Chapter 652 - Chapter 652: Chapter 297 The Troops Set Out for Xichuan

Chapter 652: Chapter 297 The Troops Set Out for Xichuan

On the third day of the sixth month in the sixth year of Shenwu, Lu Yuan led his army to Yuzhong Prefecture, Xichuan County.

Upon his arrival, he did not immediately wage war but first examined the internal affairs of Xichuan County.

After several years of development, especially after the rare post-war peace, a new wave of newborns emerged in all parts of the Chu State, including Xichuan County.

In the ninth year of Front Yue Hongdao, when it was still Changsha State, Lu Yuan conducted a national census.

At that time, Xichuan County had a population of 160,000 households, amounting to 830,000 citizens.

In the years since, the number of households has not grown significantly and remains at 160,000. However, the population has increased to 880,000, most of whom are newborns.

This rapid population growth is still ongoing and if it continues, the present population of the three counties in Xichuan County will exceed a million in a maximum of just fifteen years.

Lu Yuan was quite pleased about this.

For the Chu State, expanding new territories was significant, but increasing the population was even more crucial.

Because when a new territory is developed, the amount of Qi Luck it can gain is finite and is given once, then it will not increase any further.

However, the population of the territory can also generate Qi Luck.

And the more the population, the more Qi Luck is generated.

In Xichuan County today, newborns keep being born, and the population is growing rapidly.

In the future, as these newborns grow up or even from the moment they are born, they have provided Qi Luck to the Chu State.

Once they grew up, they would provide even more Qi Luck. Moreover, these newborns, when they grow up, could also continue to reproduce.

As such, the Qi Luck will continue to grow incessantly.

In the foreseeable future, Lu Yuan will gain more Qi Luck, and the spiritual energy that he can manipulate with this Qi Luck will also increase.

In this Age of Dharma Decline, in the competition for spiritual energy, he has already secured a firm share for himself and is rapidly expanding it.

After examining the natural population growth in Xichuan County, Lu Yuan turned his attention to another population report.

Since last June, when the Nanzhao Army launched surprise attacks on the Xichuan State, the locals had been continuously escaping to surrounding areas.

They had few choices for the direction of their escape, only Zhou Country to the north or Chu State to the east were viable choices.

Among these two options, the Chu State was the most attractive one.

Because Hanzhong Country was weak, and compared to their Xichuan Country, it did not have any advantage.

The Xichuan Country was already broken through by the enemy. Hanzhong country also had to deal with Zhou Country to its north, so it could be imagined how intense the pressure would be.

Many of the refugees who had substantial resources, like the gentry, landlords, or people from the Jianghu, knew that fleeing to Hanzhong Country would only result in a grim future.

Fleeing to Hanzhong Country might bring temporary peace, but it would be just as dangerous when Zhou Country would invade the south or when the Nanzhao Army pursued.

But it was different for the Chu State.

The Chu State was a powerful nation that owned four counties and hundreds of thousands of soldiers, specifically a large army of over a hundred thousand stationed in Xichuan County.

Escaping to such a place would provide far better safety and future prospects than Hanzhong Country.

Being a citizen of a powerful nation was always better than being a citizen of a small nation.

So how to choose, many people already knew in their hearts.

During the time when the Nanzhao Army was running rampant, any refugee who had the means chose to flee to the Chu Country.

In the latter half of the fifth year of Shenwu alone, the Chu State received nearly 100,000 citizens from Xichuan State.

When it came to this year, as the atrocities of the Nanzhao Army escalated, the number of refugees increased even more.

Just in the first two months of this year, Xichuan County received over 70,000 refugees.

However, starting from the third month, the Nanzhao Army noticed the mass exodus from Xichuan County.

Therefore, they began to set up checkpoints on the routes leading to Xichuan County, trying to intercept and block the escaping citizens.

After a few months of blockade, a large number of citizens were intercepted, with a considerable portion being cruelly killed.

But the number of the Nanzhao Army was limited after all, and they could not possibly block all the three counties adjacent to Xichuan State.

So, over the past few months, more than 50,000 citizens of Xichuan managed to escape to Xichuan County.

Since the beginning of this year, when the strategy of Western Expedition to repel the Nanzhao Army was established, Lu Yuan had already planned to reclaim Xichuan.

Xichuan held a territory of half a county and five prefectures, covering an area of 2,400 li, not a small piece of land.

Now such a large piece of territory had suffered heavy population loss due to the disaster brought by the Nanzh