The world of the Tang Dynasty has long been divided, and now it is divided into eight countries with the title of king, and there are several Jiedu military towns that are actually in a state of semi-separation, and they are nominally subordinate to the Later Tang Dynasty, which claims to inherit Tang Zuo, but the imperial court cannot mobilize the army in their hands, nor can they profit from the taxes that should be paid from their jurisdiction.

Moreover, the Later Tang Dynasty, which ruled the north, was also divided into two courts, the north and the south, which were in a state of hostility.

The Khitan, the grassland kingdom that now dominates the northeast, is indeed the most powerful country in the land of China at present.

Fortunately, the Khitan people who have lived in the north for a long time are not very adaptable to the hot summer climate of the Central Plains, and they have not yet entered the Central Plains.

It's just that there is such a devouring tiger lying next to him, and such a huge threat makes Li Qi's life very uneasy, and his heart is always in a state of tension.

He was slightly relieved by the bumper summer grain harvest, and he didn't have to worry about famine for at least the next two years.

Although Lu Yan, the secretary of the Forbidden Army, was not yet thirty years old, he was highly appreciated and trusted by Li Qi.

The reason why Li Qi trusted him was because during the Song Dynasty, Lu Yan used his official position to keep one of the sons of Later Zhou Shizong Chai Rong alive, so that he would not end up dying in an "accident" like Chai Rong's other five sons, although Chai Zhaozhi eventually changed his surname with him.

This is always a person who has principles and bottom lines, and in this year, such a loyal person is really rare.

Therefore, after returning to Jinyang from the north, Li Qi promoted him to the position of Hedong transfer envoy.

This position is quite important, responsible for the material transportation and supply of the entire Hedong Army.

After the wheat harvested in the summer was put into storage, Lu Yan, as a transshipment envoy, personally escorted the grain to Luzhou.

Zhaoyi Jiedu made Xia Luqi have more than 15,000 Heyang troops under his command, plus more than 7,000 Zhaoyi troops stationed in Zelu and Zelu Prefectures, without the grain and grass from Taiyuan, he can't afford to support such people.

Charucci is a rough man and a well-known general on the battlefield, but he is not a fool. has fought with Zhuang Zong for a lifetime, and if he can survive until now, he has long been refined into a human essence. Lu Yan is now the Hedong transfer envoy and is responsible for the allocation of grain and grass, so after meeting, he was very kind and easy-going, giving Lu Yan enough face.

"This time I came to Luzhou, Your Majesty asked me to ask if the general could move to Hebei and serve as the envoy of Chengdejie." When he arrived at the Luzhou military office, Lu Yan asked.

Xia Luqi glanced at Lu Yan: "Why didn't the Son of Heaven ask me personally?" ”

Lu Yan said: "If Your Majesty speaks, why does the general refuse?" If a certain subordinate spreads the word from it, it is better to speak. His Majesty means that the important land in Zhenzhou must be guarded by a general, but although Lu Wenjin returns to Tang, he will be a general after all, and he must not let him have too many soldiers and horses for the time being. This Zezhou is dangerous, as long as thousands of soldiers and horses are needed to defend the pass, then the southern army will not be able to cross the Taihang Dynasty, and it is a bit of a waste for the general to guard Luze. ”

Xia Luqi thought for a while and said with a smile: "Thanks to the Son of Heaven, he can afford a certain family, so he naturally has to obey the dispatch of the imperial court, and he agrees to go to Zhenzhou." Is it for Lu Wenjin? ”

Lu Yan shook his head: "Your Majesty means that Lu Wenjin will be transferred to Yanmen Jiedu, and Zhou Guangfu will move to Zhaoyi." ”

After hearing this, Xia Luqi laughed and said: "The Son of Heaven is very calculating, in this way, Yanmen and Zhaoyi will directly belong to Your Majesty, is this preparing to raise troops in Hebei next year?" ”

Lu Yan said: "On the contrary, Your Majesty means that people don't offend me, I don't offend people, and Hebei needs stability for the time being, so that the general can go to the town to guard." At least the general is so famous that he can scare some people. ”

Xia Luqi said: "I can't scare that Shi Jingtang, that guy seems to be ordinary and has no guts, but in fact he is also an outlaw." ”

In mid-July, Charuqi led the Heyang army to move into the German army and defend Zhenzhou.

The military transfer of the Jinyang side made the Luoyang side nervous, thinking that the northern army was going to take the initiative to attack the Xingzhou Baoyi Army, and immediately ordered Huo Yanwei to transfer the defense of Xingzhou and strengthen the defense.

Li Qi's main work during this period was to recruit displaced people from Hedong, Hebei, and Guanzhong, and then resettle them in the area of Eilechuan and Hetao.

The grasslands in the north are so large that the more than 10,000 households assigned to each newly built military city are only about 2,000.

The main construction is still in the area of Eilechuan, Guihua City, Dongsheng City and Ganquanbao City in the upper reaches of the Dajin River, which was built in Zhuozi County in later generations, finally making this trade route opened up in the northern grassland very safe.

Life in the agricultural era was very slow, and Li Qi finally waited for the harvest of "big food sweet root vegetables".

The sugar beets grown in the two river basins are not the high-sugar beets of later generations, but the taste is slightly sweet, which is similar to the "water beet" used as feed in the previous life, and the estimated sugar content is just over 10%. Fortunately, the yield of this thing is okay, and the yield per mu is five or six thousand catties, so it can only be used to deal with sugar production.

It takes two years to grow sugar beets, and the first year's sugar-rich fat rhizomes are a guarantee of good seeds in the second year, and it takes a long time to breed and screen varieties with high sugar content, perhaps decades of experimentation.

In an era when only the south produces cane sugar, and there is an extreme lack of sugar intake, the slightly inferior taste of beet sugar is directly negligible, and it will not affect its price in the slightest.

In this era, sugar is still an expensive luxury, the price of each catty of white sugar is as high as 150 yuan, except for the tribute on the side of Lingnan Guangxi Road, there are few white sugar or even brown sugar on the market, and the common syrup in the northern market is a kind of syrup boiled with malt.

The ancient people's sugar production process is not backward, knowing that charcoal particles are used to decolorize in sugar water, and then boil out sugar, the only Tang Ming royal who began to grow sugar beets on a large scale The only process improvement is the use of a juicer driven by a water turbine. This process is not very difficult to improve, the machinery of squeezing beet is even rougher than that of an oil press, as long as the squeezed sugar juice is filtered through activated carbon, boiled in a pot until it is semi-dry, and then poured into a container to dry.

Many craftsmen have survived maltose, and the whole process is quite mature.

The time of the day is indeed very short, in the afternoon in the field to inspect the harvest of sugar beets, watch the farmer go over the table to check the yield per mu, and go to the sugar workshop to check again, before the first pot of syrup boiled out of the sky dark.

Li Qi instructed the steward He Xuan to send the first pot of syrup to the house in a jar after the first pot of syrup was boiled, and he was going to personally instruct the imperial chef to make several sweets.

With sugar, it seems that a milk workshop can make sweet cheese, as is the case with the hard stone yogurt, and condensed milk, which seems to require a dehydrated centrifuge.

What is the best way to make the wall of the barrel?

Again, that's a nuisance......