Chapter 724: Farming Army

Chapter 724: Farming Army

Chapter 724: Farming Army
Amid the drizzle, a ship docked.

"Okay, that's it, we can't go any further!" A military school student came over and yelled.

The trackers felt relieved and exhausted.

"Go and have some meat soup to warm your bodies." Yang Bao, the General of Revenue, gave the order after getting off the boat.

After hearing this, the trackers showed gratitude on their faces. Then, led by a minor official from the Duzhi Yamen, they went to a straw hut nearby to rest.

It was drizzling outside, and water was still dripping inside the straw hut. There were a few wooden basins on the ground to collect water, which looked quite shabby.

Someone brought a bucket of corn, counted the number of people, and scooped some from the bucket, saying, "When you leave the day after tomorrow, this is your food. You can fetch water and cook. There is firewood in the hay barn. Go and ask for it."

After that, he took out another can of fermented black beans and said, "This is yours too."

Then they left and went to the next place to distribute rations.

The trackers lay on the damp straw mats, too tired to move.

We thought we just needed to pull the boat to the bank of the Yellow River, but unexpectedly, due to heavy rains for several days, the Qinshui River surged and some sections of the river became navigable, so we towed the boat all the way to the foot of Yewang City.

Just think about it, wearing a raincoat in the heavy rain, every step is slippery, how difficult is it? The skin on my shoulders has been worn away layer by layer, now all calloused, but it still hurts.

"Will the Silver Spear Army recruit more this winter?" someone suddenly asked.

"Can't afford it anymore?" Someone's eyes lit up, then dimmed again.

"Maybe we can recruit some." Someone said, "Every year there are people who retire, die in battle, are disabled, or die of illness. We have to recruit some, right?"

"That's not enough." Someone sighed, "Jishui, Bianshui, Suiyangqu, Woshui, Yingshui, Rushui, Dahe, Baigoushui - I can't even count how many rivers there are. There are too many trackers, all wanting to be recruited soldiers. How can we win?"

Everyone was silent.

Being a tracker has a high income and is better than farming, but it is really too tiring and people may have a shorter life expectancy than farmers overall. In fact, it is just exchanging life for money.

Since you are risking your life, you might as well exchange it for more money, such as recruiting soldiers for the Silver Spear and Black Shadow armies.

The job of boat trackers has a strict division of labor and coordination, as well as a clear relationship between superiors and subordinates. Every time they pull the boats, they are training in discipline and coordination. Over time, it has almost become an instinct.

After joining the army, you will be well fed and well clothed, and will occasionally receive meat, fish, and cheese. After spending a few years practicing skills and military formations and fighting a few battles, you will gradually become a capable soldier.

The same goes for miners, dock workers and the like.

They are able to endure hardships, have good discipline, understand the importance of cooperation, and have a strong tacit understanding with each other. These people are preferred when recruiting new soldiers.

After lying down for a while, a noise was heard outside.

The trackers were shocked. Could it be that the Huns were attacking Yewang by surprise?
Someone stood up and went out to take a look, and said, "There are soldiers coming back from the north, and there are quite a few of them."

An older tracker came over and looked through the rain. He saw an endless line of soldiers marching across the vast wilderness, from north to south. It was so huge that it was impossible to tell how many people there were.

This... is it a defeated army?

A few more people came over, looked at each other after watching it, and felt scared.

"Don't panic." Finally, someone calm and composed spoke up. "If it was a defeated army, the guards in the camp would have panicked a long time ago. Judging from their appearance, they should have withdrawn normally. Maybe Bingzhou didn't have enough food. Lord Liang dismissed some of the soldiers and sent them home."

"Look..." The man pointed to the other side of the river, where there were mules, horses, and vehicles loaded with food heading north, preparing to enter Taihang Xing.

Everyone was immediately relieved.

If they were really defeated, how could they have been so leisurely in transporting food and grass to Bingzhou? And there were almost no guards? Instead of worrying about Bingzhou's defeat, it is better to think about the troops that attacked the Guanxing Pass.

They had helped carry wounded soldiers to the banks of the Yellow River twice before. Both times, they were evacuated from the battlefield of Chenguan. It was a horrible sight.

I heard from the escorting sergeant that these are the ones who can survive.

On the battlefield, the chances of recovery and death are about 50-50.

In fact, if you are slightly injured you can survive, but if you are seriously injured you are basically dead. Of course, the exception is officers, even if they are seriously injured, their survival rate is still not low.

To put it bluntly, it's not that injuries cannot be cured, but there are only so many doctors and medicines, and it depends on who gets given priority.

In addition, officers can also receive better service and care, more nutritious meals, and better recuperation environment, which are not possible for ordinary soldiers.

"Don't look at it anymore, get some water and cook." Someone suddenly shouted, "I'm so hungry."

"Where can I get the broth? That guy didn't tell me."

"Go out and ask."

"I heard it's not meat soup, but fish soup made from fish raised in Zhongyu City, Heyang."

"That's fine too, go ask."

Everyone talked a lot and soon dispersed.

If the sky falls, there will naturally be warriors to hold it up. What does it have to do with them? Filling your stomach is the most important thing.

On the other side, Yang Bao, with a big belly, began to inspect the Hepu camp.

This camp was under his charge, and he also had soldiers under him, and the size of his operation was getting bigger every year, i.e., "troop transport".

Transporting troops has a certain combat effectiveness. Many years ago, Chen Min relied on transporting troops to Hefei to quell a rebellion.

They are not very good at transporting troops to fight, but they have no problem suppressing the ground and transporting supplies.

"Is the new prisoner honest?" Yang Bao asked the military school student who came forward to salute.

"The dishonest ones are buried by the river." The military school laughed.

"Don't be too harsh. After all, they are prisoners and will be slaves of the government in the future. It will be hard to explain if there are too many casualties, and it will also ruin our jobs." Yang Bao reminded. "Yes." The military school responded.

The two spoke in Donghai dialect throughout the conversation, and it was obvious that they were both from Donghai. At this time, people from the five counties of Lanling were also considered to be from Donghai, after all, they had only been separated from Donghai County for a few years.

Yang Bao looked up at the sky again with a gloomy expression.

It rains every day, and I know it’s raining, alas!

Due to the heavy rain, the road was muddy and part of it was even washed away. It was very difficult to repair it but it was very slow.

Nearly 20,000 prisoners were captured in Bingzhou - half of them were local people from Bingzhou and half of them were Hu people - and they would be taken to Hanoi one after another. Some of them would stay there to do hard labor; some would be sent to Bianliang to build the city; and some would be active on various transportation routes to reduce the burden on the people in Henan and Hebei.

A lot of troops were also dispatched.

A total of about 20,000 people from Yang Dan and Hou Feihu's troops retreated, with one part retreating to Yecheng and the other part retreating to Yewang.

Food can be shipped to these two places by ship, making it convenient to eat without the need for long-distance transportation.

I heard that Li Chong's troops would also dismiss a considerable number of their men and send them back home to farm. They would no longer be needed to fight as they could not afford it.

The rain stopped in the evening.

Yang Bao hurriedly left Yewang and prepared to return to Heyang to supervise the transportation of the next batch of grain.

At the same time he left, a large army of livestock left the northern city of Heyang and, driven by the herdsmen of Jinguyuan, headed north all the way to Shangdang.

******
Henan actually has less rainfall than Jizhou and Guanzhong, let alone Bingzhou.

This shows that this year's rainy weather is regional.

Bingzhou has received the most rain so far, and it is undoubtedly a disaster.

Kansai was second, but it could not be called a disaster. It can only be said that there was a lot more rain than in normal years.

Jizhou and Guanxi were similar, with more rain, but the impact was greater than that of Guanzhong, because the continuous rain in May, when winter wheat was harvested, greatly affected the harvest. Considering the impact of the war, this year was difficult.

The situation in Henan is slightly better, with a little more rainfall, but it is just “slightly more” and has little impact on agricultural production.

Of course, Henan also had other difficulties. A serious locust plague broke out in Xuzhou.

Some local households planted winter wheat, so the impact was relatively small.

The other part was planted with spring millet, but this year's harvest was a complete failure and relief was urgently needed.

Some locusts also flew to neighboring Qingzhou, Yanzhou and Yuzhou, causing a certain degree of damage, but fortunately the impact was not too great.

A large-scale locust plague also broke out in Jiangdong.

Over the years, disasters have occurred frequently in the north but relatively less frequently in the south. This time it is finally their turn.

Hearing that wealthy families everywhere had tightened their grain reserves and refused to send them out, famine broke out in some cities that relied on food from the countryside, and even in Jianye, many people starved to death.

In such a situation, Sima Rui and Wang Dao were extremely anxious. They summoned representatives of the powerful families every few days to negotiate and even compromise with them, giving up benefits and asking them to provide grain.

There was some effect, but the locust plague was really serious and famine was inevitable.

This is the Little Glacier climate, which will give you a "surprise" from time to time.

A certain place seemed to be doing well this year, but suddenly it collapsed. The residents became refugees, the refugees became starving, and then people ate each other and attacked and killed each other. Bones were exposed in the wild, the city became ruins, and the population dropped sharply.

Now the people in Jiangnan have stopped mobilizing troops and have kept quiet. They are doing everything they can to save food in order to overcome the difficulties.

Fortunately, they are lucky and have not suffered continuous disasters, so their foundation is relatively solid. As long as there are no large-scale droughts, floods, locust plagues, etc. next year, they will be able to live on.

Shao Xun should be thankful that Yuzhou has remained strong in recent years, with no major disasters, only one medium-sized disaster, and not many minor disasters, otherwise he would not know what to do now.

After receiving the news of locust plague outbreak in Xuzhou, Yanzhou, Qingzhou and parts of Yuzhou, Yu Chen was somewhat hesitant.

But after hesitating for a moment, he finally made up his mind: to allocate grain for disaster relief.

If the skin does not exist, how can the hair be attached?
Without the people, where would the soldiers come from? Where would the food come from? Even at the risk of being blamed by his son-in-law, he had to embezzle some of the food to provide relief to the victims in various places.

Of course, he did not forget to write a letter to Jinyang to explain the situation in detail.

The wheat harvest in May was over, and there was still a lot of grain in the warehouse. A part of it was used today, and the rest would still be sent to the front. As long as the son-in-law suspended military operations, the food consumption could be reduced, and by August, when the grain harvest in Henan was ready, the situation would be much better.

The letter arrived in Jinyang on June 20th, when Shao Xun was wading through muddy water, patrolling both sides of the Fen River.

After reading it, he was silent for a moment, then found Li Zhong and asked, "You said before that there was less rainfall in Xinxing and no floods. Is that true?"

Li Zhong thought for a moment and said, "In fact, Xinxing has more rainfall than in previous years, but compared to Taiyuan and Xihe, it's really not much. Maybe it's not just Xinxing that has less rain, maybe the further north you go, the less rain there is."

Shao Xun nodded.

The rainfall line is there, and it indeed gets less as you go north.

Maybe in the past, places like Xinxing and Yanmen were a bit drier, but this year it is just right.

So he quickly issued an order: "The continuous rain has ruined the roads. We can't fight anyway. You are to take 30,000 men north to Xinxing immediately. Select abandoned land and plant beans. Harvest as much as you can. If you can earn back the seeds, you won't lose money."

"Here in Taiyuan, many millet fields have been destroyed. What a pity. We need to provide relief to avoid disaster. We can pick some dry high fields and plant some grains."

"Send a message to Henan and Hebei to gather as many cattle and sheep as possible and send them here for grazing. The crops will not have time to grow, but after the flood recedes, the grass will be exceptionally lush and rich, perfect for grazing."

"Also, send envoys north to the grasslands to trade gold and silk for cattle and sheep to see if they are willing. If they are not willing, ask them what it will take for them to be willing. You can name a price for anything you want."

After that, he added: "Leave me ten acres of land, I will also plant it and share the joys and sorrows with the soldiers."

(End of this chapter)