After a few right-hand men, Qin Chuan rarely participated in civil affairs and farming, and only looked at relevant documents from time to time to inquire about the relevant situation.

He's starting to get busy preparing for next year's plans.

Now that it has entered winter, if the imperial court wants to send troops to attack him, it will only be next spring.

If history still advances according to the original trajectory, in May and June next year, Huang Taiji will lead a large army to break through the border wall of Xuanda, and burn and loot all the way to the central part of Shanxi and the northwest of Hebei.

Judging from the last time Huang Taiji sent Ao Bai to lead two hundred Jiannu to infiltrate Lou Fu and want to attack and kill Qinchuan, Huang Taiji will definitely take the opportunity to attack Jingle Lan County and sweep Qinchuan's territory.

Moreover, the Houjin in history did break through the Ningwu Pass when entering the customs this time and plundered the Jingle area.

Next year, Qin Chuan is likely to face both the imperial army and the vicious Jiannu.

He wants to expand his army.

Moreover, it is necessary to expand the army explosively, directly recruit 5,000 new troops, and make the strength of the Guandi army reach 10,000.

From now on, there should be a complete separation of the military and the government, and the Guan Emperor's army will not participate in any civil affairs and agricultural affairs, but will only be dispatched to various places to maintain law and order when the agriculture is busy.

Except for the two days off every month, all the other days had to train the imperial army.

Train and train.

Moreover, Qin Chuan should continue to improve the food of the Guan Emperor Army, regardless of the new soldiers and veterans, all of them will be half thin and two dry every day, the so-called half thin, that is, to provide a bowl of porridge and a steamed bun or flatbread in the morning, but also to ensure that everyone can eat meat for lunch every day.

In short, his soldiers should be strong and well-trained.

In addition, it is necessary to recruit 5,000 reserve soldiers, whose treatment is slightly worse than that of the Guan Emperor's army, and they have to participate in agricultural work when they are busy and train when they are not working.

When necessary, these reservists will be directly incorporated into the Guan Imperial Army.

The reason why he did not recruit more soldiers was because of the food problem, and now there were 70,000 people in his territory, and every seven people had a Guan Di army, half a reserve soldier, and then the workers of various factories, the old, weak, sick and disabled, and there were only about three laborers involved in farming.

In other words, one farmer has to plant a field that feeds at least two people, which is about six or seven acres.

10,000 Guan Imperial troops and 5,000 reserves are already the limit.

If another 5,000 soldiers are recruited, I am afraid that there will be insufficient agricultural labor.

This amount of troops may be able to defend against the Ming army, but it is difficult to defend against Jiannu.

Therefore, Qin Chuan should use his advantages to build a steel city wall on a suitable location.

The first location is Ninghua Thousand Households.

The small military fort needed to be rebuilt, and on the basis of the original city wall, the city wall was thickened and heightened with reinforced concrete, and the enemy platform was added, and the gate was rebuilt.

If the Ningwu Pass is lost, there is also a military fort stuck on the road to the south of Jiannu.

There is also the Zhaishanggou on Luya Mountain north of Lancheng, where a small military fort should also be built, because the terrain there is steep, and the military fort does not need to be too big, and it can garrison up to 1,000 people.

In addition, there is the Luyukou in the east, the Mafang Village leading to Fangshan Fort in the west, the big snake head ditch leading to Xingxian County in the northwest, and the intersection of the East and West Huluchuan in the south.

Among them, the big snake head ditch is on the Luya Mountain, which is more steep than the Zhaishang ditch in the north of Lancheng, so only two piers are built, and one left and one right are stuck on the slopes on both sides of the ravine.

The terrain at the intersection of the East and West Hulu River is also very treacherous, and only two piers can be built.

However, Luyukou in the east and Mafang Village in the west had to build a military fort, one to defend against the Ming army from the direction of Taiyuan, and the other to defend against the enemy from Yongning Prefecture and Shaanxi.

Now the weather is too cold to be suitable for pouring cement, so Qin Chuan first asked people to dig the foundation at those sites, and slowly transported the required materials over, and then started work when the weather warmed up a little in the spring of next year.

In the meantime, more manpower will be invested, and within a month, all four military forts and piers will be built.

As long as we rely on the military fort and firmly curb these traffic arteries, the hinterland of Luliang Mountain can sit back and relax.

Therefore, Qin Chuan set up a new department in the Department of Industry, called the Infrastructure Construction Section, which is in charge of construction projects, and there are four institutes under it, which are in charge of civil engineering, railways, roads, and construction.

Among them, the Civil Engineering Institute is in charge of two engineering teams, which are responsible for building military forts and houses.

The railway is responsible for planning and laying the tracks, and Qinchuan plans to have railroad tracks between the three places in Lou Fu Jing and Lelan County within two years.

The road is responsible for the construction of the road, and Qinchuan also plans to pave the main road between the three places with cement within two years.

Construction is the production of steel bar factories, brick factories, cement factories and sand and gravel plants.

Water conservancy projects are still under the management of the Ministry of Households, and the main labor force for water conservancy repair is still ordinary people, but in some reservoirs with large capacity, if the embankment needs to be covered with concrete, the civil engineering office must send an engineering team to assist.

Water conservancy is a people's livelihood project, even if the investment is large, Qinchuan will not be stingy.

After arranging the expansion of the army and the construction of infrastructure, Qin Chuan began to formulate plans for next year.

There are not many people in the hinterland of Luliang Mountain, and it is time for his territory to expand.

He planned to wait until next year to defeat the imperial army, or when he sent troops to resist Jiannu, and then take the opportunity to capture Xingxian, Qilanzhou, and even the area around Hequ and Yatouguan.

This site is surrounded by the Yellow River to the west, the Inner Great Wall to the east, and the Outer Plug to the north.

After occupying this place, he could rely on the Yellow River and the Inner Great Wall to resist the Ming army, and then find a way to negotiate peace with Zhu Youzhen.

In a short period of time, he didn't want to capture other places, because it was difficult to defend, and the troops under his command were too small, and if he spread the plate out at once, it would be easy to collapse.

The emaciated camel was bigger than the horse, and he couldn't go out to confront the Ming Court head-on, so he could only rely on the dangerous terrain to defend.

If Zhu Youzhen reconciles with him, he will point to the north, expand outward from the Yatou Pass, and use the impregnable military fortress to snatch the Hetao area from Jiannu.

In addition to the military forts, the expansion of the territory was also indispensable to the development of firearms.

Artillery and muskets were to be manufactured in large quantities.

……

On the seventh day of the first month of November, when Qin Chuan, as usual, wanted to go to the gun factory to specialize in rifled guns with Li Xuejing, Luo Wentian specially ran over and told him one thing: The group of merchants who came a few days ago were a little strange, and the iron materials and iron pots had been transported to the town, and they had been looking for all kinds of excuses to postpone the transaction, and they also said that they wanted to see Qin Chuan and had a big deal to talk to him.

Qin Chuan couldn't help frowning.

These guys weren't here to buy iron.

Aside from iron and pots, and robbery, he didn't have much to do.

Outsiders asked him to cooperate in the robbery...... This is highly unlikely.

Qin Chuan quickly thought that Zhu Youzhen wanted his life......

So, Qin Chuan asked Luo Wentian to tell the group that he would meet them in person tomorrow.

Qin Chuan found Luo Da Niu again and asked him to pick out 800 elite Guan Emperor troops, including 200 flintlock guns, sneak into a few courtyards around the group of people in the middle of the night today, and see the opportunity to act early tomorrow morning.

Luo Daniu went to make arrangements, and Qin Chuan continued to go to the gun factory.

Li Xuejing has scrapped more than a dozen threaded shafts, because the threads are not uniform enough, and the rifling drawn out is uneven, so they cannot be used at all.

In the era when there was no precision manufacturing, the threaded shaft was made by experience and feeling, and no matter how good the craftsman was, it was easy to make mistakes.

Qin Chuan is also a little powerless, this thing is really not easy to make.

But when Qin Chuan went to inspect other sheds and saw that the craftsman was opening the screw mouth of the barrel, he suddenly had a flash of inspiration: he carved out the thread of the thread shaft by opening the screw.

When Li Xuejing heard his description, he suddenly realized as if he had opened his mind.

The screw opener has only two or three threads, and when it is rotated into the barrel, the screw opener advances smoothly and evenly, and the thread turned out is very precise.

Immediately, Li Xuejing immediately got busy and began to build a screw opener, ready to use it to open the screw mouth of the barrel, and prepared to use this method to draw the rifling to see if it would work.