In fact, why Hong Tao also knows in his heart that he is full and has nothing to do, and then takes a group of children who are also full and idle. But when many pioneer families are not busy, they still have two meals a day, where do they have the remaining physical strength to exercise. Low temperature is the most calorie-consuming of the body, and after two quarters of an hour of activity, the stomach will gurgle non-stop.

But Hong Tao just pretended not to know, he was determined, and he couldn't get used to the habit of the pioneers who saved all the food and was reluctant to eat and reluctant to exchange it for money, so he did everything possible to toss people, hoping that everyone could change their concept of life, and only by earning and spending could they promote local economic development.

Of course, this idea can't be talked about with anyone, and once it gets out, your reputation will be really bad. The common people are afraid that the government will always keep an eye on their money bags and granaries, and they will suffer greatly from this and will not change easily.

Therefore, the name of the great scourge in winter, Hong Tao, has to bear it, but fortunately, the people have left virtue in their mouths, and they have not described themselves as the most unpopular big rats on the grassland, which means that they still partially agree with themselves, what more can they ask for!

Liangzhou is located on the border, but it is an ancient city with a long history, and it is said that it has been called Liangzhou since the Western Zhou Dynasty. But at that time, it was the territory of Xirong, and there was only a state in the name and no city. It was not until the Eastern Zhou Dynasty that Wusun built a settlement here, called Chiwu Town, which should be the prototype of Liangzhou City.

It is really possible to call the city until the early days of the Western Han Dynasty, when the Huns built two cities, Guzang and Xiutu, on the basis of the settlements of Wusun and Yueshi, and their names were taken from Guzang Mountain in the southwest thirty miles.

This mountain is a branch of the Qilian Mountains, shaped like a lotus, and is called Lotus Mountain by the local ethnic minorities. There are two Buddhist monasteries built in the Han Dynasty on the mountain, Jieyin Temple and Lianhuashan Temple, and the incense was very prosperous during the reign of the Tangut people.

But since Hong Tao captured Liangzhou City, he arrested all the monks in the temple as prisoners of war and threw them all into the mine to mine, so that they could benefit mortals with practical actions, not just be dealers. If the temple is not too high, the road is not easy to walk, it is estimated that it will have to be demolished as building materials.

What to protect the cultural relics and monuments he didn't go to the heart at all, to protect the Kaifeng City to find a way to preserve, there are all kinds of buildings in it, the regulations are much higher than the introduction of the temple and the lotus mountain temple, why bother to abandon the end.

Anything only needs to be protected when it is destroyed to the point of being very rare, and it has no special value when it is everywhere. This is called not looking at ancient problems through the eyes of later generations, which is very ridiculous.

The most glorious period of Liangzhou was the Han Dynasty, when it was one of the thirteen thorn histories of the Han Dynasty, the history of the Liangzhou thorns. In order to maintain long-term stability, the Han Dynasty also built the Great Wall of Han nearby, one of which is in the north of Liangzhou City, stretching in two directions, east and west.

However, after hundreds of years of vicissitudes, many of the Great Walls of the Han Dynasty have collapsed. They are also not like the Great Wall of the Ming Dynasty that spirals up the mountain, and most of them are built in relatively gentle areas, so they become sections of mounds. Except for remembering the powerful ability of the farming dynasty to pile soil, it has no defensive effect.

In fact, it was not Ganliang Road that really bordered the actual rule area of Western Xia, but Qinfeng Road in the east. After the war, the area from Lingbo Mountain in the east, Jisang City in the west, and the desert in the north was under the jurisdiction of Qinfeng Road, and the eastern boundary of Ganliang Road bordered Qinfeng Road, and did not directly face the newly established Yingli Military Division in Western Xia.

However, the north of Qinfeng Road and Ganliang Road is a desert, which used to be the territory of Western Xia, but now it has become a three-regardless region. Neither side had the ability to dominate the desert, let alone send troops to garrison it, and theoretically it should still belong to the Western Xia government, but they did not actually occupy it.

Hong Tao's plan to send troops is very simple, that is, to follow the beacon tower all the way to the northernmost part of Ganliang Road and Qinfeng Road, bypass the border fort built by Qinfeng Road, and sneak east along the edge of the desert to approach Shatuo City, the westernmost frontier fortress in Western Xia, about more than 400 miles away.

But there is an essential difference between the more than 400 miles of road and the more than 400 miles of road to Ganzhou, half of its journey is in the desert, there is no road, and there are not even landmarks. Not to mention the slow pace of the march, if you are not careful, you can really get the wrong direction, and you may be wiped out.

The grasslands are already terrifying in winter, and the desert is even more so. As long as there is a wind, even the snowflakes with sand and dust will fly all over the sky, covering the sky and the sun. Catching up with such weather, Rao is Hongtao has a sextant and still has nothing to do, so he can only form a car formation with box trucks on the spot and wait for the weather to improve.

Fortunately, the new army's baggage supply is relatively simple and convenient, and the equipment is more suitable for winter, so there is no need to fear freezing to death, starvation, and drinking to death, but the sin is not at all, and before they get out of the desert, the hands and ears of the three princes are frostbitten.

It's not that their warm equipment is not good, but that the children have never seen the desert, let alone the winter desert, and they can't play enough. When the toss is hot, take off the hat and gloves, and say it's useless. Hong Tao has no other way but to treat evil. Disobedient, huh? Let you taste frostbite and see if you dare next time.

But it's not without fun, and there are plenty of animals on the edge of the desert in winter, such as wild asses, wild camels, wild horses and deer, such as foxes, wolves, badgers, wild boars, eagles and so on.

The kind of prairie rats that are burrowed all over the ground and hated by the cavalry are everywhere, and sometimes they will come out from under your tent to see what this thing above is that can shelter you from the wind and snow, and by the way, you will bite into your socks and clothes, and bring something to eat before leaving.

Rounding up foxes and wolves on horseback, and digging rat holes all over the ground with marching shovels were the favorite pastimes of the three princes. After catching the rats alive, they would tie the tails of several live rats together under the leadership of Chen Niang and fix them on the wilderness with a wooden stick.

Then the four men lay on the tarpaulin, draped in white cloaks, covered all the marks and bodies with snow, and lurked silently, waiting for the eagles in the sky to come down and catch mice.

This way of catching eagles was learned by Chen Niang in the camel team and the special forces of the Tibetan people, in addition to this, she also learned a lot of survival skills in the wild, which made Hong Tao more happy.

As long as it dared to come down, a large net would bounce up on the ground, and the king of the sky immediately became the tiger of Pingyang, tossed by four children for several days, and then died alive.

There are Tibetan soldiers in the new army who can boil eagles, but that kind of work is not suitable for doing on the march, and adult eagles are not suitable for children's toys.

"My lord, there is a Xixia people's walled fort ten miles ahead, and it seems that there are a hundred and ten people." Ten days later, Hong Tao's expeditionary force finally arrived about fifty miles west of Shatuo City, and Jiang Erlang, who had broken through, also discovered the enemy's situation.

"Are there any rangers around?" Attacking in winter is all about suddenness, and even the native-born nomads rarely move around a wide range in winter, which is too dangerous. Therefore, Hong Tao is not concerned about how many troops the other party has, but whether he can be completely annihilated.

"Probably not, and there are no traces of shepherds nearby, so it looks like the area has been emptied." Jiang Erlang is a very talented scout, and he knows what to pay attention to without much talk from his boss.

"Set up camp, and then bring people up in the middle of the night, you must ensure that no one is missed." It's better to do it without a ranger, not only to fight in winter, but also to play night battles, see if you are afraid!

In the second half of the night, the well-fed and well-fed New Army soldiers lifted their warm sleeping bags, put on cashmere jackets, sheepskin coats, and armor, and got out of the tent one by one like balls, and took out a piece of white cotton cloth from their backpacks as they lined up.

Even the helmet and body were all wrapped in it. Then, their figures disappeared into the vast snowfield, not too close to find these white ghosts.

Speaking of white cotton cloth, this is the first batch of finished cloth from Liangzhou Cotton Mill. Most of them were for the use of the Forces nouvelles and were not yet available on the market.

With the help of chlorine, the cotton cloth is much better, looking much whiter than the usual linen, and the texture is softer and easier to color. The output is slightly higher than that of wool fabrics, because the cotton mill is newly built, and the Huang's spinning wheel is directly used, and the output of cotton yarn is large, and the output of cotton cloth is naturally high.