Chapter 230 Situation in Hedong
“Your Majesty, I’m reporting that all the military rations are transported thousands of miles away, and the food stored in the army is only more than ten days’ worth. The armies in Hedong have a large number of animals and their consumption is far more than expected. I was already encouraging him, but now I am rashly pressuring him. I am worried that I might make an unexpected mistake. My father had acted righteously before, and the right general had also given him great support. If he could get help from the right general, the imperial court might have already sent troops to Hanoi. It would be better if Liu Feng didn't say this, but the emperor's face turned pale when he said it.
Because the right general Liu Feng mentioned was none other than the second surname in the world, the good eldest brother of Liu Bei and Cao Cao, Yuan Shao and Yuan Benchu of Hebei.
The grievances and grievances between the helmsman of the Yuan family and the emperor Liu Xie are indeed known to everyone, not only among the scholars in the world, but among the scholars in the Central Plains. .
Liu Xie also hated and feared Yuan Shao. Coincidentally, Yuan Shao also felt the same way about Liu Xie.
Do you think that if Yuan Shaozhen came, he would be more interested in sincerely welcoming you, or he would be more interested in killing you while taking advantage of the chaos.
Yang Biao stood up and said solemnly: "Captain Liu, please don't talk nonsense."
Liu Feng bowed his hands to Yang Biao to show respect, and then replied: "Right Guo Tu, the general's subordinate, has been stationed at the border of the state and can go directly to Hanoi County at any time. He wrote a letter to me asking about the current situation of the court and said in the letter that he would be ready to help at any time. "
Liu. Feng really didn't lie, Guo Tu really wrote him a letter.
However, Guo Tu's intention in writing the letter was really not to support the emperor. Although Guo Tu's original intention was indeed to support the emperor's disobedience, Yuan Shao's thoughts were more important than his original intention.
Guo Tu wrote to Liu Feng. He actually wanted to inquire about Ying Feng's experience and the situation of the emperor and the central ministers. He wanted to inquire about the news.
Furthermore, there is a suspicion of taking credit for oneself.
Although others are not here, they care so much and are so close. Isn’t this the same as the Tathagata?
The eldest brother who took the lead in welcoming the emperor was Liu Bei, but in name Liu Bei respected Yuan Shao as his eldest brother, and he also invited Yuan Shao to the whole welcoming thing, and the latter even agreed to it openly.
So once the emperor is successfully welcomed to Luoyang, it can be said to be a great success. When the time comes, rewards will be given according to merit. Guo Tu's Tathagata will be very important.
A gentleman seeks a man, and a villain seeks a life.
Guo Gongze’s talent in finding a person is far better than finding a person.
The emperor's face was pale. After a moment of daze, he woke up and quickly looked at Zhong Yao.
It can be seen that at the critical moment, Zhong Yao's status in the emperor's heart was quite high.
Zhong Yao bowed his head slightly in response to the emperor, and then went out to ask: "Liu Duwei, when did the right general's troops set out? Is there any information in Hanoi that can be reported to Prefect Zhang?"
Zhong Yao Yao asked these two questions very accurately. Guo Tu had actually left for more than a month earlier, but he had been stationed on the border of Hanoi and remained motionless.
Since Guo Tu is still on the border and has not moved, how can there be news from Hanoi to Zhang Yang?
But these things cannot be told truthfully. If they were told truthfully, then how could Liu Feng threaten... No, it was a threat to remind the court of Yuan Shao?
"Reporting to Huang Menlang, Guo Gongze sent troops from Yecheng at the beginning of the month. Now he is marching to the east of Henei. He is collecting grain, grass and baggage, and can respond to Hedong at any time."
Liu Feng replied honestly: "I don't know about Governor Zhang's office. If your Majesty wants to ask, you can order him to answer."
Zhang Yang is in the city right now, and Liu Feng is not afraid of him. He said he had not received any news from the county.
Because even if Zhang Yang did not receive news from Hanoi, would Liu Xie dare to ignore Yuan Shao?
As long as Liu Feng raised this threat, Liu Xie would not dare to ignore it.
Liu Feng's style of play is already obvious. If you cause trouble for me, then I will also cause trouble for you. Let's get busy together.
Sure enough, the emperor hurriedly ordered someone to invite Zhang Yang.
In just one meal, Zhang Yang entered the palace.
After he finished saluting, Zhao Wen asked: "Has the county governor received news from the county recently?"
Zhang Yang showed a surprised look: "I just received news from the county officials. According to the news, General You has sent a message, asking for help from King Dao Qin to prepare our county to receive the army."
As soon as Zhang Yang said this, Liu Xie's little face suddenly turned white.
This shows how powerful Yuan Shao is in intimidating him.
Think about it. In the official history, when Liu Xie was fighting in Liangzhou, he begged his grandfather to sue his grandmother and called on the princes of Guandong to go to Qinwang. He even came to beg for help one by one, even Lu Bu, who had just been driven out of Yanzhou. I passed, but I never went to see Yuan Shao.
It can be seen that Yuan Shao is indeed more reactionary in Liu Xie's heart than the Liangzhou warriors.
What’s even more coincidental is that Yuan Shao did exactly what Liu Xie thought. He hated him as the emperor. He wanted to replace Liu Xie several times, but he failed in the end.
This can be regarded as another extreme kind of mutual understanding between king and minister.
The hall fell into silence for a moment.
The important ministers were either deep in thought or exchanging glances, but no one spoke.
The emperor seemed to be frightened by Yuan Shao.
Liu Feng can also understand that Hanoi is the most critical transportation pass and must pass through.
No matter which way you go, if you want to return to Luoyang, you must pass through Hanoi.
If Yuan Shao was squatting in Hanoi, Liu Xie, who was eager to return east, would really have the goods delivered to his door.
But Liu Feng was also very surprised. This was really not his deliberate arrangement. It could only be that Yuan Shao really sent people to Hanoi County.
It's just a coincidence, and it doesn't prove that Yuan Shao will really send troops to the west. Maybe Yuan Shao's tricks are the same type as Guo Tu's - Tathagata.
Seeing that the emperor was also frightened, in the end it was Taiwei Yang Biao who stood up and announced the dispersal of the court.
After Liu Feng came out, he squatted on Zhong Yao outside.
As soon as Zhong Yao came out, he went to greet him.
The other party was not surprised to see Liu Feng, and nodded to Liu Feng, and the two left the palace together.
"Yuan Chang, you have done me a terrible job!"
After walking a certain distance, Liu Feng grabbed Zhong Yao's sleeve unceremoniously and said fiercely: " I regard you as my brother, but you have harmed me like this, what else can I say?”
Zhong Yao looked at him who was more than twenty years younger than himself, but his height had almost caught up with him. Liu Feng, who was dying, secretly wondered what the child had grown up on.
He was not afraid at all of Liu Feng's threats.
The main reason is that Liu Feng’s words are too fake.
If Liu Feng was really angry, he would block Zhong Yao outside the palace.
"Zisheng, although this matter will cause Xuzhou to suffer, it may not be a bad thing."
Zhong Yao explained calmly: "Now the officials, concubines, and concubines around the emperor There are only a few hundred people in the palace, how much food can you eat? But you are given the power to manage the itinerary. Even the three princes have to follow your arrangements on the itinerary. You don't take credit for it, but you insult me. Where is your conscience? "
Liu Fengnen's face turned slightly red. Of course he knew that what Zhong Yao said was true.
With the overall authority of the eastbound trip, Liu Feng can get twice the result with half the effort.
In fact, even without this power, could Liu Feng be exempted from the responsibility of escorting along the way?
Zhong Yao actually invited Liu Feng to a Shang Fang sword.
“Brother Yuanchang, you were just joking.”
Liu Feng smiled and apologized: "What exactly did Yang Feng and others do? Seeing that the holy cavalry was about to go eastward, they created troubles. What are their intentions?"
What Liu Feng really cares about is Yang Feng and others. The movements of people, these people actually hold military power in their hands. Those 15,000 or 6,000 troops are a capable army that can fight the Xiliang warriors in bloody battles.
Although Liu Feng was confident of defeating the opponent head-on, the casualties would definitely be small. Not to mention anything else, the loss of the more than 3,000 cavalrymen of the Baibo Army would definitely make him feel painful.
Therefore, Liu Feng's attitude towards Bai Bojun was to be loose on the outside and tight on the inside.
But at this time, Bai Bojun made new moves, which made Liu Feng not nervous.
Hearing Liu Feng's question, Zhong Yao actually laughed, looked at him rather maliciously and said, "Have you been exchanging grain for war horses in various places in Hedong these days?"
Liu Feng was stunned. After a moment, he nodded.
It is a rare trip to Hedong, and there are tens of thousands of troops escorting it. It would be a pity not to take the opportunity to forcibly collect a group of war horses.
Moreover, a large amount of food has been transported, which is redundant. After all, the army is out there, and food is the courage of the army. Without food, the army will fall apart in an instant.
The transportation to the rear will not be based on the normal consumption of the army, but will always be sent in excess as a redundancy.
These redundant supplies were sent to Hedong. When the troops left, there would definitely not be enough transportation capacity to transport them away.
Even if there is, it is very uneconomical and is still an old problem because the consumption of transporting food is too great.
In this case, it would be more convenient and cost-effective to simply exchange the food for war horses and take it away directly, not to mention that this time there are tens of thousands of troops escorting them along the way as bodyguards.
"General Xingyi and the others must have seen your actions. Maybe they thought you had a lot of food, so they wanted to keep some people in Hedong, so they came to report to the emperor."
Zhong Yaoxian glanced at Liu Feng and continued: "The emperor also hopes that after returning to Shenjing in the future, he can get support from local forces, so he agreed. At the same time, the emperor was also worried that you would not agree, so he thought of changing the situation. Bird’s method, you also know what happened next.”
Liu Feng suddenly realized that this was what happened.
The emotional root actually comes from my own side.
The emperor was frightened when Liu Feng pulled Yuan Shao's tiger skin. Not only did he no longer support the Bai Bo army to leave some men in Hedong, but he also hoped that they would escort them eastward to increase their "reliable" strength. .
Liu Association’s thinking is actually very reasonable.
Liu Bei, Cao Cao, and Zhang Yang were all Yuan Shao's younger brothers, but Guo Gong was not.
But Guo Gong has now become Liu Bei's younger brother, and Yuan Shao's younger brother's younger brother. Isn't that also a peripheral vassal of Yuan Shao?
The entire Guandong King Qin's army is actually Yuan Shao's ally. No matter how you look at it, it is more reliable to protect the Baibo army who won the bloody battle in Hongnong.
But Bai Bojun's ideas were obviously different from those of the emperor.
The emperor's backbiting made Yang and Feng very unhappy.
Even if the emperor specially asked Zhong Yao to come to comfort him and explained the reasons in detail, warriors like Yang Feng, who came from a low-level background, had no idea about "tolerance for the sake of the country", so they were naturally full of complaints.
Zhong Yao tried his best to appease everyone, and almost explicitly escorted the emperor back east. After the success, the emperor must still have some gifts in the name of the king.
When Zhong Yao left, Yang Feng and others returned to the tent and sat down separately.
"The emperor's words are really useless. He promised well in the morning, but now he regrets it. Isn't this child's play?"
Han Xian, who had the most grumpy temper, was the first to speak, and he actually said this In public, they openly complained about the emperor.
Such appalling complaints did not cause any disturbance at all, but instead attracted Hu Cai's approval.
"Yes, the little emperor is really useless."
Hu Cai said unfairly: "We are also doing it for the cause of the emperor, but he does not dare to fight for us. Liu Feng Na'er has a lot of food in his hands. In just a few days, he received no less than two hundred war horses in Anyi City alone. I saw this with my own eyes."
Hedong. Severe drought has severely reduced food production.
Everyone knows that this year has been difficult, and many horse owners are even considering killing horses for meat.
There is nothing we can do about this. The drought is so severe that it is not just grain production that has been reduced. Even alfalfa and other pastures have experienced large-scale production reductions.
War horses are also different from ordinary horses. Ordinary horses do not need to eat fine grains as long as they are not working. But war horses are not good enough. If they don't eat refined food for a long time, they will degenerate and eventually be demoted to pack horses.
So now that the pack horses are considered to be killed for meat, the situation of the war horses is even worse.
At this time, King Qin’s army in Guandong was actually willing to exchange grain for war horses. As soon as the news came out, the horse dealers in various places in Hedong became excited. When the news reached any city in Hedong, the horse dealers there immediately rushed to He rode his war horse to several trading cities set by King Qin's army in Guandong.
The first one to bear the brunt was Anyi. The situation was extremely hot. The powerful men outside the city were leading their war horses to the city, hoping to be favored by King Qin's army in Guandong so that they could be exchanged for food.
The situation in other places in Hedong, such as Jie County, Pingyang, Fenyin, Puban and other places, is certainly not much different, and people from King Dongqin's army also brought food to trade.
"What should we do now?"
Li Le had a gloomy face. After all, he was the one who wanted to stay the most. If it was according to the emperor's wishes, he would definitely not be able to stay.
Yang Feng also had a big head. The cost he had invested in escorting the emperor all the way was already too great, and he couldn't give up. Moreover, the emperor did bring him huge rewards. General Xingyi's title of general was just the beginning. More importantly, he also gave him the power to open a government and take charge of the government.
Now that we have only arrived in Hedong, Yang Feng didn’t dare to think about how high he could reach after he really escorted the emperor back to Luoyang.
At this time, Xu Huang behind Yang Feng spoke: "General, I do have an idea, but I don't know if it is suitable."
"Oh?"
Yang Feng turned to look at Xu He glanced at it and couldn't help but think: "What's Gongming's opinion? But it doesn't matter."
"The Xuzhou Army is short of horses and we are short of food. In this case, why not just sell the horses to the Xuzhou Army."
Xu Huang was not affected by the previous topic of persuading Yang Feng to surrender, and had no intention of avoiding it: "Now that all the food supplies in our army are almost at the bottom, we really can't afford to raise so many war horses."< br>
The proportion of cavalry in the Baibo Army is indeed a bit too high, much more than Liu Feng expected.
The total number of war horses owned by the Baibo Army is not more than 3,000, but more than 5,000, which is almost more than half. It is no wonder that the Baibo Army is so anxious.
After hearing this, Yang Feng pondered for a moment and did not agree or refuse. Instead, he asked Han Xian and others what they meant.
Li Le has some thoughts. He is determined to stay in Hedong. Even if he sells all the war horses now, he can still buy war horses at any time after the drought is over.
There are a large number of horse farms in Hedong, and you can also purchase from Bingzhou in the north and Liangzhou in the west.
Therefore, Li Le was not worried at all about how to restore the cavalry force after selling out all the horses, so he was a little tempted by Xu Huang's proposal.
So, Li Le actually surpassed Yang Feng and was the first to stand up and support Xu Huang's opinion: "I think Gongming's method is good, you can try it."
The same goes for Hu Cai Those who plan to stay are just not as determined as Li Le.
After hearing Xu Huang's opinion just now, he was also a little moved. Now seeing Li Le being the first to stand up and support, he also expressed his position: "Since Brother Dexi supports it, then I think it is worth it." Try."
Seeing that both Li Le and Hu Cai supported Xu Huang, Yang Feng still did not rush to speak, but carefully calculated the score in his heart.
According to the information they had previously inquired about, Liu Feng's price for collecting horses in Hedong was three stones of corn for a second-class horse, and five stones of corn for a first-class horse.
At this time, grain prices in Hedong have skyrocketed. In the past, the price of corn, which cost one thousand two or three hundred yuan per stone, has soared to eight thousand yuan, and the price shows signs of continuing to rise. And the price of horses But it plummeted amid food shortages and selling.
There is almost no market for ordinary draft horses, and most of the buyers are local butchers, who buy them as meat horses.
Only the war horse still has value, but it has also shrunk greatly.
For Liu Feng, three shi of Hedong's grain to buy a second-class horse, plus the four or five shi spent on the road, was only seven or eight shi. With the price in Xuzhou of just over 300 qian per shi, The total cost was only two thousand four hundred dollars.
This was much cheaper than Liaodong, and it almost dazzled Liu Feng's eyes.
The quality of the war horses in Liaodong is actually worse than that of the big horses in Hetao, and Hedong is right next to the Hetao. Among the war horses in Hedong, at least three or four out of ten are Hedong big horses.
But now, the price of the Hedong horse is not half that of the Liaodong war horse. Even the first-class war horse only costs five stones of corn, which is equivalent to the market price of 40,000 yuan, and the second-class horse is only worth 24,000 yuan. Thousands of dollars.
If the food prices in Xuzhou were used as the cost, it would be unbelievably low.
Had it not been for the scarcity of first-class horses, Liu Feng would have had the arrogant idea of only accepting first-class horses.
The reason for such a price difference is mainly caused by two aspects. On the one hand, it is naturally the skyrocketing grain prices caused by the drought in Hedong and the plummeting horse prices. The second reason is the huge interest differential caused by trade.
The biggest profit is brought by trade, but this is not a normal situation.
This is the added value brought by the march of thirty to forty thousand troops across thousands of miles.
How could Xuzhou’s grain be transported thousands of miles smoothly to Hedong without the endorsement of an army of thirty to forty thousand people, and at the same time using the Emperor’s edict to King Qin as a stepping stone?
So Liu Feng knew that such an opportunity was rare, so he wanted to make a big profit.
Yang Feng didn't know what Liu Feng thought, but he could roughly calculate that Liu Feng had made a lot of profits, which even made him jealous.
"Okay, since the brothers agree, then I will go and talk to Liu Feng in person."
(End of this chapter)