To be honest, looting to get supplies is one of the fastest and most convenient ways to get money. The advantage is that the money comes quickly and can quickly replenish the army's deficit; the disadvantage is that it is a hammer deal, which can only be done once and is very hurtful to the people's hearts and minds, and is not suitable for long-term development. I think the representative who obtained the supplies through looting was Dong Zhuo's Western Liang Army. We look at the records of Dong Zhuo in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and many of them are talking about Dong Zhuo's robbery. For example, "there are armoured armored soldiers, national treasures", "driving his ox cart, carrying his women's belongings", "burning the Luoyang palace, excavating the mausoleum, and taking treasures".
At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, warlords were constantly fighting each other. The food and salaries of the various warlords, on the one hand, came from the seizure of the war, and on the other hand, mainly from the taxes of the people under their jurisdiction. On this basis, there are also some local strong donations or forced donations. Warlords with a little strategy are on their own turf, actively developing production and accumulating strength. Cao Cao is one of the more successful ones. Cao Cao issued the Tun Tian Order, recruited displaced people to engage in agricultural production on his own territory, gave corresponding support policies, and levied a certain amount of public grain as a tax, which was "Mintun "Mintun".
There is also a more moderate one, that is, cooperation with landlords. As we all know, the Eastern Han Dynasty was actually an era when landlords and hao clans were the masters, and these people occupied a large amount of cultivated land and had rich money and grain wealth. And the world is turbulent, these landlords and nobles often stand up and cooperate with warlords in order to save themselves. In other words, they are the investors in these warlords. For example, Zhou Yu, although their Zhou family is not as good as the fourth and third dukes of Yuan Shao's brothers, they are also local noble families. When Sun Ce raised an army, Zhou Yu scattered his family wealth and gathered the grain and grass of the army and horses to help him lay the foundation of Jiangdong.
Especially Yuan Shao, who had the land of four continents, his people all mourned when he died, and like Xuzhou Mu Taoqian, Cao Cao wanted to attack Xuzhou but was afraid of the people who were advancing and retreating with him. Moreover, fighting wars is not chaotic on all turf, generally starting from the border border, and those who cannot be defended on the border are generally straight to the capital, and when the capital is broken, it is declared extinct and it is impossible to destroy inch by inch. Moreover, when fighting a war, it is not deliberate to destroy crops, such as Cao Cao's horse stepping on the wheat field to cut the hair and replace the head is the best proof.