The pork butcher is smoother than a pig butcher!

Chapter 239 The Windbreak's Debut (Part 2)

Zhao Muyun, Xiong Zhen, and others were observing the strange sights in the saxaul forest.

The trees that were planted earlier, which were more than two meters tall, were buried by a third of the yellow sand.

Some of the tree branches were broken off, but apart from the newly planted trees that day, none of them were blown away by the sandstorm.

In other words, they have taken root completely.

The 10,000-mu pasture, which is surrounded by protective forests on three sides, has only a layer of new sand about three inches thick on the semi-desert soil.

The sparse pasture grass wasn't even buried!
Inside the camp.

Zhao Muyun rubbed his hands together, looking at Gan Minglan as if she were a god of wealth.

"Captain Gan, where did you dig up such a large patch of trees? Can these things survive in all sandy areas?"

"It was the grateful rat and the gerbils and prairie voles it found that dug them up. These small animals are the original inhabitants of that desert! Logically speaking, the saxaul tree has been able to survive in the desert for thousands of years, so it should be extremely easy to grow!"

"Captain Gan, do you know how much suffering this important border town endures every year because of the yellow wind? Do you think it would be feasible if we traded these saxaul trees with other border towns for some grain?"

Gan Minglan: "." It seems she's really driven crazy by the lack of food.

She thought for a moment and then said:
"We now have nearly 30 million five-year-old trees planted in our windbreak! Except for Yulinwei, which is closest to us, it may not be so convenient for other major towns to transport these trees! But if the saplings are relatively small, the windbreak effect may not be so immediate."

That is a problem!
But Zhao Muyun clearly didn't want to give up any opportunity to exchange grain, he said:

"Summer Solstice is just a few days away! There will be some rain in summer, and the old yellow winds in the desert will subside! Take good care of the saplings, and they will grow taller by next spring, won't they?"
The reason Yulinwei was massacred by the Ordo tribe in southern Mongolia last time was because they built walls out of yellow sand! General Zheng and I have a good relationship; he's a very farsighted man! If he knew the great uses of the saxaul tree, he would definitely follow your example and build a windbreak!

Gan Minglan pointed to the most crucial aspect of the problem:
"But you want to exchange grain! Yulinwei was robbed once, do you still have any extra grain to exchange with us for saplings?"

Zhao Muyun's smile froze.

Perhaps, maybe Yulinwei is even poorer than Biancheng now!
But then he said fiercely:
"Old Zheng has been holding back his anger for a long time! If the Tatars can enter the pass to plunder grain and people, then let them go to the enemy's territory and plunder more grassland sheep. I will allow them to exchange sheep for trees with us!"

Previously, the imperial court had strictly forbidden these border troops from voluntarily entering Tatar territory.

The imperial court is currently preoccupied with nothing else.

The border soldiers naturally had to rely on various means to survive.

The pastures in spring and summer are mainly concentrated in southern Inner Mongolia.

It's not out of the question to try and snatch a counter-attack!

Don't assume that the Right Guard Battalion only knows how to catch wild rabbits; they are also secretly gathering information on the tribes in southern Mongolia.

"Alright! I'll ask the Gratitude Rat to continue helping dig up the tree! I hope General Zheng of Yulin Guard is a discerning and capable officer! Why don't you invite General Zheng to come and take a look for yourself, my lord? If there's no demand, we'll create one!"

How could Yulinwei not have demand?
The unfortunate garrison was located at the junction of the Loess Plateau and the southern edge of the Ordos Sandy Land in southern Mongolia.

Old Huang Feng, from the Northwest, has the natural barrier of Junma Mountain to protect the border town.

The border troops of Yulinwei hated and feared the most the old yellow winds in spring and winter.

Especially since the city was recently massacred.

During the campaign to suppress the bandits, General Shen received this devastating news.

Forty thousand of them were transferred out, and a little over thirty thousand returned.

To re-enlist soldiers in his jurisdiction, reorganize border defenses, and stabilize morale, General Shen didn't get a full night's sleep for two whole months.

I've lost 20 pounds.

Before I could even figure things out, I received an urgent letter from Zhao Muyun. I thought something major had happened in the border town.

Upon reading the contents of the letter, General Shen's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets.

He read it over and over again, and finally handed the letter to his subordinates to circulate.

"Really? A kind of sacred tree from the desert can ward off the old yellow wind?"

"General Zhao must be joking, right?"

"The dignified Marquis of Ningyang used an urgent report from eight hundred li away just to joke around with our General Ang."

"Didn't the Marquis invite our General to take a look? The truth will out, and the lie will never be true! But if it's true, we'll no longer be afraid of the Tatars climbing over our walls in the middle of the night!"

"Yes! We need these sacred trees even more than the border town!"

The subordinates unanimously agreed that they could only understand the matter by going to the scene.

Traveling light and simply, it would take only two or three days to cover several hundred miles. General Zheng immediately decided to go to the border town to see for himself.

Three days later.

From the moment they reached the city wall of Chimukou, General Zheng and his men fell silent upon seeing the hundreds of miles of forest.

Tens of millions of trees were planted in just one month!

How can it be so magical?
They, they, Yulinwei, can't do it, they can't do it!

But they were indeed envious of the effectiveness of the windbreak.

The yellow sand remaining on the saxaul trees, the thickness of the sand layer in the forest, and the situation inside the windbreak were all laid out before them.

This effect cannot be faked!
Gan Mingshou even generously had several of the earliest planted saxaul trees dug up so that everyone could examine the roots.

"Wow! Such a deep layer of sand! I never knew these saxaul trees were so tall! Is all this sand that we blocked last time?"

"Look! The sand under these tree roots is wet! There's water! There's a water layer beneath this sand!"

"This saxaul tree is truly extraordinary; its roots are twice as long as its trunk! They hold on so firmly, no wonder it wasn't blown away by the old yellow wind!"

"."

After a month of eating sand, Steward Gan Mingshou seized every opportunity to promote the benefits of the saxaul tree to the generals of Yulin Guard:

"The saxaul tree is truly an easy tree to grow. As long as it is not cut down or burned by humans, it can live for hundreds of years! Our ancestors worked hard to plant it, but our descendants can enjoy the benefits for generations! Moreover, every part of the saxaul tree is valuable."

When Steward Gan mentioned the precious medicinal herb Cistanche deserticola, which grows from the roots of the Haloxylon ammodendron tree, all the generals of Yulin Garrison were ecstatic.

This tree is so useful!

They wished they could immediately move this windbreak to Yulinwei.

General Zheng's biggest problem right now is: "Where did you get so many people to plant trees in the sandy land?"

Zhao Muyun enthusiastically offered his suggestions:
"Those refugees you all looked down on have made a name for themselves now! Those trees were planted by a group of old people with their children."

Ten trees cost one coin; Yulinwei could hire them to help plant trees!

If you think the wages are too high, you can go to the Tatar territory and plunder some sheep to settle your wages with them!

(End of this chapter)