Li Guo finally became the late emperor!
He was also a late emperor who failed halfway through his business, a bit like Liu Bei. However, there are disadvantages, because today the world is no longer divided into three parts. Dashun has used Sichuan and Yunnan to fight against the whole country. It has reached the point where the national strength is exhausted. It can be said that it is really at a critical stage of survival.
Li Dingguo, who was known as the "Reincarnation of Zhuge" in Dashun, was most deeply affected by the weakening of Dashun's national strength, because he spent most of his time on the front line of Shaanxi these years, working with Wu Sangui, Sima Yi of the Ming Dynasty (Wu Sangui insisted that he was Cao Zhen of the Ming Dynasty) Fighting spirit and courage.
To be honest, Li Dingguo's fighting skills were even worse than Wu Sangui's. Li Dingguo is good at fighting clever battles, while Wu Sangui is good at fighting tough battles. The two fought several times, but Li Dingguo cleverly used his troops to trick Wu Sangui in the beginning. In the end, Wu Sangui defeated the enemy with a small number in the battle formation, and Li Dingguo was defeated steadily, so he had to withdraw his troops with hatred.
However, Li Dingguo also learned from the lesson in "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" that Zhuge Liang always retreated when he ran out of food. He made long-term plans for farming from the beginning. He also used the strategy of leaving Qishan first and then attacking Guanzhong to capture many of the northern foothills of Zhongnan Mountain. Loess platform, and using the condescending terrain there to set up defenses, firmly encircling the main battlefield of the Ming and Shun battles at the junction of the Guanzhong Plain and the Qinling Mountains, it can be said that they took advantage of the opportunity.
But it didn't take long for Li Dingguo to find that the advantage he had worked so hard to seize had turned into a tasteless and useless waste.
It turned out that after Wu Sangui led the army to Guanzhong, Li Dingguo discovered that his army was unable to defeat Wu Sangui's Ming army in the plain area under the platform. The latter's ability to fight in formation was too strong, including infantry, artillery, cavalry, Coordinated tactics of engineers and soldiers. Moreover, under the four major arms of the Ming Army, including infantry, artillery, cavalry, and engineers, there are also more subdivided smaller arms, which can carry out various coordination and cooperation on the battlefield, and are very powerful.
Unable to win in plain field battles, Li Dingguo was unwilling to give up the large platform at the northern foot of the Qinling Mountains - the platform he occupied in the northern part of the Qinling Mountains stretched for about 50 miles from east to west and about 8 miles from north to south, which was almost 400 miles square, because There are many ravines, so the land that can really be cultivated is not that much, but it is still more than 100,000 acres. And they are all cultivated land, and they look relatively wealthy, at least much richer than the Shaanxi in Li Dingguo's memory...
Li Dingguo and the generals of the Dashun Army were really reluctant to give up such a rich land that could be cultivated and farmed.
Therefore, Li Dingguo arranged for the troops to build fortresses and cultivate fields on this loess platform, thinking it was a long-term solution.
He originally thought very well. With 100,000 acres of land, even if one acre could produce sixty or seventy kilograms of flour, it would produce six to seven million kilograms a year, enough to feed an army of twenty thousand.
In addition, a lot of land can be opened on the Qinling slopes next to these terraces to grow sweet potatoes and potatoes—such exotic crops have also flowed into Dashun! There can always be several million kilograms of flour mixed with flour a year, which can support an army of 40,000.
If we transport some food from Hanzhong, Guanzhong can maintain an army of 50,000 to 60,000, which is enough to compete with Wu Sangui for a long time.
The idea was good, but in actual implementation there was a big problem!
After all, Li Dingguo was not Zhuge Liang. Zhuge Liang was good at civil administration. He was a famous prime minister and could manage the Shu Han country with few people and land in an orderly manner. And Li Dingguo was just a military general. He was said to be a peasant uprising, but in fact he didn't know how to farm at all - he was still a little baby when he was captured by Zhang Xianzhong as his adopted son, and he didn't understand farming at all.
He was actually a samurai who grew up in Zhang Xianzhong's army. He was similar to the second-generation Bangfu soldiers in his army, and neither knew how to farm...
Li Dingguo, who did not know how to farm, took tens of thousands of second-generation soldiers who did not know how to farm to farm on the loess terraces at the foot of Zhongnan Mountain. You can only imagine what he could produce - although those terraces looked quite wealthy. , but it is difficult to operate, and the wealth there is mostly due to smuggling to Hanzhong...
Therefore, Li Dingguo's farmland suffered losses as soon as it started. In the first year, he harvested less than 1 million catties of wheat, and after removing the wheat hulls, only more than 600,000 catties were left. There were not many troops available at all, so the tens of thousands of troops in Guanzhong could only be maintained by transshipments from Hanzhong and capture in Guanzhong.
The next year, Li Dingguo learned his lesson and recruited old farmers from Sichuan to come to Shaanxi... It turned out that these old farmers were all rice growers and could not grow wheat on the terraces at all!
As a result, we lost money again, so we had to continue transshipping from Hanzhong, and the transportation volume was several times more than the previous year - because there were seizures for consumption before, but now there are none.
In the third year, Li Dingguo finally found the right person. He found farmers from the Gongchang area who could grow the terraced fields in the northwest. He used the correct method to farm the land, but...no harvest!
How can you find the right person and use the right method but still get nothing?
Yes, this is agriculture!
Li Dingguo and the others encountered a drought!
The terraces and ravines in Shaanxi are most afraid of drought, and drought is inevitable. A small drought occurs every three years, and a major drought occurs every five years. It is inevitable no matter what.
Moreover, the severe drought that lasted for fifteen years not only affected Guanzhong, but also seriously affected the agriculture of Hanzhong, Gongchang, Baoning, Songpan, Longan and other places under Dashun rule. Even the wealthy Chengdu Prefecture also suffered Production has been reduced by more than 30%.
In this case, it seems that Li Dingguo should retreat, but he can't do this!
Because most of the more than 100,000 soldiers who followed him in the Northern Expedition came from drought-stricken areas - this meant that they were all suffering serious losses! Their ability to serve has been greatly reduced. If they are allowed to go home empty-handed, it is difficult to say whether they can recruit so many people next time.
Moreover, Wu Sangui also knew about the drought in Dashun. In fact, Shaanxi, Henan, and Shanxi under the Ming Dynasty also suffered from drought.
However, the Ming Dynasty is no longer afraid of drought. The population of these provinces in the northwest and central plains has dropped sharply after years of war. Coupled with the large-scale development of the American Gulf and Liaoyang Province, it has given people in the disaster areas a good place to go.
During the disaster year, the Ming court did not even provide relief to the three provinces of Shaanxi, Henan, and Shanxi, and did not even exempt them from land taxes!
Of course, the imperial court will provide subsidies to farmers who are willing to leave their homes and go to Liaoyang Province or the Gulf of America during disaster years - this is the real way of buying peace with money!
Dashun has no money to distribute, so they can only launch a war to rob it!
During the 15th and 16th years of the rule, Li Dingguo, known as "Zhuge Liang," launched a series of offensives on the ground in Shaanxi, which made Wu Sangui panic. He did steal some property, but it still could not make up for the expenses of the soldiers below. .
Just when Li Dingguo was planning to launch another large-scale offensive after the autumn harvest of 17 years, the situation in Dashun changed dramatically!
Li Guo died and Li Laiheng came to the throne...and Dashun suddenly became rich!
The miserable Dashunchao suddenly started giving out red envelopes!
The "red envelope" was escorted by Li Dingguo's youngest son, Li Runxing, to the pristine Dingjunshan camp. It contained a total of 880,000 taels of silver and 480,000 copper coins!
"Why do you give so much money?" Luo Hu, Li Dingguo's deputy general, looked at the baskets of silver and copper coins and was very surprised. "How old is the imperial court? If you give out money like this, you will not be able to survive in the future?"
Li Dingguo also frowned, "The late emperor has always been careful in his life. Although he picked a little, the water can flow smoothly! How can it be done like this now?"
Li Runxing smiled and said to his father and Luo Hu: "Ada, Luohou, you two can relax, the court is rich now! My grandson, no, it is the prince of Fujun who went to Tianzhu to plunder a lot and took back more than 800 Ten thousand taels... That’s why I can give rewards to the old brothers now. There are big rewards from top to bottom, everyone is happy!"
"Eight million is not much!" Li Dingguo shook his head.
"Ada, don't worry about it. Prince Fujun will grab more next time and you'll have everything!"
"Is there a next time?" Luo Hu knew something about Li Jicheng's good deeds. His son was Li Jicheng's son!
"Yeah!" Li Runxing smiled, "Well, I'm going to follow... I need to grab more!"
