The New Year of the third year of Tianqi will be colder than previous years.
This is something Zhu Youxiao can feel personally.
The weather is getting worse and worse, causing continuous natural disasters in the northern provinces.
Especially the Liaodong region is the most serious.
Although he has been vigorously combating corruption in the past two years, the officialdom is no longer so chaotic.
But due to the heavy snow and cold weather in Liaodong, coupled with the wars in recent years, the people have reached the edge of collapse.
Xiong Tingbi not long ago submitted a memorial requesting material assistance.
Although the imperial court's finances were tight, Zhu Youxiao gritted his teeth and did his best to transport a batch of coal and wood for heating and a large number of cotton-padded clothes to Liaodong.
Zhu Youxiao also hopes that this year's colder winter will prevent fewer people from freezing to death.
Also because of the non-stop heavy snow, the Northeastern region, which is already a rugged road area, has been completely sealed off.
There was no movement from Jiannu either. They must have been racking their brains to think about how to spend this winter.
Now, they are not able to satisfy their needs by looting Liaodong and North Korea like they did in history.
Not to mention that last year and the year before that, they were defeated one after another in the Liaoshen area, spending countless money and materials, but failed to recover.
And the Mongols themselves cannot protect themselves. No matter how good the relationship between the Horqin tribe and the Boar Skin is, they cannot help the Boar Skin regardless of the life and death of their own tribe.
According to Zhu Youxiao's own guess and analysis, it is estimated that there will not be a small number of slaves who will freeze or starve to death this year.
In Jianzhou, all kinds of materials are extremely scarce, and they still rely on the little things they have to stabilize or upgrade the army's equipment.
Even if you squeeze it through the gap between your teeth, you probably won't be able to squeeze out even a little bit of dregs.
According to the intelligence from Jinyiwei and Amin, Jiannu was on the verge of collapse a month ago.
Nuerhachi's wild boar skin even made a decision that shocked the ancestors.
That is to give up those over forty-five years old or those who have no ability to work to save expenses and ensure that young adults and children can survive this winter.
This policy of his can be described as outrageous.
Zhu Youxiao didn't even need to think about it, but he knew that it was most likely a trick by Fan Wencheng, the dog.
And the little bit of prestige the old slave had finally could no longer be suppressed.
After hearing the news, many people directly rebelled.
Ye Boarpi has always been ruthless, so he directly sent out his most elite Zhenghuang Banners and killed nearly a thousand people before calming down the matter.
And this also made Amin's idea of joining the Ming Dynasty even more firm.
As one of the top officials of Jianzhou, he naturally knew the situation in Jianzhou very well.
In his heart, he no longer had hope for Jianzhou.
Judging from the current situation, it will be wiped out by the Ming army within two to three years at most.
And Amin was not of the same mind as Lao Nu, so how could he accompany him to die?
What's more, he is also an ambitious person. Since the old slave is going to die, if he can join the Ming Dynasty, with the support of the Ming Dynasty, he will definitely be the leader of the state.
Therefore, he worked very hard in order for the position of the founding lord of the state to fall under him smoothly.
Not only did he provide intelligence to the Ming army, he even suggested that Xiong Tingbi immediately send a large army to conquer.
When the time comes, he will lead his own soldiers to respond, and by cooperating internally and externally, he will surely be able to annihilate the old slave.
To be honest, Zhu Youxiao was a little moved.
Jiannu was having a hard time, and life in the Ming Dynasty was not easy either.
If there is injustice in Liaodong, the people will not be able to return to their hometown and live and work in peace and contentment.
There are now more than 500,000 people gathered in Jinzhou, Guangning and other places.
Although the work-for-relief policy is now being implemented, these people are mobilized to dig and build roads, repair cities, and guard fortresses.
But after all, the food rations of these people had to be borne by the imperial court, so the pressure was not small.
After weighing the pros and cons, Zhu Youxiao also made up his mind to send troops to Liaodong after the beginning of spring to completely wipe out the wild boar skins.
Now he has a total of 120,000 elite troops in the capital, and the insignificant capital camp of the past has long since disappeared.
Xiong Tingbi was not idle in Liaodong. He laid off a large number of old, weak, sick and disabled people, and strictly controlled the number of servants of each general.
Although the Liao army still has the problem of air noise, it is still much better than before.
At least those generals no longer dared to open their mouths to the blatant lion.
And this was what Zhu Youxiao acquiesced to after heeding Xiong Tingbi's suggestion.
After all, his actions and intensity are already strong enough, but he still needs to give some hope and benefits. He cannot push too hard, otherwise it will be counterproductive.
Of course, the distribution of military pay has basically been taken over by Sun Yunhe's Jinyiwei, and all is distributed to the sergeants themselves, avoiding layers of deductions.
Food, weapons and equipment are all stored in Liaoyang and controlled by his confidant Li Rusong.
It can be said that the lifeline of the Liao army is completely in his hands. As long as they dare to cause trouble and disobey, he can immediately cut off this critical lifeline.
It was also for this reason that Xiong Tingbi was able to confidently slash the necks of those generals with the butcher's knife in Liaodong.
After these two years of reorganization, the number of Liao troops has shrunk significantly, including Guangning, Jinzhou and surrounding garrison posts.
Now there are only 80,000 people. With Li Rusong's Zuowei Army Town included, the number is around 100,000.
And now the combat effectiveness of the Liao army is not the same.
The reason why the Ming army collapsed at the first touch in history was entirely because the generals were incompetent, greedy for life and afraid of death. In addition, they were squeezed too hard and the court was extremely stupid.
The sergeants were negligent in training and even lacked decent equipment. During the Battle of Saarhu, even the Koreans commented that the soldiers of the Ming Army were like beggars.
The army that can fight, that is, the generals' private soldiers, only has a few thousand people.
As for other soldiers, those generals usually don't care whether you live or die. Whether you get money or not depends on whether the general's pockets are full or not.
When it's time to go to war, spend some money to organize it. It doesn't matter whether you can fight or not, as long as you are a person with sound limbs, you have to go.
As for armor and weapons, you have to prepare them yourself. It doesn't matter whether you are holding a fire stick or wearing cloth, they don't care.
Because they were originally recruited temporarily to deal with the imperial court, even if they went to the battlefield, they were just a group of cannon fodder.
How can such an army possess combat effectiveness?
How could it be possible to fight against the fierce slave soldiers?
There is a saying in later generations that the Ming army is invincible if it is not full of noise.
In Zhu Youxiao's opinion, it makes sense.
Not to mention the ancestral mandarin duck war robes and weapons and armor, if you don’t have enough to eat and everyone is about to starve to death, who is still willing to sacrifice your life for you?
Therefore, Zhu Youxiao has paid special attention to this aspect in the past two years.
In addition to ensuring that the soldiers can receive their own sufficient money, they also replenished a lot of armor and weapons to arm the army and enhance its combat effectiveness.
Although less than half of the current Liao army still has cloth face armor, at least everyone has reliable weapons.
We won’t fight with our ancestral broken spears and rusty knives.