On the land on the west bank of the Chihe River, thousands of Tang soldiers lined up, waving their hands and digging deep into the land. They were followed by yaks pulling the zigzag plough for a second deep flip.

Quyuan plough has appeared in this period, called Jiangdong plough, but it has not yet spread to the north, let alone to the far west of the moraine. However, Li Siye once again did not know that the prophet was ahead of the times, and accelerated this popularity, and changed all the straight plows of the Tang army's autumn ploughing to Quyuan.

He personally held the plow with his bare back, and Yan Xiaosi led the ox in front and walked forward slowly, which can be regarded as setting an example and mobilizing the enthusiasm of the majority of soldiers. Those brigade commanders and lieutenants who have always stood at the edge of the field to supervise and command have already grabbed farm tools and joined the queue of plowing and deep ploughing.

Most of the soldiers were a little happy in their hearts at this time, and they still had to come to the field in person, otherwise there were more than 2,000 people in the entire Tuntian army, and 500 people were pointing fingers and feet with their waists crossed.

The generals have gone down to farm in person, do you still dare to take command?

As the reclamation had reached its final stage and most of the people were idle, Li Siye ordered Duan Xiushi to lead half of the people to dig irrigation canals along the Chihe River to prepare for land moisture conservation in the spring of the following year.

The climate in the Shule town area, which is close to the west of the desert, is arid, and if you only rely on the weather for food, the grain produced by farming cannot even be compared to the nomadic meat.

A contingent of more than 20 Tang troops approached the cantonment area, and the soldiers who cultivated the fields looked up and continued to bow their heads and plow the ground.

Feng Changqing rode a thin horse, behind him were two horses pulled by the Jili drum cart and the accompanying soldiers, he stopped on the ridge road in the middle of the two fields, put his hands on the pergola and looked around, the whole wilderness was full of soldiers wearing bare foreheads and shirtless shirts, where can you find crimson official uniforms?

He shouted to the nearest man, "Dare to ask brother, where is Envoy Li?"

The soldier was so tired that he didn't want to speak, so he turned around with his head on his back and pointed at the ploughing oxen lined up in the distance.

"Thanks!"

Feng Changqing shook the reins of the horse and ran into the distance, and the carriage and soldiers followed closely behind, waving a cloud of smoke and dust on the ridge road.

"Phew!" He tightened the reins and turned over and dismounted, and the soldiers behind him untied the wooden tube from his back and handed it to him, and staggered to the ploughing oxen with his armpits on the soft earth.

"General Lee! General Lee!" The shouts were heard far and wide in the open floodplain.

Yan Xiaosi shouted to stop ploughing the cattle, and Li Siye put on the middle sheet tied to his waist and walked in the direction where Feng Changqing came.

"Fortunately, I didn't disgrace my life." Feng Changqing stood in the field and bowed and crossed.

"Let's go to the ridge and talk."

Li Siye caressed his back and followed him to the edge of the field, Feng Changqing untied the two bamboo tubes respectively, and spread out two scrolls of the same size from them.

He spread the two maps on the ground at the same time and pressed them with stones, they were exactly the same, the only difference was the annotation on the map, the Shule defense map marked the changes in the terrain, the rivers, the ups and downs of the mountains, every settlement, every stronghold of the Tang army, every market town, and even the desert abandoned villages. The upper left corner of the map has also been completed, to the west to the territory of Bahanna, Xiuxun Prefecture, to the north to the Zhenzhu River of the Broken Leaf River, the only vacant is the topographic map of the southwest corner of the Green Ridge area, if this corner is completed, the border should be extended to Bole River Lianyunbao to Tanju Ridge, which is the main direction of the Tang army in the future.

The distribution map of Shule grassland marks the key parts, focusing on all the grasslands distributed around Shule, and Feng Changqing even marks the luxuriance of the grassland with dense or sparse ink dots.

Li Siye patted Feng Changqing's shoulder and praised: "Changqing, you are really a talent." ”

Feng Changqing obviously had never encountered such a false praise, his face was a little red, and he crossed his hands and said: "Compared with the general's great talent, what is this for his subordinates, these drum cars, tools, and methods of drawing mountains are all taught by the general, and he has benefited a lot from the general's humble position and learned a lot."

"Heh, cough," Li Siye coughed dryly, put his fist against his chin, stretched out his hand and pointed to the drawing and asked, "Okay, then you tell me what you saw and understood in the process of drawing." ”

Feng Changqing pointed to the map and said: "I have traveled all the way to the lowly office, and found that the closer to the settlement, the state city, and Shule City, the cleaner the grassland is eaten, but those remote grassy slopes with high terrain are almost untouched."

Li Siye understood that this may have something to do with the half-farming, half-pastoralism of several states in Shule Township, and their utilization of pasture is not the same as that of true nomads.

The Turks are the real experts in this area, the ten tribes in the hundreds or even thousands of years of nomadic life, has already been carved in the bones of the law of nomadic transition, each tribe has a demarcated grassland, dozens of times a year, can ensure that the grass that has been gnawed will not be eaten within this year, spring, summer, autumn and winter recycling.

But as the population grows and livestock grows, even the best plans will crumble, and wars will break out between tribes for pastures, but there will always be a victor who can unify the entire grassland.

However, the rulers of the steppes could not solve the problem of survival caused by population expansion, just as the rulers of the Central Plains could not solve the problem of land annexation, and the only way they could think of was to go south and plunder by foreign wars.

Feng Changqing's finger drew a circle on the map: "Here, this large area is the grazing area of our Tang Army and the herdsmen of Shule Town, in fact, this area can be further expanded, turning over the mountain pass of the southern vein of the Tianshan Mountains to the north, there are three such pastures on the south bank of the Zhenzhu River, and it is not easy to cross the Geluo Ridge to the west, and there is also grassland there, but it has entered the territory of Xiuxun Prefecture." ”

Li Siye counted the squares on the map and said, "However, it is too far, more than 300 miles."

"It's really far away, and this place may overlap with the pastures of Turgish, and the herdsmen of Shule probably don't dare to go there."

He retracted his gaze to the mountains on three sides, stretched out his hand and pressed the map and said: "Just west of Shule City, these dozen large and small grasslands in the northwest, if you plan it, distinguish the military and pastoral areas and the civilian pastoral areas, and then subdivide them downwards to plan the order of the transition, and then circle two grasslands for autumn and winter grass reserves. To ensure that every piece of grassland can be fully utilized, more grassland should be able to be organized, and I believe that we can also expand the horse equipment Shule army next year. ”

This matter is simple to say, but it is still difficult to plan in practice, and they do not know how many yaks and sheep the herdsmen in more than a dozen states of Shule Town have, and how much grassland they need to consume. The Tang army's planning was easier to aside, as long as the location of the garrison and the pasture were combined, the horse grazing land of the four seasons was circled, and the cavalry used mobile nomadic herding to transfer grazing. The battalions stationed in each state also set up special teams to be in charge of horse herding, and strictly enforced them by law, prohibiting them from crossing the border to graze, and the horse administration in Shule Town was really on the right track.

Li Siye ordered Feng Changqing to roll up the map, looked at the river not far away, and said to himself: "If you find something to do this winter, it will take three or four months to plan the pasture, and it is best to find an experienced nomadic tribal patriarch and learn some experience from them."

Feng Changqing took the initiative to ask Yingjiao to say: "My subordinates are willing to take people to Talas and Bahanna to find a leader of the tribe surnamed Shihei and invite him over to give him a staff officer." ”

"Indeed," Li Siye looked back at Feng Changqing's rough and thin face that had been sharpened by the wind and sand, shook his head and said: "It's been months of running around and losing weight, you should go back to Shule City to rest for a winter, and I will ask others to do it." ”

Feng Changqing crossed his hands in front of Li Siye again: "Please give this matter to your subordinates, when I was surveying and drawing a map of Bahanna, I met a tribal leader, he is wiser than the herdsmen I have seen, I can invite him over." ”

"Since you insist on asking for it, then okay." Li Siye stepped on the ridge with one foot, reached out and grabbed the clods of soil at the edge of the field and crumpled them, and said: "When I finish the tuntian here, I will also go to Khotan." After a few months in Shule, I almost forgot that it was also my one-third of an acre of land. When I get to deal with the matter over there and return to Shule, you should also invite someone back. ”

There was a quacking sound of geese overhead, and they looked up to see a flock of geese flying in the blue sky, and the glyph of the geese was reflected on the sparkling blue river.

The wild geese are flying south, and winter is coming.