A stream that leads from the mountains to the bottom of the valley is deliberately diverted outside the camp, and a ditch loops around the camp for half a circle, and then trickles down into a ravine in the valley. This design is designed to prevent fires and to facilitate soldiers to bathe.

Just like at this moment, beside the ditch that surrounded the whole camp, there were soldiers with red strips, scooping up a bucket from the ditch, pouring it from head to toe, and rubbing it against each other.

This kind of natural stain removal in the shape of a long strip of trees has been a favorite of ordinary people for a long period of time.

After bathing, the naked soldiers threw off their long legs, ran back to the house, put on their clothes, and went straight to the room. It's not that they love cleanliness, but in the drill code, there are relevant regulations on personal hygiene, if you don't finish it, you can't eat, and on the way to the house, there are officers on duty, but anyone who doesn't complete it as required will be driven back. By the time you've cleaned yourself up and gone to your room, you'll basically have just a little leftovers left.

Anyway, there were only men in the barracks, and these big-headed soldiers did not have any sense of shyness, and some even deliberately spread their legs and deliberately showed some parts of themselves in front of others, while others either blocked them with buckets or covered them with water scoops, and hurried away.

Of course, they are not out of shyness.

It's a little inferior.

A man's happiness sometimes seems very simple, and such an ordinary thing is enough to make them laugh about it for a long time.

Although Xiang Zhenzhu is similar to everyone else, and the food is the same, it is still very different from ordinary soldiers in some inconspicuous ways.

Just like a good bath, the soldiers used soap horns from the woods, and he used what was called soap from the north.

In this way, the price of a child's palm-sized soap is only 200 yuan. There is also a kind of soap called soap, which is cheaper, only 100 Wen, generally speaking, soap is used by people for bathing, and soap is used to wash bathing clothes.

It's very cheap, and if you have a little wealth in the family, you can afford it.

But the South can't make it.

Don't underestimate these small things, when his sales volume is large to a certain extent, the profit earned is quite considerable.

Many of the things that are used every day like this are made in the North.

Before Li Ke fled to Guangzhou, the trade routes between the two sides were extremely smooth, and a large number of northern products poured into the south, relying on their cheaper prices and better performance, they easily crushed many southern industries. Things like soap and soap that can't be made in the South are better, but other things are going to die.

Just like rouge gouache, the cheaper ones in the north are of better quality.

In the sugar industry, the price of snowflake sugar in the north is the same as the price of granulated sugar in the south.

As a monopoly salt industry, the salt produced in the north, the quality of which is compared with that of the south, is simply a heaven and an underground, which once made the salt industry in the south almost collapse, and finally the government took action to directly restrict the salt from the north from pouring into the south, which can be regarded as stopping the bleeding, but the salt from the north still poured into the south through private channels. Competing with the government for this piece of profit, even if he was caught, he would be killed, and he did not curb this wave of smuggling.

The profits here are too great. So many people are willing to take risks for it.

And here, there is no lack of intervention from the Northern Tang government. A large number of these smuggled goods came from the sea. However, the sea is the world of the Northern Tang Naval Division, and the ships of the Southern Alliance do not care about going too far to the sea at all, once these smuggling ships are escorted by the Northern Tang Naval Division, then they can easily dock somewhere, and then quietly pour into the underground market in the south.

While making a lot of profits, these smugglers evaded the taxes of the imperial court, and what they did not expect was that in such a commodity transaction, the silver money of the Southern Alliance was flowing to the north.

Xiang Zhen had talked to the officials of the household department about this matter, and he also made an official break with his father, saying that if this went on for a long time, the Southern Union would not only fall into a serious shortage of money, but what was even more terrible was that many industries in the south would be destroyed, and those engaged in these industries would lose their jobs, lose their income, and create a large number of displaced people, and because of these, more social problems would inevitably arise.

After the armistice, the North reopened commercial transactions between the two sides and vigorously supported smuggling, not because of their good intentions, but because they plundered the wealth of the South at the same time, and destroyed more social problems in the South.

But since he handed it over, it has sunk like a stone in the sea, and he has not received the slightest response.

This made Xiang Zhen feel very desperate, he knew very well that if this continued, the people in the south would only get poorer and poorer, and the government in Guangzhou would only get poorer and poorer. How will the government survive when the people who pay your taxes can no longer afford to pay you?

The government had no money, and it was unable to pay the salaries of its officials, to pay the salaries of its soldiers, and to provide for the relief of the bereavement and relief in the event of a natural disaster.

He found a lot of people, but there were few people who supported him.

And what made him even more desperate was that through some private intelligence, he found that these smugglers were the high-ranking officials and dignitaries of the Guangzhou Imperial Court, and the most powerful of them was actually his younger brother Xiang Jun.

And on top of this, Zhu Youzhen, the king of Liang who is entrenched in Yizhou, has a much clearer mind, he directly cut off business contacts with the Northern Tang Dynasty, and now Yizhou is basically walking the road of self-sufficiency. Although life is hard, this ensures their own interests.

Zhu Youzhen's mind is very clear.

And Sheng Zhonghuai, who is in charge of government affairs, has a clearer mind.

Militarily, the Liang army is now heavily stationed in Hanzhong, with Xiangyang in their hands, once something goes wrong, even if they abandon these two places, they will completely retract back to Yizhou, and they can still rely on natural dangers to contend with natural dangers.

In terms of economy, Yizhou is known as the country of abundance, and if you burn 300 miles of plank roads, Shuzhong will naturally become a family, which is not just a casual talk.

Xiang Zhen is in pain now, because he knows Beitang too well, but the more he understands Beitang, the more desperate he feels. In his opinion, now, including his father, he can't really know and understand what happened in the Northern Tang Dynasty, and although he knows, he can't change all this.

The Federal Republic of the South is a federation, and there is something that needs to be discussed. All of this is a mutual compromise after various competing interests, and it is almost impossible to formulate a real strategy for strengthening the country and raising the army.

Every force has its own interests, and in such negotiations, they all try their best to take advantage of more advantages and suffer less losses; in such a general environment, no matter how good the strategy is, after rounds of negotiations and revisions, by the time it is finally taken out, it has already changed beyond recognition, and some have even gone far from the original purpose.

After the cleaning, the soldiers had already brought food from the room. The reason why Xiang Zhen is respected by the soldiers here is because he has indeed been like a soldier in these aspects. Living in the same house and eating the same meals are all visible. And those things that are really different from them, they can't see.

The food was good, although it was brown rice, it was clean, and it was topped with a layer of minced meat, accompanied by a large spoonful of greens, a few slices of pickles, and another bowl with a bowl of fish soup. The soup is thick and white, and it is obvious that there is a lot of dry food when boiling the soup, and the boiling time is long enough. The soup is topped with a few slices of wild onions, which are steamed by the heat, and a mouth-watering umami flavor makes people salivate.

Just picked up the bowl and drank a few sips, there was a sudden sound of horses' hooves outside, Xiang Zhen walked out of the room with the soup bowl, and saw a team of about 100 cavalry coming from the school field, the first one, turned over and dismounted, and was striding in the direction where he was.

It was his cavalry commander, Wang You.

The king's cavalry camp was outside the mountain. It happened to be blocked above the exit of the Lotus Mountain camp, firstly because the cavalry training needed a flat place, and secondly, it was also the meaning of guarding the gate for the Lotus Mountain camp.

Fighting against the Northern Tang Dynasty, it is impossible to do without a strong cavalry, because there are many cavalry in the Northern Tang Dynasty. Therefore, the 3,000 cavalry commanded by Wang Youyou were almost all veterans they had collected before, and these people had experienced the war, and they were much more mature than these recruits in the Lotus Mountain Battalion.

The three thousand cavalry spent a small half of the money raised by Xiang Zhen in the early stage, but fortunately, more than 1,000 Qingtang horses were provided by his father Xiang Xun to show his support for him, and the rest was up to him to figure out his own way. There has always been a shortage of horses in the south, but Xiang Zhen tried his best to gather 5,000 horses for his 3,000 cavalry, including Qingtang horses, Yunnan horses, and some local horses. Although the good and the bad are mixed, they can still go to the battlefield to fight in the end.

Every ten days or so, the king would make a special trip into the mountains, firstly to report to Xiang Zhen on the training of the cavalry, and secondly, to bring some information from the outside to Xiang Zhen.

In order to train soldiers, Xiang Zhen almost closed himself off from the outside world. The sources were all brought in by the king.

"General!" Seeing Xiang Zhen standing at the door with a bowl and carrying a wrapper, the king bowed down again and said with a smile: "I entered the mountain early in the morning, and I haven't eaten yet, can the general enjoy a meal?" ”

Xiang Zhen laughed, waved his hand and asked his own soldiers to prepare food for the king, and by the way, he also arranged for the more than 100 cavalrymen who came up, but he welcomed the king into the house again.

"General, the Datang Weekly sent over this period of time!" Wang put the furoshiki on the table again, unceremoniously dragged the food that Xiang Zhen put on the table in front of him, and started directly.