Li Chengzhong looked at the two letters with a solemn expression, and closed his eyes for a long time after reading them. Everyone was affected by him and stopped drinking and chatting, and waited quietly.
When Li Chengzhong read the end of Zhou Zhiyu's letter, the fat man who held a fan and kept sweating last year immediately appeared in his mind. What did Zhou Zhiyu mean by "the situation has changed"? What about contacting Guo Bingcheng?
What do you mean? Is the situation so severe that Youzhou may not be able to survive? Does Zhou Zhiyu want Li Chengzhong to help him take care of his family?
Li Chengzhong sighed, shook his head to dispel these random thoughts, and said to Zhao Zaili: "Last year, I promised the prince that as soon as I captured the eastern part of Yingzhou, I would offer horses to the prince, but then I went to Bohai and Silla, and I have been
I didn’t have time. Let’s ask Lao Zhao to help us deport him to Fan Yang this time.”
Zhao Zaili certainly knew what Zhou Zhiyu meant by ordering him to come to Liucheng, and asked: "How many? I can make preparations in advance."
"Present a thousand horses first, and then send the next batch when I'm ready."
Zhao Zaili's eyes lit up. Although these war horses were produced by Li Chengzhong, they were actually owned by the Pingzhou Department. Handing such a material to Fan Yang would really make the Pingzhou Department's generals look bad, not to mention, listen,
What Li Chengzhong means is that this is only the first batch!
After a pause, Li Chengzhong looked at Li Chengyue, who was looking at him eagerly, and said with a smile: "Don't worry, Dejian, I have received the marriage certificate. When you come back this time, we will choose a wedding date. I will send it to you."
You have five hundred war horses as your dowry. I will count them tomorrow and take them away in advance."
Li Chengyue was overjoyed and giggled with joy. He grabbed the wine bowl and offered wine to Li Chengzhong, drank it himself, then went to find Zhang Xingzhong and drank a few bowls with Zhang Xingzhong. The relationship between him and Zhang Xingzhong had eased in the past two days, and he even went to his house to greet him.
Mr. Zhang apologized, so Zhang Xingzhong also accepted his future brother-in-law.
Li Chengzhong decided that the last day of rest he had set for himself was to be spent in the company of Li Chengyue, Zhao Zaili, Yuan Xingqin and others. In fact, conversely, he should be the one accompanying these guests who came from afar. When these people are sent off
After leaving, Li Chengzhong immediately devoted himself to busy affairs.
During this Eastern Expedition, the population of Yingzhou more than doubled to 400,000, and they were placed in Liucheng, Yanjun, Jinxian and Huaiyuan Military City in western Liaoning, as well as near Liaocheng and Jian'an City in eastern Liaoning.
Liucheng became a large city with a population of 80,000, and together with the city districts, there were a total of ding 100,000 people. Yan County and the city districts had a population of ding 60,000, and the Xiaoling River and Wugu river basins under the jurisdiction of Jin County were 140,000.
Even the Huaiyuan Military City resettled more than 10,000 people, and thousands of people were resettled near Bailang Mountain.
In addition, 20,000 people have been resettled in Liaocheng, and 20,000 people have been resettled in Jian'an City in southern Liaoning. Liao County and Jian'an County have been established in the two places. Wu Zhongzuo was transferred from Changshi Mansion as the magistrate of Liao County, and Cheng She was appointed as the magistrate of Jian'an County.
The two county magistrates have led the newly formed county government officials to take up their posts last month. There are also 40,000 refugees gathered in Jian'an County. They went south to escape the war between Khitan and Bohai, and they also fall under the jurisdiction of Jian'an County
According to the scope, Cheng She, the magistrate of Jian'an County, also had the task of re-registering for naturalization.
The above are the registered population calculated by the Governor's Office of Yingzhou, that is, the registered households registered in each county. In this era, household registration is the most important basis for local governance of civil affairs. Although Yingzhou has a huge amount of war wealth, the number of residents has been reduced.
Taxes have not been reduced, but labor labor has not been reduced and cannot be reduced. Whether it is building water conservancy projects, organizing civilians to support the war, or organizing manpower to invest in the construction of cities and villages, labor must be requisitioned based on household registration.
At the same time, strict control of household registration is also an important means to prevent rogue bandits and enemies. For this reason, Yingzhou, at the request of Li Chengzhong, began to implement a road guide system. That is, when leaving the county, one must go to the local place to get a road guide and mark oneself as a certain person.
A certain family member of a certain village in a certain county, where and why they are going, how many days they need to stay, etc.
In order to facilitate trade, Li Chengzhong also implemented a merchant registration system. Anyone traveling to and from Yingzhou to sell goods must go to a designated place to receive a trade certificate. Yingzhou has set up four checkpoints for registration and issuance of trade certificates. The west is Yuguan.
, Liaocheng is in the east, Huaiyuan Military City is in the north, and Jin County is in the south.
Today's Yingzhou has occupied a vast area in the central and southern parts of western Liaoning and eastern Liaoning, equivalent to the sum of Pingzhou, Jizhou, Tanzhou and Youzhou. In the plan of Yingzhou Governor Shifu, Liucheng and Yanjun in western Liaoning are production bases
, the grasslands along the Bailang River and east of Yiwulu Mountain will become the livestock base of Yingzhou, while Jin County in western Liaoning, Liao County in eastern Liaoning, and Jian'an County will become the grain base. Now the layout of Liucheng and Yan County has been completed, with cattle, sheep and war horses
The livestock husbandry has reached a large scale, and what is left is to speed up the layout of Liao County and Jian'an County. Wu Zhongzuo and Cheng She have a relatively heavy task. In addition to renovating the city, government offices, and buildings, they must also complete spring plowing as soon as possible.
Li Chengzhong's most important achievement in this eastern expedition was actually that he quietly brought the great plains in southern Liaoning under his control. Compared with the mountainous terrain in western Liaoning, Liaodong was too fertile.
, the terrain here is flat, there are many rivers, and large tracts of arable land can be seen everywhere. It has been an important grain producing area outside the customs since ancient times. Therefore, the newly appointed magistrate of Liao County Wu Zhongzuo and the magistrate of Jian'an County Cheng She have a very heavy task. They have to rush for spring plowing.
Organize as many people as possible to complete the farming tasks before the end of the year. The plan for the first year is 100,000 acres, the plan for the second year is 300,000 acres, and by the third year, 800,000 acres of land will be reclaimed in Liaodong for camps.
The state has created a “Liaodong Granary”.
In order to achieve this goal, the Changshi Mansion organized thousands of cattle, a large amount of grain and a large number of agricultural tools to go to Liaodong. These materials will be sent to the hands of 100,000 people in the two places as soon as possible.
Of course, Li Chengzhong was most concerned about the production of soldiers and armor. As a new round of military expansion was about to begin, he had to work hard for it.
Most of the workshops in Liucheng and Yanjun turned to military production under the deliberate guidance of Yingzhou Governor Shifu and the Logistics Office of Yingzhou Army Headquarters Yuhousi. Liucheng relied on Dongshan Iron Mine to focus on the production of weapons, and Yanjun relied on Yiwu Lushan to the east.
The grassland focuses on the production of clothing and armor. The workshops in the city also form a layout of different sizes. Liji, Duji, Wangji in Liucheng and Peiji and Luji in Yanjun are the five largest workshops, each employing hundreds of craftsmen.
The Yingzhou Army provides complete sets of equipment, and dozens of workshops in the middle and lower reaches supply it with spare parts. This production pattern has created a scale effect, and coupled with the assembly line production method, the production efficiency is more than three times higher than last winter.
Take Li Ji Workshop as an example. The finished wooden guns they produce are strong and durable, and also have a certain degree of toughness, which can ensure that the gun head can be ejected smoothly after piercing the human body. Such wooden guns are considered top-notch even in the eyes of skilled craftsmen in the Central Plains.
With good weapons, there is often not one out of ten wooden guns. But in Liji, such wooden guns are mass-produced. If the midstream and downstream workshops that provide them with materials can guarantee the supply, they can work at full strength and can achieve
With a monthly output of 1,500 rifles, it equips the Yingzhou Army with three spear battalions every month!
Taking Pei Ji and Lu Ji as an example, they hired more craftsmen, including a large number of women, as well as dozens of cloth shops and leather shops to supply them. If the two companies worked together, Yingzhou Army would customize the
Winter combat uniforms can now produce two thousand sets per month. For the simpler summer combat uniforms, the monthly production can even reach the terrifying level of four thousand sets!
As for leather armor, for the assembly line production method that has formed a pattern, as long as the leather goods are sufficient in the early stage, its production difficulty is actually not as difficult as that of summer combat uniforms.
What makes Li Chengzhong happy is that the production of crossbows has broken through the original shackles. Starting from the first month, its output has been rising steadily. In fact, the difficulty in producing short crossbows lies in its dexterous parts and complex composition, but Li Chengzhong did not have any wishful thinking.
The continuous crossbow appeared immediately, and the technical difficulty of automatic spring winding involved had not yet been overcome. What he wanted was a single-shot hand crossbow. Facts have proved that the wisdom of the working people can never be underestimated. A weapons and equipment scientist
The craftsmen improved the design of the hand crossbow and successfully produced a hand crossbow that could fire three crossbows in succession.
Strictly speaking, this kind of hand crossbow cannot be regarded as a repeating crossbow because it is not self-winding. The idea of its design is to make the crossbow body wider and longer, and pull out three parallel crossbow paths at the same time.
Three crossbow arrows are installed, corresponding to three short strings respectively. There are also three triggers, which stand at three positions below and can be pulled with fingers. The soldier pulls the corresponding triggers in sequence to fire three crossbows in succession. This is just a hand crossbow.
It is 50% larger than the original, but it is still within the range that can be used with one hand. And because the crossbow string is shorter, it is much shorter than the original range of 80 steps, and the effective shooting distance is only 50 steps.
But this is already amazing. The next step of the training of the Yingzhou Army Cavalry Battalion will be to shorten the distance of passing the enemy formation to fifty steps. This is a very difficult thing, but as long as you practice hard, you can still achieve it.
of.
This kind of hand crossbow has more parts and is more precise, but with the standardized assembly line production model, the output is not too low, and can barely reach a hundred units per month.
Compared with commonly used armaments, the output of Modao is much lower, and its production speed is even lower than that of crossbows.
The difficulty of this kind of heavy weapon lies in the craftsmanship of hundreds of refinements and the huge amount of iron used. It was not until April that Li Chengzhong was able to build the Mo Dao, which he had been waiting for for more than a year, and selected tall and strong soldiers.
The Mo Dao capital was established. Li Chengzhong originally wanted to establish the Heavy Ax capital, but the two were equally effective, but the heavy ax was inferior to Mo Dao in terms of power, so he simply focused on doing Mo Dao.
Although Modao tactics have disappeared for more than a hundred years, the Yingzhou Army gathered Zhou Kan, Wang Sili, Li Chengwan and other officers with family backgrounds and skilled martial arts to study together. Zhao Yuanping was also recruited back from Huaiyuan Military City.
He joined the research, so there is progress. Li Chengzhong has observed two Mo Daodu drills. Although many aspects are still being explored, its deterrent to enemy formations, especially cavalry, has already shown signs. This is
Luxurious equipment is only owned by the Yingzhou Army in the whole world. Li Chengzhong sees it and is happy in his heart. His goal is to establish Modao Camp. Of course, based on Modao's output, this goal is still a bit far away, but take your time.
That is, the first Mo Dao is already there, can the next one be far away? (To be continued)