Fu Song

Chapter 245 The Rise of New Forces
With a clear eagle cry, everyone looked up, only to see a huge Costinus hovering in the air for a week, and then swooping down like a black lightning.

One of the many knights stretched out his arm, and a bamboo whistle sounded from his mouth. Hai Dongqing's rushing momentum suddenly changed to a level flight, and after a small circle, he landed firmly on the man's arm .

A group of people cheered in unison.

The knight took out a strip of meat from the leather pouch on the side of the saddle and stuffed it into Hai Dongqing's mouth.Hai Dongqing held the meat strip in her mouth, raised her slender arms, shook her head a few times, and swallowed the meat strip.

"Boss, this Hai Dongqing is really a steed, and it is very useful in war, but it's a pity that there is only one." Xin Jian looked enviously at the bird on Ying Nu's arm, smacking his mouth and said: "Whenever we can get one and keep it!"

"There will always be." Xiao Ding laughed loudly: "I have been ordered to go on, and the caravan going to the Liao Kingdom will pay attention to it, and will bring back a few if there is a chance, but this thing, even if it is It’s also rare in the Liao Kingdom, but don’t worry about it.”

Xin Jian was overjoyed, "Of course there is no rush, as long as there is something to look forward to!"

This sea dongqing is the only one in the entire western army, and it was obtained by chance.

Near Montenegro, a team of sentry cavalry under Xiao Ding's command clashed with a team of Liao people. The two sides fought a battle, and the Western Army won a complete victory, capturing more than a dozen Liao people, among them was the eagle slave in front of him. Hai Dongqing didn't want to leave, so he naturally became their captive.

After careful examination, one of the captives was actually the nephew of Yeluhuan, the Governor of Xijing Road in the Liao Kingdom, and a real member of the royal family of the Liao Kingdom.

This matter was reported all the way to Xiao Ding. At that time, Xiao Ding was preparing to have a fight with Tubo blind drug and Mu Zhan, otherwise he didn't want to have any conflict with Yeluhuan at this time, so he returned him. , but swallowed it unceremoniously.

During the Battle of Qingtang, the Ying slave and Ying Ke also made great contributions.

Now this man named Zhe Zhe followed Xiao Ding with all his heart.

When he was in Liao Kingdom, he was just a servant who specialized in raising eagles and training them. It was common for him to be beaten and scolded, but now, he is an officer under Xiao Ding's command, and his name is listed under the scout battalion.Its duty is to serve the only Haidongqing, and when it is fighting, it will drive the eagle to soar in the sky to find the enemy.

The place of Qingtang is really worthy of a sentence, especially when cavalry is fighting, it is even more difficult to find the opponent. Generally speaking, the time for the two sides to fight is extremely fast, and a few hedges are basically over. Son, those who lose run, those who win chase.It takes a lot of effort to find the enemy.

With the scouts in the sky, when the Western Army chased the Tubo people again, it could be said that there would be no disadvantages.

Xiao Ding immediately rewarded this eagle slave named Zhe Zhe, and incorporated him into the army, and even promised to find more Hai Dongqing for him to train.

But that being said, Hai Dongqing is really hard to handle.

In fact, the Liao people can't catch Haidongqing. The Haidongqing in their hands is a tribute from the female straight tribe. However, in Xiao Ding's eyes, most of the military artifacts are used as playthings by the rich and noble in the Liao people. .

Of course, as long as you set your mind to it, you can always get it.

The war against Tubo basically ended in February.Blind Yao and Mu Zhan suffered heavy losses, and their subordinates went from ten to seven, and from the king on the plateau, they were reduced to an insignificant small force, and now they are hiding in that corner.

This is also the reason why Xiao Ding did not want to drive them all to death.

Both of them have the blood of the Tubo royal family, and they have unique conditions to gather people in the land of Qingtang.For one thing, Xiao Ding also wanted to use them to contain Yuzang Huama, so that Yuzang Huama's family would not be too dominant to be controlled.Secondly, Xiao Ding also hoped that these two guys would gather manpower for him, and after two years, he would lead the army to sweep again.

Now the land under Xiao Ding's control is extremely vast, but the population is not worth mentioning, and most of them are gathered in the Xingling area, like the Hehuang area that has just fallen into his hands, and sometimes you can't come across a single person even if you walk for dozens of miles. family.

If you want to wait for the population to grow naturally, there will be no effect in ten or twenty years, and you will not see the effect at all, and it is only possible if there is no war and no disaster in a peaceful age.

Xiao Ding naturally couldn't wait.

If you want to increase the population quickly, the most convenient way is to rob.

Like this time, after the battle with Mu Zhan and Blind Yao, more than [-] people from each tribe under the command of these two guys were kidnapped in one fell swoop.

All of these people were recruited to the Hehuang area, which suddenly made these places more popular.

Of course, if he got rid of these people, the land of Qingtang would inevitably decline.

This is not within the scope of Xiao Ding's consideration, no matter how ugly Yuzang Huama's face is, this matter cannot be changed.

This time Xiao Ding went on tour just to inspect the arrangements for these people.

Xiao Ding still attaches great importance to these people.Only with people can the barren land be turned into fertile land, wealth can be created continuously, soldiers can be sourced, and civilian husbands can be had.And without people, the Western Army, which looks extremely strong right now, is afraid that it will decline in a blink of an eye.

Xiao Ding has already clearly felt the imperial court's fear of him.

Even the military supplies of the Guangrui Army, Dingbian Army, and Zhenrong Army, the three forbidden troops with formal establishments, have not been distributed for several months.As for the army built in the name of the Fan army, let alone talk about it.

But if you don’t give money or food, it doesn’t matter to Xiao Ding now. The foundation that Xiao Cheng laid down here is finally put to great use. It is already possible to have a full stomach, and the refined salt produced in Yanzhou has almost monopolized the markets on Shaanxi Road, Qinfeng Road, and Hedong, and the money is almost rolling in.

The salt produced in Yanzhou not only dominates the high-end market, but also unceremoniously sells the middle-end and lower-end salt in one pot, hardly giving other salt merchants a chance to survive.Their salt is of good quality and cheap, and the salt merchants in other places have no power to resist them.

I want to be tough, but behind the salt merchants in Yanzhou, there is Xiao Ding, the general manager of the western march, so what can everyone do?
Xiao Ding does not pay the salt and iron tax.

Because he wants to use the interest money to support the army, and this is the privilege he asked for from the court when he crossed Hengshan.You can't expect Xiao Ding to kill Li Xu with thousands of people, right?Xiao Ding wanted to form a foreign army, and if the court didn't give him money, he naturally allowed Xiao Ding to raise money by himself, and the salt and iron tax was one of them.

It's just that the imperial court at that time did not expect that Yanzhou's salt could sweep almost the entire western market in such a short period of time.

Xiao Ding felt that it would not be long before the imperial court would find a way to curb this matter.

It must be Yantie Yamen who made the move.

At least on Qinfeng Road and Hedong Road, I'm afraid I can't sell my salt anymore.

So during this period of time, the salt farms in Yanzhou are desperately shipping goods, and the salt merchants in these two places are also desperately hoarding goods. They are also planning to wait for these two places to be closed and take out the salt to make a lot of money. !

Needless to say, when salt from Yanzhou cannot enter these two places, the price of salt in these two places will inevitably go up.

Who is making this money?
Local officials!
However, things that cannot be done on the bright side can be done in private. Of course, the private salt dealers will be beheaded if they are caught, but if the person doing this is an official, it is another matter.

Salt from Yanzhou has now become Xiao Ding's most important financial source. It is not only sold to Song Dynasty, but also sold to Xijing Road and Shangjing Road in Liao Kingdom. The price there is much more expensive.

In addition to these, the hundreds of workshops of Hengshan Trading Co., Ltd. are not what they used to be now, just like the weapon workshop that has been relocated to Xingqing Mansion can already imitate the magic arm bow, and the technical level of the rest of the workshops is also the same. Sesame flowers are blooming steadily.

The series of rewards and punishments that Xiao Cheng formulated at the beginning greatly stimulated the spirit of invention and creativity of the craftsmen.

As long as an effective invention is made, a penniless craftsman can become a rich man in an instant.

The craftsman who solved the most critical step of imitating the divine arm bow now owns a farm with more than [-] acres of manor outside Xingqing Mansion, which is a shining benchmark that inspires everyone to work hard towards this goal.

Zhang Yuan, the chief clerk of the General Manager's Mansion, is undoubtedly an extremely capable person.

For the past two years, Xiao Ding's main task has been to fight, that is, to keep chasing after Li Xu to fight, and then transport the captured prisoners, plundered people, livestock and even wealth back to Xingqing Mansion and hand them over to Zhang Yuan. , Xiao Ding didn't bother to take care of the rest.As for Zhang Yuan, these people should be properly arranged to make the most effective use of these wealth.

It's an extremely hard job.

But Zhang Yuan enjoyed it.

Some people think that the highest state of life is when the wife and children are on the kang, while for some people, if you let him have nothing to do, he feels that most of his life has been lost.

Zhang Yuan is undoubtedly the latter kind of person.The more things, the more complicated, the more enthusiastic he was.

In fact, he did a pretty good job too.

The area under the control of Xiao Ding's Western Army is undoubtedly extremely vast, but there are several absolute centers.

The first one, of course, is the Xingqing Mansion. Needless to say, Li Xu has been operating here for more than ten years, and when Xiao Ding attacked here, because the Xingqing Mansion fell too quickly, he hardly suffered much loss. In the hands of Xiao Ding, Zhang Yuan moved most of the wealthy households in the surrounding areas, including the homes of the leaders and elders of the Dangxiang tribe who migrated from Hengshan, to Xingqing Mansion.Coupled with the fact that many important workshops have moved in one after another, Xingqing Mansion has become more prosperous than before. Originally, there were less than [-] people in the city, but within two years, it suddenly increased. There are tens of thousands of people.

The second central point is Xiping Mansion.If Xingqing Mansion is operated by Zhang Yuan as a political center, Xiping Mansion is operated as an economic center. It extends in all directions, has convenient transportation, and has much better natural conditions than Xingqing Mansion. It is perfect as a commercial center, but It is too dangerous to be a political center.

The third central point is Yanzhou. Today, there are dozens of salt lakes in Yanzhou, especially the huge profits from refined processing of coarse salt and resale, which has become the most important source of finance for the Western Army. In Hehuang Under the circumstances that the land reclamation in other places still needs time to reap the results, the salt industry in Yanzhou is undoubtedly crucial to the financial security of the entire Western Army.

Around Xingqing Ju, Zhang Yuan established Shunzhou, Jingzhou, Yongzhou, and Huaizhou to protect the safety of Xingqing Mansion.These prefectures are all military prefectures, and the military prefects in the military prefectures are all recommended by Xiao Dingshang. There is no doubt that the recommended people are also from the Western Army.Generals of the Guangrui Army such as He Zheng, Zhou Huan, etc. are now the Zhijun of Yizhou, and it is Zheng Jihua and Lei Dejin who joined Xiao Ding in the later period, and now they are also important figures in the Western Army.

People like Ma Xing and others know that Xiao Ding can mobilize [-] cavalry and [-] infantry. In fact, this is just an extreme number. The standing army of the Western Army has always remained at around [-].

Among them, there are [-] Iron Harriers and [-] Bubazis. Xiao Ding's pro-army actually occupies the number of Iron Harriers and Bubazis. The rest are Guangrui Army, Dingbian Army, and Zhenrong Army. A total of more than [-] people.

Others are similar to the Fubing system in the Sui and Tang Dynasties. When there is no war, these people are scattered in the countryside to farm and herd.Of course, these people also have a complete top-down military management system. Once there is a war, once they are recruited, they can form an army in a short time.Like these armies, what they captured during the war belonged to them, and they won big victories, and there were other rewards, so the enthusiasm for fighting was not ordinary.

Because they haven't lost since Xiao Ding's attack.But all those people who went out to fight with Xiao Ding got rich after they came back.The first thing I do when I go home is basically to renovate the house, buy land, and of course, marry a wife.

Marrying a local daughter-in-law is expensive, but it can't stand the large number of people who came back from Qingtang this time. Many of them are widows or lonely. If they can find someone to marry, it is a good destination.And the Western Army General Manager's Office also strongly encourages such behavior.

Intermarriage has always been one of the best ways to integrate other races.

The land price around Xingqing Mansion has doubled, and the building materials are also rising rapidly, and the resulting economic growth makes Zhang Yuan laugh all day long. It looks like Maitreya Buddha.

You know, when Xiao Ding was still fighting on the plateau, this man looked like everyone owed him money.

(End of this chapter)