The three ministers of state Lu Xiufu, Ying Jieyan, Liu Huang and Deng Guangjian, the secretary of the household department, Chen Renweng, the secretary of the military department, Han Zhen, the deputy envoy of the Privy Council, Zhuang Shilin, and Zhou Xiang, the waiter of the Ministry of Works, gathered in the provincial hall of Shangshu to discuss matters. But the scene seemed to be a little tense, Lu Xiufu looked solemn, Deng Guangjian also had a straight face, only Zhou Xiang talked with Zhuang Shilin and Chen Renweng in a low voice with a relaxed expression, and let out chuckles from time to time.

"Linzhou!" With the expansion of the war, the Song army has reached 400,000 people, and the money consumed every day is huge, just grain and grass is a huge expense, and the treasury is about to be exhausted, and the financial crisis has also occurred. Chen Zeweng looked at the three people who were still laughing, and was rude to them on such a solemn occasion, especially his own brother, and felt embarrassed, frowning and coughing lightly twice to remind his younger brother.

"Oh!" Chen Renweng heard the reminder, turned his face to see that his brother's face was not good, and he also realized that it was inappropriate for him to talk and laugh in the hall, and the two brothers had a lot of age differences, and they had always treated their brothers like fathers. The other two peeked at each other, and hurriedly lowered their heads in contemplation.

"Ladies and gentlemen, it has been nearly half a year since Your Majesty personally conquered the Northern Expedition, the military expenditure has been huge, the imperial court expenditure has been nearly 30 million, and the national inventory surplus is less than 5 million. However, there are still several months left before the summer tax is collected, and what are the best strategies for your colleagues to tide over the difficulties? Lu Xiufu took a sip of tea to moisten his throat and put up the topic.

"Lu Xiang, the ordnance workshop of our Ministry of Industry is almost out of rice, but the ministries are still urging military funds, and the imperial court has accumulated tens of millions of arrears of various payments, and it is difficult to pay the salaries of craftsmen without allocating funds...... "At this time, the ordnance workshop is no longer the hundred and ten people when it started, and has expanded into a large-scale workshop with more than 40,000 craftsmen, and it is not limited to mining, smelting, manufacturing warships, muskets, artillery and ammunition and other ordnance, but also involving clothing, shoes and hats, saddles, horsewhips and other auxiliary equipment, There is even the manufacture of food for the military, and anyway, there is everything related to the military. The more projects involved, the more people will be employed, and the expenses will naturally be huge. As the general manager, Zhou Xiang collected debts.

"The imperial court has no money to pay at the moment, so you can raise it yourself first!" Lu Xiufu simply refused directly.

"In the land phase, we can temporarily arrears the wages of craftsmen, copper and iron have a turnover in the mine, and the equipment can also be temporarily improvised, but materials such as silk, fur, wood, charcoal, and sulfur need to be purchased. If the court doesn't allocate money, it can't let us rob it!" Zhou Xiang said with a bitter face.

"Zhou Shilang, I don't care how to raise it, but the military supplies ahead can't be supplied, and your majesty will settle accounts with you!" Ying Jieyan didn't listen to his complaints, stroked his beard and said with a smile.

"This ......" Zhou Xiang was choked and rolled his eyes, but he was unwilling, Ying Jieyan also knew that he couldn't afford to provoke him, so he turned to Deng Guang and said, "Deng Zhongcheng, it is a matter of course to kill people to repay debts and debts, and the court can't repay the debts, you have to administer justice to me!" ”

"Having said that, it is also a fact that the court has no money, and the court did not say that it would not pay, but it was just in arrears for some time, and when the treasury has a surplus, it will naturally be repaid!" Deng Guangjian pondered for a moment and said.

"How can Deng Zhongcheng talk like this, the money owed by the imperial court can be dragged out, but the armory workshop can't miss the military supplies, what is the reason?" Seeing that Deng Guangjian also began to cheat, Zhou Xiang was so angry that he shook his hands and said hurriedly.

"This ...... You can write to Your Majesty, and it is unreasonable to impeach me! Deng Guangjian groaned slightly, and then turned his face away.

"Both the government and the opposition say that Deng Zhongcheng is the most fair and honest, and he is unreasonable...... "Zhou Xiang was even more angry, the fat on his face trembled, and he was impeached for this matter, not to mention whether His Majesty would ignore him, I am afraid that I have to reprimand myself for not knowing the general situation, and I want to praise and disparage his two sentences to dissipate his anger, but I can't think of any appropriate words for a while, so I can only cry and mumble without tears.

"I have to be in love, I have to be in love!" Deng Guangjian wanted to ignore it, but he also knew that he was messing around and was not reasonable, so his old face was red and he was full of apologies.

"Zhou Shilang, you are already an important minister of the imperial court, and if you are not in charge of the Shuai Mansion at that time, the court will admit the arrears and try to return them as soon as possible, but you still need to understand the difficulties of the imperial court, don't be too careful." Liu Huang said loudly at this time.

"Lu Xiang, at present, Meng Yuan has dispatched 150,000 guards to Xuzhou, and transferred the soldiers of Wanhu Mansion in Shaanxi and Gansu to Xiangyang, and more than 300,000 troops of our army have gathered in Lianghuai and Xiangfan, Your Majesty has issued an order to send military rations to the front line as soon as possible, and the supply must not be cut off!" At this time, Chen Renweng said again.

"Chen Shangshu, how much more military rations do you need to meet military needs?" Lu Xiufu asked.

"If the war ends in two months, Xiangfan will need two million stones, and two Huai will need no less than five million stones!" Chen Renweng replied.

"It's not a lie, is it? According to the current dietary standard, one stone of food per soldier per month is sufficient. Even if there is a loss in wartime, you already need ten times as much, no wonder the armory workshop can't catch up with the supply of production day and night, it turns out that it is all a false report from the Ministry of War! Without waiting for Lu Xiufu to speak, Zhou Xiang was already shocked and said dissatisfied.

"What did you say? You are a person who makes swords and guns, how can you know the cost of an expedition! Chen Renweng twisted his face and refuted.

"Don't say more, what Chen Shangshu said is good, I'm afraid that we need more, we have to raise at least 10 million stones of food to meet military needs!" Lu Xiufu's face was also bad when he heard it, but he still confirmed that what he needed was true, and even more was needed.

Lu Xiufu served as a staff member in front of Li Tingzhi's account, in charge of military aircraft, and then entered the industry to fight thousands of miles, of course, he knew the importance of food, and he also understood that it was not just as simple as adding or subtracting from the head, although soldiers usually have to eat every day, but when it comes to the war, they have to say something else......

As the saying goes, before the soldiers and horses move, the grain and grass go first. In war, no matter how strong an army is, once the food supply is cut off, it will immediately turn from a tiger into a sheep. In history, there are countless examples of defeat and even annihilation of the whole army because of food shortages, such as the battle of Qin and Zhao Changping, the battle of Qin, the Northern Expedition of constant temperature, the battle of Song Liaoqigou Pass, and so on.

First of all, from the institutional level, many dynasties adopted the conscription system, that is, the soldiers were based on the peasants, and the main identity of the soldiers was yeoman farmers. They serve in the military for a certain period of time, and some even bring their own food and clothing, the advantage is that they are exempted from conscription, and outside the service period, they are ordinary people, and the daily rations naturally do not need to be worried about by the imperial court. The conscription system of the Han Dynasty and the government military system in the early Tang Dynasty were similar to this situation. If there is no combat mission and the army is stationed in one place for a long time, it needs to open up wasteland for farming and be self-sufficient, that is, the so-called military cantonment system. The system of Meng Yuan's guard was similar to this situation, but the Song army was indeed fighting exclusively at the moment, and did not reclaim the land, and the military rations depended on the supply of the imperial court.

It is not difficult to see that if you want to start a war, you must first predict how long the war will last, and then calculate the approximate total amount of grain and grass required according to the size of the dispatched army, and allocate it from the official warehouse. And this battle has been going on for several months, and no one can predict how long it will last.

Under normal circumstances, when stationed in the cantonment, you can raise food on the spot, and you don't need to dispatch thousands of miles, but it is often impossible to decide where to fight a war, so transportation has become a big problem. That is to say, grain is not a problem, but the territory is large, and it often cannot be transported to the battlefield in time, and even if it is delivered, the cost is too great, which also increases the pressure on the supply of grain and grass in the past. If you encounter rough terrain, you will have to consume hundreds of times more food on the road.

In addition to attrition on the road, an army contains a large number of non-combatants or combat auxiliaries, who tend to outnumber the number of combatants. When Shen Kuo was in charge of the military affairs of the Northwest, he once said, "Three people are paid and one pawn is extremely important, if there are 100,000 soldiers and one-third of the baggage, 70,000 soldiers can be stationed in the war, and 300,000 people have been used to transport grain, and it is difficult to do more." "Hantong Southwest Yi Road, tens of thousands of authors, thousands of miles of burdens to feed food, rate more than ten bells to one stone." Therefore, with the long distance, the corresponding people consumed several times the food of the regular army.

In order to save grain and grass, if conditions permit, the people who transported the grain will return in batches, but the front line will always maintain a considerable number of people, who will consume a lot of food every day, and over time, this will become a very terrifying number. In addition to the soldiers and people, there were also a large number of mules and horses in the army, including war horses that needed to be fed with concentrate, and pack horses, riding horses, donkeys and mules and other animal power fed by coarse materials.

Although horses can nibble on aquatic plants on the spot, they need to be specially prepared for feed. It can be fed hay, rice and wheat straw, beans and even millet. Generally speaking, ordinary animal power is fed with hay, and war horses are fed with a mixture of forage and grain to ensure physical strength during battle. There is no absolute standard for the ratio of forage to grain, and it also depends on the situation of grain reserves.

Therefore, tens of thousands of hundreds of thousands of soldiers eat horses and feed, the total amount of grain and grass required cannot be accurately controlled, and the combat time is even more unpredictable, so commanders must collect as much grain and grass as possible and organize transportation. Once there is a problem with the supply of grain and grass, there is no need to wait until all the grain is eaten, and when the stock of grain falls below a certain warning line, the whole army may panic, and it is difficult to continue the war here. At this time, unless the retreat route is cut off, the general commander will choose to withdraw his troops, leading to the defeat of the war......