Chapter 724 Farming Army
In the drizzle, a ship docked.
"Okay, that's it, we can't go any further!" A military academy member came over and yelled.
The trackers were relieved and exhausted.
"Let's all go eat some broth and warm ourselves up." Duzhi Zhonglang ordered Yang Bao after he got off the boat.
After hearing this, the trackers looked grateful, and then, under the leadership of the clerk from Duzhi Yamen, they went to rest in a thatched shed nearby.
It is raining lightly outside, and it is still dripping inside the hay shed. There were several wooden basins on the ground to collect water, which looked quite shabby.
Someone brought a bucket of corn. After counting the heads, he scooped some out of the bucket and said, "You wait until the day after tomorrow to leave. This will be food. You can fetch water for cooking. The fodder warehouse There is firewood inside, just go and ask for it."
After that, he took out another can of black beans and said, "This is yours too."
Then he left. Rations are distributed at the next location.
The trackers lay on the damp straw mats, too tired to move.
I thought I would just pull it to the bank of the Yellow River, but I didn’t expect that it had rained heavily for days and the Qinshui River surged. Some sections of the river were actually navigable, so I pulled the fiber all the way to the foot of Yewang City.
Think about it, how difficult it is to wear a raincoat in the heavy rain and make each step slippery? The skin on the shoulders has grown and worn out layer by layer, and now it is covered with calluses, but it still feels stinging.
"Will the Silver Spear Army still recruit people this winter?" someone suddenly asked.
“Can’t you afford it?” Someone’s eyes lit up, then dimmed again.
"Maybe we can recruit some." Someone said: "Every year there are people who retire, die in battle, are disabled, or die from illness. We have to recruit some, right?"
"Then Not enough." Someone sighed and said: "Jishui, Bianshui, Suiyangqu, Woshui, Yingshui, Rushui, Dahe, Baigoushui - I can't even count how many rivers there are. There are too many trackers to think about them. When recruiting troops, can you win?"
Everyone was silent.
Being a tracker earns a lot of money, which is better than farming, but it is really tiring, and your overall life may be shorter than that of a farmer. In fact, you are exchanging your life for money.
Since you are selling your life, it is better to exchange for something with more money, such as the recruitment of soldiers from the Silver Spear and Black Army.
The industry of trackers has a strict division of labor and a clear relationship between superiors and subordinates. Every time you pull a tracker, you are training in discipline and cooperation. Over time, it has become almost instinctive.
After joining the army, you will be well fed, clothed and warm, with meat, fish and cheese from time to time. You will spend a few years practicing skills and military formations, and then fight a few battles, and you will slowly become a warworthy soldier. .
The same goes for miners, dock laborers and the like.
Be able to endure hardship, have good discipline, understand the importance of cooperation, and have a strong tacit understanding with each other. These people are often used when recruiting new soldiers.
After lying down for a while, there was a noise outside.
The trackers were shocked. Could it be that the Huns were sneaking up on the Wild King?
Someone got up and went out to take a look, and said: "A sergeant came back from the north, and there were quite a few people."
An older tracker came over and looked through the rain curtain. But on the vast wilderness, soldiers who could not see the end were marching, from north to south, in such a mighty way that it was impossible to tell how many people there were.
Is this... a defeated army?
A few more people came over and looked at each other in confusion after reading it.
"Don't panic." Finally someone with a calm mind spoke: "If the army was defeated, the guards at the camp would have panicked long ago. Judging from their appearance, they should have withdrawn normally. Maybe Bingzhou's food was not enough. Liang Gong dismissed some of his soldiers and asked them to go home. "
"Look -" the man pointed to the other side of the river, where there were mules, horses and vehicles loaded with food heading north, ready to enter. Taihangxing.
Everyone was immediately relieved.
If it was really a big defeat, how could it be so easy to transport grain and grass to Bingzhou? There are almost no guards? Instead of worrying about the defeat of Bingzhou, it is better to think about the troops who attacked Zhi Guanxing.
They had helped carry the wounded twice on the bank of the Yellow River before, both of which were taken from the Zhiguan battlefield. They were terrible.
I heard from the escorting sergeant that these can survive.
On the battlefield, there is about a 50-50 split between injuries and deaths.
In fact, people who are slightly injured can survive, and those who are slightly injured are basically dead. Of course, except for officers, even if they are seriously injured, their survival rate is still not low.
To put it bluntly, it’s not that injuries cannot be cured, but that there are only so many doctors and decoctions, and it depends on who is given priority.
In addition, officers can also receive better service and care, better nutritious meals, and a better recuperation environment, which is impossible for ordinary soldiers.
"Stop looking, get some water to cook." Someone suddenly shouted: "I'm so hungry."
"Where can I get the broth? The guy didn't say anything just now."
"Get out. Ask."
"I heard it's not broth, but fish soup made from fish raised in Zhongli City, Heyang."
"That's fine, go and ask. ”
Everyone was chattering and quickly dispersed.
If the sky falls, there will naturally be warriors holding it up. What does it have to do with them? It's important to fill your stomach.
On the other side, Yang Bao started to inspect the Hepu camp with a big belly.
This camp is under his control, and he also has soldiers under his command, and the scale is getting bigger year by year, which is called "troop transport".
Troop transport has a certain combat effectiveness. Chen Min relied on Hefei's troop transport to quell chaos many years ago.
Transporting troops into battle is not feasible, but suppressing the ground and transporting supplies is not a big problem.
"Are the new prisoners honest?" Yang Baoxian asked the military academy who came to salute.
"The dishonest ones are all buried by the river." the military academy said with a smile.
"Don't be too cruel. After all, you are a prisoner and will be an official slave in the future. It will be difficult to explain if there are too many casualties, and it will also destroy your and my job." Yang Bao reminded. "No." The military academy responded.
The two of them spoke in Donghai dialect throughout the whole process. They are obviously from Donghai. At this time, people from the five counties of Lanling are also regarded as Donghai people. After all, they are divided from Donghai County. Not many years since I left.
Yang Bao looked up at the sky again, his expression gloomy.
When it rains every day, you know it will rain, alas!
Under the heavy rain, the road was muddy and even partially washed away. It was very difficult to repair it, but it took a long time.
Nearly 20,000 prisoners were captured in Bingzhou - half of them were natives of Bingzhou and half of them were Hu people - and they were taken to Hanoi one after another. Some of them stayed on the spot and worked as coolies; some of them were sent to Bian. Liang, built cities; and some were active on various transportation routes to reduce the burden on the people of Henan and Hebei.
Many of the troops were also laid off.
The Yang Dan and Hou Feihu tribes withdrew a total of about 20,000 people, one of them retreated to Yecheng, and the other to Yewang.
Food can be shipped to these two places, making it convenient to eat without the need for long-distance transportation.
I heard that Li Chong’s Ministry will also lay off a considerable number of his men and go home to farm directly. They are no longer needed to fight and cannot afford it.
In the evening, the rain stopped.
Yang Bao left Yewang in a hurry, preparing to return to Heyang to supervise the transfer of the next batch of supplies.
At the same time as he left, an army of livestock came out of Heyang Beicheng, driven by the herdsmen of Jinguyuan, and headed north towards Shangdang.
******
Henan actually has less rain than Jizhou and Guanzhong, let alone Bingzhou.
It can be seen that this year’s rainy weather is regionally specific.
So far, Bingzhou has received the heaviest rainfall, which is undoubtedly a disaster.
Kansai is second, but it cannot be said to be a disaster. It can only be said that there is a lot more rain than normal years.
Jizhou is similar to Guanxi, with more rain, but the impact is greater than Guanzhong, because during the winter wheat harvest in May, continuous rains greatly affected the harvest. Considering the impact of the war, life this year has been difficult.
Henan is slightly better, with slightly more rain, but it is only "slightly more" and has little impact on agricultural production.
Of course, Henan also has other difficulties. A relatively serious locust plague broke out in Xuzhou.
Some local households have planted winter wheat, so the impact is minor.
The other part is planted with spring millet. This year’s harvest is considered finished, and relief is urgently needed.
Some locusts also flew to neighboring Qingzhou, Yanzhou, and Yuzhou, causing a certain degree of damage. Fortunately, the impact was not too great.
A large-scale locust plague also broke out in Jiangdong.
Over the years, disasters have been frequent in the north and relatively few in the south. This time it is finally their turn.
I heard that wealthy families in various places have tightened their grip on food and refused to send it out. Famine broke out in some cities that relied on food supplies from the countryside. Many people even starved to death in Jianye.
Under such a situation, Sima Rui and Wang Dao were so anxious that they summoned representatives of the wealthy families every three days, negotiated or even compromised with them, handed over benefits, and asked them to provide food.
There are still some effects. But the locust plague is really serious, and famine is inevitable.
This is the little glacier climate, which will give you a "surprise" from time to time.
A certain place looked good this year, but suddenly it collapsed. The residents became refugees, and the refugees became starving. Then people cannibalized and attacked each other, bones were exposed in the wild, cities were in ruins, and household registrations were destroyed. Sharp decrease.
Now Jiangnan has stopped moving troops and is doing everything possible to save food in order to tide over the difficulties.
Fortunately, they are lucky. There have been no continuous disasters, and their foundation is relatively solid. As long as there are no large-scale droughts, floods, locust plagues, etc. next year, they can still survive.
Shao Xun should be grateful that Yuzhou has been strong in the past few years. There have been no major disasters, only one medium-sized disaster, and not many minor disasters. Otherwise, he would not know what to do now.
After receiving news of locust plagues in parts of Xuzhou, Yanzhou, Qingzhou, and Yuzhou, Yu Chen hesitated.
But after hesitating for a moment, he finally made up his mind: allocate food for disaster relief.
If the skin is gone, how will the hair be attached?
Without the common people, where would the sources of troops come from? Where do you get the resources? Even if he was scolded by his son-in-law, he would also divert part of the food to provide relief to victims in various places.
Of course, he did not forget to write a letter to Jinyang explaining the situation in detail.
The wheat harvest in May has been completed, and there is still a lot of grain stored in the warehouse. Now some of it will be appropriated, and the rest will still be sent to the front line. As long as the son-in-law suspends military operations, he can reduce food consumption and wait until August to harvest grains in Henan, which will slow things down a lot.
The letter was delivered to Jinyang on June 20. At that time, Shao Xun was wading through muddy water and patrolling both sides of the Fen River.
After reading, he was silent for a moment, and then he came to Li Chong and asked: "Before, you said that there was less rainfall in Xinxing and there were no floods. Is this true?"
Li Chong thought. After thinking for a while, he said: "Actually, Xinxing has more rainfall than previous years, but compared with Taiyuan and Xihe, it's really not that much. Maybe it's not just Xinxing that has less rain, but it may get less as you go north."
Shao Xun nodded.
The rainfall line is there, and it does become less and less towards the north.
Maybe places like Xinxing and Yanmen were a bit dry in the past, but this year it was just right.
So he quickly issued an order: "The continuous rain has soaked the roads, and it is impossible to fight anyway. You immediately take 30,000 people to the north of Xingxing, select the abandoned land, and plant beans. As much as you can harvest, you can make a profit from the seeds." It won’t be a loss if you come back.”
“Many millet fields here in Taiyuan have been destroyed. It’s a pity that we should choose some dry high fields to avoid disaster.”
“Here. Orders were sent from Henan and Hebei to collect as many cattle and sheep as possible and send them over for grazing. After the floods receded, the grass was extremely rich and suitable for grazing."
"In addition, envoys were sent north to the grasslands to bring gold and silk. Market cattle and sheep to see if they are willing. If they are not willing, ask how they are willing to do it. You can ask for anything you want."
After that, he added: "Leave me ten. I will plant acres of land and share the joys and sorrows with the soldiers.”
(End of Chapter)