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Chapter 695: The Tragic Three Kingdoms at the End of the Han Dynasty

I would rather be a peace dog than a troubled person.

This sentence is indeed very appropriate for the late Eastern Han Dynasty. In this era, the fate of most of the lower-class people was either starvation or death from disease.

Before the Yellow Turban Rebellion, the Han Dynasty had a population of about 5600 million. By the time the Western Jin Dynasty was established, the world's population had dropped sharply to more than 1600 million, a decrease of tens of millions.

The main reason for the huge population decline, apart from war, is various natural disasters and plagues.

The period of the late Han Dynasty and the Three Kingdoms was also one of the two Little Ice Ages in Chinese history.

According to historical records, in just the hundred years from Emperor An of Han to Emperor Anxian of Han, the Han Dynasty experienced 34 floods, 35 droughts, 19 locust plagues, and frequent earthquakes, with natural disasters occurring almost every year.

In addition, the court was politically corrupt, with the eunuch group and the external relatives group fighting endlessly. The literati in the court were scheming for their own and their family's interests, and no one cared about the lives of ordinary people.

In addition to various droughts, floods, and locust plagues, plagues were also frequent. From 169 to 182, in just 5 years, the Han Dynasty experienced five major plagues, causing countless deaths and injuries to the people.

Most of the famous Seven Sages of the Jian'an Period in history books also died of plague.

The defeat of Cao Cao in the Battle of Red Cliff was also related to the plague. Even the family of the famous medical saint Zhang Zhongjing saw more than half of the 10 people in the family reduced by within 200 years due to the plague.

It was because of this that Zhang Zhongjing became more determined to study medicine and wrote "Treatise on Febrile and Miscellaneous Diseases".

Of course, years of war have also exacerbated various natural disasters.

Later, Li Que and Guo Si caused chaos in Chang'an and looted all the food in Chang'an, causing the people of Chang'an to suffer from hunger and eventually resort to cannibalism. In just two years, there were only a few people left in Chang'an.

Even Cao Cao was not immune to food shortages. During one of Cao Cao's expeditions, due to a lack of military rations, Cao Cao's adviser Cheng Yu led his troops to plunder his hometown Dong'a and brought back enough military rations for Cao Cao. Of course, some dried human meat was also mixed in with the military rations.

Not only that, even Emperor Xian of Han could not avoid hunger.

For this reason, the great Confucian scholar Kong Rong even published a theory on cannibalism: "Three people walk together, two are smart and talented, and one is an inferior. In a famine year, if there is no food, saying that the inferior is the one to be eaten is like steaming an orangutan or boiling a parrot."

What it means is that there are three people walking together, two of them are smart and one is relatively stupid. The smart one eats the stupid one, just like eating a gorilla or a parrot.

From this we can see what a purgatory the world was like when various natural disasters broke out in the later period.

Therefore, although the late Han Dynasty and the Three Kingdoms was a romantic era with many heroes, for ordinary people, it was definitely a desperate era.

It is for this reason that Lu Cheng, who is familiar with the historical process and understands the future situation, has been actively preparing for farming and storing grain, building water conservancy projects, strengthening basic medical construction, and stockpiling various food, medicines and other supplies to deal with natural disasters.

After occupying Qingzhou, Lu Cheng ruled over four states, namely Qing, Ji, You and Bing, with a population of over 10 million. There were also two major grain-producing states, Qingzhou and Jizhou. However, Lu Cheng still did not dare to slack off and always put grain reserves first.

Even his advisers were puzzled by how much importance Lu Cheng attached to food.

However, Lu Cheng did not explain too much. During the slack season, he asked the people to build various water conservancy facilities to resist drought and flood, build granaries for long-term storage of grain, improve the city's drainage and sewage system, and strengthen the study of various health and epidemic prevention knowledge.

Nowadays, all the cities under Lu Cheng's rule have clean streets, neat streets and orderly streets. There are a certain number of medical clinics in every city and every town. People usually have to boil drinking water and pay more attention to personal hygiene.

At the beginning, some policies encountered some resistance when they were implemented, but later, under the official's forced requirements, various measures were implemented, the incidence of diseases was indeed greatly reduced, and the sanitary conditions in both cities and villages were improved. The people accepted and began to support the various measures.

When the harvest season came, the people of the four states of Qing, Ji, You and Bing harvested a large amount of corn and sweet potatoes. They had a certain amount of food reserves at home, and they felt completely at ease.

Nowadays, for the common people, as long as they can still have food to eat and survive, who would be willing to embark on the road of rebellion and no return?

Seeing that all the grains of grain in the four states were harvested, Lu Cheng breathed a sigh of relief, and then turned his attention to the sowing of winter wheat in Qingzhou, Jizhou and other places.

Lu Cheng's attitude of attaching great importance to agriculture also infected his officials at all levels, making them pay more attention to farming.

Even military generals such as Zhao Yun and Zhang Liao personally led their troops to help the people harvest grain during the autumn harvest season.

Jizhou, Julu County, the office of the General who Conquers the North.

Lu Cheng sat at the desk, looking at the food reserves and medicine reserves reported from various places. He nodded with satisfaction, and then looked at Zhou Tai who was sitting below.

"Youping, how is the navy training going recently?"

"The navy now has 30,000 soldiers and horses, all of whom have completed training and are ready for battle."

Today, the Liaodong Navy has been fully developed, and those early small ships have been converted into fishing boats. A near-shore fishing team has been formed, specializing in catching various seafood and making various salted and dried fish, which are either supplied to the army, sold in the market, or stored as war reserve food.

Lu Cheng looked at Lu Su below him again: "Zijing, how is the cotton yield this year? How many seeds are left?"

"My Lord, the cotton production this year is not too great, but we have left enough seeds to plant more than 10,000 mu of cotton. Next year, we can plant it extensively in Qingzhou and Jizhou."

"We need to pay more attention to this. When cotton becomes more common, we can make cotton clothes and quilts for soldiers and civilians to keep warm."

In fact, cotton had already appeared in China during the Qin and Han dynasties, but at that time, cotton was usually grown as a flower.

In the Shanglin Garden of the Han Dynasty, various exotic flowers and plants were planted, including cotton.

Due to climatic reasons, there are not many places in Liaodong region suitable for growing cotton, and it has not been widely promoted before.

Now that we have occupied Qingzhou and Jizhou, we can promote it on a large scale.

It was now the second year of Chuping (191 AD). In the fifth year of Chuping (194 AD), a severe drought broke out in the Sanfu area. From April to July, there was almost no rain. All the crops died of drought. Then a severe locust plague broke out. People ate each other and bones piled up. It was a real natural disaster.

No matter how powerful Lu Cheng is, it is difficult to fight against natural disasters, and he can only make the best preparations.

At this time, in Chang'an City, a conspiracy against Dong Zhuo is unfolding. Dong Zhongying, who once dominated Xiliang, is about to usher in his own curtain call...