Wei Boqiu came to the port of Busan, North Korea.

This was the sixth time in a year that he had visited the port city, which was nominally the territory of the Kingdom of Korea, but which was in fact in the hands of the people on the eastern coast. Kim Hong-beom, the county magistrate set up by the North Koreans in Busan, is now being squeezed out of place by Kim Woo-gyu, a "traitor" who has a heart on the east bank, and the decree can hardly leave the county office. Today, in the vast county of Busan, almost everyone is the leader of the East Bank Overseas Chinese Reclamation Association, Kim Woo-gyu, and the prestige of the Joseon Kingdom in the region is gone, and according to Kim Hong-beom's words, "it is almost no longer the king's land."

Wei Boqiu didn't care what Kim Hong-beom thought, he only cared about how much supplies he could collect from North Korea - mainly grain. The East Bank Army fought for almost a full year from the second half of '47 to the end of '48 (during which the truce was less than three months), and the accumulated supplies were greatly consumed. The livestock and grain, in particular, were being consumed even faster, and now they were already using the 5,000 tons of rice stocks that the Dutch had delivered. To this end, Shao Shude has already issued a grain collection order for the second time, demanding that the logistics bases in Korea (Jeju Island, Busan, Wonsan) and Sakhalin Island (Heishui, Dabo, and Rishiri Island) under the control of the people on the east coast hand over surplus grain to support the now expanding Far East regime on the east coast.

At present, the people on the east coast continue to build cities and fortifications in the Heilongjiang River valley to eliminate Manchu forces, and at the same time, they are also vigorously developing the southern half of Sakhalin Island, and the Japanese companies on the east coast are also vigorously operating the eastern part of Hokkaido; The most important thing is that Shao Shude measured and divided the land equally, resettled refugees, and resumed production in Dengzhou, all of which required a large amount of food. Even though the people on the east coast had cut all the wheat in the fields of many prefectures and counties in Laizhou, Qingzhou, and Jinan last year, the grain stock still could not meet the increasing consumption of front-line soldiers before Shao Shude's huge plan (the increase in servant troops, the increase in logistics personnel, and the increase in livestock, led to a large increase in the consumption of grain and beans). It became inevitable to ask for grain from North Korea and Sakhalin, which had been in business for a long time and were relatively rich. And this. Obviously, this is the reason why Wei Boqiu came to Busan.

"With such a vast area in Busan, the combined number of Han people and Xian people exceeds 25,000, the water conservancy construction is quite large-scale, the rice and wheat harvest of last year has also been harvested, and the people have a lot of grain storage." When Wei Boqiu convened a meeting at the Civil Affairs Office of the East Coast Overseas Chinese Reclamation Association, he said to the officials: "The whole of Busan is divided into 10 districts, and the amount of grain collected by each is clarified. All districts should immediately dispatch police officials to set up supervision teams to urge the district's Baozheng and lieutenant chiefs to collect grain. As their annual performance appraisal. All those who have not completed the task of requisitioning grain will be dismissed, and those who exceed the task will be rewarded, and this must be repeatedly publicized to them, after all, your work mainly depends on these grassroots North Koreans. ”

"The Busan garrison has canceled its vacation, and everyone is allowed to stay in the barracks without permission, waiting for instructions from the bomb area at any time. Chairman Kim, I hereby formally grant you full authority to mobilize the garrison of 500 soldiers, and if there is any disturbance in the locality, it will be suppressed immediately without any hesitation. Furthermore. The security militia was also established two months ago, and these 500 soldiers of the security regiment are all strong and well-behaved people sent by each security regiment. Although only clubs are used as weapons, they can also come in handy in critical moments. In this way, the officers and men of the garrison cannot be dispatched lightly, and as soon as they are dispatched, they will see blood, which is too discordant. After Wei Boqiu said for a long time, he probably also felt that the garrison, the tiger and wolf men with knives and guns in hand, went out to fight and kill, which was not conducive to the long-term rule of the people on the east coast, so he decided to let the "Bangbang Army" dispatch: "But if the food collection is insufficient, the garrison will be dispatched immediately to kill chickens and monkeys. Also, all of you here are the people of my Great East Bank, and they are no longer the people under the rule of the Lee Dynasty of Korea, so don't be on the wrong side. ”

Wei Boqiu's murderous words made sweat on the foreheads of the officials of the Civil Affairs Department and the Patrol Police Department (most of whom were Korean military men or the children of Jeju Island criminals). Now how strong the East Coast is in the area around Liaohai, they are of course clear as their own people, so they don't dare to do anything at this time, otherwise the whole family will be arrested and imprisoned and then sell Nanyang will be the end. Therefore, in line with the principle that the dead friends do not die in the poor way, they are secretly thinking about how to put pressure on those grassroots security chiefs and Li Zheng, so that they can collect more rice and wheat to supply the front-line military supplies.

After beating his own officials, Wei Boqiu went to the North Korean government office and knocked Kim Hongfan. In a strong tone, he warned Kim Hong-beom that there were still 5,000 stone of grain to be delivered this year (the purchase price on the east bank was 228 yuan and 1 stone), and he hoped that the Korean royal government would complete the collection within one month. Otherwise, the government of the Blackwater Pioneer Team on the east coast may organize a large-scale military landing in North Korea to "take it upon itself."

After showing off his might, Wei Boqiu quickly left Busan by boat and arrived at Jeju Island, which is across the sea from Busan. Now that Jeju Island is empty, and a large number of Koreans have been sold to the Dutch in exchange for much-needed food, there are now less than 15,000 inhabitants on the island, including more than 10,000 Han people and about 5,000 Korean residents. In addition, there are more than 1,000 left-behind soldiers of Zhai Congge, Qin Shangxing, and Sun Shouzheng, all of whom are old and weak soldiers, who stay on the island to guard assets and sweep the barracks. Wei Boqiu was not interested in inspecting the barracks, and in fact it was not his business, so he went straight to the ranch in the area of Hallasan Mountain in the center of the island to inspect the horse administration work on the east coast.

Over the years, the East Coast people have successively transferred a large number of horses from the Australian military horse farm to the Blackwater area, including the large number of Andalusi horses, Lusitano horses and Turkmen horses in the East Coast (more than 3,500 pure-blooded horses combined), as well as rare and extremely valuable Arabian horses (less than 40 horses in the country) specially gifted by the Ottoman Empire. Of these, 18 Andalusian horses (including his close cousin Lusitano horse), 8 Turkmen horses, 4 Arabian horses, 2 Finnish horses, 2 Raschek horses, a total of 34 foreign horses - almost all of them stallions.

As early as 1646, Mo Ming, who was in charge at the time, felt the lack of riding horses, pulling horses and driving horses, so he ordered the establishment of the "15-year plan for horse administration", and at the same time cultivated mixed breeds of horses in Heisu and Jeju Island (most of them have now been moved to Hallasan Ranch, and a very small number of horse breeds have been left in Heishui Port to breed horse breeds that adapt to the cold climate).

To tell the truth, the horses used in large numbers by the people of the East Coast are basically Mongolian horses or horses with Mongolian horse blood, such as the Korean pony (the Korean native horse improved by the Mongolian horse during the Mongolian Yuan Dynasty) and the Japanese horse (the Japanese subspecies of the Mongolian horse). Although these horses are stamina and easy to feed, they are miserable in stature. According to the long-term statistics of the horse administration technicians at Hallasan Ranch, the average height of these horses is about 130 cm, and this is still a stallion, and the mare is not even 130 cm, which is too cold compared to the general height of European horses and West Asian horses of about 155-160 cm.

Especially nowadays, artillery is almost the first most important unit in the battle sequence on the east coast, so there is a great demand for horses to pull cannons and cavalry horses to escort artillery.

From the first half of 1646, the horse technicians of Hallasan Ranch began to select a large number of mares with docile temperament (most Mongolian horses are not docile in temperament), not easy to stir when marching (often group riots when guns are loud), not biting and kicking each other (soldiers or soldiers are often bitten and kicked), and not neighing casually (cavalry or scouts are often exposed by the neighing of horses when approaching enemy troops), and then mate with European horses and Arabian horses that have been transported one after another. A considerable number of mixed breeds have been bred.

Although the height of these mixed-breed horses is uneven, according to statistics, their average height is about 145-148 cm, and their physique is generally larger than that of Mongolian horses. But in general, these hybrids are not considered a successful species, because they still have a large number of defects, such as their temperament (they often need to be castrated, otherwise they are not only vulnerable to injury, but they will also chase female horses in battle), or they are slow to run (often only about 20 kilometers per hour), or they are weak (they are often heavy trucks that can be easily pulled by six Western horses, and eight hybrid horses are very difficult to pull together), and so on.

After talking with Ma Zheng technicians, Wei Boqiu encouraged them to continue to implement the 15-year plan of Ma Zheng originally formulated during the reign of Mo Dashuai, select horses with many advantages and stable genetics from mixed breeds, and then continue to breed. At the same time, the local population continues to bring in European and Arabian horses every year - in order to solve the problem of pulling horses, the local people have even tried to get some Shire horses from England - so that the technicians of the ranch have enough "materials" to play their "breeding game".

After the inspection, Wei Boqiu had a hunch that it would probably not take more than 15 years (three years have passed) for these horse technicians to come up with a new breed that is suitable for the climate of northern China and North Korea, and at the same time has a high shoulder, body and physique, which is not inferior to European horses. If everything is smooth, maybe seven or eight years later, the cavalry galloping on the east coast of Shandong will be able to ride the black water horse (named in Ma Zheng's 15-year plan) with a height of 155-160 centimeters, a running speed of 278 kilometers per hour, and a docile and disciplined temperament.

At that time, the superiority of the cavalry on the east coast will inevitably begin to gradually expand. As for now, let's just ride Mongolian horses. Well, there are also some eliminated horses in the Hallasan Ranch (horse political technicians think that they do not have the value of continuing to breed, and have been castrated, and the number is about five or six hundred) can flow into the army, although there are all kinds of defects, but the victory is large enough, and most of the combat indicators are better than the Mongolian horses, which is enough to help those Polish cavalry play some of their advantages. (To be continued......)