Li Xuan has been worried about the northern provinces recently. Damn, he never thought being an emperor was so painful before, but now, he feels the helplessness of many rulers.
In order to solve the problem in the north, he began to organize immigrants, allocated a large amount of funds for disaster relief, and helped local farmers restore production.
But the problem came at this time, because the rebellion was no longer a day or two, but had lasted for several years. The Tang government had just pulled out disaster relief funds to help farmers resume production, and then came a few days later.
An army of refugees then ate and burned everything they passed, dragging the people with them and continuing to move forward.
This made the local officials quite depressed. These refugees or rebels were not very effective in fighting, but their destructive power was amazing. When the regular army of the Tang Dynasty came over, they immediately turned around and ran away, continuing to harm others.
place.
As a result, the local garrison was running around, and although the number of defeated rebels was large, these defeated rebels swept back within a few days.
At this time, the Privy Council also raised difficulties with Li Xuan, saying that the Fourth Army alone was no longer able to maintain the fight against the Ming Army and suppress the local area at the same time, and that more troops must be added!
It can also be seen from this that the situation in Shaanxi, Shanxi, and Henan has deteriorated!
After considering it for several days, Li Xuan made several decisions regarding the above-mentioned areas that had almost fallen into an endless loop. The first was to increase troops!
It is no longer enough to rely on the tens of thousands of regular troops in the Fourth Army. Additional troops must be added. However, the additional troops are not regular troops. Regular troops cost too much and have limited strength. The Tang Dynasty is currently deploying regular troops for the Huguang War.
However, there were not many extra troops to send to the Fourth Army.
This time, the additional troops are second-line troops such as reserve divisions!
Directly dispatch two reserve divisions from the nearest Wanbei Road and Jiangbei Road to Henan and Shandong. At the same time, a total of five reserve divisions from Jiangxi, Jiangnan Road, South Anhui Road, Zhejiang and other regions will be transferred northward. On the one hand, they will supplement North Anhui Road.
Jiangbei Road has a vacancy in troops after being transferred to the reserve division. On the other hand, it is also preparing to send more troops.
At the same time, in Shandong, Henan, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Hebei and other provinces, new soldiers were recruited locally to form reserve divisions, and Li Xuan approved the establishment of ten reserve divisions in one go.
It is initially planned to recruit three reserve divisions in Hebei, three reserve divisions in Shandong, two reserve divisions in Henan, one reserve division in Shanxi, which has not yet been fully controlled, and one reserve division in Shaanxi.
Although the pressure on military expenditures will increase in a short period of time, there is no way to suppress the local area. When the local area is peaceful in the future, it can also be abolished.
Increasing troop strength is only one aspect of military preparations. On the other hand, Li Xuan also approved the Privy Council's proposed combat plan, which is to no longer use the main force of the regular army to pursue large groups of rebels as usual, but instead
Focus on thorough eradication.
Marching in from multiple directions at the same time, regardless of traffic arteries, controlling a place means cleaning it up, and this cleanup is not just about dealing with ordinary refugee armies, but a thorough public security cleanup, for all kinds of people.
The criminals who took the opportunity to cause trouble, needless to say, were killed on the spot for serious crimes. For minor crimes, they were directly exiled to Da Yuan Mansion, Qiongzhou Mansion, or Yunnan Guizhou and other places.
High pressure must be used to maintain local security!
If you encounter an army of refugees, instead of defeating it directly as usual, kill the main criminals and then let the refugees return home on their own. This is because these refugees will have nothing to eat and will turn into an army of refugees in a few days.
Therefore, after defeating the rebels, they no longer let them go, but directly captured them as prisoners of war as in ordinary combat, and then forcibly incorporated them into various settlement regiments.
The Reclamation Corps, this type of prisoner-of-war organization, was specially used by the Tang Dynasty to resettle prisoners of the Ming army. Now, it is prepared to resettle refugees.
The refugees were too destructive, and they couldn't be killed. After all, they were just farmers who couldn't survive, so they just killed them all. To be honest, even Li Xuan couldn't bear it.
If all the refugees were incorporated into the settlement regiment, the government would only need to spend their first year's rations and let them farm. In the second year, not only would they have their own rations, but they would also be able to contribute excess grain to the government.
These policies can be regarded as a combination of military strikes and disaster relief!
The only troublesome thing is that it will consume a lot of money and food!
Fortunately, the Tang Dynasty was still relatively rich. As for food, there had been no large-scale natural disasters in Jiangnan and other southern regions in recent years. The output was quite considerable for this era and could barely be maintained.
In addition, Li Xuan also plans to take mandatory measures on immigration!
In the past, the immigration policy was still voluntary, but many people would rather starve to death, become bandits, or become thieves than immigrate, so Li Xuan planned to carry out forced immigration.
For areas with serious land annexation and natural disasters, a forced immigration policy was adopted, and the army directly escorted them to several provinces in the south to prevent them from becoming new refugees.
After taking this series of measures, Li Xuan feels that it should be able to alleviate the plight of the above-mentioned provinces. Otherwise, when will this turmoil end?
When the Tang Dynasty adopted these policies in the above-mentioned areas, one after another settlement regiments appeared. At first, they were just refugee prisoners of war who rebelled. However, in the middle and late stages, they also recruited many ordinary young people from the troubled areas.
, and then organize to colonize a certain place.
There were more and more settlement groups, which indirectly allowed the Tang Dynasty to add more farmland and increase grain production.
However, many early reclamation regiments also ended their original missions one after another at this time. Some were cancelled, and some simply began to exist in name only, with few people left. Some have already been removed from the reclamation regiments.
Transformed into ordinary villages, some are more special!
The 89th Reclamation Regiment located in Lingao County, Qiongzhou Prefecture, is a very special one among the many settlements in the Tang Dynasty.
The 29th Reclamation Regiment, as the name suggests, is the 29th Reclamation Regiment in the Tang Dynasty. It was established in Guangdong in the third year of Xuanping. At the beginning of its establishment, about 3,000 Ming army prisoners of war were recruited.
Although the 29th Reclamation Regiment arrived at Qiongzhou Island and came to Lingao County to establish wasteland and cultivate land, the first days were naturally very difficult because the rations provided by the superiors were insufficient. Even though they would not go without food for several days,
But it’s definitely true that I’m often hungry.
The leader of the 29th Reclamation Regiment, Tang Army Reserve Captain Lu Pingping, was also a bandit in his early years. He captured Guangdong and Guangxi during the Tang Dynasty. After the army gradually became regularized, he was like many officers with bandit origins.
Gradually they withdrew from the mainstream, some changed careers to become patrol policemen, and some, like him, came to work in the Reclamation Corps.
Although he has retired from active service, the title of reserve captain is still good. In the 29th Reclamation Regiment, he is the largest officer!
In order to solve the ration problem, Lu Pingfa also spent a lot of effort. If there was not enough rations, he would have to rely on himself. Moreover, he had to rely on mountains and rivers to feed himself. The sea was right here, so naturally he could only rely on the sea.
Begging for food!
He first organized his people to build a small fishing boat. At the beginning, he just wanted to catch some fish to beat the teeth of the more than 3,000 prisoners of war, but he did not expect that the catch was beyond imagination.
Throw this fishing net down and then catch it up again, and slowly there will be all kinds of sea fish!
Then, he saw the hope of completely solving the problem of food rations!
He asked for a large fishing boat, and then organized his own manpower to build several small fishing boats, and started the fishing career of the 29th Reclamation Group. With this fishing, he fished out the 29th Reclamation Group.
Same life!
In less than two months, no one in the 29th Reclamation Group was hungry!
There are more than 3,500 people. Although they are not enough to eat rice every day, they are at least barely enough to eat.
Why?
Because they caught too many fish!
At first, they happily ate fish every day, but then they couldn't eat any more. Then they began to take the fish they caught to sell them in the county or even the prefectural city, and then exchange them for ordinary food.
Half a year later, they already owned several large fishing boats, and their catches were already being sold to merchants from mainland China, such as Lianzhou and other places.
However, at this time, they found that the live fish could not be sold at a high price because the shelf life was too short and could easily become smelly, so they began to pickle the fish they caught, using salt to pickle them before taking them out.
I went to buy it, but I didn't expect that the salted fish was more expensive than the live fish, and the supply was in short supply.
By the second year, the 29th Reclamation Regiment not only solved the problem of rations and other living materials, but also had spare money to provide subsidies to the prisoners of war. These prisoners of war were even able to send money home!
Later, the Eternal Saint King Li Xuan issued an amnesty order. According to the special order, all the prisoners of war in the 29th Reclamation Regiment could be pardoned and go home, but no one was willing to be pardoned, so it couldn't be done.
That’s it.
By September of the sixth year of Xuanping, the 29th Reclamation Regiment had already developed into a huge scale with two large fishing boats of 100 tons, more than ten large fishing boats of tens of tons, and dozens of small fishing boats.
The prisoners of war inside have already become fishermen. Not only do they have no worries about food and drink, but they can also receive a subsidy ranging from several taels per month according to different levels and skills. Even the lowest fishermen can get a few taels per month.
You can get a subsidy of about one tael of silver.
The 29th Reclamation Reclamation Group also owns a salting factory, and its various salted fish are sold well in many places. Even in Sichuan and Hubei in Zhang Yue's control area, you can see "Twenty-Nine Brand Salted Fish" printed on it.
canned salted fish!
The current 29th Reclamation Group has long been separated from the scope of the Reclamation Group, and is more like a fishing company!