Chapter 629 Maodun finally made a move (please vote and subscribe)
This discussion with Ling Feng made Luo Chong know more about the herdsmen. In order to solve the problem of goats and sheep as soon as possible, Luo Chong bought some goats from the herdsmen that day and took them to the soldiers for dinner. However, in order to supplement their food, Luo Chong used grain as an exchange.
In fact, the herdsmen did not only eat cheese, they also wanted to eat grain, but it was a pity that there was no grain. Otherwise, how could there be so many nomadic peoples coming to the interior to rob grain in history.
The grain sold to the herdsmen was not much, but the variety was relatively complete, mainly wheat kernels, flour, corn, millet, and yellow rice. The reason for this choice was to prepare for the future planting of these crops on the grassland. Otherwise, even if you get them rice, they can't grow rice on the grassland. If there is dry rice, you can try it.
Among these grains, Luo Chong is most optimistic about barley, wheat, and millet. Although their yields are not large, they are very suitable for the climate here. Millet evolved from foxtail grass, and its adaptability is strong. The wheat and barley of the Han tribe also came from the grassland. They are variants of local barley grass and ryegrass. In
addition, forage grass is also the object of Han tribe planting. Luo Chong has observed in the past few days that there is no alfalfa, a universal forage grass, here on the grassland. Luo Chong saw this thing at the swamp lakeside, but there is no such excellent forage grass on the grassland. It seems necessary to plant some here. At least alfalfa is very suitable as forage for livestock to spend the winter.
After sorting these things into data and lists, Luo Chong immediately contacted Hanyang City and asked them to prepare all the necessary things to be shipped here. Although it is impossible to grow grain this year, forage grass must be planted first. Anyway, that thing does not require much time to manage, and it can be planted and left alone, so at least a piece of it should be planted first to provide forage grass for this year's winter.
In the next few days, Luo Chong guided the army in training and occasionally visited the construction site of the dock. Not only Luo Chong would come here, but the herdsmen were also frequent visitors to the dock.
Women came to the lake to fetch water or wash clothes, while the children came to see the Han tribe's large sailing ships. Due to the lack of building materials here, many things could only be transported from other places, so there were always large ships every now and then, which surprised the herdsmen who had never seen a ship before. However, after they knew that these ships belonged to the Han tribe, they also looked very proud.
Luo Chong even allowed some children to visit during the stopover to deepen their understanding of the Han tribe. After all, they would be their own people in the future. Letting them have more tribal pride would only increase the centripetal force, which was nothing bad.
However, after this time, Luo Chong immediately wrote back to Liuyang County and asked them to dispatch ten two-masted sailing ships. These small ships would remain in the grassland new city for service. First, they could be used to quickly transport mobile manpower in the lakeside area, and second, they could be used for fishing.
Guarding such a large freshwater lake, if you don't know how to use the aquatic resources and just ask for food from the grassland, you can only be called a fool. The Han tribe is not without boats, why not use them.
These boats were quickly delivered, along with the tools and seeds that Luo Chong wanted. Among them was a sled that Luo Chong had recently designed. He drew the blueprints, and then the tribe made it and shipped it over.
This sled is not a means of transportation for skiing in winter, but a kind of agricultural tool he invented specifically for growing grass. In fact, it is a triangular thick wooden board, similar in shape to "《", with only one obtuse angle, and dozens of knives installed on it. When working, this thing is placed flat on the ground with the obtuse angle facing forward, and pulled by two cows or two horses in front. You only need to simply scratch the ground once, and you don't need to plow it too deep, and then sow the alfalfa seeds in it. You don't need to worry about anything else. As for how it grows, it's up to fate.
As time went by, the progress in all aspects was also steadily advancing. By the beginning of March, several small tribes or grassland savages chose to join the Han tribe. The number of people also increased from more than 2,000 people in the Qianyang tribe at the beginning to more than 5,000 people later.
These more than 5,000 herdsmen are not a small force. If we only talk about the number of individual tribes, the nomadic tribe of more than 5,000 people can even rank in the top ten in the entire grassland. It is obviously a considerable existence. However, before joining the Han tribe, they were not together.
Among them, there are more than 2,000 people from the Qianyang tribe brought by Lingfeng, whose leader is Yili, and a cattle bone tribe brought by Wuyun (a grassland savage who was later introduced by Lingfeng to join the Han tribe). The number of people is not large, only 800, but it is also a considerable force.
In addition, there are some family-style small tribes, with as many as one or two hundred people and as few as dozens of people. Of course, there are also savages with independent households.
Because these scattered herdsmen are inconvenient to manage, Luo Chong also carried out the first herdsmen household reorganization plan.
The first step in the household registration is to set up households for all married men and women according to the family unit, and then conduct mixed grouping management. Luo Chong directly mixed these more than 5,000 people together, and then divided them into groups of five households, with a squad leader, ten households with a squad leader, five squads as a village, two villages with 100 households, and then five hundred households, thousand households, etc.
It is a bit similar to the system of military households, but it is indeed more suitable for these mobile herders. In this way, the Han tribe does not need to specifically interfere in the herders' own affairs, but only selects a few original leaders to be thousand-household officials. If there are any political orders, they can directly communicate with these thousand-household officials, and then convey them to the herders at all levels below them.
Although this will reduce the management strength of the Han tribe, it is the best way for the Han tribe and these herders to get along. Anyway, if the Han tribe really wants to control them, it will not use the so-called thousand households and hundred households, but use the unique resources in the hands of the Han tribe, coal, food, steel, cloth, and most importantly, currency. Anyway, as long as you buy things in the Han tribe for one day, you will never leave the Han tribe.
The situation was completely different from that of the Han tribe. Luo Chong had recently received a piece of intelligence saying that Maodun had returned to his tribe, but he had not seen him and his whereabouts were unknown.
Along with this message, there was also a message about the mission. Shouya had dispatched some people to escort the 2,000 cattle and horses and white salt to the mainland and successfully completed the handover with Youzhi's caravan. Now they were being escorted to the military camp by the leather armored heavy cavalry belonging to the caravan and were on their way.
The appearance of these two pieces of news immediately attracted Luo Chong's attention. He immediately realized that the opportunity to start a war might be coming.
These two pieces of information seem to be normal, but when analyzed together, they are very interesting.
For example, why did Maodun suddenly disappear? Where did he go? Why did he disappear when the Han tribe was transporting salt back? Who can say that there is no connection? What if they are planning to take advantage of this batch of salt? Or is it a trick to lure the tiger away from the mountain? Send the army to protect the team delivering salt, and then Maodun will come to steal the house?
This is very possible. Luo Chong does not know his real movements for the time being, and cannot make effective arrangements. He can only notify all departments to enter the alert state in advance, and then ask You Zhi to report the recent news of Zhudao and the location of Maodun's men.
Maodun is not easy to find alone, but his men and soldiers, so many people are easy to find. First, check if he has any signs of mobilizing the army. If he has mobilized, how many people will there be? Through these numbers and the direction of the march, it can be judged when they will appear and what bad things they want to do.
A day later, You Zhi sent back the news. Since the Jinwu Guard, or the intelligence personnel of the caravan, were too few, they could not fully monitor Maodun's forces for the time being. Therefore, they only knew that they had been mobilized, but they did not know where they went or how many people there were. Fortunately, they found some broken human corpses.
From the attire and dress of these corpses, the scouts of the Jinwu Guard quickly determined that these were envoys from the Xin tribe. They had died not long ago, just in the past two days. In order to confirm the true identity of these people, they also found members of the Han tribe delegation who came to transport cattle, horses and white salt to identify these corpses. Finally, it was confirmed that the deceased was the one sent by the Xin tribe to give Maodun an ultimatum.
This was the envoy sent by the Xin tribe to the Maodun tribe, but now he was dead. This situation is very intriguing.
The Han tribe forced the Xin tribe to settle the payment with white salt, and also asked them to increase the cattle and horses by 20% as compensation. Logically, they should hate the Han tribe, but the Han tribe currently has so much technical support and construction planning to do. What can Commander Xin do? He has no way, but as the commander of a large tribe, he is unwilling to swallow this breath.
So Commander Xin, who can't do anything about the Han tribe, put his sights on Maodun. If this guy hadn't dragged his feet and refused to give the Han tribe cattle and horses, how could his own Xin tribe have suffered such a loss? Yes, all this was caused by Maodun.
The angry Commander Xin mercilessly put the blame on Maodun, and sent a special envoy to issue him an ultimatum, asking Maodun to hand over the tens of thousands of cattle and horses. Didn't you always tell the Han tribe that cattle and horses can only be given to the Xin tribe? Now I'm here myself, what excuse do you have? Hand them over quickly.
But how could Maodun agree to the request of Xin Commander? He used the large amount of sea salt provided by Xin Tribe to form his own alliance. He also used the cattle and horses obtained from selling salt to expand his own tribe. Tens of thousands of cattle and horses, how many more herdsmen can be fed, how many cavalry can be formed, it is definitely not a small number. If Maodun was willing to give up easily, he would not have been dragging his feet and not paying for the goods.
Now Xin Commander urged him to pay back the debt and issued an ultimatum, saying that he would cut off contact if
he did not pay back the debt. If he really did this, then the Xin Tribe should be the one who suffered the most, because they lost tens of thousands of cattle and horses and a large amount of white salt. But Maodun was even more distressed. His cooperation project with Xin Tribe was not just as simple as exchanging white salt for cattle and horses. It involved many terms, such as copper stirrups, spearheads, arrowheads, bamboo arrow shafts, etc. These were all negotiated by Niuwei and Maodun. The only requirement was to let Maodun maintain the transaction on the grassland for Xin Tribe, and then exchange cattle and horses for Xin Tribe.
But now that the Xin tribe had severed ties with him, he could no longer obtain these very useful strategic materials from the Xin tribe. Although he wanted to return the cattle and horses to the Xin tribe to maintain the relationship, the development of the situation was obviously out of his control.
If Maodun was strong and maintained his dominant position in the alliance, it would be fine. But once he handed over the cattle and horses and lost his absolute advantage, the tribes that had a grudge against him last year because of the white salt might come to him, especially Suritu or the Han tribe. Even his own alliance would be disbanded in advance because of the loss of white salt supply.
So Maodun, who had no choice, could not let other people in the alliance know about this. He tortured the envoy of the Xin tribe and forced the Han tribe to tell him the content of the transaction between the Han tribe and the Xin tribe. He learned that the Xin tribe had settled the payment with white salt and that the white salt had been transported to the grassland, so he killed the envoy of the Xin tribe and then set his sights on the white salt belonging to the Han tribe.
The Han tribe has a lot of good things, which are very coveted, but the strength of the Han tribe is also much stronger than that of the Xin tribe, and any other tribe. Especially the recent actions of the Han tribe, they have stationed a large number of soldiers in the grassland, and their strategic purpose is not very clear.
These soldiers have the intention of building a city and staying there, but it is not impossible to take the initiative to attack. As for their attack targets, Maodun was still wondering whether the Han tribe's attack target was the Xin tribe or himself. Now it seems that the trade contradiction between them and the Xin tribe has been resolved through white salt. Su Ritu has always had a good relationship with the Han tribe, so the Han tribe is unlikely to attack Su Ritu. By using the elimination method, the entire grassland plus Zhudao, only himself has offended the Han tribe. If Maodun still doesn't understand it now, he is not Maodun.
After learning that the Han tribe intends to deal with him, Maodun decided to strike first after careful consideration. The Han tribe is indeed powerful, but at least he can get the upper hand.
However, his target was not the military camp of the Han tribe. Those thousands of soldiers with armor, fine food, sharp weapons and strict discipline seemed difficult to provoke. It would cost a lot to defeat them. The key was that he had no confidence in winning, and the benefits he would gain were not great.
So in the end, Maodun set his sights on the batch of white salt and cattle and horses that the Xin tribe had just compensated to the Han tribe. The only ones who controlled this batch of supplies were a caravan of the Han tribe and more than 70 leather-armored heavy cavalrymen affiliated with the caravan. They only had sabers and lances, and they didn't know how to shoot arrows on horseback. In this regard, he had an advantage in both manpower and tactics.
First, defeat the caravan, rob the supplies and the equipment of the caravan cavalry, and then turn around to deal with the thousands of elite warriors. The Han tribe did not have many cavalrymen, and he was all cavalrymen. At that time, he might not lose in a guerrilla war with the Han tribe.
(End of this chapter)
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