Chapter seven hundred and thirty second heavy rain
On the third day of March, Li Zhi stood at the newly built Fanjiazhuang recruit camp and reviewed the 40,000 recruits who had just joined the army.
After taking advantage of North Korea, Li Zhi's finances were greatly eased. Although the deficit is still very huge at present, with North Korea's 30 million taels of silver as a foundation, Li Zhi is confident that he can support the fiscal deficit.
The biggest financial expectation in the future is the new fields in Liaodong. At the end of last month, more than 10 million acres of new fields in Liaodong have been cultivated. The vast northeastern plains are very friendly to various agricultural machinery.
Only a few hundred thousand strong laborers are needed to cultivate an acre of new land. But the output of a few hundred thousand people is huge.
These more than 10 million acres of new fields were all fields with repaired water conservancy facilities, and they were all regarded as "public fields" by Li Zhi. These public fields were leased to the increasingly popular "service teams" in Liaodong, which were divided into 40 and 60 between the large and small service teams.
The service team brings its own machinery and cattle and gets 60%. Li Zhi sits on the ground to collect money and gets 40%.
According to the current average yield per mu in Liaodong, these more than 10 million acres of public land can bring Li Zhi more than 4 million taels of land rent income every year.
Of course, the output of newly cultivated fields in the first year is relatively low, and because the grain output in the Northeast is getting higher and higher, the price of grain on the market is constantly falling. But looking on the bright side, with the increase of bird droppings
With the use of this kind of compound fertilizer, the yield per mu of these ten million acres of new fields will be higher in the future. So in summary, on these more than ten million acres of Liaodong public land, Li Zhi can earn three to four million silver a year.
It can be obtained.
Moreover, field development in Liaodong Province continues. Although subsequent land development is becoming more and more difficult, the goal of obtaining another eight million new fields next year can still be achieved. By then, Li Zhi's land rent income will be even greater.
It is said that a cannon fire is worth ten thousand taels of gold. Although the Manchus did not get much silver when they destroyed the Qing Dynasty, they got the vast land of the three northeastern provinces, which is equivalent to getting a cornucopia.
Moreover, industrial income is getting higher and higher. Li Zhi believes that the deficit will be eliminated within five years, and his own fiscal revenue can support fiscal expenditures in the future.
With such financial support, Li Zhi decided to recruit 40,000 more recruits.
Nowadays, Li Zhi is indeed short of troops. North Korea needs troops, Shandong needs troops, and it needs to maintain enough troops to deter the Jiangbei Army. This time, the total military strength is expanded to 100,000, so that the situation of insufficient military strength can be alleviated.
In the past, Li Zhi's recruits were all recruited in Tianjin. But in fact, Tianjin only has a population of more than 2 million. In recent years, Tianjin has provided too many young people to Taiwan, Li Zhi's administrative team, and the Huben Army, and it has been unable to do so.
This will provide an excellent source of soldiers. So Li Zhi recruited 20,000 people in Tianjin this time and 20,000 people in Shandong.
In the newly built huge barracks outside Fanjiazhuang, Li Zhi looked at the young soldiers standing in front of the barracks and nodded. Although these recruits did not receive much training, they were all very disciplined and obviously cherished the opportunity to join the Huben Army.
.
Li Zhi walked up to a tall and thin man and asked loudly: "Soldier, where are you from?"
Seeing that the Duke of Jin actually talked to him, the soldier was so nervous that his face turned red. He said loudly: "Master, I am not from Tianjin, I am from Shandong."
Hearing the recruit's words, he seemed a little inferior to himself for not being from Tianjin. Li Zhi smiled and said: "Tianjin is richer and more prosperous than Shandong. Tianjin's technology is more advanced and there are more new things. Even many officials in Shandong are
They are all from Tianjin."
"But that doesn't mean that Tianjin people are superior to Shandong people."
"Tianjin only developed a few years earlier than Shandong. In another ten years, Shandong will catch up and will be as prosperous and prosperous as Tianjin."
"In my eyes, people from Shandong and Tianjin are the same, they are both my people!"
When the soldier heard Li Zhi's words, he was so excited that he couldn't speak. He just nodded vigorously.
In fact, the soldiers in this platoon are all Shandong recruits. After hearing Li Zhi's words, the soldiers in this platoon were very excited and opened their eyes wide.
The platoon leader next to him suddenly shouted: "Salute!"
Forty soldiers all raised their right hands and saluted Li Zhi with a military salute.
This military salute was also invented by Li Zhi. It was really inconvenient and elegant to kneel down in the army, so Li Zhi brought the military salute from later generations. When he saw the superior, he raised his hands to his head, which was simple and clear.
Li Zhi nodded and raised his right hand in return.
Li Zhi was walking forward when he suddenly saw Han Jinxin galloping over on a big horse. When he arrived in front of Li Zhi, Han Jinxin got off his horse, raised his hands to Li Zhi and said, "My lord, Heilongjiang Province is under attack by Bai Yi."
Li Zhi was stunned and asked: "Where did Bai Yi come from?"
Han Jinxin said: "It is said that they came from the northwest. These Baiyi had matchlock guns and cannons. They used these firearms to massacre the Jurchens in Heilongjiang Province."
Although Li Zhi turned all the Jianzhou Jurchens into slaves, tribes such as the Haixi Jurchens and the Savage Jurchens still exist. These tribes have now become Li Zhi's subjects in the three northeastern provinces.
Li Zhi frowned and said: "Shameless Bai Yi, how dare you covet my Chinese land."
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"Yo drink!"
"Yo drink!"
"Yo drink! Push!"
On the eighth day of March, on the muddy official road in Henan, a baggage train that provided food for 160,000 soldiers was trudging forward in the mud.
It is more appropriate to say that it is moving, rather than moving. Every time a dozen or so trucks transporting food, they will get stuck in a mud pit and cannot get out. The people who need to transport work together to push and pull. Not to mention that the heavy rain has made the people transporting food hard.
I felt chills all over, just the mess of the road was enough to make me despair.
Sun Chuanting was riding a horse and stood on a mound not far from the official road. Looking at the heavy rain in Henan, he was so anxious that he could not speak.
Sun Chuanting really didn't expect that he would encounter such heavy rain within a month of entering Henan.
Henan, which has been experiencing drought for five consecutive years with almost no rain, suddenly suffered heavy rains, turning the wilderness in all directions into mud.
Sun Chuanting knew Li Zicheng's plan, and Li Zicheng made it clear that he wanted to cut off his own grain route. Therefore, Sun Chuanting was extremely cautious when he entered Henan this time, and sent heavy troops to protect the grain transportation road from Shaanxi. Even though he attacked Jiaxian County, Li Zicheng failed to interrupt the army.
grain transportation.
Now that Jiaxian County was victorious in the First World War, the army pursued the invaders for fifty miles and killed more than 50,000 thieves. Li Zicheng led the remaining soldiers and fled to Xiangcheng County. As long as Sun Chuanting attacked Xiangcheng, Li Zicheng would no longer be able to gain a foothold in Henan.
However, at this moment, it rained heavily. The carriages and horses of the grain transport team got stuck on the muddy road, making it difficult to move.
Sun Chuanting also captured many cities of the Chuang army, but the Chuang army was extremely cunning and had long concentrated all the food in southeastern Henan. There was almost no food in the cities that Sun Chuanting captured.
The food and fodder on the front line have been exhausted.
Not to mention continuing to pursue the intruders, the actual situation now is that Sun Chuanting's army will return to the division and withdraw to eat next to the grain and forage team. However, the army's expedition is "easy to advance but difficult to retreat". When retreating, the morale will be very chaotic and accidents can easily happen.
Sun Chuanting looked around anxiously. He raised Li Zhi's telescope and looked at several nearby villages.
The gates of those villages were closed, and peasants holding sickles and spears stood on the earthen walls outside the villages, staring at the army's trains with hostility.
The public sentiment in Henan is completely on the side of the intruders.
