Commander Chen, are you kidding me? How could I be arrested now? What do you think you're catching? so easy? "
Qin Mingtao, the military advisor of the Generalissimo's Mansion, laughed out loud after listening to Chen Shangchuan's suggestion... There is no such thing as improvising!
Chen Shangchuan glanced at Qin Mingtao, the "rustic" army boss, and chuckled: "I know it's not easy...but does your army have so many military households to send? The Great Plains of Beixinzhou are boundless. It’s boundless, even if it’s spread to millions of households, it may not be enough!”
"Can you really manage to have millions of households?" Yan Yingyuan, Minister of War, replied to Chen Shangchuan in a nonchalant manner.
There is also a "land and sea battle" among the Ming Dynasty's army! Who allowed the military expenditure to be so small? How could we not fight for it? Moreover, the Ming army's army was basically composed of northerners (actually not really northerners, they were mainly descendants of Huaishang military households who moved north in the early Ming Dynasty), and the navy was mainly composed of southerners, so they looked down on each other!
Zhu Cixiang frowned, and then glanced at Qin Mingtao, who had provoked the dispute, "Commander, if you have any good ideas, just tell me!"
This means that if I don’t recruit you, shut up...
Qin Mingtao smiled and nodded: "Your Majesty, I do have an idea."
"Then say it!"
"Your Majesty," Qin Mingtao said, "I think that the battle for the Great Plains of Northern Xinzhou cannot rely on farming, but must rely on nomadism!"
"Nomad?" Emperor Zhu raised his eyelids, feeling a little interested, "Tell me more!"
"Your Majesty, the Great Plains of North New Zealand are so big. If we want to farm, even one million households can't occupy it!"
Qin Mingtao said: "Moreover, the military households settled in the fields are too easy to be attacked by the enemy. It is easy to defend the fields in the Big Stone Mountains. Holding the mountain pass and guarding the top of the mountain, one can be equal to ten, right? A village with 200 households, thousands of people Even the Indians couldn't beat it.
But it was not possible on the plains. There was no danger to defend, and not only had to deal with the Indians of the Great Plains, but also the Western troops marching along the river. It was impossible to defend much territory by relying on farming.
The only way is to establish a nomadic cluster... As far as I know, there are large fertile grasslands in the Great Plains of North New Zealand, which are very suitable for nomadic herding. These nomadic clusters are much more difficult to deal with than farming households!
There are only 200 farming households in one village. If there is no danger to defend, the French can break it by sending a battalion with two cannons.
A large nomadic tribe has tens of thousands of households, and they travel everywhere. If the organization, training, and equipment are all in place, the French may not be able to defeat even a single division.
As long as there are two nomadic clusters with 10,000 households, one is placed in the south of the Great Plains and the other is placed in the north of the Great Plains. Let them travel nomadically, and we can occupy a large area of the North New Zealand plains! "
Qin Mingtao is not bragging about nomadism, but nomadism is really difficult to deal with!
If nothing else, the Indian hunting tribes chasing bison on the North American prairie are much more difficult to deal with than the corn-growing Indians in Mexico - they roam everywhere and can gather in groups!
In addition, in history, the nomadic Zhungar people carrying muskets fought against Tsarist Russia, Manchu Qing Dynasty, Kazakhstan, Bukhara, Yerqiang, Khalkha Mongolia, Uzbekistan... They But with a population of hundreds of thousands, if they weren't still fighting wars on all sides, and they were not united internally, and there were quite a few scenes of killing each other, wouldn't it still take more than a hundred years for them to end?
If it were replaced by hundreds of thousands of farmers cultivating the land, they would have perished long ago!
"How much territory can two nomadic groups with 10,000 households occupy?" Zheng Jiangong, the Minister of the Navy, frowned and asked, "And the territory won by nomadic circles will not be secure, right?"
The military advisor of Qin glanced at Mr. Zheng and said to himself: What do you, a navy, know about nomadism? This matter depends on our army!
"Zheng Shangshu," Qin Mingtao said with a smile, "being nomadic doesn't mean that we can't build cities or cultivate land... It's just that we can't just spread beans and build farms on the plains, as that will cost people their lives. We have to build a bastion in a key location that can withstand the siege of tens of thousands of enemies!"
"Where is the key location?" Zheng Jiangong asked again.
“Build bastions at important river mouths,” Qin Mingtao said. “If the Westerners want to invade the Great Plains to grab territory, they have to rely on water and land... If they want to take the land route, they have to farm one step at a time. The French The rate of migration to the New World will not cover much territory in another 100 years.
Therefore, as long as we block the key waterways and establish a few nomadic groups with 10,000 households, we can enclose a large area of land. Moreover, we can afford this method. A maximum of 20,000 people is enough for a nomadic cluster of 10,000 households. Let’s build 20,000 households first, and 40,000 households will be enough. The army can always find this number... Your navy can always transport 40,000 people, right? "
Forty thousand people, half men and women. Of course it's a lot, but it's not impossible.
In recent years, the population of northern military towns such as Daning, Anbei, Beiping, Shuofang, and Hexi has been increasing, and there are already some surviving members.
The two Mongol khanates, Chahar and Tumut, can still produce some people.
In addition, some poor farmers who were willing to cross the ocean to become military households could also be recruited from the territory of the direct province of Ming Dynasty.
Finally, the Ming Empire had a population of 200 million! How many bad guys are there in prisons everywhere, and how many good guys are more unjust than Dou E?
If you add up several sources, you can always get 40,000 to 50,000 people.
"What about cattle, sheep and horses?" Chen Shangchuan asked, "How many cattle and sheep do 40,000 herdsmen have to herd? How many horses do they need to ride? How can there be enough if there are not hundreds of thousands?"
"You don't need so many," Yan Yingyuan, Minister of War, said with a smile, "It's not the first time that the United States of Xinzhou was established... It has been sixteen years since the first batch of immigrants landed! In the past sixteen years, no one has How many cattle, sheep, and horses were transported to Xinzhou, where they multiplied and multiplied. Now there are millions of cattle, sheep, and horses in Xinzhou.
Moreover, there are countless bison and passenger pigeons on the great plains of New Zealand, and 40,000 to 50,000 people can survive for several years just by hunting. So there is no need to transport a lot of cattle, sheep and horses, just transport less good breeds, and then buy ewes, mares, and cows locally, and then slowly build a herd.
In fact, it is very easy to establish a herd in North Xinzhou. The grassland there is fertile and the climate is humid. It is similar to the Central Plains and cannot be compared with the northern grasslands. There’s so much bison raised there that we can’t finish it all! The reason why we want to build nomadic clusters is not to chase water and grass, but to occupy territory. When the territory is secured in the future, they can change from nomadic to settled. "
What a chosen country!
Zhu Cihong said that nomads on the Mongolian grasslands rely on dairy products and grain as their staple food (herdsmen also have ways to obtain grain), and rarely have the opportunity to eat meat. It would be really nice to let them go to North America to graze, and they would have plenty of fish and meat...
"Your Majesty," Grand Duke Luo, the chief minister of the cabinet, spoke at this time, "I believe that the method proposed by the military adviser to establish a nomadic herd in the Great Plains of North New Zealand is feasible... There are 40,000 to 50,000 men and women who can herd sheep and raise horses. I can make it up. But how should I calculate the cost? Please give your Majesty's instructions."
In the Ming Dynasty, of course the accounts must be settled tomorrow!
The cost of setting up two nomadic households on the Xinzhou Great Plains is astronomical! Just 40,000 to 50,000 people, plus some gifts and shipping costs for breeding horses, cattle, and sheep, would cost several million. Add to this the cost of recruitment, training, organization, and placement, and it can easily cost tens of millions!
The United States of New Zealand does have money in its finances, but it is still very difficult to spend tens of millions of taels at a time.
As for the financial money of the Ming Empire, it cannot be spent casually on the United States of Xinzhou... The father and son must also settle the accounts clearly!
Moreover, among the vassal states of the Ming Dynasty, the United States of Xinzhou is definitely a "tycoon country". If the tycoon country can take a lot of money from the pockets of the Celestial Empire, how can other vassal states be polite? It will be difficult for the Ming Dynasty not to go bankrupt by then!
Emperor Zhu nodded and said with a smile: "Don't worry, Grand Duke, this money will not be paid by the Cabinet Office... Since it is the United States that benefits, the money must be paid by the United States! If you don't have the money, you can issue debt notes first. ...Of course, the project of establishing nomadic households can be started immediately. I will pay for the required expenses first. I will ask the local tycoon to get it later!"
