Mythical Three Kingdoms

At this point, Chen Xi had no choice but to try some new tactics, such as turning certain aristocratic families into units under the government. Of course, these units would be allies until trouble occurred, at which point they would be kicked out, as these departments were all temporary.

In short, after the war between Yuan Liu opened the curtain on the entire world, Chen Xi took some time to settle down and found many new strategies.

Administrative intervention, policy support subsidies, monopolies, entry barriers, regional separation protection, price protection, closed loans, etc., were all strategies Chen Xi reviewed and realized that there was so much he could actually implement.

With this much to experiment with, and holding the largest empire on Earth at his disposal, it would simply be wrong not to try out everything he could. In any case, the foundation of a natural economy was already growing here, so there wouldn’t be any trouble even if it collapsed.

After roughly determining the cards he held, Chen Xi basically finalized his agenda for the next few years, including social reforms, which he planned to take slowly. He realized that he couldn’t rush, as the steps must not be too ambitious.

”Sweaters? I’ll take eighty thousand sets from here,” Xun Yu raised an eyebrow and said. He had encountered this item before; it was very warm and quite light. However, the problem was that even Cao Cao’s side couldn’t procure tens of thousands.

It’s not that tens of thousands of sweaters couldn’t be made each year, but previously Cao Cao’s side lacked money, and the current sweaters were high-selling items. They could get cash immediately upon returning to the Commerce Guild, so why sell them on credit?

”Uh, that amount is a bit much. I’ll send you some cotton clothes instead.” Chen Xi scratched his head. Xun Yu was indeed not holding back; he was just casually asking. There should not be this large of a gap, considering even Zhou Yu brought winter clothes when heading north; Xun Yu shouldn’t have forgotten.

”If it’s free, I’ll take fifty thousand pieces,” Zhou Yu said to Chen Xi.

”Hey, hey, don’t overdo it. I’ll charge you at cost price, but since we’re all serving the country, I won’t quarrel with you over it,” Chen Xi said irritably. ”Kongming, when will the official road-transported supplies arrive in Youzhou and Shanggu?”

”Our lord took the lead in coming, so the batch of supplies has already arrived,” Zhuge Liang thought for a moment and said, ”It should be delivered in about a day, since beyond the Great Wall there are no official roads, and Chancellor Mi coming here also takes considerable time.”

”Well, this looks like we’re obviously extorting from you, yet you didn’t refuse. Might you have a trap ready for us to fall into?” Zhou Yu’s words were nonsense, yet Chen Xi surprisingly didn’t refuse.

”Take it or leave it,” Chen Xi said somewhat crossly, ”considering we’re all on the same front, I merely provided some support,” then he turned his head to ask Guo Jia, who had run out earlier and returned with Lu Xun, ”What’d you have for breakfast? Salted fish tofu soup?”

Chen Xi’s words changed so swiftly that Zhou Yu and Xun Yu didn’t know how to respond. How does one jump from discussing serious matters to talking about meals within moments?

”Sweet sweet-scented osmanthus tofu pudding.” Guo Jia gave Lu Xun a look, leading Lu Xun to speak up, as Lu Xun was sent by Liu Bei to have this group of strategists who stayed up all night playing war games have breakfast.

”Eating so early?” Cheng Yu asked in confusion. As someone who ate twice during the day and some late-night snacks, Cheng Yu couldn’t comprehend eating right after dawn.

”Serve everything at once here. What are we having for lunch?” Chen Xi asked again.

”Salted fish soup and buns made of fish and beef mixture.” Lu Xun replied.

”Oh, that’s fine. Get everyone one portion here, we might need to talk. Right, send someone to the rear to connect, send eighty thousand sweaters and fifty thousand cotton clothes over.” Chen Xi patted Lu Xun’s head and said, ”This is my apprentice, how’s that?”

Lu Xun was educated to have a somewhat lively personality by Chen Xi, but he was naturally clever and his thinking was very rigorous, so after Chen Xi spoke, Lu Xun formally saluted everyone.

”Not bad, there’s already a fluctuation of spiritual talent within him, but the time hasn’t come yet.” Zhou Yu was the first to speak.

”Indeed a beautiful jade and excellent talent.” Xun Yu stared for a long while before speaking.

”Boyan, you may go first.” Chen Xi was very pleased with Zhou Yu and Xun Yu’s evaluation, while Pang Tong and Zhuge Liang had solemn expressions; Lu Xun had actually reached this stage, and unless surprises occurred, Lu Xun might awaken his talent proactively at fifteen or sixteen.

After sending Lu Xun off, Chen Xi returned to the original topic, ”If you don’t want it, then forget it, it’s worth a few million coins anyway.”

”Zichuan, are you really going to give it to those two?” Liu Ye transmitted his voice to Chen Xi, somewhat distressed over giving tens of thousands of winter clothing, which amounted to dozens of carts, away just like that, even though Chen Xi once casually dispensed tens of millions of money.

”If we don’t give it to them, how else will they know this stuff is better than burlap? These two years, there’s little of it, but, within a year, wool and cotton will supply some areas.” Chen Xi transmitted his voice to Liu Ye, ”Prepare in advance, it may be worth a few million coins, but when calculated, the cost is less than one hundred thousand coins. Consider it as initial market investment.”

”The problem is, if you open up the market this way, we’re not doing business, it’ll be cheaper for those in the Commerce Guild.” Liu Ye continued to transmit his voice to Chen Xi.

”Well, we’ll recover the taxes. Those people from Eastern Wu will surely come to buy, and as the volume grows, the taxes will rise. With money, I can make it circulate more, making construction easier in the areas under governance. There will be many places to construct in the future, so I’d better prepare early.” Chen Xi remained helpless; he was very capable, yet when it came to infrastructure, money seemed to vanish quickly.

”Okay then, talking to you about this doesn’t help much, later tell Xun Yu to raise sheep, and let Zhou Yu raise horses in South China, isn’t that right?” Chen Xi transmitted his voice to Liu Ye, jokingly.

Even though Cao Cao had Money Exchange, he would not earn money if it wasn’t profitable, so once profitable, Cao Cao would rear sheep on the grasslands, and Chen Xi could later collect wool, sell yarn, letting Cao Cao weave and knit.

This way, after a battle on the Northern Frontier, a phase of dividing the spoils would inevitably follow. Although the three sides would have a battle sooner or later, at least for now, Chen Xi wasn’t ready to take over the entire Central Plains.

Actually, Chen Xi hadn’t prepared to fully occupy the Thirteen Provinces of Great Han either, ensuring balanced development across regions. Though one could say the prosperous should lead the less prosperous, achieving developed nation standards in Southeast, developing nation standards in Central, and underdevelopment in the West was indeed problematic.

Frankly, this was one of a vast country’s biggest maladies. If it ended up like that, Chen Xi might have trouble stepping down.

Thus, Chen Xi would rather seek stability than speed; at this point, he already had a solution. While he couldn’t equalize everything at once, he could ensure relative fairness.

If Chen Xi wasn’t planning to act next year, then falling out after the battle with the Huns certainly wasn’t an option; it would require distributing the spoils.

Chen Xi could guarantee that Liu Bei could obtain the largest share through strength, but for Sun Ce, who was geographically in the southeast, though he wouldn’t contribute much in this battle, it was absolutely unacceptable for him to gain nothing.

Therefore, Chen Xi, upon seeing Zhou Yu, already considered this point, and after much deliberation, invented a Southern horse-rearing plan.

Incidentally, this plan wasn’t nonsense, but truly executable. The Jianghuai and Lower Yangtze regions are actually suitable for horse breeding, as is Wuling Commandery in Southwest Jingzhou, with substantial historical records of such practices.

For instance, the State of Chu in the Spring and Autumn period and Wu State did this quite well historically, yet Chen Xi could be certain that Zhou Yu absolutely lacked the skill to do so.