Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 839 Denglai

"General Dong ordered the mobilization of the entire army, and most of the soldiers of the Fifth Division have returned to the army!" Sun Chengren sat on the cash drawer of the newly opened "Sun Ji Nan Store" in Penglai County (that is, Dengzhou City), listening to one of his younger generation Report what you hear.It was still early in the morning, and there were not many people on the street, so both of them were a little bored and could gossip.

The "Fifth Division" they both mentioned refers to the [-] soldiers under Dong Xueli's department. The designation, of course, was given by Shao Shude.For nearly a year after retreating from Jinan, Shao Shude spent a lot of effort to rectify these servants: the older ones, the younger ones, the soldiers who are used to fighting, and the weak ones, etc. Qualified sergeants were eliminated one by one.Some of these eliminated soldiers were divided into land reclamation in Dengzhou, as the basic land for the people on the east bank to control the place. You can only follow the people on the east coast to the dark; of course, some of the eliminated soldiers were diverted to Sakhalin Island and the mainland on the east coast, accounting for about one-third of the number.

After reorganizing and eliminating these troops, Shao Shude gave them designations and locations, for example: the first division has 4000 soldiers, Zhai Cong'er is the division commander, and is stationed in Jeju Prefecture, Jeju Island; the second division has 4000 troops, division commander Qin Shangxing, and is stationed in Jimo, Laizhou Prefecture. County; the third division has 2000 soldiers, commander Sun Shouzheng, and is stationed in Yin County, Ningbo Prefecture; the fourth division has 3500 soldiers, and the division commander is Chen Zhilong, and is stationed in Ninghai Prefecture, Dengzhou Prefecture; the fifth division has 4000 soldiers, and the division commander is Dong Xueli, and is stationed in Dengzhou Prefecture. Penglai County; Sixth Division with 3000 soldiers, commander Xie Qian, stationed in Weihaiwei, Dengzhou Prefecture; Seventh Division, 3000 soldiers, division commander Ding Mingwu, stationed in Laizhou Prefecture; Eighth Division, 3000 soldiers, division commander Du Chong, stationed in Dengzhou Prefecture Zhaoyuan County, the state capital; 4000 soldiers from the Ninth Division, with Niu Chenghu as the commander, and stationed in Huang County, Dengzhou Prefecture; 3000 soldiers from the Tenth Division, with Ding Weiyue as the commander, and Dinghai County as the station in Ningbo Prefecture.

The ten divisions have a total of 3.35 people, which is much smaller than the huge scale of more than 5.5 people at the peak.However, after successfully "slimming down", the average combat effectiveness of each department has improved, and limited resources can be fully invested in usable soldiers.As for the unusable ones, of course they can no longer fill up their numbers in the team, and can only go home to farm.

After this rectification, the combat effectiveness of each department has improved, and it can fight the green camp of the Qing army in the north alone, and a few troops that are good at fighting will even surpass the ordinary green camp.However, Shao Shude gave them the designation of "division" (the internal system is still the Ming Dynasty military system, that is, the "battalion" is the unit), but they are not allowed to increase or decrease the number of troops at will in the short term. Unless Shao Shude himself approves, otherwise private disarmament or It is not feasible to recruit troops, and those who violate it will be severely punished by Shao Shude—his prestige depends on the endorsement of more than [-] officers and soldiers directly commanded by the East Bank.

In addition, Shao Shude also stipulated that the government of the Blackwater Pioneering Team on the East Bank will bear the military rations of the ministries for the next year. After that, the ministries can raise their own food and salaries in their respective locations—of course, the premise is that there should be no trouble, otherwise the East Bank will interfere.There is no way to do this, the burden of tens of thousands of servants is too heavy, and besides the former Fushan County, Wendeng County, Dasongwei, and Chengshanwei, the only territory that can be firmly controlled by the East Bank is Laizhou Prefecture. A Jiaozhou Fort.

Among them, Jiaozhou Fort is a military fort, let alone Fushan and Wendeng counties, where the people on the east coast have cleaned up potential local opposition forces and seriously established governance institutions. These two counties have recuperated over the past few years. At present, the order of agricultural production has been greatly restored, local bandits have been effectively eliminated, the population has increased to a certain extent, and the market has gradually become prosperous.In particular, Fushan County, which is the closest to Yantai, has a population of more than 15—more than the number of Chongzhen in the past [-] years. The three-crop crop rotation system has been widely promoted in this county—for this reason, people on the east coast almost use Jeju Island All the cattle and sheep left by the Koreans have been brought in. At present, there are only some stallions, cattle and sheep on the island. The grain production has increased steadily in the past two years, and the soil texture has also improved to a certain extent.

The Dongan people's vigorous and vigorous implementation of policies in Fushan County has given the county a completely new look. The great governance that several generations of emperors failed to achieve in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties was actually achieved under the high-handed rule of the Dongan people.At present, the county is living in hiding, and everyone can live. After seeing this change, people with insight have put away their different thoughts, and the people's hearts have gradually obeyed.

According to statistics just released in July, Fushan County has enjoyed a bumper harvest of summer grain. The county harvested a total of 1.1 tons of wheat and nearly [-] tons of alfalfa.This kind of food production can basically guarantee the food needs of all the population in the county for a year and there is still a surplus. The alfalfa production is not only more than enough to feed livestock (obtained from Jeju Island, and the Northwest Reclamation Bank loans to private households), the surplus can also be used to support Consumption of mules and horses for military use.And this is only summer grain. After harvesting this stubble, everyone can plant miscellaneous grains for another season. The harvested grain is purely profitable. Even after paying taxes, there is still some surplus, which can be sold for improvement. Live at home.It's a pity that Marshal Shao of the Yellow Army doesn't allow people to hold more than [-] mu of land, otherwise everyone can use the money to buy land, and now they can only save it for a rainy day.

Fushan County's development (or should be "recovery") is so rapid that it dwarfs the not-too-distant former capital of Denglai and the well-known Penglai County.Penglai County was repeatedly attacked by war in the late Ming Dynasty. After the Qing army entered the pass, it changed hands several times between Ming, Qing, and the east coast, and its vitality was greatly damaged.That is to say, in the past three or four years, with the Qing army being expelled from Denglai, Penglai County has only had a few years of peaceful life.That period of time was an extremely good time in the memory of the farmers. The landlords and gentry were dying and running, and no one came to collect the land rent—except for the army from the east bank who came to collect some military rations from time to time.

However, after this county was "rewarded" by Marshal Shao to Dong Xueli and Zongbing Dong who came from the west (Ming people generally understand the division commander as the commander-in-chief of a town), the good days of the county came to an end.First, the peasants were repeatedly expropriated to rebuild the city walls and build roads, and then Dong Zongbing also began to ask them to collect taxes. Although the taxes collected were not as high as those in the Ming Dynasty, everyone was not rich, so the development of Dengzhou gradually slowed down. up.Even some landless poor people went to Fushan County and Wendeng County, hoping to get a better status and divide the land. This made the population of Dengzhou dwindle day by day. Slowly recovering from depression, but the speed is far behind Fushan, Wendeng and other places.

But Dengzhou is Dengzhou after all, and its geographical location is still extremely important.Especially after Shao Shude sent people to dredge the water city "Xiaohai" (an anchorage for ships, protected by a city wall) that had been silted up for many years, Dengzhou City developed relying on its unique conditions and relatively large population in Dengzhou.Leather goods, mountain goods, sea goods, wood, livestock, pearls, medicinal materials, building materials and other commodities from Heishui were transported to Dengzhou by sea, and the grain, handmade products, gold and even labor from Dengzhou flowed into Heishui through this route. The trade between the two places got off to such a difficult start.

Now that the Sun family has gone to Dengzhou to open a branch, it is also out of this kind of intention.Anyway, Dengzhou City is a big city. Although it suffered from repeated wars in the late Ming Dynasty, most of the city's buildings have been preserved. Therefore, in terms of layout, it is far superior to the prefectures and counties of Denglai at this time.In other words, no matter how poor people's livelihood in the countryside of Dengzhou is, at least the population and business in Dengzhou city are still acceptable.

Especially after the [-] officers and soldiers of Dong Xueli's Fifth Division entered the city, the city's commerce developed rapidly.You know, the thousands of officers and soldiers of the Fifth Division have fought in Qingzhou, Jinan, Dongchang, and Yanzhou for a year or two. There are so many cities that have been conquered, and the officers and soldiers have a lot of luggage, so the demand for various commodities is quite large. Not small. The second store of "Sun Ji Nan Goods Store" opened here, which is considered to be the right way, and it will surely develop in time - the premise is that Dengzhou is not threatened by war.

Of course Dengzhou will not be threatened by war for the time being!Regarding this point, Sun Chengren is extremely certain.Therefore, he quickly said to his descendants: "Don't spread any gossip when you go out, I will just do my own work. Now that the price of food in the market is rising three times a day, we should do something early Well prepared. How about this, tomorrow you bring money to the grain shop in the city—yes, the one newly opened by Mr. Dong’s brother-in-law—to buy some rice noodles and come back. After the Fifth Division goes out, get more information and make more preparations, as usual Business, don’t panic, the sky still won’t fall!”

In fact, Sun Chengren was right.This time the entire army was mobilized not only by the Fifth Division, but also by the Niu Chenghu Division of the Ninth Division stationed in Huang County. 8000 people from these two divisions were conscripted to guard the Denglai border, but it was just a normal round of battle.They will arrive outside Jiaozhou Fort to replace the first and second divisions that have been fighting outside for a long time to maintain their combat effectiveness.

Since the construction of Jiaozhou Fort on the east bank was completed and the city wall of Ye County was also rebuilt, the Qing army stopped thinking about moving eastward.While they were building a fortress in Qingzhou Mansion and organizing group exercises, they also sent envoys to contact the East Bank for the second time. They seemed to intend to negotiate a peace, but Shao Shude once again flatly rejected it.

Faced with such a situation, the Qing court also felt helpless, so it could only divide the soldiers and horses withdrawn from the Shanxi battlefield to key nodes, and at the same time ruthlessly relocated the people of many coastal states and counties to the inland, which naturally set off another local unrest.It's just that the Qing court was very determined, and immediately suppressed any voices that opposed the border move, so this matter was carried out stumblingly.It's just that this is not very effective for the people on the east coast, because they are not as ineffective as Zheng's army back then, and at the same time have a strong ability to attack fortifications-of course, this is a later story.

While rebuilding the line of defense against the yellow-clothed thieves along the northern coast, the Qing government also began to deploy some troops (about 8 people) to the south in two directions to support the precarious situation in the south, but the effect is not known.

(End of this chapter)