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Chapter 944: Chapter 394 War and Grain Trade_3 Chapter 944: Chapter 394 War and Grain Trade_3 In fact, to maintain that army of over a million, both countries had also mobilized quantities of civilian workers, about two to three times that amount, for the transport of military food and supplies to sustain the main camp at the front.

Each of the two countries had five million adult men engaged in the wars on the front lines of Henan and Nanyang, becoming pure consumption units, unable to engage in production.

With such a large-scale war and so many people not engaged in production, one can imagine the pressure on the local production units from the absence of so many in both countries.

Among them, Liang fared a bit better.

The battlefield was in Central State, close to Liang, making it convenient to transport grain and making the supply chain pressure relatively small.

Moreover, a population of eighty million was enough for them to sustain five million non-productive military units.

But it was difficult for Wei Country on the other hand.

Wei Country came from the north of Yan State, with the core of the country situated in Yan State, thousands of miles away from the front line.

You can imagine the difficulty and loss involved in transporting food, fodder, and military supplies from such a distant rear base to the front line.

And without transportation from the rear, the recently occupied land of Zhou Country couldn’t sustain the consumption of the main army at the front either.

Because ten years of prolonged warfare had already ravaged the heartlands of Zhou Country.

The prefectures of Shuofang, Guannei, Henan, and Nanyang, instead of providing food and fodder for the Wei army at the front, find themselves with millions of starving disaster victims awaitsing relief from Wei Country.

In the old territories of Zhou Country, including the front-line troops, there are a total of seven to eight million people relying on Wei Country for sustenance.

And that’s not all.

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In recent years, the impact of the cold wave from the north has been growing ever stronger.

The great cold that had always been circulating on the steppes has, in the past two years, closely approached the border between the northern territories of Yan State and the steppes.

Looking at this trend, perhaps in another three to five years, the legendary great cold that devours all life might descend upon the lands of Yan State.

Although the territory of Wei Country didn’t extend to the northern part of Yan State, those northern prefectures had already been taken over by the barbarians from the steppes.

Yet the advance of the great cold toward Yan State was still an extremely terrifying signal.

Because it meant that there might not be much time left before the cold wave completely inundates Yan State.

Perhaps in another twenty to thirty years, Yan State would follow in the steppes’ footsteps and be completely transformed into an icy Snow Country.

With such a terrifying disaster looming, how could Wei Country be at ease?

Even the barbarians who had migrated south were under the threat of the great cold and began to furiously assault the northern borders of Wei Country.

They were nearly sacrificing lives to break the blockade in the north and migrate southward with resolute determination.

Wei Country might have to wait twenty to thirty years before being devoured by the great cold.

But for those barbarians at the southern border of the steppes and the northern part of Yan State, they were already being consumed by the great cold!

To stay in the north meant death; breaking through to the south offered a glimmer of hope for survival.

The choice was no longer a matter of consideration.

Therefore, shrouded in grave crisis, even though Wei Country was well aware that it was not the right time, and its national strength could hardly support it, the country still had to press on with the project of migrating southward.

Now, every year, millions of people from the northern territories of Wei Country migrate southward from Yan State, settling in the two prefectures of Henan and Nanyang occupied by Wei Country to take root and sprout anew, to build and to produce.

And this was a huge expenditure of money and grain.

Moreover, this expense was quickly expanding each month as time passed.

Because the number of people migrating southward from Wei Country was also rapidly increasing every year.

The native population of Wei’s Yan State was over thirty million.

To migrate all these people to the territories of Yong State and Central State within twenty to thirty years was an immense project with an extremely tight schedule.

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To complete it within the specified time frame and evacuate before the onslaught of the cold wave was not going to be easy.

What made it more difficult was that Wei Country, with a population of fifty million, simply could not support the consumption level of ten million people.

It meant that Wei Country had to sustain ten million non-productive people with a population of forty million, which was an utterly desperate figure.

Wei alone could not sustain such tremendous consumption from both the war and migration.

If the opponent didn’t wish to starve their own army and people, they had no choice but to seek help from outside.

So, based on this need, that surplus of grain from Chu State, which they couldn’t consume every year, found an excellent outlet.

Even Liang had begun importing grain from Chu State in the past two years, and the scale of imports was rapidly increasing year by year.

The reason was simple.

Wei Country felt the threat of the great cold, and under the compulsion of this natural disaster, was desperate to migrate southward.

And Ji State, where Zhao Xu was located, and Xuzhou, where Xu State was situated, were at the same latitude as Wei Country, and to their north were also the familiar steppes and the barbarians of the Mysterious Snow Forest.

Affected by the cold disaster, the barbarians from these two territories also began to migrate on a large scale, with tens of millions moving southward.

This tremendous pressure naturally also forced Zhao Xu and Xu State to consider a southern breakthrough to seize Central State for settlement.

Therefore, in the past two years, the borders between Zhao Xu and Liang have started to experience small to medium-scale conflicts.

The Three Nations on the river border have been amassing more and more troops, with the potential for an accidental spark to ignite a conflict on the scale of the Wei-Liang wars in Henan and Nanyang at any moment.

Under such circumstances, Liang naturally faced enormous pressure.

For the security of the country, it had to strengthen its northern defenses and transport food, fodder, and supplies to the front lines by the big river.

At the same time, it ordered the recruitment of a million New Army troops within the country, who were being drilled and trained in the main camp in the rear as a reserve force for the three front lines.

To fight on three fronts at the same time, and with battles on each front involving a million troops, the rear had to mobilize millions of civilian workers for labor conscription.

Such great consumption naturally affected the production in the rear of Liang Country.

So to alleviate its own pressure on food and fodder, and also to accumulate more supplies,

Liang, like Wei, chose to buy grain and various supplies from Chu, an outsider, to support its own war consumption.

Thus, the annual surplus of food for over twenty million people in Chu State instantly found a destination.

The crisis of overproduction within Chu was quickly resolved with the strong demand from Liang and Wei.