of the Lost Gudu is the most local warfare, he is the whole family who is in a hurry to the ground. If the situation is critical and even ordinary herders can get there, it will be more soldiers from all over the country.

Not all his soldiers were cavalry, even infantrymen were able to ride. Even if they were riding horses, a considerable number of them rode pack horses rather than war horses. They could only be easy to move quickly, but could not withstand the charge and were easily frightened.

Now, the Xianbei who came to reinforce the Gudu Hou was smaller in scale. After several increases in troops, a total of more than 40,000 people who controlled the legendary horses came, without infantry. Because the base of the Hetao Xianbei is in Wuyuan County on the north bank of the Yellow River, there are some roads coming, and weak civilians will not come.

On the east bank of Hetao, the main forces are the Marquis of the Lu Gudu and Bugendu. To the west of the Yellow River, on the side of Helan Mountain Que, there are four large tribes of Qiang people, Xianbei people, and they don’t report a long list of names (Chapter 474). Anyway, there are 30,000 horse-riding and string-controlling men. There are more than 10,000 infantry archers, all of whom are Qiang people in the mountainous areas of the Netherlands, so they can come to the battlefield without horses and are forced to be cannon fodder by the chiefs.

All the Hu coalition forces had 120,000 horses, 40,000 to 50,000 hiking troops, and a total of 170,000 men. In the past two years, they have also slightly strengthened their equipment, mainly relying on learning and imitation, and equipped the double-sided rope-ring stirrups, which cannot be used. The saddles of the wooden saddle bridge were also equipped. Similarly, because of insufficient steel, horseshoes have not been popular yet. Only the horses riding by officers have stolen hooves bought from Han tyrants.

I have accumulated so much strength, and it is unreasonable to not fight hard. I have to fire the arrow on the string.

After taking a look at his troops, Bu Gendu also encouraged him: "Since we have gathered all the gatherings, we should ask the Gudu Hou to seek a decisive battle as soon as possible, at least we should attack tentatively to see what Ma Chao is trying to do-

I see, you and I divide the troops into two groups, echoing each other. If you take the cavalry of our headquarters around Yinchuan City and go to the Qingshui River estuary in the south to harass and block them. Maybe you can block Ma Chao's grain road. If you can rob and kill the grain transport team and seize the food, you will be forced to fight with us in a few times. Moreover, as long as Ma Chao has no food, his nearly 30,000 cavalry are not affordable to Yinchuan County."

The vegetation carrying limit in each place is limited. At its peak in history, Yinchuan Basin was fine to feed 300,000 horses for half a year (eat two seasons of grass in summer and autumn, and go elsewhere to look for grass in winter and spring). However, it was a pure grassland grazing state, and only horses were raised without people. Now Yinchuan Basin has been developed into farmland, and there are not many natural grass left, and so many people and military and civilians have to raise so many people. It is definitely impossible to raise 30,000 horses.

At the end of July and throughout August, Bugendu could not recommend that the Marquis of the Lu Gu Du used the trick of robbing the grain channel, because the local grass and straw in Yinchuan have not been eaten up yet, and now it is almost time to rob the grain channel and fight.

The Marquis of the Lu Gu Du Hou also knew that Bu Gendu was asking him to test and take on the most dangerous work, but he was not easy to refuse. After all, taking back the plump grassland of Yinchuan Basin, the Marquis of the Lu Gu Du Hou himself had the greatest benefits, and Bu Gendu was just a loss of lips and cold teeth. He was the only one who cares about his own affairs, and others could only help him.

The two pointed to the map and gestured, and the Marquis of the Lotus Gudu came up with the implementation plan: "Then I will let the fast light cavalry go around to the mouth of the Qingshui River in the south to search for Ma Chao's grain team. The Qingshui River leads to Gaoping County in Anding County, and the Qingshui River originates from the eastern foot of Longshan Mountain, not far from the source of the Jinghe River.

Xiliang was very in decline last year. I heard that Guan Yu promoted cotton planting in various counties in Liangzhou this year. Ma Chao's military rations must not be fully expected to be supplied from Lanzhou County along the Yellow River. A considerable part of them were Guanzhong's grains from Anding County."

Bu Gendu nodded: "Then I wish the Marquis of the Lu Gudu Houma to succeed. As long as Ma Chao is drawn out to fight, he will be held back. I will come and meet for reinforcements immediately."

...

While the Marquis of the Lotus Gudu sent troops to rob the grain and force the battle, a team of grain and grass caravans from Anding County did indeed turn along the Qingshui River Valley and slowly heading north towards Yinchuan County.

The civil servant who escorted food and grass was Zhang Ji, who was promoted to Anding County as the county magistrate last year in Fufeng County and was promoted to Anding County as the county magistrate this year because of his outstanding political achievements.

As the beneficiary, Ma Chao was certainly not stupid. He sent a total of 10,000 cavalry troops, 12,000 people, and went south to escort the grain team north, obviously without any intention of giving the enemy an opportunity to take advantage of.

Ma Chao was confident that he would do this, which was related to the news from Anding County to give him in advance: Anding County said that the food and grass of Sanfu, especially the forage, would be transported continuously. Don’t be afraid that the troops would run too far every day, the horses were tired and had too much food. The land of Sanfu was definitely affordable, and it could be used to mobilize the Hu troops.

The first attempt to rob the grain of the Marquis of the Lu Gu Du Hou was indeed scared away again. As soon as the two sides contacted each other, seeing that Ma Chao's cavalry was ready, the Marquis of the Lu Gu Du Hou died and injured some cannon fodder and left the contact.
Chapter completed!