"My lord, Xi Yu just sent someone to deliver a letter!"

"oh?"

"What does it say?"

Sun Qian took out the letter paper from his arms, opened it at Liu Bei's signal, and said: "In order to redeem Xu Chu, Xi Yu is willing to give us 300,000 stones of food and grass for free, but he has no intention of taking action against the Sun family, so he will give it to us again." Thousands of repeating crossbow machines are provided as compensation."

Hearing this, Liu Bei, who was nestled in the Grand Master's chair, couldn't help but straighten up. A flash of joy flashed in his eyes, and then he sighed deeply and said: "Duke Sheng Guo is really polite. Xu Chu is his favorite general no matter what. I have a good relationship with Zilong and Dianwei."

"Now that we know his identity, it is only a matter of time before he is released. It is for no other reason than that we can help each other in the future. Therefore, I, Liu Bei, will never do anything treacherous!"

Although he said this, Liu Bei was already dancing with joy deep in his heart.

When he first sent the letter, he just had the mentality of giving it a try. Who would have thought that Xi Yu would actually give it to him.

It seems that Xu Chu is quite valuable. I think back then, I spent all my money to buy Xi Yu three hundred thousand grain and grass at one time. But even so, I still owed a lot, and I haven't paid it back yet.

However, whether it was what he owed to Sun Ce or to Xi Yu, he was not prepared to pay it back. Why should he pay back what he owed based on his ability?

Just like Jingzhou now, if he planned to return it to the Sun family, he would not send Liu Qi to lead an 80,000-strong army to garrison Jiangxia.

"Okay, why don't you go and invite General Xu Chu to come to the palace? I can also give him a banquet to see him off!"

"promise!"

After receiving the order, Sun Qian immediately accepted the order and left. At this time, Xu Shu stood up and asked: "Master, do you want to donate part of the 300,000 stones of food and grass we have obtained to Sun Ce?"

"He is very angry because of the incident in Jingzhou. Can we use one hundred thousand stones of grain and grass as an apology to appease him? The remaining two hundred thousand stones of grain and grass can be used as a reserve to provide for the people of Jingzhou and even the soldiers. Get through the cold winter.”

"After next year's autumn harvest, if we have enough food and grass, we can make further reserves... because judging from the current situation, it will take at least three years for us to grow and develop again."

"If we act too hastily and recruit troops too early, I'm afraid we will be unable to make ends meet and eventually lead to chaos!"

"Does this mean that... it's going to be given out?"

Liu Bei, who was overjoyed just now, suddenly felt a thump in his heart when he heard this.

It's hard not to feel distressed to have to give away a third of it all at once.

At the very least, he felt distressed right now, after all, it was a time when food and grass were scarce.

This place is Jingzhou, which is completely different from Qingxu and Qingxu. Liu Bei finally understood this.

To put it simply, the most important thing about making money is food. Only when people have a full stomach can they have the strength to work, plant crops, and have more energy and time to think about ways to make money.

If the people are like this, the army will naturally be the same.

But the problem is that now their internal affairs are barely able to develop, and they are still at the stage of subsistence and clothing. If they want to feed the people in Jingzhou, they will have to open up wasteland. Only in this way can they get a large amount of even food. It's excess food and grass.

As long as you have food and grass, you can make money. This is a closed loop.

However, when he figured this out, Xi Yu had already perfected it.

Therefore, the north today has no shortage of food and grass, and it has also made a lot of money from it.

Speaking of which, if Sichuan and Shu did not fight wars and only developed the economy, I would really like to cooperate with Xi Yu.

At this point, Liu Bei still admired Xi Yu very much.

After all, the current Qingxu region is a living example. Compared with other territories in the world, the gap between the rich and the poor is not that big!

Even the common people in the world know about this, so there is a steady stream of people going to Qingxu without Xiyu's publicity.

"Military advisor...Look, we don't have much food and grass now, so we should spend it on the most critical areas, right?"

Liu Bei frowned, somewhat melancholy.

"In addition to the food and grass for the common people and soldiers to spend the winter, we also need to open up a lot of wasteland to prepare for the north... Each of these items is inseparable from the food and grass. If it is given to Sun Ce, what will we do?

manage?"

"But...but if this happens, it will be difficult to appease Jiangdong..."

Xu Shu's worries were justified. He also knew that the Sun-Liu alliance was only a superficial alliance. It was an alliance that had to be reached because Cao Cao went south and both sides could not defeat it. Therefore, it has no binding force.

This makes an already fragile relationship even more precarious.

Over the years, both Liu Bei and Sun Ce would make arrangements and calculations to backstab each other behind each other's backs.

"It's okay to keep all the food and grass, but if we can't show some sincerity that satisfies Jiangdong, I'm afraid there will be some unnecessary misunderstandings by then. Please also consider this aspect, my lord."

"Of course, if the lord already has a perfect plan, then I should be overthinking it, and I won't be able to take these words to heart."

In this aspect, Liu Bei really didn't have any ideas.

He currently has at least hundreds of thousands of soldiers and horses, plus Jiangxia's 80,000, almost 200,000. It seems that the army is strong, but in fact most of them are new recruits!

The remaining more than 60,000 veterans are all experienced people who survived several battles with Cao Cao's cavalry before the Battle of Chibi.

They have been fighting on the battlefield for some years, and many of them have even chatted with the King of Hell, so their mentality is extremely stable.

The most important thing is that these soldiers were trained by Guan Yu himself, and their strength should not be underestimated. Asking them to bring new soldiers is not bad, but it will take time.

"That's it for now, military advisor!"

Liu Bei didn't have any good ideas about this. He frowned and said with a little guilt: "There is really nothing we can do about Sun Ce, so we have to take precautions for the time being. Until next year's autumn harvest, as long as the food and grass come down, I will definitely take care of him."

Make amends!”

"I think the people at that time won't need so much food. Let's take advantage of the opportunity to make gifts and compensate while we are wealthy. As for now, let's get through these difficult days first!"

When Guan Yu saw that everyone was silent, he immediately sneered and said: "That Jiangdong is just a bunch of shameless rats. I think it was me, Guan Yunzhang, who severely wounded Cao Cao back then and led to his death!"
Chapter completed!