The Spring Festival of the fourteenth year of Xuanping, although there is not much difference from the previous years on the whole, is a fixed ceremony, but it is much more festive.

Because at the end of the year, news came back from the northern front that the Ninth Army had successfully forced back the Tatar army and rebuilt the Hetao defensive line.

Although the current Hetao defense line is still a very simple military defense line, which has not yet been reclaimed, cannot achieve self-sufficiency and long-term maintenance, and there is no way to completely prevent the Tatars from entering the Hetao area, it is a good start.

The entire Hetao defense line is more than 100 kilometers, with the three major cities of Dongshengcheng, Yulin City, and Zhenyu City as the core, supplemented by more than 10 earthen fortresses, which is enough for the Tang Army to maintain a strong military force on the prairie.

After a few years of operation and reclamation, the area can be completely controlled, and this process cannot be stopped by the Tatars.

After stabilizing this Hetao defense line, they can even continue to build the defense line to Yinshan, completely cut off the connection between the Tumo River and the Hetao area, completely strangle the Tatars, and force them to completely abandon the Tumo River and the Hetao area, and move to the north or west, and the north is a bitter cold land, and there are not many Tatars to feed.

As for the west, there are the Warats, the Turpan Khanate and other tribes in the Western Regions, although the Warats have suffered a heavy defeat, and the Turpan Khanate is almost no longer possible, but Altan Khan wants to move west, but he will still be desperately resisted by the Warats and the Turpan Khanate.

And the two alien forces in the northwest region, because they were beaten by the Tatars in their early years, in order to protect themselves, they have been in frequent contact with the Tang Empire in recent years.

Especially this year, after the Varat people were defeated by the Tatars, and after losing a large area of grassland and cavalry, they completely fell to the Tang Empire, and even the concubines of the tribe sent more than a dozen, not seeking marriage, but only asking the Tang Empire to sell them some ordnance materials to resist the westward advance of the Tatars.

In such a situation, once the Tatars were forced by the Tang Empire to lose the Tumo River and the Hetao region, the fate that awaited them would not be very good.

At that time, in order to survive, the Tatars will definitely move westward and compete for territory with the Warats, the Turpan Khanate and even other tribes in the Western Regions.

The northern strategy has made significant progress, and the government and the opposition are naturally very happy, and even the Spring Festival state banquet is a little more festive.

Many army generals were encouraged by the victory in the Battle of Hetao, and some army generals began to propose that they simply increase their efforts and increase their troops to the grassland, so as to build up the Yinshan defense line, that is, the defense line from Dongshengcheng to Yinshan Mountain, which goes straight north, next year, so as to avoid long nights and dreams.

Some generals also proposed that the forces of the northwest defense area should be increased, and the troops should be attacked from the northwest to the east, and efforts should be made to completely link the northwest with the eastern victory city, and to build a defense line of the outer Great Wall, so that the entire Hetao area could be brought under the control of the empire.

Some army generals even said that if they want to fight, they will simply fight hard, and next year they will organize more troops to go north and strive to completely wipe out the Tatars, not only in Hetao, but also in Toyosu River.

Seeing that the army has achieved a major strategic victory in the north and is still proposing to increase operations, the navy cannot sit still.

In the 14th year of Xuanping, in order to implement the Hetao strategy, in this year, all kinds of resources have been seriously tilted towards the army, and if investment in the north is increased next year and even in the next few years, then the navy will not have to live.

Therefore, many generals on the navy side said that since the situation in the north has stabilized, then the next step is to start the South Sea strategy, directly knock down Malacca, completely drive the Portuguese out of the South Sea waters, and make the entire South Seas an imperial inland sea.

In short, everyone is not willing to be lonely.

But on the whole, around the Spring Festival this year, the Tang Empire was still relatively happy, the monarchs and ministers were happy, and even the ordinary people were relatively happy.

Because the fourteenth year of Xuanping was a rare year of good weather in the past years, only a few places in the vast territory of the empire suffered some small droughts or floods, but there were no large-scale natural disasters as in previous years.

You must know that this situation is not easy for the Tang Empire, which has a huge territory.

The territory of the Tang Empire is huge, and every place is different, even though most of the areas are peaceful, but there are always natural disasters in some places every year.

However, this year, it has been relatively stable, and there have been basically no disasters in areas above the state capital level.

In particular, the Zhili area, which has a large population and is also the most important grain-producing area, has a smooth wind and rain.

To be able to have this year's situation, it is naturally not God's face, but that over the past years, the Tang Empire has continued to invest a lot of manpower and material resources in water conservancy infrastructure.

Before the reunification, it was just a small fight, but after the reunification, the overall tone of the empire was to develop people's livelihood, and with the development of industry and commerce, the tax revenue that the empire could collect was also increasing year by year, so the investment in water conservancy, transportation and other infrastructure was also increasing year by year.

After seven or eight years of continuous investment, it can be regarded as the initial results.

This summer, the Yangtze River also continued to rain, if it was in the former Ming Dynasty, the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River would have been flooded, but this year it has successfully survived.

Among them, the newly built flood control dams on both sides of the Yangtze River and numerous water conservancy facilities such as water storage and diversion can be regarded as playing a considerable role.

Another example is the Hebei region, this year's rainfall is also insufficient, but the use of numerous wells and the diversion of water from rivers have managed to survive.

Therefore, this year's wind and rain are not God's face, but the investment of the Tang Empire for many years.

The people's livelihood is stable, and foreign enemies are fleeing in embarrassment, this year is destined to be an extraordinary, even turning point for the Tang Empire.

After the end of the Spring Festival, before the Lantern Festival, the emperor of the Tang Empire, the son of heaven Li Xuan once again held a cabinet meeting, at the meeting, the son of heaven asked the cabinet departments to continue to increase investment in the construction of people's livelihood facilities, especially water conservancy.

In the past few years, the Tang Empire has also tasted the sweetness of building water conservancy facilities, so the matter of continuing to build water conservancy facilities has achieved unprecedented unanimity among all cabinet ministries.

After the Lantern Festival, the Son of Heaven officially approved the cabinet of ministers for the construction of water conservancy facilities for the next five years, the core of which is to continue to increase the construction of large-scale water conservancy facilities in various parts of the empire under the guidance of the central government, local construction, and the cooperation of the people.

It is not only necessary to build flood control facilities for the Pearl River, the Yangtze River, the Yellow River, and other major rivers, but also to build flood control facilities for small and medium-sized rivers, and at the same time to carry out extensive construction of water conservancy facilities and dig deep wells in areas where water is scarce.

To ensure that floods do not occur when rainfall is high, and large-scale droughts do not occur when rainfall is insufficient.

Water conservancy regulation is carried out through many methods, such as dredging rivers, setting up reservoirs, building flood control levees, and building river dams and reservoirs.

If the construction of water conservancy facilities is only carried out in one or two places, this kind of project is naturally not large, but if it is to be carried out on a national scale, then the amount of work is extremely huge, at least in terms of the finance of the Tang Empire, it is impossible to rely solely on financial investment to solve the problem.

The funds allocated by the central government are only a few million taels of silver a year at most, and they cannot be satisfied at all for the construction of water conservancy facilities throughout the country, and it is necessary to let the local finances take the lion's share, and at the same time, it also needs the enthusiastic support of the gentry and even the ordinary people.

This kind of thing cannot be solved by money alone, because the central government does not have so much money, and it is necessary to mobilize the power of the whole country, especially the power of the gentry.

Most of the money from the central government still has to be invested in the flood control construction of several large rivers, while the flood control of ordinary ditches and small rivers needs to be solved by the localities themselves.

Water conservancy facilities are related to food production, and food production is directly related to the survival of the empire!

The casualties inflicted on the empire by a large-scale, natural disaster that spread across the north and south of the river were worse than the Tatars annihilating hundreds of thousands of troops.

As the emperor of the empire, after Li Xuan approved the plan, the rest of the work had little to do with him, and the follow-up specific work would naturally be handled by various cabinet departments, and then there would be local yamen to deal with it, he just needed to see the results.

The construction of water conservancy is the highlight of the fifteenth year of Xuanping and even the next few years, and it is not so important to attack foreign races and destroy the Tatars, so what the army said about continuing to increase troops and completely exterminating the Tatars in one fell swoop, it is naturally impossible to take shape.

Now Li Xuan's task to the army is very simple, hold the Great Wall, and then improve the Hetao defense line, and at the same time gradually expand to Yinshan, not to completely drive out the Tatars in a short time, just need to slowly encroach, no need to worry.

As for the navy, continue to lie on their stomachs honestly, and they are not allowed to mess around and set off any large-scale wars, and fight to the death with the Portuguese, and now the Tang Empire still needs the maritime trade profits brought by the Portuguese, and it will still not be able to get rid of its dependence on the Portuguese for a while.

Although the Spaniards also began to gradually replace the role of the Portuguese, the scale was still too small, and now it was easy to beat the Portuguese, but the losses caused by the cut off of maritime trade were greater.

So, we have to wait a little longer to fight Malacca or something!

However, if you don't fight the Portuguese, it doesn't mean that you won't fight other alien races, such as those natives on the Nanyang Islands, you can play as much as you like, Li Xuan doesn't care!

But don't expect the Empire to increase the military spending of the navy for this purpose, and don't expect the army to increase its forces in the South Seas.

If you want to make trouble, you can only rely on the existing strength of the navy!

The navy is also quite helpless, if it does not increase military spending, and the army does not provide support, how can it control the huge Nanyang islands with the marines of the navy, at most it is the same as now, fight here, fight there, and rely on the gradually increasing immigration to maintain the colonization in the Nanyang.

The South China Sea could not be defeated, and the navy once again put its sights into the depths of the Pacific Ocean, or more precisely, the American continent across the Pacific Ocean!

In March of the 15th year of Xuanping, more than 20 large ships organized by the Navy officially set sail from the Wusong Naval Base, and their destination was officially the American continent.