I want to be emperor

Chapter 660 Yining, an Important Town in the Western Regions
In April of the 20th year of Chengshun, Yining Valley, Turpan Province, Yining City.

Tens of thousands of people and soldiers are working with hoes, shovels and other tools. Some people are building various city defense fortifications, and some are building various buildings.

But more people are outside the city, working on the land on both sides of the Yining River.

This former meeting place of various Mongolian tribes in western Moxi was also the administrative center of the Zhungeer people. It no longer has the characteristics of nomads. Instead, it has become a very typical city with the architectural style of the Central Plains. The large area of ​​newly developed farmland outside the city reveals a unique urban appearance of the farming nation.

Anyone who has seen Yining City and the farmland outside the city will know that this is a city belonging to the Central Plains Dynasty!

A Central Plains city with a strong Central Plains style reappeared in the hinterland of the Western Regions after hundreds of years, more than 800 years to be precise!
Although the city is still very simple, even the city wall is only a simple three or four meters high and is also very thin, it is more like a parapet of a field fortification than a city wall.

But all these bricks and tiles are talking about one fact: After more than 800 years, the Chinese finally regained the Western Regions!

The so-called customs of the Western Regions and all kinds of messy foreign things were all trampled under the military boots of the soldiers of the Great Chu Empire, and then the Chinese flag was raised!
The Great Chu Empire, since the first day it regained the Western Regions, has fully implemented the policy of enlightenment for the local remnants of the surrendered people.

The book is the same text, the car is the same track!
In this way, this place can be the land of China from generation to generation!

Therefore, although Yining is humble, it is still the most direct proof and symbol of Chinese orthodoxy in the Western Regions.

At the same time, Yining, which is still simple, is also the residence of the governor of Turpan Province and the headquarters of the Turpan Provincial Garrison Command.

And from now on, this place will also become the industrial, political and even agricultural center of the Great Chu Empire in the Western Regions!
According to the high-level plan of the Great Chu Empire for this place, this place will become the core base for the Great Chu Empire to comprehensively and practically control the Western Regions and even the Central Asian region further west.

For this reason, various departments of the Great Chu Empire have cooperated since last year, and a large number of personnel and funds have begun to flow here.

The Land Reclamation Department of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry has recruited and organized more than 5 resettlement immigrants. These [-] poor immigrants recruited from the Shaanxi area will be given free land in the Yining Valley area and enjoy full exemption for five years. , five and a half years of preferential tax policies for the unified agricultural tax.

In addition, the official will be fully responsible for their immigration expenses, that is, the expenses on the road, the tools used for reclamation after arriving in Yining, and the rations for the first year.

At the same time, they promised that the surplus grain they produced would be purchased at a high price by the Turpan Grain Company, a subsidiary of the Great Chu Empire Grain Corporation.

This kind of immigration conditions can be said to be very generous. Only remote areas where people are unwilling to go, but the government urgently needs new immigrants can obtain such immigration conditions.

And Yining is such a place!
The officials of the Great Chu Empire urgently need to fill the population here.

If it is placed in a traditional feudal dynasty, it is estimated that some coercive means will be used to immigrate from other places.

Or there is no need for forced immigration, but because of the hardship of life, and there are no other immigration options, some people who cannot survive will come to risk their lives, just like Russians immigrating to Siberia... well, including many Overseas immigrants from European countries are basically unable to survive in the country, so they can only go to overseas territories to survive.

But it is different in the Great Chu Empire... Now that the country is prosperous and the people are safe in the country, it is nonsense to say that the people live well. starved to death, to the extent that mass famines would occur.

Coupled with the rural plot, many people are actually unwilling to immigrate.

Even if they want to immigrate, many people prefer to go to Liaodong, Liaobei, southern Heishui Province or southern Monan Province.

There are still not many people who voluntarily immigrate, let alone go overseas or to borderlands.

Therefore, the immigrants in these places, except for businessmen, a small number of outlaw adventurers who want money but not their lives, and exiled criminals, are officially organized immigrants.

This is the case in the Nanyang region, the northern part of Heishui Province (north of Heilongjiang and other areas), and most of Mobei Province. Ordinary people are basically unwilling to go there, and can only rely on official immigration to fill the local population.

However, considering the cost of immigration, including the cost of exiling criminals, official immigration is not much.

Under such circumstances, in most of the border areas of the mainland, the Great Chu Empire actually used military reclamation methods to increase the actual control of the local area.

This set of military reclamation system was first implemented in the Northeast region. At that time, after defeating the Dongyao and initially unifying the Northeast region, the Great Chu Empire Army used a large number of troops stationed there for on-site reclamation.

At the beginning, the area of ​​reclamation was limited to the Northeast Plain, and later, city building and military reclamation were carried out along the coast of Heilongjiang, including its tributaries, Songhua River and Nen River.

Through large-scale militarized reclamation, the Great Chu Empire has gained a firm foothold in the Northeast in just a few years.

This kind of firm foothold does not refer to a pure military presence, but refers to the fact that the local area has been able to produce enough money and food to maintain the consumption of the local army.

In other words, the subsequent Great Chu Empire no longer needed to transfer food from the pass to the Northeast to supply the local garrisons.

There is even a surplus to supply garrisons elsewhere.

And when the garrison solves the ration problem by itself, the pressure on folk rations in the Northeast will be much smaller, and the folks will have a surplus of food, and with the surplus food, it can be used as rations for more immigrants.

Militarized reclamation is of great benefit to the current Great Chu Empire. It not only allows the army to solve part of the rations by itself and reduce military expenditures; it can also reduce the pressure on local food;

More importantly, the Great Chu Empire Army can still maintain its garrison strength in the border areas and places with inconvenient transportation to protect the family and the country!
After the success of military reclamation in the Northeast, the army has carried out extensive promotion in various places, especially in other border areas.

The Western Regions is the second area where large-scale military reclamation has been carried out!

At first it was the Jiayuguan area including the Hexi Corridor behind!

At that time, in order to be able to hoard tens of thousands of troops in the Jiayuguan area and maintain the food and grass demand for the Western Expedition, the Army spent a lot of effort on military reclamation in the Hexi area, especially the oasis area where Jiayuguan is located.

After the first Western Expedition, the Great Chu Empire captured the oases in Guazhou, Hami and other places, and carried out military reclamation in these places.

After the second Western Expedition, which is now, the Great Chu Empire Army naturally carried out militarized reclamation in Turpan and the surrounding oasis areas, the Yining Valley area, and some other oasis areas.

The Yining River Valley area is the key area for military reclamation. On the one hand, the Army of the Great Chu Empire deployed more than 5 people directly here to maintain the threat to Zhuanger and the Kazakhs and to protect the security of the hinterland behind Turpan Province. troops.

Including a cavalry army, a combat-ready first-class division, and a standing second-class division, with a total strength of more than 5 troops.

When these troops are not fighting at ordinary times, the infantry, artillery, and heavy soldiers put down their guns and swords, and pick up hoes to open up wasteland and cultivate land!
The cavalry returned to their identities as the children of herdsmen and began to herd...

The military reclamation of more than 5 troops has initially developed a large area of ​​land and grazing, and strives to solve the ration problem of more than 5 people and 10,000+ horses on the spot...

To be honest, this is very difficult, and there is no way to solve it in a short time. We still have to rely on supplies from Hami, Turpan and other places in the rear.

At the same time, it also needs to rely on the food produced by the official immigrants in the Yining area.

More than 5 people may not be able to eat much... But there are still tens of thousands of horses... These horses can eat more than people.

Relying on their own reclamation alone is actually unable to meet the needs of these costly and powerful main forces with strong mobile combat capabilities.

This is also the reason why there are so few combat-ready first-class divisions in the Chu Army... In the Great Chu Empire Army, the biggest difference between combat-ready first-class divisions and normal second-class divisions is the difference in mobility.

The difference in mobility mainly comes from the attached mules and horses.

This is true whether it is infantry or cavalry.

The ration of a war horse is four to five times that of a soldier, and the first-class division of the Great Chu Empire Army has five or six thousand mules and horses casually!
How should I put it, the food and grass needed by one first-class teacher to eat horse chews is enough for three second-class teachers!
The same is true in the cavalry unit. The cavalry divisions of the first-class combat readiness divisions, regardless of light cavalry or heavy cavalry, all ride three horses alone, and each cavalry sentry often has a group of extra horses for carrying baggage. To carry luggage.

The cavalry unit of the normal second-class division rides two horses alone.

For the third-class division in combat readiness, you can only ride alone.

In the Great Chu Empire, it seems that there are thirty cavalry divisions... but in fact there are only eight first-class cavalry divisions in combat readiness... five of them were used in the western front and participated in the war to pacify Zhungeer.

After the war on the Western Front was initially pacified, two of the five first-class cavalry divisions were deployed in Yining, one was deployed in Tacheng, and the other was deployed in Kobdo. These four first-class cavalry divisions were all directly Facing the remnants of Zhungeer, strictly speaking, they are still in a state of fighting.

The other is to return to Mobei Kulun, in case of any changes in Mobei, and at the same time guard against the Russians.

The remaining three first-class cavalry divisions that had not participated in the battle before were deployed in the hinterland of the Central Plains, and one was deployed in Youzhou, Hebei to control the North China Plain and support the Northeast or Monan by the way.

One is deployed in Luoyang, Henan Province to control the Central Plains and prevent accidents in Shaanxi, Northern Chu and other places.

There is also one deployed in Fengyang, Anlu, the place to suppress Jiangbei!
Almost each of the eight combat-ready first-class cavalry divisions is stationed in a strategic place and shoulders an important strategic role.

As for the standing second-class cavalry divisions, there are six, generally riding on two horses alone, and some of them participate in front-line operations.

What's more, half of the independent cavalry forces of the Chu army are actually cavalry units riding alone, and they are all light cavalry units.

In addition, the cavalry regiments under the direct control of each infantry division are basically configured according to the specifications of three horses for combat readiness, two horses for standing alone, and one horse for defense.

Therefore, the division of combat readiness, standing equipment, and defense in the Chu army is actually more divided by the number of mules and horses attached to them. The number of mules and horses is different, resulting in differences in mobility, carrying baggage, and heavy firepower.

The maneuverability and the ability to carry heavy artillery directly affect the combat effectiveness in field battles or fortifications.

As for defensive operations, this is not counted... Fixed deployment of artillery does not use mules and horses.

As for the cannons...you don't need many cannonballs if you don't fight, and the cannons themselves are not worth a lot of money, much cheaper than mules and horses.

However, the troops deployed in Yining and other places cannot defend the C-class division, which lacks mobility. It must be the main force with a strong mobility, so that it can fight against the remnants of Zhungeer and continue to attack. Fight, drive out the remnants of Zhungeer, continue to seize land and even fight all the way to Lake Balkhash.

It is not enough to rely on the defensive third-class divisions that lack mobility, even the standing second-class divisions with certain mobility.

After all, although the Zhungeer Remnant has few people, they have great mobility... The first-class divisions with combat readiness are tough enough to chase, let alone the second-class divisions with poor mobility.

However, in a border area like Yining, maintaining the garrison of tens of thousands of first-class division troops would cost too much.

If it is simply to say that the military expenditure is nothing, it is just a matter of spending some money. The key point is that Yining is too far away from the main grain producing area in the Central Plains, and it is difficult to transport the rich grain.

The only solution for now is to rely on military reclamation to solve part of the rations, and then rely on officially organized reclamation and immigration to solve part of the problem, and then transport part of it from Turpan, Hami and other places in the rear.

In addition to agricultural reclamation, the Great Chu Empire also began to build factories in the city of Yining, which is the Yining Arsenal.

This arsenal will be the most important arsenal in the Western Regions of the Great Chu Empire. It will produce all kinds of weapons and ammunition on site, and even some low-tech artillery.

It belongs to a comprehensive arsenal that is not large in scale but has a relatively complete range of products.

Today, this Yining arsenal has started construction on the banks of the Yining River, and at the same time mobilized people to search for important minerals such as iron ore and coal mines in the surrounding area.

Coal mines are easy to talk about. An open-pit coal mine was found near Yining City. Detailed surveys are currently underway to prepare for small-scale mining. Iron mines are more troublesome. There are no small iron mines nearby. Expand your range for training.

However, they learned from the local herdsmen that there seemed to be traces of iron ore in the mountains in the east of the Yining Valley, but mining iron ore in the mountains would definitely be troublesome.

For this reason, the various iron materials needed by the Yining Arsenal can only be transported from the rear area in the early stage. Of course, the iron materials transported will not be pig iron, but refined wrought iron.

In addition, it can also be imported from nearby grasslands, such as Kazakhstan. These places actually have iron ore, and the iron ore in the Kazakh Khanate has a very high iron content. Many of them are open-pit iron mines, which are easy to mine. And plain transportation is also convenient.

Although no iron ore has been found in Yining, a certain amount of iron can still be obtained from the surrounding areas in a short period of time to maintain the production of Yining Arsenal.

When Jungar made his own guns before, he also used iron ore and coal mines in the surrounding areas.

However, if you want to obtain iron ore transport materials from the Kazakh Khanate area, then you have to continue to fight with the Zhungeer people. Although the Zhungeer people have withdrawn from the Ili River Valley, they have not gone far...well, neither way to go far!
They are still active in the large grassland area west of the Yining River Valley, especially the area east of Lake Balkhash, that is, the Qihe area and the upper and middle reaches of the Irtysh River in the north.

To the west, it is the territory of the Kazakhs, and to the south is the Bukhara Khanate.

Based on the idea that the enemy of the enemy is the enemy, and that the Kazakh Khanate itself is at war with Jungar, the officials of the Great Chu Empire have sent envoys to the Kazakh Khanate in an attempt to reach a cooperation agreement with the local nomadic indigenous people. , to kill the remnants of Zhungeer with joint efforts.

It is not an option to let the 10,000+ remnants of Zhungeer occupy the western part of Yining Valley and Tacheng for a long time. Sooner or later, we have to find a way to get rid of them.

Of course... sending envoys to the Kazakh Khanate area is also secretly to collect various local conditions and make preliminary intelligence preparations for the subsequent further westward expansion.

How should I put it, after killing the remnants of Zhungeer, the soldiers of the 10,000+ First Army can't just eat dry food when they have nothing to do... they have to find something to do, to get some territory for the empire, or spend so much military money to support them. What are you doing with them!

And the relatively weak Kazakh Khanate in the west and the Bukhara Khanate in the south are very good soft persimmons. When the time comes, squeeze and squeeze, whoever is not sure can add millions of square kilometers to the empire land.

Some high-level army officials and civil servants in the empire who supported westward expansion, such as the senior generals of the First Army and the governor of Turpan Province, have already set their sights on the Kazakh Khanate and the Bukhara Khanate. Become the Great Western Region...

But this is all in the future. At least the remnants of Zhungeer must be killed first, and the Qihe area, the home of Zhungeer, and the middle and upper reaches of the Irtysh River should be snatched away.

Before that, the Great Chu Empire will still show the demeanor of a great country.

Such a surrounding situation, and even future strategic ideas, prompted the Great Chu Empire to colonize the Yining Valley area on a large scale and establish the Yining Arsenal.

The Yining Arms Factory was invested and constructed by the Shaanxi-Gansu Arms Company. They have sent engineers, skilled workers and even equipment to set up the factory since last year.

At present, although the factory building is still very simple, and most of the main production lines have not been completed, it already has the ability to produce ammunition and muskets on a small scale.

In addition to the Yining Arms Factory, the Ministry of Industry also invested in and established several machinery factories, coal mine companies, steel companies, clothing factories, wool spinning factories and other enterprises in Yining through several other large government-run enterprises.

These investments are also all national defense investments, all for the purpose of providing various military supplies to the army, and by the way, providing iron farm implements, tools and other small commodities for the local people.

The industrial layout of the Great Chu Empire in Yining is a very pure national defense industry layout, and it is still small in scale but very complete in variety.

A similar situation also happened in the city of Kuer in the Xiaobeihai Prefecture of Mobei Province, the official capital of the Great Chu Empire, and it is also planning to build a defense industry system here that is small and complete.

Once the defense industrial systems of these two cities have a certain production capacity, the series of military operations of the Chu army in these two directions will not be troubled by the lack of weapons and ammunition.

Even if the production capacity is still not enough, it can greatly relieve the pressure on the long transportation and supply lines in the rear.

Yining City is being built rapidly at an unusual speed, and in Songjiang Mansion, a prosperous place in the south of the empire, a huge factory has also begun to break ground.

The factory was invested and constructed by Guangzhou Machinery Company, and it is a professional factory producing steam engines.

Guangzhou Machinery Company is currently the top three steam engine manufacturers in China. The small steam engines they developed based on the original design of steam engines a few years ago are very popular.

The popularity of steam engines and the bright prospects for the future have led Guangzhou Machinery Company to increase its investment in the steam engine business. In order to raise funds, they have also sold some non-core businesses that were not high or low.

Guangzhou Machinery Company is transforming itself into a large-scale machinery equipment manufacturer through transformation, and the steam engine business has become their core business.

Now that it has placed a heavy bet on the steam engine, Guangzhou Machinery Company is no longer satisfied with the local factory in Guangzhou in order to compete for more market share, especially to open up markets in other regions.

After careful consideration, they invested a huge amount of money to build this factory near the Huangpu River in the east of Songjiang Prefecture.

Moreover, this factory is different from the steam engine factories in other enterprises. It is not only an assembly and final assembly plant, but also has the ability to process most steam engine parts.

It is precisely in order to have the independent production and supply capacity of these core components that the investment in this steam engine factory is so large and covers such a large area.

Because strictly speaking, this will be a comprehensive factory integrating smelting and large-scale mechanical processing.

These things are all typical heavy industries, and the investment is very huge. The large boring machine used to process the cylinder and the large steam unit used to match it are worth a lot.

And Guangzhou Machinery Company, which has invested so much, naturally has a lot of plans.

They want to rely on the strong production capacity of the new factory to further consolidate their leading position in the field of small steam engines, and at the same time set foot in and seize the more lucrative medium-sized steam engine market, so as to better seize the industrial steam engine market.

They even have ambitions for large steam engines. Although the total market share of this thing is slightly lower, the unit price is higher and the profit is higher.

They are aiming to become a comprehensive steam engine manufacturer covering a comprehensive product line.

At the same time, they are also rushing to seize the national market, especially the core market in the Yangtze River Basin.

They are even heading for the industry leader!

(End of this chapter)