In a blink of an eye, it’s April when warblers are flying and grass is growing, and the plains of western Sichuan are green. Several consecutive spring rains have made plants grow vigorously, and the crops in Qiongzhou and Chongqing Prefecture are also particularly lush. During the sowing in late autumn last year, most of this fertilized land was planted with crops such as wheat, broad beans, and peas. In the swamps and paddy fields around the settlement sites, rice seedlings have already been cultivated and are ready to be planted after the summer harvest in May. Transplanted into farmland. In the areas occupied by the Mongolian troops on the other side of the Jinma River and Nan River, although they are also full of vitality, more than half of the green areas are weeds and miscellaneous trees, and the few crops grow sparsely. Compared with the industriousness of the Han people, the Mongols focused their talents on force and plunder.
Due to the continued rise of the river water, the Pili Army and Navy warships can now operate in the waters of Pengshan City again. After Le Quan'an took charge of the navy brigade, he improved many light escort ships, reconnaissance ships, and fire war ships according to Ouyang Xuan's instructions, and also added explosive ships at Xia Dagen's suggestion. These auxiliary ships greatly enhanced tactical flexibility and made it more difficult for Mongolian ships to approach the Perak Army's gunboats. In order to enhance the survivability of the gunboat, the shipyard also paved fireproof asbestos on the gunboat's ammunition depot, command cabin and other locations. The escort ship added iron plates to the bow and sides to ram the Mongolian ships near the gunboat. The Sichuan Army has been expanding its navy, especially Pengshan City's strength, which has grown rapidly and even has several artillery warships. But they were still suppressed by the Perak Army and the Navy, so they had to stay in the water force's stronghold.
Although they had the right to control water, the Pili military merchant ships were still unable to go south to Jiading. This is not only because of the threat from the Mongolian navy, but also because artillery has been installed on the city walls of Pengshan and Meizhou. Although these artillery pieces of the Mongolian army are small in number and have poor performance, relying on the city wall, they can still pose a major threat to the Perak Army escort fleet. If we want to completely destroy the blockade of these two cities, we must use all the strength of the navy brigade and use heavy artillery ships. However, due to the water barriers in the river, heavy artillery ships are still unable to pass through the Pengshan waters. However, a large-scale dispatch is not economically feasible. It will also cause the Mongolian army to counterattack in other directions, and even attract the main force of the Mongolian army in eastern Sichuan. This war is inevitable. The current strength of the Perak Army is sufficient for defense but insufficient for offense. It is really inappropriate to adopt a rash offensive strategy.
Of course, these two cities blocked the waterway going south and would be captured by the Perak Army sooner or later, but the current time was not suitable. At present, the firearms equipment rate of each brigade of the Perak Army is still very low, and military training has not yet met the requirements. Each factory is in the stage of accelerating construction or just starting production, and the labor force is extremely tight. The construction of fortresses and a series of settlement points in the Changqiu Mountains also consumed a lot of resources, and even burned wasteland to plant a lot of food, but this food could not be harvested until autumn. Fortunately, when Hudu was defeated and retreated to Changqiu Village, the special battalion captured more than a thousand prisoners, which solved the labor shortage problem in the construction of the Changqiu settlement.
The population of the Perak military area is actually growing very fast, but compared to the rapid development of the industry, the population is still seriously short. Among the growing population, the proportion of captives is actually very small, and more of them are returnees or refugees who come here for fame. There are even many Yifan people who come with the caravan. The plains of western Sichuan have a mild climate and are rich in natural products. As long as the political situation is stable and safe, people will naturally come to this fertile land. Yu Xing wrote many times asking the Pili Army to send the Meizhou refugees back home. Ouyang Xuan had no choice but to let the refugees make their own choices. As a result, only a few hundred of the more than 10,000 refugees chose to return to Meizhou. Thanks to preferential policies and repeated persuasion, more than 6,000 people came to settle in the Changqiu Mountains, and the rest were determined to stay.
The population of Yazhou is also moving to Qiongzhou. Although Yazhou is more stable, the taxes are heavy and cruel. On the other hand, under the rule of the Pili Army, the taxes are much lighter, and no grain is collected for farming. Therefore, Cao Zhizhou blocked the trade routes leading to Fan District and strictly restricted exchanges with the areas under the jurisdiction of the Perak Army, but it could not prevent the flow of population to the areas under the jurisdiction of the Perak Army. Even as the uncompromising local emperor of Yazhou, he did not dare to blatantly close the communication between the two places. This will not only make the lives of the people at the bottom more difficult, but will also affect the interests of big businessmen, landowners and even people around them. These people have made a lot of money by doing business with the Perak Army.
In fact, although Cao Zhizhou strictly ordered to strengthen the checkpoints, it did not achieve the expected results. Merchants from Dajianlu and Diaomen Village have already prepared enough goods and will not come to trade before September. Moreover, even if the checkpoint is closed, there are still very few trails that are accessible to people. Although these trails are extremely difficult and dangerous, as long as there are enough benefits, some people are still willing to take risks, so the exchange of information between the Perak Army caravan and the Fan District has not been cut off.
As for the connection between Lizhou Qianbao and the Qiongzhou caravan headquarters, it has always been smooth and uninterrupted. This is because the officers and soldiers guarding the card in Yazhou are not willing to block the Perak Army caravan at all. "If the water is clear, there will be no fish". If it is stuck, where can we get any benefits? Cao Zhizhou only banned the Perak Army caravan and fire salt and other supplies. As long as the caravan was not under the banner of the Perak Army and there were no embargoed supplies, it could be released. And as long as the money is available, these can be changed, so the transportation of fire salt to Qiongzhou has not been interrupted, but it has become more secretive and the management cost is higher.
After the Mongol barracks in Guankou Village were removed, the trade between Wei and Mao became smoother. In this early spring, a group of mules and horses were even traded. In fact, autumn is when livestock are fat and strong, and it is the traditional season for trading. It's just that the Perak Army lacked not only war horses but also pack animals. They were willing to pay high prices to buy mules and horses that were weak in the spring. There was no reason why the locals couldn't sell them. For the Perak Army, although these mules and horses are thin, as long as they are willing to feed them grains and beans, they will become fat in a short time. In addition to mules and horses, medicinal materials, copper, lead, zinc and other materials were transported from Wei and Mao prefectures, which was enough to make up for the material gap caused by the reduced trade volume between Jiading and Yazhou.
Ouyang Xuan did not believe that the Mongols were willing to lose these two states. The more trade volume with the two states increased, the more uneasy he felt. As the weather gets warmer, this feeling gets stronger. On the one hand, he asked Yu Zhu to strengthen the security of Guankou Village, and on the other hand, he asked Wu Qing to send personnel to Songzhou for reconnaissance and monitor the mountain trails leading to Weimao from Han and Pengzhou. Although the officials of the two states of Wei and Mao ignored the warning that the Mongols might invade from Songzhou, they still sent several groups of spies to the grassland out of respect for Ouyang Xuan's suggestion.
As Ouyang Xuan expected, the spies sent by Wei and Mao Prefectures discovered traces of the Mongolian army as soon as they entered the grassland area. This cavalry of about a thousand people set out from Longdong as early as March. After a long journey of thousands of miles, they arrived on the grassland north of Songzhou. They are now hiding in a valley to restore their power. It is impossible for non-locals to discover it. . The spies in the two states of Wei and Mao had similar language and customs to the local Tibetan people, and they also had some economic contacts, so they naturally learned this important information. In fact, among the scouts sent by Wu Qing to Songzhou, some peasants who made arrow stoves were also recruited. However, their accents were different from those of the peasants in Songzhou Grassland. In addition, they were not familiar with the place, so they had to pretend to be businessmen and wander around. There is no useful information from the population at all.
Due to time constraints, Huang Dagen, who received the news, had to send people back while preparing for war.
