The four walls of the car, wrapped in blankets and the warm-burning stove, made Zhou Huai'an's somewhat numb and stiff body blown by the cold wind come back to life; On top of the stove, there is also a hot soup pot, which is boiling with a thick white and fragrant juice.

Among them, there are local unique fish cakes, shrimp white, eel segments, turtle edges, lotus roots, Jiangmi yuanzi, and water chestnuts; I saw that between the meat flavin and white, it was appetizing.

I saw pork, eggs and surimi made into fish cakes in the mouth and smooth, the mellow and fresh eel segment and the turtle side stewed melt in the mouth, the crisp and soft shrimp white, the crisp and sharp taste of the lotus root belt (bud) and the water chestnut, and the glutinous teeth of Jiangmi Yuanzi are fragrant.

There is also a soup that concentrates a lot of umami and mellowness, which only makes people feel relished and don't want to stop at all. However, the softness of these ingredients is a common source in the local area, but it is not easy to prepare this pot in this winter.

In the past, if you want to enjoy it for a long time, you have to exchange the lives of fishermen and boat owners on the river; After all, fishing on the river in this cold winter is a particularly risky thing.

Nowadays, it is also through the large river boats of the Taiping sailors, in the case of relatively adequate preparation; Under the guidance of the local veteran fishermen who have been fishing for generations in winter, they use a new brown linen net to carry out semi-training and semi-production fishing operations, so as to enrich the non-staple food content and nutritional sources of the local garrison; By the way, Zhou Huai'an also made up these ingredients.

Zhou Huai'an also flicked the chopsticks and the wooden spoon, feasting in the refreshing soup, while listening to Xiao Qi's report.

"More than 10,000 winter coats and felt blankets have been distributed from Guangfu recently."

As the winter in Gangneung approached, the problem that the southerners did not know frost and snow became especially obvious after going north; After the first rain and snow fell in early winter, many soldiers from Lingnan or Annam, who did not know the strengths, inevitably had some examples of frostbite and illness in various duty training because of their lack of experience and basic common sense.

Therefore, the corresponding warmth measures and the popularization of the common sense of the other party should be strengthened, so that these soldiers who are mainly outside the mountains can survive the winter safely, and initially complete the over-adaptation in the cold environment in the north. It has become the top priority at the moment.

Fortunately, although Guangfu is located on the trade wind route between the subtropics and the tropics, as the largest port and foreign port for a long time, the corresponding commodity circulation and trade categories are quite complete;

With the efforts of the rear gradually mobilized the personnel of the left-behind division, thousands of rolls of unsalable Persian and Western Tianzhu velvet blankets were soon found in several confiscated warehouses, and after a little cutting, they were changed to the down of birds, which was the raw material for the best warm sleeping bags and mattresses;

In addition, there are many old felts and leather cloths, which have been collected from the depths of the dusty storehouse and reused; After the cauldron is steamed, washed and dried, it is then cut and sewn into the corresponding military shape according to the unified standard, so as to ensure that each of the tens of thousands of soldiers in the Northern Expedition can get a short coat to protect themselves from the cold when they are on duty; Some of the veterans also have a coarse felt cover that can be rolled up and folded on rucksacks and hangers.

Then from the territory of Guizhou in Lingxi, a lot of thick and fine cinnamon pipe cloth was purchased and collected on the spot, which can be mildew and insect repellent after being soaked in tar and dried, and it is not afraid of rain and snow impregnation and infiltration, so that the tent for camping in the wild will also complete a link.

Immediately afterwards, according to the experience and experience of the northerners in the rebel army, using spicy crops and animal fats, improvised simple recipes for cold and frost protection, and curative medicines, ointments, and so on, are not to be discussed.

Xiao Qi continued,

"Among them, there are also several leaders from the old rebel army, who secretly want to detain or divert them for other purposes, and have been rectified by the representatives of the Soldiers' (Pawn) Committee (Members) and handed over to the Facao for strict disposal."

This non-commissioned officer committee is a grass-roots organization in the army that directly receives subsidies, and its members are specially used to supervise and report from the bottom up the relevant violations of discipline and illegal acts of those generals and colonels of the righteous army; Therefore, there are many relatively hidden identities, and basically all kinds of people have them. As one of the representatives they jointly launched, there were also exclusive channels and ways to directly respond to the problems of the upper echelons of the Taiping Army.

It is mainly used to fill the gap in the middle and lower classes after the trend of the township party and relatives has been broken up, and secretly mobilizes the consciousness and self-examination of the low-level soldiers on the pretext of maintaining their own reasonable expediency and circumstances in daily life training, so as to deal with, struggle and clean up the traditions of the old rebels with strong colors, as well as the many unreasonable practices and accumulated habits that remain.

Now that the Taiping Army has absorbed a large number of old rebels, the swelling effect and a series of collateral problems of all sizes will continue to exist for a longer or shorter period of time. Compared with the resistance to self-imposed forced reform and administrative directives, this kind of indirect guidance and diversion of contradictions from the bottom is undoubtedly much more acceptable.

Then Xiao Qi said again:

"Now 1,467 people have been repatriated and resettled from the ranks stationed in the states along the route.

Zhou Huai'an bowed slightly.

This is actually cleaning up those veterans who are greedy for life and afraid of death and good at escaping, and send them to the tuntian to be disciplined; No matter how resourceful and scheming they are, they can't do anything out of their familiar environment.

Of course, in the traditional army, this kind of veteran oil, who has been able to survive after many battle formations, still has some merit and is regarded as some kind of valuable wealth; Therefore, in the traditional army, as the chief general and senior officer, you can more or less tolerate their various faults, habits, and styles, in exchange for their relative obedience and cooperation, and even become the basic help for Gangneung to control the army and give orders.

And after these veterans have survived the war and continued to develop, they often metamorphose into the ultimate version. It is those who are erratic and fight only for rewards and pay; Often, when they disagree or when things don't go well, they use the township party and related interest groups to make noise and riot to demand benefits and more treatment; and even frequently killed the chief official and set up a new head, which is the predecessor of the typical professional martial arts group of the late Tang Dynasty.

However, the Taiping Army under the leadership of Zhou Huai'an placed more emphasis on maintaining the purity of the modern-style army dominated by discipline and organization, and the order forbade no time to think, so there was no need to keep these chicken ribs that were unwilling to accept changes and unwilling to take the initiative to withdraw from the stage of history. The specific process is also very simple, as long as the body is routinely checked, it can be screened.

As a peasant army that has always lacked protective equipment, everyone who survives is inevitably scarred by injuries. Therefore, as long as the position and distribution of the front and back of the scar are located, you can tell whether this is a brave man who moves forward bravely or does not retreat in actual combat, or an old oilman who always hides behind and survives or only runs away from the wind, or simply a braggart king who only boasts and fools others.

Of course, this also has a lot to do with the fact that most armies in this era are in waves; Basically, after the first rough formation and rushed out to fight, most of the soldiers could no longer control it; or escape, or hide on the side to be lazy and slippery, or fish in troubled waters.

Even after the victory and defeat are divided, there are still soldiers with a considerable probability and proportion, who are unwilling to listen to the order to assemble; And directly run around to rob or fight for the seized loot, and even herd sheep like they don't know where to run. Basically, they will not return it easily if they are satisfied with their own wandering.

And those who can endure the lethality and other pressures of the battle, and reassemble the whole team with flags and drums in the chaos, are undoubtedly the so-called strong soldiers in the usual sense. It can launch offensives again and again, and become the core and mainstay of the battlefield.

And this is just the level line that can barely be used in Zhou Huai's eyes, which is too high-visioned.

"The construction site in Xiangtan County collapsed when it was about to be completed, killing and injuring dozens of people and laborers on the spot;"

Xiao Qi opened a piece of paper with an appendix on it again.

"The investigation team and the census team have already started to trace the local area, and for the time being, it cannot be ruled out that man-made destruction and local remnants are at fault."

"It's just a mantis arm as a car, and a few setbacks can't reverse the current situation and general trend in Hunan."

Zhou Huai'an said lightly.

Anyway, before the winter comes, from Guangzhou to Guizhou, from Guangzhou to Lianzhou on the two lines, the supporting post road and signal tower system has been preliminarily completed; In this way, coupled with the convenience of water ships from the Han River to the Xiangshui Basin, the delay of the news from Guangzhou to Jiangling is probably controlled between two and three days; And it is also a duplex line supplemented by fast horses.

In case of emergency, pigeons raised in the army can also be used to convey a brief secret message, which can probably shorten the process within a day or two; In this era, the domesticated pigeons of merchants outside the mountains came to transmit the message.

Therefore, compared with the professional carrier pigeons that have been bred and improved by countless generations in later generations, and can fly thousands of miles at every turn, the pigeons of this era are closer to the ancestral wild pigeons, and the size, wayfinding, and flight distance are weakened a lot, which is probably to ensure the accuracy within 100 miles (mountains with complex terrain) to two or three hundred miles (plains);

But the barrier to climb over and pass through the Wuling Mountains is sufficient, and the only thing to worry about is the hunting of those scattered mountain people and natural predators, thunder birds of prey. Therefore, it cannot be used easily, and the scale of the plural must be used to ensure the probability of arrival.

Compared with the road of domestication, improvement and application of carrier pigeons, which has a long way to go.

Nowadays, in Tanzhou, Yuezhou, Hengzhou, Daozhou, Yongzhou, and Chenzhou, the signal tower system with the wharves and pavilions along the waterway as the core is also taking advantage of the winter agricultural slack to gather a large number of surplus labor on the basis of multi-stage simultaneous input of grain (wages) and materials at any cost.

As long as it is completed, the convenience of water transportation plus the bonus of information and communication, as well as the foundation of local product circulation nodes and the active commodity economy, the comprehensive effect thus exerted is not as simple as 1+1+1 equals 3.

Except for a small number of mechanical parts of the signal tower itself, the other parts and structures are stupid and rough projects that can be completed with simple and crude repetitive work. Even if the remnants of the local resistance disrupt and destroy one of the nodes, they will not be able to stop the spread and liquidity of the entire network.

Once the nodes of this network begin to operate benignly and multiply on their own, they will be tied together in disguised form in terms of local livelihood needs and the livelihoods of many people. In this way, a soil for the existence of potential resistance and sabotage elements will naturally be formed.

In the final analysis, the convenience of transportation and communication can also be transformed into an effective addition to weakening and solving the local resistance consciousness and survival basis, and the economic lifeline and people's livelihood needs. The so-called governance problems on the surface are the basic principles of solving them by auxiliary economic means.

"Zhou Yue, who occupied Shaozhou (now Shaoyang, Hunan), and Lei Man, Langzhou (Changde, Hunan), once again politely refused to use the excuse to crusade against the official army."

Xiao Qi paused and said.

"But they all agreed to communicate with their own army one after another, and the soldiers and people exchanged business and travel."

"It is enough to be able to achieve the latter article, and the other conditions are just an addition to the local payment."

Zhou Huai'an smiled slightly and confirmed that this was just an expedient strategy to calm the other party's heart.

Otherwise, how can the other generation, who have a complex and opposing relationship, be willing to go all out to mingle with the Taiping Army, an external force peeping on the side. Even if they can't fight for a while, Zhou Huai'an still wants to secretly send people to add fire to their respective territories.

"Next, the Lord needs to meet with the newly recruited group of scholars and teach them the ideas and knowledge of the Taiping Army."

Zhou Huai'an nodded.

Since the Taiping Army had most of the territory of the Hunan Observation Mission and the core of the Jingnan Jiedu Mission, all kinds of students and scholars came out of the local area to dedicate themselves, and gradually increased.

Of course, at present, it is limited to those who come from poor backgrounds; However, if it is said that he was born in poverty, he can actually support a full-time student, at least a wealthy family or a small landlord's family.

It's just that this kind of identity and family composition, in this turbulent world of great contention, is not much better than the poor peasants at the bottom; In the face of the surging tide of the times, bankruptcy and unsustainable fate are also inevitable;

Because after the fleeing of the peasant families at the bottom, the corresponding taxes and forced labor were not less, so the heavy burden naturally doubled on them, these wealthy families with small industries; The so-called farming and reading house will soon be unable to sustain itself.

Therefore, it is a hatred and rejection of the corruption of the court and the government; There is also the basic belief that the worst order is better than disorder, and there is both natural sympathy and contempt for the Mud-Legged rebels; As well as all kinds of hope that the situation will improve and the possibility of improvement, there are still complex contradictory groups with luck and dependence.

(End of chapter)