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Chapter 853 Lanzhou Industrial Base
For a whole year, Hong Tao did almost nothing. He devoted himself to promoting the Salt Law and cleaning up the officialdom in Jianghuai and Zhejiang. Apart from occasionally arguing with a large group of officials in the imperial meetings, he wrote furiously, using various pen names to publish articles in newspapers, creating public opinion and brainwashing the people of the Ming Dynasty.

Of course, this was only calm on the surface. In secret, they were intensively deploying troops and brewing a larger-scale battle. In the files of the General Staff, it was called the Hundred Thousand Mountains Plan.

In September, the 16th Army Guard stationed in Wanping quietly went to Dagukou and boarded the armed cargo ship of the Maritime Transport Command. After more than 20 days of sailing, they landed quietly in Da Nang.

They will be mixed with the Nguyen army and undergo half a year of environmental and climate adaptation training. Then they will be expanded into three guards and march north with the cooperation of the Nguyen army to launch a general attack on the Zheng family of the Le Dynasty.

The goal of this war was to unify the entire territory of Annan, and then use Thang Long Prefecture as a base to recruit natives of Annan and Yunnan, as well as tens of thousands of Jurchen captives, to build a post road to Zhongqing (Kunming) along Lin'an Prefecture and Chengjiang Prefecture.

At the same time, they also intimidated the local chieftains of various ethnic groups. If anyone was found to be lip service and disobeying orders, they would be immediately eliminated by force, and the land and population would be distributed to the chieftains who actively cooperated.

Then, with Zhongqing as the base, he recruited various tribes nearby to continue building the road northwards, all the way to Jianchang, the Sichuan Xingdusi. As with the previous strategy, whoever did not cooperate would be destroyed, and then the land and population would be given to those who actively cooperated.

According to Hong Tao's order, once the Shiwan Dashan Operation is launched, don't be afraid of the noise. If necessary, massacre the city or the village, regardless of whether they are Han or non-Han. Whoever gets in the way is the enemy.

Of course, it would be better if they could be kept alive, and all of them were transported to Thang Long Province. Tropical areas easily make people irritable, so they were loaded onto ships and transported to Liaodong, Hetao and other places to cool down, and formed into farms with local Mongolian herdsmen who were willing to farm, and reclaimed the wasteland obediently under military control.

Why start with Annan and Yunnan? This is the first step of the Hundred Thousand Mountains Plan. Hong Tao has studied it carefully and divided Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou and Guangxi, which have complex terrains and are inhabited by various ethnic groups, into two levels.

Among them, parts of Guizhou, Guangxi and Huguang are classified as secondary. Although they are also mainly mountainous and have a large number of ethnic groups, they are not close to the border and have no possibility of colluding with outsiders to disrupt the country, so the threat is relatively small.

Sichuan and Yunnan not only have complex terrain and a large number of ethnic groups, but are also close to the border. Once chaos breaks out, it will inevitably attract external forces to intervene. Relatively speaking, the risk is relatively high and they are the main areas.

So how to solve the problems in these two regions? The core is still the great migration between the north and the south, but to achieve this, it must be fully controlled first. If you want to control it, you have to station troops, and the army needs logistical supplies. The only effective way to supply is by water or land.

Going to western Sichuan and Yunnan from inland areas not only requires crossing mountains and ridges, but also a long distance. On the contrary, if you start from Thang Long Province in Annan, the distance is actually closer.

Thang Long Province has the Red River flowing into the sea, so goods can be transported very conveniently by sea vessels. It would be more convenient and faster to use it as a logistics supply base.

Therefore, the first step was to help the Nguyen Dynasty unify Annan, and then incorporate Annan into the territory of the Ming Dynasty. While carrying out the great migration from north to south, they also built roads to Yunnan. As long as the road to Jianchang was completed and the garrison was effectively supplied, the Hundred Thousand Mountains Plan would be completed for the most part. No matter how complex the terrain or how bad the climate, the tribal soldiers with simple cold weapons could not defeat the army with hot weapons.

The remaining half was still used for road construction. On the one hand, the land was completely converted to the local people, and on the other hand, roads were built to the west and south. Three years, five years, ten years, they kept on building. As long as the central government did not go bankrupt, a budget would be allocated every year. Even if it was paved with copper coins, several roads running through the mountains from north to south and from east to west would be built.

Wherever the road was built, the garrison troops and the wandering officials would go. It was still the same principle: those who obeyed the central government's orders could play happily together, and those who disobeyed would be eliminated or sent to the north to experience what it was like to be in a world of ice and snow.

While everyone's attention was attracted by a series of major actions such as the salt workers' riots, the abolition of the Nanjing court, the purge of the bureaucracy in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces, and the dispatch of troops to Annan, a large number of towering water wheels, chimneys and factory buildings were quietly rising from the ground on the banks of the Haowei River 30 miles east of Lanzhou, a major northwestern city.

The Lanzhou Industrial Base, which was jointly presided over by the Left Vice Minister of the Ministry of Industry Li Zhizao and the Right Vice Minister Wang Zheng, had been under construction for only one year. The cement plant, brick plant, coal washing plant, coke plant, and alkali plant had all been completed and put into production. The first phase of the steel plant and machinery plant had also been basically completed. The equipment was being debugged and it was expected to be put into production early next year.

On the other side of the Yellow River, an undulating post road also meandered northward along the mountain. It was the track built by Xiong Sanba, leading all the way to Gansu Town, the seat of the Shanxi Xingdusi.

With this track, the Lanzhou Industrial Base can be self-sufficient with coal and iron produced in nearby Gansu Town. If the emperor is right, there is oil in Suzhou, and in the future, an oil refinery can be added to the industrial base to fully meet the military needs of the northwest region.

"Hey yo... Hey yo..." In the north of Lanzhou City, a large group of people gathered on the bank of the Yellow River. They were shouting and pushing and pulling the rail carriage towards the high slope by the river. The carriage was filled with large rectangular stones.

At the end of the high slope is a stone tower standing in the river, with a radius of 45 meters, its head facing west and its tail facing east, shaped like a shuttle. The craftsmen are using stones to continue to raise the stone tower, and on the other side of the river stands a similar stone tower, which seems to have been completed.

"Please look, this is the Lanzhou Iron Chain Bridge. Once the two bridge piers are built, an iron chain is pulled in the middle, and wooden boards are laid, then traffic will be unimpeded. The bridge pier on the opposite side has been built, and the iron chain is being fixed. In about a month, the one on this side will also be completed, and the trench will be open to traffic in the spring of next year!"

Not far from the construction site, there was a group of people in official uniforms pointing and gesticulating. In the middle were Army Governor-General Sun Chengzong, Left Vice Minister of Industry Li Zhizao, and Right Vice Minister Wang Zheng.

Since he and Wang Zheng were both Jinshi in the Dingwei year and had a good personal relationship, Sun Chengzong behaved very relaxed. He spoke in a loud and rough voice with accompanying body movements, which made him seem a little vulgar.

"Brother Zhisheng, please stop boasting. As far as I know, there is already a Zhenyuan floating bridge in Lanzhou." Wang Zheng was not polite and exposed Sun Chengzong's boasting to his face. Li Zhizao stared at the construction site in a daze, as if calculating how long, thick and heavy the iron chain should be.

(End of this chapter)