Spring came very early in the third year of the Republic, and it was not yet February, and the winter snow in the woods on both sides of the Hutuo River valley had almost melted, and only some mottled white remained on the high mountains in the distance. The warm breeze blows from the south, and the tender green wheat seedlings that have just poked out of the ground can be seen in the fields, and the surface of the fields is covered with a layer of hazy spring, spreading out into the distance.

"This year's moisture is okay, and it will take a while to open a ditch for irrigation."

Li Gui squatted on the ground, grabbed a handful of dirt and examined it for a while, before he said to Li Qi, An Jinquan, Zhang Xian, Cao Xin and others who had gone out of the city to inspect the farmland together. With the construction of water conservancy facilities in northern Shanxi and northern Shanxi, the ability of agriculture to resist natural disasters is also getting stronger and stronger, and as long as it is not a particularly serious flood or a year of severe drought, the yield of these irrigated farmland will not be too bad.

In the past three years, Li Qi has established dozens of large and small military cantonment points in the Fen River, Hutuo River, Sanggan River and Yanghe River basins, and at the same time built more than a dozen medium-sized reservoirs and dozens of small storage reservoirs along the river, which are enough to support the irrigation needs of hundreds of thousands of hectares of fertile land in Taiyuan, Xindai, Yunzhou and Shanbei areas.

At present, the total number of registered military households in the Xindai, Yunzhou, and Shanbei regions is 78,971, of which nearly half are surrendered troops from the Khitan and Southern armies, and the rest are displaced people recruited from Lulong, Hedong, Hebei, and Guanzhong. Originally, the total number of Turkic, Tuyuhun, Hui, Tatar, Zhubu and Qiang households of the indigenous people in the Xin Dynasty and Shanbei was only about 20,000, but now, these places, even including the Han people in Yunzhou, have accounted for the vast majority, and the situation has gradually stabilized.

Extensive planting and thin harvesting have always been the agricultural cultivation method adopted by immigrants from the Central Plains after they arrived in the grasslands, but now, Li Jiqi has strictly stipulated that if water conservancy facilities are not built, the newly reclaimed farmland will not be effectively irrigated, and the grassland wasteland will never be allowed to be reclaimed. In these places, a mixed farming and pastoral development model has been adopted, and even half of the paddy fields that have been reclaimed are used for pasture.

The combination of agriculture and animal husbandry is Li Qi's unique development method of cultivating land in the grassland.

Although these garrisons were registered, because the construction of reservoirs and dams, the construction of workshops and reclamation were all paid by Li Jiqi out of his own pocket, so the farmland reclaimed was counted in the name of the royal family. It stands to reason that these military households should be regarded as royal households, but because Li Qi ordered the imperial village to sign a deed with the villagers, these households were classified as military households when they were registered.

This kind of thing, if it is put on someone else, will definitely arouse the emperor's vigilance and disgust, and a crime of raising a private army will not be able to escape. It's just that this world originally belonged to the Li family, and the army was logically the royal private army, and the emperor used the palace money to raise the army at his own expense, which just made people feel strange.

The vast majority of these garrisons have military status, and the young and strong people of each tuntian fort cultivate the fields during the agricultural time, but they have to organize themselves for military training in their leisure time. In terms of training, the management of these military households is also much stricter. However, there are also advantages, that is, each military household can be allocated three hectares of good paddy fields, and the field rent is only 20% of the harvest, and there is also a food allowance for training.

Because the Khitan people have no time to look south for the time being, the border between Shanbei and the Khitan is relatively calm. Some small tribes on the grassland, unable to endure the exploitation of the Khitans, crossed the Horsehair Mountain into Shanbei and Yunzhou, and Li Qi took them all in and resettled.

During this winter, Li Qi has been instilling in the generals the concept that the Khitan State is the strongest enemy, and from time to time emphasizing the danger of the Khitans after dominating the grassland, so that these guys finally accepted their idea of building a city on the grassland and building a grassland defense line to prevent the Khitan from expanding westward.

Walking in the fields, Zhang Xian turned his head and asked Li Qi after glancing at the flat and green fields in the distance: "Your Majesty means that the Khitans will go all out westward in the past few years?" ”

Walking beside him, Li Qi said: "This is natural, everyone is not unclear about the style of the jungle on the grassland, although the Khitan people are greedy for the Central Plains, but after suffering a few losses, they will temporarily give up going south, after pacifying the Bohai Kingdom, then their goal must only be the west and the north." We can't manage that far from the north now, but the Elechuan and Hetao areas must not fall into the hands of the Khitans, otherwise there will be endless troubles! ”

"Damn, when I have the opportunity in the future, I will definitely avenge the revenge of the day!" An Jinquan scolded very depressedly, the biggest defeat in his life was losing in the hands of the Khitans, so that the old guy has always been haunted. It's a pity that the current Jinyang Army doesn't have the strength to let him take revenge.

Li Qi glanced at An Jinquan and said: "Now the Khitan is strong and strong, and whoever goes now will give it for nothing, this is really not to underestimate you." If you always want to learn from Li Yaoshi in the former Zhenguan year, and pacify the Khitan in a war, I estimate that at least 300,000 soldiers and horses need to be dispatched. Hehe, now the Northern Army and the Southern Army, if you add up all the soldiers in the hands of Jiedu in various places, there is only this number. At this time, all we can do is to lie down and taste the courage, and it would be good to be able to hold Fengzhou and Eilechuan without losing. ”

In this spring, Li Qi demanded that the Yunzhou Army and the Shanbei Standing Army be expanded from the original 10,000 personnel to 15,000 troops; although these garrisons still needed to work during spring ploughing, he asked all units to return to the barracks as soon as they completed spring sowing, pay close attention to training, and make all-out preparations for war.

"What is Your Majesty doing at this time to expand the army? There are many places where labor is needed. Zhang Xian reminded Li Qi.

"I'm a little worried that the party will take the opportunity to occupy Shuofang, and we must be ahead of them." Li Qi replied that the Ningxia Plain in later generations was one of the back roads he had prepared, and restricting the development of the Dangxiang tribe was also one of his established strategies. "I'm going to lead five thousand cavalry troops to patrol the northern grasslands, and maybe go to Lingzhou."

"Your Majesty is preparing an expedition to Shuofang?! How to guarantee logistics? An Jinquan was taken aback, in the eyes of the people of this era, a distance of seven or eight hundred kilometers is definitely an expedition, and the logistics of maintaining a large army along the way is a great problem.

"This old man is still rest assured, I have already repaired the city to Wuyuan, and it is only less than five hundred miles away from Lingzhou. If it weren't for this, I wouldn't have taken the risk easily! Li Qi replied with a smile, dispelling the old general's doubts.

If strictly calculated, the newly recruited garrisons in Shanbei, Xin Dynasty and Yunzhou should all be counted as Li Qi's private soldiers, which is the so-called trilogy. Because it was his funds, the fertile land and mines reclaimed by these Tuntian troops, including the construction of reservoirs, dams and workshops, were all the private property of his son of heaven.

It's just that Li Qi managed these Tuntian military households in accordance with the military system of the Sui and Tang dynasties.

The harvest of land rent and livestock Li Jiqi only collected forty percent of the tax, which was indeed very merciful in this era.

Li Qi sometimes felt that his actions were evil, and he was sorry for the more than 30 years of education he had received under the red flag in his previous life. However, he, an evil landowner, was grateful to him by the vast majority of Tuntian military households, and was even willing to live and die with him, the "emperor and head of the family", in order to defend his current life.

Moreover, every time Li Qi went to war, he would first consider the production situation of these tuntian points, and select the young and strong according to the situation, and the principle was not to affect the normal production of the tuntian areas.

"The Son of Heaven is hunting in the north this time, and the old minister has no other ability, and he can still help take care of the family business. Here's wishing Your Majesty success and triumphant! The veterans An Jinquan and Zhou Guangfu solemnly assured Li Qi.

"Everything in Shanbei and Yunzhou can run as usual, the only thing to be careful about is the Khitan side, if the Khitan army comes to attack, it must be defense-oriented. In addition, you can ask Jinyang and Yanmen for help. Li Qi said with a smile, "I went to Hetao just to open up a trade route with the Western Regions and raise more military funds for the Jin army." If it's very difficult and can't do anything, I won't force it. ”

"Hehe, that's good, the old minister was still a little worried that His Majesty was young and vigorous and couldn't suppress his ambitions, so the old minister hoped to see the day when the prince could recover Hexi!" An Jinquan arched his hand and said.

He had been standing outside the city, watching Li Qi lead the team away.