By the end of the 19th year of Zhangwu's reign, Northeastern general Xu Rong, whose pseudonym was Xu Zheng, died of illness at the age of sixty-four.

Among the others, Taichang Cai Yong died of illness in August of the 19th year of Zhangwu. General Wu Anguo of Zhennan died of illness in the early 20th year of Zhangwu. General Yang Feng of Pingxi died of illness in April of the 20th year of Zhangwu.

Among the senior founding generals and senior officials who died in the past five years,

There are more than ten people, and they are basically between 50 and 80 years old.

Especially military generals, because they were exposed to death on the battlefield in their early years, they suffered from injuries and illnesses. In their later years, they often suffered from cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases. Seven or eight senior generals died of the disease. Middle-to-high-level generals, such as lieutenant generals and major generals,

More than twenty people have died.

The nine tiger generals who are still alive include Zang Ba, Zhang Liao, Gao Shun, Huang Zhong, Zhao Yun, and Qianzhao. The oldest among them is Huang Zhong.

He is seventy-two years old this year, and the youngest is Zhang Liao, who is fifty-one.

The rest of Zang Ba, Gao Shun, Zhao Yun, Qian Zhao and others are all between fifty and seventy years old. For example, Gao Shun is two years younger than Lu Bu and three years older than Liu Bei. He is already sixty-three years old this year.

The situation of senior officials and senior generals within the entire court is becoming increasingly aging. The only good news is that the backbone is relatively sufficient.

In terms of generals, there are a group of middle-level people in their 30s and 40s such as Xu Chu, Guo Huai, Wen Su, Xu Sheng, Lu Meng, and Ding Feng. In terms of civil servants, there are Zhuge Liang, Sima Yi, Pang Tong, Xu Shu, Ma Liang, Yang Xiu, Chen Qun,

Lu Yi and other people are also growing.

Therefore, judging from the current situation, there is no need to worry that there will be a gap after the death of the old batch of Han people. However, in today's peaceful era, there is no war, and it is not easy to be promoted quickly.

The only ones who had military exploits in the previous wars and were promoted quickly in the middle and later stages were Xu Chu and Wen Su.

Now Xu Chu has been promoted to the rank of general, and Wen Su has been promoted to lieutenant general.

But strictly speaking,

Xu Chu is not among the younger generals either.

Because he is only one year younger than Zhang Liao and is also fifty years old this year.

Historically, Xu Chu died of illness in 227 AD at the age of 57. He may live a few more years now.

By the second half of the 20th year of Zhangwu's reign, the national power of the Han Dynasty had reached a higher level. The weather had been good for a year, the warehouses were full of grain, and grain prices had dropped to the bottom. The people were living in prosperity, and the situation of starvation to death in the past was almost impossible.

As the saying goes, "High prices hurt the people, low prices hurt farmers." Low food prices are not a particularly good thing. Therefore, the imperial court has also introduced a series of policies in recent years to stabilize food prices.

For example, opening factories in grain-producing areas in the south would attract labor participation, reduce the farming population, and increase the industrial and manufacturing population.

Secondly, the grain-producing areas in the south were gradually moved to Southeast Asia, because in later generations, part of the coastal areas of Vietnam and Laos were the territory of the Han Dynasty, called Jiaozhi County, Jiuzhen County and Rinan County.

The Han Dynasty continued to expand territory in these places, absorbing the local people as Han people, and then cultivated fields.

Expand rice production, wait until the grain industry here takes shape, reduce the grain producing areas in the two lakes basins and the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River basin, and switch to cash crops.

This is called industrial transfer in economics. Domestic food production is already very sufficient, because the current population of Han Dynasty is not as high as the hundreds of millions in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Therefore, with the help of high-yielding crops, productivity has doubled and can feed more people.

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If the excess population continues to engage in agriculture, food production will be excessive, and it will be a waste to leave it moldy in warehouses. Therefore, it is better to transfer this part of the population to the industry and manufacturing fields and continue to strengthen industry and manufacturing.

As early as more than ten years ago, Chen Mu had already planned the relocation of industries. In the first five-year plan, he first promoted high-yielding crops across the country, and then pushed the focus of agriculture southward after grain production surged.

Most of the land in the north began to be planted with cash crops, such as American cotton, corn, sweet potatoes, mulberry, hemp, beans, etc., which were used in the textile industry, pig breeding, etc., to develop the agricultural economy.

When the food production in the south has reached an extremely high level and begins to overflow, the focus of agriculture will continue to move south, to Southeast Asia.

However, this is just the beginning. In the next ten to twenty years, the two lake basins and the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River will still serve as the country's main grain-producing areas.

When the development of Southeast Asia takes shape in more than ten or twenty years, the production of the two lakes basins and the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River will be reduced year by year. It is estimated that in fifty years, 20% of the entire country's food may come from Southeast Asia, and the rest will be dispersed to other parts of the country.

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Although it is only 20%, it is still an astonishing number. Moreover, Southeast Asia is now the back garden of the Han Dynasty and its own domestic territory. The current main development area is the Hanoi area of ​​later Vietnam, which is probably the land of the Han Dynasty.

With one state providing 20% ​​of the food for the Han Dynasty, which is almost equivalent to the status of the Taihu Lake Basin in the Song Dynasty, we can know what kind of responsibilities Southeast Asia will bear for the Han Dynasty in the next hundred years.

certainly.

Southeast Asia is indeed the best rice-producing region in later generations.

But rice is only eaten by southerners, while northerners prefer to eat pasta made from wheat.

Now the economic and industrial center of the Han Dynasty is in the north. If the grain-producing areas move all the way south, it will obviously be unfair to the northerners.

After all, rice is for food supply, but northerners don’t like to eat it. When a country becomes rich, people must not only eat enough, but also eat well.

Chen Mu has also considered this.

So he set his sights on the Northeast region, especially Heilongjiang.

As one of the important grain producing areas in our country in later generations, the black soil of Heilongjiang in the northeast is a rich treasure.

Now it is occupied by two primitive tribes like Fuyu and Yilou. It is obviously a waste of natural resources.

Therefore, from a long time ago, he has been eyeing the Northeast and wants to annex these countries.

But the timing was wrong before. The Northeast region was too far away for the Central Plains dynasty. Many southerners in later generations thought that the three northeastern provinces were very close to Beijing.

This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! However, the straight-line distance from Wuhan, Hubei to Beijing is about 1,000 kilometers, and the straight-line distance from Harbin in the northeast to Beijing is 1,200 kilometers.

Not to mention the Han Dynasty.

The political center of the Han Dynasty was in Luoyang, Henan, and the economic and population centers were in Henan and Hebei. It was not easy to control the Youzhou area, that is, Chengde, Tangshan and Liaoning Province in Hebei in later generations, let alone conquer Jilin and Heilongjiang.

Therefore, before Li Shimin destroyed Goguryeo in the Tang Dynasty, the Northeast was not connected to China. Even when the Tang Dynasty destroyed Goguryeo, it was only barely under control, and it took until the Ming and Qing Dynasties to truly integrate it.

Among the three northeastern provinces in later generations, half of Liaoning Province and half of Jilin Province were occupied by the Goguryeo Kingdom.

Historically, it had a war with the Cao Wei Group. Cao Wei captured the capital of Goguryeo, Wandu City (Ji'an City, Jilin Province), and the King of Goguryeo fled to Woju. Cao Wei thought that Goguryeo had been destroyed, so he stopped his troops and returned to the court.

As a result, Goguryeo made a comeback and rebuilt Wandu City. It was not destroyed until the Tang Dynasty.

The other half of Jilin Province and Heilongjiang Province were occupied by Fuyu and Yilou respectively. Because they were too remote, except for occasional civil wars or fights with Goguryeo and Xianbei in the west, the rest of the time was normal development.

Over the years, Chen Mu has indeed had ideas about the Northeast, but he has had no chance.

However, with the full opening of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal in recent years and the popularity of steam ships, it has become much more convenient whether traveling from Qingzhou to the Liaodong Peninsula or from Youzhou.

In the past, it took several days to go from Linzi to the Liaodong Peninsula by boat, and the ship technology of the Han Dynasty at that time was not conducive to sea navigation, and it was easy to get lost or encounter wind and waves.

The situation is much better now. If the fleet departs from Luoyang, it only takes one day to reach Linzi, and from Linzi to the Liaodong Peninsula, it only takes half a day.

And there is another good news, that is, after the development of Linzi and Zhuoxian, it has radiated to the Sanhan Peninsula and the northeastern Liaozhou region.

These places gradually prospered, attracting many Goguryeo, Fuyu, Yilou, Huiqi, and Woju people to come and live. The indigenous tribesmen in the Northeast did not resist becoming part of the Han Dynasty.

I also want to know.

Nowadays, the Han Dynasty has a very relaxed policy on ethnic integration. If the surrounding ethnic minorities are willing to integrate, they will often be given favorable conditions, allowing them to enjoy the same treatment as the common people of the Han Dynasty.

What's more, the resources that the Han people now enjoy in terms of medical care, education, life, food, and housing are far beyond what the indigenous tribes who were still in the primitive society can compare with.

Instead of living a precarious life by fishing and hunting along the Songhua River and Wusuli River, it would be better to go south to Liaodong and work in a factory to be more comfortable.

In addition, to a certain extent, with the social development and productivity increase of the Han Dynasty, it was a dimensionality reduction blow for the primitive tribes.

The huge social differences will lead to an increase in the fishing and hunting people's yearning for a better life.

It's like the rural population has shrunk significantly because the economic returns from farming are very low. The income from working in the city is several times that from farming.

Then rural people will flock to cities and become so-called migrant workers, which will naturally become a trend.

Countless people in later generations yearn to go to the United States, don’t they also have this mentality?

Therefore, the Liaodong region has actually absorbed a large number of people from various Northeastern countries, and has not caused any big problems in terms of ethnic integration.

In this way, if the imperial court decides to take over the Northeast, at least in terms of popular support, there is no need to worry about being an obstacle.

So when the weather, location, people and people have all reached a certain level.

Chen Mu secretly prepared a plan to seize the Northeast.

In the early 20th year of Zhang Wu, the Linzi Firearms Bureau began to manufacture firearms in large quantities.

In order to maintain competitiveness and the speed of firearm replacement, and prevent the rigidity of firearms like the Qing Dynasty, the imperial court established state-owned weapons manufacturing companies in various states.

Every ten years the six military regions will update a batch of firearms equipment, and the requirements for these firearms will also increase day by day.

If the Qingzhou Ordnance Equipment Manufacturing Company's R&D changes slow down, then orders from various military regions will naturally flow to those weapons manufacturing companies with more advanced designs instead of going to Linzi to place orders.

This will undoubtedly add a sense of crisis to Qingzhou Ordnance Equipment Manufacturing Company, which will focus more on the research and development and design of weapons to ensure technological leadership.

This routine has been followed by all countries in later generations, and it is not new. But at least for now, Qingzhou's firearms equipment is still the most advanced. When each military region purchases equipment, it will give priority to Linzi's firearms manufacturing.

In order to seize the Northeast, the Northeast Military Region was naturally the first to carry out batch equipment of firearms.

The Northeast Military Region was established in Liaodong County, and its radiation range was Liaozhou, Hanzhou, and the Wonu Island currently controlled by the Han Dynasty. Its scope was probably Chifeng, Tongliao, Liaoning Province, North Korea, South Korea, and Kyushu Island in Japan in later generations.

The replacement of firearms also needs to be gradual. Many soldiers have just transitioned from the cold weapon era to the firearms era and are not adaptable at all. Therefore, the Northeast Military Region has only 15,000 firearms troops out of 50,000 people.

The remaining 35,000 people are composed of infantry, archers, cavalry, and naval forces. They are currently mainly concentrated in the Liaodong County and Lelang County areas. It is self-evident who they are targeting.

King Dongchuan of Goguryeo was also worried that the Han Dynasty would attack him, so he not only prohibited the Goguryeo people from going to live in the Han Dynasty, but also deployed many troops and horses on the border.

In fact, because it is closest to Liaodong, Goguryeo's social development level is much higher than that of Fuyu and Yilou. They have reached the feudal society, have their own writing, language, and customs, and are also more centralized than Fuyu and Yilou.

tribal nations.

It's just that the conditions in the Northeast were really harsh at this time, and temperatures of 20 to 30 degrees below zero were common in winter. Survival was relatively difficult, which also made it difficult for Goguryeo to destroy these two countries, so the two sides have been living in peace.
To be continued...