In the sixth year of Zhongping, 189 A.D.

Although the world is turbulent, there is peace and tranquility in the Yellow Turban Army.

Now three years have passed since the Yellow Turban Army broke through the Xianbei Royal Court. Now, Chen Xu is twenty-five years old.

In a compound, Chen Xu, who already had a lot of beards on his face, sat a little boy on his shoulder. On his left and right hands, he also held a boy and a baby girl.

Next to the courtyard, two women are washing children's diapers. They looked in Chen Xu's direction from time to time, and their faces showed happy looks.

There is no doubt that one of these women is Zhang Ling.

In the second year after Chen Xu broke through Danhan Mountain and returned to the cottage, Zhang Ling gave birth to a son to Chen Xu and named him Zheng.

In the same year, Chen Xu married Zhao Yun's sister Zhao Yu as a concubine, and the following year she gave birth to a boy named Jun.

As for the baby girl Chen Xu was holding, it was the daughter that Zhang Ling gave birth to for him a few months ago, called Chen Ting.

Zhao Yu married Chen Xu as a concubine, although he was a little wronged. But with Zhang Ling's identity, Zhao Yu couldn't compete with her at all.

Zhao Yu already liked Chen Xu in his heart, but for various reasons, he got married the year before last. For this woman, Chen Xu also has a great affection in his heart.

Coupled with Zhao Yun's command of all the cavalry of the Yellow Turban Army, his identity is more sensitive. Although Chen Xu can definitely trust Zhao Yun, others will not think so.

Even Tian Feng and Cheng Yu once secretly advised Chen Xu, saying that the cavalry was the trump card army of the Yellow Turban Army, and it must be managed by cronies.

This cronies do not refer to those trustworthy subordinates, but to Chen Xu's own people.

Since ancient times, the Chinese people's clan concept has been very deep. Especially in this day and age, maybe everyone will betray you, but your clan will not betray you.

If people of the same clan betray their relatives, then they will be reviled by the world. The family is an existence that all scholars cannot abandon.

Even like Zhuge Liang's family in the future, the three of them defected to the three groups of Wei, Shu and Wu respectively. Their original intention is also for the continuation of the family.

Not only the Zhuge family, but also many other families. Their concept is not to put all their eggs in one basket.

Only by casting a wide net can you catch big fish.

The children of the family are scattered and defect to the princes, as long as one of the princes they defect to can succeed, then the inheritance of the family will not be broken.

On the contrary, the families of those princes, except for the two wonderful ones Yuan Shao and Yuan Shu, the rest of the princes' relatives are doing their best to assist the princes.

And Cao Cao is the best illustration.

Whether it is Cao Ren, Cao Hong, or Xiahou Tang and Xiahou Yuan, they are all Cao Cao's relatives.

The historical Cao group, their ace cavalry, the Tiger and Leopard Cavalry, was also handed over to the generals surnamed Cao.

Although Zhao Yun has Chen Xu's trust, he is not Chen Xu's relative after all. However, the cavalry under his command was equivalent to one-third of the combat power of the Yellow Turban Army.

With such a powerful power, if it weren't for Chen Xu's coming from the next generation, he wouldn't dare to hand it over to outsiders casually.

It is true that it is better to hand over the trump card in the hands to the commander of the kinship. But no one in Chen Xu's own clan has this talent to command this cavalry.

Chen Hu is more than fierce and lacks resourcefulness; Chen Qing is enough to defend the city, but he can't be enterprising; As for Chen Jing, it's okay to get some intrigues and tricks, but leading troops to fight is not what he is good at.

Compared with those big families, the strength of the Chen Xu family is still too weak, and there are not many talents who can take charge of themselves.

In fact, not only Chen Xu's own clan, but also all the cottage generals of the Yellow Turban Army, no one is more suitable than Zhao Yun to become the commander of this cavalry.

Tian Feng and Cheng Yu's talent for knowing people is no worse than Chen Xu.

They also believed that Zhao Yun was the most suitable to command this cavalry. So after discussion, the two offered Chen Xu a plan, that is, marriage.

Marriage, this is something that has existed since ancient times.

Perhaps the marriages between the princes, the women who were married, were just tools for the two sides to trade. But for a person like Zhao Yun who was born poor, there are only two relatives in his family.

In addition, he attaches great importance to love and righteousness, so for him, these two relatives are everything to him.

If Chen Xu married Zhao Yun's sister, then it would be reasonable to let Zhao Yun command the only cavalry of the Yellow Turban Army.

Chen Xu and Zhao Yu already had a hazy good impression between them, and the marriage between the two was imperative, so the two sides hit it off.

According to Zhao Yun's character, he will never sacrifice his sister's happiness for his own future.

But he also knew that his sister had already had his own husband in his heart. So in the face of Chen Xu's proposal, he had no reason to refuse.

In this way, Chen Xu married Zhao Yu.

In the face of Chen Xu's concubine, Zhang Ling was not the slightest dissatisfied, but after marriage, the relationship with Zhao Yu became closer. The two are often tired of being together and inseparable.

If it weren't for Chen Xu's knowledge of the two, he would still think that they were a pair of lilies.

Chen Xu teased the three children, and occasionally looked in the direction of Zhang Ling and Zhao Yu. Every time he saw the two of them smiling like flowers, a trace of warmth flashed in his eyes.

Although the Yellow Turban Army did not fight in the past three years, Chen Xu did not have an easy time.

In the past few years, the number of people under the rule of the Yellow Turban Army has exceeded one million. In the face of such a huge population, although Taihang Mountain is vast, it is also very difficult to raise.

Not to mention feeding these people, he was also busy with the rest of the affairs.

With the increase in the number of people in the Yellow Turban Army, the expansion of the army is inevitable. Today, the Yellow Turban Army has 80,000 regular foot soldiers.

This does not include the 10,000 cavalry under Zhao Yun's tent and the 1,500 soldiers trained by Gao Shun.

Although Gao Shun's trapped camp was only 1,500, the money and food that Chen Xu spent on them was greater than the consumption of ordinary 10,000 foot soldiers.

The consumption of so many people's army is completely dependent on the Taihang Mountain, which is eight hundred miles away, but it is a little stretched.

Many times, Chen Xu had the intention of leading troops down the mountain to plunder. But for the sake of his future plans and the reputation of the Yellow Turban Army, he had to grit his teeth and work hard to support him.

Rao is like this, those people who came to defect to the Yellow Turban Army, Chen Xu also did not refuse. Because Chen Xu knew that every time he recruited a citizen now, the Yellow Turban Army would be stronger in the future.

At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, after the Yellow Turban Uprising, the population of the Han Dynasty was less than 50 million. This number seems like a lot, but it is divided equally among the thirteen states of Dahan, and each state is less than four million.

In addition, the population of Dahan is very uneven, so the population of large and sparsely populated states like Youzhou, Bingzhou, and Liangzhou may be less than two million.

War will cause the population of the entire country to be reduced on a large scale. After the chaos of the princes, after the Battle of Chibi in 208 AD, the population of the country was 1.4 million, and in 221 AD the population dropped to 900,000, with a loss of 98. 3%。

The above data are only for the recorded population. After the war began, it was inevitable that many people would hide in the mountains and not be counted in the household registration.

Rao is so, this record of the country's population of 900,000 after the war still makes people feel creepy.

The princes of the three kingdoms fought in a melee, and in the end, the source of troops became a problem. The cultivation and recuperation of the three kingdoms of Wei, Shu, and Wu are not without this reason.

So now, Chen Xu has to do his best to try to collect more displaced people. Not only for his future plans, but also to preserve a trace of vitality for this nation.

In order to feed more people, either open source or throttle.

As for open source, now the entire Taihang Mountain has almost been developed by the Yellow Turban Army. Unless Chen Xu now takes everyone down the mountain to capture the land of the Han family. Otherwise, this path simply won't work.

In addition, only the road of Jieyuan remains. The so-called resource saving does not simply refer to saving materials, but also saving manpower.

Saving materials and prohibiting waste is very easy to understand. But how can we explain the saving of manpower?

As far as Chen Xu is concerned, although he is the supreme commander of the Yellow Turban Army, he does not have a servant at home. Even wearing dirty clothes requires Zhang Ling and Zhao Yu to wash them personally.

In this way, you can save manpower and let the rest of the people do everything else.

During the years that the Yellow Turbans stayed in the mountains, they often traded with the people below. Due to the strength of the Yellow Turban Army, the local officials did not dare to prohibit the common people from trading with them.

Under the guidance of Chen Xu, the Yellow Turban Army made a lot of chairs for later generations, sold them at the bottom of the mountain, and also made a lot of money.

It can be said that although there is a large population in the cottage of the Yellow Turban Army, few people can be idle.

When the farm is busy, you have to farm the land, and when you are not busy, you have to raise livestock, weave clothes and armor, make ordnance, and even make goods that can be taken out and sold.

It can be said that the Yellow Turban Army is completely like a tight machine, running all the time.

It is precisely in this way that the Yellow Turban Army can feed more than one million people with the mere 800-mile Taihang Mountain Range.

Chen Xu was thinking about the problem when he suddenly felt a little damp in his hands. He lowered his head, only to find that Chen Ting, who was holding it in his right hand, actually peed on him.

Seeing the child peeing on himself again, Chen Xu smiled bitterly. Having a child is very warm, but it often gets the smell of urine.

Although Chen Xu is a person who loves cleanliness, as a father, he will never dislike his children.

Rao is like this, he still took the three children hanging on him, came to Zhang Ling and Zhao Yu, and said, "The child peed on me again." ”

Seeing Chen Xu's bitter face, the two girls couldn't help but cover their mouths and snicker.

As soon as the child was handed over to them, a personal soldier came to report, saying that the two military advisors had come to the mansion together and were waiting for Chen Xu to go out.

Chen Xu didn't dare to slack off, and after washing his hands, he tidied up his clothes and hurriedly went out to meet the two.

Because he knew that Tian Feng and Cheng Yu were very busy every day, and if they hadn't encountered a major event, they would never have come to look for him together.

As soon as Chen Xu walked out, Tian Feng hurriedly got up, and he didn't care about the etiquette, and said directly and loudly: "Lord, the Son of Heaven has gone away with a crane!" ”