Mengchi, the headquarters of the Third Military Region of the Han Kingdom.

In order to control the vast area in the northwest, the Han Kingdom set up a third military region here, with He Lanxiong as the commander, and later transferred Zhao Xilie as the deputy commander to manage and develop this vast but sparsely populated area. Although it is called a military region, in fact, what the Third Military Region does is more of a reclamation, land reclamation, and the local guards who have been reduced by the Great Han State, and most of them have moved to this area with their families.

Unlike the mainland, the guards who moved here still had the establishment of the army, and naturally they were paid, but their main job was no longer to fight, but to reclaim, and farms were set up here, with companies as units, and these local guards laid down their weapons, picked up hoes, and began the development of the frontier.

Not only these guards, but also the family members who arrived here with them, are now also included in the military register, and receive a salary, and at the same time, they are also given an errand in the farm, and both men and women can find a suitable job here.

With Mengchi as the center, the area under the actual jurisdiction of the Third Military Region has reached tens of thousands of square kilometers, but the total population of all is now only a mere 500,000 people, and this has to count those children who have not yet reached adulthood.

At present, it is the middle of winter, covered with heavy snow, and all farm work has stopped, but the Third Military Region did not spend the winter in the house because of the heavy snow, but took advantage of this rare agricultural slack season to start a large-scale construction of roads within the territory. The transportation network extending in all directions connects all places, bringing commercial goods and people, and some people have consumption, and there is money in the account, and everyone understands this truth.

Helanxiong is now vigorously building the main road from Mengchi to Jishi County, as long as the two places are connected, Mengchi will no longer be regarded as an isolated island, for more than a year. Helanxiong has put most of his energy on this road, and in the direction of Jishi County, the county guard Sun Xiao is also building from that end to the direction of Mengchong, and it is expected that by the middle of next year, this road will be able to be successfully closed.

In Mengchong, the headquarters of the Third Military Region is the tallest and most magnificent building, a five-story building built entirely of reinforced concrete, like a dusty monster lying on this endless plain. The entire yamen of the Third Military Region was put in. Around him, thatched adobe houses were built one after the other, centering the building, forming a small town.

The road has not yet been built. The building materials could not be brought in, and the transportation of reinforced concrete required to build this building alone cost He Lanxiong a lot of money, but He Lanxiong insisted on building such a building, not only for his own comfort. More importantly, he wanted to intimidate some of the indigenous people who used to live on the land.

Most of these indigenous inhabitants are unruly. In order to make them feel the strong national strength of the Han Dynasty, these façade work must be done.

And the fact is just as He Lanxiong expected, the construction of this building did shock and panic some indigenous peoples, who could not imagine how such a magnificent building could be built so high. After the panic, it was naturally admired, many local tribes expressed their submission to Helanxiong, and they were immediately rewarded by Helanxiong, allowing them to freely enter and exit the area controlled by the Third Military Region, and the huge market brought by the migration of hundreds of thousands of people also made these local natives who were the first to lose the city taste great sweetness, these newcomers, they need to buy everything, and they are worried about how their things can become yellow and clear gold, white flowers and silver.

In the Third Military Region, the currency issued by the Central Bank of the Han Dynasty is still only used internally, and those indigenous residents do not recognize these colorful papers, they can't imagine that they can buy what they need with such a piece of paper, so gold, silver and copper coins are still used here, for this, Helanxiong is not in a hurry, assimilation requires a process, and slowly, the indigenous residents here will naturally accept the new things brought by the Han Dynasty.

Of course, not everything went well, this land is too far away from Dahan, even the nearest Jishi County is hundreds of miles away from here, in this era, this is a long distance, the stationing of the third military region, naturally shook some of the original vested interests, and confrontation naturally came into being.

Most of the Third Military Region are local guards, and their combat effectiveness is not particularly strong, but as the local guards of the former Han Dynasty, compared with the average army, they still do not lose battles, not to mention, Helanxiong also brought three thousand iron cavalry soldiers subordinate to him. As a Hun who grew up in the blood and fire of that era, he took the simplest way for this situation, kill!

When a company of the Third Military Region was attacked by local forces, killed, and robbed, He Lanxiong personally went out and uprooted the largest local force with the momentum of thunder and sweep the holes, killing people to the point that the blood flowed like a river.

Farms with the company as the basic unit blossomed all over the land, burned and cultivated, and in a year's time, they finally stabilized.

This year's harvest was not good, not enough to satisfy the self-sufficiency of hundreds of thousands of people, but all the people who arrived here with Helanxiong were full of confidence, and it would always take a year or two to raise a piece of land, and they were already satisfied with the harvest of the first year's raw land.

Now on this vast area, is showing a rare state of peace, local forces bowed down, and the horse thieves who had been in this area to cross and cross, but suffered a catastrophe, one by one farms were built, directly compressed their living space, and the sweep of the Han army's iron cavalry, but also made them have no way to go to the sky, no way to enter the ground, and the result is either to be killed stubbornly in the corner, or to put down the knife and gun, and be an honest man.

It only took Helanxiong a year to let the Northwest Portugal crouch at his feet. By the time Zhao Xilie took office, this area was already under the absolute control of the Third Military Region.

Zhao Xilie did not come to office alone, and he went to the northwest together, as well as tens of thousands of former Zhao troops who were reorganized and dismissed, although the Western Zhao was poor, but because of the military confrontation with the Eastern Zhao, they still had nearly 200,000 troops, after the surrender of the Han State, these soldiers were carefully selected and only left more than 20,000 people to form an army led by Li Mingjun, and the rest were given two ways out, one was to retire, and the local generals allocated land to them, and all the treatment was compared with the original people of the Han State. The other way is to retain the military legacy, but you need to follow Zhao Xilie to the Third Military Region in the northwest.

These last tens of thousands of people chose to go to the Northwest Border Region with Zhao Xilie, although the future is uncertain, but they still have a military salary, at least they don't have to worry about food and clothing.

The arrival of Zhao Xilie has greatly enriched the people of the Third Military Region, and also allowed more farms to be built on this land, which is also a good destination for these eliminated Zhao troops, who were basically farmers before they joined the army, and now they are just doing their old jobs, laying down their weapons, and picking up hoes again. Although it feels a little weird to farm with military salaries, it is better than going to the battlefield to work hard.

Outside the building, the snow is fluttering, the temperature is extremely low, there is a joke that goes out to pee in the middle of the night, the urine has not yet landed, it has become an ice cube, and there is a jingle sound when it lands, which shows that the temperature here is low, but in the building, it is warm as spring. Iron pipes are all over the building, and at the end are connected to small square boxes, and at the end of the iron pipes is a bungalow behind the building, in which there is a huge steamer, but inside is boiling water, a large amount of steaming water vapor flows down these iron pipes, all the way to the building, bringing warmth to each room, and then flowing back into the pot along another pipe. On the open field outside the bungalow, there is a mountain of coal, and in the northwest, there are not many other things, but this thing is really everywhere.

The people outside the house were wrapped like bears, but the people inside the house were only wearing thin jackets.

Zhao Xilie held a cup of steaming tea, leaned in front of the window contentedly, looked at the snowflakes flying outside through the glass, and sighed to Helan Xiong behind him: "Brother He, I think when I came to the northwest, I made sufficient preparations, all kinds of things to deal with the hot winter, and prepared a large car. ”

He Lanxiong leaned over and stared at the map in front of him, and couldn't help laughing when he heard Zhao Xilie's sigh, "I didn't expect it, this steam heating technology can't be promoted in Dahan at present, it costs too much, and ordinary people really can't afford it, but in our place, it's really practical." Speaking of which, I have to thank Brother Zhao, I only heard this glass mentioned in the letter, you actually paid out of your own pocket and got these all the way over, so that we can enjoy the snow and scenery like this, and the vision is also bright and broad, climb high and look far, nothing more. ”

"This glass is indeed good, warmer than window paper, Commander, I suggest that next year we put glass on all the windows in this building."

"I want to, but this thing is inevitably too expensive, some of it is very delicate, this thousands of miles of transportation, if you don't get it, it's just a pile of debris."

"Next year, the road will be repaired, and it will be installed just in time for the winter. As for the price, I heard that this Mingbo company is the king's property, and the commander told Princess Helan that the price will come down? Zhao Xilie laughed slyly. (To be continued......)