After sending Feng Changqing away, Li Siye began to devote himself to horse planning, and rushed to improve the mobility of the Shule army to keep one horse per person. This was not just a matter of buying horses, but also the Turkic horses, in addition to eating forage, were usually fed some coarse grains of barley, so he decided to increase the coarse grain content of the monthly food for the soldiers.

There is also the selective improvement of pastures, there are many kinds of grasses on the vast pastures, but there are only a few kinds of livestock that they like to eat, and there are two or three that they do not like to eat. Often, the kind of grass that is rejected by livestock and has low nutritional value grows luxuriantly, because it is not eaten and occupies an advantage, encroaching on the living space of sheep grass and grass spp.

This requires manual intervention, when the herdsmen graze, they always have to bring a shovel, and when they see these idle weeds in their spare time, they should be immediately eradicated to give abundant pasture grass living space. There is no need to deliberately plant them, and the gaps they leave will be filled quickly.

At present, it is the autumn harvest period of highland barley, and the military and civilian fields of Shule Town are distributed in the Gobi Desert and the edge of the state town, and they use the edge of the river beach and the land with serious desertification for planting, which is a kind of protection for the pasture area. The oasis area is sparsely forested, and trees are never cut down to expand arable land. However, the tuntian left by the previous town envoys broke this good practice and changed the cross-impact zone of the two tributaries of the Chihe River, which has the most abundant water and grass, into a military field. This can be regarded as a collision between the concept of farming based on land and the concept of nomadic pastoralism based on pasture.

The autumn harvest brought the captured yaks to good use, as the barley from the fields was harvested, loaded onto ox carts, tied and sturdy, and brought back to the flat land of the settlement to dry and peel off the pellets. Barley stalks are also a good fodder, which is dried and stored in bales, mixed with hay, coarse grains and other fodder in winter to feed livestock.

General Li Siye often rode around with his entourage on his jade lion, which was called an inspection, and he would sometimes catch up with the ox convoy pulling barley, and drag a few barley barley from the cart to observe the number and fullness of the grains, and also inquire about the farmers' harvest.

Planting barley is to learn to observe the time, when the barley stalk is slightly yellow, it is necessary to harvest quickly, harvest too early, the grain is not full and lead to a reduction in yield, and the harvest is too late After the barley ear is dry and yellow, the barley grain will be sprinkled into the ground.

He took the pellet into his mouth and chewed it, then waved to the Shule cultivator, "Let's go." ”

The ox cart slowly went on the road, and the soldiers of the Fan Army who were lying on the roof of the car chewed their barley poles and showed their heads, looked back and secretly glanced at them, and said, "That was General Li Siye just now." ”

"That's right," said the old farmer, laughing, "and he just asked me about the harvest." ”

The soldier chewed on the barley pole and said thoughtfully: "I heard that the Shule army has seized a lot of property from the Tuqi Shi this year, and the property distributed to the Shule army alone is several large carts, and there are countless horses, cattle and sheep. General Li should be the first to take the credit, and he should have received forty percent of all the property, but in the end he only divided one white horse, and the one he was riding, and three babies, were three free mouths. I really don't know what General Li thinks, why it's different from what we think. ”

The old farmer who drove the car sat firmly on the wheel with the whip in his hand, turned back to the roof of the car and said loudly: "Can the general think the same as those of us, if you can think of it, you will become a general." ”

……

Nearly 5,000 horses and yaks were transferred from the higher Shanyin pastures to the plains, and when the herd got closer to Shule City, it was time to forage for winter and storage.

Returning from the field and pasture investigation, Li Siye went to the unfinished Thunder Temple, when he turned over and dismounted outside the wall, Zhao Zhengyi old Taoist priest was selling the pure heart charm he drew to two local ladies passing by, but unfortunately the two women did not know the goods, and waved his hand after reading him as a witch doctor doing business.

Buddhism has an unshakable position in Shule City, and other sects really can't squeeze in for a while. Whenever Lao Dao explained to the nearby idlers the unity of heaven and man and self-cultivation, people asked him: "Can you practice this to the other side?" Can you cultivate the afterlife? Can you not fall into reincarnation? Can you reach another wonderful world? ”

Lao Tao replied: "I can be dedicated to softness, regulate my essence, cultivate my self-cultivation, be pure and do nothing, and forget about things and me." ”

"To put it plainly, I don't understand a word."

"To put it simply, it can prolong life."

The idlers waved their hands and walked away: "We have been miserable enough in this life, isn't prolonging life equivalent to prolonging the pain?" Don't fix it, don't fix it! ”

The path of cultivation is suitable for rich people who want to live forever, but these rich people are filled with wine and food, which makes the Taoist priests deeply ashamed.

Li Siye turned over and dismounted in front of the gate, and Lao Dao hurriedly came up to lead the horse and followed him to the yard. He took out the box from his bosom and returned it to Daochang Zhao: "This thing is useless for the time being, let's leave it in the Thunder Temple, and give it to me later." ”

Next door there was the sound of bells and bells striking iron, and they were casting thunderbolt shells filled with gunpowder. Li Siye put his hands behind his back and admonished: "To do a good job of secrecy, at least on the surface, it must be seen that this is a Taoist temple." Although it is still a long time before this thing is accepted and valued, our town of Shule is on the edge of the intersection of East and West, and no one can know about it. ”

"Oh," Daoist Zhao hesitated for a moment, and suddenly said, "The benefits of this thing are not the only ones we know. ”

Li Siye turned his head abruptly and asked him, "What's the matter?" ”

Zhao Zhengyi tentatively looked at Li Siye's face before slowly speaking: "Just last month, a businessman approached Thunder Guan and wanted to buy sulfur and saltpeter from me. ”

"What?" Li Siye was taken aback: "Has the reputation of Thunder View been leaked out?" ”

"No, no, it's not." Zhao Daochang hurriedly waved his hand and said: "Poor Dao was famous for being good at finding Dan materials when he was in Jiugong Mountain in Ezhou, so that at that time, Taoist priests from all sides liked to look for me to find genius treasures, and now my role in Jiugong Mountain is done by my junior brother, but this time the amount of sulfur and saltpeter required by these people is too large for my junior brother to bear, so they pointed them to me." ”

Li Siye raised his eyebrows and asked him, "You didn't give them anything, did you?" ”

Zhao Zhengyi's mouth was dumbfounded, and he whispered weakly: "He offered a price with Sassanid gold coins, and I really couldn't resist the temptation, so I prepared one for them." But rest assured, generals, they just asked me to buy sulfur, saltpeter. They didn't know anything about the Taoist temple and the general. ”

Li Siye reprimanded: "How can these things be sold to people of unknown origin, do you know what they are used for?" Are you a fool? ”

Daoist Zhao lowered his head and tightened his mouth, and it took a long time before he opened his mouth and quibbled in a low voice: "Sulfur, saltpeter, are not contraband, even if they can't buy them from me, they can get them elsewhere." And I know his name and got this. ”

He took out a drawing from his bosom and handed it to Li Siye, with the words "Fierce Fire and Thunder" written on it, and the specific structure and formula were drawn with a fine pen below. This thing looks like a wine jar, and it contains stone grease, also called petroleum, which is of course simply refined, and it cannot be refined to the level of diesel gasoline. Sulfur and saltpeter are just a thing that ignites and detonates, which is equivalent to a detonator made into a fierce thunder, and this fierce thunder is nothing more than an incendiary bomb, a petrol bomb and the like.

Strictly speaking, the role of gunpowder in ignition has long been discovered, but its truly epoch-making function is to produce a strong pressure gas to propel the projectile out by burning violently, in place of the limitations of manpower to use the catapult to launch weapons.

Li Siye handed the paper back to Zhao Zhengyi and asked, "What is the name of the person who bought your sulfur saltpeter?" ”

"Cao Sui. It seems to be, it should be Cao Sui. ”

Li Siye snorted lightly and said, "As soon as I heard this name, I knew that it was made up casually, Cao Sui, it was too casual." ”