The Qing Dynasty is about to end

Chapter 594 Moore: On the Expansion of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom (Requesting Subscription and Tickets)
The morning mist over the Yalu River had not yet dissipated, and six four-wheeled carriages had already rolled over the wooden steps of the iron chain bridge. Moore adjusted his glasses and looked at the red flag fluttering on the earthen wall on the opposite bank - the five black characters "Taiping Zhenjiang Soldier" were embroidered in the center of the flag, and the corners of the flag were rustling in the river wind.

"This bridge was newly built last year," Hong Rengan opened his folding fan and pointed to the stone tablet at the bridgehead. "Originally, the Koreans used wooden boats to ferry people across the river, but when the Celestial Army arrived, it was changed to an iron chain bridge. Eighty thousand kilograms of pig iron were used."

"What is the 'Taiping Zhenjiang Soldier' ​​on the north bank of the Yalu River?" Wenxian asked as he pulled out a Cuban cigar from his suit pocket.

"That's the farmland of our Taiping Heavenly Kingdom!" Hong Rengan laughed, "Since the time when the Eastern King was the governor of the Northeast, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom has begun to set up farmlands for Chinese soldiers who are willing to retire. An ordinary new brother of the Taiping Army, as long as he has some military merit, even if it is just collective merit, can get 100 acres of fertile black soil in the Northeast! Meritorious people at the level of two Sima, sergeant, and brigade commander can get more land. Up to 500 acres! Of course, the ownership of these lands still belongs to the Heavenly Kingdom, and the meritorious people only get the right to use them."

"Can only use it?" Wen Xian asked, "What if the meritorious people die?"

"The right to use the land can be inherited by the son of a meritorious citizen," Hong Rengan replied, "but the heir must also assume his father's military service. The division and brigade commanders will regularly assess military training and grain production. Those who fail to meet the standards for three consecutive years will have part or all of the land reclaimed!"

"Then there must be many military settlement organizations like the 'Taiping Zhenjiang Soldiers' in Liaodong, right?" Wenxian asked again.

Hong Rengan replied: "There are not too many at the moment, maybe three or four hundred. One soldier has more than a hundred households, which makes a total of tens of thousands of households, but in the future there will definitely be hundreds of thousands of households, and the entire Northeast will be ruled by Chinese soldiers!"

Sir Bonham lit up his cigar, took a deep puff, blew out a smoke ring, turned to Consul Styron and said with a smile: "Such military settlements will surely be spread all over Java Island in the future, right?" Styron's face was grim, and he pointed the telescope at the numerous ridges of fields north of the river.

Friedrich's pen was rustling on his notebook: "The leaders of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom are trying to create a military class similar to the Junker landlords by linking land with military merit and military service. When this class is combined with capital and industrialization, the expansionist impulse of 500 million people will be completely released!"

The earthen wall of the Zhenjiang soldiers was larger than a county town in North Korea. The chief soldier, Chen Dazhu, led 30 soldiers wearing swords to the village gate to welcome him. This old Guangxi brother had a black cloth covering his left eye, and his right knuckles were as thick as old tree roots: "King Gan, you are finally here! We just harvested the spring wheat last month, and there is plenty of new beer in the warehouse!"

The "Land Allocation Map of the Celestial Empire" was hung in the main hall of the government office. The 20,000 mu of land outlined by the red circle stung Bai Siwen. The Adam's apple of this former second-rank official of the Qing Dynasty rolled twice, and he suddenly pointed to the red cross in the northeast corner of the map and said, "Is this the official village of the Eight Banners?"

"It has long been taken back to heaven," Chen Dazhu grinned, revealing his yellow teeth. "There was a group of Eight Banners bastards who refused to give up and wanted to set fire to the granary. I tied them up and threw them into an ice hole."

Friedrich quickly took notes with a pencil, then suddenly looked up and asked, "How will the original bannermen be resettled?"

"Men over 15 years old are sent to mine and build roads, and women and children are distributed among the brothers as domestic slaves." Chen Dazhu said as he opened the door of a warehouse, and the fragrance of new wheat hit him. But Friedrich found that behind the 20 cypress grain storages, a whole row of oil paper bags were piled up to the beams - on them were the words "war prepared saltpeter" written in red pen.

"Are those saltpeter?" Hong Rengan pointed at the oil paper bags piled at the base of the wall and asked in Hakka.

"Yes!" Chen Dazhu grinned, "Zhenjiang soldiers have thousands of acres of saltpeter fields, and the saltpeter produced is stored in various warehouses to prevent others from taking it all at once. If the remnants of the bannermen in the mountains dare to invade, these saltpeters can be used to prepare nitrate-sugar gunpowder!"

The house of Yang Laosan, the second Sima, was only two miles away from the river bank. When the Hunan man led everyone into the main hall, the Tianli Year 3 rifle hanging on the wall and the "Heavenly King Statue" on the altar formed a perfect match.

"The rifled rifle of the third year of Tianli can penetrate the head of a blind bear within fifty steps!" Yang Lao San patted the butt of his rifle to show off, "Last month, I was suppressing horse bandits and I shot three of them with one shot."

There was a harsh sound of sawing wood coming from behind the house. Bai Siwen looked in the direction of the sound and saw several shirtless men sawing a thick piece of wood. "Who are they?"

"The poor men who fled from Shandong," Yang Laosan sighed, "were given land by the Heavenly Kingdom, but each person could only get two mu of land for food. If they wanted to earn more, they had to work in the villages. They could do anything! When we went into the mountains to suppress bandits, we could even let them serve as militiamen as long as we gave them credit."

"Reward for merit?" Bai Siwen asked, "If you have accumulated enough merit, can you become a citizen and share the land?"

Yang Lao San nodded and said with a smile: "That's right, we will assign them to the north when the time comes."

Moore's gray eyes moved slightly, and he suddenly said to Friedrich in German: "Their expansion model is similar to that of American whites, but they are better organized."

The big parade ground was a little cooler in the afternoon. More than 70 half-grown children lined up with wooden spears, followed by a lame coach on crutches, shouting and killing loudly. Hong Rengan pointed to the brick building at the west end of the parade ground and said, "This is the primary school in the army. The children learn calligraphy during the day and practice spear training at 3 p.m. The teacher is a village scholar who fled from Shandong, and the one who teaches the children martial arts is our old brother of the Taiping Army."

Styron leaned in closer to the window to take a closer look. Next to the "Heavenly King" on the wall was a hand-painted map - a map of China painted in different colors, with the parts controlled by the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom painted red, and the rest black. Several red arrows were posted at the junction of Huguang and Sichuan, probably symbolizing that the Taiping Army was advancing westward. In addition, there was a map full of contour lines on the wall, and judging by the terrain, it seemed to be the jurisdiction of the "Taiping Zhenjiang Army"!

“The way children in your country learn geography is very special”

"Children who grow up in military settlements must learn how to fight." Hong Rengan smiled as he walked into a large courtyard where baskets of soybeans were being weighed. Korean women wearing red headscarves were kneeling on the ground mending sacks and turned their heads to look over when they heard footsteps.

"I only get two or three dou of grain for one mu of black soil," Chen Dazhu kicked the grain basket with the tip of his boot, "I keep the rest for myself. I can't even eat it all. I sell most of it or feed the livestock!"

The day after Moore and his party arrived at Taiping Zhenjiangzu, they happened to catch the twice-monthly market. More than 20 stalls were lined up along the dirt road, selling mostly animal skins, ironware, porcelain, and cloth shipped from the interior. The Zhenjiangzu tax collectors, dressed in official uniforms, banged the gong at each stall: "Those who pay their taxes will receive red chips, and those who don't have chips will be arrested to repair the fort!"

Suddenly, two gunshots startled the crows. Yang Laosan and several villagers came out of the woods with smoking rifles, each with a bloody beast or bird on the barrel. Yang Laosan laughed and said, "We'll serve you some extra food tonight!"

Friedrich stared at the bullet hole in the belly of one of the birds and suddenly said, "This shooting accuracy is enough to snipe the enemy commander."

"How does it compare to the Prussian chasseurs?" asked Wen Xian, touching the chain of his pocket watch.

"Nearly equal," said the military-minded Friedrich. "Hunters always make the best snipers."

Today's dinner was held under the apple tree in the captain's house. Chen Dazhu drank his third bowl of beer and suddenly smashed the bowl on the stone table: "When the heavenly army breaks into the lair of the Rakshasa ghosts, I will take people to occupy Lake Baikal!"

"For now, let's focus on Jilin and Heilongjiang," Hong Rengan said while picking out fish bones slowly. "Before next spring, you Zhenjiang soldiers had better train up a hundred sharpshooters who can ride horses!"

Wen Xian's fork stopped in mid-air: "What is the point of training so many soldiers?"

"First unify China, then prevent the Russians from moving south!" Hong Rengan smiled harmlessly, "After the peace talks in Berlin are concluded, our troops stationed at the mouth of the Heilongjiang River and the Kamchatka Peninsula will move westward along the Heilongjiang River."

Bai Siwen suddenly sneered: "I'm afraid we should learn from Genghis Khan and use the villagers as arrows to shoot out."

Moore, who had been silent all this time, suddenly spoke up and said in German: "More terrible than the Mongols. The Mongols expanded with horses, but they rely on turning every farmer into an armed colonist." He turned to look at the drunken Chen Dazhu and switched to stiff Chinese: "How much land do you want?"

"As many as you can get!" The drunken captain waved his greasy palm and spoke his true words, "From Zhenjiang Fort to the north, the land that can kill three horses has better be named Chen!"

The direction he pointed was a "Wall of Military Merits". Moore looked over and saw that the wall was filled with the glorious military merits of this old brother from Guangxi of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom!

Tianli Year 1: Followed His Royal Highness the Northern King to participate in the Jintian Uprising, served as the vanguard, and killed two Qing monsters
In the second year of Tianli: He was selected as the vanguard to attack Quanzhou again, and was the first to kill the monster, and was commended by the King of the North

In the second year of Tianli: He followed the Northern King to attack Lingling County and killed two monsters outside the county.

Tianli Year 3: Followed the Heavenly Kingdom soldiers to attack Jiangning City, destroyed Qicheng City, and killed three demons

Four years in the calendar
The Dutch Consul Styron muttered in Dutch: "Yellow Peril, this is the Yellow Peril. If we can't stop them, they will replace us and become the rulers of this world!"

"This is the most terrifying military machine." Moore wrote in his diary by candlelight, "But they are not fighting for faith or monarchy, but for two more bags of wheat in their backyards. In the final analysis, it is a race that accounts for 40% of the world's population and has not been able to get the corresponding land and resources!"

The next morning, the sound of hurried horse hooves suddenly came from outside the window. The messenger brought the military order issued by the commander of the First Division of the Liaoning Provincial Garrison. Hong Rengan, who was having breakfast with Chen Dazhu, glanced at the words "Quickly dispatch 50 soldiers from Zhenjiang to the division headquarters" and sneered. Suddenly, the river wind swept into the yard with the call of the assembly, as if the entire Northeast land was repeating the same sentence: the black soil buried the loyal bones, and the guns and cannons expanded the territory.

(End of this chapter)