It's early May in a blink of an eye. Ouyang Xuan stood in front of the window of the Perak Army Hall, looking out at the verdant woods on the island in the middle of the river. The view crossed the sparkling water, and a large group of people were working in the fields in front of the riverbank. The sight of him was filled with mixed feelings, and it was this time of year that he had traveled into this world four years ago. At that time, in western Sichuan, there was a bleak place everywhere you looked, and everywhere you saw were thorns and artemisia grass, and white bones could be seen everywhere. After four years of hard work, the Thunderbolt Army rescued Western Sichuan from the oppression of the Mongol swords and corrupt officials of the government, and turned it into a place of refuge in this troubled world, which was also Ouyang Xuan's greatest gratification. What makes him feel nostalgic is that he has also established a family, and Yang Yan is about to give birth to the crystallization of their love.

In the distant fields, the barley and broad bean harvests have been completed, and only scattered plots of wheat remain. After the wheat is harvested, rice and soybeans will be planted, and dry crops such as sorghum will be planted in the Wugenshan, Changqiu and Longmen mountains. Although the yield of broad beans, soybeans, sorghum and barley is not as good as that of wheat and rice, it is an important feed for large livestock and special war horses, and sorghum and barley can also be used to make wine and extract medical alcohol. At present, the Perak Army has tens of millions of acres of cultivated land, and thanks to the fertile soil and well-developed irrigation canal system in western Sichuan, the yield of these fertile fields per mu is quite high, and the grain produced is piled up in various granaries, which is more than enough to meet the needs of more than one million soldiers and civilians. Even so, Li Shuang still issued a decree requiring his subordinate states and counties to increase land reclamation and grain production.

According to the requirements of the military-government joint conference, the grain stored should be guaranteed for three years, and at the same time, it should also be used for a long and high-intensity war. As one of the most important strategic materials, the Thunderbolt Army has extremely strict food control, and does not sell to the outside world except for the two states of Banzhou, Diaoyu Cheng, Dajian Furnace and Weimao. At present, because Liu Cheng and Yu Xing forbade the caravan of the Nanyang Company to pass through Xuzhou and Luzhou, the grain could only be sold to the Fan area in the direction of Dajian Furnace and Weizhou. In these high mountain valleys and steppe areas, grain was as hard currency as tea, and it was with these two goods and other industrial goods that the Perak caravans were able to exchange for large quantities of goods, including large livestock, including nearly 1,000 war horses.

After March, snowmelt and rainfall gradually enriched the rivers in western Sichuan, and in May, the water volume skyrocketed, and the ships of the Perak Navy were able to move freely through the criss-crossing waterways. Seeing the summer tide rising, the calls within the Perak army for a strike on the Mongolian army became stronger and stronger. At present, on the Mianzhu front, the Thunderbolt Army is still facing off against the new annexed army of Yang Wen'an's Ministry across the water. Although the Mongol army did not launch an attack on the Perak army after March, and even the harassment activities were much less, the existence of this enemy army after all contained the strength of Huang Dagen's 2nd Division. Therefore, many generals proposed to defeat these lackeys of the Mongolian army in one fell swoop, on the one hand, to retaliate for their attack on Mianzhu, and on the other hand, to create a stable external development environment for the development of Peng and Han prefectures.

In the face of everyone's strong voice, the General Staff did not answer positively, only saying that the high-level leaders were playing a big game of chess and should wait patiently for the decision of the military-political joint conference, while Ouyang Xuan and other high-level officials also remained uncharacteristically silent. Ouyang Xuan didn't pay attention to the new annexed army on the Mianzhu front, just those two or three thousand men and horses, only the second division could be defeated in one fell swoop. Although Yang Wen'an was supported by the Mongol cavalry, the Thunderbolt infantry was also supported by naval artillery and warships, and the Second Division could drive them away even if they could not annihilate them all. It is true that Yang Wen'an's troops involved the strength of the Second Division, but the Second Division also involved this new annexed army, and even restrained the Mongolian cavalry and a large number of logistics support personnel. Although the population and area controlled by the Mongolian army in the Sichuan Theater far exceeded that of the Thunderbolt Army, in terms of its mobilization ability and war potential, the Thunderbolt Army was even better than the Mongolian Army.

The Mongol army also thought that the Thunderbolt army would take advantage of the summer flood season to launch an offensive, so they retreated four or five miles away from the river bank early, built a camp and dug a large number of civil fortifications, but unexpectedly there was no movement on the opposite bank, and even reduced the number of people on the defensive line - transferred personnel to participate in the summer harvest and summer planting. Of course, the reason why Huang Dagen dared to do this was that he was sure that the Mongolian army would not dare to take the opportunity to cross the river, and of course, the Mongolian army would forcibly cross the river, and there was only one consequence, that is, to feed Wang Ba in the water. The reason why Ouyang Xuan did not move was because he was waiting for the best time, waiting for the Mongol army on the other side of the river to be killed. In addition to timing, the secondary reason is that although the current Perak Army units are full and the new recruits have completed their training, the equipment is not in place.

Compared with the Liuqiu Navy, the ships used by the Western Sichuan Navy are all small and medium-sized ships, and both the manufacturing cycle and manufacturing technology are relatively simple. Originally, Xinjin, Jiading, Meizhou, and Pengshan all had shipyards, and the production capacity has been excessive, and after recovering Chengdu, Pengzhou, Jintang, and Hanzhou, a new shipyard was built. The huge shipbuilding capacity and the application of iron and copper have greatly reduced the difficulty of shipbuilding and increased the speed of shipbuilding. In order to shorten man-hours and increase productivity, these naval guns were made of copper alloy for small and medium-sized guns, while large guns were made of steel and boring and milling.

Although Li Shuang made every effort to supervise the commercial and trade and military industry departments, and these two departments also did their best, the two main battle equipment used by the army, war horses and artillery, were still lacking more than one-third. Also thanks to the production and import of copper, the artillery production capacity of the three arsenals of Dayi, Pengzhou and Jiading soared. In addition to the fact that cast copper cannons can significantly reduce man-hours compared to iron cannons by boring and milling, it is also because the use of copper that is easier to process instead of iron results in a much lower scrap rate. From the perspective of cost accounting, although the price of copper is expensive, it is much less difficult to make than iron cannons, and the cost of the two cannons is about the same. What's more, with the abundance of copper, the Thunderbolts' production tools were improved, and more production machines were produced, which led to a skyrocketing artillery production capacity.

There is a large gap in the number of war horses. Before the expansion, the Thunderbolt Cavalry Brigade consisted of 3,000 horses per man, two horses, and about 5,000 horses for infantry pack horses and confidential reconnaissance and communication horses. In the battle to regain Chengdu and Penghan, the Thunderbolts lost a total of 1,000 horses, including those killed in battle and died of disease. After the expansion of the army, a total of three cavalry brigades were formed, and the number of horses required for the establishment was also tripled, that is, 15,000 war horses were required, which was a terrible number. Therefore, the General Staff had no choice but to adjust the cavalry from one man and two horses to one man and one horse, and the number of horses in addition to the number of pack horses was also adjusted. Even so, about 9,000 horses were needed. At present, although the Thunderbolt army purchased horses from the three directions of Dajian Furnace, Dali, and Weimao, the number of the latter two was too small, so that there were less than 6,000 war horses at the moment.