Chapter 48 How do you speak?

The next morning, Yuan Xi was awakened by a knock at the door. He sat up, a wave of morning grumpiness and resentment washing over him.

He had returned late last night and barely managed to fall asleep before being plagued by a dream.

In it, he was embracing a young woman in bed, but he couldn't make out her face no matter how hard he tried.

Just as Yuan Xi was about to take things further, the knock came, shattering the dream.

Knock, knock, knock your mother!

He cursed under his breath as he opened the door, only to find Sun Li standing outside with a young woman.

Yuan Xi recognized the girl; Sun Li had taken a liking to her when they went out to collect wheat a few days ago, and they had just gotten married recently.

Looking at the young couple, barely fourteen or fifteen, Yuan Xi was inexplicably angered. These kids already had a wife, while he, a twenty-year-old heir, was still single!

He spoke, "What are you doing here?"

Sun Li gritted his teeth and said, "I've come to ask for permission from Big Brother!"

"This time when Big Brother leaves the city, aside from me, all the personal guards have been chosen by Brother Qu. He's looking down on me!"

"Although I'm young, how am I any worse than them?"

Yuan Xi said, "Didn't I tell your mother last night?"

"This trip is dangerous; I'm not taking anyone who hasn't had children!"

"You just got married; have a big, healthy son first!"

Sun Li was still unconvinced, "Big Brother is already old and hasn't gotten married, but he's still going to the battlefield, isn't he?"

Yuan Xi was instantly enraged. He was already feeling off-balance, and this kid was rubbing salt in the wound?

He snapped, "Why are you as stubborn as a bull? I'm not talking to you anymore. Take your wife back and don't let your mother down."

Sun Li muttered, "My mother said that both of our lives were saved by Big Brother. If I don't follow Big Brother, I'll be ungrateful!"

"Besides, Big Brother hasn't gotten married or had children either. What if something happens to him? Wouldn't that be letting down his parents too?"

"Don't you think so?"

He said the last sentence to the young woman beside him, who nodded repeatedly upon hearing it.

Yuan Xi was struck by another critical blow, so angry that he went up and kicked Sun Li, "Are you talking like that? Get out, get out, don't bother me!"

Seeing that Yuan Xi was angry, Sun Li had no choice but to take the young woman and slink away.

Yuan Xi sighed.

In truth, as a soldier, Sun Li wasn't considered young at fifteen.

In this chaotic world, more than half of the infants died shortly after birth. By the time they reached fifteen, after experiencing hunger, disease, natural disasters, and man-made calamities, another half would die. Very few could survive.

It was very common for villagers like Sun Li to do laundry and cook at five or six years old and work in the fields at seven or eight.

If the warlords raised their armies, conscription in various places was often a semi-forced, semi-enticing process of rounding up strong men. Being able to lift a wooden spear and swing it a few times was already considered a qualified soldier.

This was also why a place with less than 100,000 people could muster 10,000 soldiers.

Of course, these recruits had not been tempered by the battlefield. When they encountered seasoned, armored veterans with training, they were truly being sent to their deaths like cutting melons and vegetables.

The reason why Yuan Xi was unwilling to conscript soldiers on a large scale was that, on the one hand, he believed in quality over quantity. Sending these recruits to the battlefield to die was worse than having them farm or work as artisans.

On the other hand, he couldn't afford to feed so many mouths. With his current resources, a few hundred armored soldiers were already the limit.

When Yuan Xi read the history of the Three Kingdoms, he discovered a very cruel fact.

Whether it was soldiers or civilians, more was not necessarily better.

A rather counter-intuitive fact was that the population at the end of a dynasty was far greater than in a time of great peace.

In ancient times, farming technology was not developed, and there were no fertilizers. The yield per mu of land was often only about three shi.

Approximately four Han mu were equivalent to one modern mu, and two Han jin were equivalent to one modern jin. Converting this to modern terms, the yield per mu of land was only about 200 jin.

After deducting taxes, ten mu of land in the Han Dynasty could only produce 400 jin of grain, barely enough to feed one person, and that was under favorable conditions.

The average household in the Han Dynasty had about five to ten people, so feeding a household required fifty mu of land, and a commandery often had tens of thousands of households.

There were often many hidden unregistered households in various places, and the amount of arable land was not as much as in later generations. The Yellow Turban Rebellion at the end of the Han Dynasty was caused by population growth and insufficient arable land, coupled with frequent natural disasters and massive crop failures.

Then, the only thing the peasants feared happened.

No food to eat.

This was also the most direct factor in peasant rebellions throughout the millennia.

There was a joke in a certain dynasty that there was no rain in a certain place for a year, the land was dry, and there was no harvest. The local villagers were so hungry that they had no choice but to agree to rebel.

Everyone chose a date, picked up hoes and kitchen knives, and swarmed to the entrance of the village, ready to make a big scene.

At this time, it just happened to rain.

Everyone immediately scattered and rushed back home to sow seeds.

This was the common people. As long as they had a bite to eat, they would not rebel.

Therefore, the pattern of dynasties was that at the end of a dynasty, the population was large and there was famine, the world rebelled, and then they killed each other, and the population decreased, establishing a new dynasty.

The new dynasty had a small population and a lot of arable land, and then ushered in a great peace. With the development and prosperity of society, the population exploded.

After hundreds of years, the population was saturated, there was not enough arable land, and then they encountered natural disasters, foreign invasions, and not enough food to eat, so the world rebelled and killed each other.

The new cycle began again.

Therefore, rational and cold-blooded rulers would try to control the rate of population growth when commerce and agriculture had not improved significantly.

In times of peace, rulers often had the illusion that the world was prosperous and the more the better, so they encouraged childbirth and lowered the age of marriage.

When the population exploded, it was too late when the rulers realized it. Natural disasters, bandits, and the people were coerced into rebelling.

The Yellow Turban Rebellion took place in this context. When millions of Yellow Turban soldiers appeared in areas where the registered population was only hundreds of thousands, the self-satisfied Emperor Ling of Han and his ministers were shocked.

Since the seventh year of Guanghe of Emperor Ling of Han (184 AD), ten years have passed.

After ten years of war, the population in various places has decreased significantly, and there is no shortage of land, but another problem has also arisen.

People go to high places, and water flows to low places.

In areas where war and disasters are severe, the economy has completely collapsed, and they are often harassed by soldiers and bandits, and the people are miserable. Therefore, they move in groups to areas with stable economies and no wars.

So, in the past ten years, the population has slowly gathered in the wealthy states.

For example, Yuan Shao's Ji Province, Tao Qian's Xu Province, and Liu Yu's You Province.

That's right, although You Province is considered a bitterly cold place in this world, the land is fertile and the salt and iron industries are extremely developed.

Among them, Xu Province has the best economy, and Tao Qian governs well. It has hardly been affected by the war, and many people have come to Xu Province to settle down.

However, Tao Qian has already formed an alliance with Yuan Shu and Gongsun Zan, and he is by no means a person without ambition.

Even in the fourth year of Chuping (193 AD), while Cao Cao and Yuan Shu were fighting, Tao Qian sent troops into Cao Cao's Yanzhou territory and occupied the two commanderies of Rencheng and Taishan.

Although there were many twists and turns and controversies in this matter, Yuan Xi still tended to believe that Tao Qian was premeditated.

Of course, Cao Cao could not swallow this breath, so he led his troops to counterattack Tao Qian, conquering more than a dozen cities in a row, and forcing Tao Qian to close the city and not come out until he led his troops back to Yanzhou in the spring of the following year.

During this period, Cao Cao slaughtered Xu Province, killing countless people, and the Si River stopped flowing.

Yuan Xi felt that in this matter, if Cao Cao did not carry out the massacre, it could be considered that he had some reason.

However, he vented his anger on the people. Although it could inspire the soldiers, it also formed a deadly feud with Xu Province. Resistance continued, and even after Cao Cao's death, Xu Province was not completely stable.

Now, what Yuan Xi has to do is to prevent Cao Cao's second massacre on the pretext of Cao Song's murder.

According to records, the death toll may be in the hundreds of thousands.

In later generations, because too many people died in Xu Province and other places, Cao Cao moved hundreds of thousands of people from You, Bing, Ba, and Shu to the interior, resulting in a sparse population on the border, and foreign tribes took advantage of the situation, creating the situation of the Five Hu invasion of China.

If it weren't for this reason, Yuan Xi really didn't want to oppose Cao Cao.

Cao Cao put too much pressure on him.

Unlike the current Liu Bei, except for Guan Yu and Zhang Fei, he has almost no advisers or generals, and it will take a long time to suffer losses before he can become a force.

Although Cao Cao now only has half a state, the famous advisers and generals are already under his command, and he is almost complete!

But precisely because of this, Yuan Xi can't let go of this rare opportunity. If he succeeds, he can save the lives of the people, gain fame, and form a secret alliance, which can be described as killing three birds with one stone.

Yuan Xi wanted to see, if Cao Song's family was still alive, how would Cao Cao attack Xu Province without the most legitimate reason of filial piety?