Volume 4 is in the ascendant Chapter 476: This is truly a critical moment for survival
The New Year of the third year of the Chu calendar.
This year should be the most unstable year for the people of Jinling and even the entire Chu State in recent years!
Originally, the people of Chu State had a good life for several years because of the surge in land output and productivity, and the significant increase in the upper limit of population density. Even the grassroots people in Jingzhou had reaped a lot of benefits from the development of Chu State in the past two years, and the ones who were slightly suppressed were the gentry in Jingzhou.
In order to win people's hearts and occupy the market, the new workshop aristocrats in Yangzhou even gave a lot of profit to the common people in Jingzhou...
However, just recently, bad news came!
The Marquis of Shu and the Marquis of Yong have joined forces to target the State of Chu! There are even conspiracy theorists who claim that the Han court is behind this...
Many people in Chu State originally had strong confidence in the Chu court and Chu army, so no one paid much attention to this matter at the beginning.
However, at this time, many "experts" who often published situation analysis in the official newspapers began to put forward some speculations that made the people of Chu State uneasy...
For example, some historians, from the perspective of the pre-Qin wars, based on the absolute geographical advantage of Qin over the pre-Qin Chu after it occupied Bashu, have argued that once the Shu Marquis took advantage of Chu, he actually had a great advantage;
For example, experts in martial arts schools, from the perspective that Xichuan General Zhang Ren was suspected to be Tong Yuan's eldest disciple, and Zhang Xiu and Zhao Yun were both his junior brothers, argued that Xichuan's fierce generals were actually evenly matched with Chu, or even slightly better;
For example, Gan, a businessman who traveled between Yizhou and Jingzhou and did not want to be named, actively argued that Yizhou had great advantages in trade with Chu from the perspective of Yizhou's trade blockade of Chu, and that Chu's commodity economy stability would be difficult to protect itself in the face of the attack by the Marquis of Shu;
For example, Fa, an anonymous official who entered Chu from Yizhou, analyzed the strength of Yizhou from the perspective that Yizhou had been peaceful for a long time, and said that Yizhou was as strong as Chu. The only thing that was weaker than Chu was the cultural advantages of Chu, in which the army and the people were united and supported by the people.
For example... the official even hinted that the reason why more than a dozen generals guarding various places suddenly returned to Jinling was because of the Shu Hou's intention to destroy Chu!
It would be fine if one or two people were talking nonsense, but when a group of people are talking nonsense, how can the people not believe it?
There were even officials who were angry and wanted to refute the rumor at first - what kind of bullshit is this?
However, as they were fighting, they seemed to have received some warning and stopped fighting.
For a time, the Chu State was about to be in trouble, and the common people could even imagine that the King of Chu and the other high-ranking officials in the court were all worried...
If it were any other prince, no matter if it was the King of Wei or the Marquis of Qi, they would surely be in a state of panic now if such arguments emerged among the people. People would be unstable and even thinking of change, and all sides would be DeBuffed!
However, in the State of Chu, after the argument of "this is truly a critical moment for survival" emerged, the enthusiasm of all places to respond to the conscription, whether in the old Yangzhou or the new Jingzhou, has increased significantly...
There were even young and strong people who did not return to their hometowns this year in order to supplement their family income. They took the initiative to go to the official iron smelting and steel forging workshops, hoping to be able to do volunteer work and make more steel for the Chu State to make a knife.
As the center of the Chu State, Jinling is the most sensitive to all reactions. After a month of fermentation, the people have already shown a clear desire to fight!
What's more, they began to criticize the attitude of the Ministry of Rites towards the Han court and demanded that Chu break completely with the Han Dynasty.
Eventually the city guards had to arrest a group of radicals, but they were released within a few days...
The Han Dynasty ruled for 400 years, and the people are nostalgic.
However...the best catalyst for nostalgia is "today is not as good as before", and vice versa!
If the people were to experience decades of chaos and turmoil when people's lives were worth less than dogs, they would surely all miss the old dynasty and temporarily block out the exploitation of the powerful and cruel officials and the tyranny of the emperor during the Han Dynasty from their hearts.
However, when everyone's lives seemed to be improving and they were about to enjoy a prosperous era, someone jumped out and wanted to destroy Chu?
The old dynasty? What old dynasty? They are all enemies!
Although the State of Chu did not emphasize that it was a vassal state of the Han Dynasty, the people of Chu actually had a certain degree of recognition of the Han Dynasty. Therefore, the State of Chu would never deny this openly. At most, it would influence the Han Dynasty subtly through means such as opera.
For example, I will tell you about "Legend of Marquis Jiang" to make you feel sad about the ending of Marquis Jiang's family, or tell you about "The Chu-Han Contention" to popularize Gaozu's classic operations, or tell you about "Farewell My Concubine" to awaken Chu's remembrance of the King of Chu...
Different storytelling angles can tell different stories.
The essence of Confucianism and the writing style of the Spring and Autumn Period are all like this.
Of course, stories are just stories. The common people will not have any sympathy for those princes and nobles for no reason. As long as the common people benefit, killing their brothers and fathers is not a big deal.
Fundamentally, it was still under the rule of the Chu State. The continuous improvement of living standards and social status made ordinary people's recognition of "Han" increasingly low.
This time it was an epic plunge...
Originally, there were some intellectuals who commented on the Chu dramas, saying that they were too negative towards the Han Dynasty. However, from now on... they can only speak in secret.
As an agricultural civilization, people are unwilling to fight. War is not as happy and joyful as farming.
Even before the Chu State, efforts had been made to enhance the army's sense of honor, that is, to use modern thinking and "sentiment" to maintain the cohesion of the army - for the first time, grassroots generals were elevated to the category of "glory".
However, the people of Chu State are still not warlike, this is a common feature of agricultural civilization...
However, as a civilization that has the belief that "kings, princes, generals, and ministers are all born with different species" engraved in its bones, being non-warlike does not mean being forever averse to war.
On the New Year's Day of the third year of the Chu calendar, Bai Tu was in Jinling City as usual during the day, personally participating in the flower parade and having fun with the people. At this moment, a riot broke out - countless people, ignoring the fact that Chu had advocated the abandonment of the kneeling ceremony after promoting the use of chairs, knelt down before Bai Tu's carriage and asked for battle for Yizhou!
At this time, in the common people's understanding, if Hanzhong is destroyed, the next target of the Shu Marquis will be the Chu State...
The reason why the State of Chu did not take the initiative was because of the kindness and righteousness of the King of Chu, and because there were still people in the court and the country who were loyal to the Han Dynasty.
If this continues, the Marquis of Shu will have a great advantage when facing the State of Chu and will also show his fangs!
Therefore, countless people spontaneously asked the King of Chu to fight, hoping that the King of Chu would hear everyone's voice and know that the people of Chu were not afraid of a fight...
Of course, it can also be seen that the Han Dynasty still has some status in the hearts of the people, even if it is only a few straws away - at least at this moment, the general target of the request for war is still the "Marquis of Shu".
Although some people are clamoring that once Chu and Shu go to war, the Han army will definitely take down Xuzhou, and we should take the initiative on both sides to recover the former capital of Chu during the Chu-Han Contention... Bai Tu estimates that these should be fans of "Chu-Han Contention".
However, these are not universal consensus. The most unified opinion among the people is that they must go to war with the Marquis of Shu. If they seek common ground while reserving differences, this is the most common will.
For the safety of the King of Chu, the guards wanted to disperse the people around them, but they were stopped by the King of Chu...
Bai Tu bowed 90 degrees to the people in return and made it clear that he was unwilling to start a war easily.
Several excited people started to cry loudly, as if the Marquis of Shu would lead the elite soldiers of Yizhou down the river tomorrow, capture the King of Chu alive, and kill all the people of Chu...
Other people followed suit and cried and bowed again. Bai Tu returned the greeting. The people bowed again and Bai Tu returned the greeting again...
After three rounds, Bai Tu, at the request of the people, also drew out his sword with tears in his eyes, cut off a corner of his own royal carriage, and promised the people that since the King of Chu "receives orders from the people", he will never allow anyone to destroy the stability of the people of Chu!
The people of Jinling then surrounded the King of Chu and continued his parade amid cheers.
If the common people were like this, the Chu troops in various places were even more excited. Fortunately, because military discipline was always emphasized, this was just outrage.
Of course, the more important reason is that the real senior generals in the army were confused at first, but now... they finally woke up and understood.
What the hell are you talking about?
Yizhou will split the score with us on equal terms?
There is an article that uses the population size of Yizhou's Dian horses and Shu horses to infer that Yizhou Prefecture had 100,000 cavalrymen?
All kinds of data, well organized, but no brains...
It was not until now that high-ranking generals from all over the country finally began to understand that the imperial court had allowed and even promoted these rumors, and they all tacitly followed suit and requested war!
Of course, their request to fight was sincere.
But it wasn't because of "anger", but another kind of excitement and urgency...
Although they all understood that since it was just a campaign and the Privy Council did not take any action, they thought... the court should not have any intention of a big war. However they all thought that even if there was no big war, a small move would be better than suppressing bandits, right?
What's more, now even the bandits are almost wiped out...
And what if the Marquis of Shu is really as ferocious as the rumors say, and he takes the initiative to fight back, eventually leading to an all-out war?
Well, let’s not talk about anything else for now, let’s praise the Shu Marquis and ask for a fight at the same time!
At the New Year's Eve banquet in the evening, more than a dozen high-ranking generals in Jinling also asked Bai Tu to fight. However, except for some mature and prudent ones, the others could hardly control their expressions. Sun Ce tried hard not to laugh...
Their request to fight was just an attitude. After Bai Tu comforted them a little, no one mentioned it anymore. After all, given their level, if they insisted on pretending that "I believe it all", Bai Tu would not believe it!
Even if Yizhou knew how to fight, it would not really fight a tough battle.
After all, the narrowest place in Wuxia, Jianping and Yiling is only about ten feet... no, it's only a few meters - pay attention to the official terminology.
In the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Liu Bei took this route to attack Jingzhou with an army of 700,000 soldiers and set up camps over a stretch of 800 miles. In the official history, there were also 50,000 soldiers, with camps spread over a stretch of 200 to 300 miles.
This shows how bad the terrain is!
Even in the world of Chengji, there are also sections of land a few meters wide along the coast, which can stretch for dozens or hundreds of miles. If a war really breaks out, the cost to the attacking side will be too high.
The only way out of the impasse is that if Yizhou has a strong backing, works hard to govern, and calmly builds warships and trains sailors, it will indeed have an absolute geographical advantage over Jingzhou. The "experts" did not lie about this.
But the current Yizhou Prefecture doesn’t care much about the navy, and there are only a few warships. Even if it wants to train, it has no generals or money. What’s more... Liu Zhang doesn’t want to train any sailors at all, and the sailors can’t help him guard Jiange!
