Chapter 270: The Barbarian Problem in Border County
Liu Xiang was very happy when the snow stopped. It snowed heavily all day and night. The snow was more than three feet deep and could reach a person's thigh.
Traffic has been cut off and must be opened as soon as possible.
The best way is of course to clear the snow, but that is too slow and we can't afford to wait.
Liu Xiang has taught the carpenters how to make snowshoes and sleds. Both of them are not difficult. Snowshoes are hard-framed straw sandals with an enlarged sole area, just like a tennis racket tied to the sole.
Look.
Anyone who can weave baskets, mats, and straw sandals can make them. Weavers in Zhuoxian workshops can make thousands of pairs a day.
Not to mention the sled, it has a flat body, brackets on both sides, and under the brackets are two skis with upturned front ends. People in the Northeast call this a sledge. With a harness lasso in front, it can be made into a horse-drawn sled, as long as the bearing capacity of the ice and snow is
Enough, this big sled can pull thousands of kilograms of weight.
Anyone who can make carriages and furniture can get started. Liu Xiang asked them to make a horse-drawn sled that can carry ten stones as soon as possible. The carpenters in Zhuoxian County are speeding up the construction, and the workshop is working on the assembly line, and hundreds of them can be built in a day.
For three days, Tiqi who went to nearby counties gradually reported that the damage caused by the snow disaster was not great, and the response of each county was fast or slow. The affected people, ranging from dozens to hundreds, have been properly resettled.
Of course, people froze to death, but people froze to death in winter was a very common thing in the Han Dynasty, and it did not cause public resentment. Liu Xiang just wrote down the names of officials in those counties. Now they still need to organize disaster relief and clean up the accumulated waste.
Snow, let’s wait and see how it performs in the future.
The first batch of transportation teams set off, with more than 300 horse-drawn sleighs, 3,000 people as escorts, and loaded with 2,000 stones of grain, 3,000 bunches of fodder, tens of thousands of jins of briquettes, and hundreds of ceramic furnaces. They would
First send the supplies to the Nanlou Department in Shanggu County. Then collect supplies in Shanggu to rescue the Xiutu people in Danhan Mountain.
There are also a few carpenters with snowshoes and sled manufacturing drawings. They will teach the counties how to make sleds along the way. In the short term, sleds will become the main transportation capacity in Youzhou. There is no way to know the snow cover more than 70 centimeters deep.
When can it be finished?
Manufacturing methods are rolled out, transportation capacity will become larger and larger, blocked roads will gradually be opened, Youzhou divided by heavy snow will be connected again, disaster relief materials will continue to flow, more than 3.4 million Han people and 500,000
The aggregation of barbarians and the several barbarians in the east and north are no match at all.
Only in this way can Youzhou survive this natural disaster safely.
Tiqi set out again, wearing snowshoes, pulling a sled, and headed straight for Liaodong with the drawings. Yan Rou and Wang Xinghui reunited with the military camps in Liaodong to prepare to resist the robberies that would inevitably occur after the disaster.
All the Hu people knew that after the disaster, only the Han people had a large amount of food. In order to survive, they would definitely come.
The workshop continued to manufacture sleds, snowshoes and jackets, and the demand was so great that the craftsmen worked day and night.
The hard laborers who were originally pulled to build roads are now being pulled out to clear the snow on the road. The progress is very slow, but the cement-paved road must be opened. This is the main channel that can quickly mobilize soldiers and supplies.
Time is slowly advancing, and Youzhou is gradually recovering.
Communications in the counties and pastures within the territory have been fully restored. News from everywhere was reported to Liu Xiang's Yutou. Ten counties and 85 counties in Youzhou affected a total of 120,000 Han people. More than 300 people froze to death and more than 40,000 suffered from frostbite.
people.
More than 300,000 Hu people were affected by the disaster. The most serious population losses were in the Nanlou tribe and the Xiutu tribe. More than 8,000 people died, mostly old and weak. When the snow disaster comes, the Hu people will join groups to stay warm, with the young and strong at the end.
, the old and the weak are on the outside, they are the first to freeze to death.
This has nothing to do with etiquette, nor is it the cruel nature of the Hu people. This is their way of survival. If you don't keep your youth, who will protect the people? Who can protect the food? On the grassland with a harsh living environment, if you don't have strength, you will die. Personally
The same goes for ethnic groups.
People with frostbite did not report it. They were used to it. More than 50,000 cattle and sheep died from the cold, and more than 6,000 horses died. There was no shortage of food for the time being, but there was a lack of fuel, and their cow dung was almost burned out.
With no way to graze in the future, it will be difficult for hundreds of thousands of livestock to survive. If they are not prepared to rob in groups, they will select some female animals of appropriate age and strong physique, and keep some breeding animals, and the rest will lose weight.
They were slaughtered in large numbers before.
When the transport team arrived, the Nanlou tribe and the Xiutu tribe had no intention of slaughtering livestock in large numbers. Xu Rong was a native of Youzhou. He knew what was going on. After the disasters in previous years, the Hu people's first choice was to go south and rear the army.
and infantry battalions went on alert.
The atmosphere was tense.
The Wuyan tribe and the Kebineng tribe had already started slaughtering and skinning the animals, and even asked people in the convoy to send a message asking the caravan to bring more salt, briquettes and wine.
These two groups have followed Liu Xiang for a long time. There are many ethnic brothers serving in various departments of the Anping Army. A large number of them have already obtained Han military registration. In another year and a half, most of them will be able to convert to Han civilian registration.
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Wu Yan and Ke Bineng both organized military caravans. Unfortunately, they gave up after a few trades. They couldn't afford the loss. They might as well wait for the caravans to arrive and make more money, at least they wouldn't have to bear the cost of traveling long distances.
Their exchanges with the Han people became more and more frequent and smoother. The use of earthen pits and earthen kangs has long been common, and the staple food has also switched to corn and wheat. They are almost like the Han herdsmen. They raise livestock to sell for money.
The only difference is that the herds are larger in size and require large-scale nomadic herding. In summer and autumn, they will drive their herds to pastures outside the Great Wall to graze, set up tents and make do with it. In winter, they will go home to live in houses and put the fattened cattle
Some of the sheep are sold to merchants and some are kept for grazing next year. This has become their means of livelihood.
The quality of life has been greatly improved.
They even learned to count. No one pushed them, and no one specifically taught them. They learned it by themselves through repeated transactions with businessmen.
This is a big improvement.
Although the Han people are less literate, they know how to count. A pound of meat costs twenty dollars. If you buy ten pounds, just give him two hundred dollars. This is the basic common sense of the Han people. The Hu people can't do that. A piece of sheepskin costs two hundred dollars.
Ten dollars, you buy ten pieces? No, he can't count, you have to buy them one by one.
Otherwise he will think you cheated him.
Therefore, they need leaders, people like Yan Rou who can help them make deals. The Hu people at the bottom have real needs for the upper class.
Therefore, we cannot treat the Hu people like the Han people, who kill the upper class and win over the lower class people. This method is not very effective for them.
The basic unit of the Wuhuan and Xianbei people is a tribe, with a size of about 20 people. More than a dozen tribes form a town, and the small leaders among them are elected by everyone. There is no hereditary theory. A tribe is composed of many towns.
Only the leader of the tribe has a hereditary tradition.
If you overthrow the tribal leader, the tribesmen will disperse. If you want to overthrow the small tribe leaders, they will fight you tooth and nail. Therefore, you must start from the top to win over the barbarians. This will save time and effort.
When the lower class barbarians become civilized and no longer need their leaders to lead them to search for water sources and pastures, and when they can make deals with others and survive independently, these barbarian leaders will be useless.
Who cares about a useless person whether he lives or dies? At that time, they were almost the same as the Han people.
Kebineng led troops in Liaodong, and more than 20,000 tribesmen were self-governing. They had completely relied on military caravans for their lives and had become dedicated to herding. They sold most of their livestock in early winter, and the losses caused by the white disaster were the least.
Wu Yan stayed within the tribe. His tribe only left some livestock behind, and the damage was not bad. Anyway, those who froze to death could be sold for money, and they could buy food to feed themselves. The tribe had no fear or anxiety.
The two barbarians are preparing for war with peace of mind, waiting for recruitment at any time.
They all knew in their hearts that they would go south to plunder after the great disaster, and they had done this before.