As mentioned at the beginning of this book, just as modern society is very dependent on highways and railways, it is also quite easy to march and fight wars in ancient times.

Not to mention anything else, Zhang Xianzhong's march route into Sichuan, the route of retreating north, and the route of the Manchu Qing Dynasty into Sichuan basically coincide with the post road.

In the Ming Dynasty, the post road basically reached the level of the four-level highway (the branch road of the county, township (town) village, etc.), according to the national standard, the four-level highway pavement in the plain area of the roadway width is 3.5m, and the width of the roadbed is generally 6.5m.

Investigate the ancient post road, whether it is the Meiguan ancient road or other ancient roads, its pavement width reaches 3.5-4 meters wide, reaching or close to the fourth-class highway standard.

In order to march in the front, the post road is mostly rammed, or paved with stone slabs to facilitate the march, which can carry four-wheeled carriages in both directions.

In recent years, Yao Huang, Liukou, and Tartar have been damaged a lot, but the foundation is still there, and Yang Lin has recruited local people to rebuild the post road in the summer slack season, so as to facilitate driving.

After the road problem was solved, the biggest problem was the horse problem, four (Sichuan) did not produce horses, after several years of development, although the volunteer army expanded to tens of thousands, but the cavalry was only a cavalry brigade, and the war horses were only 2,000.

In addition to restricting the development of cavalry, another reason is the shortage of war horses, after the completion of the reorganization of the cavalry brigade, the cavalry brigades of each regiment are often not satisfied, and the main reason is the shortage of war horses.

In order to obtain war horses, Yang Lin also tried to trade tea and horses, but the four (Sichuan) two tea and horse trade routes used to be in the hands of others.

Horses were mainly purchased from Tibet, Gansu and other places through the Ancient Tea Horse Road. Yazhou in southern Sichuan and Long'an in northern Sichuan are the most famous transit stations on the Ancient Tea Horse Road in China.

On this day, Jiangding Town, the prefect of Long'an Prefecture, and Liu Daozhen, the governor of Yazhou, came from the locality, and talked about the tea and horse trade, only to understand that there are three ancient tea horse roads in the country, one is the Shaanxi and Gansu Ancient Road, from Shaanxi to the northwest.

The other is the Shaanxi-Kang-Tibetan Tea Horse Road, which is centered on the Dajian furnace (that is, today's Kangding), and transports Sichuan-Shaanxi tea to the Dajian furnace through Yazhou, and then exchanges it for the horses needed in the Central Plains.

The third road is the Yunnan-Tibet Tea Horse Road, which transports Yunnan tea to Tibet.

But now the ancient tea horse road is not passable, and there are rumors in the local area that after the emperor Taiji conquered the Mongolian Lin Dan Khan, the Mongols have been attached, and now the Ming Zheng Tusi Awangjian of the arrow furnace seems to have accepted the seal of the Manchu Dynasty, and now he is not only an official of the Ming Dynasty, but also a minister of the Qing Dynasty, and he is not as obedient to the Ming Yan as in the past.

In addition, the price of horses, in the peaceful period, good horses were only ten taels of silver, but now it has risen to forty taels of silver, and there is no market.

Listening to everyone's sighs, Yang Lin was quite annoyed, in order to prevent ministers from supporting troops and self-respect, in order to prevent local officials from having too much power, the ancient feudal dynasty completely implemented the system of appointing officials in different places, and completely ignored the localities, and did not understand the situation at all.

In addition, in the past, local self-government was practiced, and there was no government organization below the county level at all, and the control of the local government was very poor.

Looking at the so-called tea and horse trade, the taxes collected by the government in a year are only a few hundred taels of silver, and its income is completely inferior to the income obtained by some people from corruption.

Although horses were needed to form cavalry in battle, and horses were needed to drag and tow grain and grass to transport grain, and it was difficult to return, Yang Lin was powerless for the time being in the face of the fact that the control of the tea and horse trade was firmly in the hands of the Mongolian Tusi led by Ngawang Jian.

Yang Lin asked Liu Daozhen and Jiangding Town to continue to establish township offices in the local area, clear the land, clean up the household registration, and collect commercial endowments, so as to strengthen the government's control over the localities.

Tea and horse bureaus were established in Yazhou and Long'an Province to control the tea and horse trade in an overall manner.

The tea and horse trade policy of the Ming Dynasty was restored, and all merchants engaged in the tea and horse trade were franchised, and the qualifications of the operators were stipulated.

Customs and special taxes were levied on tea and horses in the past.

After strengthening the above measures, the army entered Kangding and took full control of the tea and horse trade, rather than just passively participating in the related tea and horse trade as in modern times.

…..

As soon as the point of view was put forward, it was thought that everyone would oppose it, although everyone had such worries and doubts, but on the whole they all supported it, and the reason was that in the face of the shortage of soldiers and horses from all walks of life in the Central Plains in the face of the Tartars entering the Kou.

Yang Lin knew that it was useless to be anxious, now he only controlled one and a half ancient tea horse roads, and the other half was in the hands of the Tartars, in the hands of Sun Kewang, and only after controlling the main channel of the tea and horse trade could he take drastic measures.

But when the tree wants to be quiet and the wind does not stop, due to the shortage of horses and Yang Lin only wants to do the tea and horse trade, Yiming Zheng Tusi Dan how Zakba wants to control the tea and horse trade.

As Liu Daozhen's book said, after the reopening of the tea and horse market, the Ming Zheng Tusi Dan how Zakba to the Central Plains war only, in the past, the good horses and the middle of each horse folded 250 catties of tea, the medium 220 catties, the inferior 200 catties, and now it is more than 1,000 catties of tea.

Although the price fluctuates, it is still unacceptable that the price of horses has increased more than 1,000 times.

What is even more worrying is the movement of Mingzheng Tusi, it is rumored that as early as the sixteenth year of Chongzhen (1643 AD), Mingzheng Tusi and others sent people to Shenyang to ask Huang Taiji for attachment.

Looking at the soaring price of horses, in the era of cold weapons, cavalry is like a tank of the modern army, and with cavalry, there is an assault force.

As Fan Wenguang said, if a high-quality horse needs a thousand catties of tea in exchange for a horse, each horse is equivalent to 100 taels of silver, and there is a fear of a large fiscal deficit.

Qian Bangqi and others believe that the current enemy is the Qing army, and this Ming Zheng Tusi will be put aside for the time being, so as not to be unstable in the rear.

Yang Lin sat on the top and lamented that the Ming Dynasty, like the imperial courts of ancient China, was extremely powerful on the surface, and the domestic demand market was very large, but these markets were mostly controlled by others.

Ocean trade relies on merchants, and this tea and horse trade is also in the hands of the toast, just as this Ming Zheng Tusi is in charge of the thirteen pots near the arrow furnace, and he has a large horse farm, the supply of goods is in the hands of the other party, and the market is in the hands of the other party.

This is still the case now, and the Mingzheng Tusi attached to the request to the Manchu Qing will be even more so in the future, and the other party is unkind, so don't blame yourself for being unjust.

After thinking about it, Liu Daozhen pretended to give in and agreed to trade tea and horses at the price determined by Mingzheng Toast, that is, a high-quality horse in exchange for 1,000 catties of tea.

Secretly, elite soldiers and horses were sent to disguise themselves as tea customers, and entered the archery furnace in the name of tea and horse trade.