To achieve immortality, I cultivate using Qi Luck

Chapter 838: Chapter 359: Chu Wei’s Inborn Abilities

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In a world of ice and snow, accompanied by howling blizzards, the tenth year of Shenwu silently passed by, and time had already advanced to the eleventh year of Shenwu.

This New Year’s Spring Festival was spent by Lu Yuan in Jiangxia City.

As with many previous expeditions, he had no way of returning to Baling or spending time with his wife and children at home, and he did not even have a single friend here.

Living in this chaotic era, in a world where calamity had come, everyone involved was unable to act on their own volition.

They could only passively follow the tide of the times, pushing forward wave after wave, striving for that slim chance of surviving ashore.

This was true even for Lu Yuan, the King of Chu, the ruler of thousands of miles of territory—he was no exception.

Fortunately, ever since he had studied the Taiping Dao Book and resolved to take the path of competing for supremacy in the world, he had been prepared and anticipated all of the above.

Now, after fifteen or sixteen years, having spent most of those years on campaign, Lu Yuan had grown accustomed to that kind of life and felt nothing amiss.

Moreover, he now resided in Jiangxia City.

The city, nestled against mountains and rivers, offered a view of the Yangtze River’s snowy landscape and the vast expanse of mountains and rivers from the highest lookout.

Having such a scenic and stable residence was far superior to his past experiences of enduring the elements in desolate and dangerous terrains.

Therefore, out of delight and also in consideration of the hard work of his soldiers, Lu Yuan directly ordered that during the New Year, the army’s rations increase by fifty percent over the standard holiday provision, and rewards were to be distributed again, allowing the soldiers to have a joyous celebration.

By this time, the treasury of Chu State, having received a tribute of a hundred million silver taels from the barbarians, could be said to be exceedingly abundant.

Although these past two years had seen considerable expenditures on the Hanzhong campaign and the ongoing conflict in Jiangnan, draining a significant portion of money and grain,

Chu State, being fundamentally strong with eighty million silver taels stored initially and an additional one hundred million silver taels obtained later, had reserves amounting to one hundred and eighty million silver taels.@@novelbin@@

The two military campaigns had merely nicked the tip of the latter eighty million silver taels, leaving one hundred million silver taels in the national treasury up to now.

Two years’ consumption of eighty million silver taels may seem like a large amount, but compared to the significant expansion of Lu Yuan’s forces by 230,000 soldiers and the nearly eight hundred thousand troops mobilized, plus an additional one million civilian workers, it wasn’t really that much.

Moreover, in the past two years, with the steady capture of population from Zhou Country and two counties in Long, and the subsequent settlement of four to five hundred thousand people in Xichuan, there were significant expenditures included in that eighty million silver taels.

Spending this money to accomplish these many tasks was, in Lu Yuan’s opinion, well worth it.

However, the expenditure was so great that, given Chu State’s current reserves, it could only maintain such spending for a maximum of three years.

After three years, the hundred million silver taels in the treasury would be completely exhausted, and Chu State would face financial bankruptcy.

This financial issue was one of the reasons why, at the beginning of the war, Lu Yuan chose to focus his main forces in three off-center battlefields, taking on a risky strategy.

With the resources of Chu State being unable to sustain a military of one million for long, this was the motivation behind his decision.

With campaigns of the current scale, Chu State could only last for a maximum of five years through patching things up.

If it exceeded five years, the Chu military, even if it had not been defeated in direct combat, would have to retract due to a shortage of funds and supplies, abandoning many strategic locations and retreating to defend its own territory.

This is almost the same as being defeated without actually losing.

One must acknowledge a point.

Although Chu State has risen to become a dominant power with a territory of 30,000 square miles and a population of tens of millions,

in the Nine Provinces, its influence has outstripped Ning Country by a margin, and it even bears the grace of being the foremost nation in Jiangnan.

But when it comes to foundational strength and accumulated wealth, Chu State truly does not compare with Ning Country, which has enjoyed over a decade of peace, has a substantial population, is wealthy in money and grain, and governs almost entirely over fertile lands.

For instance, Ning Country dares to propose expanding its army by two million, but today, even as Lu Yuan has expanded his forces to one million, he still hesitates and scrimps, not daring to entertain such a thought.

The discrepancy between the two countries’ reserves is precisely that despairing.

It is this despairing gap that has driven him not to even consider a war of attrition with Ning Country, nor to entertain any notions of a balanced struggle.

Because in terms of foundational strength and endurance, Chu State is simply no match for Ning Country.

Swift resolution, relying on the fervent and forceful tactics of the Chu army to rapidly defeat the opposition, ensuring the enemy is eliminated by Chu State before they can mobilize everything—they cannot wait.

This is the style of the Chu army, and this is the opportunity for Chu State to triumph.

Fortunately, all of this has now been realized.

The possibility of a stalemate situation, with the successive victories on the battlefields in the north of the River and in Lingnan, has been completely shattered and will no longer occur.

With the victorious Lingnan armies surrounding the capitals of Su Country and Southsea Country, their downfall is merely moments away.

The Lingnan Battlefield may well be concluded by the eleventh year of Shenwu.

This gives Lu Yuan hope for eradicating Jiangdong within the next three years and unifying Yangzhou.

If Jiangnan can be unified within three years, then the so-called financial crisis will naturally cease to exist.

A Chu State that possesses the entire region of Jiangnan and Yangzhou can surely support an army of one million, and even sustain the two million proposed by Ning Country today.

And it’s not even necessary to wait for the unification of Jiangnan.

As of now, with the sweeping victories of the Lingnan armies, especially after the toppling of Southsea Country, the continual conquest of cities and plundering of the estates of powerful clans, Chu State has already reaped substantial rewards.

When Lu Yuan led the alliance to attack the Southwest Barbarians, Southsea Country engaged in grain trade and severely exploited Chu, Su, and Song countries.

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