At the call of Liu Chengyun, Nanshan Fort guard Zhong Hu participated in the battle to assist Wang Wenxiu in defeating the Lintao border army. After that, he led his army back to Nanshan and devoted himself to the great cause of extensive planting and low harvest.
Because Nanshan Fort is the key to protecting Qinghai Lake, the defenders here are just like the border guards, and even worse than the border guards of the Ming Dynasty.
Since the opening of the market in the Ming Dynasty, border guards have always seen people, but Nanshan Fort is different. The permanent population is originally small.
Normally, there is a salt transport team out of Nanshan every month. Every few days, the camel team loaded with green salt passes through the pass and enters the Haixi Crossing, boarding the naval warships and transporting it to the north.
In addition, a Mongolian nomadic tribe only appears in winter and wanders away again in spring.
Guarding the border in a deserted place is inherently lonely.
Zhong Hu's soldiers were led by the captain to practice every day. They did small drills at the general level once every five days, and big drills at the thousand-level general level once every tenth. It was very hard.
But whether you think about it or not, the garrison guarding the pass will always become somewhat different from the field army. No one wants to be trapped in a mountain fortress every day.
So after training, these Shaanxi veterans raised funds and provided food, hired craftsmen from Haixi County to build a brick factory, and hired workers to build houses for them at the foot of the mountain.
After all, these people are rich and can easily hire craftsmen from Haixi County to help with their work.
Although there was no military pay in the Marshal's Mansion, between the fourth and fifth years of Chongzhen, Liu Chengyun was in charge and provided them with military rations, horses, food, and material rations that would be the envy of the officers and soldiers. On their own, they could basically support the officers.
What a military thing.
The monthly rations for ordinary soldiers in Nanshan Fort are divided into three parts, namely military rations, marching rations and family rations.
The military rations are eight pounds of white flour, eighteen pounds of yellow flour, twenty pounds of millet, eight pounds of pickled vegetables, five pounds of dried meat with soy sauce, two tails of salted fish, three pounds of butter, three liang of tea, and three liang of tobacco.
The marching rations are six pounds of fried noodles, one foot of vinegar cloth, and one can of pickles and dried meat, in case the troops are surrounded and eaten. If the troops are not sent out, they will be eaten when the new food arrives.
As for the family food, it is much simpler and cruder. It consists of one hundred catties of highland barley noodles and a salt brick worth seven coins. Regardless of whether there is a family member or not, everyone can get the family food. It is an expenditure for the Marshal's Office to encourage marriage and childbirth.<
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In addition, there are horse grain and special-purpose highland barley wine that are not handled by sergeants, which are transported directly to the fort. The horse grain is distributed to each team, and the wine is used to reward soldiers or to treat injuries and colds on a daily basis, and is distributed by Zhong Hu
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Most of the non-staple food here is under strong supervision on Sundays, and is delivered every month by the salt transport team.
In fact, the Navy Yamen is the largest aquatic products base in the Marshal's Mansion.
Before Zhou Zhouqiang was a county magistrate in Shandong, he attached great importance to fisheries. When he arrived in Qinghai, he started his old business. Salt and fish are needed here, and there are also transportation facilities. He built the naval office on the bank of Qinghai Lake.
The largest salted fish factory in Marshal's Mansion.
The Marshal's Mansion does its best to feed the border troops, but the natural environment is like this, and it is even more difficult to eat well.
The sergeants in the training camp on the Hehuang side are okay with eating fresh meat and vegetables occasionally, but it is more difficult to eat fresh food at sea. But in Nanshan Fort, if they want to eat fresh food, they can only pick up some cordyceps on the mountain in summer and come back.
Steaming a pot is enough to satisfy your appetite.
Essentially speaking, the Han soldiers in Liu Chengzong's army were not born to fight. They were all born in the Wanli year when prices were low and department stores were cheap. In just ten years, everything around them was turned upside down, and in the end they had no choice but to fight for their lives. p>
Therefore, when they find a way out and people hope to live a better life, they must build a house. The house is not important. The key is that pigs are not allowed to be raised in the barracks. If you have your own house, you can raise pigs at home.
What is a home? A treasure covers a pig. A home is a shelter from the wind and rain and the ability to raise pigs.
They built a house the year before last and found that there were many rivers around them and a lot of land could be opened, and farming required a lot of manpower.
No matter how much the sergeants pursued fresh vegetables, Zhong Hu did not dare to let them farm.
Who is Zhong Hu? He may be the most daring person among the Marshal's officers at the level of President Qian, and he has blocked the marshal's lead.
He is even an epoch-making figure for the Marshal's Office. Ever since he stood in front of Liu Chengzong and was shot, his bloody lessons have made the Lion Army's firearms and equipment rate rise steadily.
This resume means that as long as he doesn't mess around, he will be indispensable for glory and wealth in this life. Even if he messes around, others will die doing the same thing, and he will definitely be able to save his life.
Only one person can't mess with the army.
A commander is a commander if he has an army. If the army collapses, the commander is no longer a commander. Therefore, even if the soldiers want to farm, Zhong Hu will never dare to let them go.
The soldiers wanted to do a lot. They wanted to eat fresh vegetables and farm the land, sleep with girls and make a fortune, ride horses by the river and fish at sea. They wanted to do everything but not train.
Let them get their wish, and wait for the commander-in-chief to return from the southern expedition, and Zhong Hu will have to hang on the tree.
Zhong Hu's initial idea was to hire some people from Haixi County on the north side of the mountain and Guru Taijibu on the south side of the mountain to open a vegetable field.
However, Liu Chengzong solved the manpower problem for him to reclaim wasteland.
As the war progressed in the Southern Expedition, every once in a while, the Generalissimo would send a group of noble laborers, stubborn prisoners or monks from the south.
Zhong Hu couldn't tell what this group of people were doing, nor could he understand their language, but their purpose was very clear, and they would all be taken to the quarry at the foot of the Qilian Mountains in Haibei.
He thought that it was work anyway, so why not do it?
Therefore, before each batch of quarry supervisory workers arrives in Haibei, they need to cultivate fields for them in Nanshan Fort for two months.
This solves the manpower problem, but a new problem arises. People need to eat. Since these people are prisoners, they cannot be allowed to be fed by the sergeants. Is that not an ancestor?
Zhong Hu used his intelligence to solve this problem.
As an elite soldier who came out of the Ming Dynasty's military system, Zhong Hu has a clear understanding of the operation of the guard station... If there are people, everything can be done.
Isn’t exploiting military households a traditional skill? Is there any difference between military households and these workers?
There seems to be a slight difference in the name, but is there really a difference? Zhong Hu thinks there is no difference.
Each batch of workers first received a large iron spoon and went to Chaka Salt Lake to collect salt. The salt was then made into salt bricks according to regulations by the small river south of Nanshan Fort, and then they went to cultivate fields.
The salt bricks were bought with highland barley noodles and tsampa by Guru Taiji of Tumote, and were taken home to be licked by animals. The food in exchange was labor rations.
Liu Chengzong was fighting in the south, and Zhong Hu was cultivating fields in the north. When Liu Chengzong finished fighting, Nanshan Fort lost the laborers who would be sent here every once in a while, but Zhong Hu's primitive accumulation had been completed.
It is easy to reclaim wasteland in this place, but the soil itself is not suitable for farming. There are few trees around. The most tiring thing is not to open up wasteland, but to pull silt from the river.
There are already two manors on the river bank between the two mountains to the south of the fortress, a brick kiln, two water canals, two wind mills, seven wells, 240 cave dwellings, 400 small courtyards, and 34,000 acres of fields.
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Only no one.
At first it was because of the war in the south that almost no laborers could be sent north. Later, the Chuk Rabbit Taiji invaded.
The land that Zhong Hu opened was not intensively cultivated to begin with. After all, it was raw land. Even intensive cultivation would not produce much grain. Extensive planting would yield a poor harvest. More than a thousand stones of seeds were sown and two thousand stones of grain were produced.
That's it, half of it was robbed, and finally the capital was saved.
Speaking of which, the Nanshan garrison was also elite, and no one could snatch food from them with a knife. However, those who grabbed food were all Mongolian old, weak, women, children, and hungry refugees. Zhong Hu’s soldiers all went out with their guns in hand. In the end, they were not ruthless.
Be determined.
They are very rich, so rich that they have the capital of kindness.
Following the invasion of these Mongols, the Ming Dynasty sealed the border and prohibited food from being sold into Hehuang. The Marshal's Mansion suddenly became nervous about its military supplies, and started marching eastward again.
After Wang Chengen was beaten, Mr. Liu of Xining Mansion was worried about placing the prisoners. Zhong Hu volunteered and asked Mr. Liu to put two thousand Lintao prisoners in his farm. Not only could they do ideological work well, but they would not need rations from the Marshal's Mansion.
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Master Liu asked about his plan and was greatly surprised. Since General Zhong was still an expert in farming, he readily agreed to his plan to bring the prisoners back to Nanshan Fort, and also allocated an additional two hundred stones to grow grain and a doctor of agriculture. Dr. Nong is a farming expert selected from various places and belongs to the township official. Due to the frontline war, 20% of the land in Hehuang cannot wait to be registered as households by the Marshal's Office and cultivated uniformly, otherwise the farming season will be missed. Therefore, Dr. Nong prepared by Liu Xiangyu and
There is plenty of food to grow.
Zhong Hu asked about the treatment of the prisoners. This batch of prisoners came from three sources. One was Wang Chengen's Lintao general's standard battalion, the other was the battalions of Lintao battalions, forts and passes, and the second was the Lintao guard's flag army.
The treatment of the Biao camp is very good, and the monthly rations and monthly salary are sufficient. For them, going to war is a hard job, and their attitude is the same as that of the soldiers of the third battalion of the Marshal's Mansion, because the rations are not as good as those of the garrison.
The treatment of the soldiers in the camp is not bad. They can support themselves every month and drink a little wine. But it is only just enough. The little surplus is not enough to support the family. Apart from drinking a little wine, I don’t know what to do. If we don’t send troops, it’s not right.
It doesn't make any difference to them, the food is not good anyway.
The Banner Army was in trouble. One stone of grain collected by the guard should be calculated as one or two taels of silver, but instead it was calculated as eight dans of silver. When it came time to distribute food and pay, it was calculated as 8 taels of silver per stone, and four taels of silver were deducted.
Four coins will be distributed.
For the flag army, it is a good thing to be able to form an army and go on an expedition. The longer the war lasts, the better. The troops will not have to starve at home.
Zhong Hu used the most direct way to appease the prisoners, showing them the monthly rations of the Nanshan garrison and telling them to go to the fields and follow the commander after the war was over. It would only take a year or two for them to receive such treatment.
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And the prisoners did not live up to Zhong Hu's expectations. Except for a few stubborn soldiers of the General Military Standard Battalion, Zhong Hu felt that most of the prisoners were even more obedient than the soldiers of Nanshan Fort.
Those soldiers from the Biao camp did not think they were being treated badly, they just wanted to go home. Zhong Hu also made a promise and told them the traditions of the Lion Army. After the battle, the commander might let them go back, and maybe even give them some money.
Travel expenses of silver.
When they heard the news from Zhong Hu, they were not happy but more confused, because they just wanted to go home, not go home.
Even Marshal Wang Chengen was invited to Xining City. Where else could they go back, but who would they leave behind?
At least it seems that the Marshal's Mansion has no intention of killing them all, which is good news for the prisoners.
With the mentality of muddling along, people devoted themselves to the sowing business in Nanshan Fort under the command of Zhong Hu.
Zhong Hu has been impatient for a long time. He is the general who is least willing to fight in the Marshal's Office. If the enemy hits him in the face, he must fight. But after the battle, his desire to farm is even more urgent.
After two years of siltation and irrigation, Nanshan Fort's land should have a good harvest this year. If everything goes well, Nanshan Fort soldiers may be able to support themselves with 800 stones of highland barley noodles per month starting from this autumn.
He also made contributions in this battle. The Marshal's Mansion harvested so many prisoners. Zhong Hu thought that he might be transferred to other places. These fields were his gifts to Nanshan Fort.
Before being transferred, this land harvested one thousand dan and twenty thousand dan, which meant a huge difference to him.
But just when Zhong Hu thought he could finally farm well, the Mongols came.
On the early morning of the third day of April, Zhong Hu was strolling in the boundless fields, watching the prisoners farm, when the soldiers who had gone to the west to walk their horses came back in a hurry and told him that the boundless Mongolian army had appeared at the foot of Wulan Mountain.
Not long afterward, a small group of heavily armored cavalry came to report that they were the envoys of the Great Khan Huduntu, and that they were going to the border to meet with the commander-in-chief Liu Chengzong, and that they were looking for Guantutaiji, who had been the envoy earlier.<
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Zhong Hu did not let them enter the customs and agreed to report on his behalf, but Hu Duntu Khan could not wait so long.
On the afternoon of the third day of April, another group of people came to do business with Nanshan Fort. They asked to buy grain, but they couldn't get any silver or lion tickets, so they finally decided to barter.
Zhong Hu thought that bartering would be a good idea, but he never expected that Hu Duntu Khan sent people to bring over a thousand people and wanted to exchange the people looted from Turpan for food with Nanshan Fort, but he refused. He said in his heart that you can do business with anything, and the Marshal's Mansion can eat anything, but this person... If it had been when Liu Chengzong first entered Qinghai, his eyes would have gleamed when he heard such news.
But until now, Zhong Hu didn't want to tell Liu Chengzong this request. They were so poor that only one person was left. Hu Duntu brought over not only more than a thousand people, but more than a thousand mouths, and they still couldn't understand the language but they were very good at eating.
Ancestors.
On the morning of the fourth day of the Lunar New Year, the envoy from the Han Dynasty came again, this time more urgently, asking for food from the Marshal's Mansion, and also asked for the envoys sent twice.
Fortunately, the envoy he sent had just disembarked from Haixi Ferry and passed the customs with Master Liu's warrant. Only then did Zhong Hu know that there had been an envoy entering Xining from Haibei County before.
Along with these envoys came Mr. Liu's instructions to the defenders of Nanshan Fort. There were two Mongolian armies outside, which together may be close to one hundred thousand, and he was asked to prepare for war.
Once the war breaks out, Nanshan Fort must hold on for fifteen days to buy time for Haixi and Haibei Navy Yamen to withdraw into Hehuang and for the Generalissimo's main force to return for reinforcements.
Zhong Hu on the Nanshan Fort turned his gaze to the fields at the foot of the mountain, then looked at the billowing dust on the other side of the mountain, thinking about the concept of a hundred thousand Mongolian troops.
He knew that the time had come to exercise his psychological quality.