Chapter 1046 Newly Established Heyuan County

The establishment of a new county in the north was already agreed with Youye and Qubing. At the beginning, they asked Luo Chong whether the people in the north would withdraw to the south or stay there to settle down after defeating the cannibals.

For Luo Chong, this was a land that he had occupied with great difficulty and had been operating for several years. How could he just give it up?

Since it was decided to formally establish counties, he had to support them well. Even if they were far away, they were still the people of the Han tribe and must be treated equally.

Therefore, during the few days when the militiamen were resting in Weishan County, Luo Chong was also quickly mobilizing various production materials and formally determining the administrative management system in the north.

The sphere of influence of the Han tribe in the north, which temporarily bordered the cannibals, was officially established as "Heyuan County", which means the source of a river, because the two mother rivers of the Han tribe, the Rushui River and the Liuyang River, both flowed from there. Although it was not determined where the source was, it was definitely from there.

Heyuan County temporarily has three county towns under its jurisdiction, namely the existing Hunting Ground Camp, Salt Pond Camp, and the River Valley Camp with the largest population. The three temporary camps have been officially upgraded to county towns and are under the unified management of Heyuan County. The capital of Heyuan County is located in the Salt Pond Camp.

The reason for choosing this place as the capital is mainly due to terrain considerations. The hunting ground area in the east is surrounded by forests in the north, mountains in the south, and hills and basins in the middle. The traffic conditions can be imagined, and it is not suitable for being the capital at all.

Although the River Valley Camp in the west has the largest population and a lot of arable land, it is located in a semi-enclosed river valley. Although it has the transportation advantage of water transportation, it is not suitable for vigorous development in the long run.

In contrast, the Yanchi area, located in the middle of the three places, has a relatively open terrain, which is suitable for later expansion. The transportation is relatively easy to build, even if it is to build roads. In addition, there is an important resource of salt in the surrounding area, and there is no shortage of water and firewood. Moreover, because this place is in the middle, it is very convenient to contact the neighboring counties on both sides of the east and the west. As for the capital, the development space, transportation and communication speed must be ranked first.

Although Luo Chong has not been there in person, as a modern person who is used to looking at maps, he can still clearly analyze the strategic locations in the north based on the maps sent by Qubing and Youye.

The name and system of Heyuan County are both available. As for the candidate for the first county governor, Luo Chong did not give much consideration and directly decided to let Youye take the position. The people of Heyuan County were all won over by Youye, who made an indelible contribution. He worked hard for four years and finally officially established the new county, but he was immediately transferred away. How could it be justified?

Besides, even if a new person is chosen now, it may not be a good thing for Heyuan County in its initial stage. It is difficult for a new person to understand the characteristics and situation there. It is better to let Youye start first, and wait for the construction to be completed and stabilized in three or four years. Then, Youye will be transferred back to the central government. It is called promotion, but it is actually a reduction of power.

After all, Heyuan County is located in the far north, and the county governor there is a typical frontier official. The emperor is far away. Even if Youye has no intention of betraying, what if a fool instigates him? !

However, no matter what the reason, Luo Chong finally appointed Youye as the first county governor of Heyuan County.

Since the decision has been made, support for the construction of Heyuan County is indispensable. According to the report of Youye and Qubing, there is only one copper mine around Heyuan County, and there is an asphalt lake a little further away, which is considered a mineral resource. There is no iron mine in the surrounding area for the time being, so all the iron materials needed by Heyuan County must be supplied by Xingang County. For the construction of the new county, this iron is of course indispensable.

In order to show his attitude, Luo Chong directly had two ships full of cast steel ingots loaded for them. These were all raw materials. It was up to the blacksmiths there to decide what to use them for.

In addition, there were more than a dozen of the latest models of Iron Horse III steam engines, which mainly provided power for light machinery, such as air compressors, various pneumatic tools, pumps, a newly built corn thresher, steam-powered grain mills, and so on.

Others included the tribe's new inventions in recent years, such as ground scales for weighing heavy objects, mechanical clocks for timekeeping, and hand-cranked rice transplanters that had just begun mass production. More than a hundred of them were also installed for them, as well as ten thousand pairs of gears and chains. With these important parts, they also had samples, and they could produce rice transplanters on their own in the future.

Farm tools always come first for any tribe or country, unless you don't plan to grow your own food and rely on imports. But in this era, even if the Han tribe wants to import food, there is no force that can provide a share for hundreds of thousands of people.

Of course, in addition to farm tools, other things are also important.

Loom? The north needs it, but Luo Chong doesn't need to worry about it. The main body of this thing is wood, and the most important part should be the spring in the shuttle. But I have given them so much good steel, they can produce it by themselves.

As long as they have seeds for cotton, they can also grow it themselves. Besides, Youye and Qubing have also sent letters, saying that their side is most suitable for developing animal husbandry, such as yaks, bighorn sheep, alpacas, etc. Since there are such unique animal husbandry, it must be the way to get rich to develop wool textiles.

Food, clothing, housing and transportation, clothing and food are solved, and there are many craftsmen in their side who can make their own houses and transportation vehicles. It's just that it's not very convenient without a paper mill. For this reason, Luo Chong also transferred several craftsmen and some basic equipment from the paper mill in Liuyang County to let them build a paper mill in the north.

With paper, pens and ink, these are small things that they can make by themselves, but books need to be supplemented by Luo Chong, especially the few new books that have been published recently.

In addition, there is another very important thing, that is, the new crop obtained by the Han tribe, potatoes, which must be prepared for them.

Unfortunately, Luo Chong didn't have many potatoes left. He planted some in the greenhouse before the spring, and then planted some in the open field after the spring. All the seeds sent by You Fu were used up.

Luo Chong had no choice but to send a letter to You Fu, asking him to purchase another batch of potatoes. In the letter, he also explained that he had established Heyuan County and appointed his brother You Ye as the first county governor. He also told him clearly that this batch of potatoes was for You Ye to grow crops, and he could arrange it himself.

You Fu was of course very happy after receiving this letter, and he was also very concerned about Luo Chong's request. Since the Baiwu tribe was in a honeymoon period with the Han tribe recently, there was no problem in selling some potatoes to the Han tribe as grain. Gu Ji, one of the five tribe leaders, was personally responsible for this matter and carefully selected a batch for You Fu, which weighed about four or five tons, which was nearly ten thousand pounds. It

was also thanks to the fact that most of the Baiwu people were working for the Han tribe and the Han tribe provided meals every day, otherwise they really couldn't spare so many potatoes.

If it was this time of year in previous years, they would have relied on these potatoes to survive the days without harvest in the spring, but now that the Han tribe provided meals, these potatoes were saved.

The potatoes were loaded in Qi'an County, and it took a day to transport them to the dock of Chengkang County, and then they were loaded on ships there, and then it took five days and five nights to transport them to Weishan County. Finally, after six days, this batch of grain seeds was transferred to the fleet preparing to go north.

At this point, Luo Chong had almost finished preparing the construction materials for Heyuan County. The militiamen who stayed in Weishan County had also rested. Luo Chong immediately ordered them to set off by boat and head north as soon as possible to deliver the materials to Heyuan County in the north.

At the same time, Qu Bing had already led an elite team of 2,600 Shen Ce Guards and 1,000 Hunter Militiamen to launch the third phase of the spring offensive against the cannibals, which was the clearing and removal operation.

Because he had greeted Luo Chong in advance, in order to reduce unnecessary casualties as much as possible, Qu Bing had repeatedly emphasized the purpose of this battle, which was to preserve himself.

If you can shoot at the opponent from a distance, you must try to avoid close combat.

If you have the opportunity to sneak attack, you must not confront the enemy head-on.

If the grassroots commander judges that there may be casualties on his side, then you can give up capturing prisoners and just wipe out the opponent.

It was under the guidance of this combat thinking that the third phase of the campaign to eliminate and capture points went smoothly. To be precise, although the Shen Ce Guards had more than 2,000 muskets that could beat all the forces in the world, they did not play the level of a modern firearms army.

Every time they encountered an enemy, they would think, "Oh, don't kill the enemy, the leader wants us to capture them alive." So even though each soldier of the Shen Ce Guards had been fed at least several thousand rounds of bullets during the training phase and had good shooting accuracy, they were ordered by the superiors to only fight on the ground. What could they do?

But this time was different. This time they were deep behind enemy lines, without backup, and it was not easy to take prisoners away. Second, the strategic purpose had changed. Eliminating the enemy became the first goal, and it was no longer important to capture them alive.

As a result, the musketeers of the Shen Ce Guard finally played to their full potential. Often, a squad of soldiers could easily kill dozens of the enemy at a distance of two or three hundred meters. Because the enemy's long-range weapons could not shoot as far as their own, the Han tribe often killed all the enemies, and there was not even a single injured person on their side.

It was not that the enemy was not fierce enough, but that their weapons could not reach the Han tribe at all. Whenever the two sides met, they would definitely be unilaterally beaten by the Han tribe. It was not an exaggeration to say that they were massacred.

It is said that a war between two civilizations with a technological span of a hundred years is a unilateral massacre by the latecomers. The cannibals did not know that they were thousands of years behind the Han tribe in terms of technological level. One was still in the Neolithic Age, and the other had already entered the initial industrial age. They could not fight at all.

However, even with such a huge advantage, the speed of Qubing's advancement was not fast. On the one hand, they followed Luo Chong's orders, or reminders. Whenever they cleared an enemy village, the battle might only take more than ten minutes, but the subsequent cleanup might take a day.

Now that the weather has gradually warmed up, it is necessary to dig deep pits to bury the bodies and prevent the occurrence of plague. That is, they cannot get lime here, otherwise Luo Chong will definitely ask them to sprinkle some lime in the pit.

Then they will completely wipe out the other party's civilization traces, burn down their houses, knock down their altars, and blow up their weird statues. Anyway, as long as they see something made by the other party, even if it is a mural painted on the stone wall of the cave, they will use an ordnance shovel to scrape off the mural. In terms of eliminating the other party's civilization traces, they can be said to be unscrupulous.

In fact, everyone does not know why the leader gave such an order, but because of their excessive worship of Luo Chong, everyone firmly believes that the leader cannot be wrong. They always feel that since the leader gave such an order, there must be some special reason that they cannot understand.

For example, it is related to the gods worshipped by the other party? Otherwise, why did the leader say that even if they saw the altars or statues of the cannibals, they must burn them, blow them up, and knock them down?

Moreover, this era is the stage of transition from superstition to science. When encountering such things, everyone will always think about this involuntarily.

In addition, when marching in the forest, everyone should be careful of the various traps set by the cannibals in the forest for hunting, and destroy all the traps when they are found.

This was not an order from Luo Chong, but it was the result of a discussion between Qubing and Youye. They thought very simply that since they were aiming to exterminate the cannibals at one time, after the cannibals were eliminated, this large forest would become the territory of the Han tribe and the range of activities of the northern Han people. The tribesmen would cut wood, chop wood, and hunt here in the future. If they accidentally fell into the traps left by the cannibals, they would be helpless.

Just like the mine village in the southwest border of modern China, there were more than 70 men in the village, but only more than 60 legs in total. On average, each man could not even get a good leg, let alone a pair. All of them had their legs blown off because of stepping on mines. This was the result of the enemy's "traps" not being cleaned up after the war.

Although the cannibal's traps are not as scary as mines, they should not be underestimated. The forest is so big that if someone accidentally falls into a pit, it is estimated that even if tens of thousands of people go into the forest to search, they may not be able to find it. So it is better to be careful. Fill up the pits if you see them, and cut the ropes if you see them. Anyway, if you are discovered, you must destroy it completely.

(End of this chapter)