At the end of Qin, I became a son of the plane

Chapter 568: Rivers of Blood and Well-off Guanzhong
July 33, 7rd year of the Han calendar, Persepolis.

After the initial battle, the Huns rested for three days and then launched another fierce artillery attack on the city of Persepolis.

"Boom, boom, boom!" Junchen pushed all the artillery in his hands to the front line. More than 400 cannons participated in the bombardment. The most powerful artillery of the Huns had a shell weighing more than 50 kilograms. One shot could directly collapse a small piece of the Persepolis city wall.

After several rounds of bombardment, there were almost no intact buildings left in the city of Persepolis. Everywhere was dilapidated and pitted, as if it had been looted by Alexander the Great.

Zhang Meng did not expect the Xiongnu's artillery attack to be so fierce. He kept shouting loudly: "Retreat from the city wall and retreat to the rear."

Upon hearing the order, the Parthian soldiers retreated from the city walls in panic, leaving the range of the Huns' artillery fire and hiding in relatively safe trenches.

Of course, more unlucky people were killed by the Huns' artillery before they could react, or were directly buried in the ruins of the city wall. Under the bombardment of the Huns, the city of Persepolis quickly became a pile of ruins, and even the houses near the city wall were smashed to pieces.

Zhang Meng had no confidence in the solidity of the Parthian city. Not to mention the cement and bamboo reinforcement structure used by the Han Dynasty, they did not even have the simplest defensive systems such as the horse-faced wall, arrow tower, and urn city. The city wall was not made of bricks and stones. How could such a city wall withstand artillery shells?
So during the days of the ceasefire, Zhang Meng led the people in the city to dig trenches, and used the excavated soil to pile up a low wall. In the middle, they dug a transportation station and connected the core command troops. They laid wooden boards and piled up soil. Even if they were hit by large artillery shells, it would be difficult to threaten the people inside. This system can defend against 90% of the artillery shells. Of course, the defense against mortars is relatively poor.

The only thing that comforted him was that there were relatively few trees in this area. Most of the houses in Persepolis were made of adobe bricks, which were fireproof and had higher defense than wood. If the Huns burned down his entire camp, he would have no place to cry.

Zhang Meng and his men were staying at the Parthian front command post. They felt that every artillery bombardment by the Huns would cause an earthquake, with dirt constantly leaking out and the beams supporting the command post shaking constantly, giving people a feeling of being on the verge of collapse.

The officers of the Parthian Army hid here with extremely grim expressions, as if this place would collapse at any time. Many noble officers even showed panic expressions.

Zhang Meng consoled him: "The Xiongnu have limited industry, and they can't sustain such a fierce bombardment for long."

War means spending money, this has been a truth throughout the ages, and the higher the level of industrialization, the more money is spent.

In the era of cold weapons, if soldiers were given leather armor and spears, as long as food was not a problem, a war could be fought for a year or two without any problem.

In the industrial age, every bullet and shell fired is money. This is much more luxurious than shooting arrows.

Zhang Meng used to fire naval guns at sea. Not to mention the consumption of shells for one cannon, each time consumed two or three kilograms of black gunpowder. This black gunpowder not only had to be wrapped in moisture-proof oilcloth, but also had to be granulated with egg white, which was not cheap.

When a naval battle broke out on the sea, the shells and explosives alone would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, not counting the sailors' pensions, so the Han Dynasty's maritime merchants generally tried not to fight unless a battle occurred. Unless they had goods such as gold and silver, they would take down the flag and hang up the pirate flag to pretend to be pirates.

Each round of artillery fire from the Huns would consume thousands of kilograms of black gunpowder. Now the Huns have fired more than a dozen rounds, and only 20,000 to 30,000 kilograms of black gunpowder are used up. He didn't believe that the Huns could continue the bombing indefinitely like this.

In the whole world, only the Han Dynasty has the qualification to destroy the enemy on the way of attack. The Huns want to do this with artillery, but they are not qualified enough.

Manis asked, "Should we also use artillery to fight back?"

The city of Persepolis also had a number of artillery pieces. Although they were all second-hand iron cannons purchased from Han Dynasty maritime merchants, they were not inferior to the Huns' artillery pieces in terms of power or quality.

But Zhang Meng shook his head and said, "We have limited gunpowder, and artillery can't do much harm to the Huns. Leave these explosives to make grenades."

During this period, Zhang Meng had been thinking about how to inflict huge casualties on the Xiongnu. At this time, he regretted that he had not asked the Parthians to buy a large number of grenades. In close combat, grenades can cause more casualties than artillery.

But Zhang Meng was at sea all year round, using naval guns and rarely using mortars, let alone the grenades equipped by the army.

After all, battles at sea are either mutual artillery fire within a few hundred meters or short-range relay battles. Grenades that can only be thrown a few dozen meters are almost useless and can easily injure one's own people. It was not until he was thinking about how to cause more casualties to the Huns that he realized that at this time, the effect of grenades is even stronger than that of artillery.

However, Zhang Meng had already started to instruct Jin Zhe to make grenades and explosive packs. He could make 100 grenades and 300 five-jin explosive packs every day. During this period, he also made thousands of grenades and explosive packs. He had arranged these new weapons to the front line, intending to teach the Huns a severe lesson.

At this moment, the sound of the Huns' artillery began to decrease and soon weakened.

Zhang Meng said: "All troops are ready to enter the trenches at the front line, let the Huns come closer to fight, and remember to divide the Huns through the trenches."

He had taken the initiative to charge forward in the last battle, but was taught a lesson by the Huns' bayonet skills. This made Zhang Meng realize that the Huns were more organized. If he wanted to equalize the casualty ratio as much as possible, he had to find a way to force the Huns into a situation where they had to fight alone.

In order to ensure the combat effectiveness of the army, Zhang Meng reorganized the army, mixing serf mercenaries and Parthian soldiers together, roughly in a ratio of 334::. These Parthian nobles wanted to keep their land and their estates, so their combat effectiveness and fighting will were guaranteed.

At the same time, the Hun army marched in neat steps and rushed towards the city of Persepolis again. After being bombarded by tens of thousands of artillery shells, most of the two-meter-high city walls were destroyed, and there were gaps everywhere that people could climb directly.

The Hun soldiers directly attacked Persepolis through these gaps. The Parthian army, which had been ambushed for a long time, fired at the gaps with more than a dozen fire points, and the Huns who were unable to react for a while fell down immediately.

But they quickly raised their muskets and fought back, and the two sides engaged in fierce fire within a few dozen meters.

Although they were blessed with national hatred and family feuds, the Huns' fighting power was even stronger. Their muskets were more accurate, and they could even withstand the muskets of the Parthians, rush into their trenches, and stab them to death with their bayonets.

Of course, the Parthians could also use grenades and explosive packs to fight the Huns to death. Relying on this kind of mutual destruction tactic, the Parthians inflicted huge casualties on the Huns.

At the same time, Zhang Meng also commanded the mortar team to move around the battlefield. They bombed wherever there were many Huns. Relying on the replenishment of these firepower points, the Parthian defense line actually held up.

The military officials outside the city saw their troops charging into the city one after another and thought it was a great victory that would crush the enemy with ease.

But he soon discovered something was wrong. The sound of gunfire and shouting inside never stopped. There were also the sounds of mortar explosions and another more powerful explosion of explosives. The officers who had rushed into the city did not report to him the good news of defeating the enemy. All this made Junchen realize that this battle might not be as smooth as he had imagined.

Seeing that the sun had already moved towards the west, but the shouting and killing sounds in the city had not stopped, the military officials had to sound the horn to call back the troops.

As a result, he found that thousands of his soldiers were left in the city, and the resistance of the Parthians was far more intense than he had imagined. They had transformed the entire city into a battlefield. This made Junchen look solemn. He wanted to annex the Parthian Empire at a minimum cost, because only by obtaining the population and land of the Parthian Empire could the Xiongnu Kingdom become a powerful country with a population of tens of millions. If both sides killed each other and blood flowed like a river, it would obviously be detrimental to the Xiongnu Kingdom's integration with the Parthians.

The following battles made Junchen's worries come true. The resistance of the Parthians in his attacks was extremely tenacious, and the losses of the Huns became more and more tragic. They treated the Parthians more and more cruelly, and a large number of captives were slaughtered by the Huns. But this further stimulated the determination of the Parthians to resist, and the two nations killed each other on this land.

October 33, 10rd year of the Han calendar, Guanzhong.

The war in the Mesopotamian region had resulted in rivers of blood, but it had no impact on the eastern end of the continent, and the people there were still living in peace and prosperity.

The people of the Han Dynasty only knew about the Mesopotamian region from some gossip tabloids, where the Huns had killed so many Parthians that they were almost destroying their country.

But even if the people of the Han Dynasty knew this, it would only give them some gossip to talk about. Some even looked down on the Parthian Empire for its poor fighting ability. They could actually be destroyed by the Huns, who even lost their home base. How poor must the fighting ability of the Parthians be!
For the people in Guanzhong, they were more concerned about their own income rather than wars in distant places.

With the construction of the Xiyi railway network, the Jiangnan railway network, and the Liaodong railway network, the Han Dynasty's steel inventory decreased rapidly, and the Han Dynasty's steel market expanded. In addition, the Han Dynasty's court cleaned up small blast furnaces below 25 tons across the country, cutting a number of high-energy-consuming and inefficient production capacities, and the steel industry began to gradually recover.

At the same time, the war between the Parthians and the Xiongnu also played a certain role in the economic recovery of the Han Dynasty. The total number of troops of the Parthians and the Xiongnu was nearly 50. These people, from the most basic food, clothing, housing and transportation to the consumption of iron ore, gunpowder, muskets, artillery and other military supplies, formed an extremely large consumer market, which was beneficial to the economy of the Han Dynasty.

In addition, the countries along the Mediterranean Sea, fearing that their countries would be invaded by the Huns, also began to buy up military supplies such as iron ingots and cannons from the Han Dynasty. The steel industry began to recover, and the military made a fortune. The second-hand matchlock guns that were originally unsaleable and various obsolete second-hand iron cannons were all sold at three times the cost. Not only did the military clear out the inventory of the arsenal, but it also made a lot of money and could use the money to buy more advanced steel cannons and rear-firing guns.

The economy began to recover, prices of all kinds of goods began to recover, the lives of the lower-class people in the Han Dynasty became better, the impact of the economic crisis was finally gradually eliminated, and the Han Dynasty once again entered a period of economic prosperity.

Especially for farmers in Guanzhong, they joined the agricultural cooperatives and, under the guidance of agricultural technicians, took out loans to buy tractors and various fertilizers. This year, the grain production capacity generally reached 4 dan, and the price of grain also exceeded 50 coins. Coupled with the bumper harvest of cash crops such as cotton, this year, the income of farmers in Guanzhong generally increased by 8000 coins compared with last year. Even in normal years, it increased by 5000 coins. Such a high increase in income is almost a leap from subsistence to a well-off life for many farmers.

This year was also a good year for the Han Dynasty. A great war brought billions of dollars in economic benefits to the Han Dynasty, and many unsold inventories were cleared out.

The agricultural reform in Guanzhong was also extremely smooth. With the expansion of agricultural cooperatives, tractors were promoted in Guanzhong. With the input of fertilizers, the grain production capacity in Guanzhong increased by 6 million dan this year, which is equivalent to allowing Guanzhong to feed an additional 300,000 people. For the Han Dynasty, which has always emphasized consolidation, this is more important than the increase of tens of millions of dan of grain in the Central Plains.

The production capacity of cotton increased by 30%, and the production capacity of cash crops such as soybeans, peanuts, sesame, mulberry and hemp also increased by more than 10% to 20%, providing strong material support for Dahan's textile industry, food processing industry and other light industries.

The effect of the agricultural commune was so remarkable that the three dukes and nine ministers of the Han Dynasty reached a consensus to promote agricultural commune throughout the Han Dynasty, increase agricultural production capacity, and of course increase the input of fertilizers from the New World.

According to farmers, every additional kilogram of fertilizer can increase grain production capacity by ten kilograms. This year, Guanzhong can increase grain production capacity by 600 million shi, and cash crops such as cotton have also increased their production capacity by %. This is not only the credit of the agricultural cooperatives, but the most important factor is that the New World imported one million shi of fertilizer into Guanzhong.

After Li Shang knew about this, he not only reduced the tariff on fertilizer to zero, but also provided subsidies. For every stone of fertilizer shipped into the Han Dynasty, he would receive a subsidy of ten coins. Together with the tax reduction, this was equivalent to increasing the profit of each stone of fertilizer by 40%. This year, whenever the maritime merchants of the Han Dynasty returned to the Han Dynasty, they would definitely bring thousands or tens of thousands of stones of fertilizer as ballast.

In October this year alone, the amount of fertilizer imported from overseas to the Han Dynasty reached 5 million shi, a 50% increase over last year, which strongly supported the agricultural production of the Han Dynasty.

This year's Dahan Monthly Report shows that there was a bumper grain harvest in Guanzhong, Hebei, Central Plains and Jianghuai. Dahan had good weather and good harvests throughout the year, as if to make up for last year's disasters.

The three dukes and nine ministers of the court headed by Li Shang naturally publicized this political achievement and announced to the people of the world that 90% of the farmers in Guanzhong had an annual income of 30,000 coins. Guanzhong became the first region in the Han Dynasty to achieve a well-off society and a well-off and prosperous era was about to come to the Han Dynasty.

It caused a sensation throughout the Han Dynasty for a while. It was more than 20 years since the Han Dynasty proposed the concept of well-off governance. Many people had even forgotten about it. After all, it was too difficult for a farmer to earn 30,000 yuan a year. As a result, there were actually regions that achieved well-off governance, even the wealthy Guanzhong region. This was extremely exciting news for the farmers in the Han Dynasty. Since the people in Guanzhong could do it, the farmers in other regions could do it as well.

For a time, the reputation of Li Shang, the Prime Minister of the Han Dynasty, rose rapidly. Achieving a well-off society was his best political achievement, and this was also what Li Shang and others needed.

After all, they encountered an economic crisis in the second year after taking office, and they desperately needed this achievement of moderate prosperity to reverse their image and accumulate prestige for their subsequent governance of the Han Dynasty.

As for the local county governors, they were more concerned about the reforms in the construction of Cao. Last year's economic crisis resulted in not many people buying the buildings built by Nei Shi, but after the economic recovery this year, the people of Chang'an City were willing to spend money again.

With complete infrastructure, buildings with good living conditions have once again entered the vision of the people of Chang'an. Even if the price of a house has risen to 100,000 coins, it is still in short supply. This year, the Secretary of the Interior made more than 1 billion yuan by building Cao, which caused a sensation in the entire Han Dynasty.

This amount was almost a year's tax revenue for many counties in the Han Dynasty, and the Construction Cao made so much money just by building tens of thousands of houses. It was even more profitable than digging for gold.

Local Han officials naturally wanted to have construction offices in their own counties. Even if they did not make as much money as in Chang'an, they could accept the transformation from gold mines to silver mines.

So the county magistrates who made the plan came to Chang'an City and found Prime Minister Li Shang to ask whether the Construction Cao also appeared in their counties, especially the economically developed industrial counties such as Chen County, Kuaiji County, Sanchuan County, and Linzi County. On the one hand, they had the need to transform the cities, and on the other hand, they also hoped to use the profits earned from the construction to increase their political achievements. Chang'an City had set the best example for them.

But Li Shang poured cold water on them, saying, "Don't even think about it. The emperor has given instructions that the construction of Cao will be temporarily implemented in Guanzhong. Once the court understands its shortcomings and advantages, it will be popularized throughout the country."

How could Xu Fan not understand the construction of this thing? If he let the local Han officials do it, they would raise the housing prices to the sky because it would help boost their political achievements.

Just like now the average income of the people in Chang'an City is 5000 coins per month. With the current housing prices in Chang'an City, one can buy a house in two years at most. But if the price is liberalized, the price of houses will soon be driven up to more than 100 million coins. It will take more than ten years or even 20 years of income to buy a house.

Then rents and prices of all commodities increased rapidly, houses became the land of the new era, and the landlord economy revived again.

Judging from subsequent developments, this is a stimulant. The results can be extremely remarkable, but the consequences are also extremely serious.

The entire society will change from being producer-dominated to being rentier-dominated. In later generations, Xu Fan is a lower-class person and does not understand those economic models that are layered upon layer.

But his own feeling is that after the Olympics, it has become increasingly difficult to make money, while there are more and more sickles. It has become easier and easier for people at the top to accumulate wealth.

The Han people do not need to use the Seven Injury Fist, nor do they need the wealth brought by manufacturing. The producers of the Han people are the most valuable wealth. If they become rentiers, I am afraid that few people will value the wealth brought by the manufacturing industry.

(End of this chapter)