Compared to Edgehaven City, Lingshui City is much larger and far more prosperous.
Lingshui City's walls are over six meters high, with a moat nearly ten meters wide at the base. The city is backed and flanked by high mountains, so attackers can only assault from the front—making it an excellent base for development.
After holding a high-level meeting, Ian Song deployed troops to garrison the three county seats, leaving only eight thousand soldiers in the prefectural city.
But soon, after reviewing Lingshui Prefecture’s finances, Ian Song became troubled.
Currently, the Qi Kingdom has over 26,000 regular soldiers, around 10,000 auxiliary troops, plus several thousand laborers—totaling over 40,000 people.
All these troops need to be fed and paid.
But taxes in this era are extremely limited. Aside from the agricultural tax, only a few miscellaneous small taxes exist, so the prefecture’s revenue is very weak and cannot possibly support forty thousand troops. Years of war have left the common people impoverished—even the farm tax can barely be collected, let alone those miscellaneous taxes.
If I also absorb the thirty thousand troops brought by General Gu Min, relying on just Lingshui Prefecture to feed nearly a hundred thousand people—even doubling the taxes wouldn’t be enough.
So, I must find a way to quickly generate income; otherwise, if the soldiers go hungry, they’ll rebel before any foreign army attacks.
After a bit of thought, Ian Song came up with two ways to increase revenue.
First, develop commerce.
Second, war.
Developing commerce isn’t something that can be done overnight. Besides, commoners in this era struggle just to fill their bellies—where would they get spare money to buy goods? So, to develop commerce, I first have to make sure everyone is well-fed and can earn some money.
As for the second path, war can seize a lot of supplies, but it’s only a stopgap—expanding territory also increases consumption.
Thinking this over, Ian Song’s eyes lit up—why not just attack cities to grab supplies, without occupying territory?
With a plan in mind, Ian Song summoned Sean Song.
“How’s the progress on papermaking and movable-type printing?” Ian Song asked.
“Reporting, Grand General, according to your papermaking process, it should be ready in three to five days. As for movable-type printing, that’s already finished,” Sean replied truthfully.
“Good. Report to me as soon as the paper is made.” Ian nodded. He had written extremely detailed instructions for papermaking and movable-type printing, so anyone could follow them step by step.
The raw materials for papermaking are very simple, so since paper can be made in just a few days, it’s best to prepare the materials as soon as possible.
After Sean Song left, Ian called in Shen Du.
"How are the population census and farmland survey progressing?" Ian asked directly.
Shen Du replied, "Reporting to the Grand General, Lingshui Prefecture currently has a total of one hundred thousand households, and about 325,600 people."
"That few?" Ian frowned. A proper prefecture city with only a bit over three hundred thousand people—he thought even a regular county in the modern world would have more than that.
But then he remembered how primitive technology, poor sanitation, and constant wars plagued this era. For a prefecture to have over three hundred thousand people was actually pretty good.
"How much farmland do we have? What's the yield?" Ian continued.
"Reporting, General, Lingshui Prefecture has a total of one hundred thousand mu of farmland. The main crops grown by the commoners are millet, wheat, and soybeans. Millet yields about two hundred sheng per mu, wheat about two hundred twenty sheng, and soybeans eighty sheng per year."
One sheng equals 1.25 jin. Compared to the modern world, where a mu yields thousands of jin, these crop yields are pitifully low.
And the farm tax rate is fifty percent.
But even that fifty percent can only be collected in years of good weather. If disaster strikes, there's no way to collect it at all.
Next, he calculated the soldiers' consumption.
A single soldier eats one jin of millet per day, thirty jin a month, three hundred sixty jin a year. A hundred soldiers need thirty-six thousand jin, and ten thousand soldiers require 3.6 million jin of millet.
But Lingshui Prefecture's hundred thousand mu of farmland only produces about 2.5 million jin of millet. The government takes half, so that's 1.25 million jin. Add 1.385 million jin of wheat and 500,000 jin of soybeans, and the total is still less than three million jin.
In other words, Lingshui Prefecture's annual grain tax can't even feed ten thousand soldiers.
But now there were forty thousand mouths to feed, all relying on Ian. Only after doing the math did he realize how serious the problem was. If he really took in Gu Min's thirty thousand troops next, he'd have to start raiding cities for supplies, or else his soldiers would go hungry.
"By the way, how much grain is left in the city granaries?" Ian asked again.
"Less than a million sheng in total," Shen Du replied gravely.
"That little?" Ian's frown deepened. A million sheng of grain would only last his forty thousand troops at most a month.
After sending Shen Du off, Ian called in Victor Zhao to ask how much grain was left in the army.
The answer made Ian feel even more urgent—the army's remaining grain would only last seven days.