Sun Guan, who was about to leave, stopped when he heard the voice and looked back at Chang Xi: "How else can I report? I just reported the truth."

"Oh, you went to Tao Qian to work for him but came back empty handed. You will inevitably be looked down upon by others after you return. After all, we have been brothers for many years. Don't say that I don't care about our past friendship. Here is a huge fortune to give you. It depends on whether you have the courage to accept it."

Although Chang Xi disdains to surrender to Tao Qian, it does not mean that he will not use the opponent's strength to his advantage. After all, his opponent is Wang Jing, so he naturally needs to use all the strength he can.

Tao Qian of Xuzhou and Kong Rong of Beihai were both targets that Chang Xi wanted to win over.

Now that Sun Guan came to persuade him to surrender, Chang Xi took the opportunity to make a suggestion, "I want to cooperate with Tao Gongzu. You can take a message back. Whether it succeeds or not, it is at least better than working in vain."

"Cooperation? Against whom?"

Sun Guan looked suspicious at first, then he thought of the agreement between Xu Si and Chang Xi, and was immediately shocked and asked, "You want to use my master to deal with Qi Hou Wang Jing?"

Chang Xi sneered, "You are just a soldier who eats food. Do you really care about Tao Qian so much? Besides, how can you say that it is an exploitation when both sides benefit from it? Xuzhou and Yanzhou are adjacent to each other. If Marquis Qi repairs the road, the army from Luoyang to Yanzhou will come and go like the wind and arrive at any time. Will Tao Qian be able to sleep well at night?"

Although he did not want to provoke Wang Jing, Sun Guan felt a chill in his heart after listening to Chang Xi's analysis. He began to realize that after the passage was opened, Xuzhou would also face the threat of Wang Jing's military force.

Xuzhou and Yanzhou are close to each other. If Wang Jing is allowed to expand, Xuzhou will inevitably face tremendous pressure.

Sun Guan understood the seriousness of the matter, so he agreed to Chang Xi's request and said, "Okay, I will go back and tell my lord about this. As for whether to cooperate, it depends on Envoy Tao's decision."

"Go quickly and come back soon. I'll wait for your good news."

A consensus on cooperation was reached, and Chang Xi's attitude towards Sun Guan also softened. He even personally escorted him out of the village gate, indicating that they had put aside their past grudges and were ready to work together.

Although Chang Xi was born a bandit, he was not a simple person. In the history of the Three Kingdoms, he was a fierce man who made Cao Cao fall, and Cao Cao once hated him with a vengeance.

The mention in "The Second Letter to the Emperor" that "Cao Cao attacked Changba five times but failed to conquer it" was referring to Chang Xi, and Changba was his nickname.

Chang Xi was a fickle person. After surrendering to Cao Cao, he was appointed governor of Donghai, but he rebelled repeatedly, which finally made Cao Cao unable to tolerate him. He was defeated by Yu Jin and Xiahou Yuan, and was killed by Yu Jin when he surrendered.

And now, Chang Xi has obviously set his sights on Wang Jing and Taishi Ci's road-building team. He plans to cooperate with Xu Si to do something ruthless and then run away. By then, he will have money, food, and people. Even if he leaves Mount Tai, he can find a piece of land near the sea between Qingzhou and Xuzhou to settle down, wait for the opportunity, and dominate the area.

Tao Qian of Xuzhou was already in his sixties, very old, with one foot half in the coffin.

Kong Rong of Beihai is pedantic and incompetent. He is helpless in the face of the Yellow Turbans in Qingzhou. Sooner or later, he will become the king's vanguard.

In this way, Qingxu and Xu states are simply godsends. God is feeding Chang Xi with food. How could Chang Xi not have any ideas?
On the other side, Changyi, Yanzhou.

Outside the county town, next to the official road, Zhai Ping was leading people to dig the roadbed. In Wang Jing's plan, the Luochang National Highway, which goes directly from the capital Luoyang to Changyi in Yanzhou, would be built based on the existing official road. This would make it more convenient to transport supplies and food, and improve the work efficiency of workers.

Zhai Ping was holding a shovel and demonstrating to the road construction workers how to mix cement: "Watch carefully and learn well. If you can't learn it within ten days, get out of here. Our road construction team doesn't want lazy people or idlers!"

After saying that, Zhai Ping began to stir cement with a shovelful in front of everyone, adding materials such as water, lime, mud and sand. Less than 40% was pure cement powder. After all, if all cement was used, the cost would be too high, and the cement workshop in Luoyang simply did not have such a large output.

After stirring for a while, Zhai Ping began to pour the mixed cement into the excavated roadbed one shovel at a time, compacting it, waiting for it to cool, and forbidding workers to walk on the wet cement ground.

The more impolite Zhai Ping spoke, the more arrogant his attitude was, and the more he kept saying "dismissal", the more carefully the workers on the road construction team listened and followed his instructions.

After all, this is not forced labor, but real work, with food and accommodation provided and wages paid. This kind of good thing was impossible to find even with a light in the past.

In previous years, when doing corvée labor for the government, how could anyone be so serious?
As long as you are not whipped by the supervisor, you can slack off as much as possible. After all, only fools will work hard for no pay. Isn't it nice to slack off?
But things are different now. They get paid for their work and can get a raise if they do a good job. They have never heard of such a good thing before. Naturally, they are full of initiative and work hard and actively.

Many workers even hummed happily while waving their hoes and shovels. They worked with full enthusiasm, their eyes full of longing and hope for the future.

As a supervisor, Zhai Ping felt very proud when he saw this scene.

Wang Jing's governing philosophy is really in line with the Mohist philosophy. He treats the people with great kindness, giving them money and providing them with food, instead of following the ways of the aristocratic families and exploiting personal dependence to squeeze the lower-class people to death.

After working for a while, a large cloud of dust suddenly rose on the official road, and a large group of people were approaching rapidly.

Zhai Ping was very nervous for a while, thinking that he had encountered some unexpected situation. It was not until the other party came closer and he could see the appearance of the person clearly that Zhai Ping secretly breathed a sigh of relief and smiled and greeted him: "Brother Ziyi, you are finally here."

When the Rencheng camp was being built, Zhai Ping and Taishi Ci had met several times and even drank together, so he recognized him.

Taishi Ci came to Zhai Ping, dismounted, and said with a smile: "My lord heard that the road construction team was still short of people, so he asked me to bring two battalions of Qingzhou soldiers to help."

"My goodness, there are really two battalions?"

Zhai Ping was extremely happy when he heard this. You know, a fully staffed battalion has 2,000 people, and two battalions have 4,000 people!
Moreover, the fact that they can be reorganized into the Engineering Construction Corps means that these people are definitely not old men who can’t carry anything on their shoulders or lift anything with their hands. They must be young and strong guys who can do the work of two people.

With these 4,000 able-bodied men, the construction progress of Luochang National Highway is expected to be greatly accelerated.

Taishi Ci took out the water bag from his horse and took several gulps. He then wiped his mouth and said to Zhai Ping with a smile, "How can I lie to you? But there is one thing I must explain to you. I have to train and manage these 4,000 soldiers myself. You cannot interfere."

As for more details and specific combat tasks, these are all confidential, so Taishi Ci naturally did not tell Zhai Ping.

Zhai Ping also knew the importance of things, and he would never ask about things that he shouldn't know.

In this way, Taishi Ci brought the Rencheng 1st Battalion and the Rencheng 2nd Battalion to join the road construction team.

Soldiers from the first and second battalions would go out for drill in the morning every day, conduct military formation training, and hone their discipline and coordination. In the afternoon, they would work with ordinary workers from the road construction team, digging the roadbed, mixing cement, and building the highway.

With the arrival of the first and second battalions, the ordinary workers in the road construction team were soon in an uproar.

It’s just because the food in the first and second battalions is so good. Everyone does similar work, so why should we have to eat coarse food and simple meals while the other side has fish and meat?
This is so unfair!
Soon someone came to Zhai Ping and asked him to give an explanation.

Human hearts are like this. It's bullshit to say that ordinary people are honest and simple. Otherwise, how did the saying come about that poor and remote areas produce unruly people?

The real world is one where greed is the enemy and inequality is the worry rather than scarcity.

In the past, when the government forced the people to perform labor service, how could they dare to say no?
Now that Wang Jing is paying for the road construction and providing food and accommodation, they all complain about the food.

In fact, the food Wang Jing provided was not bad. Although there was no meat, there was enough staple food such as whole grain pancakes, enough carbohydrates, and even some lard occasionally.

But everything is afraid of comparison. If everyone eats equally badly, perhaps no one will complain. But if some people eat well and some eat poorly, those who eat poorly will naturally have opinions.

Zhai Ping looked at the people who came to make trouble, and a sneer appeared on his lips. He was not going to tolerate these people at all: "Why are you arguing? If you don't want to do it, then get out of here. There are refugees everywhere in Yanzhou now, and there are many people who want to join the road construction team. Anyone who doesn't obey can pack up and leave. I will never force you to stay."

Xu Si and his men secretly stuffed a lot of people in, how could Zhai Ping not know about this? Therefore, these people who came to make trouble were either of bad character or had ulterior motives to secretly make trouble. Either way, it meant that they were not his own people, so Zhai Ping was not polite at all.

Facing the question, Zhai Ping glared and cursed: "You guys still want to be compared with the Qingzhou soldiers in the Rencheng camp? They serve in the army and eat food, which is risking their lives. You also want to eat meat? Fine, just find a way to join the army yourself. What's the point of coming here to make trouble?"

"Captain Zhai, that's not what you mean. We do almost the same work, so why can they eat meat while we can only eat dry bread? This is too unfair!"

"Yeah, yeah, that's not fair!"

The troublemakers began to stir up trouble, hoping to get more workers to join in so that the law would not hold everyone responsible.

Among them, those who secretly took the lead in organizing the riots were basically spies sent by the major local families in Yanzhou and lurking in the road construction team.

Otherwise, it would have been impossible to organize such a large-scale strike so quickly to disrupt Wang Jing.

To put it bluntly, they are just looking for trouble, using this method to obstruct and delay the progress of the Luochang National Highway project. As for whether they can get tangible benefits, they don't really care.

Most of the ordinary workers just join in the fun with the attitude of trying their best, since it doesn't take much effort to make some noise, and what if there is some benefit?

Zhai Ping glared at these people and shouted, "Shut up! If you keep making noise, you will all be fired!"

Sure enough, after this shout, the scene finally quieted down.

"Listen carefully, the road construction team is funded by Marquis Qi. Your wages and food expenses are all standard. As for the Qingzhou soldiers coming out of the Rencheng camp, they are fed by the court, not the road construction team, so no matter how much you make a fuss, it will be useless."

Zhai Ping's words immediately dispelled everyone's thoughts.

At the same time, they were also very curious, why did the Qingzhou soldiers in the Rencheng camp eat so well?
I’ve never heard of anyone eating meat every day when I was in the army before. This food is so delicious!

In Yanzhou, the local people are still quite resistant to joining the army. After all, as the saying goes, good iron is not used to make nails, and good men do not join the army.

Only those who have no future, the poor who are about to starve to death, or the idiots who are crazy enough to try to improve their status, would think of joining the army.

However, the treatment that Wang Jing gave to the Qingzhou soldiers made the local people in Yanzhou very jealous. The older veterans couldn't help but have some thoughts, but the young people did!
Especially in Yanzhou, many young people have no land to share at home, but they are at the most energetic and hardworking age in their lives. Who doesn't want to eat and drink well and save some money to marry a wife?
According to the treatment in Rencheng Camp, joining the army is obviously a good way out!
Seeing this, Zhai Ping deliberately told the workers about some of the benefits in the army, and then brought up the topic: "It was indeed hard to be a soldier for the court in the past. Not only were the food and wages often deducted, but even if you made contributions, most of the credit would be taken away by the relatives in the army, and you would never get any of it."

A tall man in his forties or fifties echoed, "That's right. I once joined the army and followed General Zhang Wen to fight in Xiliang, killing many Qiang people. Alas, it's a pity that I didn't get any reward for killing the bandits. Later, I lost interest in it and thought it would be better to return to the countryside to farm."

Although this man is old, one can tell from his muscular body that he is definitely a tough guy.

Promoting Yanzhou's conscription work was also one of Zhai Ping's potential tasks, so he took the opportunity to promise everyone: "Marquis Qi loves his soldiers like his own sons and is clear about rewards and punishments. Under his command, there will definitely be no such thing as someone claiming military merits for no reason. Serving as a soldier for Marquis Qi, the palace soldiers have fields to farm, the regular soldiers have money to earn, and you can be promoted step by step if you make military merits. It doesn't matter your birth or background, only your ability and merit!"

"Is this true?"

Many people doubted Zhai Ping's words. After all, the world today was ruled by aristocratic families, and the upper-class positions had long been filled with connections. No matter how outstanding an ordinary person was or how hard he worked, it was difficult for him to have a chance to stand out.

Zhai Ping could only give an example: "Have you ever heard of the names of Chen Ze and Zhou Cang? They were both hunters, without any background at all, but they were promoted to the rank of Cavalry Commandant based on their military exploits. This is the best example."

According to the imperial military system, a military marquis could lead 200 soldiers to form a group.

Sima Ke led 400 soldiers as one unit.

A captain can lead 800 soldiers into a brigade.

The rank of Cavalry Commandant is half a level higher than that of Commandant, and he can command troops of less than a thousand people. He is considered a military general of a relatively high rank. For example, Gongsun Zan and Cao Cao started out as Cavalry Commandants in the beginning, accumulated military exploits step by step, and finally became prominent princes in troubled times.

For this kind of military position, if one does not have a backer or connections, ordinary people can forget about it.

Therefore, Zhai Ping's words immediately made many people's eyes sparkle and their hearts tremble, especially those who were unwilling to stay in the lower class forever, and they also longed to achieve class transition.

In addition, with the personal testimony of the Qingzhou soldiers in the Rencheng camp, many people in the road construction team gradually came to believe that serving Wang Jing in the army would be a good way out.

At the very least, at least you can have enough to eat. These days, even small landlords may not be able to afford a meal with fish and meat!

Many people immediately became interested and began to ask Zhai Ping where to sign up and what conditions were required to join Wang Jing's army and receive food as soldiers.

Among them, there were even quite a few tenants sent by Xu Si and others.

After all, the tenants’ lives were not easy either. Although they were not reduced to refugees, suffering from hunger and cold and being displaced, as the lower class exploited by the wealthy and powerful families, how good could their lives be?
The best that can be done is to get by, and one has to fucking depend on other people to survive. Unless one is seriously ill in the head, who doesn't want to live a good life?

Serving as a soldier for Wang Jing would give you everything, not only would you be well fed and clothed, but you would also be able to live with dignity. But if you went back to save money to become a tenant, you would only be able to work like a slave for the aristocratic families and wealthy clans.

It’s not difficult at all to choose.

Outside Liangqiu City, the road construction team workers were sweating profusely.

As winter approaches, the temperature begins to drop rapidly, and the north wind is howling everywhere outdoors, making it chilly.

The workers rubbed their hands, exhaled and complained: "This damn weather is really getting colder and colder."

"Every day, you will have enough bread and broth to drink. Just be content."

"That is to say, although the weather is a little cold, the wages are two hundred more coins, which is enough to buy three dou of rice."

The road construction team continued to work in the cold wind, and naturally there were many complaints, but these problems could be solved by increasing the money, so Wang Jing did not do anything empty. He directly allocated a sum of money to Zhai Ping with a stroke of his pen. The workers' wages were increased to 1,200 coins per person per month, and if they did a good job and did more, they could get extra rewards.

Anyone who has studied economics knows that money, as a general equivalent, only generates value when it is circulated; if it is piled up in a warehouse, it will only rust and mold.

For Wang Jing, who "inherited" a large amount of Emperor Ling's legacy, he had no shortage of money, and he also had no shortage of food after the crazy house searches in the four counties of the capital.

Therefore, how to convert this money and food into productivity is the top priority. By spending money, the construction progress of Luochang National Highway was not slowed down, but accelerated a lot.

At the same time, Wang Jing's reputation in Yanzhou was getting better and better. With the continuous support of the people, the power of luck surged in, constantly pushing up Wang Jing's spiritual cultivation.

I only spent one cent, but got three times the benefits. It's totally worth it!

Zhai Ping put on a woolen coat, rode a mule, and inspected the construction site, breathing out misty white air: "I hope it won't snow, otherwise the progress will be slowed down."

He looked up at the sky, and then prayed silently in his heart. (End of this chapter)