At this time, in Kaiyang Mansion in Jiangxi, the Northwest Army was taking over the entire prefecture city.

With the experience of occupying the northeastern provinces in the past, the officials have become familiar with this matter in an orderly manner.

In this siege, the musket array once again showed its might and made the greatest contribution.

In particular, muskets can easily penetrate shields and armor, and their damage is much stronger than that of arrows.

Through continuous volley attacks, the Wei army, which was at the head of the city, let alone defending, could hardly even stand, and suffered heavy casualties.

In this battle, the Northwest Army suffered less than 300 casualties, while the Wei Army suffered nearly 4,000 casualties, and the casualty ratio of both sides exceeded 1 to 10, which can be said to be a one-sided massacre.

Today's Shenji Battalion has become a special branch of the Northwest Army that everyone envies.

Anyone wants to see for themselves how this incredibly lethal musket "breathes fire" to kill and injure enemies.

Soldiers who can enter the Shenji Battalion don't need to be too strong, and they don't need to be brave, loyalty is the most important thing, and of course, they also need to be more flexible.

Because muskets are not like swords, they need to fight in close combat with the enemy, and they can shoot the enemy as long as they stand far away.

Moreover, the accuracy requirements for concentrated fire through volleys are not too high, and it is much simpler than training a skilled archer.

The soldiers who can enter the Shenji Battalion are all innocent Northwest soldiers. And you can't be an orphan, you must have a family to live in the northwest.

Twice a day, in the morning and evening, a special person would check whether the muskets of each soldier were on their bodies and whether they were in good use.

Outside the entire camp, there are also special guards on weekdays, and soldiers are not allowed to go out at will, especially with muskets, and those who violate the order will be dealt with by military law.

The precautions were so careful not to let the secret of the construction of the musket leak out.

Ning Zhiyuan and the others had long known that the Xie family was also vigorously developing muskets, and the Ning family would never allow any muskets to flow out of the Shenji Battalion, and even be taken by the Xie family or the Hu people for research.

As the youngest son-in-law, Chi Fei, said, the construction of the musket is not complicated.

If the Xie family or the Hu people really get the real thing, even if they can't achieve large-scale mass production, they will definitely learn the Suishi ignition device.

This is obviously not good news, so not letting the real thing out is the key.

In fact, in the past few years, many spies from the capital have tried all means to get a sample of a musket to take back for meritorious service, but because the Shenji Camp is tightly guarded inside and outside, they have not been allowed to succeed.

In this all-out campaign against Jiangxi, the general in charge of leading the troops was Li Dingbei, who had been promoted to the general of Zhenguo, and the deputy general was Ning Zhiyuan's eldest son Ning Yabai, accompanied by Ning Zhiyuan's mastermind Zhang Wenxuan.

Ning Zhiyuan attached great importance to the first battle to recover the entire northern territory, so he sent his own henchmen to assist in the expedition.

After conquering Kaiyang Mansion, Li Beiding did not immediately send troops to the next prefecture, but temporarily held his troops according to the strategy set by Ning Zhiyuan.

When it was decided to use troops against the northern provinces, the generals of the northwest military divided into two factions on how to use troops.

One faction advocated mobilizing a large army to occupy the entire northwest with a thunderous force, and then slowly governing.

The advantage of this is that you can end the big battle as quickly as possible and get the most results.

The other faction advocates steady and steady progress. Every time you build a prefecture, you will first govern the local area to a certain extent, and then move on to the next prefecture.

Although it takes a long time, this way can keep the rear stable and prevent the backyard from catching fire.

Ning Zhiyuan listened to the opinions of Zhang Wenxuan, Chi Fei and others, and after his own serious consideration, he decided to use the second way of steady and steady progress to attack the entire northern territory.

The reason why Ning Zhiyuan adopted the second way is that the root cause is also the problem of grain and grass.

The Xie family actually had the intention to move the capital to Jiangnan, and the grain and grass stored in the northern provinces must have been transported away a long time ago, and it was impossible to leave it for the Northwest Army to enjoy.

In this way, even if the Northwest Army can conquer the entire northern territory in the shortest possible time, how should the people in the northern region be fed?

This is a very real problem.

Even ordinary people, who are usually quiet and disciplined, once they are really hungry, sooner or later they will become a mob of looting everywhere.

At that time, the Northwest Army, which had just taken the northern provinces, would definitely fall into the quagmire of chaos everywhere. Not only will you ruin your reputation, but you will also be exhausted.

And this is exactly the result that the Xie family wants.

In order to avoid falling into this quagmire, the best strategy is to adopt this steady, step-by-step approach.

This can not only slowly digest the captured areas, but also promote the migration of northern civilians who will bear a heavy burden on the food and grass of the northwest army to the south of the Yangtze River.

The reason is very simple, in the past few years, in order to corrupt the name of the Northwest Army and the Ning family, the Great Wei Imperial Court has spared no effort to vigorously publicize and portray the Northwest Army as a group of extremely vicious bandits.

This makes it possible for many ignorant civilians to see the Northwest Army as ferocious and murderous as the Hu people.

Now that I heard that the "Northwest Barbarians" have really attacked, many ordinary people in the northern region have fled with their families.

Taking Kaiyang Mansion as an example, at least half of the civilians and wealthy people outside the city had already left the local area with their families when they heard that the Northwest Army was coming.

Kaiyang Mansion is still like this, not to mention other prefectures.

When the army entered the city, many of the people who had been forced to stay behind took refuge in their homes in fear and anxiety, and the slightest disturbance would have terrified them.

This situation has long been familiar to the Northwest Army, after all, it was the same when it captured the northeastern provinces.

In order to truly dispel the concerns of the people, the only way to make them gradually understand that the Northwest Army is by no means a bandit army as claimed by the puppet dynasty is through various means of governance that has been trickled down the river.

One of the most immediate means is to divide the land among the people.

As for where the land came from, of course, it was from the hands of the local families who had seized the land that they had encroached upon for many years.

Nearly 200 years after the founding of the Great Wei Dynasty, the situation of powerful families in various places occupying the land of the public or the common people was very serious.

This is true in the Northeast, and the North is no exception.

After the Northwest Army occupied Kaiyang Province, in addition to the Guangfa Anmin Notice, it soon began to carry out large-scale land surveying and inventory of hidden households in the entire Kaiyang Province and the surrounding areas.

According to Chi Fei, this is the so-called fighting local tyrants and dividing the land.

The officials in charge of carrying out this matter only recognized the land deeds and title deeds, and all fields that did not have these two things were taken back by the army and used as public land.

As for the fields with these two things, they are taxed according to the land tax of ordinary cultivated land, and no one is exempt.

What, you say that these thousands of acres of land are the private property of the people, and they should be exempt from tax?

I'm sorry, the Northeast stipulates that people can only be tax-exempt for 100 mu, and Jinshi is tax-free for 300 mu, and all those who exceed this amount must pay taxes.

In this way, the Northwest Army carried out a vast land survey and inventory of hidden households on the side of Kaiyang Mansion.

This move immediately made the local family in Kaiyang Mansion cry bitter and painful.

However, in the face of this powerful army that captured Kaiyang City in only one day, the local family could only dare to cooperate with the officers and soldiers to check their fields and tenant farmers in anger.

This investigation really found a large amount of encroached land and hidden tenant farmers from these wealthy families.

Of course, the government took back all the land that had been encroached upon, and as for the serfs who were hidden by the family, the government gave two choices, one was to collect the poll tax according to the number of people, and the other was to burn the deeds of sale of these serfs and let them become good citizens again.

Since the encroached fields were taken back by the government, of course, these families did not want to raise these serfs in vain, so most of them chose the second way: burn the deed of sale and let the serfs become good citizens again.

After accomplishing the first goal, the Northwest Army, having received a large amount of land, began to work on the second plan: the division of land without compensation.

The so-called gratuitous land distribution is not really to give away the land for nothing, but to refer to the practice in the Northeast: let the local farmers claim it, and let the farmers who were originally serfs and have now become good citizens give priority to claim it.

The claim condition is that these fields cannot be bought, sold or leased for five years, and the land endowment is as high as 50%.

Although the land tax is as high as 50%, except for the poll tax and the average silver, other miscellaneous taxes are exempted.

As soon as this decree was introduced, it immediately caused a great shock in Kaiyang Mansion, and many people could not believe that such a good thing really happened.

Although there are many people who have doubts about this, there are always some who are bold, especially those peasants who have just returned to freedom from serfdom, and have no choice.

Although they did not have freedom and were often beaten and scolded arbitrarily when they were serfs for the wealthy families in the past, they could at least have something to eat and not starve to death.

But now that they have regained their freedom, they have no source of livelihood, and if they continue like this, they will only starve to death.

Even if this decree is false and used by the Northwest Army to coax people, it doesn't matter, at least now they have land to cultivate, so that they will not even be able to eat in the future.

In order to survive, almost all the peasants who changed from serfs to good citizens chose to sign contracts with the government to claim the fields they were accustomed to cultivating.

Seeing that so many people had claimed the fields of the government, the other poor peasants who were still waiting could no longer sit still, and they all came to sign a contract to claim it.

So it didn't take long for the encroached land taken back from the hands of the local families to be divided up quickly.

This field division movement really had a great effect on the image of the Northwest Army, coupled with the strict discipline of the Northwest Army, and there was no crime against the people, which was completely different from the image of the bandit army that the imperial court had propagated at the beginning.

This kind of behavior finally made the people of Kaiyang have a great change in their impression of the Northwest Army, and they are no longer as panicked as before.

As the fear of the people gradually disappeared, and order in the city gradually restored, at this point, Kaiyang Mansion was successfully taken over.

A month later, the army led by Li Beiding marched again and marched towards the next capital city, Wanjiangfu.

Just when the Northwest Army was gradually encroaching and annexing all parts of the north in this way of steady and steady progress, the Great Wei Imperial Court in the capital also began a mighty capital relocation project.

Almost everything that can be used and brought with you will be taken away, and nothing will be left.

Many nobles and local officials had already brought their families to Jiangnan in advance to prepare, and now only countless ordinary people remain in the capital.

Before dragging their families and leaving the capital with the army, many people couldn't help but burst into tears and wept bitterly.

No one knows if they will be able to return to this familiar land in their lifetime.

Rather than reluctant to give up their homeland, the people are more afraid of the unknown future.