Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 1444 Shandong Severe Drought ([-])

"This kind of potato has been planted in Dengzhou for many years, and it should be able to adapt to the climate of Dandong." A young official pointed to the potatoes in a barrel, and said to several former Qing officials: "You should bring people to distribute it now." Go down and leave it to the new immigrants to cultivate, don’t worry, you don’t have to worry about the specifics, there are agricultural technicians from Dengzhou to guide, you just need to cooperate.”

This official has a bronze complexion, is not very old, and is not short in stature. He is more than 1.8 meters tall. He is considered a "long man" in the East Coast. This may have something to do with his genes.This official who has studied in Bingtuanbao for ten years is from the Thuelche tribe attached to the east coast. After graduating from Bingtuanbao, he was assigned to be an official in the Heishui area of ​​the Far East. level cadres.

The scenery of the Far East excited the young student officer, and he had already decided to make his home here—well, it should be the former Zhenjiang Fort and Jiulian City, which has been officially renamed Dandong County—and the upcoming [-] to [-] Shandong Province. Together with the victims, they will meet any Qing counterattack from Shenyang at any time.

Having said that, I have to mention that in order to better cover the land reclamation of the victims in Dandong County, under the approval and coordination of Liang Xiangjian, many naval warships and gunboats gathered along the northern part of the Bohai Bay to bombard the two ports of Jinzhou and Lushun. At the same time, a large number of elite personnel were sent to land in the west of Liaoning to confuse and deceive the Qing army, so that they could not judge the goal of the people on the east bank, and could not make a decision to concentrate their forces to recover Dandong eastward, so as to win more for the victims of land reclamation. much time.

To be fair, this tactic of the navy is still effective at present, especially when the Manchu and Qing Dynasty suffered severe famines and the rule was facing a crisis.In addition, they did not have many troops deployed in the Northeast. A few years ago, when the Eight Banners expanded their army, they took away a group. Now they are really weak, and they want to gather enough troops, food, mules, and equipment to recover Zhenjiang Fort. There were some difficulties, so almost half a month after the fall of Zhenjiang Fort, there was still no reaction, as if the incident never happened at all.

Of course, people on the east bank will not pin all their hopes on the inaction of the Qing court.A few days after the news that the Army’s Seventh Mixed Battalion captured Zhenjiang Fort came back to Yantai, Liang Xiangjian, who had returned urgently from Jiaozhou City (not the Jiaozhou Fortress), ordered to gather more than 2000 cavalry from the Third Battalion of the Cavalry Wing and transport them in batches. Dandong County landed as a mobile force in the county to defend against possible counterattacks by the Qing army.

In addition, someone from Liang also officially sent an envoy to Jianghua Island by boat, demanding that Li Chao immediately send a team of "not less than 500" troops from the imperial camp to Jiulian City and Kuandian on the outskirts of Dandong County to clean up the While the local remnants of the Qing army (expected to be no more than [-]) were also stationed there to defend the flanks of Dandong County, lest the immigrants' land reclamation cause be adversely affected.Of course, all the food and salaries during their garrison will be borne by themselves. Anyway, the opposite side of the river is the territory of the Kingdom of Korea, so paying for some food and salaries is nothing!

As for the task of this envoy, in addition to requiring North Korea to send soldiers to help defend, of course extortion of money and food is indispensable.It just so happened that a North Korean envoy was blocked in Zhenjiang Fort this time. close.What?You said that so much food was given to the east bank, and North Korea didn't have anything to eat?I don't care if you die, you figure out a way yourself, I don't care!Besides, the harvest season of summer grain is coming soon. You have no disease or disaster in North Korea last year. Not to mention the north, Gyeongsang, Jeolla, and Gyeonggi provinces in the south should have harvested a lot of grain, so give some to the east. What does it matter if Uncle An uses it? As for starving to death?

As for the large number of Qing Dynasty and Korean businessmen who were also captured in Zhenjiang Fort, the people on the east coast did not make things difficult for them. As long as their families paid the ransom (preferably food), they could take them back, and they paid the money with one hand and delivered the goods with the other. The old man is not deceived.Of course, if someone is so unlucky that no one will pay the ransom for them, then I'm sorry, and I can only go fishing and logging in the Qiandao Islands and Heixiazi Port to create value. In short, the east coast will not support idlers.

With such a combination of punches, the situation in Dandong, a newly established county, must be stabilized soon, and then it will be slowly digested by the people on the east bank. The bridgehead in the middle and upper reaches.I believe that the Qing government can also see the consequences of the fall of Zhenjiang Fort. They must also want to take this land back from the people on the east coast. However, their strength is limited, and this is probably doomed to be just a luxury.

On June 6, Liang Xiangjian himself arrived in the sea off Dandong County on the heavy warship "Cadiz Rock". Due to the size of the estuary wharf, this powerful warship could only anchor in the offshore area, and then use the transportation boat to transfer the personnel to the sea. The supplies were sent ashore, including more than 12 officers and soldiers of the cavalry regiment.

As soon as Liang Xiangjian himself landed, he sat in the official office of the former general of Zhenjiang, and then grandly called a meeting to discuss the next step of the county. In fact, the main issues were food issues and land reclamation work.

"I think many of you don't want to place your hopes too much on the outside world, and I'm here to tell you that this year's food collection may not be good. There are financial factors, but it also has to do with It is related to the further extension of the disaster, yes, the disaster has expanded, and now not only the disasters are happening in the territory of the Qing Dynasty, but also droughts of varying degrees of severity have appeared in the territory of the Ming and Shun countries, especially in the Ming country." Picking up the hands of the After taking a sip of the green tea, Liang Xiangjian, who was sitting on the grand master's chair with Dama Jindao, said with a serious face: "That is to say, our ability to obtain food from the outside world has been greatly weakened, so that we have to increase our efforts to tap our own potential. Otherwise, they may not be able to survive this disaster, God knows how long this drought and locust disaster will last."

In fact, Liang Xiangjian's words are not deceitful, because according to the information provided by the intelligence system in charge of Wei Boqiu, since this year, many places in Chaozhou and Huizhou in Guangdong have been hit by drought, and parts of Hubei and Hunan under the control of the Shun Army have also been affected. With the intrusion of drought to varying degrees, the food exports of these two major forces were suddenly tightened, and the idea of ​​​​people on the east coast to get some food from them suddenly came to nothing.You know, just last year, the two places just donated or sold hundreds of thousands of grains and grains to the east bank, but this year it was cut off all of a sudden, which makes people feel uncomfortable.Especially on the side of the Shun Army, they made it clear that many places are affected by disasters, and the situation in the country is also somewhat unstable (Li Guo was seriously ill in Changsha, and his adopted son Li Laiheng has returned from the Yueyang Mansion where he left the town with troops), even if The people on the east coast are willing to provide a large amount of military supplies they urgently need, and they will never make a deal. All decisions will be made after the situation is clear.

This is the case for the Shun Army, and the same is true for Li Chengdong.Because of the "Ganzhou Change" that broke out at the beginning of this year, half of Ganzhou Prefecture fell into the hands of the Shun Army, and Li Chengdong, who occupied most of Guangdong, immediately felt a chill.This time, he did not need to be urged by the Ming court. He immediately negotiated peace with Zheng Chenggong in Chaozhou Prefecture, and then mobilized heavy troops to station in Shaozhou and Nanxiong. While stabilizing the gates of Guangdong, he also planned to enter Ganzhou Prefecture at any time to start a battle with the Shun army forces. scramble.

Under such heavy military pressure, Guangdong Province naturally has no surplus food to sell to the people on the east coast, not to mention that some of their prefectures and counties have also suffered disasters?If you want to blame, you can only blame Shunjun's hands for being too long, and they have already reached Ganzhou, completely ignoring the warnings from the people on the east coast.If Wang Deren, the former Southern Ming and Southern Jiangxi General Soldier who had died of illness, knew that his sons were beaten up like this for the sake of his position, he would surely be so angry that he would come back from the grave!

Today, the surrounding forces that can provide food to the people on the east coast, if not counting the Dutch East India Company, are actually only the Korean family, unless Wei Boqiu sends people to do such a few major cases along the coast of Japan again.Thinking about it this way, life on the east bank is not easy at all. Who made them have a commander-in-chief Liang who was "overwhelmed" and tried to save thousands of disaster victims in Shandong by himself?This is probably a typical example of digging a hole for yourself to jump in!

After everyone listened blankly to Liang Xiangjian's secretary's introduction of the situation, Liang Xiangjian waved his hand again to stop some chaotic voices in the room, and then said: "At this difficult time, we can only rely on ourselves and increase our efforts to cultivate land. Potatoes are a good thing. The Dabo Botanical Garden under Commander Liao has sent us a lot of cultivated potato varieties, all of which are adapted to the local climate. Planting them should be of great benefit. Moreover, given the current situation in Dandong County, I am afraid that it is only suitable for growing some potatoes, and it is too late for other crops..."

In fact, we can see from the map that the hills around Dandong County are endless, with many slopes and not many flat lands, so it is especially suitable for the planting and growth of beans, sweet potatoes, potatoes, alfalfa and other crops.At the same time, due to the embarrassing time when the people on the east coast occupied this place, they missed a lot of farming time, so they can only pin their hopes on crops with a short growth cycle such as potatoes, and there is no other way.

"Actually, I hope that everyone here understands the truth that you will gain if you pay, and you will not gain if you don't pay. Yes, we occupied Dandong in a hurry this time. There may still be soldiers of the Qing army in the surrounding villages or market towns. Humans exist, and there are also highly skilled Qing hunters in the wild who are ready to kill our soldiers or the lives of the people at any time, but this is not the reason why we can't do our job well." Liang Xiangjian took a sip from his teacup, and then said solemnly: "The wasteland reclamation work in Dandong County is related to the overall situation of the entire pioneering team's jurisdiction. It must not be sloppy, but must be done well. I, Lao Liang, hereby guarantee that whoever performs well in this work, then in the future when we set up Kuandian, When counties such as Fenghuang, they must be the top priority candidates, there is no doubt about it.”

Liang Xiangjian has been an official in the Far East for many years, and has many students and old officials, so what he said has always been very effective among cadres.In addition, this time he offered rewards for his official position to urge everyone to work hard, so he immediately lifted everyone's spirits. There were many people in the audience—especially those retired officers from the Heishui area and the Bingtuanbao who were full of enthusiasm and ideals. The students——the hearts of the soldiers suddenly became hot, and they all began to think about how to carry out the next work and how to make achievements, and this was obviously the effect that he, Liang, wanted to achieve.

Of course, Liang Xiangjian did not mention that it may take a long time for the establishment of Kuandian County and Fenghuang County in the future, and it may not be possible before the end of his term of office, because of the involvement It's too big, and if you're not careful, you'll make big news—a Zhenjiang Fort may be tolerated by the Qing court, but if Jiulian City, Kuandian City, and Phoenix City are lost one after another, then this is no small matter. Ting may well be forced to react violently to curb the increasingly dire ambitions of the East Coasters.You must know that these places are no different from the "riddled places" of Ninggu Pagoda, but are very close to the heart of the Qing court where dragons prospered, and there are more people. If the Qing court does not respond Then they are really dead, even if their current ruling center of gravity has obviously shifted to the pass.

Liang Xiangjian did not stay any longer after the work meeting in Dandong County. Instead, under the escort of some cavalry, he crossed the river directly to the territory of the Korean Kingdom on the other side, and directly grabbed the officials from the Yizhou area of ​​​​Korea, and asked him why he borrowed Some food and grass are also dodged in every possible way, what is the intention?After all, without waiting for the North Korean officials to defend themselves, more than a thousand officers and soldiers of the cavalry regiment rushed into the city before the North Koreans could react, and directly loaded part of the stock in the granary and transported it away. A few pieces of paper-like IOUs were left behind.The North Korean officials wanted to cry but didn't dare to stop them, so they had to report to Hanyang City hastily.

On June 6, not long after the heavy battleship "Cadiz Rock" left the mouth of the Yalu River, a cavalry team of about 20 Qing troops rushed from the direction of Phoenix City and were immediately put on alert. The officers and soldiers of the third brigade of the cavalry regiment found out, and then a short and fierce cavalry battle kicked off more than ten kilometers west of Dandong County.

In this battle, the tall, well-equipped and well-trained East Coast cavalry defeated the "not professional" Qing cavalry (in fact, most of the Eight Banners were mounted infantry) with a hearty frontal charge, killing and wounding There are more than [-] enemy troops, and their own casualties are even less than [-]. It can be described as a complete victory, and it also highlights the growing gap between the East and the Qing in terms of cavalry over the years-among them, equipment, training, There are factors of morale and war horses. In fact, it is still a gap in productivity.

And perhaps because of the pain suffered by the cavalry on the east bank in this battle, the Qing army died down for a long time, without any movement, and they didn't know what their plans were.However, the people on the east bank didn't bother to guess. With the momentum of a great victory, they seized the front line of Jiulian City, and immediately ordered the first batch of North Korean soldiers who came across the river to quarry stones and burn bricks to repair these places since the middle of Ming Dynasty. The dilapidated castle is used as a fortress to defend the northern part of Dandong County in the future - nine fortresses set up along the river.

(End of this chapter)