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"We want all these captives!" Wang Jinzhong, who arrived in time, opened his mouth to take prisoners, helping Li Laiheng solve a headache and avoid the fate of these captives being killed by Liu Tichun and others.

Li Laiheng was so shocked that he could stuff an egg into his mouth: "There are so many captives, where can you get the food to feed them?" ”

"To tell you the truth, we only have enough food for ourselves." Wang Jinzhong arched his hand.

"And how do you feed these captives?" Li Laiheng asked suspiciously.

"We can buy some grain from Wu Sangui, not a lot, buy some brown rice, sorghum, buckwheat, plus the barley we bought from the Tibetan people, enough to last until the grain harvest." It's already spring, and as long as we plant the sweet potatoes and harvest them in four months, there will be enough food for everyone. Wang Jinzhong replied.

"Sweet potatoes? Isn't this thing only grown in Lingnan, Fujian? Can Sichuan be able to grow alive? "Li Laiheng, after all, they have been to Hunan and have seen this kind of thing. It's just that they still think that sweet potatoes can only be grown in Lingnan, and they don't know that this crop can actually be promoted on a large scale.

"You can grow alive! As long as it's not in the north north of Hanzhong, it's fine. Wang Jinzhong replied. At that time, sweet potatoes that could be hardy to the cold had not been cultivated, so they could only be grown in the south, and it was difficult to grow this crop north of the Huai River in the Qinling Mountains.

Among the crops from the Americas, corn has been planted in a large area in the north and south of the country, but the corn at that time was also unimproved corn, and the yield was not very high, and it was only a substitute for grain in the north, and there was no amazingly high yield like sweet potatoes.

The Sichuan Green Camp that Li Guoying painstakingly managed was completely annihilated, and the whole of Sichuan fell into the hands of the Ming army. After years of war, Sichuan has little population, and large tracts of fertile land are barren. It became a borderland, overgrown with weeds, and a paradise for wild beasts. The captured Green Battalion Qing soldiers are undoubtedly the best labor force. As long as they are scattered and scattered to various places to develop farmland, it will not be long before Sichuan's agricultural production can be restored.

The harder part is to stick with it for the first few months.

The growing season of sweet potatoes is more than four months, and the first batch of sweet potatoes can be harvested in four months at the earliest. This is the hardest time to endure.

However, the Western Expeditionary Army has a way. There was trade between the Qiongzhou army and Wu Sangui, and Wu Sangui obtained some brown rice and grains from Wu Sangui, and then bought some rice bran and wheat bran that Wu Sangui did not want, and Wu Sangui was still willing to agree to these conditions. The Qiongzhou army and Li Dingguo's Ming army also planted sweet potatoes in Burma, and they could also transfer a batch of potatoes in, but when they passed through Yunnan, they gave Wu Sangui some more silver, and these problems would be solved.

As for Wu Sangui's side, he will not lose face. Originally, Wu Sangui's military salary and grain were subject to the Qing court. He wanted to be a vassal king in the southwest, but the Qing court had never been at ease with Wu Sangui, and had already forced him to disarm twice.

Wu Sangui naturally knew in his heart that he was a local vassal king. The most important thing is the soldiers at hand. But the barren land of Yungui relies on local production, where can so many soldiers and horses be fed! The Qing court used food and salary to force Wu Sangui to disarm, and Wu Sangui could only pinch his nose and admit it.

Since the beginning of the business of receiving entrepot trade and special offerings of the Eight Banners. Wu Sangui's silver is getting more and more, and he doesn't have to look at the Qing court's face at all. With this money, Wu Sangui did not have to send the laid soldiers home. The land in Yungui is barren, and the land planted by the military households cannot support themselves, so Wu Sangui subsidizes the grain and salary to the military households.

The reason why Wu Sangui did this was that he was also worried that the Qing court would attack him one day. Wu Sangui hid soldiers among the people, and once there was a need, these military households could immediately become elite soldiers.

In addition, Liu Xuanchu and others always gave Wu Sangui a blow: "Dashuai, you are now making a lot of money, and you are already the richest of all the vassal kings, it is inevitable that one day some traitors in the court will be jealous of you, and they may cause you a little trouble." In order to prevent this from happening, we need to be prepared. ”

In order to deal with possible threats, Wu Sangui also quietly opened his own weapons workshop, producing armor, swords, bows and arrows, bird guns and gunpowder.

Ying Deng Hong, a member of the Qiongzhou army under Liu Xuanchu, opened a golden finger under the guidance of Wang Xinyu and helped Wu Sangui find several iron mines and saltpeter mines, which made him deeply trusted by Wu Sangui. With these iron ore and saltpeter mines, Wu Sangui secretly established a number of weapon workshops and secretly built a large number of weapons in case of accidents. At the same time, Wu Sangui also took a fancy to the sophisticated firearms and armor of the Qiongzhou army, and during the trade, Wu Sangui asked Wang Shirong to secretly purchase a batch of firearms and armor to enhance the strength of the Pingxi royal army.

As for food, Wu Sangui at this time was not afraid of the imperial court choking his throat. Although the land of Yunnan and Guizhou is barren and the grain produced by itself cannot be self-sufficient, both Annan and Myanmar are rich grain-producing areas, and Wu Sangui even directly buys grain from Annan and Burma, and secretly stores a large amount of grain and grass.

It can be said that if the Western Expeditionary Army wanted to buy grain from Wu Sangui, with the help of Liu Xuanchu and Deng Hong, it was very unlikely that they would not be able to buy grain. If Wu Sangui really refused to sell grain, then the Qiongzhou army would cut off trade with Wu Sangui, and it would be Wu Sangui who would suffer a big loss at that time.

"Get on board! I'm going to Chengdu! The soldiers of the Western Expedition shouted, driving groups of prisoners onto the ship.

The captured warships of the Qing army's naval divisions all became the transport ships of the Western Expeditionary Army. Zhang Changgeng in the lower reaches of the river, after attacking for seven days and seven nights in a row, lost troops but could not move an inch, so he slowed down the attack. Later, Zhang Changgeng saw Li Guoying and others who had escaped, so he gave up the attack and returned to Wuchang with the Qing army of the Huguang Green Battalion down the river.

The pressure on the Kuidong rebels suddenly decreased, and everyone cheered for victory.

After the Huguang Qing army retreated, Li Laiheng signed an agreement with Wang Jinzhong: the Kuidong Righteous Army still occupied Wushan, Maolu Mountain, Wanzhou, Badong and other places, and the Western Expeditionary Army ceded Yucheng to the Kuidong Righteous Army. In this way, the Kuidong Righteous Army was equivalent to occupying favorable terrain and guarding the gateway to Sichuan. The Western Expeditionary Army occupied Chengdu, Jiange, Guangyuan and western Sichuan, mainly engaged in agricultural production, providing grain, grass, armor, weapons, etc. for the Kuidong Righteous Army.

After a number of fierce battles, the ammunition consumption of the Western Expeditionary Army was serious. The gunpowder used in all types of firearms has been largely exhausted. Long-distance transport from Myanmar is inconvenient, and ammunition must be produced locally.

In order to be able to replenish ammunition on the spot, Wang Jinzhong built a gunpowder workshop in the western Sichuan base area and developed saltpeter mines in the local area. The Guangyuan area was occupied by the Western Expeditionary Army, where there was a large area of natural saltpeter mines, and there were also a large number of saltpeter mines in the Mianyang area, and these mining areas fell into the hands of Wang Jinzhong, and some of the captured prisoners happened to be sent to open mines.

In addition to saltpeter mines, Wang Jinzhong also obtained new methods of nitrate mining from Wang Xinyu: manure tanks and wild animal manure can collect salt. After processing, saltpeter can be obtained.

Lin Erhu, the former Qing soldier of the Green Battalion, was escorted onto a boat, and the boat was crowded with the Qing soldiers of the Green Battalion who were also captured, all of them were tied up with ropes, and there were soldiers of the Western Expedition standing around them with sharp blades, staring at them fiercely, as long as anyone made a slight move, the knife would immediately cut off on the head.

The people in charge of rowing and rocking are also captured Green Battalion soldiers, all of whom are soldiers of the former Green Battalion Sailors. However, they were treated better than the captives of the Green Battalion Army, because their hands were not tied, but their feet were tied to the deck, and their hands were to be used for paddling and rocking. Behind the captive oarsmen, Ming soldiers with leather whips stood, supervised their hard paddling.

"It's sailing!" The Ming soldiers shouted.

The sailors of the Ming army pulled the ropes, and the sails slowly rose. Several sailors used bamboo poles to prop the boat away from the dock. After that, the Ming soldiers, who supervised the captive oarsmen, gave orders and let the captives paddle. If someone is lazy, the whip will be whipped mercilessly.

The boat sailed on the river for a day. When it was dark, the fleet docked, and the Ming soldiers took the prisoners down from the boat, camped by the river, and cooked in a pot.

Because of the turbulent current, the reefs, and the complicated underwater situation in the Three Gorges, for the sake of insurance, ships were not allowed to sail at night under normal circumstances, and when it was dark, the fleet would have to dock.

The firemen gathered firewood, lit piles of bonfires, and set up cauldrons on them.

The cauldron is filled with water from the riverside stream, brown rice, buckwheat, barley noodles, sorghum rice, rice bran and wheat bran, a little beans are added, and after boiling, wild vegetables picked from the mountains are added to make porridge. Needless to say, it was known that these were meals for the captives.

The porridge eaten by the Ming soldiers and soldiers was made of brown rice, buckwheat, barley noodles, sorghum rice and soybeans, and was also mixed with rice bran and wheat bran, but the rice bran and wheat bran were put in a little less, and the grain was slightly more.

After receiving so many prisoners at once, the food of the Western Expeditionary Army was indeed tight, although it was captured in Chengdu and Guangyuan, and the food paid by the local Tibetans in western Sichuan was also obtained, but it could only solve the food of 20,000 or 30,000 troops. Li Laiheng gave 50,000 to the Western Expeditionary Army after taking more than 60,000 prisoners, plus more than 10,000 Qing soldiers captured by the Western Expeditionary Army itself, and this extra 60,000 mouths had to eat, which made the originally well-off Western Expeditionary Army fall into a state of food shortage.

The envoys sent to find Liu Xuanchu and Deng Hong, ready to buy grain from Wu Sangui, have already set off, and it will take four days to rush from Badong to Kunming even if it is 600 miles to expedite the speed, not to mention that the Western Expeditionary Army has no post station here to change horses, and the envoy riding a short Dian horse can travel 200 miles a day to reach the sky, and it will take at least 12 days to reach Kunming. Then through Liu Xuanchu and Deng Hong, Wu Sangui was persuaded to buy grain from Wu Sangui and transport it from Yunnan to Chengdu, which would take more than a month. The first batch of grain can be delivered in two months, which is already very fast.

It may be that Li Laiheng saw that Wang Jinzhong had accepted most of the prisoners and solved his problem, and also allocated some food to the Western Expeditionary Army, which was slightly relieved.

However, the current grain stock of the Western Expeditionary Army has to support at least two months, and it is necessary to beware that Wu Sangui does not give face, so he must be prepared to eat grain for three months. Sweet potatoes can only be harvested after four months. In case Wu Sangui does not sell grain, then there is still a month to run out of grain, and the Western Expeditionary Army can only dig weeds and eat grass roots.

Lin Erhu saw that the food in the bowl of the Ming soldiers was not much better than his own, and he felt a little uneasy: Why did these Ming soldiers eat so badly? Don't they have enough food? However, in a short period of time, it is impossible for the imperial court to send troops to attack Sichuan, and if the Ming army runs out of food by then, it will not be starving! But that's all for the future, now it's worth a day to live, anyway, human life is not worth anything in this troubled world.

The fleet sailed upriver on the Yangtze River, passing through Yucheng and Luzhou, and sailing towards Chengdu. Because it is against the current, and can not sail at night, the speed of the ship is extremely slow, only about two to three knots of speed, can only sail seventy or eighty miles a day, a whole month of sailing, before arriving in Chengdu.

The problem of grain had been solved, and the envoy sent to Wu Sangui came back and brought back good news to Wang Jinzhong and them: after the great help of Liu Xuanchu and Deng Hong, Wu Sangui promised to sell grain to the Western Expeditionary Army.

During the voyage, some of the captives were taken off the ship by the Ming army after passing through Chongqing, and it is said that they were going to cultivate a grain called sweet potatoes in the local wasteland.

By the time they arrived in Chengdu, there were only more than 10,000 captives left, and some of them had to continue their journey, which was said to have been sent to Mianyang to open mines. Lin Erhu and more than 6,000 prisoners were sent into Chengdu by the Ming army.

Once the land of abundance, it is now desolate, and the outside of Chengdu is overgrown with weeds. After entering the city, Lin Erhu found that many buildings in the city had been destroyed by the war, and many people were farming in the city, but they were planting rice fields, not the high-yield crop called sweet potatoes. Later, Lin Erhu learned that the original people who farmed in Chengdu City, in addition to the group of Qing soldiers who had been captured earlier, were some of the original Sichuan people who came out of the mountains one after another, and the two kinds of people added up to less than 10,000 people.

After entering the city of Chengdu, the Ming army gave the captives a dry meal, which was noodles made of barley noodles and flour, with a few vegetables, a little pickles, and a little bacon.

"Everyone's delicious! After you've had enough to eat, go out to work in the city! There are not enough fields in the city, go outside and open up the wasteland! A Ming officer said to the captives.

Lin Erhu devoured this bowl of noodles, he felt that what he had eaten before had never been so fragrant, this was the best meal he had ever eaten in his life.

After eating, Lin Erhu and the captives were taken outside the city.

"Brethren, have you all eaten enough and have the strength to work? Build your own nest first! An officer shouted and instructed the captives to do their work.

[It's about to be 515, I hope to continue to hit the 515 red envelope list, and the red envelope rain will be able to give back to readers and promotional works on May 15. A piece is also love, and it must be better! (To be continued.) )