The time required for military soldiers to build houses exceeded He Xihua's imagination.
When he and his neighbors just discussed helping each other build houses, it would take two or three days to build this wooden house. After all, although the wooden house is simple and small in area, it would still take two or three days for several people.
However, there are always many soldiers in the military. There are more than 30 people who have their own division of labor, and all of them are extremely strong men, and all of them are fierce men with several abdominal muscles.
He works even harder than he, who is from a peasant background and has worked on a construction site for several years.
A small wooden house was quickly erected, and the whole process did not even take an hour.
Then the leading officer looked at the cabin, nodded with a satisfied look, and then waved his hand: "Close the team!"
Immediately afterwards, the soldiers from their platoon lined up and left, leaving behind a stunned He Xihua!
Not only He Xihua, but his surrounding neighbors also enjoyed the military's help in building houses, which made the newly arrived immigrants somewhat uneasy.
This is a bit un-military!
The army of the Tang Dynasty has always been relatively expensive.
Because the social status of soldiers in the Tang Dynasty was very high, not only the officers were all elites, but even the soldiers were selected after thousands of selections.
He Xihua also tried to sign up to join the army, but the requirements of the military are too high, including high physical fitness requirements, not to mention height, weight, and physical fitness.
Moreover, the requirements for the family are also high. There must be no criminal elements in the immediate family, and they must be children of farmers, and only children are not admitted.
He Xihua met all other requirements, but his height and weight were slightly different, so he was dismissed.
Soldiers in the Tang Dynasty are treated well. This treatment not only refers to the treatment during service, but also refers to the treatment after retirement and the accompanying social status. Generally speaking, even ordinary soldiers who retire can usually serve as local patrol officers professionally.
, if you can get a job with primary school or above while joining the army, you can directly become an ordinary clerk in the government. Many grassroots officials in Datang, especially those at the village and town levels, are usually
Formerly a retired soldier.
Therefore, for many children from farm families, except for a few geniuses who can study with scholarships all the way, the best way out for most other children from farm families is to join the army.
No matter how weak you are after joining the army, you can still read and write. The military's literacy education is very famous and effective. Generally speaking, after you join the military, no matter how bad you are, you can still read and write. If you are more talented, you can get an elementary school diploma.
If you go up a level, you can continue to get a high school diploma.
However, there are more people who want to join the army, and the military's requirements are getting higher and higher. It is already difficult for ordinary people to get the opportunity to join the army.
The military's treatment is good, and every soldier has a very high self-esteem. They even look down on civilian officials, let alone ordinary people.
To be honest, we don't see this kind of thing like helping people with work once every ten or eight years.
He Xihua didn't know that in fact, helping the new immigrants build houses, dig canals, etc. was an order from the Western Expedition Army Headquarters, not only in Curry City, but also in the entire Haidong Province and the Xibo Province garrison.
implement.
Naturally, what the Western Expedition Army Headquarters considers is not military-civilian harmony, but purely for the military's own interests.
reason?
It is too far away from the mainland, not to mention the trouble of supply transportation, and the cost is too high.
Nowadays, the army's troops in Central Asia have to be self-reliant, and they are constantly urging the government to relocate immigrants to colonize and grow food to supply the military's consumption.
In the only stone and cement building in Curry City, General Zhao Honglu, the new commander of the Western Expeditionary Army, frowned and looked at the report in his hand.
Lieutenant General Deng Yezhou, chief of staff of the Western Expeditionary Army on the side, was worried: "Our food supply is too tight, and the transportation capacity of the Western Railway is too tight. Nowadays, a lot of transportation capacity is used just to transport food, and transportation capacity has to be allocated to transport ammunition.
, I’m afraid our westward expansion plan will be delayed!”
There were also people on the side who said with an indignant look: "What do those people at the back think? Now is the critical moment for the westward march. Only by taking advantage of the fact that the Tatars have not yet established themselves and killing them in large numbers can we easily break through their defenses.
If this drags on for a year and a half, I'm afraid there will be fortresses all over the Ural River area!"
"Someone must have interfered and blocked our ammunition transportation!"
Listening to the noise of the crowd, General Zhao Hong put down his report and then looked up at the crowd.
General Zhao Hong snorted coldly: "Shut up, my officer."
After everyone heard this, they realized that they had said something they shouldn't have said, so they all closed their mouths.
After a pause, General Zhao Honglu continued: "If there are no difficulties in the westward expansion strategy of Central Asia, what else do we need to do? What we have to do now is to overcome the difficulties, instead of just complaining and blaming!"
At this time, Lieutenant General Deng Yezhou on the side muttered: "But they really went too far!"
General Zhao Hong lowered his hand and signaled him not to continue: "We are all members of the imperial army, and we are also elites of the army. There is no need to say these nonsense. The railway capacity of the Western Line is tight and the transportation cost is too high."
Gao, this is something we have expected!"
"That's why we need to be self-reliant, and we also need to immigrate to settle the land. Otherwise, we won't be able to rely on the Central Plains to transport food!"
To be honest, Zhao Honglu now regrets that he used Curry City as his base camp. If he had left it behind, the logistics supply would not be so tight.
Nowadays, there are not many people in Central Asia, so there is naturally no food output. All the supplies needed by the troops stationed in various parts of Central Asia need to be transported from the Central Plains and even the Jiangnan area.
Ammunition is actually pretty good. There are large arsenals in Gansu and Shaanxi. In addition, a new ammunition factory has been built in Tumi Province, which can supply ammunition nearby.
But there is really nothing we can do about food. There are few immigrants in Central Asia, and land development has just begun. They don’t have enough to eat themselves, so it is impossible to supply the military with the right food.
The same is true in Tumi Province, where there is basically not much food to supply the frontline troops.
The only provinces that are better are Gansu and Shaanxi, which can supply some, but not much.
More still have to rely on transportation from the Central Plains.
This food has traveled such a long journey to Kuri City, and even if it is transported by rail, the cost is quite high.
This makes the Army feel quite uncomfortable, so the Army has always supported the immigration and reclamation of these areas.
The army not only cultivated the land and planted food on its own, but also asked the government to organize a large number of immigrants to come and cultivate the land, in order to solve the food problem on the spot.
Of course, another very important reason is that the top army officials want to slow down the war on the Western Front.
The pressure on military spending is too great!
The Western Expedition has been going on for many years since it entered the Western Regions back then, and it has cost the army huge military expenditures every year.
Although the military expenditure of the Tang Dynasty Army is a very huge figure, and it can be considered that there is no shortage of money, the size of the army is also large. In the past two years, it has just happened to be the time point to replace rifled rifles, and this military expenditure is flowing like crazy.
go out.
What's more important is that the damn cabinet is unwilling to pay temporary war expenses. At most, it will give several million in equipment replacement costs. This has made several active-duty bosses of the army want to directly draw their swords and angrily kill the cabinet.
.
But the reason why they thought about it but didn't do it is because they knew that the cabinet really couldn't come up with more money.
In the thirty-fifth year of Xuanping, the central fiscal revenue of the Tang Empire reached a new high, exceeding 300 million yuan for the first time, reaching 316 million yuan.
But with high fiscal revenue, expenditures are also high. This year's fiscal expenditure budget is 300 million yuan.
In order to comprehensively popularize basic education, Datang has built primary schools all over the country in recent years. Primary schools have been spread to all towns. The resulting education funding has also skyrocketed. This year’s education funding has reached a huge 30 million yuan, occupying the financial resources.
Ten percent of expenses.
Then, the funding for industry and commerce is also huge. In order to develop industry and commerce, we must first have infrastructure, so we need subsidies for building railways, building roads, and building ports.
As for military expenditures, although they are increasing year by year, their proportion is still gradually getting smaller. This year's total military expenditures are 75 million yuan, accounting for 25% of fiscal expenditures.
This number is not low.
After all, the Tang Dynasty changed the pure recruitment system to a compulsory military system many years ago. The soldiers did not receive wages, but only received a small amount of subsidies. Of course, their food and clothing were also fully paid.
But even so, the pressure on the military's military expenditures is still very heavy, because the Tang Empire has been experiencing wars of all sizes for so many years.
Although most of the time we fight against the enemy, and except for the Tatars, who are relatively strong enemies, the others are vulnerable indigenous people, but even an armed march is quite expensive.
The Army's Western Expedition has lasted for so many years. Although there have been a few temporary war expenditures from the financial side, in fact most of the time, the Army has relied on itself to prepare military expenditures.
In the past, the Army held its breath and fought hard to reach the Caspian Sea, in order to seize the entire Central Asia.
Now that Central Asia has been taken and the Tatars have been driven to the west of the Ural Mountains, the army naturally wants to slow down.
The heavy pressure on military expenditures forced the Army to suspend its offensive in Central Asia. However, as a result, the generals on the front line also had a lot of complaints.
But there is nothing you can do if you complain. Without food and ammunition, you will naturally not be able to fight.
However, since a large-scale battle could not be fought, it was not left to the Western Expeditionary Army to cause trouble in other directions.
After all, if there is no trouble, there will be no fighting, if there is no fighting, there will be no victory, and if there is no victory, there will be no military merit!
If they had no military merit, why would they come all the way here?