Chapter 257 The Wedding (Thanks to the Green Turtle)
The Huai navy swept through the Tsarist Russian strongholds in the area east of Moon Lake and conquered the local Mongols.
Those small strongholds of the Tsarist Russians were able to defend themselves against the harassment of the Mongolian cavalry. Under the attack of the dragoons carrying mortars, these small strongholds had no resistance at all.
Compared with those Tsarist Russians, Huai Haijun, who also has yellow skin and black hair, seems to be easier for ordinary Mongolian herdsmen to accept.
Only some selfish nobles would resist the Huai Navy in their hearts, but in the face of force, these Mongolian nobles could only lie dormant like insects in winter.
Huai Haijun has implemented a set of effective ethnic policies in the Heilongjiang Basin. In addition, compared with the previous brutal rule of Tsarist Russia, Huai Haijun's rule appears to be much gentler.
Huai Haijun has all the goods that these herdsmen need, and compared to the goods dumped by the Russians here, Huai Haijun's goods are more high-quality and cheaper.
If Lin Wei wants to obtain horses from the Mongols for cavalry replacement, or if he wants to buy a few sheep for tooth sacrifice, he will give something in exchange.
The Huaihai Navy's caravans generally follow the army. Not only can they provide the soldiers with some goods that are not available in logistics, they can also trade with the local aborigines.
Trading is the best way to make friends with these ethnic minorities. Trading is the best time to communicate with these ordinary herders.
Lin Wei's request to his subordinates was to retaliate against the Tsarist Russians and show their power.
To deal with the local indigenous Mongolians, especially the ordinary people, the main thing is to win over them.
Therefore, in the Huaihai Navy, even those soldiers who entered the shepherd's white tent would leave a small piece of compressed biscuit or a piece of tea cake, a small bag of salt, or a piece of rock candy when they left in the morning.
This directly led to more and more soldiers being pulled by shepherdess to spend the night in white tents at night.
In mid-September, the Second Cavalry Brigade led by Lu Guoyi briefly rested in Nerchinsk City and completed the reorganization of the troops. They immediately headed west to cooperate with Lin Wei.
Senggelinqin's troops chased the Chechen Khan tribe, but still could not catch up with the group. Going further, they reached the territory of the Russians.
Therefore, Senggelinqin did not continue to pursue him. Xianfeng had already issued an order to avoid contact with the Russians in the north.
Lu Guoyi also brought Dong Shuheng's military order - Gao Yun was appointed as the brigade commander of the 1st Cavalry Brigade. The 1st Cavalry Brigade and the 2nd Cavalry Brigade were temporarily under the jurisdiction of the Heilongjiang Military Region.
In this way, Lin Wei's men had an infantry division and two cavalry brigades.
As a Huai navy general who was born as a thieves and became a monk on the way, Lin Wei never thought that one day he would become a general commanding an army of 20,000 people.
But at this time, Gao Yun had already set off towards Kyakhta, sweeping southward along the territory of Buryat Mongolia.
After Lu Guoyi arrived, Lin Wei finally had more money.
He immediately ordered Lu Guoyi to lead troops to sweep northward along the east bank of Moon Lake and eliminate the Russian strongholds one by one. However, with the presence of Ulan-Ude and Chita, except for the Kyakhta over there, Lin Wei
We are not planning to occupy new strongholds anymore.
Lin Wei's order to Lu Guoyi was to burn down all the Russian strongholds along the way and capture all the Tsarist Russians.
These Russians may be innocent at heart, but they are actually helpers of the Tsar's colonization of the East.
Therefore, they are guilty!
In Nerchinsk City, tens of thousands of Mongolian herdsmen joined in, and the construction speed accelerated a bit.
In September, it has started to get cold here in Nerchinsk. At night, everyone is already lighting up the fireplace.
Large numbers of Mongolians were sent out to collect forage.
Behind Nerchinsk City, the previously repaired corrals were already filled with cattle and sheep.
Herdsmen use flatbed carts pulled by oxen to pull back the pasture from far away and pile it together.
Affected by the Moon Lake, the winter here in Nerchinsk is warmer than that on the Mongolian Plateau.
Moreover, the hills around Nerchinsk can also block part of the cold wind.
Livestock corrals were built on the lee side of these hills.
These old, weak, women and children who were laid off by Lu Guoyi are still divided into livestock production teams according to the previous auxiliary barracks. They are responsible for taking care of their assigned livestock.
The little Mongolian boy China was shoveling cow dung there unhappily. The cow dung and sheep dung no longer need to be kept for fire, because the place where they are staying now has a large forest and there is endless wood to burn in winter.
However, these cow dung and sheep dung still need to be collected and used to fertilize the farmland outside Nerchinsk during the next year's farming.
China was unhappy not because he shoveled shit for cattle and sheep, but because he was not selected into the Ranger Regiment.
Although Lu Guoyi likes him very much and treats him well, after all, he is too young and his body has not fully grown.
Therefore, Lu Guoyi left it with the livestock team at the rear. In Lu Guoyi's words, the wolf cub should guard everyone's lair with the mother wolf.
The news of the victory in the north soon reached Dong Shuheng's ears along the communication line established by the caravan to Kyaktu.
This can be regarded as the best wedding gift given by the Northern Army to Dong Shuheng who is far away in Jiangning. His Northern Army has already given him a territory larger than the Liangjiang area.
He stayed in Nanjing City and followed his subordinates all day long to improve the legal system of the Huaihai Navy.
This made Dong Shuheng feel that time passed very slowly, and the busy day made him forget the time.
Until one day, Hui'er told him to try on wedding clothes. Dong Shuheng discovered that his wedding date was quietly approaching.
Dong Shuheng, who has never been married, is suddenly going to get married, and he will have to marry two ladies at once.
This made Dong Shuheng feel sad. Compared to this big fuss, Dong Shuheng preferred to serve his mother a cup of tea like Hui'er did, and then he could justifiably bring this girl into his room.
But this time, I didn't have the final say. My mother and her cronies had already arranged the wedding.
As the president of Huaihai Navy, his wedding is actually not his own business.
It is an important social event. Not only the senior leaders of the Huai Navy will participate, but also many foreign envoys will attend.
That is, the people under the jurisdiction of the entire Huaihai Navy system have to carry out a series of celebration activities.
Dong Shuheng did not stop his men from doing this. He just asked that celebrations can be held, but the military government must pay for it, and the people cannot be allowed to spend money on it.
Dong Shuheng even allocated some money from his own treasury and ordered a large number of candies from a food factory to distribute to all the children in his jurisdiction.
Don't look at just giving out a bag of wedding candies to each child. Nowadays, candies are not a snack that ordinary families can usually buy.
Moreover, Huaihaijun's jurisdiction has a population of tens of millions. Thanks to Huaihaijun's policy of encouraging the birth of children, the proportion of children among these populations is very high.
Since the people below have arranged it for him, Dong Shuheng is too lazy to pay attention to these details.
There is no doubt that this is a traditional wedding. Although I have attended several retro-style weddings like this in later generations, they were always changed beyond recognition.
The passenger liner from Shanghai to Jiangning uses an inland river ship of more than 1,000 tons. This ship is a luxury passenger ship manufactured by the Huaihai Navy Shanghai Shipyard.
Ordinary people will not ride on this kind of ship, and only businessmen or civil servants will ride on it.
The facilities above are very similar to those of later generations of passenger ships. There are three-story buildings above, most of which are ordinary seats, and only a few private rooms are provided for distinguished guests.
There is a luxurious private room on the first floor of the deck, which is decorated like a boudoir. This room is usually reserved for wives or young ladies from wealthy families.
There is a mahogany bed in the room, the curtains on the bed can be lowered, and there is a carved dressing table. On the other side of the room are two wooden single sofas, with a small table in the middle of the sofa.
Liang Xiaoru stood in front of the window, looking through the ship's portholes at the rolling river water that was constantly being left behind by the passenger ship, and watching the beautiful scenery flashing across both sides of the bank.
She looked greedily, as if she wanted to imprint all the beauty of this world into her eyes.
Just like a death row prisoner who is about to go to the execution ground, one glance at the walls of the prison is like admiring the beautiful scenery.
Liang Xiaoru has recently lost some weight, making her look even more charming. This is a kind of beauty that is as delicate as Lin Daiyu's.
Women like her who look weak on the outside are often stronger and more stubborn on the inside than ordinary women.
For the sake of her castrated brother, this woman could give up her reputation and her life.
Protecting her younger brother has become her obsession.
Sitting on the sofa in the room was an ordinary-looking woman.
If you are a person in the Shanghai Dance Hall, you will definitely recognize that this woman is the girl Yun'er who often comes over to help the girls dress up and do their hair.
On the small table next to Yun'er is the small wooden box full of drawers that she usually uses.
"The manager said that there must be no mistakes this time. This is your last chance!" the girl Yun'er said sullenly.
"In addition, you have to make arrangements for my affairs when the time comes. It is best for us to control one of Dong Shuheng's two wives. Even if your affairs fail, I can also take one of his wives hostage and leave."
Liang Xiaoru nodded, but did not look at the woman. She seemed to hate that woman's face very much.
It only takes one day for a steam-powered passenger ship to travel from Shanghai to Jiangning. In the evening, the passenger ship docks at the pier in Xiaguan.
Most of the people on this boat were attending Dong Shuheng's wedding, so naturally there were people on the dock to receive them.
For people like Liang Xiaoru who came to perform, ordinary staff took her to a guest house in Huaihai Navy.
Miss Yun'er was following behind Liang Xiaoru.
There are a lot of people coming to perform this time. In addition to a large stage being set up at the wedding site, there are also some stages set up at the main locations in Jiangning City. This is called having fun with the people.
In fact, it doesn’t cost much, and many of the performance teams are Huai Haijun’s own publicity teams.
In addition to performing some operas, there are also many dramas arranged by Huai Haijun himself. Some of them promote Huai Haijun as the people's army, some promote President Dong Shuheng, and some promote Huai Haijun's policies.
The stingy Dong Shuheng even used his own wedding for publicity work.
Wei Yuan usually lives in Yangzhou most of the time, but for this wedding, Dong Shuheng helped him find a house in Jiangning City.
In fact, this house was allocated to Wei Yuxiang. After all, Wei Yuxiang, as the director of the Attendant Office of the Presidential Palace, is qualified to allocate housing.
With this house, Dong Shuheng no longer has to go to Yangzhou to pick up his bride.
At this moment, Wei Yuzhen and Yang Ximei are preparing at home.
Wei Yuzhen is Dong Shuheng's real wife, so logically she should go in first.
Although a common wife is also called a wife, she is actually still a concubine, but the etiquette is more beautiful. It is just a form of self-deception created by the ancients.
The two girls were also very busy at this time. There was no hostess in Wei Yuan's house, only an aunt from the family came to help Wei Yuzhen with food.
According to convention, before girls get married, they have to cram in and learn a lot of knowledge. This knowledge is usually not exposed to them.
Yang Ximei's situation is even worse than that of Wei Yuzhen. Both her parents are dead and her brother died tragically. As a sister, she does not have to keep filial piety to her brother. Otherwise, she will not be able to get married.
Fortunately, Yang Ximei's family still has many widows of Yang Xiuqing and some female officials.
These people now have to rely on Yang Ximei for their livelihood, and they are naturally very concerned about Yang Ximei's marriage, especially marrying the president of Huai Haijun, which is a big supporter for the Yang family.
A group of people rummaged through boxes and cabinets to prepare a dowry for Yang Ximei. Now only a small part of the courtyard in Old Prince Dong's mansion is reserved for the Yang family, and most of the other places have been used for other purposes.
These courtyards are now a busy scene. A group of women are talking to each other, everyone wants to give some opinions.
The original princess even secretly told Yang Ximei how to fight for favor after arriving in the Dong Mansion. Fortunately, Yang Ximei, who had a bold personality, really couldn't learn this trick.
Otherwise, I don’t know what Dong Shuheng’s back house will look like in the future.