To achieve immortality, I cultivate using Qi Luck

Chapter 803: Chapter 347 Confrontation Timing_2

It was precisely because of this point that even though the Chu State’s forces were ready and the food and fodder had been allocated, they could launch a Southern Expedition at any time.

Yet, with everything ready to go, he still did not order the attack.

He simply let the outside world churn with rumors, as various messages spread far and wide.

Chu State remained as immovable as a mountain, merely continuing to amass troops and supplies, readying itself to strike at any moment.

It must be said, this posture only made outsiders even more puzzled.

This hesitant yet poised stance bred endless speculation, leaving many bewildered as to what exactly Chu State intended to do.

The tens of thousands of Chu troops, poised but not deployed, also filled the neighboring countries with dread, fearing Chu was concocting some scheme, and thus, out of self-preservation, they were forced to gather their armies as well.

Song, Su, Southsea, Ning, Liang, Zhou, Dali, Nanzhao…

These countries, which bordered Chu State and also had conflicts or grudges with it, found themselves inevitably swept up in the massing of troops, gathering their military forces to varying degrees as well.

The regions both north and south of the Yangtze River had, in effect, fallen into a strange arms race.

And as soon as this competition began, many started to complain bitterly.

Assembling a large army and maintaining it without marching was not a simple matter.

To do this, a large number of readily deployable elite soldiers were needed, as well as even more civilian workers to support these troops with various services.@@novelbin@@

Just this point alone meant countless people were mobilized. And during this mobilization, those conscripted were entirely removed from production, solely consuming supplies.

This meant that a vast amount of supplies was being consumed meaninglessly.

Take Chu State, for example.

According to what Lu Yuan knew, for the Southern Expedition, he had assembled one hundred thousand vassal troops and sixty thousand members of the Forbidden Army. In addition, there were two hundred fifty thousand civilian workers mobilized to transport grain and to serve these troops.

In total, four hundred ten thousand people, all of whom were robust adults with sizable appetites, and considering the consumption of some livestock as well, Chu State was spending a total of ten thousand shi of grain every day.

Ten thousand shi of grain a day, that’s three hundred thousand shi a month and three million six hundred thousand shi a year.

And that was only because the army was encamped and not on the march, not requiring long-distance transportation of grain.

Had it been necessary to transport grain over hundreds or thousands of li, the consumption of grain would have doubled or even tripled, reaching an unimaginably astronomical figure.

And that was purely the consumption of grain alone.

This battle saw Lu Yuan conscript two hundred fifty thousand civilian workers, which also meant that two hundred fifty thousand young and strong men were gone from local production.

To gather these people, Lu Yuan had almost completely conscripted the young and strong men from the six prefectures in the southern part of Dongting.

The absence of these people from local economic activities almost guaranteed that the grain output and commercial activities of the southern Dongting prefectures would suffer a crippling blow.

For these six prefectures, a drastic reduction in this year’s taxes, even to the point of deficits requiring central government subsidies, was a foregone conclusion.

A peaceful standoff that had yet to erupt into war, and already Chu State’s consumption was so great.

As for the other countries that were similarly affected and threatened by Chu State and had no choice but to follow suit in mobilizing large armies for a standoff, they must be experiencing the same challenges.

Chu State, with its rich grain-producing areas in Jianghan and Dongting as well as the Xichuan Plain, which had been redeveloped into another grain-producing area through the years of immigration and military settlement, was not lacking in resources.

With three major grain-producing areas at its disposal, as well as forty million shi of grain accumulated over the years, Lu Yuan was confident he could handle an annual consumption of merely several million shi of grain.

Moreover, with the conquest of Hanzhong, acquiring 1.6 million households, and the recent capture of 300,000 people from Longxi at the start of the year, Chu State’s total population had officially exceeded the ten million mark, reaching a total of 10.7 million.

In terms of population, Chu State had officially reached the standard of a hegemonic nation.

With so many people, the lack of production from two hundred fifty thousand civilian workers locally would not be too impactful.

Therefore, continuing to maintain this consumptive strategy was not an issue for Chu State at all, let alone for a year or two – even ten years would pose no problem.

However, what Chu State could accomplish, other nations might not be able to.

Ning Country to the east had been at peace for many years, accumulating a fair amount of wealth, also a master in its own right, and was likely able to cope with a consumption war with Chu State.

But for Su and Song countries to the south, it was not so certain.

Su and Song, situated in the impoverished southern wildlands, with a terrain that is mountainous and bereft of plains, have been notorious for their poverty.

Song Country fared a little better. Its capital, Songping, was located in a region that had the Red River Plain, which was barely considered half a grain-producing area, but still not affluent.

And in the previous years, both countries had followed Chu State in their campaigns against the Southwest Barbarians, each expanding a significant amount of territory and establishing counties and prefectures.

Expanding territory is generally a positive development for a country.

It signifies strong martial prowess and also increases strategic depth.

However, everything has two sides.

As these two countries expanded into new territories, they naturally took on the burden of developing these lands.

Like earlier Lu Yuan, who had executed several large-scale immigration projects to develop Dongting, Qianzhong, and Xichuan, at the peak of the effort, Chu State had to support the livelihoods of more than two million immigrants, cover their long journeys, build housing in their new homelands, invest in some farming tools and seeds for their initial production, provide six months to a year of free grain supply, and grant a three-year tax exemption.