A small soldier of the frontier army in the late Ming Dynasty

Chapter 361 Departure from Taoyuan

"... Alas, this drought and locust plagues are coming one after another. General, our Civil Affairs Department discussed that the drought is not bad, just repair more water trucks and dig more wells. Slowly raise manpower and material resources, and then the city's The water conservancy has been restored, but when it comes to controlling locusts, it is not something that will be effective overnight."

Zhang Gui, the ambassador of the Department of Civil Affairs, looked a little tired. It was obvious that the civil affairs during this period had made him burnt out.

Yes, controlling locusts does not happen overnight. In fact, after thousands of years of development in ancient China, how to control locusts already has a set of effective means.It is nothing more than the construction of water conservancy, large-scale land reclamation and planting, as well as tree planting, improving farming techniques, and controlling locust eggs.

For the above points, it’s okay to improve farming techniques and control locust eggs. The rest of the points require long-term management.Moreover, Wang Dou only controls one area of ​​the East Road. No matter how good the rule is, locusts can still fly from outside the country, so be prepared for a protracted war.

As for farming, to be honest, in terms of actual operation, Wang Dou is not as good as any official in this era.Although he has a long-term view, this view must be in line with the current actual situation. For the strategy of fighting drought and locusts, the Department of Civil Affairs reported several plans, and Wang Dou approved them all.

"Victims who entered the East Road were placed in shelters as soon as possible, and monitored by medical officers to prevent the spread of the plague. Since last year, tens of thousands of victims have entered the East Road. According to the planning of the Department of Civil Affairs, these victims will be sent to Manchuria in the future." In the land of Taoer, grazing the fields and grazing them is considered resettlement."

"However, there are more and more victims of disasters, and people are resettled, but money and food are tight."

Faced with Zhang Gui's complaints, Wang Dou rubbed his forehead. The food problem has always haunted him.

Now that there are many disasters in the world, even if Wang Dou has a lot of money, it will be more and more difficult to buy food abroad.In recent years, the price of grain in Ming Dynasty has risen terribly. It is normal to have a few taels, more than ten taels of silver for a stone. There is often no market for the price, and no one is willing to sell it.

From last year to this year, the 10,000+ people rescued by Wang Dou have finally been resettled, and dozens of large villages have been set up.Of course, the fields on Edom Road cannot finish all these people. After all the wasteland in the territory has been reclaimed.Wang Dou cast his eyes on the rest of Xuanfu Town.

After coordinating with several neighboring generals and Ji Shiwei's coordination, tens of thousands of people were resettled in Xuanzhen Town's Fenshoudao South Road, Fenxundao North Road and other places.The household registration of these military households, how the future field harvest will be distributed, etc., is a lot of nonsense.

After resettling these people, Wang Dou spent a lot of money.Not to mention money, Wang Dou is not stingy with spending, but it is getting more and more difficult to buy grain overseas, so he has to use the grain and rice in stock.He originally had 40 shi of grain and rice in his warehouse, but this year, the figure is less than half.

So far, only the land in Baoan Prefecture has earned income from the fields. From the ninth year of Chongzhen to the present, there are about 40 mu of military farmland in the whole prefecture.Every year, [-] to [-] shi of grain can be requisitioned, and the Department of Civil Affairs also buys some surplus grain from them every year.

Compared with the expenditure of the entire East Road, these incomes are a drop in the bucket.

The new military households resettled, from last year to this year, have reclaimed more than 100 million mu of land in Baoanwei City, Huailaiwei, Yanqing, Yongning and other places.However, compared with Wang Dou's plan to divide the fields into households in the future, and each household will allocate [-] acres of fields, the number of acres of fields is still nearly a million acres short.

However, the resettlement of these new military households was finally completed, and Wang Dou and others were relieved.

Now tens of thousands of disaster victims have come... East Road has a good reputation that no one died of starvation, and it has become a place of Taoyuan in the hearts of people everywhere. The endless stream of disaster victims are still rushing in...

The conscience of heaven and earth, resettling the original 10,000+ people, Wang Dou has spent a lot of money.

So far, those new military households have not been able to bring him benefits. Due to the impact of drought and locust plagues, the newly reclaimed fields have only a few buckets of harvest per mu this year, barely allowing each village to be self-sufficient. It was a big burden, but he was still very dissatisfied with the output of the fields under his control.

Even in Bao'an Prefecture, the general harvest of fields in various places is only a few buckets to a stone, that is, a hundred catties to 180 catties.If the output of the field can be increased to five buckets to two stones, more people can be fed.

In Wang Dou's view, this goal is still possible.

In the past few months, the Department of Civil Affairs has collected many agricultural books including Xu Guangqi's "Nongzheng Quanshu", instructing each village on how to farm.In addition to the stability of the East Road, the government will build various measures such as water conservancy and infrastructure on a large scale.In the end, military households divided the fields into households, and with technical guidance, doubling the yield per mu is not empty talk.

Even so, the output of these two or three hundred catties per mu is still far from the yield of thousands of catties in later generations.

The difficulty of feeding the soldiers and civilians under his rule made Wang Dou miss the high-yielding crops of later generations.Of course, this can only be imagined. There are no good varieties suitable for the temperature. At this time, the yields of corn, sweet potatoes, potatoes and other crops are not even as good as wheat.

A very clear example, in the early years of the Republic of China, the maximum corn yield per mu in Northeast China was no more than [-] kilograms. If there was an early frost, there would be no harvest.Hong Chengchou once forcibly promoted sweet potatoes in Shaanxi and other places, resulting in civil uprisings.Historically, it was not until the Qianlong period a hundred years later that suitable seeds for sweet potatoes were cultivated and widely promoted.

The Department of Civil Affairs actually took in some sweet potatoes, corn and other seeds, but it looked like they were half dead.For at least ten years, or even decades, Wang Dou should not expect these "high-yielding crops" to solve his own difficulties.

Improving the yield per mu is not a matter of one day. There is no land to cultivate on the East Road. How to resettle the new disaster victims, Wang Dou has to turn his attention to Mantaoer and other places outside the Great Wall.There are many fields that can be cultivated and pastures for grazing in the Tanghe and Chaohe areas over there.

However, it is the territory of the Mongolian tribe outside the Great Wall, and I will go out to fight soon...

……

Wang Dou's ultimate plan is to lead the army to fight and carry out the reclamation outside the Great Wall at the same time, so as to open up living space for the victims who flowed into the East Road.

Of course, Wang Dou is now just a general in charge, so this movement should not be too big, as long as he occupies a full set of ground first.The 8000-square-kilometer land can accommodate a lot of people, so the left-behind candidates on the East Road need to be cautious...

On the second day of September, in a river valley and flat plains a dozen miles northwest of Yongning City.

Since Wang Dou came to Yongning City as a branch guard, many military factories of the Shunxiang Army moved to Yongning, or set up branch factories here.Up to now, there are dense workshops all over this area. There may be dozens or hundreds of large and small workshops, and thousands of dedicated technicians are seriously busy.

At this time, what Wang Dou was looking at was the production situation of the gunpowder factory. After several years passed, the gunpowder factories of Li Daji Niguan had greatly developed.Many places on the East Road have set up places to collect nitrate, and the collected good nitrate can be used to configure several tons of black powder every year!
This is an astonishing achievement, considering that gunpowder was expensive at this time.According to the nitrate extraction method in Daming's "Shen Qi Pu", "Wu Bei Zhi", and "Tian Gong Kai Wu", when digging nitrate soil in many places in Daming, it is necessary to add a large amount of gray water, gelatin, egg white, radish, etc. In order to absorb and remove the impurities inside.

The cost of egg white alone is doomed to the high cost of gunpowder at this time, which is also the reason why many military leaders are unwilling to use firearms, and they cannot afford to exclude quality problems.

However, for Wang Dou, most of the pure and high-quality natural nitrate collected from various nitrate collection sites greatly reduces the difficulty of purification, and the output increases rapidly, which is unique in Daming.

Not only that, but Li Zhifen's gunpowder factory has also established many excellent mills and sieves, which integrate grinding, dissolving, filtering, and drying, greatly improving the process.The formulations of various types of gunpowder for gunpowder and gunpowder for artillery also tended to be perfected.

A few months ago, Li Zhifen referred to Ming military books such as "Wu Bei Zhi" and "Ji Xiao Xin Shu". According to the above formula, after the final perfection, he settled on the formula of firecracker medicine, which is 75% nitrate, 10% sulfur %, charcoal 15%.The maximum range reaches the level of propellant used by the British army guns during the Opium War, which is 250 steps.

Wang Dou was very pleased with Li Zhifen's results. The custom-packed paper tube ammunition produced according to this formula can break heavy armor in [-] steps, which is [-] steps more lethal than the firecrackers used by the Shunxiang Army.Of course, this is the end of the results. In this era, it is impossible to research any smokeless gunpowder. Even if it is researched, the chamber pressure produced by it will be unbearable for the barrel of the firecracker.

... If the Ming army in other places strictly followed the "Ji Xiao Xin Shu" and other military books to produce gunpowder technology, it could almost reach the level of the Shunxiang army, breaking through armor in a hundred steps.The gunpowder formula used by the Qi family army at that time was 75.75% nitrate, 10.6% sulfur, and 13.6% charcoal. After experiments, the shooting range was similar to that of the British muskets during the Opium War.

But obviously, it was impossible for military leaders in various places in the late Ming Dynasty to spend a lot of manpower and material resources on experiments and perfection like Wang Dou.Therefore, the range and power of the firecrackers used by the Shunxiang Army ranks No. [-] at the moment.

Looking at Li Zhifen, this chubby meatball was standing aside with a smile on his face. Over the past few years, he seems to have become more handsome.He poured his heart and soul into the gunpowder factory, and I heard that in the past few months, he and Zhao Xuan and others compiled the firing table of the artillery, which made a great contribution.

Wang Dou remembered that before he came to Shun Township Castle, his family suffered from bandits. After several years, he did not remarry...

"...Li Guanshi, it's inconvenient for you to be single. After so many years, it's time to start a family."

As soon as Wang Dou said this, everyone around him looked at Li Zhifen and snickered. Li Zhifen still had a smile on his round face, but there was a gloomy look in his eyes.

He bowed deeply to Wang Dou and said: "To tell you the truth, the general, I have known my old wife since I was a child. After she died, the villain swore in front of the grave that I would never marry again in this life. I have failed the general. It is a big crime for a villain." ..."

Wang Dou nodded silently, as if touching something in his heart. When Li Zhifen said goodbye and left, his eyes were red and he staggered.

When Wang Dou led the crowd to leave the gunpowder factory, a trembling folk song came from inside: "...the mountain eggs are blooming and lumpy, and Gedan is my confidant. Half a bowl of beans and half a bowl of rice, when I pick up my rice bowl, I remember about you……"

The singing voice was sad and choked, but it was Li Zhifen who sang loudly. Listening to the tune, it seemed to be a local folk song in Shanxi.

Although the voice was high-pitched, it carried infinite feelings. Wang Dou shook his head: "I didn't expect this big meatball to be an infatuated species..."

(End of this chapter)