In Jiangbei, the Chu army had already captured Liyang County.

The Chu army will still be stationed in Jiangbei for a period of time, so it is obviously not a big deal to stay in the wild for a long time.[]

Li Zuo Chejun, who was originally entrenched in Liyang County, did not engage in too much entanglement with the Chu army in Liyang, but decisively reduced all his troops to Dongcheng, Yinling, and Quyang counties. Obviously, Li Zuoche also knew very well that the reason why Xiangzhuang occupied Liyang was mostly just to rest, rather than to stay in Jiangbei.

Today, Jiujiang County has a population of only about 300,000, and Xiangzhuang is definitely despised.

The Zhangjun and Kuaiji counties in Jiangdong have a population of more than 2 million, and they have basically not been destroyed by war. That is the foundation that Xiangzhuang really wants. Only by occupying the entire Jiangdong intact can Xiangzhuang compete with the Liang King who occupied the Central Plains, the King of Qi who occupied Qi territory, and the King of Han who occupied Guanzhong.

As for why the Chu army wanted to stay in Jiangbei, Li Zuoche didn't know.

However, it was precisely for this reason that Li Zuoche decisively gave up Li Yang.

If Li Zuoche really made up his mind to defend Liyang, he would definitely be able to defend it without saying that, but with Liyang's solid city wall, it was no problem to severely damage the Chu army. Li Zuoche still had this confidence.

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Xiang Zhuang did not have the intention to capture the entire Jiujiang Piao Astronomy Network.

When it comes to the general trend today, Wei Liao had already analyzed it thoroughly with Xiang Zhuang before his lifetime. In terms of population background alone, there are only Qi land, Guanzhong, Zhao land, and Jiangdong, which can be the foundation of kings and dominances, and the Central Plains can barely be able to do so. The remaining Jingchu, Huai Si, Yan land, and Bashu are too small to achieve great things.

There is no need to think about Qidi, Guanzhong. Nowadays, Liu Bang and Han Xin are definitely not something that Xiang Zhuang can mess with.

Although Zhao's land has enough population, it is definitely not a good land between Liu Bang, Han Xin and Maodun.

Although the Central Plains can barely dominate, they are also sandwiched between Liu Bang and Han Xin, and they also have to face Peng Yue's 100,000 tiger and wolf army. With the current strength of the Chu army, they are definitely not a match for the Liang army.

Then, only Jiangdong is left, which is also a major reason why the Chu army traveled thousands of miles to Jiangdong.

As for another reason, it is naturally because Jiangdong is the birthplace of the Xiang family. Although there are many factions in Jiangdong and the undercurrent is surging, once Xiangzhuang can control the overall situation and get the strong support of the Xiang family, the major Chu clans and the local clans of Jiangdong, they will immediately be able to use Jiangdong's people and material resources to fight for power in the Central Plains north!

Of course, it is not easy for Xiangzhuang to control the overall situation in Jiangdong and get the support of aristocratic races, gentry and clans.

However, no matter how difficult this process is, Xiangzhuang must try it. No matter what, it is better to receive a relatively complete Jiangdong than to receive a dilapidated Jiangdong. The destruction of people's livelihood in a place is beyond imagination. Once a large population loss occurs, you will not be able to recover your vitality in a short period of time.

Moreover, isn’t the complex situation in Jiangdong an opportunity for Xiangzhuang?

This is indeed an opportunity, an opportunity to make Xiang Zhuang’s political skills mature and mature!

The reason why Wei Liao gave thousands of instructions to Xiang Zhuang not to do it after crossing the river is to say less and read more, and also to remind Xiang Zhuang to wait and see more when he is not sure about something, rather than make a rash decision. He hopes that Xiang Zhuang can become mature when dealing with political struggles. For those who are the best, military struggles and political struggles are like left and right fists, and neither is missing!

After all, the power struggle in Jiangdong is just a dispute within Chu. If Xiang Zhuang wants to take office, he must learn to deal with internal disputes through political means. A king who only knows how to resolve internal disputes through military means is unqualified and destined to be defeated. For example, Xiang Yu is a good example.

Therefore, Xiang Zhuang strictly implemented Wei Liao's plan and temporarily suspended the crossing of the river.

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However, Xiangzhuang was not idle during this period. He used more than two thousand years of knowledge to guide the bus to improve and even invent some equipment. The most important ones are two, one is the stone mill, and the other is the bellows! Don’t underestimate these two inconspicuous equipment. The gadgets can come in handy even if they have time!

For example, the improvement of the stone mill greatly improved the food of the Chu army.

Speaking of stone mills, it was first invented by Gongshuban, the ancestor of the bus. However, the stone mills invented by Gongshuban are not mature. The fan surface is composed of pits of different sizes, round or square shapes. Therefore, the grains and wheat millet are very rough, and the cakes or cooked rice are very poor in taste and difficult to digest.

When the Chu army was in Dabie Mountains, the reason why they could only cook the grain was because the stone mill could not work.

If the Chu army had the stone mills of later generations, the Chu army could completely grind the wheat into flour, the rice into rice flour, and then grind the beans into tofu, then bake, steam, fry, and bake into steamed buns, cakes, dried tofu and other cooked foods. It will not only taste better, but also be easier to digest, and it will also protect the physical fitness of the Chu army soldiers.

So, don't underestimate this small stone mill!

Based on the memory of his previous life, Xiangzhuang improved the fan surface of the stone mill. The stonemason chiseled out eight sectors on the upper and lower fan surfaces, and even stripes were chiseled out in each sector. In this way, the flour and rice flour were very fine. The baked cakes or cooked rice tasted very well and were easy to digest. The improved stone mill even grind out tofu!

In the food culture of China, the emergence of tofu is a milestone event!

Before tofu appeared, people just cooked the beans and beans, and then put them together with other grains and ate them. The taste was the same and the nutritional value was very low. However, once ground into tofu, it not only had a good taste, but also increased nutritional value. More importantly, there were many ways to eat boiled tofu, oil tofu, dried tofu, fermented tofu, etc.

It can be foreseen that in the near future, the dry food bags of Chu soldiers will become more popular.

As for the bellows, it is not to mention the function of the country. It is a powerful weapon that can make iron smelting technology leap forward!

Before the bellows appeared, the smelting furnace could only produce white iron, which was later commonly known as pig iron. Pig iron could not be processed directly. Only by repeatedly returning to the furnace and annealing and repeatedly charcoal seeping can the white iron become refined iron and turn into refined iron, and the next step of training and forging can be carried out.

However, after the bellows appear, due to the increase in the furnace temperature, the smelting furnace can directly refine fine iron (gray cast iron)!

Moreover, the quality of the fine iron directly refined from the smelting furnace is higher than the quality of the fine iron obtained by repeated re-annealing of the white iron and repeated charcoal seepage! This greatly improves the smelting efficiency and makes large-scale production of the ring-head knife possible!

Of course, Xiang Zhuang did not know that the bellows would have such a big effect. He just remembered that when he was a child, the blacksmith in the village did not use a wind bag, but a square wooden box. Xiang Zhuang had also studied this box and knew its structure. It has to be said that the principle of the bellows is really simple and children can understand it.

According to the ideas provided by Xiangzhuang, the first bellows made by the bus were quickly formed.

The entire bellows are rectangular in shape, three feet in height and width, five feet in length, and one-way air intake valves are opened at both ends of the front and rear. There is a screen in the middle of the box, covered with feathers. When the bus pulls and pushes, the air in the bellows is compressed and pushed out of the exhaust port. A whirring blue flame appears from the blacksmith stove outside the air port. But on the other side, more than a dozen strong men desperately arouse more than a dozen sheepskin bags, but what the blacksmith stove is still yellow piao astronomy net-colored flames.

Obviously, the efficiency of this small bellows is significantly more than a dozen sheepskin bags!

When the father and daughter of the bus were cheering and more than a dozen strong men were stunned, Xiang Zhuang's mind had shifted to another invention, that is - paper!

The four great inventions of China, compass, papermaking, gunpowder, and movable type printing, are not available now, because it is not yet time to build a navy, gunpowder is a good thing. However, Xiang Zhuang did not read the Piao Astronomy Machine well in his previous life, but he did not know what the components of gunpowder was, so he just wanted to create it but couldn't.

However, Xiang Zhuang still knew about papermaking. I remember when I was a child, I read a book about the miscellaneous materials such as the Little Man Piao Astronomy, wheat straw, reeds, etc., and then I used a bamboo curtain to remove a thin layer of thick slurry and dried it, and it seemed like it was paper.

Xiang Zhuang knew that real papermaking would not be that simple, but this is the idea!

With the practical spirit of the bus, coupled with the quirky Gongshuya's quirky nature and Xiang Zhuang's ideas, you can always make paper by trying it a few more times.

However, Xiang Zhuang is now in a hurry to make paper, but he has ulterior motives.

Because Xiang Zhuang planned to give a heavy gift to the aristocratic tribes, gentry and clans in Jiangdong, what kind of heavy gifts are? The historical books of Piaotianwenwen Kingdom always had a misunderstanding of the First Emperor, that is, burning books and burying scholars.

In fact, Emperor First Emperor did not really burn down the classics, history and collections of the six Kanto countries, but left all copies and collected them in the National Library of the Qin Empire. As for the burying of scholars, it was even more rumored. At that time, Emperor First Emperor just ordered the killing of hundreds of alchemists who spread rumors and trouble. He was not a Confucian scholar at all!

After Liu Bang entered the pass, Xiao He protected these classics, history, and literature collections.

Later, Xiang Yu entered the pass, and although he burned the Qin Palace with a fire, tens of thousands of classics, history and literature collected in the Qin Palace escaped due to Xiao He's protection. However, when Xiang Zhuang led the Chu army to Xianyang for the second time, Xiao He had no time to transfer it again, and all these books fell into Xiang Zhuang's hands.

Later, when the Chu army went to Jiuyuan, Xiangzhuang burned a large amount of excess food, threw away a large amount of supplies and weapons, and abandoned countless silk, satin, gold, silver and jewelry. However, these hundreds of thousands of books were taken away without a single volume. As a time traveler, Xiangzhuang knew very well that it was terrible to have no culture.

Now, these books are about to play their due role.

The reason why the aristocratic tribes are geniuses is that they have read books and are more educated than the common people!

The reason why aristocratic races are aristocratic races is that they pass on their poetry and books, and they have a foundation than aristocratic races!
Chapter completed!