Volume 1 Jiangdong Fengyun Chapter 116: Deep Well Disease
In the Eastern Han Dynasty, because the country had been unified for a long time, the various princes did not have a deep understanding of the significance of the Yellow River, Huai River, and Yangtze River to separatist forces.
By the time of the Southern and Northern Dynasties, as practice deepened, various regimes discovered that the Jiang, Huai and Yellow rivers from south to north were of great significance to the separatist regimes.
Generally speaking, as long as a regime can deploy defenses along the Yellow River and resist northern invaders, even if the Youyan area is lost and the Hetao area is gone, it still has the foundation of a dynasty, or at least can sit firmly in the Central Plains; if it can only defend the Huai River, then to put it in a positive way, it is "advancing into the Central Plains", and to put it in a miserable way, it is "living in peace in the Yangtze River and Huai River"; and if it can only deploy defenses along the Yangtze River, then it is basically just lingering on and will not last long.
Eight hundred years later, the Song Dynasty, as a small expert in maintaining peace in the south, summarized the key point of "to defend the Yangtze River, one must defend the Huai River" for the separatist forces in the south.
The fact that the Eastern Wu had suffered several defeats in Hefei, Huainan, and had made no achievements in Fancheng, Jingbei, actually doomed it to be unable to achieve great success.
The map next to Bai Tu now focuses on drawing the river as very wide to reflect this point, so Huainan has been regarded by Bai Tu as a must-fight place.
As Yuan Shao in the north is about to become more powerful, instead of putting pressure on the Central Plains and turning Yuan Shao into a "dog king", it is better to leave the Central Plains alone and let the dogs... let the princes in the Central Plains and Guanzhong compete with Yuan Shao!
Bai Tu can take this opportunity to shift his attention to Jingchu.
At this moment, in Bai Tu's mind, there was a third map - a not very regular nine-square grid...
Hetao, Hebei, Hebei;
Xiliang, Guanzhong, Central Plains;
Yizhou, Jingzhou, and Yangzhou.
Of course, the scope of Liangzhou actually extends along the Hexi Corridor in the northwest to the northwest of the nine-square grid. To the west of Hetao is Hexi, and to the west of Hexi is also part of Liangzhou, as well as Jiaozhou further south...all of them are ignored at this time, and the huge Hebei Province occupies two squares.
There are three other places that are particularly highlighted on the white map: "Hanzhong", the key point for Yizhou to advance into Guanzhong, "Nanyang", the key point for Jingzhou to advance into the Central Plains, and "Huainan", the key point for Yangzhou to advance into the Central Plains.
It is the existence of these key points that creates a strategic buffer between the "South" and the "North".
This is something that does not exist between the "East" and the "West". If we choose to fight all the way from Jiangdong to the Central Plains and then to Hebei, there will be no chance to breathe in the future.
The reason why the Three Kingdoms period existed was because Shu was in Yizhou and Wu was in Jiangdong and Jingnan. With the north-south barrier separating them, there was an opportunity to establish separate countries.
For Bai Tu, having a chance to catch his breath is the only way to give full play to the advantages of "farming and climbing technology", and it will also allow the people to be less affected by the war.
Although the development of the north and the south was very unbalanced at this time, and the more appropriate route should be "ruling the south with the north", Bai Tu had already made his move in Jiangdong, and there was no reason to regret it, and... Bai Tu did not want to regret it either. Starting in Jiangdong naturally had the benefits of Jiangdong.
Farming and advancing technology are his strengths, and now he just lacks time.
Moreover, as long as we take Huainan first, we will not be worse off than Dongwu.
During the Three Kingdoms period, in terms of national strength, the Eastern Wu, which controlled Jingnan and Jiangdong, was at least slightly stronger than the Shu Kingdom in Yizhou. However, the Eastern Wu never posed any threat to the Wei Kingdom. On the other hand, the Shu Kingdom launched six expeditions to Qishan and nine expeditions to the Central Plains, and its operations were very aggressive. Although it did not achieve decisive results, it did force the Wei Kingdom to want to move its capital.
The biggest difference is that Hanzhong was under the control of Shu , while Eastern Wu never had control of Huainan and Jingbei.
Of the three major strategic points between the north and the south, Shu controlled one and Wei controlled two. Therefore, even though Wei's national strength exceeded the sum of the two countries, Shu still had room for maneuver, while Wu was suppressed.
At this time, the Central Plains was far more prosperous than Jiangdong, so Huainan became even more important to Jiangdong. Jiangdong without Huainan would need thousands of tricks and calculations to conquer the Central Plains, but the Central Plains with Huainan only needed one trick to conquer Jiangdong - steady and cautious.
After Lu Su expanded his perspective to the battlefield in Hebei, and especially after Chen Gong proved that Yuan Shao had really gained a decisive advantage and Gongsun Zan was powerless to turn the tide and was just struggling to survive, there was a consensus on the dispute between Shouchun and Moling.
Of course, if Yuan Shu knew the content of the monthly meeting in Yangzhou Governor's Mansion, he would probably be furious - I am still living in Shouchun! I still have hundreds of thousands of troops in Huainan! Can't you see me?
Time passed, and three months went by in the blink of an eye as the Jiangdong officials were eagerly looking forward to Yuan Shu's enthronement.
I don’t know if Yuan Shu will be moved. At this time, Bai Tu is more looking forward to his becoming emperor than Huainan’s civil and military officials…
Although the good news of his enthronement had not yet arrived, there was already news that large-scale construction was underway in Shouchun. The new mansion being built was completely the size of an imperial palace, and there were also illegal buildings such as the altar for offering sacrifices to the sky.
However, Lu Su still did not find any signs of severe drought in Huainan - judging from the geomantic omen, next year should still be a good year!
However, Bai Tu's plans for storing relief grain and digging wells attracted a lot of criticism.
Because digging deep wells is regarded as a key assessment item for grassroots officials, Danyang and the northern part of Wujun are busy with this, which seems to be "if the superiors like it, the subordinates will also like it even more".
It is said that there are some rumors among the people, naming Bai Tu's condition "deep well disease" - it's no wonder, in the pre-Qin period, there was a joke that "the King of Chu likes thin waists, and many people in the palace starved to death." As an adult male, Bai Tu doesn't like thin waists and likes people digging wells. Isn't he sick?
However, the saying of "deep well disease" is said to have started from the place where a certain noble family in Wu County lived...
Although Bai Tu knew who was causing the trouble with his eyes closed, he did not make it public for the time being. After all... the source was Xu. But the fact that the news spread widely showed that everyone indeed thought he was sick!
But that was all - given Bai Tu's achievement of having a statue erected next to Shennong, the common people would at most just talk about him as a joke behind his back. Digging wells did not mean leaving food on the table, and there were plenty of people willing to put in the effort to make a living during the slack season, so it would not cause any public resentment.
Lu Su came to Bai Tu specifically to discuss this matter, but Bai Tu's opinion was the opposite!
Bai Tu did not want to divert the so-called "criticism" at all , but instead wanted to secretly add fuel to the flames. After all, in Bai Tu's view, a severe drought was bound to occur next year.
The more happily you laugh at him now, the more you will worship him when a severe drought comes next year.
Those evil spirits who want to use this opportunity to undermine his reputation will only end up trapping themselves and suffering the consequences.
Now, he started a war just because of a few rumors. It seems that Bai Tu has no magnanimity and it may even allow the other party to manipulate public opinion. By next year, these wells will become the lifeline of the people and Bai Tu can manipulate them at will, and the people will only applaud!
Lu Su believed that allowing rumors to spread would damage Bai Tu's prestige. Most importantly, he was not optimistic about the drought, so he did not excessively suppress the spread of the "deep well disease" only at Bai Tu's suggestion. As for the reverse hype, Lu Su refused.
In the words of Lu Su, this matter would probably be recorded in history books, and King Ling of Chu might even be saved by Bai Tu in the future - in the future, the example of leading by example would not be "The King of Chu likes thin waist" but "The hard drive has a deep well disease"!
It was not until the first month of the second year of Jian'an that Lu Su suddenly realized that the geography in the northeast of Jiangdong had changed drastically, and the source of the change was Huainan. This changed his mind, and at the same time, Yuan Shu finally brought "good news"...
