The vegetation in Xining dries up in autumn, and in the blink of an eye after the Mid-Autumn Festival, all the leaves on the trees will fall off.
Winter is coming with a biting cold wind, but God doesn't mean it will snow. It's just dry and cold, which makes people sad.
In the second-floor side hall of the west building of the Shuaifu Yamen in Xincheng, Liu Chengzong specially used it to display his maps, and also made a sand table of Qinghai agricultural areas on the table.
The largest wall is completely blank. Several students from Xincheng Academy are working together to draw a huge topographic map of Gansu based on more than thirty small maps sent from various parties.
Indoors, the generals in the Marshal's Mansion are preparing for the next war - Gansu under the warm light of oil lamps.
After four years of stationing in Qinghai, through the gathering of Wang Ziyong, Lanzhou General Shi Xiang, Haixi County Magistrate Chen Qindai and others, Gansu's intelligence has never been so clear in Liu Chengzong's eyes.
The governor of Gansu Province is named Bai Yiqing. He is from Wujin County, Changzhou Prefecture in the south. He is a Jinshi. He once served as the prefect, the deputy envoy of Shaanxi Province, in charge of the military preparation of Xining Road, and participated in the politics of Shaanxi Province.
The commander-in-chief of Gansu Province is named Yang Jiamo, who is over fifty years old. Compared with Bai Yiqing's information, Liu Chengzong knows Yang Jiamo better. This man is a descendant of Yang Ye.
There are three Yang family generals in Liangzhou, namely Yang Shui, Yang Sheng, and Yang Zhongyu. Yang Jiamo is a descendant of Yang Sheng.
At the end of the Yuan Dynasty, the world was in chaos. Yang Zheng, who was born in the Yang family of Jianghuai, led his three sons and two nephews to follow Zhu Yuanzhang. Yang Zheng's grandson Yang Wen gave birth to four sons. Among them, Yang Sheng, whose brother Yang Xiong was killed in the battle against the Yuan Dynasty, joined the Yanshan guard.
Later, Yang Sheng followed the King of Yan, Zhu Di, to defeat the whole Jingnan, and marched five times to Mobei. He was granted the title of Jinwu Left Guard Commander Tongzhi and General Huaiyuan. After his son Yang Bin inherited his father's position, he requested to be transferred to the Liangzhou Guard in the sixth year of Xuande.
Since then, the Yang family has been hereditary commander of the Liangzhou Guard, and has lived in Wuwei as a general for two hundred years. Father and son work side by side, brothers join forces, and children and grandchildren inherit each other, forever guarding the western border.
It has been passed down to Yang Jiamo for the eighth generation.
The situation of the other two groups is similar. Their ancestors made military exploits during the rebellion against the Yuan Dynasty, and later guarded Liangzhou for generations. They were the biggest obstacle to Liu Chengzong's victory in Gansu.
In addition to Xining Guards, Gansu Town has eleven guards and three guard posts for thousands of households. After Xu Yangliang, the Gansu patrol commander in the 40th year of Wanli, proposed to "separate the Xie Road to emphasize the power of affairs," as Qi Jiguang did in Ji Town With the reform of Xie Road, Gansu Town has also formed a vertical three-level jurisdiction of town, Xie and road.
Specifically, the commander-in-chief of Gansu Town has jurisdiction over the deputy commander-in-chief of the sub-association, and the deputy commander-in-chief of the sub-association has jurisdiction over the various generals. Before this, the deputy commander-in-chief and the generals were under different subordinates, and they were both directly managed by the chief military officer.
Originally, after Wanli, Gansu became a five-pronged area, but not long after Xining Guard became independent, it was eaten by Liu Chengzong. Therefore, Gansu's current layout is still a four-pronged defense area.
These four roads are Zhuanglang Road, Liangzhou Road, Ganzhou Road and Suzhou Road.
Zhuanglang Road is centered on Zhuanglangwei City on the Zhuanglang River, and the defense area includes Zhuanglangwei, Hongchengzibao, and Zhenqiangyibao.
Liangzhou Road, with Liangzhou Acropolis in Wuwei as the center, the defense area includes Yongchang Guard, Zhenfan Guard, Liangzhou Guard, and Gulang Guard Qianhu Station.
Ganzhou Road is centered on Ganzhou Town in Zhangye, and the defense area includes Ganzhou Wuwei, Shandanwei, and Gaotai Qianhu Station.
Suzhou Road is centered on Suzhou Acropolis in Jiuquan, and the defense area includes Suzhou Wei and Zhenyi Qianhu Residence.
Generally speaking, Gansu's flag army theoretically has more than 60,000 personnel and about 20,000 battalions, but this is only a theoretical design.
In fact, the town of Gansu has been short of vacancies since the early Ming Dynasty, and the vacancies have been filled continuously. If there are deserters, they will join the army. It is normal. Until the troops were mobilized to fight a few big defeats and the Weisuo Banner Army recruited soldiers, the soldiers could not make up the troops. Only the amount can be reduced.
This problem does not only occur in Gansu, but also in every town. The reduction is something that everyone is happy about. After all, the total number of military farmland has not changed significantly. With fewer people, there will be fewer people eating food.
Therefore, according to the Marshal's Office's estimate of Gansu's troops, Gansu's army will not be less than 40,000, but it will not be more than 50,000.
Including the army, there are 1,620,744 people in Hexi, concentrated in the three large oases of Liangzhou, Ganzhou and Suzhou.
In the past, Liu Shizi didn't dare to take the idea of Gansu, but now he thinks he must give it a try.
It's not because there is enough food and grass now, but because there is a small problem with his army.
After the Mid-Autumn Festival, the six military officers and field battalions stationed near the new city conducted daily training and team exercises, allocated their locations, and built barracks for both military and civilian use in preparation for winter.
The soldiers of each battalion were stationed in areas that could be cultivated. The soldiers chopped firewood, kneaded mud and baked bricks, dug huts, built houses, killed pigs to stew meat, and pickled vegetables to make sauce. They were preparing to spend a warm and prosperous life. winter.
In fact, these things do not necessarily require the army to do it, but the front-line generals reported to the Marshal's Office after the Mid-Autumn Festival that the atmosphere in the army was not good after the war, and they suggested finding something to do.
Specific to each battalion, the mentality of the soldiers is slightly different, but the general problem still lies in the hidden danger of the Oirat War coming too quickly.
The Marshal's Office fought the Hehuang Battle and the Oirat Battle almost consecutively. In the Hehuang Battle, they had a total of 30,000 troops, of which only 10,000 were elite soldiers. In the Oirat Battle less than two months later, they sent 30,000 troops. On the battlefield, there were more than 20,000 garrison camps to protect the supplies.
There were nearly 20,000 surrendered troops in the seven combat barracks alone on the battlefield.
These surrendered soldiers received almost no training. Less than a month after being captured and surrendered, they were issued ordnance and armor, reorganized and sent to another battlefield.
Liu Shizi dared to do this simply because they couldn't have enough to eat with their old employer, and their opponents were the Mongols who were extremely difficult for the Ming army to rebel.
Jiang Jun showed excellent military skills and obedience during the war, which was in line with Liu Shizi's impression of veterans, which made him feel a little more relaxed after the war.
He, or the entire generals in the Marshal's Mansion, had basically the same attitude towards surrendering to the Ming army... In their eyes, the status of surrendering soldiers was limited to before a battle.
As early as the Lion Camp era, their soldiers have been mainly surrendered troops. Now there are only thirteen senior generals at the level of battalion generals. Wei Qian'er is a surrender post soldier, Huang Shengxiao is a surrender soldier at Yanshui Pass, and A Liu is a Kangning Prefecture commander. The surrendered generals and Ahai Daiqing were the surrendered generals of Khalkha.
Now we are all our own people.
According to his past experience, the soldiers will integrate into the veterans after experiencing a war, and their performance will get better and better in the future, indicating that the most dangerous time has passed.
But today is different from the past. Just after these battles in which the troops surrendered and were defeated, the Marshal's Office began to award officials and honors. Except for Liu Chengzong, he did not become king. It has formed another set of identities different from the peasant army bandits.
So within this set of identities, a clear line is drawn.
At the same time, Liu Chengzong's policy towards demoted generals did distinguish them. Even if they were treated equally in terms of rewards for meritorious service, the stipulations of surrendering before the war and retaining their original posts, and surrendering and being demoted after the war also made many people feel unconvinced despite surrendering and retaining their posts. .
The most critical reason is that the soldiers are familiar with the officers.
People behave well in the beginning precisely because there is a gap.
When the estrangement disappeared along with the gunpowder smoke, the soldiers formed some battlefield friendships with the officers of the Marshal's Office, and experienced separate vaccinations. The soldiers gathered together at sea for isolation, and grass grew in their hearts when they were free.
In fact, in the final analysis, it was still the indigestion caused by Xiao Boda during the Hehuang War.
The Battle of Hehuang nearly doubled Liu Chengzong's base, but the war with Oirat did not double the base.
This resulted in his soldiers having less room for improvement.
Establishment and official positions are a carrot and a pit. Even if everyone makes meritorious service and the establishment remains unchanged, there will only be so many pitfalls. Only expansion is the best way to digest the results of the war.
People have expectations. When they are not full, they want to be full. When they are full, they will naturally want to be promoted and get rich. But now, those who have made meritorious services have all been rewarded, and those who have not made any meritorious deeds will be envious and jealous. It's human nature to say weird things when you feel like you don't know when the next battle will be.
The objective conditions for this matter are here. Those who should be rewarded should be rewarded, and those who have not been rewarded have been specially trained and promoted to come to Tianshan to become officers. The remaining people can only wait for the next war.
And it was a war that could expand his Han army's base by half - Gansu.
On the Qinghai sand table, which is simply made of paste, sand and dye, the six battalions are located in many valleys along Qilian Mountain South Road, Xining North and Xincheng South.
According to the commander's command, there is not much emphasis on the location of the barracks they build. They only require that the site selection and use can satisfy both military and civilian uses.
The military must put themselves in their shoes and consider how they would build the barracks if they were allowed to reclaim the surrounding land.
These barracks are of course intended for the soldiers to live in during the winter, but at the same time they are also used to build several villages so that the people who come here to pioneer the land can live more conveniently in the future.
For example, Zhang Tianlin's battalion was dispersed and stationed in the Yaoshui River Valley as a unit.
Opening up wasteland in the Yaoshui River Basin was Liu Chengzong's plan before the war with Oirat. At that time, he asked the Sky Monkey to calculate that at least 70,000 acres of irrigated land could be cultivated there.
The army will not live there for long, and Liu Chengzong predicts that they will launch raids on Lanzhou and Gansu at the same time by next autumn at the latest.
The decisive battle with the Gansu Zhenzhong Army Group will not take place until next fall at the latest.
He doesn't want to fight in autumn. Although it is comfortable to fight in autumn, according to the situation this year, tens of thousands of troops have gathered around Lanzhou City before autumn begins. If there are no accidents, it will probably still be like this by the end of next summer.
In his opinion, even if he did not choose to attack Lanzhou and Gansu at the same time, he still needed to send a separate division to station at the mouth of the river to prevent Lanzhou officers and soldiers from crossing the river.
Therefore, the best time to start the war is before autumn. It is not convenient for soldiers to wear armor in summer, so spring is better.
Once the troops are mobilized next year, Hehuang's military strength will be greatly reduced. By then, the barracks built by these six field camps can be used for future immigrants to live in, cultivate fields on the spot, and build canals for irrigation.
This means that in the future, 20,000 to 30,000 people will be moved in and 500,000 acres of farmland will be reclaimed, which will basically fully develop the existing agricultural areas of the Marshal's Mansion.
After three to five years, the raw land in Qinghai has become mature land, and the yield per mu can reach normal. Calculating six or seven acres of land per person, this place can support tens of thousands more people.
At that time, whether the land is divided again or reserved for drought, it will be of great benefit.
Liu Chengzong, like his fellow township party members, had the threat of drought deeply planted in their hearts, and would inevitably take drought into consideration when considering anything.
In normal times, the yield of dry land is not as high as that of irrigated land, but when there is a drought, the dry land is the first to die. If there is a small drought for a season, irrigated land will have almost no impact.
Even if there is a severe drought in consecutive seasons, the yield of irrigated land will only decrease, and it will not be as barren as dry land.
The current irrigated land in Hehuang is only 300,000 acres. If this number can increase to 600,000 acres, then even if a drought comes, it will not have much impact on people's lives.
Of course, if a drought comes, Liu Chengzong will definitely lead his troops to leave Hehuang. If he doesn't leave, Hehuang will need another million acres of irrigated land to support his soldiers in addition to the people.
His army is much more powerful than drought.
Liu Chengzong pushed open the window on the second floor of the west building and looked out. His breath was white in the air. The new city was decorated with lights and decorations for his wedding, and the streets were full of fully loaded Lele cars conveying to the warehouses in the city. .
It was a new winter coat prepared for the army by the Hundreds of Industries Bureau of the Marshal's Mansion. The cashmere spinning wheel made it easier to spin cashmere and woolen fabrics, and the finished products were immediately distributed by Liu Chengzong to the soldiers in the war camp.
Although cashmere clothing is expensive, it is not worth mentioning compared to the soldiers who are loyal to him.
This is not Liu Chengzong's rhetoric to win over people's hearts, but economically, compared with the huge cost of maintaining the army, a cashmere undershirt weighing one pound per person is really not worth mentioning.
Cashmere clothes are expensive, but even if they are purchased according to commodity prices, they are only about one tael per piece at best. He has less than 30,000 soldiers, each of whom has to pay more than twelve taels of military pay every year, and most of it is spent. Liu The lion doesn't mind adding some goodies to boost the morale of the soldiers.
The most important thing is that the cashmere jacket is indeed warm and the effect is indeed very good when it is distributed to soldiers.
The only fly in the ointment was that Liu Chengzong wanted to give each soldier a pair of brocade or silk mid-length trousers, but he had no choice but to give up due to lack of raw materials.
The cost of these things is not high for Liu Chengzong. He has a government-run factory like Baigong Bureau and controls most of Hehuang's supplies. Silver is just an equivalent, and for them food is hard currency.
As long as it is something you can make, like cashmere clothing, because of the existence of Juerwan Market and spinning wheels, the cost of a piece is less than two cents of silver. As long as you sell 10,000 pieces to the east through merchants, it can be worth the entire army. The cost of cashmere clothing.
This is because Lanzhou also produces cashmere clothing, and the name of cashmere in Ming Dynasty is Lanjong.
Just when Liu Chengzong was imagining the bright future of taking over Lanzhou and forming a monopoly on cashmere, horseshoes rumbled on the street outside the Shuaifu Yamen, and the messenger came into the Yamen to report that the tribute team from the north had entered Haixi County.
"Where is the tribute team?"
"Coming back to the commander-in-chief, it is the commander of the right wing of Khalkha, Subadi, the commander of the east road, Shuolei, and seven nobles. They sent people to respond to the commander-in-chief's call."
Liu Chengzong smiled, but his smile was far from happy.
As his relationship with the Mongolian nobles deepened, he learned a lot about the customs of their various tribes. This kind of tribute is not a substantive surrender, it is just a courtesy. If you think it is surrender just because you pay tribute, it is a shame. Face to yourself.
But if this is regarded as ordinary etiquette, and Liu Shishi remembers correctly, there are three big leaders in Outer Khalkha. In addition to Subadi and Shuolei, there is one more person missing.
－－－－－－Digression－－－－－
Good morning!
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