Three Kingdoms: My Strategy Simulator

"How could that be? I, Ji, have always regarded Wenhe as a mentor, close friend, and brother…"

Li Ji actively stepped forward to help Jia Xu sit down, and while doing so, he pushed a cup of tea towards Jia Xu, saying, "Wenhe, rinse your mouth and take a breather."

Jia Xu looked at the tea and immediately felt a sense of unease.

Li Ji then added at the opportune moment, "This is the good tea I brought. Wenhe, feel free to drink it. I'm not like you, Wenhe; I am a gentleman."

Jia Xu secretly cursed Li Ji in his mind, but without the slightest suspicion, he picked up the teacup and took a small sip.

It was a familiar aroma, which finally put Jia Xu at ease, and he began to savor it carefully.

There's a reason why tea and porcelain gradually became popular in Europe via the Silk Road.

Especially for someone like Jia Xu, who had grown accustomed to drinking tea, even when the tea got wet and moldy due to the wind and waves on the way to Yamatai…

The frustrated Jia Xu then tried to dry and sun-dry the tea leaves before brewing them, which resulted in successfully disgusting himself.

After a long while, Jia Xu slowly said,

"I want half a catty."

Li Ji glanced at Jia Xu. Knowing that Jia Xu was quite fond of making tea, how could he let go of such an easy way to manipulate Jia Xu?

Immediately, Li Ji said with considerable difficulty, "To be honest, Wenhe, this is the last bit of tea. I've been reluctant to drink it, but just now, seeing Wenhe mistakenly drinking moldy tea, I thought of taking it out for Wenhe to rinse his mouth."

For a moment, Jia Xu, who always valued his image as a gentleman, couldn't help but roll his eyes with a touch of wit.

Immediately, Jia Xu started to slack off, saying, "I'm sick."

"What sickness? A sickness where you'll die if you don't drink tea?" Li Ji asked with a smile.

Jia Xu held his forehead and let out a groan or two, saying, "Having drunk the moldy tea, I feel unwell all over, and my thinking is sluggish. I'm afraid I need to return to Wu Commandery to recuperate."

"Can't drinking some tea help?"

"It won't help."

Li Ji asked again, "Can slowly brewing tea with an ounce or two help you recover?"

"It's still far from enough."

"Three ounces at most."

"It's still not enough to cure it completely. There's always a risk of relapse."

Li Ji said with a concerned expression, "Then it seems the condition is critical. I'll arrange a ship to send Wenhe back to You Province to recuperate first, lest it delay your health."

Jia Xu was taken aback, and then he said with a gleam in his eyes, "Now that I think about it carefully, three ounces can barely last for some time."

Li Ji smiled helplessly and then asked seriously,

"Now that Wenhe's symptoms have been alleviated quite a bit, can we talk about serious matters?"

Upon hearing this, Jia Xu leisurely savored the clear tea and said,

"Zikun, before that, I have a question that I must ask you. Are those gold and silver mines real, or are they fabricated?"

"Hmm?" Li Ji.

"After arriving in Yamatai and making contact with the Dog Slave Kingdom, I secretly sent people to explore all over the Dog Slave Kingdom's territory and found that the Dog Slave Kingdom, from top to bottom, has almost no gold or silver, which is very different from what Zikun said about gold and silver being everywhere…"

After a pause, Jia Xu said with a hint of gravity in his eyes,

"Sailing to Yamatai has exhausted nearly all of Wu Commandery's accumulated wealth and grain in recent years. If there is ultimately no benefit, I'm afraid it will not only severely damage Zikun's prestige within Wu Commandery but may even seriously hinder the Lord's great cause."

Hearing this, Li Ji seemed to completely understand Jia Xu's actions in the Dog Slave Kingdom.

In a nutshell.

That is, Jia Xu is a resourceful and cautious person, and he would not completely believe Li Ji's one-sided statement but would have his own thoughts and judgments.

When Jia Xu discovered that the Dog Slave Kingdom in Yamatai was not only not full of gold and silver but was also so poor that it was practically falling apart, Jia Xu naturally judged that there was no need to completely control Yamatai at the cost of consuming a large amount of money, grain, and troops.

Therefore, Jia Xu used a strategy of attacking the mind, instantly causing internal strife in the Dog Slave Kingdom, with the lord and important ministers all perishing, leaving only a young, minor lord, and establishing an excellent reputation for the Han army there.

At this point, it can be said that it is as easy as turning one's hand for the Han army to control the Dog Slave Kingdom. It only needs to control and support the Dog Slave Kingdom so that it does not perish at the hands of the Yamatai Kingdom.

In this way, the Dog Slave Kingdom can be used to inherit Japan's submission to the Great Han, and the Han army's expedition can gain something on the surface and in righteousness without wasting unnecessary money, grain, and troops.

It can be said that Jia Xu's approach can be completely regarded as paying the least and allowing the Great Han and Wu Commandery to obtain relatively more gains.

The only ones who suffered were Himiko and Dogo, the two actual power holders of the Dog Slave Kingdom, who both died in internal strife under Jia Xu's gentle manipulation.

Without Jia Xu having to explain in detail, Li Ji also cleared up Jia Xu's thoughts and starting point in an instant and replied,

"But what if Yamatai really is full of gold and silver mines?"

Upon hearing this, Jia Xu frowned unconsciously, looking deeply at Li Ji in front of him to confirm whether Li Ji was insisting so strongly because of his youth and eagerness to show off.

However, what came into Jia Xu's eyes was Li Ji's refined and gentle face, completely without a trace of desperation after the original plan was disrupted.

"Zikun, are you joking?"

However, Jia Xu still didn't believe it.

If there were gold and silver mines in Yamatai, how could the Japanese people living there not know?

But even if gold and silver mines did exist in Yamatai, and even the Japanese people didn't know about them, how could Li Ji, an outsider, know?

This is illogical!

Jia Xu would naturally not believe in things that were illogical.

"Wenhe only needs to give me three months, and I will naturally find the location of the gold and silver mines within the Dog Slave Kingdom," Li Ji replied in a very confident and calm tone.

Li Ji might not even be clear about whether there were any undiscovered gold and silver mines in the Central Plains.

Coincidentally, due to playing a certain series of Yamatai games in his previous life, which had a large number of gold and silver mine locations set as resource points based on reality, this allowed Li Ji to know the locations of Yamatai's gold and silver mines like the back of his hand.

Even if the terrain and landforms would be different due to the passage of time, with a general map of Yamatai, Li Ji could delineate the general area. Even if he couldn't find all of them, it would not be difficult to find half of the gold and silver mines that were currently suitable for mining.

Oil attracts mold…

Gold and silver will undoubtedly attract the Han army, whose motto is "Wherever the sun and moon shine, it is all Han territory," to come and mine their own gold and silver.

And Jia Xu, who knew Li Ji quite well, almost confirmed this time that Li Ji was definitely not joking.

However, Jia Xu was still a little uneasy and asked further, "Zikun, are you really sure that Yamatai's gold and silver mines are worth a big undertaking?"

Li Ji thought for a while and proposed a statement that made Jia Xu's heart beat faster, saying,

"It can be said with certainty that once all of Yamatai's gold and silver mines are mined, even the common people of the entire Han Dynasty may have the opportunity to use silver as currency."

Today's Han Dynasty undoubtedly uses copper coins as currency, while gold and silver are used as more valuable precious items.

But this does not mean that the Han Dynasty does not value gold and silver. On the contrary, no one in the Han Dynasty can refuse the luster of gold and silver.

Even when motivating soldiers in the army, it is never said how much money is rewarded, but often how much gold.

Especially with the chaos in the court and the turmoil in the situation, the purchasing power of copper coins often fluctuates, while the purchasing power and value of gold and silver are always as stable as Mount Tai.

Therefore, the Great Han is extremely short of gold and silver!

Wu Commandery is even shorter!

As long as there is enough gold and silver, no matter how many centuries of family accumulation the Yuan family has, it is far from being comparable to Liu Bei's "having mines at home."

Whether it is to achieve the rapid development of Liu Bei's group or to carry out large-scale development south of the Yangtze River.

Gold and silver in one hand, and grain in the other, both hands must be grasped, and both hands must be strong.

Moreover, a large amount of gold and silver is also indispensable in Li Ji's eyes for further recasting a more complete monetary system in the Han Dynasty in the future.

This time, Jia Xu pondered for a long time, then filled his teacup, raised it to Li Ji, and said,

"If that is really the case, then I was a little presumptuous. I'll punish myself with three cups!"

Jia Xu really drank one cup after another. Li Ji's eyes couldn't help but twitch slightly, but he still chose not to expose Jia Xu's idea of simply wanting to be a "tea thief."

Currently, the two most important strategists in the entire Liu Bei group that Li Ji values.

One is Guo Jia, a drunkard; the other is Jia Xu, a tea addict.

It can be said that each person has one addiction.

Immediately, after Jia Xu seemed to be completely satisfied with drinking, he continued to speak,

"If Yamatai really has such a huge amount of gold and silver mineral resources, it will definitely not be easy to mine all those gold and silver…"

After a pause, Jia Xu's eyes flickered, and he added in his heart.

At least, as Jia Xu initially envisioned, it is not enough to control the entire Dog Slave Kingdom simply by controlling Himiko.

Not to mention that Himiko, who will only be a puppet, does not have the ability to firmly control the entire Dog Slave Kingdom, even if Himiko has more prestige, he will not be able to control the greed of the middle and lower-level Japanese people.

Li Ji naturally considered what Jia Xu was worried about at the moment.

Human nature is greedy, and it cannot be controlled by a decree from the lord. It will inevitably lead to the Japanese people being unable to resist reaching out to the gold and silver belonging to the Great Han.

Therefore, even if Africa mines diamonds, it is often not supervised by law, but by whips and assault rifles.

However, that problem is still a little far away.

A smile appeared on Li Ji's face, and he spread out the Yamatai map he had obtained from Gan Ning in front of Jia Xu and said,

"In any case, the first step is to unify Yamatai!"

"Control every inch of Yingzhou, implement a policy of isolation, and forbid even a single Yingzhou plank boat from leaving, to prevent information about the large-scale production of gold and silver on Yingzhou from spreading in the future."

After all, Yingzhou is not far from Goguryeo, and fishermen from both sides occasionally come into contact; otherwise, there wouldn't be Goguryeo people who can speak both Han Chinese and Japanese.

(End of Chapter)