Since January, Shandong, Beizhili, Shanxi, Anhui, and Henan have all seen the emergence of 'notorious' inspection brigades, which have set up checkpoints on the roads to inspect illegal salt.

Anyone who sells illicit salt will be seized! If you resist, kill on the spot. Although the two Huai salt merchants can still transport private salt into these five provinces, they are already worried.

Those salt soldiers are brave and good at fighting, a team of twenty people, sometimes dare to kill two or three hundred salt teams. If it is a rabble, it will inevitably break and flee under the rush, and if it is more fierce, these inspection teams will contact the brigade, and these salt lads are all on horseback, coming and going like the wind, as long as they are targeted by these salt rods, it is almost impossible to escape.

Within these five provinces, the bandits and bandits located on the salt transportation roads were also unlucky, and the major teams began to clear the main and secondary roads in the province one by one.

These bandits are not rogue thieves, they have little sense of attack against officers and soldiers, and their forces are very scattered, and it is relatively easy for the inspection brigade to clear them out, after all, each squadron is equipped with artillery.

If those bandits can fight together, it is estimated that the inspection brigade will not even be able to plug their teeth, after all, the strength of the inspection brigade is often scattered in various places, and if the bandits fight guerrilla warfare, the inspection brigade will only be able to move an inch.

However, the inspection brigade was a member of the government, and few of those bandits dared to take the initiative to attack, so they were defeated by the inspection brigade one by one.

There are 1,000 people per province, which is indeed a little less, so the speed of suppressing bandits is also slow, so they start to clear from the main road first, and then pick soft persimmons and pinch them first.

In order to solve the problem of insufficient troops, Zhao Yan allowed the recruitment and training of auxiliary troops from the local area, except for the Shandong inspection brigade, and each inspection brigade ended at 2,000 people.

Denglai's population is not large, and Zhao Yan is not willing to transfer too many young people from Tundi, once these young people are transferred too much, production will inevitably be affected.

Besides, there are too many places to transfer young and strong people now, and the biggest one is the navy, and behind the rapid expansion of the navy, more soldiers are inevitably needed.

More Marines are likewise needed. With such an expansion of the navy this year, it will be possible to seize Taiwan, which is occupied by the Dutch, next year, and the number of warships of the Dutch in Asia will be more than 30, and nearly half of them will be lost in the hands of the Denglai navy.

Within this year, the number of marines needs to be expanded to 5,000 and the number of sailors needs to be expanded to 3,000.

At the same time, the cavalry battalion also needs to be expanded, and if enough horses can be bought, the cavalry of the front-line troops will be increased by 10,000 this year.

Manpower is needed in so many places, and it is best to recruit soldiers from all provinces for training in the inspection brigades of various provinces due to the shortage of personnel, and the young and strong people in Denglai are retained for production, and a lot of manpower is needed for all kinds of infrastructure construction.

In addition to recruiting soldiers in the local area, the second-line troops are also preparing to transfer troops and horses to the four provinces to suppress bandits, while the first-line troops in Shandong are the main ones to suppress them.

These anti-bandit policies have been taken into account in an effort to wipe out bandits in the five northern provinces within three years.

After the spring began in Shanxi, Li Jixian received news from various teams that famine broke out everywhere in Shanxi, and most of the people in Shanxi had no food.

For this reason, Li Jixian immediately activated the emergency strategy stipulated in the regulations, and went to the Shanxi branch of the Jimin Commercial Bank to ask for grain allocation and arrange porridge sheds in various prefectures and counties.

"Captain Li, our grain stores in Shanxi Branch will cooperate with the suppression of grain prices, but the stock of sweet potatoes is not enough, Captain Li also needs to transfer 50,000 stone of sweet potatoes from Handan first, which is the largest amount you and I can transfer privately, but 50,000 stone is probably not enough, and it needs to be reported to the general army before a large number of them can be transported." The shopkeeper of the Shanxi branch said.

"Okay, I'll report to the chief soldier as soon as I come, you are responsible for suppressing grain prices, and our inspection brigade is responsible for opening porridge sheds in various places." Li Jixian nodded. Then immediately sent two teams, one team to Handan and one team to Denglai.

On the same day, Li Jixian got the signature of the branch of the Shanxi Commercial Bank and immediately went to the grain stores in various prefectures and counties to get grain.

At present, the five northern provinces have begun to implement a division of labor between grain banks and inspection brigades in the relief of the hungry people, with one responsible for stabilizing grain prices and the other responsible for giving soup and giving alms.

These northern provinces are also areas where natural disasters are more frequent, so they are also the main areas in need of relief. Then let the inspection team come out to provide relief, and the people can more directly experience the grace given to them by Zhao Yan.

It is necessary to buy people's hearts, but it is not strictly for the sake of buying.

In terms of relief, the southern provinces are still all presided over by the commercial banks, and the southern provinces have fewer natural disasters, and the grain production is more than that in the north, and the backlash caused by the actions of the commercial banks is not very large.

After taking out the grain, the teams immediately began to set up porridge sheds outside the city, and invited some hungry people to make a fire to cook the porridge, and the fragrance of sweet potato porridge soon wafted away.

"Bang bang ...... Soup soup at the east gate! Soup soup at the city gates! "Seven or eight teenage children, holding a broken washbasin and knocking it all the way with wooden sticks, shouted along the streets of the county.

"The official outside the city has given porridge, and the official outside the city has given porridge...... Knock knock knock ......"

"There is an official soup kitchen, quickly get the dishes and chopsticks." When the people in the city heard this, they immediately flocked to the porridge shack outside the city, and within half an hour, many hungry people had gathered outside the porridge shack.

"Everyone has it, don't crowd, don't crowd, line up, line up." Shiotin did his best to maintain order.

"Go find some fences right now, and make a few queues." Seeing this, the team leader hurriedly asked people to find the fence.

As soon as the fence was inserted, order immediately improved, and the hungry people could only line up in the passage separated by the fence and wait slowly.

"Yikes! It was those salts from Shandong, and it turned out that they were giving porridge. ”

"They killed a lot of salt sellers in Shanxi!"

"The price of salt has dropped now, and it used to cost three dollars of silver for a catty, but now it is only sold for one penny of silver per catty."

"These officials also suppressed a lot of bandits, and the black-headed gods of Jinnan were cut down by them."

"Yes! These officials are really good people, and they will give us porridge when there is a famine. ”

The people were eating the sweet potato porridge in the bowl and talking a lot.

"I just don't know how many days this porridge can be given, my family has no food, if it goes on like this, my baby will ...... Ay! One of the people said worriedly.

"Fathers and brothers, you don't need to worry, my family's chief soldier will soon transport grain from Shandong, and this porridge shack will be open until the famine is over." The squad leader raised his voice and said, "If you can't survive in Shanxi, the chief soldier of my family will distribute 50 acres of cultivated land to each household in Shandong, as well as ploughing cattle and seeds, and will also distribute rations to everyone the year before, all of which do not need to be repaid, and the land rent is only forty percent, and there is no need to participate in the errand service every year." ”

"So good?" Some people asked in surprise.

"Naturally, my family is the chief soldier of Denglai, the dragon and tiger general Zhao Yan, he will not lie to everyone, if you want to go to Shandong Tunken, you can come to me to sign up."

"I'm going."

"I'll go too."

"I'll go for that year's rations."

Suddenly, many hungry people began to sign up, and the scene was extremely hot.

"These are just the people in the city, there are still many people in the townships, immediately organize people, and open the porridge shacks to those towns tomorrow."

…… Because the grain stores in the disaster area opened warehouses and released grain in time, the famine in Shanxi was suppressed in time. Within a few days, the teams recruited some local people, formed a relief team, and set up porridge shacks in various towns and villages.

The commercial banks in Shanxi are obviously prepared to deal with the famine, and the grain banks have stockpiled sweet potatoes that are enough to support half a month, while Handan has urgently dispatched 50,000 stone sweet potatoes to Shanxi, Li Jixian reported on the fifth day, and Denglai also agreed to report the transfer of 300,000 stone sweet potatoes.

Sweet potatoes have been continuously transported from Handan to Shanxi, and porridge sheds have been opened in various places. The famine in Nanyang was the same, and it was quickly suppressed by the sweet potatoes transferred from Yingzhou.

There was no phenomenon of eating tree bark and grass roots everywhere.

Handan also sent an infantry battalion into Shanxi to escort the hungry people in Shanxi to Denglai, and the Yingzhou battalion also sent a battalion to Nanyang to escort them.

In the past, the trading house led the homeless and hungry people to Denglai, and there were cases of bandits attacking them on the road. Such a big target is placed in front of bandits from all walks of life, but it has to be guarded against.

However, the bandits in some places did not dare to offend when they saw the flag of the Jimin Commercial Bank, and they were really afraid of being suppressed.

That's Zhao Killing Xing, who killed the thieves and lost a lot! If you really want to be targeted, it's not a good time, although you can still run, but after all, it's troublesome.

Not all of the people who had a famine were willing to go to Denglai, but most of them chose to leave Shanxi in the face of famine.

For those who were reluctant to go to Shanxi, the inspection brigade distributed "Sweet Potato Planting Techniques" to the literati in the township, and sold sweet potato seeds at a low price.

This famine made the people of Shanxi and Nanyang eat sweet potatoes, and they also knew the benefits of growing sweet potatoes, and even attracted the attention of some local officials.

In the promotion of sweet potatoes, there is basically no problem in Shanxi and Henan, and most of the people in Henan know this kind of thing.

The grain store of Jimin Commercial Bank sells sweet potatoes, and the price is very cheap, you can buy a pound for two pennies.

Since last year, there have been some sporadic sweet potato cultivation in various places.

In the spring of this year, sweet potato planting has blossomed all over Shanxi, Henan and Anhui, and many people have also planted sweet potatoes.

"Sweet Potato Planting Elements" spread quickly, and many officials who wanted to make a performance were in their hands, and the promotion of sweet potatoes had basically entered a smooth stage.

If it comes next year, the year after that, the area where sweet potatoes are planted will definitely increase significantly, and the problem of famine can be greatly alleviated.

(To be continued)