Runan City, Yuzhou

"Lord, you can't drink anymore!" Liu Bei sat on the main seat in the palace of the city prefecture of Runan, drinking wine glass after glass. He sat down with a lot of wine bottles that had already accumulated.

Drinking to relieve sorrow and sorrow is even more hatred. This is true. Wine is not something that can relieve sorrow. It is just a matter of adding sorrow. But what can you do if you don’t drink? If you lose, you lose, you lose and you lose all the way. You originally wanted to take down Fancheng to gain food and grass to expand your army to fight for the Central Plains. Now, not only did you not get food and grass, but you also offended Liu Biao in Jingzhou to death. Nanyang County was also lost. Five thousand Western Liang Iron Cavalry and tens of thousands of infantrymen were still there. Basically, Liu Bei’s regular troops have been consumed. Although the main elite is still there, the biggest disadvantage of Liu Bei is that there is no food and grass.

Nothing can be done without food and grass. There are only 40,000 troops in the entire Yuzhou. To the extent that the Western Liang cavalry and the defenders, Liu Bei could not afford to support him. There are two situations in front of Liu Bei. The first is to fight and fight to the death with Yangzhou. However, Liu Bei also knew that his own little capital might not even be able to fight Shouchun, or he would withdraw his troops and remove all unnecessary troops. But in this situation, he could still withdraw his troops!

Liu Bei's elite troops totaled 20,000, 10,000 Xiliang Iron Cavalry and 10,000 Qingzhou Army. If he is removed, Liu Bei will basically stop fighting and wait for surrender.

This is not the key. Liu Bei lost many times. Since the Battle of the Yellow Turbans, Liu Bei almost lost his pants, but Liu Bei was able to make a comeback. That's why? That's because Liu Bei has a reputation of benevolence and righteousness.

But now the reputation of benevolence and righteousness is about to be over. Not to mention that Liu Mang, a child from Yangzhou, was joking about Liu Bei's benevolence and righteousness everywhere. Liu Bei completely turned into a villain with false benevolence and righteousness in the hearts of some people, and his second brother, it was good that he expanded his army by 20,000, which added combat power to him Liu Bei, but now he has done bad things with kindness.

Because the food and grass that Guan Yu wanted for the 20,000 soldiers were borrowed from the people, if this could not be exchanged, then Liu Bei's reputation for benevolence and righteousness would be completely over. Without the reputation of benevolence and righteousness, then Liu Bei would be really worthless. But what food and grass that Liu Bei could exchange for the people?

Liu Bei's disastrous defeat completely shattered Liu Bei's desire to compete for hegemony.

"Brother, you can't drink anymore!" Jian Yong couldn't help but comfort Liu Bei and called Guan Yu over. Guan Yu felt ache when he saw his elder brother like this. His elder brother had ambitions and a great ambition to support the Han Dynasty, so Guan Yu was unyielding to this elder brother, but now the elder brother was no longer angry.

"Give it to me, give it to me! Yun Chang, give it back!" Liu Bei also wanted to grab the bottle of wine in Guan Yu's hand. But a drunk man was not Guan Yu's opponent, and Guan Yu took back the bottle.

"Chang Yun, don't even listen to me as a big brother!" Liu Bei couldn't snatch Guan Yu and glared at Guan Yu.

"Brother, I!" Guan Yu was very embarrassed. Guan Yu couldn't ignore his elder brother's words, but Liu Bei couldn't drink them anymore. If he continued to drink, he would be completely depressed.

"Give me!"

"Okay, brother, you want to drink it, then I will accompany you to drink it!" Guan Yu handed the bottle of wine to Liu Bei, and opened another bottle and drank it all in one go. "Good wine!"

"Then let's drink, come today and don't go home if you're drunk!" Liu Bei also picked up the wine glass and started pouring it back.

"This, this, this!" Jian Yong smiled bitterly. He was the one who called Guan Yu to persuade Liu Bei to stop Liu Bei from drinking. But he knew that Guan Yu had started drinking with Liu Bei.

...

In the Shouchun, Yangzhou, Xu Shu was dealing with the case documents in the entire Yangzhou.

"Report to the military advisor that eight more Jingzhou merchants came to our Yangzhou to register and record the list. This is the list, and the military advisor will check it out!" A list sent by a scholar said that there were some Xiangyang Wang clan trading companies and Changsha Xu clan trading companies, and a series of names of the characters were all on it.

"Okay, okay, okay!" Xu Shu nodded. The Wang family mainly sells cloth, so that the people of Yangzhou will have better clothes, and some people can collect the clothes woven by the people. In addition, the Xu family sells medicine, and the medicinal materials business is also good. There are millions of people in Yangzhou, and many people get sick every day. This is not a small matter. If the ancients are not dealt with properly, it may lead to plague.

Xu Shu was almost sent out the military doctors to treat the people, but if the doctors had them, the medicinal materials were a big problem. Even if those doctors went out to collect them themselves, it would be a drop in the bucket. When the Xu family arrived in Yangzhou, the medicinal materials in Yangzhou were settled.

"Jiangdong Chen Family?" Xu Shu saw a small handwriting and asked the civil official.

"Oh, military advisor, are you talking about the Chen family, the Chen family in Jiangdong, just a small businessman in Xindu." The civil official disdained. Such a small businessman's family property was only hundreds of gold. He came to Yangzhou because Jiangdong could not make it anymore. He came to Yangzhou to try the waters. Compared with those big merchants in Jingzhou, it was far inferior to those.

"Are you a little businessman?" Xu Shu pondered and Xu Shu stood up and said to the civil servant, "Invite me the head of the Chen family in Jiangdong, and I will hold a banquet in the mansion in the evening."

"Well? Military advisor, such a small businessman?" The civil minister didn't understand. He refused to go there and insisted on hiring such a small businessman?

"This little businessman may have a big effect." Xu Shu said to Wenchen. Although this person is just a small businessman, it depends on where he came from. Jiangdong, there are many Jingzhou merchants in Yangzhou now. That is because Jingzhou is an alliance with Yangzhou, so these Jingzhou merchants are willing to come to Yangzhou. Although such a small businessman in Jiangdong is small, it does represent that the market in Jiangdong is not unbreakable. Yangzhou's series of policies to treat merchants can be regarded as being that no one in the entire Han Dynasty dares to take it out, and there are even officials and businessmen! That is, the official takes out some money to do business with you. This is not the key. The key is that these merchants actually have official positions.

Mi Zhu is a big hit in Yangzhou now. Because Mi Zhu is the general business office of Yangzhou. He is under his command of the largest organization of officials and businessmen. If he joins it, he is not just a businessman, but an official. Didn’t he see Mi Zhu not only has an official position but also a great title of Guangzhou Houxian Hou? This is the most attractive thing.

Xu Shu invited this little businessman from Jiangdong to him and was ready to throw away bricks and attract jade. The best interests of this little businessman, the Yangzhou policy for merchants, and let him choose by himself, and he will definitely leave the Jiangdong Chen family. If you go to promote it based on the Jiangdong Chen family, it will definitely attract many big businessmen from Jiangdong.

This is what Xu Shu wants. As for Sun Ce to stop these merchants at that time, it has nothing to do with Xu Shu. Xu Shu knew that as long as these merchants had enough interests, they would definitely come at all costs.

"Liu is not here to drive someone!" Xu Shu was dealing with things in Yangzhou, remembering that Liu Ye came. Jingzhou was basically dominated by Xu Shu and Liu Ye.

"Liu Biejia went to Yingshui to watch the dam!" A guard next to him replied.

The main city of Yangzhou is Shouchun. Shouchun can be regarded as a high city and a vast land, and it is a place that is easy to defend and difficult to attack. However, Shouchun has not been broken by people, one of them is water attack. There are several dams near Shouchun. These dams may benefit the people in normal times and can irrigate tens of acres of fertile land, but once war is fought, it will become a prop for the enemy.

It is impossible for Yangzhou to give up the use of this dam. Tens of thousands of acres of fertile land can be used to feed as much food. So now Yangzhou is preparing to build the dam to be strong, so that even if the enemy comes, it will be difficult to destroy. In addition to the huge rocks, there are also cement in the construction of dams. It was not used before, because the cement produced cannot be used in water, but now cement has this effect, so Liu Ye is preparing to rebuild these dams.

"This Liu Ye, Liu Ziyang!" Xu Shu said he was going to take Liu Ye's leave, so he had more rest, but he still couldn't rest.

"How is the iron smelting in the industrial zone?" Xu Shu asked about the recent things in the industrial zone. From the book, Liu Ye and Liu Ziyang raised the iron smelting technology, so many small blast furnaces were built in the industrial zone, which were chaotic all day long.

"Military advisor, the last five thousand sets of iron armor and ten thousand swords have been handed over to General Huang!" These are the weapons that have been refined with blast furnaces over the past few days.

"The weapon is so effective!" Xu Shu still had a skeptical attitude, because it was too fast forging weapons like this. It was only half a month later. These ten thousand swords and weapons and five thousand armors were released. If it were on weekdays, even if there were thousands of craftsmen, it would take half a year to build these things. Therefore, Xu Shu expressed doubts about the practicality of this weapon armor.

"The military advisor is a sample of armor and swords sent by the industrial zone. Please see!" As he said that, the people below brought a piece of armor and a battle knife.

The armor has no characteristics, it is similar to all the heavy armors of this era, heavy and clumsy, but fortunately this thing has good defense. Xu Shu looked at the gaps in the armor and silently made the texture look better than ordinary armor.

"Has the armor been tested?" All the armors that come out of Yangzhou now need to be tested.

"Military advisor, such heavy armored bows and arrows are shot without a trace, fifty steps out of white marks, thirty steps down," said the man who took out the armor proudly. As long as such armor is not concentrated, it is basically difficult to destroy.

"Okay, okay!" Xu Shu nodded in approval. This is much better than some other heavy armor. Even the heavy armor used by the Xiliang Iron Cavalry, if it is within fifty steps, it is still easy to be penetrated by bows and arrows, especially those heavy arrows, which are used to break armor.

"Military advisor, we also used a bed crossbow to do the experiment!"

"Bed crossbow?" Xu Shu was stunned for a moment. The bed crossbow is now familiar in Yangzhou City, and it can even be said that it is not unfamiliar in the world. There are three princes with bed crossbows besides Liu Mang, including Sun Ce from Jiangdong, Liu Biao from Jingzhou, and even Cao Caodu in Xudu. They are just a simple version left by Liu Ye at the beginning.

The crossbow was originally used to penetrate heavy armor, and this thing was even used to penetrate warships. Unexpectedly, these people from the industrial area actually used the crossbow to test heavy armor.

"What's the result!" Xu Shu was also interested and asked.

"Purpose it with one armor!"

Xu Shu nodded. If the crossbow cannot penetrate the heavy armor, what is the use of this crossbow?

"Slow down with two a!

The two armors could already stop them for a moment. At least the strength of the crossbow was not allowed to be transmitted, but it was still penetrated.

"Stop it with the three arsenals, stop it with the four arsenals!"

"Small armors are blocked?" Xu Shu picked up a piece of armor. The armor was several dozen kilograms, but Xu Shu still lifted it with one hand. "Don't lie!" If the three armors are blocked, it means that the bed crossbow can only shoot the three people in front, and the fourth person may be blocked.

"I don't dare to expire the military advisor! If you don't believe it, you can try it!" The officials of this industrial area immediately knelt down. Xu Shu also knew that they didn't dare to lie, after all, their Shangguan Liu Ye is there. Liu Ye is the other person, but one thing is to be serious.

It is possible to block the giant arrows of the crossbow with four pairs of armor, but it is impossible to not be injured. After all, there is still an inertia, but it is much better than other armors. When the Western Liang Iron Cavalry attacked Shouchun, Xu Shu's crossbow was pierced through seven cavalry under the giant scissors of his face, just like wearing candied haws. The defense of the armor now is much better than before.

"Where is this sword!" Xu Shuba's eyes turned to the sword beside him, and a piece of armor gave Xu Shu a happy look. This sword must be even more surprising.

"Everything under heavy armor can be broken!" The officials in this industrial area were very arrogant.

"What a big tone!" Xu Shu was also amused by this person. "Come on. Take off your leather armor and show this person whether you can break it with one knife!" Xu Shu was about to test it on the spot.

The officials of the industrial area were not in a hurry at all. They watched the guard push off the leather armor and immediately picked it up.

There is a bump in front of the leather armor, which is easy to wear, so many armors are full even if they are not worn by others.

"The military advisor is optimistic!" As he said that, the soldiers in the industrial area cut the sword in their hands directly towards the leather armor.

"Tear!" A harsh sound rang out, and the leather armor turned into two halves, half still hanging, and half had fallen on the ground.

"This?!" Xu Shu hadn't reacted yet, and stabbed the remaining half of the leather armor with a battle knife, and directly pierced it.

Xu Shu was completely defeated by the sword of leather armor. If a group of his own troops holding such swords fight against a group of enemy troops wearing leather armor, the ending would be obvious and a complete victory.

You should know that in this era, iron tools are still very expensive, and not everyone can wear heavy armor. After all, light armor and infantry battles are mostly leather armor.

"What's the matter with heavy armor?!" Xu Shu was thinking about heavy armor again. If he could break the heavy armor, he would become a magic weapon. Only those generals who could break the heavy armor could tear the heavy armor apart with the sword weapons in the book, but that was because they had a sound of martial arts. Not all soldiers and horses had martial arts.

The official from the industrial area shook his head, looking helpless.

"Yes, that's right, I'm not greedy! How great would it be if I could break my leather armor!" Xu Shu smiled sarcastically.

"Military advisor, this battle knife cannot break our own heavy armor, but it can be broken for other heavy armor!" The official in this industrial area said his answer.

"What!" Xu Shu really didn't understand even the heavy armor could deal with it.

"Although the military advisor can break through the heavy armor, after breaking two or three mates, the sword will be completely destroyed!" said the official in this industrial area.

"Then what else do you want!" Xu Shu replied angrily. It was already a miracle that the battle knife could break the armor. The battle between the heavy armor troops was not the armor-piercing one, but was slaughtered and killed by other places that were not covered by the heavy armor. Finally, it was a killing person, and it was directly exhausted. Therefore, the battle between the heavy armor troops was as fierce as a meat grinder.

Now that this sword can actually break the armor, Xu Shu really laughed. In this way, the Yangzhou army really gained the upper hand in the confrontation between the heavy armored forces.

"Have you sent the armor and swords for General Huang?" Xu Shu asked.

"There is no military advisor yet!" Huang Zhong has 300,000 reserve troops in his hands, so Huang Zhong is relatively busy, and the reserve troops do not have complete combat effectiveness in their schedules.

"Leave all the armor and swords, and give priority to changing suits to the Xiliang Iron Cavalry and the Black Flag Army!" Xu Shu said to his subordinates. Xu Shu originally planned to add a city management army, but when he thought of the white heavy armor worn by the city management army, Xu Shu gave up his mind. The defense of those heavy armors was much more amazing than those in front of him.

"Military advisor, this, has already agreed to General Huang!" The officials in the industrial zone were in a dilemma. Although Huang Zhong's 300,000 reserves were impossible to be used as war soldiers, he had to expand his troops from 50,000 to 100,000. So Huang Zhong had a big gap, and it was not enough to send these troops to the place.

"Don't worry! Let me talk about General Huang!" Xu Shu nodded and said to the officials of this industrial area. The reserve in Huang Zhong's hands was preparing to form a new force. Although these soldiers were practicing this, they were still early to fully develop combat power. You can't just pull them to the battlefield, so don't worry about the soldiers and armor.

Of course, Xu Shu would not let General Huang be without armor and weapons training, so Xu Shu planned to change the Black Flag Army and the Xiliang Iron Cavalry first. After the dressing, replace the weapons and armor of the Xiliang Iron Cavalry and the Black Chess Army to Huang Zhong, and form a front-line elite troops first. I believe Huang Zhong would not say anything if he knew it. In the future, Yangzhou will not build these armor and weapons, and it will be fine to give them to you at that time.

"It's a military advisor!" The official from the industrial area nodded.

"Let the craftsmen work hard to speed up!" Xu Shu said to the industrial zone officials again.

"Military advisor. These craftsmen have given their all!" said the official in the industrial area in embarrassment.

"If you do your best, then you will be twelve points. The lord is in Jingzhou now. If we are not strong for a day, the lord will not be able to come back in one day. His life is in the hands of others. I hope everyone can be twelve points and let us help the lord achieve hegemony!" Xu Shu said to the officials of the industrial zone. He also knew that the craftsmen in the industrial zone had already done their best, but there must be brave men under heavy rewards. Xu Shu has increased his bounty. For every additional piece of armor, a battle knife is rewarded with fifty coins. Of course, it cannot be just a matter of filling in the numbers. These battle knifes and weapons must be engraved with the names of those who are made, and once there is a problem, people can be traced.

Xu Shu had to worry. Liu Mang is still in Jingzhou now. Although he said he was a guest in Jingzhou on the surface, in fact, everyone knows that he left Jingzhou as a hostage. Why is Liu Mang as a hostage? Isn’t it just for Yangzhou? In order to get enough food and grass for Yangzhou inventory, if Yangzhou is strong, the lord needs this!

Xu Shu failed to solve the problem of losing food and grass, which made the lord deeply in crisis, but Xu Shu needed to strengthen Yangzhou as soon as possible and live up to the lord Liu Mang's entrusted. As long as he had enough strength, he could naturally force Jingzhou to return the lord.

...

"Collection of Xiliang Iron Cavalry!" The entire Xiliang Iron Cavalry was in full swing. Since the end of the Battle of Linghuai, the Xiliang Iron Cavalry has rested on the spot. It can be said that it is basically difficult to have the opportunity to gather together except for training on weekdays.

But today thousands of soldiers gathered in front of the camp.
To be continued...