"What a magical life!" After a long burp, Yang San licked his lips with satisfaction and sighed while touching his slightly swollen belly. Yang San was originally a poor man in the city of Dayi. Although he was young and strong, he often had a hard time eating. After Cao Ergou captured Dayi, he decisively joined the Perak Army in order to have food to eat. He first stayed at the construction site in Hengyuan Town for a few days, and then was sent to open up wasteland and farm in the Wugen Mountains. After wiping out the water bandits, the Perak Army screened the captured water bandits and their families, and sent the guilty ones to the mines for hard labor, while the innocent ones were scattered and resettled in various villages in the mountains. The vacated Huaguoshan camp was all occupied by poor people from Dayi.
Yang San is not a lazy person. He is poor not because he does not work hard, but because he has no house and job and is oppressed by the government and local powerful people. He never spares any effort in opening up wasteland and planting land. He wakes up early every day and does hard work every day. His spring plowing group has been praised by Huang Dagen many times. In order to give full play to the power of teamwork, the Pili Army divided all land reclamation personnel into groups of ten and implemented a labor competition system. Each group is composed of mixed civilians and soldiers - soldiers only participate temporarily during the sowing and harvesting seasons, and civilians are responsible for daily management of crops. According to Ouyang Xuan's order, in order to ensure the physical strength of the spring plowing personnel, in addition to the food supply, some meat was also provided. These include dried fish, game, horsemeat, and even the very popular fatty pork. When it's meal time every day, the steaming and fragrant broth is the best comfort after a day of hunger and fatigue. Of course, how much meat you can eat depends on your ability - the amount of labor. Because according to the regulations of the labor competition, the results of each group's work are linked to how much broth they can get. Those with the biggest results of their work on that day will naturally get more broth. If the results of their work are ranked last, they can only watch others eat meat and swallow their saliva silently. .
Everyone praised Yang San for being active and willing to work, but they didn't know that he also had Xiao Jiujiu in his heart, that is, the more he worked, the more meat he would eat - Yang San was afraid of going hungry, but he was not afraid of hardship and hard work. Before joining the Pili Army, he was often so hungry that his eyesight was dazzled. Now that he was full and had the opportunity to eat meat, how could he save energy? Of course, in addition to working hard, Yang San is also very good at using his brain. In just two days after starting work, he optimized the spring plowing processes such as demarcation, burning, leveling, ridging, and sowing based on the situation of the team members, and made suggestions to the team leader. suggestions. Yang San’s suggestions not only greatly improved work efficiency, but the quality of farming was also far ahead of other groups. This was highly praised by the technical team and was named “Yang San’s Farming Method” and was popularized in various settlement sites. While the reclamation was in full swing, Ouyang Xuan also dispatched a technical team composed of veteran farmers who were good at growing crops and agricultural technicians from the Education Institute to not only carry out roving technical guidance, but also increase the practical ability of the agricultural technicians from the Education Institute.
The focus of the Pili Army's spring plowing and sowing this time has two parts, the first is the rootless mountainous area. In addition to the three companies of the navy under his command and the teaching company, Huang Dagen brought 600 civilians to farm in Wugen Mountain. Because the spring sowing time was tight and he was afraid of missing the farming season and fearing raids and harassment by the Mongols, Ouyang Xuan ordered each farming site to complete the task within 20 days. After completing the sowing, the Perak Army will focus its manpower on the construction of Hengyuan Fort. Huang Dagen, who is in charge of the Wugenshan farming site, decided to sow seeds directly on the fallow land after consulting with the Wugenshan people. The Wugen Mountain people use a two-for-one farming rotation model, that is, the land cleared by burning is cultivated for one year and then left fallow for two years. In the second and third years, new land is burned and the land is cultivated again in the fourth year. The land plots cycle like this every three years. This output model requires a large amount of land, but it can ensure land fertility. Ensuring fertility ensures food production. Huang Dagen certainly knew that planting crops on fallow land would affect the future fertility of the land, but he could only adopt this expedient measure when he was in urgent need of food. As long as we survive this year, according to Brother Xuan's plan, he will mainly farm on the plains where rice and wheat are harvested twice, and he will no longer use this method of depleting the lake to catch fish.
The second focus of spring plowing and sowing is to establish several reclamation points within 20 miles from Hengyuan Fort in the piedmont plains from Yongkang City in the east to Dayi City in the west, with Hengyuan Fort as the center. Within two miles of the mountainside, choose flat land with convenient water sources to open up wasteland. The main reason why we chose to farm on the edge of Longmen Mountain was to guard against Mongolian cavalry. When an enemy attack was detected, they could quickly flee to the mountains to hide, and the shacks of the plantation management personnel were built on the mountains. As long as the Mongols dare to chase them into the dense forests on the mountains, Pili weapons and traps will definitely teach them how to behave. The Mongols' strong combat power lies in mounted shooting. If they dismount and fight in dense mountain forests, not only the soldiers of the Perak Army will be able to fight, but even the farmers holding dung forks can be driven back by the strength of their numbers. Of course, in order to guard against the Mongols, various settlement sites also dug a large number of horse traps and criss-crossing ditches around the farmland. These ditches were not only used to prevent crops from being flooded during the rainy season, but also to delay the Mongolian cavalry.
Just when the Perak Army was busy with spring plowing and farming, the messenger sent by Chongqing Mansion came to Hengyuan Town again. Although the messenger was humble and polite, he was actually threatening. He first described the battle situation in Chengdu eloquently, saying that Pu Zezhi led his army into the city and fought fiercely with the Mongolian army, and killed the enemy chief Atahu in street fighting. Chengdu would be captured soon, and so on. Naturally, It is indispensable to praise Pan Tongzhi for his bravery and martial prowess. After talking about the situation of the battle, the envoy added that Pan Tongzong couldn't bear that Ouyang Xuan missed this huge achievement, and immediately ordered him to bring opportunities to Yongkang County in the hope that Ouyang Xuan would make immortal contributions. Ouyang Xuan believed this nonsense, knowing that Pan Tongzhi would not be so kind, but he didn't know what his intentions were.
After Ouyang Xuan read the official letter from the Chongqing Mansion, he was somewhat mentally prepared, but he was still startled by Pan Tong's lion's mouth. The official letter written by Pan Tongzhi first identified Ouyang Xuan as the magistrate of Yongkang, and ordered him to immediately lead all the military forces under his rule and bring all the firearms to Chengdu to assist in the battle. At the same time, he organized three thousand people to prepare their own dry food and tools. Farming around Chongqing Fucheng, and after the spring plowing, they were responsible for repairing the city walls and houses in the city. Pan Tongzhi also mentioned in the letter that Ouyang Xuan would be held accountable if he neglected military orders.
Ouyang Xuan read the letter and pondered for a moment, then said to the messenger: "I would like to ask your honorable envoy, if I bring all the generals to Chengdu, how will the unruly people resist the plundering of Mongolian horsemen and the harassment of bandits?"
"Master Pan has already considered everything Mr. Ouyang is concerned about. After your Excellency leads the troops to Chengdu, Mr. Pan Luohuan of Fucheng will be responsible for protecting the country and the people. Mr. Ouyang does not need to worry."
The messenger's words made Ouyang Xuan secretly angry. It seemed that this uncle and nephew of the Pan family had been coveting the Thunderbolt Army's territory and would never give up until Ouyang Xuan was defeated. At that moment, he said with a livid face: "Please tell Mr. Pan that the Mongolian Tatars often commit plunder and bandits are rampant in the territory. It is still difficult for Yongkang's troops to protect themselves at present, and there are really no troops to send. The year's plan starts in the spring, and now we have to work hard." Everyone is plowing and sowing in spring, and I really can’t bear to drive further to Fucheng. Although Yongkang County is currently poor, it will still try its best to provide seeds and farm tools to Fucheng. Please send someone to Hengyuan Town to get it yourself."
"Master Ouyang, please think twice. In the view of Master Pan, such an answer is a sign of disobedience. If the situation is reported to Master Pu Zezhi, Master Pu will definitely be furious and will launch an army to investigate after conquering Chengdu..." The messenger What looked like advice was actually a threat, which made Ouyang furious. He snorted coldly: "Please do as you wish, see the guest off," and had the messenger be driven out.
