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After witnessing Fei Qian's arithmetic skills, the stationmaster became much more respectful and stopped trying to pull any tricks. He respectfully had someone lead Fei Qian to his room to rest.
Fei Qian washed up casually and lay down on the bed, tossing and turning, unable to sleep.
The issues raised by the old farmer during the day still troubled him. The low agricultural yield of the Han Dynasty was a significant problem. How could such productivity support the needs of the military? The scarcity of vegetable oil and the rarity of animal fat meant that people relied almost entirely on carbohydrates for their daily energy needs. This created a huge demand for grain, and even with two meals a day, maintaining a standing army would require an enormous amount of resources.
For example, the cost of today's meal was relatively high, but by next spring, when supplies were low, the price would be similar. If a disaster struck, the price would double again. The expenses would be staggering...
And this was just for food. There were also weapons, armor, arrows, and other consumables, as well as the monthly pay for each soldier...
The cost of maintaining an army was beyond description, like water flowing endlessly...
During the Three Kingdoms period, how many armies were constantly at war? Starting from next year until the end when Sima took over, there were at least thirty years of continuous fighting...
During this time, not only soldiers died, but countless innocent civilians as well...
Take Cao Cao's actions in Xuzhou, for example. How many innocent people did he kill? Two hundred thousand? Three hundred thousand? How much farmland was left barren?
Coupled with the abnormal weather and frequent natural disasters in the late Eastern Han Dynasty...
Fei Qian felt a chill run through him and found it impossible to sleep. He got up, dressed, and went out for a walk.
Not far from his room, he ran into Zhang Zhao and asked, "Sergeant Zhang, why aren't you asleep yet?"
Zhang Zhao replied, "It's a habit from the army. I always do a night patrol. But why aren't you asleep, Master Fei? Did I disturb you?"
Fei Qian shook his head, "I'm just feeling a bit troubled and couldn't sleep, so I came out for a walk." He then urged Zhang Zhao to go rest, but Zhang Zhao insisted on accompanying him, concerned for Fei Qian's safety.
Unable to refuse, Fei Qian let Zhang Zhao follow him to the main hall of the relay station. He gave a few coins to the night watchman to boil some water.
Zhang Zhao watched the watchman happily scurry off to boil water and muttered under his breath, "Always after money..."
Fei Qian smiled and invited Zhang Zhao to sit with him.
At first, Zhang Zhao hesitated, saying he would stand, but after Fei Qian insisted, he finally sat down.
Fei Qian asked, "By the way, Sergeant Zhang, how much is your monthly pay?"
"My monthly pay?" Zhang Zhao was puzzled by the question but answered honestly, "Now I get 450 coins a month! Thanks to Captain Zhang's promotion, before that, it was less than a hundred..."
Talking about a raise, whether in ancient times or modern times, always brings joy...
Fei Qian nodded, doing some quick calculations in his head. Maintaining an army was indeed a money-devouring beast...
"Is the military pay always distributed on time?" Fei Qian asked again.
Zhang Zhao smiled, "Yes! Thanks to Captain Zhang, who recently caught two corrupt clerks. Otherwise, we wouldn't even know where our money went."
"Sergeant Zhang, what do you think about being a soldier?"
Zhang Zhao looked up, seemingly recalling something, then said, "It's not bad, at least it's a way to make a living..."
At that moment, the watchman brought the boiled water and poured a cup for Fei Qian and Zhang Zhao before retreating to a corner to doze off.
Zhang Zhao gestured slightly toward the watchman and continued, "...Like him, it's just about making ends meet. Usually, there's not much left at the end of the year..."
Once the conversation started, it wasn't easy to stop. Zhang Zhao continued, "That year when the Xianbei invaded, many people, including Captain Zhang, lost their homes... So when Captain Zhang decided to join the army to fight the Xianbei and seek revenge, a few of us followed him..."
"What about the Xianbei? I mean, how is it fighting them? Who wins?"
Zhang Zhao's face showed disdain when talking about the Xianbei, "Those barbarians rely on their fast horses. But if they dismount, I can take on at least three of them..."
"So the Xianbei aren't fierce?"
"They are fierce, but their weapons are inferior," Zhang Zhao patted the ring-pommel sword at his side, "Our swords are better, sharper. One slash and they're down. Their swords are no match. Their bows are decent, but in close combat, the Xianbei are no match. The problem is they keep running away..."
Although Zhang Zhao's explanation was a bit muddled, Fei Qian understood. The Xianbei of this era hadn't reached the level of the later Mongols or Manchus. They were still in the early stages of a nomadic society, while the Han Dynasty's metallurgical technology far surpassed that of the nomads.
The nomadic tribes' tactics against Han soldiers were hit-and-run, relying on their horses' mobility to harass until they found an opening to swarm in.
No wonder the White Horse Cavalry had the northern nomads crying for mercy. With similar mobility and superior equipment, the nomads couldn't win in a direct fight and couldn't easily escape either...
So warhorses were crucial, but they were also a scarce resource.
"Sergeant Zhang, do you know how much it costs to maintain your horse each month?"
"That's a lot," Zhang Zhao said with pride, "My horse is a northern breed. It's not fast, but it has good endurance. It can manage with poorer feed, but not too poor, or it'll lose condition... If I used my monthly pay to feed it, it would probably take most of it, leaving little else..."
Fei Qian calculated that maintaining one warhorse would cost as much as feeding three to four ordinary soldiers...
He sighed inwardly. How did later generations think it was so easy to raise thousands or tens of thousands of cavalry? Where would all those warhorses come from? And how could they afford to feed them? Did they think they could sustain them with just words?
Thinking about this, Fei Qian felt even more sorrow for the innocent civilians who died in the wars. Why were they so easily slaughtered? If the people rebelled and became bandits, like in the Yellow Turban Rebellion, there might be some justification for killing them. But why kill those who clearly wouldn't resist?
To establish authority?
To plunder wealth?
To completely crush the enemy?
Or was it that humanity had degenerated to the point of only knowing how to kill?
Even the nomads knew to capture some people instead of killing them all. Were they worse than the nomads?
Fei Qian truly didn't understand. He only felt deep regret. Now that he was living in the Han Dynasty, he realized that the later chaos of the Five Barbarians wasn't due to the barbarians' strength, but because the Han people had been tearing each other apart for so long, leaving the nation weak and vulnerable to nomadic invasions...
*****
A/N: The Three Kingdoms period was filled with too much bloodshed... People were always harsh when fighting their own.