The spring drought in Shanxi was actually worse than Xiao Tianjian expected, which also temporarily disrupted the pace of the continuous expansion of the Xingtian Army, so that the expansion of the entire Xingtian Army had to be suspended.

In line with the consideration of occupying one place, operating one place, and consolidating one place, Xiao Tianjian decided to make steady progress, first thoroughly consolidate the foundation of his current base area, and then seek a larger space for influence.

And with his understanding of history, he has a helpless feeling about the current situation, although he has a firm foothold in Yangcheng at present, but with his strength, as well as the current strength of the rebel armies from all walks of life, if he wants to shake the current Daming, the almost decaying tree of the sky, it is still not very mature at the moment.

And there is no shortage of capable people in Daming at the moment, not to mention far away, there is Hong Chengchou sitting on the three sides of Shanxi in the west, and now there is a Sun Chuanting sitting in Shaanxi, Lu Xiangsheng in the southeast is sitting in five provinces, and hundreds of thousands of officers and soldiers are gathered in the hinterland of the Central Plains, Daming's qi and blood are far from being exhausted, and through the battle reports collected by Taiyuan for him in the past year, Xiao Tianjian also saw that the current righteous army has not undergone qualitative changes because of this year's vertical and horizontal war. After the imperial court adjusted its subordinates, Lu Xiangsheng was the governor of Henan and other provinces, and the righteous army began to be untenable in Henan, and Lu Xiangsheng was repeatedly defeated, first of all, several righteous troops known as hundreds of thousands of troops gathered under the city of Chuzhou to besiege Chuzhou, and as a result, Lu Xiangsheng led thousands of Guanning iron cavalry led by Zu Kuan to kill a big rout and fled, even the camp was defeated, and was chased out of fifty miles by Lu Xiangsheng's troops. Zhulong Bridge to Guanshan all the way to accumulate corpses to fill the ditch, Chushui is not flowing, and then in Zhuxian Town again was caught up by Lu Xiangsheng, killed a person on his back and turned over, had to run all the way to Nanyang, so that Lu Xiangsheng was gradually forced back to Shaanxi.

And through the performance of Gao Yingxiang and Li Zicheng and other Lu Yijun during the period before and after the year, Xiao Tianjian gradually felt that if this continued, Gao Yingxiang's end may not be far away.

And this time if Hong Chengchou and Sun Chuanting join forces, with Xiao Tianjian's understanding of Gao Yingxiang, I am afraid that this time Gao Yingxiang will be more auspicious, but Xiao Tianjian is just a premonition now, after all, his appearance at the moment has affected the development of history to some extent, and I don't know if it will affect Gao Yingxiang's fate, but judging from the various information he has received so far, his current impact on the entire historical development has not reached that earth-shaking level, as for Gao Yingxiang's life and death, he is not very concerned.

But at the same time, he also knows that with his current strength, if he wants to intervene in Henan and Shaanxi to seize territory, it is estimated that he will still be unable to do so, so what he has to do now is to consolidate the foundation in the south of Shanxi first, and wait for the opportunity to seek greater living space.

Compared with the other Zhulu Righteous Army, although the Xingtian Army has seen several defeats in Shanxi this year, and its prestige is great, after all, the main activity area of the Xingtian Army is still limited to a few counties in the southeast corner of Shanxi, and for the imperial court, the threat of the Xingtian Army is far less powerful than the threat of Gao Yingxiang, Li Zicheng, and Zhang Xianzhong.

Therefore, although the imperial court was unfavorable because of many suppressions, Chongzhen did not condemn Hong Chengchou and Wu Fu for this, but only strictly reprimanded him, and even Zuo Guangxian, Xu Dingguo, Hu Dawei and other generals who fled after defeat this time were not arrested and questioned, but only reprimanded them, so that they could continue to be retained and make meritorious contributions.

Even Hu Dawei was defeated twice, losing thousands of soldiers, and later he was seriously injured because of his hard work, not only was he not guilty, but he was also praised by Chongzhen.

As a result, Shanxi was temporarily settled again, and with the emergence of the Great Famine, everyone was busy.

This time the great hunger in Shanxi is quite fierce, from the north of Shanxi to the area of central Jin, after the beginning of spring, there has never been a little rain, some of the grain that was finally planted can not survive at all, coupled with the drought and insect plague in the first few years, the people have no surplus food in their hands to survive, and suddenly there is a scene of hungry people everywhere.

A large number of ordinary people had to abandon their homes and embark on the road of escaping the famine, so that there was a large-scale tide of displaced people in Shanxi, and the area of Jinzhong, which was originally relatively stable, was suddenly flooded with displaced people, and the hungry displaced people did not care so much, and they could not take care of anything for the sake of food.

In order to survive, these homeless people robbed and cut the path, besieged the fort of Fujijiazhuang, and stormed the grain depot of the county seat.

For this reason, Wu Fu couldn't care about the affairs of the Xingtian Army, and these things alone kept him busy, and he dispatched troops all day long to constantly suppress the troubles of the homeless people in various places, so that Shanxi was no longer able to re-wage war with the Xingtian Army in a short period of time.

As a result, Hong Chengchou and Sun Chuanting were busy dealing with the Zhulu Righteous Army in Shaanxi, while Wu Fu was busy dealing with the great hunger in Shanxi.

This also made Xiao Tianjian breathe a sigh of relief, and took advantage of this opportunity to reorganize the troops and horses in the area he occupied, while vigorously pioneering and dredging irrigation channels to divert water to fight drought.

After nearly half a month of vigorous sweeps by various units of the Xingtian Army, the small groups of routs left by the official army in the area controlled by the Xingtian Army were either suppressed, or they fled or walked out of the mountains under pressure and surrendered to the Xingtian Army, so that this chaos was brought under control in a relatively short period of time.

In the jurisdiction of the Xingtian Army, the common people have basically already belonged wholeheartedly to the Xingtian Army, so these rout soldiers want to be entrenched here, there is no room for them to survive, coupled with the system of protecting the chief township soldiers promoted by the Xingtian Army in its jurisdiction, each township and village has set up its own township soldiers, so that those scattered rout soldiers can not survive at all, they are either killed or driven out, and in the end, some of the remaining ones are only honestly tied up and captured, and they are collected by the Xingtian Army, and those who should be killed are killed. The resettlement of those who should be dismissed and resettled, those who are willing to go home will be let go home, those who are willing to stay and work with the Xingtian Army, and those who should be recruited by the strong and honest will be selected.

As for some of the remnants of the rich people who fell to the government in this battle, Xingtianjun did not be polite to them this time, and when they found out a family, they directly destroyed a family, and their original land was immediately distributed to the people, basically cleaning up the hostile forces in the jurisdiction again, of course, it cannot be said that there are no accidental killings, but for the sake of the fundamentals, this time Xiao Tianjian came down in cold blood, as long as there is any doubt, he will immediately clear it, although he has unjustly killed a group of people, but for them to firmly control this area in the future, it is still more beneficial than disadvantageous.

At the same time, the excavation and dredging work of irrigation canals in various places was also carried out vigorously, fortunately, there were many rivers running through the area controlled by the Xingtian Army, and most of the fertile land was concentrated on both sides of the river, and there was no shortage of water sources. As a result, irrigation canals in various places have basically restored their function of irrigating farmland.

In addition, Xiao Tianjian also ordered some villages where there was no water source to lead to the chief to dig deep wells on the spot to ensure water for people and livestock, and ordered the carpenters in the engineering camp and the craftsmen of Shuangfeng Village to concentrate on building a batch of water wheels and transporting them to various places for drought-resistant irrigation.

As a result, in mid-April, most of the farmland under the jurisdiction of the Xingtian Army solved the problem of drought resistance, and basically put grain into the farmland.

Moreover, Chen Laohan personally took a group of skilled field handles to raise those reserves of sweet potatoes into seedlings, distributed sweet potato seedlings to a large number of farmers for cultivation, and planted a large number of sweet potato fields.

However, there are also many problems that follow, because a large number of displaced people began to pour into the area controlled by the Xingtian Army after learning the news that the Xingtian Army was sitting in the south of Jin, seeking the protection of the Xingtian Army, in order to be able to get a bite of food within the jurisdiction of the Xingtian Army, so that after the Xingtian Army entered April of the ninth year of Chongzhen, the population showed an explosive growth trend.

The remaining surplus land was quickly distributed, making it impossible for the Xingtian Army to accept more displaced people into their territory.

What's more, when these homeless people came, they were all poor and innocent, and just to solve their food problems made Fu Deming, a civil official, so worried that he almost lost his hair, and had to find Xiao Tianjian to ask Xiao Tianjian for help.

When Xiao Tianjian saw Fu Deming, he couldn't help but be startled by the embarrassment of Fu Deming, who didn't see Fu Deming in just half a month, Fu Deming actually lost a lot of weight, and the whole person was almost out of shape, and the robe hung loosely on his body, feeling as if a wind could blow him down.

So Xiao Tianjian hurriedly let Fu Deming into the house, and immediately arranged for someone to prepare a meal for Fu Deming, so that he could talk while eating.

Fu Deming was not polite to Xiao Tianjian, he also knew that Xiao Tianjian did not have any shelves on weekdays, so he picked up the chopsticks and chewed them, Xiao Tianjian also hurriedly poured him a bowl of water and let him eat while drinking, Fu Deming said to Xiao Tianjian while eating: "General, there have been more and more displaced people pouring into our jurisdiction recently, and if this continues, we may not be able to bear it!" Now that we are still in the spring famine everywhere, feeding so many people that the little food in our hands is no longer enough! The general has to think of a way to do this! If not, then you can only watch these people starve to death! ”

Xiao Tianjian nodded and said, "Eat slowly, and talk while eating!" It seems that Mr. Fu has worked hard recently! You also have to pay attention to your body, in case you get tired, I'll have a big helper missing! ”