All in all, Chongzhen was very satisfied with the appointment of Governor Xuanda, and more than once praised Geng Ruxi in front of the civil and military officials of the court for his responsibility and ability to serve.
Emperor Chongzhen was a man of temperament, and he could do anything to whomever he fell in love with.
After eating Yuan Chonghuan's deficiencies, he did not learn from it.
Therefore, Geng Ruqi's memorial regarding the urgent need to repair the 1,200-mile border wall in Xuanda was approved and handed over to the Ministry of Household Affairs to allocate money and food.
The Xuanda border wall was already riddled with holes and it was impossible to repair it. The court could not afford so much money and food, so it only approved the construction of a few important areas.
Geng Ruqi had already thought about it. After receiving the money from the court to repair the border wall, he would spend half of it on the Datong front line and half of it would be subsidized to Huang Yi to complete Dongshan Fort and build Xinghe City.
With Huang Yi guarding these two cities outside the pass, the Zhangjiakou Great Wall is relatively safe.
The most worrying thing now is Datong Frontline.
The last time he was tricked by civilian and military generals, he almost lost his life. Once he was bitten by a snake, Geng Ruqi, who had been afraid of ropes for ten years, did not trust the commander-in-chief, deputy generals, and staff generals who claimed to be loyal.
As a last resort, Geng Zhanghua, the supervising battalion commander of the Biao Battalion, could only be transferred to Datong to guard against Lin Dan Khan's persistent sneak attack.
In fact, he had a pretty good idea. The security of Zhangjiakou's front line was entrusted to his prospective son-in-law, and he had a biological son on the same front line in Datong. As the governor of Xuanda, he would naturally sit firmly in Diaoyutai.
Geng Zhanghua couldn't tell the difference. He agreed with Huang Yi's philosophy and also felt that a strong army cannot be trained but must be fought.
He did not stick to Datong, but practiced actual combat. He personally led the armored servants to go out of the border wall in a planned way to plunder the tribes close to the border wall.
There are 1,500 armored servants with strong soldiers and horses at their disposal. How can the small and medium-sized Chahar or Tumote tribes with only dozens or hundreds of young adults have any room to resist?
Geng Zhanghua, in turn, attacked the Mongolian grass valley. The army could eat beef and mutton every day and lived a happy life.
But he only tried to stop it, and his men would never pursue him beyond the two hundred miles of the border wall.
This is equivalent to a tacit agreement with the Tumut or Chahar tribes. You can graze your cattle two hundred miles away from the border wall. If you approach within two hundred miles, you will be robbed.
Even though all the Tatars are soldiers, they cannot muster 20,000 to 30,000 soldiers and horses year after year to confront the Xuan army. They still have to produce!
Therefore, the Tumut or Chahar tribes began to migrate west and north, leaving a buffer zone of 200 miles outside the border wall.
After Geng Zhanghua wrote to Huang Yi explaining the reasons for not being able to keep the appointment, he also suggested arranging for some small tribes that had surrendered to the base area to graze outside the border wall of the Datong line.
Promise that his men and horses can ensure the safety of herdsmen! And told Huang Yi.
The construction speed of Dongshan Fort was too slow, so Huang Yi was suggested to intervene directly.
Huang Yi smiled after reading the letter. He was not troubled by the lack of territory now. The Bashang area alone was as big as two later Jiangsu provinces.
It was because they had no sense of security because of the powerful enemies looking around. They had to take advantage of the opportunity when Jiannu and Sun Chengzong were fighting in the Daling River and had no time to take care of the Mongolian prairie to completely kill the Karaqin tribes.
The base area is not short of land for the time being, but what is lacking is population. Huang Yi and Geng Zhanghua did not need to be hypocritical and polite. When they replied to the letter, they directly rejected the suggestion that some small tribes in the base area go to his place.
Continue to ask Geng Zhanghua to send some servants to take in the refugees fleeing from famine and desertion in Shaanxi.
It was agreed that in the spring, people would be sent to take over the unfinished Dongshan Fort.
To be honest, even if Xuanda didn't give him money or food, Huang Yi would still be willing to build Dongshan Fort into a stone city with a concrete foundation.
It is only ten miles away from Zhangjiakou. In the future, when the population increases, it is possible to expand the north wall of Dongshan Fort with the city behind it to encircle the factory area with a circumference of forty or fifty miles.
According to the calculations of later generations, a radius of fifteen miles can cover fifty or sixty square kilometers.
Even if only a small half of the land is cultivated, 30,000 to 40,000 acres of fertile farmland can be produced.
Enough to be allocated to housing the military dependents of Dongshan Fort.
The place is large, guarded by Dongshan Fort in the front and backed by the Great Wall in the back. Enterprises building cement plants, lime kilns, flour mills, fertilizer plants, etc. here are safe and secure.
Of course, the fertilizer factory is not the chemical fertilizer factory of later generations. With the current level of science and technology, it is still impossible to handle three acids and two alkali, and it is impossible to make fertilizer.
But Huang Yi has a recipe for making soil fertilizer "field powder" by boiling livestock excrement or human excrement on his mobile phone.
This "fertilizer powder" is rich in nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, and has a high nitrogen content. If the fields in the Ming Dynasty could use this kind of soil fertilizer, the yield would definitely be doubled.
The crops are all dependent on fertilizer. After liberation, the yield per mu increased two or three times compared with before liberation. The most important reason is that chemical fertilizers are widely used. Without chemical fertilizers, only having improved seeds is in vain.
Chemical fertilizers, even soil-based fertilizers made from human and animal excrement, are very expensive.
It’s very simple, you need to make a fire to cook it! It requires a lot of manpower!
However, the base area has unique conditions. Coal is produced here, and coal can be burned to make "fertile field powder". The cinders can also improve the soil.
Of course, building a soil-based chemical fertilizer factory and mass-producing it can make the output of one acre of land catch up to or even exceed that of two acres of "fertilizer powder".
This has to be when Huang Yi has gained enough strength to control Zhangjiakou, and by the way, he has to be the legitimate general of Zhangjiakou.
Later generations developed "fertilizer powder", but it was produced and used in very few places and basically failed to be promoted.
Huang Yi knew about this thing, but he still found the formula and detailed introduction when discussing the time-travel killer weapon on the Internet.
Then he specifically searched for soil fertilizer "fertilizer powder" and understood its advantages.
But this thing was born at the wrong time, because the serious fertilizer industry chain in later generations has matured, is cheaper, easier to use, and more efficient.
There is another biggest reason. Later generations of farmers cannot stand the stinky smell of boiling manure. Who is willing to do such dirty work?
How much salary do you need to hire workers to make shit?
Coupled with the high price of labor, the cost of "fertilizer powder" is much higher than that of chemical fertilizers that have entered mechanized production.
The farmers in the late Ming Dynasty were completely different. They just smelled a bit of stench. What a big deal? Being able to produce more than two acres from one acre of land is such a hassle!
Moreover, Huang Yi can also use criminals sentenced to reform through labor and Tatar nobles to produce "fertile field powder".
By the way, soon there will be prisoners sentenced to military exile by the imperial court and sent to Kowai. Of course they must do this kind of work!
This is all a thing for later. The most urgent task is to completely eliminate the remaining Karaqin tribe who are working as collaborators.
It stands to reason that since Geng Zhanghua cannot come, the spring offensive agreed by Huang Yi should be in vain.
However, Huang Yi, who had trained the artillery team with regimental artillery, wanted to train troops in actual combat without waiting.
Because he knows that a strong army cannot be trained. It must be fought frequently. If you can fight big battles without fear of fighting bad ones, you will not be far from a strong army.
The Karaqin Tatars and the Jiannu suffered great losses last year, so it is impossible to just let it go.
The reason why they didn't come to retaliate immediately was probably because the snow was too heavy and the road was difficult to travel, because the road was too far and it was difficult to gather people and horses.
