In June, clouds of war at sea were gathering. Xining Prefecture mobilized 100,000 herdsmen, and the yak teams towing artillery were galloping, and forty-two vehicles and ships were transported back and forth.
Hauge was as anxious as an ant on a hot pot. He wandered around the new city that smelled of donkey and horse manure all day long. He asked to see Liu Xiangyu nine times in three days. On the fourth day, he waited all morning at the gate of the government office before finally meeting Chao Simu.
Miss Liu.
"Master!"
Hauge was very polite. When they met, he first stepped forward and then took a step back. He bent his left knee to Liu Xiangyu, lowered his right hand, leaned forward and saluted, then stood up and said eagerly: "Why did the fight start?"
Liu Xiangyu was stunned for a moment while holding the red flag. He raised his hand and bowed in return, saying: "Come into the house with me."
After saying that, he sighed and then nodded slightly: "We're still fighting."
Hongqi is not an old horse. According to its age, it is considered to be in the prime of life. It should have served for another three years. However, during the seven years when it was most suitable for fighting with the army, it was in the stage of malnutrition for three years.
Not as good as before.
The last time he participated in the war, Liu Chengzong felt that it was not able to carry him, so he gave it to his father, who usually did not wear armor, to ride on it. In two years, he would send it to Longju Island in the sea to rest in his old age.
After entering the yamen, when Liu Xiangyu sat in the main seat, Hauge stood aside and began to complain: "Don't you know that my nephew is here and has to wait very hard for me?"
Regarding this matter, Liu Xiangyu didn't say much. He didn't miss Hauge on purpose. He was just busy with the war and couldn't take care of it.
He shook his head and said: "Do you know how many wedding banquets I have attended in recent days? I just came back from Hehuang yesterday, attended the wedding of twenty-nine officers in the camp in the evening, and sent them off this morning. You should also know that Da Zuo
In a war, all important matters must be compromised for the war effort."
"Yes!"
Hauge's face was filled with a smile, and he said joyfully: "Let me just say, the master must not have missed me on purpose... I understand what the master said. The handsome mansion is so similar to our country. After the battle of Daling River, my father also
He participated in the marriages of demoted generals one after another, and there was a day when fifteen generals got married."
The slight frown on Liu Xiangyu's face flashed away, and he showed great interest calmly, asking: "Oh? How did you marry the general?"
"It's not just about surrendering generals and demoting officials. Our country has its own laws. If a Han official surrenders to us, he will take the daughters of the Belles in the country as his wives; if the Han officials of the second rank surrender to us, they will take the daughters of the Belles or the daughters of ministers as their wives. As for surrendering soldiers, they will check the widows of all tribes.
, get married to a spouse, and if there is really no widow, money will be paid from the treasury to marry another one from among the people."
"Replacement?"
Liu Xiangyu cared about this word very much, so he asked emphatically, and after receiving Hauge's affirmative reply, he nodded slowly, stroking his beard: "Your father is a very powerful man."
After being praised by Mr. Liu, Hauge was also proud of his father. He raised his face and said with a smile: "Yes, otherwise my ancestors had so many sons, how could it be my father who did the sweating?"
Hauge did not forget what he was here for. After saying this, he hurriedly asked: "Master, Heshuote Imperial Master Khan has paid tribute to my father. Why does the commander insist on going to war with Oara? Is it for our benefit to wait for the coalition forces?
, not as good as Chahar?"
"This matter has nothing to do with you and others."
When talking about business, Liu Xiangyu still looked like a good old man, but his words became extremely serious: "Suppose I, the Commander-in-Chief of Qinghai, sent troops 4,000 miles away, stationed 40,000 troops to guard Tieling, and asked your father for Tashan, Tieling
, Taining, Duoyan, and Fuyu are pasture lands. Can your father bear the humiliation and cede the land?"
"This, this is absolutely not allowed, then separate Horqin."
As soon as Hauge finished speaking, Mr. Liu sneered: "Hmph, the Wala Tatars have also separated our Kangning Mansion, and they also want to ask for the land where fifty thousand soldiers can rest and recuperate. Isn't this a daydream?"
Hearing this, Hauge felt embarrassed. He thought that Heshuote had just sent an envoy to pay tribute to the Kingdom of Jin. As soon as he took the first step to conquer Wanli, Heshuote was about to go to war with the Marshal's Mansion. Things would be difficult to handle.
.
If you put him in the perspective of the Oirat coalition, the current situation is extremely difficult.
Firstly, Chahar Lindan Khan was not dead, and the coalition forces failed to achieve the purpose of the expedition, and their prestige was damaged by returning hastily; secondly, even if they wanted to go back, the food and baggage of the 50,000-strong army would be a headache.
Anyway, looking at the deployment of the Oirat coalition forces, they don’t look like they are bringing back the grass.
Hauge shook his head, speechless.
Liu Xiangyu, on the other hand, curled up his beard and said with a smile: "I heard someone say that you are always sitting on the roof tiles in a daze these days. What do you see?"
"Ah?" Hauge was stunned and started to pretend to be stupid: "The sunset in the new city is beautiful."
Liu Xiangyu said nothing, but looked at him with a half-smile.
Hauge has followed his father in the war since he was a child. Although he is young, he has developed an extremely vicious vision. During this time, he has been living outside the new city, and the grand war preparations of the Marshal's Mansion cannot be hidden from him.
The carriages and horses were rustling. He sat on the roof for half an hour every day, mentally calculating the number of donkeys and mules passing through the new city from the east and turning south. Add in the mountains of large animal excrement piled up along the way outside the city, and he could tell a lot.
Too many.
For seven consecutive days, the Marshal's Mansion transported no less than 3,000 donkeys and mules to the south through New City every day. In addition, after the victory, tens of thousands of livestock were transported to the pastures west of New City, and this number swelled horribly.
Because he had seen that the army of the Marshal's Mansion used carts to transport supplies, and donkeys and mules were used to carry the luggage. Mobilizing so many donkeys and mules meant that the 20,000 or so Ming army surrendered in the Hehuang battle were basically digested.
Lost it.
Hauge met Liu Xiangyu's eyes and felt a little guilty. He laughed dryly and said: "The army of the commander-in-chief is marching very fast."
Liu Xiangyu laughed out loud. His family knew about his family affairs, but in fact, the Shuai Mansion didn’t have many animals.
Perhaps before the Hehuang War, there were many domesticated livestock of all kinds, but faced with the current situation of carnivorous humans, population expansion, and military strength, the ratio between livestock, civilians, and soldiers in the Marshal's Mansion further widened.
Even after they plundered the countryside of Lanzhou, the number of their sheep and pigs was very tight; and the number of cattle they owned was not even enough to distribute to the people of Hehuang.
More than 20,000 donkeys and mules were purchased this time, and many of them were mules used to pull plows and plow fields in Hehuang people's homes.
The Marshal's Mansion wanted to transfer livestock from Hehuang, but there was no way to bypass the transportation company. When the transportation company heard that the second uncle wanted to buy livestock in Hehuang, he suggested not buying donkeys but mules instead.
There are only 150,000 horses, donkeys and mules in the entire Hehuang Valley east of Xining. This number is already very dangerous, and most of them are mules.
Mules are very good, but mules are not suitable. Now the problem in Hehuang is that if these mules die, the number of horses and donkeys will be reduced to 40,000 to 50,000. By then, the impact on production will be a trivial matter, and the handsome manor will have no use for mules in the future.
.
The reason for the lack of large livestock is the war. On the one hand, donkeys and mules died in the war, and on the other hand, the rich and powerful people in the past fled and their large livestock were also taken away.
Liu Xiangyu originally wanted to buy a donkey, partly because donkeys were cheaper than mules, and partly because the Marshal's Mansion had just established Yuanma Temple, and donkeys could breed mules after the war.
Cheng Yun is the person who knows the best about mules, and he doesn't want to see donkeys die in war, so he suggested that Mr. Liu allow him to rent mules in Hehuang, buy donkeys, and send mules to the war and donkeys to the sea.
His method was very simple. Twenty township security guards in Hehuang had been established and completed. He asked the chief security officer of each township security guard to act as a go-between and sign a contract to borrow mules from the people in exchange for five cents of silver every month.
After the war, the mule will be returned alive if it is alive. If it dies, the government will pay eight taels of silver for the mule and one tael of silver for the saddle bag.
The price offered for transportation was not high. If we had rented a mule before, the price of buying a mule would have been much more. But the advantage was that there was no need to hire anyone. The commander-in-chief was in charge of food rations and compensation in case of death. Therefore, after the decree was first issued, all townships
So he posted a recruitment notice, set up a recruitment table, and registered the mules.
People from each family groomed their mules one after another, provided them with enough fodder for a big meal, and sent them to the township security office to sign a deed and put them in bond.
For the people of Hehuang, renting a mule is not an option. Before leaving, you must check whether the mule is sick and whether it is lame or weak. After leaving, you will be given military pay, go to war, be in charge of military rations, and receive a pension if you die.
Except for the fact that you are not recruiting people but mules, this is no different from recruiting soldiers, so beating gongs and drums is just like sending your own children to the battlefield.
As for donkeys, Chengdu also bought a batch of more than 3,000 donkeys, all of which were good-looking, tall male and female donkeys, purchased at high prices.
Now is the estrus season. Let Cui Cong take good care of it and try to breed it this year. The next eight hundred horses, mules, donkeys and mules will come out.
The horse garden of the Marshal's Mansion is located in the area around Qinghai Lake. The main reason is that the mating place can be placed on the sea, right on the sea, on Haixin Mountain in the middle of Qinghai Lake.
The fleet of the Navy Yamen discovered the mountain while sailing. On Sunday, they forced themselves to go back and read books for several days to compare them one by one. Then they boarded a boat to climb the mountain in person. They found the ruins of an ancient city on it and determined that it was Longju Island in Tuyuhun, Qinghai.
The origin of Cong.
Qinghai Lake has the phenomenon of dragons absorbing water in summer, so there are rumors that there are white dragons on the sea. During the Tuyuhun period, the sea was often frozen in winter, and strong mares were driven to Haixin Mountain to breed and mate. They were called dragon species, which is the source of Qinghai Cong. Therefore, Haixin
The mountain is also called Longju Island.
When Ge Shuhan of the Tang Dynasty moved the Shence Army to build a city on the island, the city was initially named Shenwei City. Later, after seeing the white dragon, he renamed the city Yinglong City.
Therefore, Liu Chengzong's Yuanma Temple is also called Longju Temple. The seat of Cui Cong, the minister of Longju Temple, is located in Yinglong City. It has three gardens in Haibei, Haixi and Hainan, and allocates 3 million acres of pasture land.
There are 120,000 acres of wasteland, with 3,000 herders and 1,600 cultivators, who are responsible for raising horses, mules, donkeys and cattle.
Cui Cong used to be the supervisor of Qingpingyuan of the Guyuan Supervisory Office of the imperial court. He was captured when Zhenyuan fell and was taken to Qinghai by Master Liu. For a long time, he worked as a groom beside Master Liu. p>
But he is indeed a good and talented man. When Mr. Liu was investigating Zhenyuan County's intelligence, he was regarded as a hungry citizen and wanted to recruit him to Qingpingyuan as a benefactor and eat horse food to survive.
This man never dreamed that a momentary act of kindness would allow him to reach the same level as Sunday Qiang.
Cui Cong's Longju Temple Minister was also awarded the title of Huaiyuan Colonel. The rank of the Marshal's Mansion was divided into three levels: General, Colonel, and Lieutenant. The ninth level and twenty-seventh level. The Huaiyuan Colonel was located on the third level of the first-class Colonel, which was equivalent to the imperial court.
From the fourth grade.
Therefore, Captain Huaiyuan is actually a bit low for Zhou Qiang, but for Cui Cong, who was once the ninth grade supervisor, he has reached the sky in one step.
Liu Chengzong thought hard about people's mentality before appointing him an official. For Zhou Qiang, he could not grant him a higher official position, a higher two-level captain. Compared with the imperial court, he was a third-level civil servant, so he had to be lower. When the time came, he would establish six departments to facilitate transfer.
Ren Shilang.
As for the higher-level General Zhaoyong, they were basically all promoted from General Qian to Staff General during the Hehuang War, such as Zhang Tianlin, Huang Shengxiao, Gao Yingdeng and others.
These idiots drank wine and called Zhou Tongzhi the owner of the salted fish shop. It would definitely not work if they were put together.
On the contrary, everyone respects Cui Cong. After all, he leads troops to fight. Except Li Laojiao, who doesn't like Bi Mawen?
Li Laojie can't do it. That guy has a grudge against the defenders of Zhenyuan County. He doesn't like anyone who used to be a defender of Zhenyuan County, let alone Cui Cong, the defender.
Liu Xiangyu had just talked about the mule with Hauge, and Hauge suddenly asked: "Master, since the commander-in-chief is determined to go to war with Oirat, my nephew is powerless to stop it, but I still have two requests. I hope that the master can tell the commander-in-chief after the war."
."
Mr. Liu asked: "What request?"
"I hope that the Commander-in-Chief's office can trade with our country in Mobei and allow merchants to go to each other's markets and exchange goods."
When Hauge said this, he paused with his fists clenched, then raised his little finger, ring finger and middle finger in turn: "Our country will purchase them at three times the market price."
Xincheng is guarding the Juerwan market. These days, Hauge has inquired about the prices in Juerwan. It is not high, even very low for him.
The situation in Juerwan is that there is not much silver, but with the top handicraft technology from the royal palace craftsmen of this era, they can make almost everything. In terms of raw materials, there is also an abundance of them. On the contrary, silver is only available after the Hehuang War.
In addition to the normal reserve amount, there is not much circulation in the market.
In the Kingdom of Jin, which is separated by rivers, the situation is exactly the opposite.
There aren't many things they can make. As a traditional military region, Liaodong has high-end technologies that can be plundered mostly in the military field, but it doesn't have much help for people's livelihood.
The Ming Dynasty spent a lot of money on military expenditures in Liaodong. After the military failure, a large part of these precious metals flowed into the Kingdom of Jin, and there was no place to trade. In this case, the more silver people looted, the higher the price.
, so that silver is cheap and things are expensive.
In particular, disasters such as famine and reduced crop yields also affected the Jin Kingdom. It was for this reason that Huang Taiji chose to defy everyone's opinions at a difficult time and launch a war into the hinterland of the Ming Dynasty, causing changes in Jisi.
Purchasing the same goods at three times the price was a very attractive suggestion, but Liu Xiangyu was noncommittal and just asked: "What about the second thing?"
Hauge really didn't expect Liu Xiangyu's reaction like this. He thought that the Marshal's Mansion should be very eager for silver, but he was stunned for a moment and said seriously: "My father is planning to abolish the name of Zhushen, merge with Mongolia, and Han people will become a new race.
I also hope that I will tell the commander about the alliance as soon as possible, so that we can unite our clans and claim the title of Manchuria. Wouldn’t that be a good thing?”
Together they are called Manchuria?
Liu Xiangyu looked at Hauge for a moment, then groped on the table with his hands, lit his pipe with a fire sickle, paused before asking: "Have you heard of a poem?"
Hauge was stunned, blinked and asked: "What poem?"
"Don't you see, Qinghai Tou has no one to collect the bones from ancient times."
Liu Xiangyu did not tell Hauge what this poem meant.
Just this morning, news came that the Qinghai Generalissimo's Chinese shogunate had moved to Yingpan City and mobilized civilians to collect the remains of the Tang Army soldiers who died in the Battle of Shibao City and set up a cemetery.
Even the son of the Tang Army soldier from nine hundred years ago believed that he was one of his own who should collect the body. What an ambition this was. How could he join Manchuria? This is nonsense.
In the light blue smoke, Liu Xiangyu said: "Hauge, it's too early. I'd better wait for you to become king. Maybe then we can talk about calling ourselves China."