Chapter 670: Chapter 303: The Battle Ceases and Resumes

After sending off the returning navy, Lu Yuan began to get busier in the following days.

As for the reconstruction of Xichuan County, he didn’t need to think too much about it.

Now, with the newly appointed juren and jinshi officials from the imperial examination arriving at their posts one after another, the local government of Xichuan County, led by Prefect Shen Xin, rapidly resumed the local people’s livelihood development.

However, by the time Lu Yuan had recovered the entire Xichuan County, it was already the end of June, and they had missed the spring plowing and summer planting season. This meant that in the second half of this year, the entire Xichuan County would not be able to be self-sufficient and meet its own grain consumption needs.

The millions of remaining people in the entire territory would need the assistance of the court to survive this difficult second half of the year.

Fortunately, for Chu State, which now controls half of the Jianghan Plain and the entire Dongting Plain, the annual production of grain is innumerable, not only enough to meet the consumption of the people of Xiangyang and Dongting, but also enough to set aside a lot of the surplus to support other places.

Not only that.

After Lu Yuan’s warning to the Southern Sea Country Envoy at the beginning of the year, the tribute owed by the Southern Sea Country for this year was quickly sent over.

Three million silver taels and two million dan of grain, this huge amount of money and grain input, especially the latter, greatly relieved the grain pressure in Chu State.

With the massive immigration project of millions of people started one after another in Xichuan and Qianzhong Counties, the amount of grain consumed during this period is astronomical.

It is worth noting that all immigrants who have moved to the immigration area have basically no output in the first year, and need the court and local government to support them during this period.

Money is not much of a problem.

After looting the entire Yi People of Qianzhong County and plundering Nanzhao Country, Chu State was not short of silver taels.

Instead, it was grain, which was needed to maintain the hundreds of thousands of troops on the front line and the consumption of even more immigrants. The consumption of grain in the front-line counties of Chu State was calculated in millions of dan every month.

This huge number, even with the wealth of the Dongting Plain and the Jianghan Plain, is somewhat unbearable.

In response, in order to alleviate the grain pressure, the Baling court, with Cui Changqing and others, had someone take the three million silver taels of tribute given by the South Sea Country, and went back to the South Sea Country to buy grain.

Three million silver taels could buy roughly the same amount of grain at the current grain prices in the South Sea Country, which was about three million dan of rice.

In the past couple of years, grain prices in the South Sea Country have been on the rise.

The reason, of course, is that the Chu, Su, and Song countries have been continuously going to the South Sea Country to buy grain.

Due to the ongoing war in Xichuan, the three countries of the Coalition have consumed a lot of troops and manpower on the front lines, especially with the establishment of new prefectures and counties in the newly opened southwestern territories, all three countries have more or less moved to new prefectures and counties.

All of these factors have greatly affected the agricultural production of the Chu, Su, and Song countries.

Among them, Chu State is still okay, backed by two major grain-producing areas, and with the savings from previous years, can barely maintain its supply.

Domestic grain prices hover around five cents per jin, which is not too high, but not too cheap either, within the range that the lower-class people can tolerate.

The situation in Song Country is also similar.

Located in Jiuzhen County where it has a fertile Red River Plain land, not inferior to the Jianghan Plain.

Relying on this grain-producing area, although Song Country is also short of grain due to the war, with the money plundered from the southwest Yi, they can still support themselves by buying some grain from the South Sea Country.

But Su Country is not doing well.

Yulin County, where it is located, is mostly mountainous and not much better than the southwestern Yi.

In addition to Su Xuange’s series of tyrannical policies, coupled with the effects of war and heavy taxation, the people’s livelihood productions of Su Country in Yulin County have completely collapsed.

According to the reconnaissance feedback from the imperial city’s outer office, now in the entire Yulin County, more than one hundred thousand people have been forced to move by Su Xuange and have been relocated to the new Tonghai County established by the country.

At the same time, Su Xuange has relocated more than two hundred thousand Yi people from Tonghai County and resettled them in Yulin County.

Such mutual immigration has stabilized Su Country’s rule over both counties.

However, with all this back and forth, Su Country has about four hundred thousand more people who are unable to produce anything and need to be supported by the court and local government.

In addition to Su Country’s hundred thousand troops on the front line, tens of thousands of troops in the country, and more than 100,000 civilian workers transporting grain to the front line…

With all these factors added up, there are about 700,000 to 800,000 people in Su Country who do not produce anything and need the support and blood-sucking of the court and local government to survive.

In contrast to this huge population of blood-suckers, Su Country’s real base in its homeland, Yulin County, only has about 500,000 people still engaged in continuous production after a series of wars and migrations.

Among these 500,000 people, there are a large number of elderly, women, and children, because the real adult men are either drafted to be soldiers or pulled to transport grain as civilian workers.

Just relying on these 500,000 elderly, women, and children, how much grain can be produced? How many people can be supported?

I’m afraid even 50,000 troops can’t be supported.

So ever since Su Country started the war, the country’s grain consumption has always been supported by external purchases.

Looking around at Su Country’s neighbors, Chu and Song countries are lacking grain themselves, and they certainly cannot sell grain to Su Country.

The only thing Su Country could rely on was the peaceful, non-warrior producing South Sea Country.

So at the beginning of the war, Su Country sent people immediately to the South Sea Country to buy grain after they plundered the first wealth from the southwestern Yi.