At this time, Chu Wei, who was remembered by Kangxi, was also actively preparing for the war, and the third division of the main force and the three divisions of the garrison were placed on the Xinyang front, and they were scattered and stationed in the cement-poured fortress, mainly resisting the strong walls and clearing the wilderness.

In Ning Yu's previous plan, when he led the first and second divisions south, he could quickly take Hunan, but Wuchang had been operating for a long time, and there were more key points such as the Hanyang Gun Factory and Daye Iron Mine, so he must not give up. In particular, most of the current Fu Han army troops are local Chu people, so they must hold on to Wuchang in order to have a chance to achieve a turnaround.

In the defense of Wuchang, the only truly effective field force was the main force of the Third Division, while the rest of the garrison divisions were only enough for defense. After all, the garrison division had just been established, and its own training time was relatively short, so it was naturally difficult to compete with the Qing army in field battles.

In this case, Ning Yu moved out the big killer weapon of cement and grenades, and his idea was to use the fortress built of cement and grenade-based firepower to carry out all-round defense, that is, to use the method of "shaving the head of the later generations to "harden the village and fight a dumb battle" to make up for the shortcomings of the garrison division of the Fu Han Army at this time with too little experience.

Ning Yu used this method to gradually train several newly formed garrison divisions, and then use the third division of the main force as the key protective force to check and fill in the gaps, plus the fortress made of cement, you can turn the Xinyang area into a big quagmire, so that the Qing army can slowly grind around those fortresses.

This trick has already begun to be tried in Xunyang, with the strength of the Fourth Division and the Xunyang City Defense Regiment of no more than 10,000 people, blocking 30,000 Shaanxi soldiers on the front line of Yunyang, which can reflect the power of this tactic.

On the ninth day of the seventh month, Ning Zhongyuan wore armor and took his entourage of Ning Zhongjing, Ning Zuyi, Cheng Ming and others to inspect a group of fortresses at the front of Xinyang City.

If it is said that the original Fu Han army was very short of silver and materials, but since the capture of Hunan, the property of many officials and gentry who defected to the Manchu Qing Dynasty has been confiscated, and a large number of materials have been able to enrich the treasury of the Fu Han army, and the silver taels alone have reached two million taels, so it is enough to support the military needs during this period.

In terms of internal affairs, the political hall headed by Ning Zhongjing and Cui Wancai is also vigorously recovering the damage caused by the war, although it is said that this year's autumn tax cannot be collected, but it can be expected that as the Fu Han army overcomes the current difficulties, next year's tax can also effectively supplement the current dilemma.

In addition, the Huguang Chamber of Commerce, which was led by Ning Yu in the early days, is also operating healthily, and the Fu Han Army is also vigorously supporting industry and commerce in terms of policies, making the current Wuchang a well-known place of commerce and trade. As a result, commercial tax has also become the source of wealth for the Fu Han Army, but the current way of collecting commercial tax is, to a large extent, the Huguang Chamber of Commerce doing it on its behalf.

In their opinion, even if it is necessary to support the power of merchants, how can commercial taxes be controlled by the Chamber of Commerce? Besides, the Chamber of Commerce was originally a tool for the Ning family to unite several other families, and now it seems a little inappropriate to give this part of the business tax to the Huguang Chamber of Commerce.

In response to this problem, Ning Yu also knew in his heart, he in Hunan for this problem, wrote his meaning in a letter and passed it back to Wuchang, according to Ning Yu's idea, the current commercial tax is directly collected by the Fu Han Army, I am afraid that it will become a practice, if it is changed in the future, it will be realized, and now it is not black and white, but it is conducive to making big moves in the future.

At that time, how to do it also needs to be related to the environment at that time, and at present, in this way, there are many fewer disputes at the corners of the mouth, and the commercial tax can be collected as quickly as possible, although the amount is only 800,000 taels of silver, but for the current Fu Han army, it is better than nothing. The so-called competition for the hearts and minds of the people is not just ordinary people.

Because of this, the government hall also temporarily gave up the plan to directly collect commercial taxes, but fortunately, the original Huguang mainly relied on field taxes, which did not hurt. Cui Wancai was also quite helpless about this matter for his student, and he once joked with his subordinate officials: "If Hanyang Gong goes to be a businessman, I am afraid he can also achieve a net worth of hundreds of millions." ”

Without further ado, before the inspection, Ning Zhongyuan expressed doubts about whether the fortress was feasible, but when Cheng Ming directly pulled a cannon to bombard the fortress, only to find that only a small pit was smashed on it, the whole person was pleasantly surprised, and the best scene he expected appeared.

After inspecting all the forts, Ning Zhongyuan was a little excited, and with a little curiosity, he asked, "This cement is so magical?" Compared with ordinary bricks and mud, it is much stronger, and Ning Yu, this kid, has a lot of ideas in his head. ”

Ning Zhongjing is mainly responsible for the logistics of the entire Fu Han Army, and he is still relatively clear about this matter, he smiled: "I didn't know earlier, or Yu'er personally promoted this matter, and later found that this cement is really wonderful, after the water solidifies, it is as hard as iron and stone, and it is difficult to hurt the slightest bit by ordinary knives and axes, even if it is a thunder cannon of our army, it can only leave a small pit, which can be called a sharp weapon for city defense." ”

"If Wuchang City can be covered with such a layer of cement, I'm afraid it will be difficult for the Qing army to conquer, how much lime is there now?" Ning Zhongyuan touched his chin, already thinking about covering all the cities of the Fu Han army with cement.

Ning Zhongjing said with a wry smile: "Since our army found that this cement is quite effective, they began to increase production, but although this thing is good, it needs a large amount of quicklime to burn mature lime when it is made, and quicklime mining needs to go deep into the mountains, which is quite inconvenient." After Yu'er came back from Yunyang, he said that he had found a large number of these things in Yunyang, and my political affairs hall sent people to Yunyang and set up a cement mill in Yunyang to specialize in the production of this kind of cement. ”

"Because the population of Yunyang is not small, many people have joined the workshop, mining quicklime every day and then firing, now can burn thousands of catties every day, currently mainly for Yunyang and Xinyang. If there is more production later, it may be provided to others. ”

Speaking of this, Ning Zhongjing was a little helpless, "Although the lime is good, it is not easy to burn, it is already good to be able to produce thousands of catties every day, if you give it another period of time, you may be able to increase the output." ”

Ning Zhongyuan was slightly disappointed when he heard this, but after thinking about it, with this thing, the time spent holding each other in Xinyang could also be greatly increased, and it could also give the current Fu Han army more opportunities to grow.

It's just that because of thinking of Ning Yu at this moment, Ning Zhongyuan felt a little happy and a little suspicious in his heart, according to the news from the Zhengnan Governor's Mansion, the current Ning Yu should have been besieging Linjiang. And the 40,000 Qing troops led by Gao Qiwei are unlikely to meet in Linjiang and start a battle.

This battle may be more difficult to fight than the battle of Changsha.