Chapter 24: Preparing for War and Famine
Huang Han completed the change of identity within a few days of returning home, and together with his father, he pulled up a team of more than a dozen people, and he was barely considered an army.
Song Pengfei, Huang Yong, Huang Xin, and Xiaowei have already calculated all the seizures, washed out the cotton armor and clothes, and of course wiped the iron armor, knives and guns clean, and those that need to be repaired have been sent to the blacksmith Yang Laoshi.
Now Huang Han has nearly 6,000 taels of precious metals in silver, plus the Huang family's grain stock and horse material are close to 800 stones, which is enough to support the consumption of a cavalry with a full total banner for one or two years.
Huang Han, who was a man in two lives, not only looked down on life and death, but also really didn't take yellow and white things like gold and silver to heart.
Because he knew that being a miser in the chaotic times of the late Ming Dynasty could not make a living at all, and when the Manchu Qing Dynasty swept through China, there were countless Han landlords who were inevitably ruined after their families went bankrupt.
If gold, silver, money and food can be converted into combat effectiveness, Huang Han will be happy to do so.
After forming the army, he trained intensively for seven days, and ran cross-country with a weight of 50 pounds every morning, which not only exercised his body, but also contributed to Jiulitai Village.
Because the load is a bag of wheat, and the destination is the mountain where the villagers are preparing to take refuge, although it is not enough to send the wheat to the destination, but the ten-mile mountain road also relieves the workload of other young and strong people to transport grain.
There is really no good way to transport things to the mountains, only to use manpower to carry them on their shoulders and carry them with animal power, and now the livestock in Zhuangzi, including some of the war horses of the Huang family, are rushing to transport grain up the mountain.
Of course, Huang Han trainer Ding will refer to the military training regulations of later generations, and every day there will be half an hour of standing in a military posture and half an hour of queue drills.
Running, parade drills, standing in military posture and literacy classes in the evening are compulsory for every family, and other subjects will vary from person to person.
For example, Yang Danian and Huang Sifang, who are good at riding, practice riding hard, Huang Feng and Yang Guoen, who have outstanding archery performance, practice archery professionally, and Yang Jian and Huang Jian have a throwing foundation, so they naturally follow Hanzi to practice throwing guns.
The tolerance of the family members is not simple, the amount of exercise for six hours a day can be eaten, Huang Han of course will not treat them badly, every day to strive for everyone to eat meat, really can't buy pork days, but also to ensure that everyone has two eggs to eat.
During this time, there were always a few young people from Jiulitai Village who went to the nearby villages, and they used their cash to buy pigs, sheep, chickens and ducks, and also bought all the eggs and duck eggs that the people had accumulated.
Huang Yizhou and Huang Han had to give a lecture at the pre-dinner meeting every evening, and the content was, of course, to praise the advanced, criticize the backward elements, and also comment on the lessons learned in the training.
Within a few days, the family members were accustomed to the praise and criticism at the pre-dinner meeting, and the family members who thought that they had performed well today hoped to get the comments of the hundred household officials.
On November 20th, the pre-dinner meeting on this day must have impressed all the family members, because at the meeting, Huang Yizhou announced that three months' salary would be paid in advance to all the family members, which means that each family member can get three taels of silver and one stone and five buckets of grains.
This is when Huang Han mobilized the villagers of Jiulitai to go to the mountains to build a camp used by the elders to take refuge and hoard grain, he found that the people's enthusiasm was not high.
This is not surprising, Daming Shengdou small people in the farming time as much as possible to sleep less move, basically eat two meals a day, now to carry things up the mountain on the shoulder, no two dry stomach, no one can eat, so the consumption of food doubled.
The young adults who became the householders came from twelve families, and they were the main laborers of the families and of course the main consumers of food.
Now they are training with the Huang family, although it is very hard to get up early and touch the dark, but the Huang family has three meals a day and one meat, and there is no meat and two eggs.
Not only that, but they will also have to earn back one stone, five buckets of miscellaneous grains and three taels of silver for their family, and their family will not have to worry about food and clothing immediately.
The next day, there were too many relocation activists, most of them brothers and uncles of the family, who worked tirelessly to take the lead in carrying the family's pots and jars up the mountain.
In order to fully mobilize the enthusiasm of the common people and reduce the consumption of food in their families, Huang Han arranged for Huang Yong to recruit 40 young adults according to the principle of one family out of one family.
These young and middle-aged laborers were given three meals of dry food, and a bucket of miscellaneous grain was paid 100 copper coins every ten days, so that they could repair simple fortifications in the mountain passes of the back mountains, and collect stones and rolling logs in case of emergency.
Huang Han believed that no one could get something for nothing, and although the Huang family had enough money and food to support the villagers through the current crisis, Huang Han did not do this, but worked for relief.
Let every household participate in the construction of the mountain pass's fortifications, and implement their own awareness of having enough food and clothing in the hearts of the small people of Shengdou, so that everyone can feel the strength of the collective and realize that unity is strength.
In the era of cold weapons, as long as enough stones and rolling wood were collected, not only the strong men could participate in the defense of the land, but even the healthy women could throw stones down the mountain to smash the enemy.
If the Houjin army came less, it would not have been possible to break through the mountain pass and attack the common people hiding in the mountains.
As for whether Jiannu will mobilize thousands of troops to come? This issue should not exist.
This is not a strategic place, there are no important people on the mountain, and there is no considerable seizure, is Jiannu crazy? Don't rob where you can get it, do you have to fight with a bunch of people in this deep mountain and old forest?
The women and children of Jiulitai Village and the elderly with limited mobility all heeded the advice and moved to a shelter in the mountains, which is actually a relatively large cave, and the only way to reach this place is on foot.
According to the old people in the village, this refuge had sheltered the ancestors of the Yang and Huang families as early as the Song and Yuan dynasties.
Later, the Jin army defeated the Santun camp, where the general military office of Xuzhen was located, and the people of the four towns and eight soils of Yongping Mansion were panicked, and the people of Jiulitai were no exception.
Now the Huang family has taken the lead and subsidized money and food, so that the old and weak women and children in the village can hide in the shelter early, and the young adults who are busy working and the families who participate in the training are much more relieved.
Huang Yizhou originally had prestige in the township, and the patriarchs of the Huang and Yang families would consult him if they wanted to decide any major matter.
Although the head of the Yang family is the head of Jiulitai Village, he has never bullied the people surnamed Huang, all in all, although Jiulitai Village is not rich, it is still harmonious.