As the saying goes, "The Huma in the north, the Fan in the West Liang; the Tuman in the South China Sea, and the Japanese in the East China Sea." This sentence describes the basic ecology of various ethnic vassals and naturalized races under the rule of the Tang Dynasty for hundreds of years.

In Yanzhou, on the later Southwest Shandong Plain, a temporary battle came to an end

With the sound of several shellings, the Hu horses flew away like flocks of birds that were scattered without looking back. Only dozens of flesh-and-blooded corpses of human and horses, as well as wounded people who were wriggling on the ground.

"The thief ran so frankly..."

"At first, I can still stack a bunch of people without any worries..."

"Now I can only check a few remaining ones to make up the numbers..."

"The one among them must be the old Hu Mazi who died in the previous few times..."

In the battle lineup of gunners, some people complained like this, while raising the bayonets to cut off the heads of these enemies one by one, regardless of their lives, and hung them behind the horse to make some kind of spoil.

According to the Military Merit Reward Regulations, you can at least change some cans, blankets and other items in your daily rations.

"Chen Sibo, please count it down..."

Chen Yuan, who was a little shocked, hurried forward and endured the choking smell of blood to identify and count these bloody battles one by one.

This is the day when he followed Brother Pengju, and under his new identity and camp, he first went on the battlefield. Then he was shocked by this combat mode without any surprise.

Although it was just a temporary battle group, there were only hundreds of gunners, more than a thousand soldiers and auxiliary soldiers, plus two groups of small cannons and grenadiers, they could rely on formations on the flat ground to drive out those Hu horses who had obvious numerical advantages.

These Hu horses were also very unsatisfied. After seeing their flags, they gathered together like frightened birds. With just a little contact and frustration, they fled far away. It was not like some kind of means to lure the enemy or suspicious soldiers.

These are the major troubles of the frontier year, and the vicious and rampant Hu Mazi, Chen Yuan couldn't help but fall into a state of deep institutional thinking.

And on the other end,

"The front is the key to Cheng County, where the former Lanling Town is located,"

The captain of the Fourth Battalion of the Auxiliary Army who was riding on the horse was a little polite to Brother Pengju.

As the generals of the main battle camp, they have a superior class advantage. The future and promotion of the auxiliary army brigade is the order of being selected into the main battle camp, so they naturally try to establish good relations with the generals and officers who fight in concert.

However, this person's situation seems to be a bit special.

"If there is no accident..."

"We will build a village here in the future..."

"Stay for a long rest..."

In response to this, Pengju could only smile bitterly in his heart and make a gesture of indifferent nodding and agreeing.

For his wild path of incorporating into the army halfway, the order of being able to be particularly favored by the military commander and directly dropping into the main battle camp is not only a kind of motivation and luck, but also a kind of pressure and spur.

Especially for him, who was broken up from his familiar old subordinates and faced a group of newly appointed generals and officers of the Fourth Regiment of the Second Battalion, who were quite unfamiliar but qualified as old subordinates, it was more like a test and tempering.

I don’t know how many people are watching his jokes, nor how the old members of Liangshan envied and yearned for his encounters. At least since Dengfeng started a military campaign to survive, he has not been the kind of person who would easily admit defeat to reality.

However, this time they specially sent troops to attack coal mines in Yanzhou, and also used some kind of force to investigate and survey.

Nowadays, under the direct military control of Qingzhou, there are tens of thousands of people, divided into major camps, and the population migrating from Liangshan one after another. Although the shelter and diet can be barely enough, the fuel for maintaining heating throughout the winter is somewhat ineffective.

If you rely solely on mobilizing manpower, cutting down trees in the wild and demolishing buildings in the city to maintain it, you will be exhausted.

Therefore, the long-term plan that has been prepared for the future is to start thinking about the carbonite produced since ancient times. Although the smoke from direct coal burning is very large, compared with the so-called probability of various chronic respiratory diseases, it is better than the consequences of being frozen to death and frostbite.

The most intuitive influence on me is undoubtedly the description from the old black and white movie "Railway Guerrillas", which is a large number of industrial clusters that are related to coal mines and flourish along the railway.

At least according to my vague memory, the Shandong Peninsula is at least one of the national civilized coal-producing areas in later generations.

Located in the Yanzhou coalfield belt, it was one of the eight largest coal bases in the country in later generations. Moreover, the coal quality is low in phosphorus, low sulfur, low ash, high calorific value, high gas coal and coking coal mixing can also be used as the thermal coal for boilers.

Therefore, the origin of local carbonite mining can even be traced back to Qi during the Seven Heroes of the Warring States Period. Even Handan, Zhao, where the casting iron industry is very developed, needs to be imported from here.

In addition, in Rencheng, northwest of Yanzhou, near Jining City, later generations, there is also a large iron ore group. Although it is not a direct open-pit mine, it is a medium and shallow mine that requires digging holes to be dug.

Fortunately, in this era, there are already relatively primitive deep tunnel mining and wooden frame support technologies, coupled with relatively low human labor.

Therefore, since the Wude period of the Tang Dynasty, special salt and iron officials and coin supervisors were set up in Yanzhou to manage the thirteenth iron smelting, eighteen copper smelting, four copper pits, and tin refining associated with copper ore; therefore, sufficient amount of copper coins can be provided to the court regularly.

Although it is a chaotic time now, as a major source of income for Qingxu Town, a local vassal state, the scale and output of various mineral governance have only increased compared to the previous dynasty. It is just that most of them have been abandoned due to the great disasters and famines in recent years, as well as the continuous wars.

Now this task force with the main component of the North comes to control and master several small and medium-sized mines located in Chengxian and Teng County on the east bank of Weishan Lake.

Compared with those villages, towns and towns that were burned and plundered by Humazi, the relatively remote coal mining sites located at the junction of Yizhou are kept relatively intact, with only a few aging scenes that have been disrepaired for a long time.

Obviously, they have no interest in these mineral ores that cannot be eaten and are worthless, so

After their outpost camps were established and successfully gained a foothold in the harassment of Humaer, the excavation team composed of prisoners and civilians of the brigade would immediately follow up and arrive here in order to restore basic production and transport resources in the shortest time.

In Henan, Yang Keshi was still regaining lost land and occupying the cities one by one.

They passed through Xuzhou, Ruzhou, and Yuzhou, and almost entered a land of no one. In fact, this military horse was walking alone in the land of no one.

Therefore, their occupation was just to re-plant the Northern Dynasties flags on empty cities and gates, and then collect them from the hiding remnants of the people, and give the weapons rights for daily maintenance.

And in the wilderness of the road,

The only wandering Hu Ma'er poses no threat to them at all. Often after seeing such a large group of people, they run far away.

They still symbolically took over one city after another that was ravaged and destroyed. Due to the suffering of winter, most active Humazi and the established army of princes from the Frontier spontaneously rushed to the relatively empty and warmer and rich areas south of the Huai River.

Unfortunately, the Luodu Court, who had just recovered, was eager to say that Sisai Pass wanted, and he had no intention of taking care of anything else.

Therefore, Yang Keshi went south and walked to the bank of Huai River. Only after the unknown armed forces entrenched on the bridge, the brigade turned west under the gaze of his head and his head.

When these enemies entrenched on the bridgehead were finally relieved, but they did not expect that they would suddenly change that night. These northern troops suddenly returned in the darkness, attacked and attacked the camps stationed at the bridgehead, setting fires and slashed everywhere.

Suddenly, the enemy troops who were chaotic and bombed the camps were driven to the fragile ice surface of the Huai River in panic, and then they sank into the cold river in despair amid the crisp cracking sounds one after another.

What illuminates these figures struggling on the broken ice surface and the river water are the bright fires when the Huai River pontoon bridge was set on fire.

The supporters on the other side quickly came to the bridge and rushed to kill the generals, but they were already one step late. These reinforcements, holding torches, gathered into long dragons, had to jump off the frozen ice surface while the broken floating bridge was shaking violently.

Then, with the violently shaking torches, they suddenly extinguished and sank into the dark surging of the Huai River.
Chapter completed!