The capital in August is the season of high autumn and cool, the inside and outside of the Wuying Hall are shaded by green trees, faintly filled with a faint fragrance of osmanthus flowers. The door of the conference room of the General Staff Headquarters in the east side hall suddenly opened, and then a group of staff officers in new uniforms walked out of the conference room in order, and they were still whispering to each other.

With the departure of these staff officers, the conference room fell silent again. After Mao Yuanyi, who was frustrated, saw that there were no outsiders in the room, he couldn't help but step forward and walked up to Sun Chengzong, who was still sorting out the documents, and said quite unwillingly: "Teacher, why did you choose Sun Boya's battle plan in the end, no matter how the student thinks, I don't think his plan is better than the student's plan." ”

Sun Chengzong couldn't help but stop the action of packing up the documents in his hand, and listened sideways for a while, only to hear only a few autumn cicadas outside screaming weakly, and then he asked casually: "Your battle plan is very good, but is this really your inner thoughts?" ”

Mao Yuanyi didn't react for a while, and it took a long time to reply: "Of course, although this plan has suggestions from other staff officers, the main part is written by the students themselves, and the teacher is also invited to learn from it." ”

Hearing that Mao Yuanyi didn't understand what he meant, Sun Chengzong couldn't help but sigh, looked up at him and asked, "I'm asking you, is this battle plan you wrote really the plan you approved in your mind?"

You have always been known for being cautious and cautious in preparing training plans and combat plans on a daily basis. But in this plan, I don't see any of this, except for the adventure or the adventure, we haven't fully understood the details of Houjin's garrison in Yiju and Beizhen, but you have already regarded Yizhou as something in your pocket, and tried to use the method of besieging Yizhou to lure the Beizhen defenders to attack.

Even if Huang Taiji attacked North Korea and transferred 50,000 Houjin troops, there were at least 150,000 troops in Houjin, not including the Mongol vassals who were dependent on Houjin. Why do you treat the army in the country of Houjin as nothing? Whether Yizhou and Beizhen can be captured has not yet been determined, but they have already thought of sending men and horses to attack the two fortresses of Montenegro and Xiping to get a glimpse of the reality of Shenyang.

The five elements are uncertain and lose cleanly, is your battle plan to capture Yizhou and Beizhen, or to take Shenyang directly? Are you hesitating in your own heart, and do you still think it is better than other people's plans? ”

Mao Yuanyi's face turned a little pale, and her lips opened several times before she held back a sentence, "But it's a rare opportunity, teacher." Since the Battle of Sarhu, our country has been humiliated in Liaodong one after another, so that the Jurchens of Dejianzhou rose and founded a country in Liaodong.

In the past, our army was frightened when it heard the name of the Jurchens in Jianzhou, and would rather defend the city than resist the Jurchen Eight Banners in the wild, resulting in the army of western Liaoning being controlled everywhere. The Jianzhou Jurchens come and go freely on the border of our country, and they regard our Liaoxi army as a scarecrow in the middle of the field.

Now the morale of our army has finally recovered, and although we dare not say that we are full of soldiers, we can be regarded as having some capital. With the military salaries invested by His Majesty and the organization of our General Staff, the border army is not a mess after all, and the military orders issued by the imperial court do not have the courage of the army to resist stubbornly, which can be described as worthy of a war.

On the other hand, Hou Jin, Huang Taiji did not seek any benefits in our country, but used the power of the Great Khan to remove the other three Baylors from governing the country, and now Hou Jin can be said to be a time when people's hearts are broken. At this time, Huang Taiji did not sit in Shenyang to solve internal problems, but personally led troops to invade North Korea, which shows that the big and small Baylor and Jurchen relatives around him are unreliable, so Huang Taiji did not dare to hand over the task of presiding over the expedition to others.

It is precisely because the students feel that now is the best time to attack Houjin and go to a big trouble for our country, so they are a little flustered and ask the teacher for forgiveness. ”

Sun Chengzong shook his head at Mao Yuanyi in front of him and said: "Houjin is now like an autumn cicada chirping in the trees outside, as long as it is winter, we naturally can't hear the cicadas."

What you just said is right, now is the time for the post-Jin people to be discouraged, but isn't this kind of distraction caused by us? We were able to force Huang Taiji not to worry about others and go out on his own. Then the next time you can do the same. Opportunities are not given by God, but created by ourselves.

You are inferior to Sun Boya in this regard, we just need to look farther and fight every battle honestly. Regardless of whether the war is drawn or won, as long as they do not lose to the Jianzhou Jurchens, even if they only destroy one or two hundred true Jurchens in one battle, as long as they fight a hundred or a thousand battles, the Jurchens will almost perish.

Therefore, to fight Houjin, the first thing is to save yourself first, and then wait for the opportunity to annihilate the enemy. Sun Boya did a very good job of this, and in his battle plan, even if Huang Taiji's expedition to Korea this time was a false shot, and he turned around to attack our army besieging Uiju, he could also ensure that the attacking troops could retreat safely. Even the order in which each unit would retreat, he had already marked.

I think you should know that it has not been easy for us to reorganize our army in the past few years, and it has been with great difficulty to select these usable soldiers from the nine sides. They are not consumables on the battlefield, but useful talents in His Majesty's heart. If you gamble with their lives, how can you gain the trust of the soldiers and the approval of Your Majesty? ”

Mao Yuanyi finally stopped talking, and there were only bursts of "knowing" cries in the ears of the two. An hour later, Sun Chengzong personally sent the two battle plans and the decision of the General Staff to the emperor.

After Zhu Youzhen looked through it, he took out a dipping pen and signed the document, and then said: "In accordance with the advice of Mr. and the General Staff, a wartime base camp will be set up in the capital, and Mr. will be the head of the base camp." Jinzhou formed a former enemy command and made Sun Chuanting the commander-in-chief. The special funds for the operation were 1.5 million yuan, and the customs and household departments were transferred to the account of the base camp within 10 days. If the follow-up expenses are overspent, they will be transferred from the accounts of the Ministry of Internal Affairs..."

Unlike in the past, when there was some movement in the north, the people in the Gyeonggi area were panicked about the movement of troops, but the people in the Gyeonggi area were still peaceful when the General Staff moved troops north, and it seemed that they did not feel the atmosphere of war about to break out in the middle of the minute. The people in the market who discuss the yield and price of cotton are more concerned about the movement of the evil neighbors in the north than the people who are concerned about the movements of the evil neighbors in the north.

However, this year's cotton production is also worth discussing. After three years of dissemination, American cotton has become the mainstream cotton seed in the cotton fields of Hebei, Shandong and northern Henan, and the sowing proportion has reached more than ninety percent.

In addition to the trust of the people in these areas in the peasant associations, the superiority of the American cotton seed itself is also the main reason for the elimination of local native cotton.

For example, 7,000 plants are planted per acre of cotton, but 1,200-1,300 plants are sown per acre of cotton. There are more than 20 peaches in one plant, and 35-40 kg of seed cotton can be harvested per mu. However, there are 70-80 peaches on a cotton plant, and 100-200 kilograms can be harvested per acre. The yield per acre of American cotton is almost three times that of native cotton.

In the six years of Chongzhen, the cotton fields in Hebei, Shandong and northern Henan were about 6.7 million mu, and a total of 10 million quintals of seed cotton were harvested, ranging from 3.9 to 4.6 yuan per quintal of seed cotton, that is to say, one mu of cotton fields also produced at least 5 yuan worth of seed cotton. That's much more than growing food.

Of course, the wheat-cotton double cropping system is also being promoted in these areas, but the technicians of the farmers' associations have found that the wheat and cotton double cropping system will reduce the cotton yield by about 20%, which is obviously due to the lack of soil fertility. However, now cotton production is no longer a problem, and the production of cotton cloth is the biggest problem.

The expansion of cotton fields and the promotion of improved cotton varieties have made cotton production exceed the processing capacity of the cotton textile industry in the north. If it weren't for the fact that the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Household Affairs had been purchasing cotton, it is estimated that this year's bumper cotton harvest would have been a disaster.

Of course, this disaster is not the saturation of the cotton cloth market, but the backward production capacity of cotton yarn processing and cotton cloth weaving, which has begun to hinder the further expansion of cotton planting. In addition to encouraging the northern gentry to invest in the construction of new cotton textile workshops, the Ministry of Internal Affairs began to study the use of water power for cotton yarn processing and cotton cloth production, and at the same time vigorously exported cotton yarn to Korea and Japan in exchange for cotton cloth, so as to take advantage of the cheaper labor in these regions for production.

At the same time, Daming's cotton sales to the Americas and Southeast Asia expanded again. Of course, the British East India Company also increased the purchase of Ming calico and white cloth, and British merchants soon found that the purchase of white cloth from China to India for dyeing could be sold as Indian calico in China.

Daming cotton woven with American cotton is more delicate and comfortable, and is not inferior to the quality of Indian calico. But Indian calico costs £3 a horse in the UK, while Daming cotton cloth is only £2 a horse. They purchase white cloth in China is only 0.8 Ming Yuan a horse, and the freight to Europe plus the cost of printing and dyeing in India is only 0.7 Ming Yuan, if you add loss and taxes, the cost of each Ming calico is 3 yuan, which is equivalent to 233% of the profit earned per cloth.

Compared with the indian calico, which was expensive and had to be settled in gold, Chinese Indian dyeing was clearly more in the interest of British merchants. Of course, as the British wore calico from curtains to themselves, Britain and Europe began to replace the black and gray woolen fabrics with brightly colored cotton cloths.

As cotton became more and more popular in Europe, British woollen textile merchants began to boycott printed cloth from India and began to devote themselves to the production of cotton textiles. It was also in 1633 that an English captain secretly dismantled several cotton ginners and brought them back to England.

These ginners were not taken seriously at first, and it was not until a few years later that British merchants began to realize the popularity of cotton cloth and someone bought them, laying the foundation for the cotton textile industry in Britain.

Of course, this is not the only technology they have stolen from China. As China took the lead in completing the Industrial Revolution, the British, who had always maintained friendly relations with China, were the first to realize the importance of industrialization to the country.

This led the British to begin to introduce a large amount of technology to China, and those who could not introduce it sent students to steal it. The acumen of the British led them to become the second country to complete the Industrial Revolution, almost closely following China.

Of course, in this world, all honors and interests always belong to the first, and ranking second does not change anything.