Chapter 693 Recharge your batteries (2)

"You haven't told me yet, why didn't you take advantage of the victory and pursue it with all your strength? Instead, you rested for three months. Most of the soldiers' fighting spirit has been exhausted, but they have to raise weapons again?"

Li Shixian seemed to be asking the question to the end and vowing not to give up. Looking at his wide-eyed expression with anger in his eyes, it was clear that everyone else knew about it, but Li Chengzhi was hiding it from him alone.

Even if I am incompetent, at least I am your biological father, can I still harm you?

How could Li Shixian not complain?

"Widemo is going to make a mistake!"

Cui Guang scolded, and Li Shixian shrank his head and restrained his anger.

Looking aside, Li Shiliang was also eager to give it a try, as if he was ready to teach his second brother a lesson. Li Chengzhi couldn't help but laugh.

It is true that indigo dyes white cloth, and one thing is reduced to another.

"It's not that my son intends to deceive, but this is a top secret in the West Sea, and only two or three people know about it."

Li Chengzhi replied, then looked at Cui Guang, Zhang Jingzhi, and Wei Zijian, and said with a warm smile, "Even the minister and my two uncles, I have never said a word. The three of them know because they are acting as agents.

Military affairs, people have been around for a long time, and clues can be gleaned from the traces of horses and horses. Therefore, by tracing the traces to their source, we can get a rough idea.

My father has only returned recently and has only taken over the people's livelihood for more than two months, so it is reasonable to not be able to guess..."

Li Shixian felt a lot better when he heard that even Cui Guang didn't know about it.

Li Chengzhi seems to act in a way that ignores family ties. As a father-in-law, he has long understood this. Since he doesn't know, it is only right that Zhang Jingzhi and Wei Zijian don't know either.

Cui Guang, who was in charge of both the naval and political affairs of the West and had begun to build the Shangshu Province, did not know about it, which shows that it is really a secret among secrets.

After thinking about it like this, Li Shixian's tone softened a lot. With a hint of apology, Li Shixian said with a smile: "What is the reason?"

"There is no gunpowder, and the artillery has become a decoration. How can we fight? Naturally, we can only start a war."

Li Chengzhi smiled and replied, "Now that I dare to stand up again, it is just because I have accumulated some experience. Although I cannot withstand successive battles like in April and May, there is still no problem in a small battle. That's it.

The imperial court of the province thinks that our Western Guizhou Qiandon is so incompetent that there is nothing we can do..."

God will not let you down if you work hard.

When the war broke out, Li Chengzhi suddenly became alarmed: the gunpowder in the West Sea might not last long.

Sure enough, Huangfu Rang's battle at Nanmen Pass and Shanshan Town consumed 60% of Xihai's five-year reserves.

Li Chengzhi was worried.

But the war had started and trade routes had been cut off, so even trafficking to the Yuan, Wei, Tuyuhun, and Nanliang was no longer urgent.

Fortunately, this was what he was doing in his previous life, and he knew that there were several large-scale natural sulfur mines in the Qilian Mountains bordering Jiuquan and Tuyuhun. So he immediately ordered Li Chengxian to set up a prospecting department and summoned more than 10,000 people to go into the mountains.

Although it is only a rough impression, the area is roughly within a hundred miles, so it is not difficult to find. Moreover, sulfur will seep back. There are large mines at the bottom of the mountain, and there will be exposed mineral spots on the top of the mountain and on the surface of the hillside.

So it only took half a month to find two small mines. However, because it is a semi-raw ore of pyrite, it is extremely difficult to mine, and it only takes more than a thousand kilograms per month.

Li Chengzhi refused to give up and ordered Li Chengxian to search carefully. God opened his eyes and he finally found a large mine four months ago. It was pure natural sulfur in the shape of lenses and layers.

According to common sense, tens of thousands of people can harvest tens of thousands of kilograms of it in a day, but this stuff is poisonous.

Moreover, the most lacking thing in Xihai was people. To be on the safe side, Li Chengzhi could only trade progress for safety, expand the mine entrance as much as possible to ensure ventilation, and did not dare to dig deep. After opening the well, he only mined two feet.

Therefore, it is only five to six thousand kilograms per month, and only more than 20,000 kilograms are collected in four months. Half of them have been made into gunpowder, explosives, mines, etc., and have been sent to Longxi and Bogulu. Today, Li Liang is still working day and night

We worked non-stop and worked overtime to make it. One hundred thousand kilograms of gunpowder per month was more than enough while ensuring safety.

In this way, it only takes until the end of the year to reach the reserves before the war. That's why Li Chengzhi dared to have the confidence to start the war.

Of course, it is best not to fight if you can. The so-called skinny camel is bigger than a horse, even if the imperial court is declining and the sun is declining, it is by no means comparable to the West Sea, which only supports three towns and five states.

Strictly speaking, whether it is compared to the territory, Dingkou, or output, Xihai is less than one of the ten places in the Yuan and Wei dynasties.

So in this battle, Li Chengzhi just showed off his fangs and put pressure on the court...

Listening to what he said, everyone knew Li Chengzhi's intention to start the war. But at the same time, they were also thinking in their hearts: By starting the war, the court was seeking benevolence and was benevolent. They did not dare to test it again, let alone play tricks.

I just wonder how many of the three requests Li Chengzhi asked the court to agree to?

There is no need to think about ceding territory or granting kingdoms. In the edict, Gao Ying even said "a dilemma, a dilemma", which shows that he would not agree to it even if he was beaten to death.

At most, they can secretly pay some money and food to the people.

But what Xihai lacks today is exactly this.

From the perspective of the imperial court, this move can be described as drinking poison to quench thirst and raising tigers to cause trouble.

But it is true that we are at the end of our rope and there is nothing we can do, so we can only make this decision.

Thinking about it this way, Gao Ying can be considered pitiful...

Just when he had this idea and heard Li Chengzhi calling him, Cui Guang hurriedly cheered up.

"Shang Shu, I wonder if you can ride a horse. If you don't want to ride on my chariot, would you like me to go to Dongcheng and have a look?"

"I'm getting stronger. Not to mention riding a horse, I can go to the battle formation, so why do I need to ride in a car?"

Cui Guang laughed and said, "I just want to ask the Duke to inspect it and see if I have been doing nothing in the past few months and just pretending to be a fool!"

"The minister is joking. The minister is an extremely capable minister. For my little Xihai, he is already killing a chicken with a sledgehammer. How can I dare to say anything? I am going to Dongcheng just to see the military uniforms, clothes and quilts. What can I do to my sons?

Withstand the harsh winter…”

This is really not Li Chengzhi's perfunctory words.

Nowadays, there are more than one million people in the West Sea, and there are about 150,000 soldiers and generals, while the number of spies directly under Li Chengzhi is close to tens of thousands.

Although most of them are still lurking in Tuyuhun, Six Towns, Guanzhong and Luojing, many are still under the command of Huangfu, Li Liang and Li Song, but they are only kept in the open. The inspection department is temporarily led by the personal guard general Li Xiaoxian.

More than a thousand people.

In addition to directly driving the guards, patrolling and chasing, this part also has the responsibility of supervising hundreds of officials and supervising local inspections.

Zhenyi, who has become the capital of the West Sea, is naturally a top priority. I dare not say that even the slightest trace can't be hidden from the eyes and ears of the Inspection Department, but if there is any trouble, the first one to know about it must be the Inspection Department.

For example, when the officials sent by the imperial court arrived in Jiuquan or Zhangye, they were found by the Inspection Department and could not even enter the county, let alone Zhenyi City.

Just like the embroidered guards who flocked to Dunhuang, the inspection department also found out the clues. After reporting it to Li Chengzhi, Li Chengzhi did not stop and directly sent a battalion to Li Song to completely uproot Yuan Hui's disciples and disciples.

, including Yuan Zhi, was also beheaded by Li Song in anger.

Such a powerful force already revealed some of the style of Jin Yiwei in the early Ming Dynasty, which Li Chengzhi did not expect. Of course he knew that it was a double-edged sword, but in extraordinary times, only extraordinary things could be done and had to be used.

Restrictions and trade-offs were naturally unavoidable, so Li Cheng simply divided them into pieces and returned them to the army, subject to the orders of each general.

As a result, there are only a thousand or so left around him, and the main task is to directly drive the guards, so naturally there will be no major disaster. But it will be easy to find out whether the chiefs of each cao are competent and whether each field is completed as scheduled.

There is no doubt that Cui Guang is a capable minister and an official. However, most of the affairs in Xihai are new. No matter how capable Cui Guang is, his eyesight will go dark for a while. He knows it but doesn't know why.

In this way, the attitude of Li Shiliang, a civil servant under Li Song and Li Liang, who had experienced many civil servants and was no longer as well versed in all affairs in the West Sea, and the Gong Cao chief was particularly important.

Therefore, Li Chengzhi almost always warned Li Shiliang, urging him day and night, to prevent Li Shiliang from having any grudges, and even more afraid that he would alienate Cui Guang from Li's servants who had long been the backbone of Xihai.

Fortunately, Li Chengzhi's prestige is getting stronger, and Li Shiliang is also an open-minded and reasonable person. He knows that if he wants to conquer the world, relying only on these three or two hundred Li clan members will undoubtedly be an idiot's dream.

He also knew more about the principle of buying horse bones for a thousand gold, so he obeyed Cui Guangyan and always told everything he knew.

Therefore, this Shangshu Province really got on the right track without much stumbling.

In a nutshell: Li Chengzhi is quite satisfied...

Not long after, a group of more than a hundred riders arrived at Hedong.

It is roughly two miles west of the military camp and slightly to the south. Slightly close to the military camp, most of them are depots, military rations, uniforms and other small-pollution munitions workshops. Further east, there are ordnance, coin factories, paper mills, etc. that need to be opened.

Coal-burning factory.

This is also because there are more winds in the west of Hexi Province, and the northwest wind blows for 300 days a year.

But when the wind is not blowing, it is more interesting: soot is everywhere, and the leaves that have turned yellow are all dyed with ink. It is not yet noon, and the soldiers standing guard at the door are all wearing their heads.

He has a black nose.

This is also a drawback of too fast development: in the past, there were few people, so the factory area naturally did not need to be built large. In order to reduce the number of roads, it was natural to build one house next to another.

Now that we have to expand production capacity, we can only work around the clock and overtime, and pollution is naturally inevitable.

But only temporarily.

Since we have to plan for the world and compete in the Central Plains, it is not appropriate to place the military and political center in suppressing barbarians.

First, there is no danger to defend the place of the Fourth War, and it would be too expensive to temporarily build a city.

Second, it is too far. If one day we really capture Guanzhong and march to Luojing, Hedong, or even Jiangnan, wouldn't we have to walk three to four thousand miles?

The best way is to occupy and build as you go.

If the imperial court does not dare to fight back with all its strength after the war with Xingluan, it means that there will be no major war in Longxi for the time being, and there is nothing to worry about for at least two to three years.

So Li Chengzhi decided that when the weather gets better in spring next year, as soon as the war stops, all the factories in Xihai will move to Qinzhou.

When the time comes, we won’t build too big, just enough. Once we move into Guanzhong, it won’t be too late to build more buildings.

At that time, Zhenyi will become a military town, with Tuyuhun in the south, Rouran in the north, and Dunhuang in the west.

Although it will still be a few years away, Li Chengzhi already has a rough blueprint in mind...
To be continued...