Two years have passed since Xijing was taken over by Zhao Tan, and his attention has been mainly focused on two tasks, one is the military, and the other is the development of agriculture and animal husbandry.

The military is the foundation of the country in troubled times, and without a strong armed force, it cannot resist the enemy externally and cannot be stable internally. At the same time as the merger of the Loyal Army and the Kryu Army, combined with the implementation of the new military system, the internal situation was more stable, and the combat training was on the right track, and the recruited new army had also completed its training and been assigned to various armies, and the first graduates of the lecture hall also walked out of the school and began to practice in various posts.

With the support of the prince's strong funds, the military workshop that was moved to Shuozhou in advance not only quickly resumed production, but also further expanded its scale and scale, and the number of employees has reached more than 10,000 people, reaching an annual production capacity of 30,000 cannons, 5,000 pistols, 1,000 machine guns, 1,000 artillery pieces of various types, 2 million rounds of ammunition, and 50,000 shells.

The abundant coal and iron resources in the Xijing area have greatly reduced the production cost, and the refined iron produced by several smelters can not only meet the needs of military production, but also support the consumption and production of agricultural tools and daily necessities. And the development of local sulfur mines has made them no longer spend a lot of money every year to transfer them from Fuso.

The most difficult copper needed to make artillery and bullets is now available in fewer ways, but fortunately, Zhao Ta has a large amount of copper coins stored back then, which are all high-quality copper with high purity. He thought that once the war broke out, it would inevitably lead to the depreciation of Jiaozi, and the exchange ratio of gold, silver and copper would naturally increase.

And dual-use related workshops have also been vigorously developed. The candles, lubricants, leather goods, tents, and military food and medicine they made were welcomed by all classes. In particular, all kinds of horse-drawn seeders are produced to support agricultural development. Harvesters are in short supply. However, the perfumes, glassware and other luxury goods they produce are rarely sold locally, and they are all sold to foreigners to earn real money.

Turmoil in history is often caused by famine, famine leads to rebellion, and in turn, rebellion destroys order, and when order is disordered, there are fewer people who grow food. This is a vicious circle: the more chaotic it is, the less people grow food; The more no one grows food. The more chaotic. Often in order to be fed, the rebels who rose up because of hunger were ruthless, and the officers and soldiers were also ruthless, both sides were crazy to grab grain, and the last army ate all the grain, ate up the peasants, and the last army killed each other and ate their own flesh, what a tragic scene!

The importance of agriculture cannot be overstated. Food is not only a daily necessity, but also an important strategic commodity. As the saying goes, 'If you have food in your belly, you don't panic in your heart', if you don't even have basic living security. Who will play with you, if you don't rebel, you will be very worthy of you.

Therefore, as soon as Zhao took over, they introduced a series of policies to encourage farming, which has their experience in developing the river. The introduction of a series of policies has not only stabilized people's hearts. It has also set off an upsurge of agricultural development, and the popularization of a large number of advanced agricultural tools and horse farming has not only improved production efficiency. It also saves a lot of manpower and can reclaim more wasteland.

He not only called on the peasants to cultivate more land, but also allowed the army to join the ranks of cantonment on the premise of ensuring military training, so as to reduce consumption. In just one year, more than 200,000 hectares of cultivated land has been added to the Xijing area, and the grain has basically become more than self-sufficient. This year, he has increased his support for agriculture, advocating intensive cultivation, planting mulberry hemp, and at the same time began to carry out experiments on large-scale cotton planting.

Now Xijing maintains a strong cavalry force, which inevitably requires a large number of war horses, and war horses are not just pulled over a horse to become a war horse, which is very particular. How many horses can be used as a riding horse in a herd? Strictly speaking, not much! Not even half of them, no matter how good the breeds and herds are, they are also roughly the same.

And this is also one of the important reasons why the combat effectiveness of the cavalry of the agricultural nationalities in the Central Plains is lower than that of the nomadic cavalry, because there are too few places to raise horses in the Central Plains, and there is little room for selecting war horses, so the quality can not be so strict. The development of Zhao's army has experienced such twists and turns.

When he was in Xiangyi, although Zhao Ta spent a lot of manpower and material resources, the quality of the war horses that could be cultivated was not satisfactory, but at that time, this condition was met. Even if the river was occupied and many war horses of Western Xia were captured, it was still difficult to satisfy, and it was necessary to buy excellent war horses from Hui to use, until the situation was alleviated after controlling Xijing.

This is because war horses, like people, age restricts their physical strength and ability, so the service time is limited. The lifespan of a horse is generally 25 to 30 years. At the age of three, they are adults and are trained to ride; Around the age of eight, physical strength, endurance, and agility enter the best period, and this state can continue to the age of fourteen or five, which is the golden period of war horses; As the horses aged, their functions gradually declined, and their ability to cope with the intricacies of war was reduced, and they should normally be retired at the age of eighteen.

But these only refer to normal circumstances, because war horses live a tense combat life all year round, it is difficult to ensure that breeding, management is in place, and service is appropriate, which damages health, and injury is inevitable. Especially in long-distance marches, especially rapid marches, forced marches, and day and night marches, the war horses cannot get enough forage, water, and rest, and they have to carry heavy loads. And the horse has a strong competitive mentality, the parallel horse is always going faster and faster, no one refuses to lag behind, even if the strength is insufficient, still unwilling to slow down, let alone stop. If you still whip forward, it is easy to die, so in the long-distance rapid march and rapid transmission of information, the loss of war horses is incalculable!

The casualties of horses in battle are also very large, because on the battlefield, cavalry and horses are integrated, whether it is vertical or horizontal, the area hit by the opponent, the area hit by the opponent, the war horse is always several times more than the soldier, so it is inferred that the casualty rate of the war horse is also several times more than that of the soldier; In addition, it has become a consensus on the battlefield that "shoot people first and shoot horses first", so the possibility of casualties on horses is much greater than that of people; moreover, riders can take measures such as dodging or blocking with weapons to protect themselves against blows such as stabbing and slashing from the opponent. But the war horse will not, even if the agile war horse has some moves in dodge at most, so casualties are inevitable.

Now there are 100,000 people in the Zhongxing Army, and if it reaches the conservative point of double riding, it will need 200,000 horses, in addition to pulling carts and towing cannons, and pack horses for transporting materials, which is a very large number, and the base number will be several times this number, so the domestication of war horses is also a difficult work.

On the premise of restoring the original pasture of the Northwest Xuanfu Division of the Xijing Qun Pastoral Division, Zhao Tan established a new pasture in Fengsheng Prefecture and introduced improved horse breeds to breed and improve horse breeds. At the same time, he also bought horses from private pastures in the form of taxes to supplement the military, which basically solved the problem of replenishing military horses...

No farming, no stability, no business, no wealth. Commerce also plays an important role in Xijing, not only because it can communicate with each other, but also because it can bring a lot of taxes to Xijing. After years of war in Xijing, the people had no money in their hands, and in order to develop agriculture and recuperate, Zhao Ta had to reduce taxes and reduce taxes to support him, but the army and the government also asked for money everywhere, and his little family money could not last long.

If you can't 'loot' from the peasants, you can only take money from the merchants, and if the merchants are taxed heavily, then the merchants will only be scared away, which is a paradox, and that can only create a virtuous circle by cultivating a prosperous market and making the merchants profitable. Therefore, while Zhao Ta is reducing taxes, he is also working hard to spend money.

Consumption, one is through the market to complete personal consumption; One is that there is no need for a market, and only needs to rely on the state's money and rewards to make personal consumption. The former can better promote social production and circulation, so Zhao Ta ignored everyone's opposition and revised the rules for the distribution of soldiers and officials.

In the past, because of the financial constraints, the country often used the goods as the money to fold the money, according to the grade to give rice or silk, to the Song Dynasty when the best time was also the Beijing officials to give money six points, foreign appointments are four points, but in this way also greatly stimulated consumption, so the increase in the proportion of cash must be caused by the development of the commodity economy caused by the increase in the use of money; This readjustment will inevitably deepen the extent to which the huge official class is involved in the market.

The soldiers and officials all ate public food, and Zhao Ta gave all their money to cash, and eating and drinking Lazar were inseparable from the circulation of money, so that the inevitability and necessity of their entry into the market increased. They may be for business, or for consumption, and they will inevitably have a certain impact on the market.

And because they were also an important group in the society at that time, they belonged to the ruling group from a class point of view; But from a sociological point of view, they are the managers of society. Like other members, they have a social value, so the impact of their consumption, especially through the market, on society is not always negative.

This change not only improved the status of the merchants, but also greatly promoted circulation. At the same time, Zhao also handed over some of the necessary expenses of the government to the market, and went to the market to purchase, no longer in the form of a cap, which promoted the prosperity of commerce and handicrafts to a certain extent, and the peasants could also put the production surplus and agricultural and sideline products on the market to sell, and the money in their hands would inevitably turn into consumers, so as to form a cycle. Although it may not be effective at the time, it is conducive to long-term development. (To be continued......)