Chapter 148, Liaodong Theater Relief Strategy (Part 2)
Through communication with some climatology experts in the modern world, Huangshi now knows very clearly. So far, the Little Ice Age in the entire Northeast has lasted for almost fifty years, and it will continue to suffer for more than ten years before it passes. According to historical records, during this long period of disaster, the grain output of farmland across Liaodong will be reduced to a very sad level.
Therefore, although the Ming Dynasty Dongjiang Town soldiers and civilians under Mao Wenlong's command during the Tianqi Period seemed to occupy a large area from the map, their rations were always extremely dependent on Shandong's shipping assistance, and they even shamelessly went to North Korea to extort Qiufeng. But despite this, the soldiers and civilians in Dongjiang Town still suffer from hunger every year. After Yuan Chonghuan ordered the closure of the port and the starvation of food supplies, Dongjiang Town, which seemed to have strong troops and horses, suddenly collapsed from starvation.
As for the Eight Banners, in theory it would be even worse. In fact, as early as the early years of Chongzhen, the famine caused by the Little Ice Age had caused the entire agriculture in Liaodong to completely collapse. At that time, there were only 700,000 Han people left in the Jurchen Eight Banners' ruling area after being massacred by Nurhachi. However, due to the failure of most of the crops, the remaining people still traded rice for food. The price of rice was once as high as eighty taels per shi. The price of cloth has also risen to twenty taels per piece.
Thanks to the traitorous Shanxi merchant group that was attached to the Jurchen regime, Huang Taiji was able to resell the property, antiques, gold and silver plundered from the Central Plains back to the customs, and turn them into food, cloth and other daily necessities to support the Jurchen Eight Banners and the Millions of people were taken captive.
During the Ming and Qing wars in these years, the Shanxi Merchant Group provided all the gunpowder, 80% of the food, and more than 60% of the metal to the Eight Banners Army. It was almost the general logistics department of the Jurchens! Once they lose the assistance of the Shanxi Merchant Group and cannot resell these trophies stained with Han blood to the Han people, the seemingly majestic Eight Banners soldiers will quickly degenerate into the state of bone arrows and animal skin clothing.
The Shanxi merchant group, which had made a fortune in the national crisis, naturally benefited a lot from it. According to historical records, as early as the fifteenth year of Chongzhen, the eight Shanxi merchants had hoarded tens of millions of silver taels, and later received The imperial merchant status bestowed by the Qing Dynasty created the immortal legend that the eight Shanxi merchants were the most prosperous in the world for more than 270 years. It was not until modern times that they gradually declined with the rise of maritime trade.
However, with the change of ownership of the entire Liaodong, the lifeline of Shanxi Shanxi merchants that once maintained the Jurchen Eight Banners regime has naturally been cut off.
Although Huang Shi didn't think that these Shanxi traitorous businessmen groups, after personally burying tens of millions of Han compatriots without changing their faces or heartbeat, would actually have iron-clad loyalty and incredible sense of identification with Huang Taiji. Even if they go bankrupt, they have to live and die with the Jurchen Eight Banners.
However, even these Shanxi merchants who lacked moral integrity did not mind betraying the Qing Dynasty again after selling to the Ming Dynasty and continued to do business with the Hua League, which occupied Liaodong. The highly productive time travelers can also produce enough trading products, but if Huangshi wants to reach a deal with them again, let the Shanxi merchants in Guan pass start supplying again, and reach a suitable price agreement, it will take a long time. time. During this period, the grain harvest in Vladivostok alone was obviously not enough to meet the consumption of the entire Liaodong. Is it necessary to rely on the "arbitrary door" to allocate grain rations from the Americas? After absorbing millions of immigrants, can the Americas still collect so much food? And are they willing to give out so much food for free to feed millions of Liao people?
Fortunately, after consulting the central think tank expert group through a video conference call, Huang Shi found that he seemed to think about things too pessimistically. For Hua Meng, who possesses modern technology, the impact of the climatic anomaly of the Little Ice Age on food production was not that serious - or in other words, he underestimated the huge role of science and technology and did not know the role of modern agriculture in resisting natural disasters. His abilities have far surpassed those of the ancients.
The so-called Little Ice Age refers to a significant drop in global temperatures, resulting in widespread climate abnormalities in various places. On the grasslands, white plagues frequently break out, resulting in the death of large numbers of livestock, forcing nomadic people to plunder living supplies to the south. In the Northeast and Central China, precipitation belts move southward, leading to severe droughts in the original main agricultural areas. Food production dropped dramatically, eventually leading to widespread famine.
At first glance, this seems to be a rather terrifying sight.
However, let’s not talk about cooling down. Are the droughts seen by ancient people and the droughts imagined by modern people really the same thing?
Specifically, although there is still a drought in Liaodong this year, in the eyes of all immersed travelers, the Liao River water at this time is still mighty, not to mention the flow is cut off, and the water level does not even drop. It's obvious. As for the scenes of cracked land and withered vegetation, at least along the Liao River, you can hardly see them - it's just that there is less rain. Is this considered a major drought?
But the problem is, the ability of the ancients to resist natural disasters was really that weak!
First of all, the seeds sown by ancient farmers were not the high-quality seeds carefully developed by modern seed companies, but the original versions that were much inferior in all aspects, although they may be very popular among later generations of "little freshers" who think that is the best. It is green and pollution-free high-quality goods. But in fact, these ancient "green crops" not only had very low yields, but were also neither drought-resistant nor cold-resistant, resulting in reduced yields and no harvests at all times.
Secondly, in the absence of farmland water conservancy facilities, ancient farmers basically relied on the weather. Once God rained a few times, the harvest of the crops would have an unfavorable trend. After all, no one has the strength. Not only do they have to fetch water from distant rivers and lakes with wooden barrels, but they also have to water dozens of acres of crops with their own hands. Even those fields where irrigation canals are dug are not assisted by modern pumps. Once the water levels in rivers and lakes drop slightly and the river water cannot flow into irrigation channels, farmland harvests will still be reduced or even eliminated.
Finally, when facing a drought, the modern Chinese government will organize various "drought-fighting and harvest-guaranteing" actions, while the ancient landlords, gentry, and officials would only hide in the county with their stored grain and money and watch the farmers. Starved to death slowly outside the city, and then divided up the land they left behind, the drought was not a disaster for them, but a delicious feast to expand their own fields.
Under the backwardness of technical conditions and the deliberate indifference of the ruling class, it is natural to imagine the despair of ancient farmers in the face of natural disasters.
On the contrary, all the travelers who came to this time and space did not ignore the raging natural disasters and sit back and watch the people starve to death. Instead, they were very active in fighting disasters and ensuring harvests. Then, under the rule of the traversers, modern high-quality seeds have been used for various basic crops. In America and Vladivostok, which are vast and sparsely populated, farmland has been planned, leveled, and renovated on a large scale. There are also supporting cement ditches and small reservoirs, plus windmills or steam-powered water lifting stations. Those droughts that were enough to make ancient farmers hang themselves or flee from famine were just a matter of running the steam pump for a little longer for the time travellers. As long as the drought is not severe enough to dry up groundwater, there will not be widespread crop failure.
In addition to drought, the so-called global cooling of the Little Ice Age also only made the ancients with backward productivity feel desperate. If we put it in front of modern agricultural technology, it is far from being terrible. After all, although Liaodong is a bitter and cold place in the eyes of the Han people in the Central Plains, in the eyes of the Russians, it is already the "warm south"! Since the Soviets in the 20th century were able to grow large quantities of potatoes and cabbage on the Kamchatka Peninsula, and the descendants of the Viking pirates grew oats and radishes in Iceland, how come the farmland along the Liao River cannot grow food? No matter how cold it was in Liaodong during the Little Ice Age in the late Ming Dynasty, would it be colder than the Kamchatka Peninsula and Iceland in the modern world?
Therefore, since the Far East Company, which is mainly composed of veterans of the People's Liberation Army, traveled through the wormhole and established a base in Vladivostok in this time and space, it has not felt much about the droughts and cold waves that have been raging for years. On the contrary, it has easily cultivated large tracts of farmland. and pasture, yields are also good.
It can be seen that at least along the Liaohe River where water sources are guaranteed, Huangshi can completely copy the Far East Company's reclamation experience in Vladivostok and build large tracts of modern farms. There is no need to worry about burning coal. Liaoning Province is already a major coal-producing province in China, otherwise it would not be able to support the coal-steel complex of future generations. The arable land in the Liaohe River Basin alone is enough to accommodate the two to three million people outside Shanhaiguan.
Of course, if you want to build with peace of mind in the Northeast, you must at least have a relatively peaceful external environment... Thinking about this, Huang Shi grabbed the wireless phone and connected to the Jinzhou frontline headquarters. Then, based on the list of senior prisoners reported there, Huangshi discovered a historical celebrity who was very influential in modern media and who was also a suitable candidate for his plan.
"...Wu Sangui? Is he the guy who got angry for his beauty? You actually caught him in Jinzhou this time?"
Wang Qiu, who followed Huang Shi by airship to watch the battle, couldn't help but his eyes lit up when he heard the news, "...then Chen Yuanyuan is also there?"
"...Please, I'm afraid Wu Sangui isn't even older than you now! In terms of seniority, you still have to call me uncle or uncle. As for Chen Yuanyuan, I guess she's not as old as the two Romanian silver-haired lolita you have collected at home. Are you being taken care of at the moment? It’s hard to tell if it’s sold to a brothel.”
Huang Shi rolled his eyes and replied, while Wang Qiu immediately became less interested, "...So, what are you going to do with Wu Sangui's younger brother? Use him to persuade Guan Ning's army to surrender? Or do you want to recruit this guy directly? , serve under your hand?”
"...No, no, no, I just plan to give them the Wu family a fortune for the sake of our past friendship!" Huang Shi showed a meaningful smile, "...give away the territory of Beijing and the Central Plains What’s the idea of giving it to Guan Ningjun and giving them the pleasure of being kings?”
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PS: Since 2011, about one-fifth of the western United States has been in a terrible drought that has continued. Countless lakes and reservoirs have dried up one after another, and inland shipping has also collapsed. Judging from the documentary filmed on site, the water levels of many lakes and rivers have actually dropped by more than 30 meters, and various types of flow outages are also common. The severity is definitely no less than the Chongzhen Drought of the Ming Dynasty in Chinese history. .
But despite this, large-scale famine and displacement did not occur within the United States, and the huge US military continued to fight endlessly around the world. It can be seen that the impact of this severe drought on American society is very limited, even worse than the previous economic crisis. The reason is nothing more than that technological progress over the past few centuries has greatly enhanced mankind's ability to withstand natural disasters - the so-called "conquering nature" is not empty talk!
For example, in California, which has been experiencing a severe drought for five consecutive years, not only have rivers and lakes bottomed out, but the authorities have even drained the groundwater. This has forced residents to strictly require residents to save water and force them to shovel lawns and paint in their yards. green paint. At the same time, various golf courses that were extremely water-consuming were forcibly closed. Although the people of California complained about this, they never thought that they would starve to death because of it... If the same drought had been in the feudal era, people in California would have started cannibalism as early as three years ago. !