Just as the so-called cannon sounds, the gold is ten thousand. Fighting a war is also about fighting money, or resources.
Especially in a chaotic world like the Three Kingdoms of the Eastern Han Dynasty, simple money is no longer useful, grain is the fundamental, and many people join the army, in fact, just because the army can eat.
As we all know, the three kingdoms are in turmoil, the people's livelihood is tired but the war is continuous, these warlords raise a large number of troops, where should the money and food and materials come from?
Those with thick family foundations, like Cao Cao, could return to their hometown, and Xiahou Huan scattered their family wealth, prepared grain and grass, and pulled up a large army; those who had strength, like Dong Zhuo, could enter the capital and control the treasury of the official warehouse; and those who had connections, such as Sun Ce, could let Yuan Shu and his good brother Zhou Yu fund it. Of course, the most important thing is that there is still territory, which can rely on local taxes to raise an army, such as Hebei Yuan Shao, Yizhou Liu Zhang, Hanzhong Zhanglu and almost all other big warlords.
This is also why the world is so chaotic, and everyone still has to fight. The purpose of fighting a war is to seize territory, and with territory there is population and land, which represent soldiers and food, which is the most important capital for domination of the world, stronger than any famous general and strategist.
However, like Liu Bei, who wants the family to have no family foundation and no territory, Liu Bei lives in Zhuo County, lost his father at an early age, his family is poor, and he and his mother support the traffickers to weave mats for a living.
So where did his military spending come from when he established the Shu Han regime step by step?
How to say it, in the early stage, Liu Bei's entrepreneurship basically depends on investment, and the later stage relies on operation.
As we all know, Liu Bei's family sold straw shoes as soon as they were, but the Yellow Turban calmed the chaos, and he was able to pull up a team of hundreds of people to participate in the chaos. Even if you Liu Bei is famous and popular, people are willing to work with you for free, but the grain and grass materials still have to be paid for by yourself, where does the money come from?
Of course, it was an investor, and Su Shuang and Zhang Shiping, who were the rich merchants in Zhongshan at that time, were Liu Bei's main "sponsors". These people themselves are people of social status, very worried about their fate in the chaotic world, and the inherent thinking of businessmen prompts them to look for "investment" objects all the time. After meeting Liu Bei, they found that this person was extraordinary and decided to invest in him.
Zhongshan merchants Zhang Shiping and Su Shuang paid thousands of dollars, and sold horses around Zhuo County, and they saw different things, but they had a lot of gold and wealth. The lord is to use the disciples.
Of course, Liu Bei's first bucket of gold in the rendition came from Zhang Fei. At that time, Zhang Fei was also a large local household, he sold wine and slaughtered pigs, and he was quite wealthy.
Fei Yue: "Wu is quite wealthy, how about recruiting township braves and public officials to do big things?" Xuan De was very pleased, so he went to the village shop with him to drink.
Although the money is not much, it is better than nothing, after all, it is easy to do big things.
Later, Liu Bei has been working for others, such as Gongsun Zhan's men. Liu Bei from the Yellow Turban Rebellion in 184 to 194 into Xuzhou, in these 10 years Liu Bei made a lot of military achievements, the highest official position to achieve the plain state minister, during this time Liu Bei's strength is relatively weak, there is no ambition to divide, peace of mind as a good minister of the Han, should mainly eat imperial food.
Since it is a part-time job, there is no need to worry about this.
Until he was later represented by Tao Qian as Xuzhou Mu and officially became a prince of the party, Liu Bei had to consider the problem of finding investors again. When Liu Bei rescued Tao Qian, Tao Qian saw that he was weak, gave three thousand Danyang elites, and gave the entire Xuzhou to Liu Bei.
At this time, Liu Bei had territory, but Xuzhou was almost destroyed by Cao Cao, and liu bei was simply not enough to feed the army by collecting taxes.
So we still have to find investment, the most representative of which is Xuzhou's Elk Zhu. Lu Zhu is a wealthy merchant in Xuzhou, whose ancestors have been engaged in reclamation for generations, raising nearly 10,000 servants and diners, and assets of hundreds of millions.
Ancestral goods are farmed, thousands of servants, and billions of yuan are produced. After Xuzhou Mutao Qian was engaged in other driving. (Romance of the Three Kingdoms)
When Tao Qian gave up Xuzhou, Liu Bei, who was isolated and helpless, did not dare to accept it hastily, because he lacked soldiers and food and had no strength.
It was at this time that Lu Zhu chose to support Liu Bei, not only helping Liu Bei to successfully control Xuzhou, but also giving Liu Bei great support in terms of grain and soldiers. However, Liu Bei was not stable in Xuzhou, and when he was fighting Yuan Shu, after Lü Bu attacked him, Zhang Fei, who remained behind, lost Xuzhou, and Liu Bei became a lone army.
At that time, Liu Bei's situation was very embarrassing, and he had run out of grain, to what extent was it miserable?
Hunger and poverty, officials eat each other, poor and hungry
But even though Xuzhou was taken by Lü Bu, Lu Zhu still did not abandon it, not only giving Liu Bei a lot of substantial help (two thousand soldiers and a large amount of grain and grass), but also marrying his sister to him, so that Liu Bei could get through the most difficult period.
In the first year of Jian'an, Lü Bu took advantage of the ancestor's departure to reject Yuan Shu and attack Pi, and captured the wife of the first lord. The first lord transferred to Guangling Haixi, mi Zhu then entered the sister Yu Xian as his wife, slaves 2,000, gold and silver currency to help the military funds;
From a certain point of view, Lu Zhu was Liu Bei's greatest nobleman, more important than Zhuge Liang. This is also why Liu Bei, after pacifying Yizhou, worshiped him as the general of An Han, and his status was still above Zhuge Liang.
Yizhou was ping, and Bai was the general of An Han, and the class was on the right side of the general of the military division.
Later, Mi Fang rebelled, and Liu Bei did not pursue his brother Mi Zhu, because the debt of human feelings was too great.
Of course, it is not enough to have the support of the elks. After all, Liu Bei was later driven out of Xuzhou, and Lu Zhu did not help him much. So much so that after Liu Bei was defeated by Cao Cao, he was displaced and miserable. The phenomenon of "cannibalism" in the military is not uncommon.
In fact, Cao Cao also helped Liu Bei, who was originally expelled from Xuzhou by Lü Bu and forced to defect to Cao Cao, but Cao Cao received him solemnly.
Cao Gong met him well and thought that he was a pastor of Yuzhou. He will harvest the scattered pawns, give them food for the army, and benefit the soldiers to attack the east.
Despite the cup of water, it will not let Liu Bei, who is on the run, cut off the cooking.
Later, after turning his face with Cao Cao, Liu Bei fell into trouble again, but after escaping to Jingzhou, he encountered the support of Liu Biao, a distant relative.
Jingzhou, where Liu Biao sits, can be said to be one of the richest areas in the world, and Jingzhou, as the most convenient area of transportation, has far surpassed other regions in economic development.
When Liu Bei came to defect to Liu Biao, Liu Biao not only gave them a new wild land, but also gave them great support in terms of grain and wages.
The table greets from the suburbs, and the above guests are treated with courtesy, benefiting their soldiers and making Tun Xinye. —— Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Book of Shu, Biography of the Ancestors
It was precisely because of this wave of snow that Liu Bei was able to gain a foothold in Jingzhou, and at the same time Liu Bei guarded the northern gate of Jingzhou for Liu Biao, and more or less relied on local expropriations to maintain military expenditures; after the Battle of Chibi, Liu Bei captured the four southern counties and exchanged for half of the southern counties, and had his own territory in the true sense. Zhuge Liang was responsible for the management of money and grain, stabilized the rear, and began to use taxes and salt and iron monopolies as the main source of military expenditure. Military expenditure and the mobilization of grain and grass have gradually relaxed.
Of course, Liu's family are all "old and good people", in addition to Liu Biao, Liu Zhang is also Liu Bei's "god of wealth", and after Liu Bei occupied Jingzhou, he had long coveted Xichuan. Liu Zhang, on the other hand, happened to be suppressed by the powerful enemy Zhang Lu at this time, and because he was worried that he would be completely annexed by the enemy, Liu Zhang launched the later plan of "luring wolves into the house", and he sent emissaries to invite Liu Bei's army to enter Sichuan, hoping to use the strength of others to resist the enemy.
After Liu Bei's army entered Sichuan, Liu Zhang almost undertook all the logistics of the other side, and a large amount of money, grain, soldiers and horses were constantly sent to Liu Bei. Unfortunately, he did not expect that he had lured the wolf into the room, Zhang Lu had not been destroyed, and his own territory had been robbed.
After the capture of Yizhou, it was completely normal development, and Yizhou's agriculture and textile industry also brought Liu Bei a huge amount of wealth, and the strength of the Shu army in this period had surpassed Wu Di to become the second.
It is worth mentioning that Liu Bei's cunning and plunder of Yizhou left a short country hidden danger.
When he came to Yizhou, Liu Bei said to his subordinates that as long as he took Chengdu, the gold and silver wealth in the city would be rewarded as much as possible. Later, Liu Bei also did not say salt. However, under the advice of the general Zhao Yun, Liu Bei somewhat relented.
"First the Lord will put wine, and the great soldiers will take the gold and silver from the city of Shu and give it to the soldiers, and return their grains."
After capturing Yizhou, Liu Bei took Liu Ba's advice and issued a large amount of Zhibaiyuan to plunder the wealth in the hands of the people.
The market currency of the Han Dynasty at that time was five-baht coins, and 1 piece of straight hundred coins minted by Liu Bei could be exchanged for 100 five-baht coins. However, when the best time is 8 grams, it is only 2 grams, and the bronze of less than 1 curse is exchanged for 50 bronze. That is to say, Liu Bei took 1 yuan as 50 yuan to spend and went to the hands of the people to buy things.
This kind of administrative means to issue money to manage the market soon made Liu Bei's military expenditure full, and the people's life was increasingly embarrassing. Can such amass of wealth be undefeated? This is also one of the reasons why in the Three Kingdoms, the Shu Han Dynasty was the first to perish
Subsequently, the Shu army successfully captured Hanzhong, and the Hanzhong region also "exported" some materials to the army, and with the further "deepening" of the war, Liu Bei also controlled more and more cities, and his army strength also developed.
These became Liu Bei's greatest capital for declaring himself emperor and establishing the Shu Han Dynasty.
Throughout Liu Bei's life, his entrepreneurial process is absolutely inspiring, from a poor boy who sells straw shoes, ups and downs several times, and finally a great cause. And in this process, it is indispensable to have noble people to help.