Zhang Cong chewed the uncooked rice and murmured, almost crying.
Although Zhang Cong is already the big boss, he can at least ensure that he and his family are not hungry, but every day he cooks fish porridge with fish, shrimps and wild vegetables. He is reluctant to put in a few grains of salt the size of a pinhole, leaving a mouth full of fish.
There's nothing delicious about the fishy smell?
Furthermore, I have been short of salt and taste for a long time. I have no strength in my body, and my hands and feet are extremely swollen. Now I grab a small handful of brown rice and stuff it into my mouth to chew, and dip my fingers into the salt particles to suck. I feel that there is nothing better than this in the world.
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"Everyone says that Jinghu rice is good. After traveling south for more than four years, I occasionally ate some moldy and rotten rice and thought it was delicious. Only then did I really taste Jinghu good rice. It really lives up to its reputation..." Jiang Xiong, who is over 40 years old, now
Shi smiled like a child and praised the delicious brown rice.
In the night, with the light of torches, Zhang Cong, Jiang Xiong and others were so excited as they watched bags of brown rice being unloaded from the boat and carried into the warehouse in the village overnight.
One thousand bags of brown rice, with a frugal diet, is enough to feed all the young and old in the village for three or four months; the salt particles that have not been seen for more than half a year are more dazzling than the white snowflakes.
Eyes - As the government blockade becomes increasingly strict, Dongting Lake, which originally did not produce salt brine, basically cannot even sell private salt. Occasionally, a little leaks in, and the price is astronomical.
Although we tried our best to use the cover of night, it was impossible to completely avoid leaking any news. Especially when we led hundreds of elites to unload so many supplies from the ship and move them into the warehouse, how could we hide it from everyone except a few big bosses?
eyes and ears?
However, Dongzhou Village has been secretly trading with merchants from Jingbei through Changlin Town to transport salt and grain into the village. This is a secret known to ordinary villagers.
Even after the Dongjing Allied Forces uprising, Hualing County and even the Jingzhou Government Office were not completely unaware of this kind of trading channel. It was just that the interests involved were too great, and merchants selling supplies had bought through many checkpoints, and there was no way to ban it.
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It was after Liu Xian was dismissed from his post that the central government adjusted the military structure of Jinghu North Road, centralized the training, mobilization, and conscription of state soldiers into the Military and Horse Supervision Department, decoupling it from the state and county government offices, and the blockade gradually became stricter.
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However, when they saw bags of rice and salt being transported into the village, the ordinary villagers didn't think much about it. They thought that after Jiang Ang escaped and returned, he bribed the officials in Hualing County and re-established the alliance in Changlin Town.
This is a secret trading channel.
The soldiers, armor, and equipment were mixed in the grain bags and transported into the warehouse under the cover of night. Jiang Ang claimed in the village that these soldiers, armor, and equipment had been stored in Dongzhou Village for a long time. There were not many ordinary villagers.
think?
In this world, most people are numb and confused. In the eyes of the villagers, the only thing they can see is the joy of finally having a full meal and no longer having to worry about starving to death at any time.
Of course, Dongzhou Village must take all possible measures to avoid suspicion from others.
At the same time, Chushan also requested that Dongzhou Village undergo a more thorough reorganization, rather than maintaining the old tradition of copycat villages, which were in a mess and had no room for improvement in combat effectiveness.
Dongzhou Village will be transformed into a camp this time, with the original Dongzhou Village as the main camp.
On the basis of the five fishing villages in the Linjiang area, a large-scale village that can accommodate more than a thousand people was expanded to serve as five branch camps under the general camp, with Jiang Xiong, Zhang Cong and others as camp commanders.
In the future, relying on these five forts, dozens of new forts will be continuously expanded to ensure the ability to continuously absorb new refugees and rebel forces. At the same time, it is necessary to add small camps and set up capitals on the basis of separate camps.
The village is in charge.
From the main camp to the small camps, all the population will be organized into camp households following the military household system or the military household system.
In addition to participating in daily work such as building and cultivating the fort, all young and strong men must participate in drills every three to five days. They will also be responsible for the basic defense and public security of the fort on a daily basis.
The main camp will draw strong men from the camp in a certain proportion according to the needs, and serve as standing troops to conduct more rigorous infantry warfare and water warfare drills. It will be responsible for the peripheral defense of the main camp and the branch camps, as well as daily operations.
In addition to Jiang Ang serving as military commander in the general camp, taking charge of military and political affairs, Zhao Shan served as military assistant to Jiang Ang; Jiang Xiong, Zhang Cong and others as battalion commanders were mainly responsible for the fishing, construction and training of each branch camp on a daily basis.
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Under normal circumstances, they would no longer directly lead the troops in battle, but would select brave and resolute disciples to serve as generals in the main camp with Liu Fujin and others.
Six to seven thousand old, weak, women and children are either destitute farmers in the surrounding villages who have been exploited and unable to make a living, or they are hungry people and refugees who have traveled all the way south from Hehuai and other places to escape the war. Their deep-rooted ideas are still innately thinking.
Farm the land to make a living, instead of rebelling with swords and guns.
After Jiang Ang announced the large-scale construction of a village and the reclamation of wasteland in the Linjiang area south of Bailu Lake, the villagers were also excited.
After organizing the camps, less than a thousand people were left in the main camp. The remaining more than 6,000 men, women, and children took boats across Bailu Lake and entered the Linjiang area on the south bank, taking over the area where only thirty or fifty fishermen had settled.
In the fishing village, the vigorous construction of the village began.
The core area of the Dongjing Alliance Army is in the West Dongting Lake south of the Jingjiang River.
Last year, the Dongjing Allied Forces launched an offensive in the area north of Jingjiang River, mainly focusing on Mianyang, Hanyang, Jingling and other places.
Bailu Lake is only 40 to 50 miles away from the important town of Zhijiang and Xiacheng in Jingzhou. It is actually located on the western edge of the area controlled by the coalition forces on the north bank of Jingjiang River, and is extremely vulnerable to threats from the Jingzhou garrison.
Therefore, when Jiang Ang's life and death were unknown, Chishan Village was instructed by Tiansheng General Sun Yanzhou to take over Dongzhou Village. Hu Dangzhou immediately thought of taking over the young men and women of Dongzhou Village instead of sending troops to Dongzhou Village.
Zhouzhai.
In addition to the fact that Dongzhou Village was easy to be ignored by the Dongjing Allied Forces due to its terrain, the already weak Dongzhou Village suffered such heavy losses this time. Jiang Ang had no intention of charging forward again in a short time, and further weakened the Dongjing Allied Forces.
Be marginalized or treated as insignificant.
Dongzhou Village entered the Linjiang area and started large-scale reclamation. The Dongjing Alliance Army would only think that after losing a large number of young and strong men, Dongzhou Village had to take risks as a last resort.
Of course, Jiang Ang also sent people to Tiansheng Island to express his intentions in this regard.
In the early days, Jiang Ang, in addition to lack of supplies and harsh terrain, was mainly due to the fact that the Jingzhou garrison coveted one side, so he tightly concentrated the population of nearly tens of thousands on Dongzhou Island and two nearby small sandbanks, and did not dare to organize troops to enter.
Reclamation in Linjiang area.
At this time, all scruples were put aside, and six to seven thousand men, women, and children from Dongzhou Village entered the Linjiang area and the situation was completely different.
In the past, there were not enough fishing boats in the tight sandbanks, and the fishing of fish and shrimps on the coastal beaches was extremely limited. Now, just fishing for fish and shrimps, the harvest is far better than in the past; after the spring, the flowers will bloom, and the white dew will come.
In the Linjiang area twenty to thirty miles south of the lake, wild vegetables and reeds grow, which is far from comparable to that of Dongzhou Island, which is crowded with villagers.
Shacks were built next to the fishing village, and hundreds of men, women, and children built embankments outside the fishing village to first ensure that the settlement would not be destroyed by floods during the coming flood season.
Building embankments along the south bank of Bailu Lake and the north bank of Jingjiang River is an extremely large project, and there are currently not enough people and resources to implement it. However, the reclamation of grain fields near the settlements has not been stopped.
In the early stages of reclamation, the land reclamation model mainly adopted the Duo Tian model in the Jianghuai area.
In the final analysis, the Duotian model is to dig deep network trenches in low-lying areas along lakes and rivers, or to dig deep into natural streams and rivers, and to pile up soil to form high fields divided into river networks for planting.
food.
The high fields are distributed among the river network like haystacks, hence the name Duotian.
Naturally, the efficiency of reclaiming Duo Tian is not high, and it consumes a lot of manpower and material resources. The area of each Duo Tian is not large, but fortunately, one can be planted after one is reclaimed. Before the large-scale embankment is built, there is no threat of floods in the flood season.
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At the same time, the network of deep ditches also greatly increases the density of streams and rivers between Bailu Lake and Jingjiang River, forming a natural barrier for the Linjiang Village.
Although Sun Yanzhou united with the thirty-six forces to create such a huge storm, which almost swept all the prefectures and counties along Dongting Lake and Jingjiang River, and millions of people dragged their families and families to join the Dongjing Alliance Army, the momentum was unprecedented, but there are still some.
Many refugee forces are outside the Dongjing Alliance Army, or they are just on the fringes of the Dongjing Alliance Army.
Bailu Lake is located on the edge of the area controlled by the Dongjing Alliance Army. In the southern Linjiang area, there are many small groups of refugees who have left the Dongjing Alliance Army.
Since Dongzhou Village has aggressively entered the Linjiang area to build forts and open up grain fields, it is natural that these refugee forces should be accommodated - those who are willing to be absorbed into Dongzhou Village will be incorporated into various branch camps without discrimination.
Those who still want to remain independent and do not want to bear the name of rebellion can borrow some grain, salt and reclamation equipment to help them take root in the Linjiang area.
In short, there is a radius of 20 to 30 miles to the south of Bailu Lake. As long as the embankment can be successfully built, it will not be a problem to eventually accommodate 30,000 to 40,000 people to live and breed here. At the same time, outside Bailu Lake, there is a wider beach.
, have all been reduced to white ground at this time.
After absorbing more than a dozen small refugee forces, the population of Dongzhou Village quickly exceeded 10,000. More importantly, the absorption of small refugee forces greatly made up for the loss of young people in Dongzhou Village due to the defeat.
There is a shortage of men.
Of course, Han Gui, Fan Zongqi and others also deliberately allowed Dongzhou Village to send people to sneak into Nancai, and "secretly" organized more than 900 prisoners of war in Dongzhou Village to escape from custody and escape back to Bailu Lake...
Among these prisoners of war, the Military Intelligence Department no longer had to deliberately insert secret cells into them, but they had all been carefully screened. The habitual criminals were either secretly executed or escorted to the mines in Tongbai Mountain to serve as hard labor.
When conducting self-organized management of prisoners of war in the previous two months, the Military Intelligence Department had intended to force the prisoners of war from the Hehuai area to flee their homes and move south. They had deep feelings and hatred for the trampling of the Red Husbands, and even had geographical conflicts with Zhao Shan and Liu Fujin.
Bloody brave young men with similar ancestry were selected to lead the prisoner-of-war teams to engage in various labors in Nancai...
This is also the composition of the middle and lower-level military officers and generals who quietly control the future of Dongzhou Village, and secretly use the natural close relationship between their ancestral home and villagers to make them the supporting force for Zhao Shan and Liu Fujin within Dongzhou Village.
Entering May, the Jingjiang River and Dongting Lake basins have once again entered the flood season of the new year. Dongzhou Village has built six medium-sized villages in the south of Bailu Lake that can accommodate a population of more than a thousand people, and more than 30 villages that can accommodate three to five people.
Hundreds of people live in small villages, including more than 20,000 acres of farmland and high-terrain beach land. The village population has also quietly expanded to nearly 20,000 people, with more than 5,000 young and strong men. Simply based on the population and young and strong men,
The number of men has more than doubled compared to the previous peak period of Dongzhou Village.
In addition to the more than fifty awning boats secretly supported by Chushan, Dongzhou Village also built hundreds of fishing boats.
The emergency construction of small fishing boats does not require so much attention. The wood does not undergo particularly complicated processing. Basically, it is cut down and used.
As for whether there will be permanent water leakage, I really can’t pay too much attention to it at this time.
The reclamation of grain fields is limited, and the grain transported from the Huaze River and Changlin River can only be used as supplementary rations, and some even need to be reserved to cope with the winter famine. At this stage, Dongzhou Village is mainly focused on expanding fishing output to make up for the grain gap.
