In the fourth month of the lunar calendar and the sixth month of the Gregorian calendar, Jiang Zhiping had already established the Jinggangshan base area for four months, and the Yongxin Army controlled Yongxin, Yongning (now Ninggang), Longquan (now Suichuan) and other three counties, and killed the magistrates of the Qing court in these three places, established the Daming County Ya, collected taxes, planted rice and sweet potatoes, and ensured the supply of military rations.

In the past four months, Yongxin has organized more than a dozen bandits and bandits from all over the surrounding areas, plus recruits recruited from the surrounding people, and the strength has reached more than 7,000 people.

More people could have been recruited, but Jiang Zhiping acted in strict accordance with the military discipline of the Qiongzhou Army, and the unqualified bandits and bandits recruited and the recruits were all eliminated, and the outstanding ones were selected to join the army. The training was very cruel, because in consideration of the mobile combat characteristics of the Yongxin Battalion, all the newly recruited recruits were trained in accordance with the requirements of the mountain army of the Qiongzhou Army. But fortunately, the mountain people and bandits here are accustomed to the mountain roads, because they can't adapt to the elimination of not many, many of them are eliminated because of military discipline.

Enough food and clothing every month motivates them to stay.

Although many of the recruits are bandits, the bandits in the Yongning Mountains have a really hard time on weekdays! Many people thought that the bandit village must have been full of grain, and there must be too much gold and silver to spend. But the bandits here are so poor that their clothes are torn, the nearby landlords have no money and food, and the common people are so poor that they can't eat enough, so who can the bandits rob?

Joining the Yongxin battalion, the food and clothing of these bandits have been solved, and in the training, everyone is very hard-working, just to be able to stay and eat a full meal.

The eliminated recruits are all sent to the county seat and small town to serve as the people's strong or tolerant, the so-called people's strong is the nature of the township's bravery, and they are auxiliary soldiers when they start a war. Naturally, military salaries are much lower.

The county towns around Jinggang Mountain, such as Youxian, Chaling, and Leiyang, are also within the scope of activities of the Yongxin Battalion, although the Yongxin Army does not require the initiative to attack, but the Qing Army in the surrounding counties is weak, and the Yongxin Battalion can leave at any time with a bite.

From this month onwards, the Qing army mobilized troops. A total of more than 10,000 green battalion troops were transferred from Ganzhou, Nanchang, Fuzhou, Changsha, and other places to encircle and suppress the "bandits" who were rampant in the mountainous areas around Yongning. However, the Yongxin battalion did not confront the Qing soldiers head-on at all, and when the Qing soldiers came, they drilled into the mountains and forests, held several dangerous places, and tens of thousands of people could not attack them.

The Qing army couldn't help the Yongxin battalion. More than 10,000 Qing soldiers ate and drank a large amount of silver and grain and grass in the poor and remote mountainous areas, and they couldn't afford to drag it out for a long time, not to mention that the Yongxin Battalion was just a small-scale bandit in the eyes of the Qing court, and it would not pose much of a threat, so the Qing army took the initiative to withdraw after losing more than 2,000 people.

Later, Dong Weiguo and Zhao Lai went to the court and reported the bandits. Soon, the imperial court approved the issuance of additional silver taels to Jiangxi, so that Jiangxi's green camp could expand the army, and if it could exterminate the bandits, it would be exterminated; If it can't be destroyed. then besiege it.

For the Qing court, the Yongxin Battalion that entered the mountainous area of Jiangxi was a bandit, and if it was forcibly exterminated, it would suffer a great loss in the mountainous area. It's better to besiege. However, Dong Weiguo, the governor of Jiangxi, and Zhao Lai, the governor of Jiangxi, never dreamed that this small Yongxin battalion would develop by leaps and bounds. Not only quickly solved the problem of food and grass for the army, stabilizing the hearts of the people in the vicinity, but also after a few years. The Yongxin Battalion continued to grow and develop, and entered the border between Fujian and Jiangxi to develop into an army of 20,000 men, which became a major problem for the Qing court, and the five provinces of Hubei, Hunan, Fujian, Guangdong, and Guangxi were also under control.

Thousands of miles away, Chengdu.

Because of the great victory of the Kuidong Righteous Army in the Battle of Wushan, the Qing court has completely lost its control over Sichuan, and at present, most of the Sichuan is controlled by the Kuidong Righteous Army, and western Sichuan, Chengdu, Mianyang and Jiange are controlled by the Western Expeditionary Army.

After all, Bai Wenxuan has also been active in Sichuan for a long time and has inseparable feelings for his homeland. After learning the news of the great victory of the Kuidong Righteous Army, he immediately sent a detachment of 5,000 men and horses to enter from western Yunnan and secretly enter Sichuan.

Bai Wenxuan's partial division not only came over, but of course also brought some supplies such as ammunition, weapons and medicines to the Western Expeditionary Army, as well as goods such as special offerings for the Eight Banners and tobacco.

Lin Erhu, the original heavy (river crab) Qinglu battalion soldiers, since Li Guoying abandoned Yucheng, Lin Erhu marched east with the army. However, in the Battle of Wushan, the Qing army was almost completely annihilated, and the Kuidong Righteous Army won a complete victory, and Lin Erhu became a prisoner of the Kuidong Righteous Army.

The Western Expeditionary Army took Lin Erhu and most of the prisoners from the Kuidong Righteous Army and sent them to Chengdu, Mianyang, Guangyuan and other places.

Lin Erhu was lucky, he didn't need to be sent to the mountains to dig saltpeter or copper mines, he only needed to plant farmland near Chengdu. In order to save costs, only small caves were opened in both saltpeter and copper mines, and prisoners of war climbed into them to dig in underground mines that did not see the light of day. Generally, most of those who are fortunate enough to get mining treatment are former Manchurian and Mongolian Eight Banners, Han Eight Banners, or officers above the commander of the Green Battalion. Ordinary green battalion soldiers are sent to farm, or build houses, roads, etc.

No matter which captive it is, the first thing he does after being sent to Chengdu is to cut his braids. The Western Expeditionary Army did not have so many clothes to change, and the vast majority of the prisoners were still wearing the uniforms of the Qing army.

The captives of the Eight Banners not only cut off their braids, but also tattooed the words "Anti-Qing and Restoration of the Ming Dynasty" on their bodies. Even if these captives were lucky enough to escape back, they would be stabbed in the hands of the Qing court, so Wang Jinzhong was not worried that the Eight Banners captives who would be cut off their braids and tattooed with the words anti-Qing and Ming would escape. After a few years, these Eight Banner soldiers, who had done enough hard work and used their labor to atone for the sins of their fathers and ancestors, had nowhere else to go but to choose to join the Ming army and wield butcher knives against their own compatriots.

Most of the officers of the Eight Banners were killed, and very few were captured. Even if they were captured, they were scolding and resolutely refused to surrender. The officers of the Eight Banners who refused to surrender were all pulled out and their heads cut off.

Relatively many of the Mengbaqi and Han Baqi surrendered, and many officers also surrendered. However, their surrender was only to avoid death, and hard labor was inevitable. Both the surrendered Mengbaqi and the Han Baqi were sent to the mines for mining.

Like Lin Erhu, who is neither a member of the Eight Banners nor an officer of the Green Battalion, he naturally became a farmer.

After years of war, the Chengdu Plain is sparsely populated, and there is so much land that it is simply impossible to use up. There is no need to worry at all that so many captives have no land to plant. I was worried that there would not be enough food at the beginning. When the first batch of grain is planted, it will be enough for everyone to eat until the autumn harvest is left.

When Lin Erhu first arrived in Chengdu, he still ate gruel mixed with miscellaneous grains every day, and it was rare to eat dry food once for five or six days. Originally, the rebel army didn't have much food, and they had to feed so many prisoners, so everyone had to eat poorly, and everyone ate thin together, even the Western Expeditionary Army itself was no exception.

However, more than a month later, the grain transported by Wu Sangui was delivered, although Wu Sangui's heart was very dark. Sell the aging grain that is about to mold to the Western Expeditionary Army, and the price is still very high, but how to say that it is also grain! Most of the rice that Wu Sangui brought was aged, and some wheat that had been put for a long time.

With these grains, Lin Erhu and the others can finally eat dry things. The specially opened agricultural canteen provides two meals a day, and at noon it is rice mixed with miscellaneous grains, and the grain is full. There are also stir-fried vegetables, fried bean sprouts, roasted tofu and other dishes, every eight days and ten days. You can also eat wild boar or fish once. Dinner is porridge, green onion cake, multigrain wotou and pickles.

Being able to eat something like this is for Lin Erhu and other green battalion soldiers. It's been a pretty good day. When they were in the Qing army, they might not be able to eat such good things, and they could still have enough food. The Green Battalion Army deducted military salaries. The officers withheld the food to fill their pockets, and the average green battalion soldier could imagine what he was eating.

After coming here and becoming a prisoner, he ate better than before, which Lin Erhu couldn't imagine at all.

Under the command of the Ming soldiers, Lin Erhu and others cut wood from the surrounding forests, made mud bricks from local materials, chiseled stones, and built a large number of houses outside Chengdu. The captives' houses were connected to form villages. Later, an officer of the Ming army came and asked the captives to build a wall and a fortress on the periphery of the village.

On the periphery of each village, a stone wall was built, and the cement brought in by the Bai Wen Xuan Department over a long distance was used to connect the gaps between the stones and the stones. The perimeter of the village was built as strong as the city walls. Outside the walls, trenches were also dug. Along the wall, at intervals, a large bunker was built, which had three tiers and housed musketeers. At the top of the bunker, there is also a battlement entrance, on which people can be placed to guard.

Pillboxes and pillboxes, pillboxes and walls, formed a cross of fortress fire, no matter which direction to attack the wall, it was hit by fire from both sides. Inside a pillbox, thirty musketeers, ten archers and ten hand-to-hand combatants could be placed.

These bunkers are all blockhouses built by Wang Xinyu in imitation of the turrets of later generations, and the brick and wood structure is adopted. If this kind of turret is attacked by artillery, it will not be able to withstand the bombardment of the general cannon and the Hongyi cannon at all. However, it was not easy for the Qing army to bring the general artillery and Hongyi artillery into Sichuan.

The Qing army may carry small cannons into Sichuan, but in the village, the weapons such as guns and bowls are enough to shoot at small cannons such as the Qing army's tiger squat cannons, and they are not afraid of the Qing army attacking at all.

In parallel with the construction of agriculture, the construction of the defensive side was not forgotten. After four months of production, the Chengdu Plain has produced the first batch of grain, but it is all sweet potatoes. At that time, the sweet potatoes had not been improved like later generations, and it was impossible to achieve a yield of five or six thousand catties or even tens of thousands of catties per mu. The yield of sweet potatoes per mu was about two or three thousand catties. But that's a staggering amount of production.

Compared with rice with a yield of three or four hundred catties per mu and two or three hundred catties of wheat, the yield of sweet potatoes is really amazing. A person's annual consumption of grain is only about four or five hundred catties, and one acre of sweet potatoes can provide rations for several people.

"Don't waste the leaves of sweet potatoes! We can take the sweet potato leaves and raise pigs! Liu Qilin, who served as the village head, said, "When the pigs are raised, the brothers' lives will be better!" ”

Liu Qilin was originally a sergeant of the Western Expedition, but because he was injured on the battlefield and left a disability, he was forced to retire early and came to the village to be a village chief, in fact, he was to take care of the prisoners of these military camps.

In charge of the captives, there was also a group of newly recruited soldiers from western Sichuan not long ago. These soldiers trained on weekdays and also guarded the prisoners in the military cantonment. However, because among the captives, those die-hard officers were either killed or sent to the mines, and the remaining Green Battalion soldiers did not think of resisting. After they came here, the food was better than before, so why resist. Moreover, after completing the two-year military mission, they can also officially join the Ming army, and they can receive two taels of silver every month.

Each military household has 20 acres of land to plant, that is, Lin Erhu's own sweet potatoes have been harvested into about 60,000 catties, not to mention that he eats it alone, and the whole village can't eat it all.

Except for a part of the sweet potatoes that were taken away by the village chief and provided to the army, the rest were left behind for the army to be used by the households. They can take sweet potatoes and exchange them for rice, flour, etc. With so many sweet potatoes, you can grow rice next, and after autumn, you can eat the fragrant rice you grow and improve your life.

The sweet potato leaves, after being collected by the village chief, were handed over to another group of captives to raise pigs. The Western Expeditionary Army opened several farms in Chengdu, which raised pigs, chickens and ducks, as well as free-range cattle and sheep. In addition, some low-lying land was not cultivated for farmland, but simply dug a little deeper, bringing in water from the river and digging out fish ponds.

Mulberry trees were planted on the edge of the fish pond, and a pig farm was opened, and pig manure could be used as food for the fish in the pond.

"In autumn, you will not only eat white rice and white noodles, but also meat and fish! When the time comes, you can improve your life! When we come back from another place, we will buy a batch of women from other places and marry you as a daughter-in-law!" Liu Qilin, the village head, patted Lin Erhu, who worked hardest, on the shoulder.

"Will the Tartars come in?" Lin Erhu asked worriedly. In his words, the Qing army has been changed to Tartar. It's easy to live such a good life, and I really don't want to be ruined by the Qing army.

Liu Qilin said with a smile: "It's not so easy for Tartars to come in!" We have garrisons at the Sword Pavilion and other passes! Our allies, the Kuidong Rebels, are not eating dry food! They eat our food to keep us safe! ”

The Kuidong Righteous Army itself produced very little food, and mainly relied on the Western Expeditionary Army in Qiongzhou to provide it.

The Western Expeditionary Army has been renamed and become the Western Sichuan Army, which is mainly responsible for grain production and ensuring the supply of grain and grass for the Kuidong Righteous Army. In addition, the Western Sichuan Army also garrisoned several dangerous passes such as Sword Pavilion and Meishan. (To be continued.) )