The Central Plains aristocratic clans had truly gone all out this time, showing no concern for the cost.
"Yuan Hao." Wang Xuan turned to Tian Feng and asked in a deep voice, "Do we have the ability to take in these three million civilians?"
Tian Feng's expression stiffened. He was a man who cared about the common people, which truly made him a gentleman by any measure. All his life, he had upheld nothing more than benevolence, justice, propriety, wisdom, and trustworthiness. In his eyes, the famous scholars and hereditary nobles of the realm were all renowned throughout the land, and their reputations were those of gentlemen. Yet the actions of these hereditary Central Plains clans had completely shattered his worldview.
"We can't take them in!" Although Tian Feng very much wanted to settle these civilians and keep them from becoming refugees, he still refused to lie. "We have our own five-year plan. Although all our supplies have some surplus reserved for emergencies, something like this isn't included."
"We only have a population of fifteen million in total. Newly occupied Yizhou is vast but sparsely populated, with only a little over a million people. The newly occupied lands in Jingzhou haven't stabilized yet. We can currently control only a little over seventeen million people. How are we supposed to suddenly take in a sixth of that number, all of them completely without property?"
"Besides, there have been constant battles of all sizes over the past year. Farming in Guanzhong, Hanzhong, the Shu Region, and Jingzhou was all delayed. We're still consuming the old grain stored by the local aristocratic clans. Otherwise, we'd already be facing famine by now."
There was nothing wrong with what he said. Three million people might not seem like much, and it might appear that feeding