"These days are almost fading away - Brother, when do you think the adults will lead everyone north to Runzhou? King Xin has returned to Jiangbei, and there are only a few defeated generals in Runzhou. Not at this time
How long will it take to beat his mother like a bear? If it doesn’t work, can we break into Huzhou? Brother, tell me, sir, what is he thinking in his heart?"
After entering mid-October, the weather turned cooler, and the howling north wind was already mixed with a bit of biting chill. After the Korean Leopard recovered from his injuries, he became strong and wore only a thin linen jacket filled with grass batting.
But he didn't feel cold either. He sat on a haystack, chewed grass roots and talked to his brother Han Donghu.
Two months have passed since the capture of Langxi City. The entire army is resting and training. In the mountain col on the east side of Sitian Dun, Xuanjiao Ridge, they are reclaiming sloping terraces and digging coal mines.
In mid-September, construction of five dragon houses was started.
Han Bao was promoted to deputy team leader based on merit, but he recovered from his injuries and returned to the camp. He was kicked to the study class first and suffered for more than a month. He finally learned to write his name crookedly and barely managed to write "The Situation of Liang Chu".
The words in several mimeographed booklets such as "Preliminary Interpretation", "Essentials for Building Weilong Houses", "Some Points of Attention in Field Topographic Survey", "Compendium of Code of Conduct and Sign Languages", "Overview of Township Organization", etc. are all very clumsy.
He was a half-dozen people--he could only read but couldn't read enough, let alone write--and then he was sent to Xiling Township, east of Sitian Dun, as an inspection assistant, where he had to deal with stubborn people all day long.
Young man, dealing with a fierce and fierce woman.
Although there are more than 300 adult men in Xiling Township, they are all leftovers selected by the Chishan Army. They are sallow and skinny, and cannot bear excessive and heavy physical labor. The heavy work in the village is still done by strong women with a fierce temperament.
A woman is much more complicated than leading a strong man into battle.
The entire Xiling Township needs to dig coal mines, cultivate sloping terraces, build dragon houses, organize autumn training for strong women and young people, organize rural camp drills, organize women and children to collect grass wadding and sew winter clothes, and recommend activists
Entering the study class - in Han Bao's opinion, who would be crazy to want to actively join the study class - the daily tasks are extremely complicated, and Han Bao can't stand it any longer.
Not to mention compared to charging into traps with swords and bows, he felt that when he was a slave in the Shang family, he didn't have to rack his brains to deal with so many things, and it was more comfortable than his current life.
Seeing his brother leading a group of sentries back to Xujiaji Township through Xiling Township - Sitian Dun is divided into four townships besides Xujiaji Township - Han Bao couldn't help but come over to inquire.
After hearing the news, thinking about the army marching eastward, he asked his brother to transfer him into the camp, and he would not stay here to work as a subordinate.
Han Bao couldn't bear it, and Han Donghu was still panicking.
People in the world thought that after successfully attacking and repelling the Chuzhou Army, capturing Langxi City, and forcing Gu Zhilong to surrender, the Chishan Army would soon be more active and take more military actions after being integrated. In fact, this was not the case.
After the substantial merger of the Xuanzhou Army and the Qiuhu Army in late August, Han Qian began to reorganize the Chishan Army.
Each of the three infantry capitals had 9,000 generals at its peak. However, after the new reorganization, each capital only retained 3,000 combat troops and 3,000 auxiliary troops; in addition, the cavalry camp was expanded to 1,200 elite troops.
, the guard camp was restored to a strength of 500 people.
That is to say, after the end of August, the Chishan Army only maintained a main combat force of less than 11,000 people and an auxiliary force of 9,000 people.
Excluding the generals who died in the capture of Langxi and those who died of serious injuries, there were almost more than 4,000 wounded soldiers who recovered from their injuries and retired from active service.
These wounded soldiers were supposed to become the most elite combat force of the Chishan Army, but Han Qian abandoned them. The public opinion is that they have made their due sacrifices, unless the three counties of Guangde, Langxi, and Anji are attacked by the enemy.
Otherwise they will not be mobilized.
Except for taking over the defense of Sitian Dun after the Qiuhu Army withdrew, the main force of the Chishan Army was mainly concentrated in Nantangzhai, Shiqishan and Langxi City at the southwest foot of Jieling Mountain. There has never been any major mobilization.
Not to mention organizing large-scale operations to the north or east to Huhang.
In mid-September, the Daliang Caizhou Army marched eastward to Xuzhou, forcing King Xin Yang Yuanyan to lead some of his troops to withdraw northward from Chuzhou to defend their base. No matter how you look at it, this should be a good opportunity for the Chishan Army to cross the Jialing Mountains and move north to look for combat opportunities.
However, in addition to the early arrangements for more than 4,000 injured generals to withdraw from active service, Han Qian took advantage of the further easing of the military crisis in mid-September to dispatch a group of military attachés and 9,000 auxiliary soldiers to expand the area at the southern foot of Jieling Mountain.
, the northern foothills of Fuyu Mountain are reclaiming sloping terraces, mining coal and iron, felling wood, and burning lime. They also started building more than 300 dragon houses similar to small fortresses in mid-to-late September. It is almost a race against time.
Entering a period of comprehensive construction.
There are many examples of a large number of low-level military attachés like Han Bao who were assigned to serve as assistant officials and village chiefs in the townships of the three counties after preliminary training.
A large number of dragon houses were built at the southern foot of Jieling Mountain, and more importantly, more than 200,000 acres of farmland and more than 20,000 houses were replaced in the three counties of Langxi, Guangde, and Anji. Currently, there is far from enough space to house so many houses.
There are many old, weak, women and children.
More than 300 dragon houses will be built, and more than 30,000 new houses will be built, which can only force a total of 320,000 Chishan Army generals and their families to spend time between Fuyu Mountain and Jieling Mountain.
The first cold winter.
In mid-to-late September, the Guangde Army was formally established and the diplomatic office was established in accordance with the Yueyang Order. The Chishan Army was reorganized into the Zuo Guangde Army, and the Qiuhu Army after absorbing the local troops in Xuanzhou was reorganized into the You Guangde Army.
At this time, while the Zuo Guang German Army was silent and low-key, the Right Guang German Army actively used Donglu Mountain, Fushan, Tianyin Mountain, and Jilong Mountain as boundaries, looking for fighters in the northwest direction, and attacked the Nanya Forbidden Army troops stationed in Lishui and Pingling.
The horses carried out raids, using small gains to expand the results of the battle, and it was even quite effective. They even drank horses to quarry stones, and went to areas along the river in Tu.
At this time, there were even a lot of disputes within the Chishan Army over Han Qian's compromise and silence. Several groups of generals, military attaches and generals came to Han Qian to ask for a fight almost every once in a while, but they were all suppressed by Han Qian.
The generals and military attachés who danced particularly happily were even "mercilessly" kicked by Han Qian into large and small transport teams.
Following Yang Zhitang, the king of Yuzhang County, the two states of Rao and She officially surrendered in early September. The governors of the two states all took the title of military generals and personally led the state camps and a small number of brave men to join the Youguangde Army.
Participating in the raids on Lishui, Pingling, Dangtu and other places, he was extremely active. It seemed that he wanted to release the loyalty he had suppressed for the third prince for too long in the past more thoroughly and more enthusiastically before winning the final victory.
Han Daochang and Fu Mo went out to lead Raozhou and Shezhou respectively.
This also means that the land passage from Xuzhou to Xuanzhou is completely opened.
Although there is a post road connecting Xuzhou to Langxi City in the north of Xuanzhou, the more than 2,000-mile post road passes through Fuyu Mountain and Yi Mountain, across the hilly area on the south side of Poyang Lake, and has to cross Wugong Mountain on the northern branch of the Luoxiao Mountain Range.
, you have to cross the rolling mountains on both sides of the Xiang River and climb the Xuefeng Mountain to reach Qianyang City in Xuzhou. There are post roads connected along the way, which can be said to be extremely bumpy.
This is a difficult road that even the most proficient soldiers in the army will have to walk on for at least a month, not to mention transporting large quantities of supplies from Xuzhou to Xuanzhou.
However, Han Qian still organized more than thirty study class transport teams, each with fifty or sixty people, to take them all the way to Xuzhou.
Those military attachés and soldiers who loved to toss and refused to accept discipline were all kicked into the study class transportation team. On the one hand, Xi Faer and others led them to conduct on-the-spot reconnaissance, counter-reconnaissance, and terrain survey inspections and studies. On the other hand, Han Qian and others
Before the waterway can be opened, a batch of high value-added goods must be transported from Xuzhou to Langxi before November.
Although the two prefectures of Rao and She surrendered, and the two prefectures and Xuanzhou were temporarily merged under the rule of Guangde Zhizhifu, Han Qian, as the Guangde Zhizhifu, had overall power and could mobilize the power of the three states and nineteen counties.
However, except for the relatively flat farmland in northern Xuanzhou, the other counties in the three states are located inside Fuyu Mountain or Yishan Mountain, and only a small number of valleys or river valley plains can be used for farming.
The total population of the nineteen counties in the three prefectures is less than 800,000, but the cultivated land is less than 5 million acres, and most of it is mountainous and dry land.
Measured by the current level of productivity, the productivity scale of the nineteen counties in Xuansherao's three prefectures is far from catching up with the six counties to which Runzhou belongs.
In the three prefectures and nineteen counties, it is still quite difficult to fully supply the material consumption of more than 50,000 troops and horses in a short period of time, not to mention that Han Qian still wants to allocate a large amount of additional materials to ensure the three counties of Guangde, which are far away.
The nearly 300,000 elderly, weak, women and children far exceed the carrying capacity of the three counties.
Without study classes, or even without a long period of study and accumulation, the vast majority of heroic generals, even the grassroots military attachés promoted to the rank of team leader, would not be able to figure out how to protect more than 300,000 old, weak, women and children.
How difficult it is to survive the cold winter without large-scale abnormal deaths.
Even the Huhang local faction headed by Huzhou governor Huang Hua further softened their attitude and acquiesced to the Guangde Military Commission to send people to Huzhou to purchase grain, cloth and other materials in Hangzhou.
He wanted to make things difficult, but the problem was that Han Qian had to trade the corresponding materials or goods.
At present, although Yueyang agrees that Anji, Guangde and Langxi counties should be set aside separately to accommodate Zuo Guangde army generals and their families, the problem is that the three counties can replace only 200,000 acres of farmland and more than 20,000 houses.
It could barely accommodate heroic soldiers and 8,000 generals and children from families who were seriously injured or disabled, which in total accounted for less than 20% of the total number of generals and children in Zuo Guangde's army.
In addition to the 20,000 main and auxiliary soldiers of the Zuo Guangde Army, supplies can be spent from military salaries. The shortfall can even be further claimed from Yueyang and transferred from Hongyuan and other prefectures, but the resettled generals will be deducted.
There are 2,670,000 young and old generals, as well as 2.67 million old, weak, women and children, who need to support themselves by setting up an envoy in the Guangde Army.
The three states of Xuanshe and Rao are currently only under temporary control by Han Qian. According to the original agreement, the requisitioned materials can only guarantee the supply and consumption of 40,000 generals of Guangde Army, and an additional 2.67 million old, weak, women and children.
Material support can only be solved by Han Qian collecting additional taxes from the three counties of Langxi, Anji, and Guangde, or by transferring money and grain from Xuzhou.
Two hundred and sixty-seven thousand old, weak, women and children are provided with material supplies (including food, shelter and cold clothes) at a minimum standard of eight qian per person per day, which is 2.2 million yuan per day and 66 million yuan per month.
, which is nearly 800 million yuan a year, which is 800,000 yuan.
For a long time, Dachu's annual income, excluding the interception by various prefectures and counties, could be transported into Jinling and unified by the Duzhi Envoy Division, between three and four million yuan.
The Feng family's wealth of four to five million yuan was accumulated by the large family after they had controlled Jianghuai's financial resources for several generations. Even so, Emperor Tianyou was shocked after the family was confiscated.
In today's world, the annual shortfall of 800,000 yuan requires the Guangde Government to raise its own funds. It is such a terrifying figure.
The three counties of Langxi, Guangde, and Anji, in addition to the families and farm houses of the first batch of resettled generals, have a population of 110,000 and more than 600,000 acres of cultivated land. All miscellaneous donations and taxes will be spread into the farmland.
, less than 70,000 yuan of money and food can be collected in a year, but even if the expenses for inspection and maintenance of the three counties and townships are controlled to a minimum, 50,000 yuan can be left over and handed over to the Zhizhi Envoy Office for unified expenditure.
, is already the limit.
The biggest benefit at present is that local production has not been destroyed, trade channels with the Huhang area have also been opened, and autumn grain harvests have been completed in various places. As long as the imperial government can mobilize a large amount of additional goods, it can still be purchased from the private sector.
To obtain enough grain to meet the most basic material needs.
The biggest problem is, where will Han Qian make up for such a huge expenditure gap?
After capturing Langxi City, why did Han Qian not fight?
In addition to too many other things to consider, Han Qian mainly did not dare to fight and was reluctant to fight.
Another key factor is that the consumption of elites is too great and too cruel.
When Langxi City was captured, as many as 6,000 generals died in the battle and died of injuries after the war.
These six thousand people are precisely the group of people in Zuo Guangde's army who have the greatest potential to become elites - after losing so many elite young men in one battle, how many times can Zuo Guangde's army withstand such losses?
Taowu Jibinghuhu used to be very prosperous, but when merged with Changchun Palace Zhuanghu, there were once more than 20,000 adult men. However, after these years of war, there are now less than 6,000 adult men left.
If Han Qian hadn't worked so hard this time to save more than 40,000 women and children in Taowu Ji, especially nearly 10,000 boys and teenagers, Taowu Ji military households would soon have become a historical term and disappeared in the wind.
Even so, with the traditional fertility and medical conditions, it would take at least two or three generations for the Taowu military households to recover. The death rate of children is too high. Even if there is no war or famine, half of the people will be safe.
If you live to adulthood, you will be thankful to God.
The refugee army is usually very brave in the early stage. In addition to the spirit of not being afraid of death and daring to fight, it is also able to continuously coerce young and strong men from the bottom to join the army without worrying about consumption, but this also leads to the coercion of women and children becoming larger and larger.
, and when the young elites are almost exhausted in the later stage, the refugee army will become more and more fragile, so that it will be quickly defeated and collapsed in the later stage.
If Han Qian wants to break this vicious cycle, he has to endure it, endure it, and suppress his inflated mentality desperately.
In order to reduce unnecessary consumption of materials and reduce the casualties of elite soldiers, he cultivated land, built houses, and mined coal as quickly as possible. He could give up all his later military exploits to You Guang, led by Gu Zhilong, Li Xiu, Chen Mingsheng and others.
The German army allowed Xinchang Hou Li Pu and others to stand in front with "incomparable scenery"...
…………
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Mid-October has passed, and although the weather has not yet reached severe cold, it has already entered winter.
Nandutang Lake, located at the southwest foot of Jieling Mountain, has become shallow due to soil siltation over the years. At this time, the water levels of several upstream streams and rivers that feed into Nandutang Lake have dropped, resulting in a large area of lake beach being exposed.
This allows women and children from dozens of nearby villages to directly enter the lake beach to harvest reed flowers that can be stuffed between worn-out clothes to keep warm.
Silk wadding, cotton wool and fur have a better thermal insulation effect, but Chishan generals and soldiers have no such extravagant expectations. Reed catkins are already an excellent thing. If reed flowers are not enough, use wheat straw that has been thoroughly kneaded and softened.
Replacing it with poles or thatch stems is also a way to survive the winter.
In the Jiangnan area, even severe cold weather can always be endured. In the Central Plains area north of the Huaihe River, it is really difficult when heavy snow closes the mountains.
Han Qian sat on the horse, pondering over the intelligence collected from the northern front these days.
After Liang Emperor Zhu Yu personally conquered Suiyang in Songzhou, he did not take advantage of the victory to pursue the remnants of Liang Bo King Zhu Gui, so the Xuanjia Army with heavy casualties stayed in Songzhou to rest and recuperate, while the Caizhou Army led by Han Yuanqi marched eastward.
Xuzhou, joined the Xuzhou soldiers led by Sima Dan, and took a peek at Chuzhou on the south bank of the Huaihe River.
Many people do not understand the intention of Liang Emperor Zhu Yu. Most people analyze that it should be that before the internal hidden dangers were completely resolved, Emperor Liang strengthened his control over the eastern region of Liang State and at the same time forced King Xin Yang Yuanyan to separatize Huaidong.
, to cut off the possibility of the Chu army's large-scale northern expedition in recent years.
Is it really that simple?
After the defeat of Jingxiang, Zhu Yu still had the leisure to sneak into the Chu region to scout out the military situation. Would he be worried that even after the apparent unification, Chu would have the ability to pose a fatal threat to the Liang Kingdom with complicated internal factional interests?
Wouldn't it be better to leave Yang Yuanyan to lead the Chuzhou army on the south bank of the Yangtze River and fight Yueyang's troops first, causing both sides to suffer losses?
Seeing Chen Jitang walking over at this time, Han Qian got rid of the chaotic thoughts in his mind.
"When did the adults arrive? Why didn't you tell us in advance?" Chen Jitang, wearing riding boots, walked over a muddy field and asked.
"I came back to Langxi from Nantangzhai and stopped by here to take a look." Han Qian got off his horse and walked with Chen Jitang to a slightly higher beach, overlooking the lake beach and the lake that had shrunk to just over a thousand acres after the winter.
On the surface of Nandutang Lake, he asked, "You haven't returned to Langxicheng for four or five days. You have eaten and slept in the wild. Has the reclamation of Nandutang Lake been finalized?"
Chen Jitang fell while inspecting the terrain in the central area of the lake beach. At this time, he was covered in mud and his muddy robe was torn, but he was not restrained in front of Han Qian and said:
"The water surface of Nandutang Lake can reach more than 13,000 acres in summer and autumn at its widest. However, due to the extremely narrow channels of Taoran Creek and Qiwei River in the south, which are used as drainage outlets, Nandutang Lake is actually
The role of the lake in water storage and flood discharge has been greatly reduced - I have walked through it over the past four or five days, found some old people, and looked through the county records. All of Nandutang Lake has been reclaimed into fields, and the water surface of Nanyi Lake in the south is Nandutang.
Thirty times that of Nandutang Lake, and the average water depth is more than twice that of Nandutang River. We can completely widen the channel of Qixu River and divert the rainfall and floods that should be accumulated by Nandutang Lake in summer and autumn into Nanyi Lake, which will affect the coast
There will be no significant impact on the region!”
The terrain of Langxi is high in the south and low in the north, with half mountains and half lakes. The fields in the mountains are few and barren. The situation is not much better than that of Guangde. In order to accommodate more Zuo Guangde army generals and soldiers with small families, the slope terraces can be cultivated in a short time.
, after all, they are a minority.
Not only is it difficult to cultivate sloping terraces, but the grain yield per acre is still low.
In need of more high-yielding new fields, Han Qian could only turn his attention to building dikes around lakes.
Even with the accumulated experience of building a levee in Chishan Lake and large-scale land reclamation and water conservancy projects in Xuzhou, the current understanding of water conservancy, climate, geography and geology is still too limited.
The reclamation of the entire Nandutang River lake area will yield more than 12,000 acres of fertile new farmland. However, how to channel the rain that pours down during the rainy season so that it does not cause waterlogging, let alone flash floods.
There are too many factors to consider when river banks break down and cause huge floods.
In mid-September, in order to expand the scale of reclamation and industrial and mining production in Guangde, Langxi and Anji counties on a larger scale, Han Qian transferred Chen Jitang and another 300 craftsmen and craftsmen from Xuzhou.
In order to ensure safety, Chen Jitang and the others came by land, but it was much harder than traveling by water. After arriving in Langxi, they immediately put into high-intensity work, and they almost lost weight in just more than ten days.
Listening to Chen Jitang's report on his inspection of the Nandutang River in the past few days, Han Qian looked around. There were snow reed flowers on the lake beach. The scenery was naturally extremely beautiful. He frowned slightly and said:
"Although the risk is difficult to completely eliminate, the widening of the Qiwei River must be carried out at the same time, and two main canals must be dug at the same time. We cannot just expect that there will be no heavy rainstorms in Xuanzhou next year when summer begins."
It is extremely stressful to complete the reclamation of 100,000 acres of new land before spring plowing next year, and it is impossible not to bear any risk.
In this way, more than 5,000 households of generals, soldiers and families can be resettled when spring plowing begins next year.
However, the resettlement of the remaining population is a tough matter.
Although the industry and mining industry can also accommodate a large number of surplus laborers, the construction of tall buildings requires investment, and the establishment of handicraft workshops requires investment.
Workshops, overflow stone dams that stabilize water flow, roads leading to coal pits and mines in the mountains, as well as a large number of mining tools, forging and casting tools, hydraulic equipment, looms, textile machinery manufacturing, and the promotion and cultivation of cotton, etc.
etc., which not only requires a lot of resources but also a lot of time.
At the same time, it is also necessary to develop a broad market that can accommodate the dumping of large quantities of primary industrial products.
Sometimes it takes more time than the resources that need to be invested.
Zhu Yu's fundamental purpose of sending troops to Xuzhou to spy on Huaidong was because he didn't want to give him enough time? Han Qian sighed in his heart and thought silently.
"Ta-ta-ta", at this time, several fast horses galloped from the south, attracting everyone's attention.
Guo Que turned over and dismounted and said: "The messenger from Yueyang has just arrived at Langxi and reported that on the 12th, Li Zhigao led his troops to capture the two cities of Chiwu and Xunyang in Jiangzhou and killed six thousand defenders including Zhou Ang, the governor of Jiangzhou.
, captured Zhong Yanhu and other Jiangzhou city defenders with more than 7,000 soldiers. In addition, the prince of Yuzhang County also led his troops northward through the west bank of Poyang Lake at about the same time, and fell into Pengze City. He appointed deputy envoy Li Pu, and You Guangde Army Commanding Envoy
Gu Zhilong, deputy capital commander Chen Mingsheng, Li Xiu and others should have contacted the messenger sent by Yueyang first, and by this time they have all rushed to Langxi City and are waiting for you to return!"
"Jiangzhou was captured so quickly? The recruiting troops along the river and Jiangxi recruiting troops were so fast!" Xi Rong said in surprise, "After Pengze City was captured, Chizhou was less than three hundred miles east along the river. Look at it this way,
Maybe within November, the Yueyang soldiers and horses will be able to knock open the west gate of Jinling, right?"
"Liang Jun has forced King Xin back to Jiangbei. If Li Zhigao delays for one day, Anning Palace will send hundreds of thousands of delayed soldiers into Jiangzhou." Chen Jitang said.
Chen Jitang came to serve as the chief engineer of the Zhizhi Envoy Mansion, but this does not mean that he knew nothing about military affairs.
"Let's rush back first!" Han Qian gathered his cloak and said.
Han Qian spoke in a calm tone, but at this moment he knew in his heart how conflicted and entangled he was. On the one hand, in order to fulfill his father's last wish, he hoped in his heart that the war would end soon and the people of Li would suffer less.
On the one hand, if the war can be postponed until the autumn of next year and then completely ended, Guangde's situation will no longer be so embarrassing.
Han Qian said goodbye to Chen Jitang, who would continue to stay near Nandutang Lake to survey the terrain and prepare for the completion of the encirclement and reclamation work before spring. He and Xi Rong and their guards, led by Guo Que, got on their horses.
