In the western part of Nanzhao County, at Li Qingdian on the bank of the Baihe River, Luo Zhixue rarely slept in.
In the past few days, Luo Zhixue suddenly found that he was free, so that Luo Zhixue, who had been busy for a long time, was not used to it.
Everything was going well in terms of military affairs, and Luo Zhixue didn't need to worry about it at all.
The 3rd Infantry Battalion that marched eastward had already completed its assigned mission, and was now stationed in a village called Ansha Village about ten miles away from Nanzhao County. The officers and soldiers from Nanzhao County to the east did not come out, and even attacked Baoxiang. The military's actions seem to be indifferent.
Therefore, there was no war in the east and everything was calm.
Going south, the First Cavalry Post, First Artillery Post, and First Infantry Battalion headed by Wang Xiazi also went well. They have traveled south for about forty miles and controlled a large area.
Along the way, we did not encounter any officers and soldiers, nor did we encounter any powerful people like Songjiazhuang who had strong strength and resisted stubbornly. We only encountered a few large landowners who did not know their ability to resist, and these big landowners were not even as strong as Songjiazhuang at that time. Blind Wang and the others naturally took down these big landowners very easily.
And more landowners, mainly a large number of medium and small landowners, have maintained a relatively restrained attitude towards the southward movement of the rural protection army, and pay the land tax according to the instructions of the monks and thieves with big bald heads.
Although they were reluctant to pay, most of them did.
It is time to lose money and eliminate disaster.
After all, these people are not stupid. They have also seen many practices of the Hometown Protection Army all the way south. They know that these so-called Hometown Protection Army thieves are relatively well-behaved. As long as they pay the land tax according to their regulations, they will not be in trouble. They are landowners.
Even when some gentry fled south with their families and children, the Home Guard Army would not cause trouble.
Of course, even if the core tribesmen ran away first, the land tax would still have to be paid.
In short, as long as you pay your taxes honestly, the other rural protection troops will not care about you at all...
The actions of the rural protection army also dispelled the panic of many landlords and gentry. Many people even felt that these monks and thieves, all with bald heads, were reasonable.
There is a huge difference from those thieves who just come over and don't care, just burn, kill, loot and kidnap people.
Under such circumstances, except for the small-scale resistance launched by a small number of stubborn landowners and gentry, the southward movement of the rural protection army did not encounter any actual resistance.
Whether moving eastward or southward, military operations in both directions went very smoothly.
Not only did the military operations go smoothly, but the establishment of township and village-level action agencies by the rural protection army in the above-mentioned places was also relatively smooth.
Guo Quanshu, in Luo Zhixue's opinion, is still capable.
I had tried my hand at Funiu Mountain and the eastern part of Lushan County before, and organized six township yamen to manage each village in the control area.
At the same time, as the director of the Personnel Affairs Department, he also did a very good job in recruiting talents.
He aimed at the fact that traditional scholars were unwilling to take the initiative to serve for the Hometown Protection Army. At the same time, the Hometown Protection Army had also given up its previous practice of seizing the landowners' children as hostages and bringing them to work for them.
In order to fill the talent gap, Guo Quanshu has stepped up the recruitment of non-traditional scholars.
This non-traditional scholar only said it nicely. In fact, as long as he knew how to read and write, he was within the period.
It doesn't matter what you did before, as long as you can read and write official documents, you are considered a talent needed by the Hometown Protection Army.
For these talents, the treatment given by the Baoxiang Army ranges from high to low.
The most basic clerical salary can barely support myself and two or three family members.
In terms of salary, the cost of hiring a clerk is less than the cost of raising a soldier.
Even though the soldiers received only a few hundred coins, they were well fed, and the price of food was soaring due to the war, and most of the time you couldn't buy it even if you had the money.
The food that soldiers eat in a month is worth more than a clerk's monthly salary.
If someone dislikes the low pay and doesn't want to come, that's fine.
These days it may be difficult to find a serious scholar who can take the imperial examinations, but there are still some people who have no money to make a living, but know hundreds or thousands of common words and can barely read and write official documents.
Not to mention other things, there are quite a few among the refugees alone.
You must know that Luo Zhixue's family was still a refugee before...
Luo Zhixue's late father and eldest brother still had the reputation of being children, but they were not forced to flee and become refugees after their hometown suffered natural and man-made disasters for many years.
How to put it this way, these days, only ordinary treatment is given. It may be difficult to find high-level talents, but it is still possible to find only some people with the most basic cultural level.
Guo Quanshu recruited these unorthodox scholars to alleviate the growing talent gap in Baoxiang Camp.
This is also what Luo Zhixue believes is Guo Quanshu's greatest achievement since he took office as director of the Civil Affairs Department.
With the support of Guo Quanshu, the Baoxiang Army recruited a large number of non-traditional scholars who were unable to eat and support their families for various reasons.
There is a counting house here where a family has been ruined and everyone has died.
There are guys who have been studying for several years when they were young but haven’t been able to make it out yet.
There is a farmer who studied for a few years when he was a child and then went back to farming. However, he went bankrupt after a man-made disaster on his farm.
There are also a small number of scholars who originally came from a good family and read a lot of books. According to normal logic, they should be rushing to take the imperial examination, but they ended up becoming refugees, just like the Luo family back then.
There are also many children, slaves and the like who are the sons of rich families.
In short, there are all kinds of people, no matter who they were before, but before they were recruited by the Baoxiang Army, they were the kind of people who didn't have enough to eat or were extremely dissatisfied with the status quo.
Only these people will not have a heartfelt dislike for rebels like the Baoxiang Army.
On the contrary, as long as the Baoxiang Army gave them food and allowed them to support their families, they did not mind working for a group of rebels.
In other words, they no longer have the capital to mind!
During this period of time, Guo Quanshu successively recruited more than 100 such talents, which greatly enriched the civil service gap of the Baoxiang Army.
It enables all parts of the General's Mansion to operate normally, and also allows officials to work in the various township yamen established.
The shortage of civil servants has been alleviated to a certain extent, so internal affairs can be smoothly promoted.
When there were no major issues in military affairs or internal affairs, Luo Zhixue felt like he had nothing to do for a while.
After two days of idleness, Luo Zhixue felt that he could not sit back and wait for death, otherwise the main force of officers and soldiers would come back to kill him.
So that afternoon he ran out to inspect the arsenal branch under construction.
Director of the Industrial Department Yuan Gaofeng accompanied Luo Zhixue to inspect the arsenal under construction, and explained to Luo Zhixue from time to time:
"According to your instructions, General, our Nanzhao County Arsenal Branch will be responsible for the transfer of the Songshan Village Arsenal. At the same time, we must prepare for further expansion of production, because the overall scale of the factory is relatively large."
"And because there is sufficient water here, we will also build more and larger hydraulic machinery to save energy and manpower. We can also further increase production capacity and gain the ability to process large pieces of iron."
"My colleagues in the previous machinery factory, when they were building various types of machinery and equipment in Songshan Village, they had basically finished the hydraulic forging machines, boring machines, drilling machines, grinding machines and other equipment handed over by you, the general."
"So this time we have relaxed our hands and plan to build three hydraulic forging machines, two water boring machines and one water drilling machine here."
"These machines are used in conjunction with smaller manpower and power-storage machines to process various types of iron materials."
"In addition, colleagues at the machinery factory are planning to build a large hydraulic boring machine to polish the inside of the artillery barrel."
"Build another large water hammer for the processing of larger iron materials such as iron gun mounts and cannonballs."
"In addition, a special iron-making plant has been built, and we plan to use our own improved iron furnace to directly drive the bellows with water. This kind of furnace will produce less iron impurities."
While Luo Zhixue listened to Guo Quanshu's words, he looked at the factory building in front of him that was still under intensive construction and a row of trains under construction by the river.
Although it is only an outline and not even a factory building has been completed yet, it does not prevent Luo Zhixue from imagining what the arsenal will look like after it is completed.
When fully completed, the overall scale should be more than three times that of the Songshan Village Arsenal.
The sheer scale of the factory is not important. What is really important is the large number of hydraulic equipment under construction.
These hydraulic machines are nothing new. Back in Sanshui Village, when there were only two or three kittens in the arsenal, Luo Zhixue personally designed a large number of various mechanical equipment with the craftsmen in order to improve processing efficiency.
What was built at that time were only small, simple machines that used stored energy and manpower, but the basic principles were all there.
With the basic principles and structures of these machine tools in mind, the craftsmen of the machinery factory continued to improve them in Songshan Village and worked hard towards large-scale and hydraulic machines.
Nowadays, the arsenal in Songshan Village basically uses various mechanical equipment for the production of various types of ordnance. Otherwise, it would be impossible to produce so many ordnance with such a few people.
The ordnance production of the Baoxiang Army is different from that of the Ming Dynasty where craftsmen hammered out the weapons manually.
Luo Zhixue personally formulated the division of processes. Taking muskets as an example, he separated each process of making muskets and unified measurements.
Making the gun later will be easy.
The iron smelting plant produces qualified iron materials, and then uses a hydraulic forging machine. Well, it is actually a large hammer that repeatedly beats the mold on the mold, and shapes it during the hammering process.
Finally, the pipe rolling process is carried out. After continuous beating, the iron material is closed and turned into a hollow iron pipe.
After the iron pipe is forged, the inside and outside of the iron pipe need to be finished. The outside is simpler and less demanding, but the internal processing is very troublesome if done by hand.
But when it came to the Baoxiang Army, it became much simpler. A special hydraulic boring machine was directly used to cut and expand the inner diameter of the gun barrel.
Just do the fine steel cutting tool of the boring machine a few times and it will basically be done, saving time and effort.
