Three Kingdoms: My Strategy Simulator

After listening, Lu Zhi remained silent for a long time before finally speaking.

"This method is quite good. Compared to simply being lenient or forceful, this can both consume the labor of the Shanyue youth and make the Shanyue people aware of the Han Chinese customs and rituals."

"As long as this continues, perhaps only for ten or twenty years, the Shanyue will completely integrate with the Han people, making it difficult to distinguish between them. The Shanyue problem south of the Yangtze River, which has persisted for who knows how many years, will also disappear completely."

"However, now it is said that Wu Commandery is vigorously reclaiming fertile wasteland, naturally accepting the labor of the Shanyue youth without refusal. But if one day Wu Commandery no longer needs this labor, it may become a hidden danger, Zikun..."

Speaking of this, Lu Zhi suddenly shook his head and said.

"It is I who have overthought. Even if such a situation arises, I am afraid that Xuande will no longer be the Administrator of Wu Commandery. Why worry about such a distant matter?"

Li Ji smiled at this and did not reply.

With the degree of development south of the Yangtze River, as long as Li Ji maintains a positive and enterprising spirit, it is unlikely that there will be a surplus of labor in his lifetime.

Therefore, it is naturally impossible for the Shanyue youth to face a situation where there is no work to be done.

Originally, Lu Zhi was already quite surprised to see the Shanyue in Wu Commandery, but he did not expect that as he traveled with Liu Bei and Li Ji to visit Wu Commandery, Lu Zhi became more and more astonished.

The naturally formed and interconnected water conservancy projects have transformed almost half of Wu Commandery into fertile land with reclamation value.

More importantly, even though it is already winter, everywhere you can still see people busily reclaiming fertile land, just waiting for the spring of next year to cultivate it.

The number of oxen in Wu Commandery also made Lu Zhi click his tongue in amazement.

It can be said that, in Lu Zhi's view, Wu Commandery has undergone earth-shattering changes.

Even with Lu Zhi's knowledge and insight, he had never seen such a vibrant and hopeful commandery anywhere else in the Han Dynasty.

And this seems to be only a year and a half since Liu Bei took office as the Administrator?

In a year and a half, such significant changes have occurred?

At this moment, Lu Zhi turned his head to look at Li Ji, who was traveling with them in the corner of the carriage, and could not help but sigh secretly.

'Your Majesty, if you had adopted my recommendation and taken Li Zikun as your confidant, entrusting him with state affairs, you might have been able to revitalize the court. Why has it come to this?'

However, Lu Zhi also knew that this matter could only be left with a sigh. In his heart, he hated those eunuchs even more.

If that eunuch Zuo Feng had not hit Li Ji's head with the staff of office, how could this recommendation have been wasted?

Liu Bei, unaware of why Lu Zhi's mood had suddenly dropped, could only take the somewhat depressed Lu Zhi to tour Wu Commandery roughly for a few days before taking Lu Zhi back to Wu County to recuperate.

Another New Year.

In addition to Gan Ning, who was not yet suitable to appear in public, even Jia Xu temporarily sneaked back to Wu County by sea.

Compared to the previous year, this year, not only was Wu Commandery much more prosperous and lively, with almost every household filled with joy, but even the government office was also much more lively.

The addition of Gu Yong, Guo Jia, Sun Qian, Mi Zhu, Xu Sheng, and others undoubtedly made Liu Bei's command seem to be full of talent.

In addition, Liu Bei, Li Ji, and Zhang Fei also started their own families, which also allowed Liu Bei to specially prepare a banquet for the women this year.

Looking back, Li Ji's face almost always wore a smile, clearly feeling the rapid expansion of the Liu Bei group.

Especially since Li Ji had pretended to be ill last year after being hit by the staff of office, this year Li Ji naturally had a great time.

However, the arrival of the third year of Zhongping made Li Ji unconsciously feel a little more urgency.

In the spring of the sixth year of Zhongping, the Son of Heaven, who sang and danced every night, would die, and the chaotic world would follow. There was not much time left for Liu Bei and Wu Commandery.

However, Liu Yan, who had been preparing for half a year, gave the entire Han Dynasty a big surprise at the beginning of the year.

Taking advantage of the resurgence of the Liang Province rebellion and the overwhelming attack of the Xiqiang rebels on the Three Auxiliary Regions, Zhang Lu of the "Five Pecks of Rice" Dao rebelled in Hanzhong and killed Su Gu, the Administrator of Hanzhong.

After Hanzhong became independent, Liu Yan completely cut off contact with Luoyang on the grounds that the "Rice Thief" rebellion had blocked traffic, and even ignored the imperial court's repeated orders for Liu Yan to send troops to quell the Hanzhong rebellion.

Moreover, none of the messengers sent by the imperial court to Yizhou were able to leave alive. It was claimed to the outside world that they were killed by the "Rice Thief", and Liu Yan also insisted to the outside world that he had never seen the Han envoys.

In this way, almost all of the thirteen prefectures of the Han Dynasty, not to mention the semi-transparent Jiaozhou, Liangzhou, and Yizhou, were practically out of the control of the Han Dynasty.

Misfortune never comes singly!

After the situation in Liangzhou and Yizhou began to spread, it seemed that countless interested people realized that the imperial court, which had quelled the Yellow Turban rebellion in just a few months, was not as powerful as imagined, but instead revealed a decadent and weak aura.

The remnants of the Yellow Turbans in the Central Plains region rebelled again, and the Black Mountain Army also had a large-scale rebel army gathering, calling themselves the "Black Mountain Army" and harassing the government everywhere. Even the Wuhuan also showed signs of unrest.

The Xiqiang Rebellion was like a fuse that exposed the true weakness of the imperial court.

As a result, compared to the relatively peaceful second year of Zhongping, the Han Dynasty was already full of chaos at the very beginning of the third year of Zhongping.

Faced with the seemingly riddled situation, the imperial court could only concentrate its efforts on resisting the Xiqiang Rebellion, so as to avoid the fall of the Three Auxiliary Regions and threaten the imperial capital Luoyang.

As for the chaos that was frequently reported from various places, the imperial court could only begin to massively decentralize military and political power, and appointed a batch of governors earlier than in Li Ji's memory, in the hope of pacifying the chaos in all directions through the governor policy.

Liu Yu, Governor of Youzhou, Liu Biao, Governor of Jingzhou, Tao Qian, Governor of Xuzhou, Zhu Fu, Governor of Jiaozhou.

(PS: Here, let me mention Zhu Fu. Zhu Fu is the son of Zhu Jun and served as the Governor of Jiaozhou around this period in history.

As for Shi Xie [pronounced the same as Xie], who is familiar to everyone, is a local magnate in Jiaozhou. He has never served as the Governor of Jiaozhou, but due to the war at the end of the Han Dynasty, Shi Xie's family gradually gained control of Jiaozhou, so Shi Xie became the uncrowned king of Jiaozhou.)

Among them, Youzhou and Jiaozhou are both border areas of the Han Dynasty, and the imperial court is eager to appoint governors naturally to prevent unrest.

Liu Biao was appointed as the Governor of Jingzhou, perhaps because the imperial court saw through Liu Yan's excuse, so it wanted to block Liu Yan's possible rebellion from Shu out of the Yangtze River in the direction of Jingzhou.

Tao Qian was appointed as the Governor of Xuzhou because the Yellow Turbans often caused trouble in the Central Plains, and because of the drought and plague, the Central Plains region was temporarily unable to quell the chaos. On the contrary, Xuzhou had not suffered too serious natural disasters or man-made disasters.

Therefore, Tao Qian's appointment as the Governor of Xuzhou was undoubtedly to curb the remnants of the Yellow Turbans in the Central Plains.

Even though he had expected this, Li Ji could not help but sigh secretly as he watched the weak and powerless state of the Han Dynasty.

However, this is also the only choice the imperial court has at the moment.

Especially since the officials are either ambitious, mediocre, or greedy.

Even if there are a few people with both ability and integrity, it is difficult to achieve anything in such an environment.

In this case, the imperial court simply has no power to quell the chaos in all directions. Ignoring it will only make the majesty of the Han Dynasty decline faster. Further decentralizing military and political power is a solution that is not a solution.

The Han Dynasty is about to be in chaos!

This phenomenon has become more and more obvious.

Under such a chaotic situation, Cao Cao, the Chancellor of Jinan, whom Li Ji often paid attention to, resigned from office on the pretext of illness.

This also caused the number of refugees pouring into Wu Commandery to rise several levels again after the previous low point.

Li Ji almost accepted all of them, constantly and slowly absorbing the refugees from the Central Plains to the south, filling the population of Wu Commandery and Kuaiji Commandery.

In order to ensure that the refugee passage in Xuzhou would not be affected, Liu Bei personally visited Tao Qian several times after learning that Tao Qian had taken office as the Governor of Xuzhou.

Tao Qian, who was able to be entrusted with important tasks by the imperial court at this moment, was naturally not the seemingly completely harmless old man who gave away his family in Li Ji's original impression.

On the contrary, Tao Qian's resume was quite dazzling. Starting from Maocai, he successively served as magistrate, consultant, and Governor of Youzhou, and then turned to a military officer. He had previously served as the Captain of Yangwu under Lu Zhi and fought against the Xiqiang in the Three Auxiliary Regions, repeatedly making military exploits.

It can be said that Tao Qian at this moment was the next generation of military officers in the eyes of the imperial court, following Lu Zhi, Huangfu Song, and Zhu Jun. Therefore, Tao Qian was appointed to Xuzhou as the Governor to quell the remnants of the Yellow Turbans.

Liu Bei and Tao Qian had a relationship with Lu Zhi, and they were also compatible in personality. It was a match made in heaven, like dry firewood meeting a raging fire. They became good brothers all of a sudden.

Even if the two of them could not get together and meet later, the exchange of letters was uninterrupted, which made Li Ji a little speechless.

Our lord's succubus skills... have grown!

Under such changing circumstances, the water conservancy projects in Wu Commandery, which mobilized hundreds of thousands of refugees to "replace relief with work," finally produced sweet fruits.

Under the day and night reclamation by a large number of Han and Shanyue youth, countless fertile fields were added to the spring plowing in Wu Commandery this year.

Even though these fields were still slightly lacking in fertility due to the reason that they had just been reclaimed, they were all fertile fields that could be cultivated and could fill the stomachs of the people.

During the spring plowing season, countless officials, scholars, and laborers who had been busy for a long time had been moistening their eyes, and even Liu Bei was secretly wiping away tears.

However, compared to Liu Bei's excitement, Li Ji's face was much calmer.

In Li Ji's view, this was only the beginning. If he wanted to greatly increase the grain yield in Wu Commandery on this basis, then the grain seeds were the key.

It can be said that the grain seeds can only be found by luck or slowly cultivated.

With the initial phase of the spring planting coming to an end, and countless displaced people in the second year of Zhongping officially becoming Wu Commandery residents with land and fields, Li Ji gradually focused more of his energy on the island barbarians.

Having begun preparations in advance, Guan Yu had already assembled and trained a force of three thousand men, composed of unattached Han Chinese and strong young men from the Yue mountains. (End of Chapter)