The husband was guarding Peng Mao because of the soldiers, and his hemp clothes and sideburns were scorched.

Sang Zhe came to pay taxes, and seedlings were still levied after the pastoral famine.

When picking wild vegetables and roots to boil, spin and chop raw firewood with leaves to burn.

Even deeper in the mountains, there should be no way to avoid the levy.

"Shi Shi Xing" Tang Dynasty: Du Xunhe

- I'm the dividing line -

The dirty cases that can't see their original colors, scattered salted edamame, boiled peanut shells, and unlimited tea soup that is so light that they don't know the taste have become the best things for these young scholars who like to talk and comment on current affairs.

And Wei Zhuang, the new trainee wind collector of the mission department who was mixed in with them, was also secretly smiling bitterly and listening to their words and deeds in a complicated mood. He never imagined that he would one day be in such a role.

Only after personally understanding the teachings did he know that there was no shortage of people in the Taiping Army today, and he never lightly appointed official positions, even the lowest officials and officials; Therefore, if you want to rely on the eloquence and tone of the tongue, or a little old literary name and word of mouth, it is a luxury to hear and reuse it.

Anyone who wants to be motivated will either sink down and accumulate qualifications from the lowest level of practice; Either you have to take the grading test of 369 and so on, and then pass the follow-up study and internship to have the opportunity to get a formal position.

Therefore, there are already some scholars who are not willing to sink down to deal with those dull and stupid mud-legged people, nor do they want to re-examine and build again and again, so they leave one after another without saying goodbye.

And Wei Zhuang himself is a relatively rare special case, because some of his early works in Beijing were actually mentioned by the Grand Governor, and then he was guaranteed by his old friend Han Wei, who already had a small identity and status, so he obtained this apprenticeship position.

Since it is a trainee position, it means that he does not have a formal salary, but he can get a certain amount of subsidized benefits in kind and a small amount of copper money. The task is to mingle with these scholars all day long, listen to their voices and public opinions, and regularly report on some hot topics and daily status.

However, compared to Wei Zhuang, who is like a mess here, his other old friend, Du Xunhe, has obviously gone further and more radically. He actually signed up for the frightening anti-rebellion meeting, and one of the new "three detachments" group was assigned to the accompanying clerkship.

This is not a good ministry with a good reputation, and it is rumored that his hands are covered with blood, and he is even in danger of losing his life if he is not careful. Therefore, Wei Zhuang did not fail to persuade this old friend to be a little more cautious and considerate.

But Du Xunhe, who has always behaved quite freely and happily with suffering, responded very decisively this time; "It is precisely because there are so many things in the world that I want to see with my own eyes whether the Taiping army has always acted as it is! If you can make a life for the people, even if you kill someone like Qin Wu'an, will you be praised by it? ”

In the camping camp outside Xixiang City, Jinzhou, many young soldiers were sweating and receiving new tactics of training, and most of the standard jackets sewn with cotton cloth and broken velvet were quickly taken off to the side, and in the thin snow that was trampled into a muddy field, the tendons and flesh of the tendons and flesh were exposed.

And Fu Cun, the deputy of the team who is responsible for the leader, is also holding a standard group card in his hand, making a smooth movement of flying up and down, rushing left and right, and blocking the grid before and after, as if he is playing this ordinary thing.

It is hard to imagine that more than a year ago, he was a junior colonel of the official army who was bent on making meritorious contributions to thieves, and now he is a decent Taiping sergeant. For this reason, he also changed his name to Fu Cun Trial, taking the meaning of good existence and judging the body, which can be regarded as a complete separation from the past and getting rid of it.

In the past few days, although the overall military size has not increased much on the basis of the eight armies and six defense areas of the Taiping Metropolitan Governor's Office, the corresponding investment in addition to military expenses and food has increased several times in successive years.

For example, with the successive pacification of the southeastern part of Jiangxi, the eastern (province) of Shanshan (south), and the prefectures of Xiajiang, and the completion of most of the local transformation and purging work, the order of the 1st to 6th armies, which were the main forces of the Taiping Army, has once again become fully staffed with the successive return of the establishment.

Among them, a large number of subordinate armed forces that had undergone preliminary battle formation training and investigation were incorporated and transformed into Xintunzhuang in various places in the form of supplementary soldiers, or (young Ding Zhuang) were assigned to the garrison regiments and field guards of the second and third lines in different places.

However, the biggest investment was the redressing and tactical strengthening of the main force led by the Taiping Eighth Army; For example, except for the navy and cavalry in special circumstances, the other six military orders must ensure that the armor rate is more than six to eighty percent, and at least half of them are iron armor (scale armor, chain mail, ring armor and even forged steel chest guards).

In addition, because of the accumulation of breeding and animal husbandry in these years, coupled with the income obtained by the Taiping Army in the war, more than 10,000 large livestock that can be used for riding can be slaughtered every year.

Then there is the equipment on firearms, and each corps is required to maintain at least one independent firearms unit (grenadiers/grenadiers), which is more than one-tenth of the total military strength. As a result, the cost and investment of various places have risen.

Of course, because most of these units are scattered in various places, the corresponding refitting and training work can only be carried out in accordance with the needs of distance and priority, and the schedule for batch by batch rotation can be compiled.

Among them, the sequence that gives the most priority to receiving training and refitting is neither a reserve/mobile unit stationed in the rear, nor an exhibition and occupation sequence that is on the front line to prepare for the enemy; Rather, it is a second-line unit that is regularly rotated down from the front for trimming.

Therefore, as a new supplementary soldier of the Taiping Army, the first stage of the supplementary battalion is the basic training of using spears to form formations and marching to meet the enemy; At this stage, if there is a performance that is not qualified, it will be eliminated and returned to the township, Tunzhuang, and factory.

Then, according to the specific performance and specialties of the new pawns, the knife players who can not only fight in arrays, but also adapt to small group grappling and fighting, or crossbowmen who can shoot sharply, diffusely, and accumulate in a variety of arrays.

Only at this time can they be called qualified new peacekeepers. And then on this basis, there are more new advancements and development directions.

For example, those who are good at riding can be incorporated into the horse team and participate in the basic training of riding combat; to decide whether they would ride their horses and become a charging cavalryman, or a mounted foot soldier who rode a mule and rode and fought in array.

Swimmers who are good at floating water are generally given priority by the sailors to select those who can adapt to boat manoeuvring and surface activities for a long time, and then carry out basic training in water fighting, landing assault, or armed crossing.

There are also soldiers who are short but good at mountain climbing, and are not afraid of rugged soldiers, they will be assigned to a handful of mountain barracks to receive marching and attack training to strengthen obstacle climbing, mountain shuttle and training with the help of equipment, and even confrontation drills with corresponding mountain environments and special equipment.

Seniors with strong waist and arms can apply to join the training of the fire throwing team, learn simple means of looking at the wind and breaking distance, and eventually become an admirable grenadier, or even a full-fledged grenadier, veteran grenadier, and grenadier.

Now they have a new option. Those who are nimble and determined will be given new types of firearms, ranging from the three-eyed gun to the firing short, in order to gain a level-fire lethality that is far different from that of the crossbow.

As for the members of the appearance team (long-range projection equipment), the requirements are higher, in addition to having enough strength and courage, it is also necessary to have a simple arithmetic and literacy foundation, in order to learn the means of observation and mapping of battle formations.

As one of the advanced ballistae and group leaders, craftsmen, they must even be able to master simple repair and maintenance methods, and be able to use local materials for the needs of the battlefield. Therefore, these distinctions and divisions in the army are also called "the new third order, the old third order, and the third order of firearms", and they have become the direction that the new soldiers strive for.

- I'm the dividing line -

At the mouth of the Hejiang River at the junction of Yuzhou and Luzhou, along the river bank and the mountain wall, the newly constructed civil structure military village along the river bank and the mountain wall is impressively fluttering the Kunpeng pattern blue flag of the Taiping Army.

Along the limited open gate of the military village, the people pushing carts and carrying baskets on the road, or the crowds of people supporting boats on the river, have become a unique scenery nowadays. And the goods they brought were of course varied, but the things they loaded back were uniform gray and white particles.

The reason is also very simple, because at present, in the territory of Jiannan Province, whether it is Dongchuan or Xichuan, the mission people have been suffering from the light food caused by the lack of salt for a long time. The earlier turmoil in the Xiajiang Province led to the cutting off of salt supply from Chongqing and Wange Prefecture for a long time.

You must know that in this era, compared with Gongjing County (now Zigong City) in Rongzhou, which has not been developed on a large scale, the Badong area of Yuzhou is the most important inland salt production area between Bashu and even in Yunnan-Guizhou where Guizhou is located, and the history can even be traced back to the era of Baguo thousands of years ago.

Just since the Zhenyuan Dynasty, the imperial court directly established the Dachang Supervisor (in present-day Wuxi County), Yong'an Supervisor (in present-day Fengjie County), Tu Supervisor (in present-day Zhong County), Yuyang Supervisor (in present-day Changtanjing, Wanzhou District), and Yun'an County Supervisor (present-day Yunyang County); There are hundreds of salt wells and salt springs of all sizes. Not counting the private wells, private pits, and caves that the people dig and cook themselves.

Therefore, not long after the truce between the Taiping army and the official army maintained the standoff, some people had already taken the initiative to cross the border and throw themselves into the territory to buy salt. The rest of the matter became logical.

As a means of restoring local production and generating income through self-reliance, Gangneung quickly approved the request of the newly established local Tunzhuang to give priority to the reconstruction of the Yanjing Workshop and open sales to generate income through the newly completed siding signal towers along the five states of the Xiajiang River.

Also transported by ship were coal from Yiling County, Xiazhou (Yichang, Hubei), as a cheap alternative to subsequent mining and boiling salt; After all, the local area has a long history of chiseling and boiling salt, and the firewood used is collected from the nearby mountains and forests, which will cause great damage to vegetation, water and soil in the long run.

In the later Ming and Qing dynasties, the Badong salt industry was inferior to Zigong, which had fire wells (natural gas) to boil salt, and declined, but also because of the serious damage to the forest belt and mountain forests, and the farther and farther it was gradually mined, and the cost increased more than once.

Yiling County, which is close to the water, has not only found coal mines that can be mined in shallow open-pit mines, but also graphite pits and silica sand pits that have been found with large output in the process of coal exploration, and even slab rock layers rich in phosphate ore.

This brought a great benefit, the Taiping army no longer had to travel thousands of miles to transport struvite from the open sea, but could spread the fertilizer flour to more inland tuntian offices and management areas along the river. It is even further processed into chemicals such as matches and primers.

And on a large flat boat that went to Luzhou, Lin Shenhe, who had been missed, was also blackened by the wind and sun, and his hands and feet were torn outside the dusty old robes, just like a foot merchant who traveled between the Xiajiang River through the tunnel.

His first task was to investigate the salt production in Gongjing County, Yeongju, and to assess the corresponding production capacity and cost of destruction. And behind all this, there is also the potential need of the Taiping army for economic penetration and plunder in the land of Jiannan.

And those who set out long before him were the subservient old subordinates who had been trained simply; Under the cover of these salt sellers, they have already taken silk cloth and salt, which are hard currency, to recruit those who have been scattered in the mountains and forests for a long time and have suffered from the court and the government.