Time has come in a blink of an eye in April, when the warbler flies and the grass grows, and the plains of western Sichuan are verdant. Several spring rains in succession have made the plants grow vigorously, and the crops in Qiongzhou and Chongqing are also particularly lush. In the late autumn sowing of last year, most of the crops such as wheat, broad beans and peas were planted in this paste-fertile land, and rice seedlings have already been raised in the paddy fields around the swamps and reclamation sites, ready to be transplanted into the fields after the summer harvest in May. On the other side of the Jinma River and the Nanhe River, the Mongol-occupied areas are also full of life, but more than half of the green is weeds and miscellaneous trees, and the few crops are sparsely grown. In contrast to the industriousness of the Han Chinese, the Mongols focused their talents on force and plunder.

Due to the continuous rise of the river, the current Thunderbolt Navy warships can once again operate in the waters of Pengshan City. After Le Quanan took charge of the naval brigade, according to Ouyang Xuan's instructions, he improved many light escort ships, reconnaissance ships, and fire war ships, and also added blasting ships under Xia Dagen's suggestion. These auxiliary vessels greatly increased tactical flexibility and made it more difficult for Mongolian ships to approach the Perak gunboats. In order to enhance the survivability of the gunboats, the shipyard also paved the ammunition depots, command cabins, etc. of the gunboats with fireproof asbestos. The escort ship added iron plates on the bow and sides of the ship to ram the Mongolian ships near the gunboats. The Sichuan Ximeng army has been expanding its naval army, especially Pengshan City, which has grown rapidly in strength, and even has a few ships of artillery warships. It's just that he was still suppressed by the Thunderbolt Army and the Navy, so he had to stay in the Turtle Army.

Despite the right to control the water, the Perak merchant ships were still unable to go south to Jiading. This is not only because of the threat of the Mongolian army, but also because artillery has been installed on the heads of Pengshan and Meizhou. Although these artillery pieces of the Mongolian army were small in number and poor in performance, they could still pose a major threat to the Perak escort fleet by relying on the city walls. If the blockade of these two cities is to be completely destroyed, it is necessary to use the full strength of the naval brigade and use heavy artillery boats, but due to the water barrier in the river, the heavy artillery ships are still unable to pass through the waters of Pengshan. However, a large-scale sortie is not economically feasible, and at the same time, it will also cause the Mongolian army to counterattack in other directions, and even attract the main force of the Mongolian army in eastern Sichuan, and this major battle is inevitable. At present, the strength of the Thunderbolt army is more than enough to defend and not enough to attack, so it is really not suitable to adopt a bold offensive strategy.

Of course, these two cities are locked up by the waterway to the south, and sooner or later they will be taken by the Thunderbolt army, but the current timing is not right. At present, the firearms armament rate of the Perak Army brigades is still very low, and the military training has not yet met the requirements. All factories are in the stage of accelerated construction or just put into operation, and the labor force is extremely tight. The construction of forts and a series of reclamation points in the Changqiu Mountains also consumed a lot of resources, and even burned the wasteland to grow a lot of grain, but these grains could not be harvested until autumn. Fortunately, when the Kudu retreated to Changqiu Village, the special battalion captured more than 1,000 prisoners, which solved the problem of labor shortage in the construction of Changqiu Tun reclamation point.

The population of the Perak Military District is actually growing rapidly, but there is still a serious shortage of population relative to the rapid development of the enterprise. The proportion of captives in the growing population is actually very small, and more are returning refugees or admiring them, and even many Yibo people come with the caravans. The western Sichuan Plain has a mild climate and abundant products, as long as the political situation is stable and safe, it is natural that people will continue to come to this land of fat. Yu Xing wrote many letters asking the Perak Army to send the Meizhou refugees back to their hometowns, but Ouyang Xuan had no choice but to let the refugees choose for themselves, and as a result, only a few hundred of the more than 10,000 refugees chose to return to Meizhou. Thanks to preferential policies and many persuasions, more than 6,000 people went to the Changqiu Mountains to settle for reclamation, and the rest were determined to stay.

The population of Yazhou is also moving to Qiongzhou. Although Yazhou was more stable, the heavy tax pressure was also cruel, on the other hand, under the Thunderbolt army, the tax was much lighter, and there was no grain for farming. Therefore, Cao Zhizhou blocked the trade routes leading to the Tibetan region, and also imposed strict restrictions on communication with the Perak military area, but it could not prevent the population from flowing to the Perak military area. Even as the emperor of Yazhou, he did not dare to blatantly close the exchanges between the two places. This will not only make life more difficult for the people at the bottom, but also affect the interests of the big merchants, landlords, and even those around them, who have made a lot of money by trading with the Thunderbolts.

In fact, although Cao Zhizhou strictly ordered the strengthening of the checkpoints, it did not achieve the expected results. The merchants of the Dajian Furnace and the Diaomen Zhaifan District had already prepared enough goods, and they would not come to trade at all before September. Moreover, even if the checkpoint is closed, there are very few small roads that allow people to pass. Although these trails were extremely difficult, as long as there were enough benefits, there were still people who were willing to take risks, so the exchange of information between the Thunderbolt caravan and the Tibetan region was not cut off.

As for the contact between Lizhou Qianbao and the headquarters of the Qiongzhou caravan, it has been unimpeded and has not been interrupted, because the officers and soldiers who are guarding the card in Yazhou are not willing to kill the Thunderbolt caravan at all. "When the water is clear, there are no fish", where is the benefit? Cao Zhizhou only forbade the Thunderbolt army caravan and firewood and other materials, as long as the caravan is not the banner of the Thunderbolt army, there is no embargoed materials, it can be released. And as long as the money is in place, these can be flexible, so the fire and nitrate transported to Qiongzhou have not been interrupted, but it has become more secretive and the cost of dotting is higher.

After the removal of the camp of the Mongolian army in Guankouzhai, the trade between the two states of Weimao became smoother, and even a batch of mules and horses were traded in this early spring. In fact, autumn is the time when livestock are fat and strong, and it is the traditional season for trading. It's just that the Thunderbolts are not only short of war horses but also lack pack animals, and are willing to pay high prices for weak mules and horses in the spring, and the locals have no reason not to sell them. For the Thunderbolts, these mules and horses are thin, but if they are willing to be fed with grain beans, it will not take long for them to become fat. In addition to mules and horses, Weimao also brought medicinal materials, copper, lead, zinc and other materials, which was enough to make up for the shortfall in supplies caused by the reduction in trade in the direction of Jiading and Yazhou.

Ouyang Xuan did not believe that the Mongols were willing to lose these two states. The more trade with the two states grew, the more uneasy he became. As the weather warms up, this feeling gets stronger and stronger. On the one hand, he asked Yu Zhu to strengthen the vigilance of Guan Kou Village, and on the other hand, he asked Wu Qing to send personnel to Songzhou to reconnoiter and monitor the mountain trails leading to Weimao in Han and Peng Prefectures. Although the Weimao and Weimao officials did not heed the warnings of a possible Mongol invasion from Songzhou, out of respect for Ouyang Xuan's suggestion, they still sent several groups of spies to the grassland area.

As Ouyang Xuan expected, as soon as the spies sent by Weimao and the two states entered the grassland area, they found the traces of the Mongolian army. This cavalry of about 1,000 men set out from Longdong as early as March, and after a long journey of thousands of miles, they reached the grassland north of Songzhou, and at this moment they were hiding in a valley to recover their horsepower, and it was impossible for non-locals to find out. The spies in Weimao and the two states have similar language and customs to the local Tibetan people, and they also have some economic contacts, so they naturally learned this important information. In fact, among the scouts sent by Wu Qing to Songzhou, there were also people who had recruited from the Arrow Furnace, but their accents were not the same as those of the people in the Songzhou grassland, and they were not familiar with the place, so they had to pretend to be merchants and wander around, and they could not get useful information from the local population at all.

Due to the urgency of time, Huang Dagen, who got the news, had to send people back on the one hand, and prepare for war on the other.