As the saying goes, in this troubled world, the biggest treasure is not gold, silver and jewelry, but grain.

Since the Wanli years, the world has fallen into the Xiaoice period, and the temperature has dropped sharply, not only natural and man-made disasters have continued, but also because of the decrease in temperature, photosynthesis has weakened, and the harvest in the fields has decreased sharply.

In addition to natural disasters, greater crises come from man-made disasters. First of all, there were Yao Tiandong, Huanglong and other local tyrants who ran rampant in the countryside in northern Sichuan, killing people and extorting money, and in the last years of Chongzhen, they occupied the prefecture and county, causing trouble.

Although it is now the period of the Xiaoice River, Sichuan is rich, coupled with the accumulation of more than 200 years in Daming, each prefecture and county initially had surplus grain for everyone to eat.

Then Zhang Xianzhong and his 200,000 Western Army entered Sichuan from Huguang Province, although they destroyed most of Sichuan along the way, but they were fiercely resisted by the majority of squires (many squires committed suicide in many histories), in order to resist the brutality of the Great Western Army, including Yang Zhan, Zeng Ying, Yang Lin, Yin Chengqi and other Ming Dynasty generals and squires led their troops to resist, and cooperated with the Ming Dynasty crusade army entrenched in Yunnan and Guizhou to resist the Great Western Army.

In order to quell the troubles in various places, Zhang Xianzhong used a bloodier tyranny to resist the rebel forces, and in the name of enriching the capital, he used the method of drawing salaries from the bottom of the kettle to supervise the relocation of the powerful and scholars from all over the country to the capital.

Originally, people everywhere were panicked, and there were rumors everywhere that Zhang Xianzhong would slaughter all the Sichuan people, and now I saw that the Great Western Army forcibly moved to the CD one by one by one, and the wealthy families were like driving livestock to the CD, and the migrants were frightened, and the migrants were too late to die, and everyone in order to resist the tyranny of the Great Western Army, under the leadership of the powerful families, scholars, and civil warriors, everyone retreated to occupy the cottage to protect themselves, and advanced like Zeng Ying and Yang Lin to capture the state and county and entrench one side.

In this way, many people in Sichuan are not producing, everyone is sitting and eating, today you kill me, tomorrow I will kill you, and the Great Western Army is in a melee.

And the most severe of these is the CD Plain, in previous years, thousands of miles of fertile soil, the country of abundance of the emperor's capital, due to Long Wenguang, Zhao Jiawei excavated Dujiangyan, the entire ecological environment was destroyed.

The flood of the Minjiang River rushed into the CD Plain, not only washed away the people's houses, washed away the people's livestock and grain, drowned the people who did not have time to escape, because of the war, or there was no local governance experience at all, a year down, the floods in the CD Plain have not been cured at all, and when it rains heavily, the water flows into a disaster, and the surging river water is left from the Minjiang River, and the drought and flood become a disaster.

Although a small number of people are reluctant to leave their homes and run back to their hometowns after the flood to re-farm, the harvest is limited, and at most they can have enough food and clothing, let alone more than food.

Most of the people fled to the southern, central, and northern Sichuan regions, and these displaced people did not produce for a while, and everyone was waiting to be fed, which caused a shortage of food in various places.

In addition, in order to increase the mobility of the troops, the Onishi Army entered Sichuan and wantonly forcibly requisitioned cattle, horses, mules, and other livestock from the people, resulting in many places having no livestock and had to rely entirely on manpower to cultivate.

It can be said that after a year of tossing, the whole of Sichuan, except for Shunqing Mansion in northern Sichuan, is suffering from a food shortage.

Because the place is still stable, the people of the government have some food in their hands, so Shunqing Mansion in northern Sichuan has become Tang monk meat in the eyes of many warlords around.

The first to act was the 13 Shahuang families entrenched in Bazhou, and after several years of tossing, the three counties of Bazhou had no food to grab.

In order to solve the food shortage, although Yao Huang also returned to the field to cultivate and farm during the busy farming season, everyone was used to idleness, although some fields were planted, but they did not take care of it, and the harvest in the field was limited, so there was not enough food at all.

In order to solve the problem of eating, Yao Huang often went out to loot during the slack time to solve the problem of food shortage.

Listening to the report, several counties bordering on it, such as Da County, Dongxiang County, and Yingshan County, have had a bumper grain harvest this year, and in order to grab the grain, Yao Tiandong, Yuan Tao and others have worked hard and sent many soldiers and horses to rob the grain.

Then there is Liu Jinzhong who is entrenched in Baoning Mansion, Wang Jiye who is entrenched in Xichong, and Zhang Wenxiu who is entrenched in Hezhou.

For these people, this food is much more important than Tang monk meat, Tang monk meat is just icing on the cake, immortality, and in troubled times, this food is a life-saving thing, no food only starvation.

Looking at the emergency documents in various places, I saw that Yang Lin just asked the militia groups in the bordering counties to quickly assemble, defend the pass, and cooperate with Yang Bingyi's 5th Battalion stationed in Pengzhou and Liao Qifang's 4th Battalion stationed in Dazhou to resist the grain robbery.

The Great Western Army and the local rioters were menacing, and Yang Lin did not deal with it with the main force at all, but only dispatched the militia groups from various counties to deal with it, which made the imperial history and the supervising army Qian Bangqi quite dissatisfied.

Three days ago, the local rioters broke through two cottages from Daxian County and robbed a thousand loads of grain, Qian Bangqian was anxious and accused: "Your Excellency, last time when the governor Ma Gan and the deputy general Zeng Ying led their troops to attack Chongqing, you just sent a partial division to rescue, and now the local rioters and rogues are invading the territory, plundering the people under the general's rule, and robbing their rations.

My lord, everyone says that you love the people like a son and are a clean official, but today it seems that your heart is as hard as a stubborn stone, and you don't understand personnel at all. ”

Yang Lin stared at the map, shook his head for a long time, and said: "No, the general of the Dashun Army, He Zhen, has just led his troops to Shun Barbarian Qing, it stands to reason that Liu Jinzhong of Baoning Mansion not only wants to suppress the local rebels, but also has to guard against the Hanzhong Barbarian Qing, and he is controlled by many parties, how can he have the strength to send so many men and horses to rob the grain?" ”

Yin Chengqi leaned over and said puzzledly: "My lord, what's wrong, does Zhang Xianzhong have any conspiracy?" ”

Yang Lin thought for a while, closed his eyes and pondered for a moment, opened his eyes for a long time and said, "Everyone, do you remember?" A few months ago, Zhang Dingguo came with a threat, saying that if we don't return to Daxi, 500,000 Daxi troops will be killed and all the jade will be burned. ”

Qian Bangqi sneered: "My lord, you, you won't really take it seriously, right?" This is just a threat, was the adult really frightened and frightened by Zhang Dingguo's two words? ”

Shaking his head, Yang Lin stood up and took two steps back and forth: "Everyone, up and down the whole Sichuan, if you want to talk about the lack of food, Yao Huang in Bazhou is the first, followed by the CD Plain with thousands of miles of fertile soil in the past, and the adjacent Tongchuan Prefecture (today's Suining City), and finally Baoning Mansion, Chongqing Mansion, Jiading Mansion and other places.

To the north of Liu Jinzhong is the Hezhen Department of Hanzhong, which has just surrendered to the barbarian Qing Dynasty, to the east is the most grain-starved Yao loess tyrant in Bazhou, and to the southeast is our loyal and righteous army.

In addition to Liu Jinzhong, the same is true of Zhang Wenxiu in Hezhou, who was under the attack of the Ming army of Zeng Ying's department and our department, and sent soldiers and horses to rob grain regardless of life and death.

Isn't it a little strange that the heavy troops of the Liukou are now gathered in CD Mansion and Tongchuan Prefecture, and Zhang Dingguo of Tongchuan Prefecture has not moved?

Qian Bangqi opened his mouth, and pointed to Pan Mengke, the intelligence staff officer under him, for a long time, and said: "My lord, as the saying goes, before the soldiers and horses move, the grain and grass go first.

Now there are only more than 30,000 people in Tongchuan Prefecture, such as Zhang Dingguo and Bai Wenxuan, and it will be even more difficult to capture the city of Shunqing if we want to defeat our army. ”

Yang Lin shook his head and sighed: "Since Liukou entered Sichuan, the CD Plain has become the country of Qianli Ze, except for the garrison of the Loyal and Righteous Army, now the whole Sichuan is basically short of food.

The local tyrants in Bazhou are short of food, and the Great Western Army in various places is also short of food, so it is impossible for Zhang Xianzhong not to make plans, and it is impossible to be like the local tyrants, just looting the food in the people's villages, how much food is in the people's villages?

If I am not mistaken, Zhang Xianzhong will definitely send troops to attack Shunqing Mansion. ”

Everyone's faces changed greatly, Yin Chengqi shook his head and said: "My lord, no, our loyal army used to have only 6,000 people, and now after the expansion of the army, it has reached 8,000 people, and its combat power is far above the Great Western Army."

At the beginning of the year, the left army of the Great Western Army attacked Pengzhou, and initially wanted to use the field battle to defeat the adults, but the adults defeated the 4,000 soldiers and horses of the Ma Yuanli Department with less than 2,000 people.

It must be known that there are 2,000 soldiers of the Great Western Army who can fight well, and their combat strength is far from comparable to that of ordinary soldiers and horses, but they were also killed by adults and turned over on their backs, and they returned with a miserable defeat. ”

Yang Lin shook his head and said: "Although we defeated the Great Western Army and killed Ma Yuanli, I think Zhang Xianzhong just thinks that Chen Yingrui and Feng Youqing led their troops to surrender."

I studied Zhang Xianzhong, and I was quite conceited, probably thinking that my lifelong rivals were just Li Zicheng, Zuo Liangyu and others, and I didn't take us seriously at all. ”

Qian Bangxin next to him sighed: "My lord, what should I do for today's plan?" Is it true that the people are still being plundered by local thugs and bandits, and there are no troops to send except these local militias?"

Returning to the front of the map again, Yang Lin thought carefully for a long time, and immediately dictated the military order.

Qian Bangxin was sent to Chongqing to meet with Ma Gan, the governor of Sichuan, Liu Liangchang, and Zeng Ying, the deputy general of eastern Sichuan, and if his troops could capture Hezhou in September, the aid of grain and grass would be increased to 10,000 quintals, and it would be delivered in Hezhou.

The militia groups in Pengzhou and Dazhou counties were ordered to protect the territory and the people, and prevent local tyrants and rogues from robbing grain.

500 militia regiments were transferred from Guang'an Prefecture, led by staff officer Ma Mingluan, under the name of the 3rd Battalion of the Dragon Frame, into the territory of Dazhou, and together with the 4th Battalion of Liao Qifang stationed in Bazhou, they fought against the local rioters.

The 500 militia regiment was dispatched from Pengzhou, led by Du Jigui, the captain of the escort battalion, under the banner of Yao Zhijiao's 4th Battalion, and cooperated with Yang Bingyi's 5th Battalion to fight against Zhang Nengqi who was fighting against Baoning Mansion and the local tyrants entrenched in Bazhou

Considering the great pressure on Pengzhou, Chen Huaixi led the navy to go upstream along the Jialing River and sail into the territory of Baoning Prefecture, directly threatening Langzhong, the administrative office of Baoning Prefecture.

While fighting against the local tyrants and rogue robbers plundering grain and grass, in order to prevent Zhang Xianzhong's counterattack, he asked staff officer Yang Guangtai, staff officer Wang Zhiyao and others to organize local militia groups to train day and night to rush to the aid of Shunqing Mansion at any time and guard against the counterattack of the Great Western Army.