As the saying goes, "Huma in the north, Fan in the west; The barbarians of the South China Sea, the widows of the East China Sea, "one sentence describes the basic ecology of the vassal and naturalized races of all ethnic groups under the rule of the Tang Dynasty for hundreds of years.

In Yanzhou, on the Southwest Lu Plain in later generations, a temporary battle came to an end

With the sound of a few shellings, the Humars scattered like a flock of birds that had been scattered, and they scattered away without looking back. Only a few dozen flesh-and-blood corpses remained, as well as the wounded, especially those wriggling on the ground.

"The straight lady thief's run is really neat......"

"I don't know how to stack the next batch of ...... at first"

"Now I can only check a few dead ones......"

"The one of them must have the old Hu Mazi who died a few times ago......"

And in the ranks of the gunners who participated in the battle, some of them complained as they raised their bayonets and went forward to cut off the heads of these enemies one by one, whether they were dead or alive, and hung them on the back of their horses for some kind of trophies.

According to the regulations on military merit awards, you can exchange some canned food and blankets in addition to your daily rations.

"Chen Sibo, take the trouble to count and write it down......"

Chen Yuan, who was a little shocked, hurriedly stepped forward, endured the choking smell of blood, and went to identify and count these bloody war catches one by one.

This is the day when he followed Brother Pengju, under a new identity and camp, for the first time, and then he was unsurprisingly shocked by this battle mode.

Although it was only a makeshift warband, with only a few hundred gunners, more than a thousand soldiers and auxiliaries on the left and right, plus two groups of small cannons and grenadiers, it could rely on the formation of formations on the flat ground, and drive out the Humars, who had obvious numerical superiority.

And these Humal were also very uncontented, and when they saw their banners, they gathered together like frightened birds, and fled away after only a little contact and frustration, not at all like some means of luring the enemy and suspicious soldiers.

Is this still the great trouble of the border plug in those years, the vicious and vicious Hu Mazi, Chen Yuan couldn't help but fall into a state of deep institutional thinking.

And at the other end,

"The front is the key point in Chengxian County, where the former Lanling Town is located,"

The lieutenant of the fourth brigade of the auxiliary army, who was riding on a horse, said to Brother Pengju with some politeness.

As the general of the main battle battalion, he has a superiority advantage in class. The future and promotion of the auxiliary army brigade is the seniority of being selected into the main battle battalion, so it is natural that they will try their best to have a good relationship with the generals who cooperate with the battle.

It's just that this person's situation seems to be a bit peculiar.

"If there are no accidents......

"We will build a fortress here in the future......"

"Rest for a long time......"

In this regard, Peng Ju could only smile slightly bitterly in his heart and make some kind of indifferent nodding gesture.

For a wild man like him who joined the army halfway, he was able to be particularly favored by the military marshal, and he was directly promoted to the rank of the main battle battalion, which was not only a certain incentive and luck, but also a certain pressure and spur.

Especially for him, who has been scattered with the familiar old department, and to face a group of quite unfamiliar but qualified old subordinates, the new generals and regimental officers of the second battalion and the fourth regiment, it is more like a test and tempering.

I don't know how many people are watching his jokes, and I don't know how those old subordinates of Liangshan envy and yearn for his chances, at least since Dengfeng raised troops to fight for his survival, he is not the kind of person who will admit defeat to reality.

However, they specially sent troops to come this time, but they were to set up outposts for the coal mines in Yanzhou, and also to conduct some kind of armed reconnaissance and investigation.

Now, under the direct military control of Qingzhou, there are more than 100,000 people, divided into a number of major battalions, plus the population that has migrated from Liangshan one after another, although the shelter and diet can barely be made, but the fuel to maintain heating throughout the winter is somewhat insufficient.

And if you only rely on manpower, cutting down trees in the wilderness and demolishing buildings in the city to sustain it, it will inevitably be a bit exhausted.

Therefore, the long-term plan of never taking precautions can only be for the Yanzhou territory that has produced coal since ancient times, although the smoke of direct coal burning is very large, but compared with the so-called probability of various chronic respiratory diseases, it is better than the consequences of freezing to death and frostbite.

And the most intuitive influence on me is undoubtedly from the description of the old black and white movie "Railway Guerrillas", which is related to coal mines and along the railway, a large number of industrial clusters have flourished.

At least according to my vague memory, the Shandong Peninsula was one of the civilized coal-producing areas in the country in later generations.

Located in the Yanzhou coalfield belt, it is one of the eight major coal bases in the country in later generations, and the coal quality is low phosphorus, low sulfur, low ash, high calorific value of high-quality gas coal and coking coal, can also be used as boiler thermal coal.

Therefore, the specific origin of local coal mining can even be traced back to the Qi State during the Warring States Period, and even Handan, the Zhao State, where the iron casting industry was very developed, also needed to be imported from the east.

In addition, in the northwest of Yanzhou, near Rencheng, which was later known as Jining City, there was also a large iron ore group, although it was not a direct open-pit mine, but a medium and shallow mine that needed to be excavated.

Fortunately, in this era, there were already relatively primitive deep tunnel mining and wooden frame support technology, coupled with relatively low human labor.

Therefore, since the beginning of the Tang Wude period, there have been special salt and iron officials and money supervisors in Yanzhou to manage the thirteen iron smelters, including eighteen copper smelting and four copper pits; and tin refining associated with copper ore; As a result, a sufficient number of copper coins could be minted for the imperial court on a regular basis.

Although it is a troubled time, as an important source of income for the local feudal town - Qingxu Town, the scale and output of various mines can only be said to have increased unabated compared with the previous dynasty, but because of the great disasters and famines of the past few years, plus the continuous wars, most of them have been abandoned.

Now this task force of the Northland people is the main component of the task force to come to control and control several small and medium-sized mines in the area of Chengxian and Tengxian on the east bank of Weishan Lake.

Compared with the villages and towns that were burned and plundered by Humazi, a blank of white land or rubble, these relatively remote coal mines located at the junction of Yizhou are relatively intact, with only some aging scenes that have fallen into disrepair.

Obviously, they have basically no interest in these inedible and worthless mine ores, therefore,

As soon as their outposts had been established and had successfully established themselves in the midst of Humar's raids, the brigade of captives and diggings would follow up to the area, in order to restore basic production and transport resources in the shortest possible time

In the land of Henan, Yang Keshi is still recovering the lost territory, reoccupying those cities one by one.

They passed through Xuzhou, Ruzhou, and Yuzhou all the way, and almost entered the land of no man, in fact, this military horse was walking alone in the land of no man.

Therefore, their occupation was only to replant the flag of the Northern Dynasty on the empty cities and fortresses, and then collect the remnants of the people who were hiding, and issue weapons for daily maintenance.

And in the wilderness of the road,

There were only sporadic wandering horses, but they did not pose any threat to them at all, and often ran away after seeing such a large group of men and horses.

It was still symbolic for them to take over one city after another, which had been ravaged and ruined. Because of the torment of winter, most of the active Hu Mazi, as well as the army of the established Saiwai princes, spontaneously rushed to the relatively empty, warmer and richer area south of the Huai River.

It's a pity that the Luodu court, which has just recovered the four important roads, has no intention of taking care of anything else.

Therefore, Yang Keshi went all the way south until he reached the bank of Huaishui, and only then did the brigade turn west under the peep of those unknown armed forces entrenched at the bridgehead and probes and brains.

When these enemies entrenched at the bridgehead finally breathed a sigh of relief, but they did not expect that night to suddenly change in shock, these northern troops suddenly went and returned under the cover of night, and attacked and broke through the camp stationed at the bridgehead in one go, setting fire and slashing everywhere

Immediately, the enemy troops who bombed the camp in a panic were driven to the fragile ice of Huaishui, and then sank into the icy river in despair in the crisp sound of cracking one after another.

And what illuminates these figures struggling in the broken ice and river is the bright light of the Huaishui pontoon bridge when it was set on fire.

The support on the other side of the river got the news and rushed along the bridge to kill the generals, but it was already a step too late, only to see these torches gathered in the long dragon of backup soldiers and horses, and had to jump off the frozen ice between the violent shaking of the broken pontoon bridge.

Then, along with the violently shaking torches, they suddenly extinguished and sank into the dark surging waters of the Huai Shui.

Within a few days, from Xinxi to Xia Cai, the four pontoon bridges were all recaptured by this lone soldier and destroyed immediately.