Wang Hongyu mainly used the 50 craftsmen he brought before, and recruited dozens of Zhou family and veterans to cast French-style cannons and tiger crouching cannons, producing 10 guns a month.
The old master brought by his uncle Liu Ruoyu guided some skilled craftsmen to make flintlock guns, and planned to produce 30 guns per month.
Zhang Mingshi once learned firearms from Zhao Shizhen. At this time, he provided the drawings of Lumi gun and planned to produce 20 guns a month.
Ordnance cannot be mass-produced because these weapons do not make money or support people.
Therefore, the quantity must be moderate. Currently, there are less than 300 ordnance craftsmen in total, which is already the bottleneck in the local supply of food and materials in Yun County. Production will be increased after the garrison army obtains new food.
Yunyang, a mountainous and watery area, is the perfect place to get some new things ~
At this time Xu Guangqi should have been engaged in sweet potato breeding for more than ten years.
Sweet potatoes have spread from the Americas to Luzon, and then to Fujian and Guangdong, and now there are some planting areas.
However, this variety needs to be continuously cultivated for its cold resistance and adaptability. Xu Guangqi has introduced sweet potatoes to the north and south of the Yangtze River and developed varieties that can adapt to the climate of the Yangtze and Huaihe Rivers.
However, the greatest effect of sweet potatoes is to utilize hills, mountains, fertile fields and rough areas.
As a staple food, it is far inferior to rice. In terms of land, sweet potatoes consume a lot of land fertility. In terms of diet, the proportion of energy and nutrients that can be supplied is much lower than that of rice and wheat.
In short, it consumes land, has average energy supply, and average nutrition, and is not suitable for planting in fertile land.
But there is not much fertile land in Yunyang.
There are many places suitable for growing sweet potatoes ~
The core problem in the Yunyang Mountain Area is the lack of transportation and local food crops.
Sweet potatoes just fit together seamlessly.
As water transportation potential is tapped and land conditions improve, Yunxian and Yunxi have certain rice and wheat production, and Xiangyang counties are important grain-producing areas in the Ming Dynasty, and can be transported to various counties.
The staple food is still rice and noodles, and sweet potatoes are an important supplement.
In this way, more soldiers can be recruited to build military camps, the local area can also support more people, and the speed of industrial development can continue to accelerate.
Wang Hongyu wrote a letter to Xu Guangqi just after his inspection, and now he wrote back saying that there are a number of varieties with slightly stronger cold resistance from his hometown in Shanghai, which have been trial-grown north of the Huaihe River.
Now that the sweet potato planting season has passed, several hundred kilograms of sweet potato seeds suitable for planting in the Huaihe River Basin will be available in the early spring of next year.
Yunyang belongs to the Qinling Han River Basin, and sweet potato varieties that can adapt to the temperature of the Huai River Basin can be directly promoted in the Qinling Han River area.
The population of Yunyang is not large this year. Next year will be the time to plant these sweet potatoes. In another two years, sweet potatoes can be promoted again.
“Sweet potato boom”?
Wang Hongyu doesn’t want that kind of false bragging.
Sweet potatoes are just an important supplement to improve utilization in different terrains.
By utilizing the mountains and hills and building military settlements, more people can be engaged in the mining and handicraft industries in the Yunyang Mountain area.
Next year the sweet potatoes will be in place, and I wrote back to Xu Guangqi, striving to introduce corn, potatoes, peanuts and peppers as well.
All of these are suitable for planting in the current layout area.
Qixian County in Kaifeng, in particular, is world-famous for the peanuts produced in later generations. The economic crops of the entire Henan province show a distribution of "peanuts in the north and sesame seeds in the south." Now "if you sign for sesame seeds, you also want peanuts."
The premise for engaging in these cash crops, industrial and mining industries is that the situation cannot be chaotic and the food gap is not too large, otherwise the market will spontaneously guide food.
Just like the aquaculture in Huguang, it was prosperous before the mid-Ming Dynasty. In the late Ming Dynasty, food prices were high, and fish ponds and lakes were filled up as grain fields.
Under such circumstances, the resistance and cost of developing industrial, mining and cash crops are very high. Unless a highly systematic, overall planning, and planned economy based on local conditions is used, the industrial and mining industries will be difficult to develop.
Without a large number of minerals and handicrafts, there would be no profit-seeking and re-investment based on them. Without these re-investments, there would be no group of scientific researchers, no group of scientific researchers...
Without all of this, conflicts would still continue to intensify over issues of land, food and population.
...
Yongning Tusi Shejia and Shuixi Tusi Anjia have not stopped during this period.
He arranged his subordinates to lurk in surrounding prefectures and counties, bribed a group of officials to provide supplies, and recruited troops that far exceeded outside expectations.
The two companies have been preparing for decades, and finally this year the time has come.
At the beginning of the year, there was a battle between the Ming Dynasty and Nurhaci in Liaoyang and Shenyang in Liaodong. Not only did the Ming army suffer huge losses, many Han people became slaves of the Jiannu, and the two largest cities, Shenyang and Liaoyang, were lost.
What made She Chongming and An Bangyan even more excited was that their terrible enemies Zhou Dunji and Qin Bangping died in battle!
The Sichuan army, Shizhu chieftain's white pole soldiers, and Youyang chieftain's soldiers suffered heavy losses. Shizhu chieftain Qin Liangyu, whom he dared not face the most, also led his white pole army to guard Shanhaiguan.
She Chongming believed that the imperial court was no longer able to control the southwest chieftains, and the time was ripe for rebellion after years of preparation.
Since the 15,000-strong Sichuan army led by Liu Wei was completely destroyed in Sarhu two years ago, She Chongming felt that the opportunity to annex the southwest had come. However, at that time, he had only 10,000 troops and horses in nominal terms, and the main force was only 3,000.
Although he never paid attention to the guardsmen in Sichuan, after excluding the 3,000 elites, the remaining 7,000 ordinary soldiers and horses recognized by the court were no different from the guardsmen of the Ming Dynasty. They were also peasants with a little training after farming.
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In the past few years, he secretly bribed a group of officials, made a lot of money from smuggling, secretly accumulated weapons, armor and horses, and bribed surrounding villages and bandits.
He secretly expanded his military strength by 10,000 people, and now has 20,000 troops. Counting those who have been bribed, the number can reach 30,000.
If we recruit all our strength before starting a rebellion, the maximum number can reach 50,000.
He was very confident in his soldiers and horses, and felt that they were more powerful than the Ming army, Shuixi and other chieftains.
In fact, it was just a rumor, but his army was slaves and easier to control. In addition, his generals were more loyal, so he had an advantage over the surrounding guard soldiers and other chieftains who were farming.
His civil and military men were in a hurry to make a move, including generals Fan Long, Fan Hu, Zhang Tong, Luo Zugui, etc.; counselors Cai Jingui, He Ruohai and others. On the surface, these people expressed their submission to the court, but in fact they were working hard, building castles, enriching warehouses, and striving to strengthen their rule for a long time.
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On the surface, they seemed to run the army rigorously and did not kill innocent people. In fact, they were extremely ferocious. They wanted to grab more land and incorporate it into the She family's territory. After the success, She Chongming promised to all the civil and military officials to allocate a county's territory.
She Chongming wanted to separate the southwest and claim hegemony. He joined forces with An Bangyan, the chieftain of Shuixi, and had great hopes of controlling Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan.
He believed that the Shuixi chieftain had a vast territory and a large number of people, and openly had 50,000 troops. In fact, he secretly stationed troops like him, and estimated that there were almost 100,000 troops.
However, the combat power is no different from that of the Ming Dynasty Guards. The main force of the army must be returned by himself. If the conspiracy succeeds in the future, An Bangyan will be on an equal footing with himself at most.
But he planned to own Sichuan and settle down in Guizhou. In terms of the level of elite soldiers and horses, he was the best.
Therefore, the She'an Alliance is dominated by him.