Qingzhou is now facing major difficulties, but the difficulties are not insurmountable.

The current situation has many similarities with the background of the TG large-scale production movement during the Anti-Japanese War in the history of Xu Shiyang's previous life - to sum up, there are strong external enemies attacking and blockading, the internal productive forces are underdeveloped, and the base areas are unable to support consumption.

Therefore, Xu Shiyang thinks that he can plagiarize TG's "mass production movement", even if the effect is only half of TG, it will be enough to tide over the difficulties.

Of course, the Xu family does not have a centripetal force, and the actual level surpasses the TG of the times, which is an irreparable shortcoming.

But the Xu family also had advantages that TG did not have at that time:

For example, although the Qingzhou Army built a long wall defense line, there was no one to block them in essence.

In addition, there is a lot of foreign aid.

In the case of vital foods:

Last year, Qingzhou received 75 million catties of grain (equivalent to 500,000 stones) from the Li pirate group and the Jiangnan main battle faction, a figure far more than the agricultural tax revenue of the Jieshuai Mansion in the 13 years of Jianxing (after all, most of the territory of Qi Province was not under the jurisdiction of the Qingzhou Jiedu Envoy for most of that year).

This grain is enough to feed all the people who have left the farm, and there is a lot of wealth.

At present, Qi Province implements a grain-based currency system (grain stamps), which is essentially the reason why grain reserves are relatively sufficient.

In addition to the aid grain from the south of the Yangtze River, the income of the Marshal Mansion in Jianxing for 13 years was 33 million catties; In the process of unifying Qi Province, more than 8 million catties were seized from the home of Haoqiang, a local resistant; With the situation of grain stamps or salt, more than 11 million catties were purchased from Haoqiang, who took the initiative to take refuge.

The total grain income of the Jieshuai Mansion in the thirteen years of Jianxing was 127 million catties, and the actual consumption was 60 million catties (including the grain stamp reserves of the Qimin Bank, some of which have been exchanged by the peasants), and there are still 67 million catties of surplus grain in stock!

This ratio of fiscal revenue to expenditure can even be said to be a bit excessive.

This is also the basis for Xu Shiyang to dare to mobilize more than 40% of the registered men to go to the Yellow River/Canal to build large-scale fortifications along the Yellow River/Canal - considering that the aid to Jiangnan has only been sharply reduced rather than completely disappeared, plus the stock of grain, even if the agricultural harvest in Qi Province is completely wiped out this year, the Jieshuai Mansion will have enough food to maintain social stability!

Of course, Xu Shiyang could not give up agricultural production, and when he mobilized a large number of manpower and material resources to build the long wall defense line, he began to coordinate agricultural production within his jurisdiction with the cooperation of Xu Muhe.

On 15 March, Xu Shiyang took advantage of the newly formed grassroots of the new regime and the troupe recruited from the Heqin fleet to start a large-scale propaganda war against the control area.

Through a combination of newly composed operas and government documents, the importance of resisting the Tartar invasion was publicized to the illiterate peasants, and they were encouraged to cooperate with the large-scale production of the whole people.

At this time, Xu Shiyang's propaganda team was still in a very naïve stage, and the propaganda methods were also very primitive, and he couldn't grasp the key points, so there was a high probability that he would be regarded as a new opera by the peasants.

But this is a good opportunity to exercise after all, Xu Shiyang thinks that he can look forward to the continuous improvement of the propaganda team, and one day become a powerful hidden force in his hands.

Moreover, in any case, the propaganda team can always plant a seed in the hearts of the people, before it takes root and sprouts, everyone does not know the power of the seed, and even does not perceive its existence, but as long as it is carefully cared for, the seed will always blossom and bear fruit!

In addition to starting to try propaganda warfare, Xu Shiyang also came up with many practical means to help agricultural production.

The first is unified farming:

This year, all land will be divided into each other, and the local government will make overall arrangements for men and women to be responsible for cultivation and sowing, so as to save a lot of time wasted between single households and small fields.

Secondly, Xu Shiyang ordered to concentrate the large livestock owned by the Jieshuai Mansion, including cattle, ploughing horses, mules, etc., and set up fifteen spring ploughing teams in the five prefectures of Qing, Lai, Deng, Quancheng, and Yan.

The task of the spring ploughing team is to help the villages that have gone to the front line to build fortifications, and in the case of contiguous land, the large-scale use of draft animals will multiply the efficiency of spring ploughing.

Moreover, these spring ploughing teams do not charge any local fees, and all expenditures are the responsibility of the Marshal's Office - the actual implementation is to issue food stamps and buy supplies from local farmers to save transportation costs, which is also beneficial to the promotion of food stamps.

In order to cooperate with the promotion of food stamps, the Marshal's Office issued an administrative order, emphasizing many times that grain stamps can be exchanged for physical grain on a one-to-one basis, which can be used to pay taxes, so as to strengthen the people's confidence in food stamps.

The new army, which was completely out of production in the past, will also have to undertake certain production tasks this year.

First of all, the battalions were authorized to use their spare time to cultivate vegetables, raise livestock such as pigs and sheep, and poultry such as chickens and ducks in the vicinity of their stations.

In the name of the commander-in-chief of the New Army, Xu Shiyang called on every soldier in the army to invest at least 30 hours a month in agricultural and animal husbandry production.

Frontrunners and trappers, who are mainly cold-weaponized, can be directly engaged in hunting activities - for them, hunting activities can also be regarded as a form of training in themselves.

In the past ten years, the number of people in Qi Province who have been plagued by Tartars and bandits from all walks of life is scarce, and when there are fewer people, the number of wild animals will naturally increase.

After the selection of the vanguard began to hunt instead of training, the wild dogs, wolves, deer, rabbits, pheasants, foxes, wild boars and other animals that roamed among the frontiers all fell into bad luck, along with those more ferocious tigers and wild bears in the mountains and forests, in the rounds of sweeping hunting, turned into meat and fur.

The meat of these wild animals can enrich the food of the new army, save food consumption, and the fur can also be sold in Jiangnan, which is of great help to the new army to achieve semi-self-sufficiency.

The production was arranged as a whole, and the 100,000 men and women who were building the fortifications in front of them naturally could not be careless.

On March 20, Xu Shiyang moved the headquarters of the New Army to Quancheng so that he could command nearby after the war began.

Later, he personally led the guards to inspect the construction site along the Yellow River/Canal defense line again and again, checking the progress of the fortifications and the supply of migrant workers.

According to the pre-set standards of the Jieshuaifu, the workers could get one pound of grain as a reward for each square of soil they dug, in addition to the free warm boiled water with salt added to the construction site every day, and pickles were replenished with salt.

In this era, this treatment can be described as generous, and under the constraints of military discipline (the new army sent troops to supervise the work), it is strictly forbidden to rob other people's belongings on the construction site, so as to avoid a situation where "the strong can be fed, and the weak can fill the ditch".

If everyone is well fed, each worker can work up to three earthworks a day, and the able-bodied can even reach four or five squares, and in this case, the front-line migrant workers even have the opportunity to leave some of their income and take it home.

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