Chapter 419 Occasionally got a fierce fire and thunder
After sending Feng Changqing away, Li Siye began to devote himself to the planning of horse administration, working hard to improve the mobility so that each Shule Army member would always have a horse. This was not just as simple as buying a horse. Turk Dunma
In addition to eating forage, he also usually feeds some coarse grains such as highland barley. For this reason, he decided to increase the composition of coarse grains in the monthly food supply for the soldiers.
There is also the selective improvement of pastures. There are many types of grasses in the vast pastures, but there are only a few types of grasses that livestock like to eat, and there are also two or three types that they don’t like to eat. Often the grasses are rejected by livestock and have low nutritional value.
However, it grows luxuriantly and takes advantage because it has not been eaten, encroaching on the living space of Leymus chinensis and Achnatherum splendens.
This requires manual intervention. When herders are grazing, they always bring a shovel. When they see these weeds in their spare time, they should be eradicated immediately to give lush pasture space. There is no need to deliberately plant them.
The gaps they leave will soon be filled.
Nowadays, it is the autumn harvest period of highland barley. The military and civilian fields in Shule Town are distributed on the edge of the Gobi Desert and the city. They use the edge of the river beach and the land with serious desertification for planting, which is a kind of protection of the pasture area. Oasis zone
There are few trees, and it is never easy to cut down trees to expand cultivated land. However, the farmland left by the previous envoys broke this good practice and changed the intersection area of the two tributaries of the Chihe River, which has the most abundant water and grass, into military farmland.
This can be regarded as a collision between the concept of farming based on fields and the concept of nomadism based on pasture.
The autumn harvest put the captured yaks to use. People harvested the highland barley in the fields, loaded it on the oxcart and tied it tightly, and brought it back to the settlement to dry and peel out the pellets. The highland barley stalks are also a good feed, and people dry them.
After drying, it is packed into straw bales and stored. In winter, it is mixed with hay, coarse grains and other feeds to feed livestock.
General Li Siye often rode around on his fancy jade lion with his entourage, euphemistically called inspection. He would sometimes catch up with the ox convoy pulling highland barley, and pull a few sheaves of highland barley from the car to observe the grain size.
He was full and asked the farmers about their harvest.
When planting highland barley, you need to learn to observe the timing. When the highland barley stalks turn slightly yellow, you must harvest them as soon as possible. If you harvest too early, the grains will not be full, resulting in reduced yield. If you harvest too late, the highland barley ears will dry and turn yellow, and the highland barley grains will be sprinkled into the ground.
inside.
He took the pellets into his mouth, chewed them, waved to the farmers in Shule and said, "Let's go."
The bullock cart slowly drove on the road. The Tibetan soldier lying on the roof of the cart chewed a highland barley pole and showed his head. He turned back and glanced secretly and said, "That was General Li Siye just now."
"That's right," the old farmer said with a smile, "He just asked me about my harvest."
The soldier chewed the barley pole and said thoughtfully: "I heard that the Shule Army seized a lot of property from Tuqishi this year. The property allocated to the Shule Army alone included several large carts, not counting horses, cattle and sheep.
As for the number, General Li was the one who deserved the most credit and should have received 40% of all the property. But in the end, he only received a white horse, the one he is riding now, and three babies, so he had three free mouths. Really
I don’t know what General Li thinks and why he thinks differently from the rest of us.”
The old farmer who drove the cart sat firmly on the shaft of the cart, holding a whip in his hand. He turned around and shouted to the roof of the cart: "Can the general think the same as us? If you could figure it out, you would be a general."
…
The Shule Army's military pastoral area has completed its autumn transition. Nearly 5,000 war horses and yaks have moved from the higher-lying Shanyin pastures to the plains. When the livestock herds get closer to Shule City, it will be winter's turn
Cut grass for storage.
After returning from inspecting the fields and pastures in the wild, Li Siye went to the unfinished Jinglei Temple. When he turned over and dismounted outside the viewing wall, the old Taoist priest Zhao Zhengyi was selling the Qingxin Talisman he drew to two local ladies who were passing by. Unfortunately,
The two women didn't know what he was selling, so after reading it, they waved their hands and regarded him as a witch doctor doing business.
Buddhism has an unshakable position in Shule City, and other sects can't squeeze in for a while. Whenever the old Taoist explains to the idle people nearby about the unity of nature and man, and self-cultivation, people ask him: "Practice
Can this person reach the other side? Can he cultivate the afterlife? Can he not fall into reincarnation? Can he reach another beautiful world?"
The old Taoist replied: "It can focus on the qi and make it soft, regulate the essence and qi, cultivate the body and nature, and can be pure and inactive, forgetting things and myself."
"Speak more clearly, I can't understand a word of it."
"To put it simply, it can extend your life."
The idle men waved their hands and walked away: "We have already suffered enough in this life. Doesn't extending our life mean prolonging our suffering? If we don't cultivate, we won't cultivate!"
The journey of cultivating Taoism is suitable for rich people who want to live forever, but these rich people are filled with wine, sex and food, which makes Taoist priests deeply ashamed.
Li Siye turned over and dismounted in front of the gate. The old Taoist hurriedly came up to hold the horse and followed him to the yard. He took out the box from his arms and stuffed it back to Taoist Zhao: "I won't use this thing for the time being. I'll keep it."
Just stay at Thunder View and give it to me later."
The clanging sound of iron was heard next door. They were casting thunder shells filled with gunpowder. Li Siye put his hands behind his back and warned: "We must keep the confidentiality work well, at least on the surface, it must appear to others that this is a Taoist temple. Although this
It will take a long time for East and West to be accepted and valued, but our Shule Town is on the edge of the intersection of East and West and we must not let others know about it.”
"Oh," Daochang Zhao hesitated for a moment, then suddenly said: "We are not the only ones who know the benefits of this thing."
Li Siye suddenly turned his head and asked him: "What's going on?"
Zhao Zheng tentatively looked at Li Siye's face before speaking slowly: "Just last month, a businessman came to Jinglei Temple and wanted to buy sulfur and saltpeter from me."
"What?" Li Siye was surprised: "Has the reputation of Thunder Temple been leaked?"
"No, no, it's not." Taoist priest Zhao quickly waved his hand and said, "Pindao was famous for his ability to find elixirs when he was in Jiugong Mountain, Ezhou. So at that time, Taoist priests from all over the world liked to look for me to find genius treasures. Now I am in Jiugong Mountain.
My junior brother will take over the role, but this time the amount of sulfur and saltpeter required by this group of people is too large, and my junior brother cannot bear it, so he directed them to me."
Li Siye raised his eyebrows and asked him, "You didn't give them anything, did you?"
Zhao Zhengyi immediately became speechless and whispered with a guilty conscience: "He used Sasanian gold coins to set the price. I really couldn't resist the temptation, so I prepared one for them. But please don't worry, general, they just came to me to buy sulfur and saltpeter."
.They don’t know anything about the Taoist temple or the general.”
Li Siye reprimanded: "How can these things be sold to people of unknown origin? Do you know what they use them for? Are you a fool?"
Daochang Zhao lowered his head and tightened his mouth, and after a long time he spoke in a low voice: "Sulfur and saltpeter are not contraband. Even if they can't buy it from me, they can get it elsewhere. And I know his name and can get it."
got this.”
He took out a blueprint from his pocket and handed it to Li Siye. It said "Fierce Fire Thunder" on it, and the specific structure and formula were drawn with a fine pen on the bottom. The appearance of this thing is like a wine jar, and it contains stone grease, also called petroleum. Of course
It has been simply refined, and it cannot be refined to the same level as diesel and gasoline. Sulfur and saltpeter are just things that ignite and explode, which is equivalent to making the detonator of a violent thunder. And this violent thunder is just an incendiary bomb, one of the gasoline bombs.
class of things.
Strictly speaking, the role of gunpowder in igniting fires has long been discovered, but its truly epoch-making function is to burn violently to produce high-pressure gas to push projectiles out, replacing the limitations of manpower using catapult-launched weapons.
Li Siye handed the paper back to Zhao Zhengyi and asked: "What is the name of the person who bought you sulfur and saltpeter?"
"Cao Sui. It seems to be Cao Sui. It should be Cao Sui."
Li Siye snorted lightly and said, "As soon as I heard this name, I knew it was made up casually. Cao Sui is too casual."