Chapter 956: A pure firearms army, the Shen Ce Guard!
Luo Chong quickly took out You Ye's letter and quickly read through it. It mainly described his activities during this period.
First of all, it was to find people. You Ye had been leading the team to search for possible populations nearby, and sometimes rescued small tribes captured by them from the cannibal teams that went out. After such a long time, the population of their temporary camp in the north has increased to nearly 30,000 people, and the settlements have expanded to four. The results are very gratifying.
In addition, You Ye explored the surrounding geological conditions. This guy was lucky to find a copper mine hundreds of kilometers away from the camp. He could land in the mining area directly from the camp by water, and then mine copper for smelting and make various tools. This is why they have not asked the tribe for metal supplies recently.
Luo Chong also gave them a lot of seeds in the previous supply. In terms of food, they have been able to be self-sufficient. Although they are still mainly corn and soybeans, and only a small number of places can grow rice, it is no problem to fill their stomachs.
Moreover, one of the tribes recruited by Youye has domesticated a kind of highland sheep, which is large in size and has thick wool. Now it has become the main meat and wool livestock raised in the northern camp, solving the meat and warmth problems of the northern camp.
As for the livestock for use, although there are no creatures such as yellow cattle, water buffalo or forest cattle in the north, there are yaks there. Although yaks are not suitable for farming, they can be used to pull carts or carry goods after being domesticated. This solves the problem of whether there are livestock for use, but the number is still very scarce. After all, they developed too late and could not breed so many yaks.
In addition, Youye reported in the letter that they recruited some wild men near the black lake and hired them to dig asphalt for them with food. One basket of asphalt is exchanged for a certain amount of food. Now they have accumulated enough asphalt for a boatload of asphalt and will go south soon. They asked Luo Chong if there was anything else he needed him to bring.
In addition, Youye also asked in the letter whether they should transport some of the people in their camp first, whether the tribe has a place to receive them, and if necessary, how many should be transported first?
If Luo Chong intends to take back some of the population first, then they will form a fleet with the cargo ship loaded with asphalt, and return to the tribe together.
At the end of this long letter, of course, it is inevitable to ask for support.
However, You Ye did not ask for food, ironware and other things in the letter. What he wanted was cloth and cotton. The reason is that there are too many people rescued from the cannibals this year, and there are too many new people recruited. Although there are sheep and yaks in the four camps, they cannot be killed all. They have to keep them to continue breeding. Therefore, the winter supplies for these people in the camps have become a problem. Cold-proof supplies are in short supply.
Quilts, cotton clothes and cotton shoes, the more the better. If there are none, just give cotton and cloth directly, and they can organize people to make them by themselves.
Finally, there is a very strange thing. You Ye actually asked Luo Chong for a regular army of the guard. Of course, he was not stupid enough to ask Luo Chong for military power.
According to Youye, from last year to this summer, they had more and more exchanges of fire with the cannibals. In order to get more people, Youye often organized hunting teams or exploration teams to ambush the cannibals' "foraging" teams. While bringing more people to themselves, they also caused great losses to the cannibals.
However, the cannibals were not stupid. They soon discovered that there were often inexplicable forces nearby that opposed them, so they sent a large number of warriors to snipe Youye's team. The encounters or ambushes between the two sides have gradually developed into guerrilla warfare and local wars.
Youye's subordinates are either hunting teams selected from the survivors, or members of the hundred or so exploration teams he led. They have limited combat experience and can no longer support the current situation.
So Youye's suggestion is to let Luo Chong send a regular army guard to them. One guard plus the local militia is enough. It is better to send a general who is good at commanding operations. He will not interfere with military power. The troops sent there will be in charge of the generals appointed by Luo Chong.
It's not that Youye didn't want to lead the troops or didn't have the ability to lead the troops. The main reason was that he was afraid of being suspected by Luo Chong. The whole long letter expounded a point of view, that is, Youye absolutely had no intention of rebellion.
For example, he told Luo Chong about the copper mine he found. If he didn't tell Luo Chong, he could rely on this copper mine and the nearly 30,000 people under his command to grow again and become an independent new tribe.
But he didn't. He still told Luo Chong that since Luo Chong knew about it, the copper mine would become the Han tribe's, and he would have to listen to Luo Chong's decision.
The second thing was that Youye took the initiative to request a group of people to be transferred to the tribe. He was worried that the population under his command was too large, which would arouse Luo Chong's suspicion.
But this is indeed a problem. In just over three years, Youye has already pulled out a camp of nearly 30,000 people in the north, which is several times stronger than ordinary tribes. Luo Chong is indeed a little worried.
It's not that they are afraid of Youye's rebellion, but they are afraid that these people have never had contact with the Han tribe. Do they recognize or are they willing to accept the rule of the Han tribe? What if these people only believe in Youye and force Youye to wear the yellow robe? At that time, it will not be a question of whether Youye will rebel or not. Sometimes it is completely beyond one's control.
Just like Luo Chong now, if he says he wants to give up and ignore the Han tribe, will those people under him agree? These people are still counting on Luo Chong to lead them to achieve merit and then give them titles and official positions. If Luo Chong gives up, who in the current Han tribe can carry the banner of the Han tribe? !
It is also beyond one's control!
However, Luo Chong does not regret it. He founded the Han tribe, and he would not do it if others asked him to give up!
The third point in the letter is about the issue of sending troops. Youye requested the support of the regular army, but took the initiative to avoid the military power and asked Luo Chong to send a general to lead the troops.
What does this mean? !
In fact, he still wanted to prove to Luo Chong that he had no intention of rebelling.
An army stationed next to him, whose management power was not in his hands but directly controlled by Luo Chong, was like tying a rope around his neck, with the other end of the rope in Luo Chong's hand. If you don't believe me, you can strangle me at any time.
An army stationed next to You Ye, whose ownership was still in Luo Chong's hands, could not this army target its own people in addition to fighting against cannibals?
The answer was of course it could!
What You Ye meant was, I put my neck under your knife, so now you should believe me, I definitely have no intention of rebelling.
Luo Chong couldn't help but laugh after reading the letter. Perhaps it was because You Ye hadn't been back for several years. Luo Chong felt that he and he had become estranged, and the trust between them had faded. This You Ye was so afraid that he didn't trust him. In order to gain his trust, he had put in a lot of trouble. His elder brother You Fu would never do that.
However, in order to make You Ye feel at ease, Luo Chong also felt at ease, so he decided to adopt You Ye's opinion.
Supplies must be given, and it would be better if a group of people from the north were also moved here. It's not that he didn't trust You Ye, but he wanted to relieve them of some population pressure.
They were temporarily short of conditions, and it was very difficult to support so many people. The Han tribe was short of people now. Let alone 30,000, even if there were another 300,000, Luo Chong would eat them without hesitation.
However, he would not withdraw all the camps in the north at once. He would also consider the issue of resettlement. He couldn't let them live well in the north, and then withdraw them to sleep in the wild here, right?
So Luo Chong thought about it and finally decided to withdraw 1,000 households of immigrants to the eight counties of Hanyang.
At the beginning of the year, one thousand households from the eight counties of Hanyang had just migrated to Qiongzhou Island. Now it is just the right time to replace these one thousand households from Youye. Luo Chong does not have to worry about the resettlement issue. After these people come back, they will immediately have houses to live in and fields to cultivate. They can just move in with their bags.
One thousand households, if each household has three or four people, is only about four thousand people. Youye has thirty thousand people. Luo Chong took four thousand directly from him. It's not a lot, but it can also reduce some of his burden.
Luo Chong thought about this while thinking about the wording to write a reply to Youye. After writing this, he thought about asphalt again.
There is an asphalt lake in the north, which is an open-air oil mine. After the underground oil comes out, part of it evaporates, and the remaining heavy oil impurities become asphalt. This shows that there is oil in the area, but it is useless for the Han tribe now.
It is very difficult and complicated to drill for oil and then have an oil refinery. The Han tribe has not even played with steam engines yet, so it is a bit too hasty to get involved in internal combustion engines.
Moreover, in terms of petrochemicals, the current chemical technology of the Han tribe is not enough to support such a complex subject as oil refining.
In fact, the biggest use of this asphalt lake is to mine asphalt for asphalt roads, but the Han tribe does not need asphalt roads now.
Asphalt roads are good, but this type of paved road is only suitable for hollow rubber tires. At present, the main land transportation of the Han tribe all relies on horse-drawn carriages. The horse-drawn carriages use solid wooden wheels. Running on asphalt roads will cause serious wear and tear. After all, asphalt roads are notorious for their high friction.
In addition, horses pulling carts are not suitable. If horses run on asphalt roads, their hooves will be worn out after running a few times. Even horseshoes are useless because the asphalt road is too hard. Why are horse farms all sandy or grassy? It is to protect the horses' hooves.
Therefore, the most suitable road for horse-drawn carriage transportation is still dirt roads.
Then there is no need for the Han tribe to have so much asphalt!
The biggest use of asphalt in the Han tribe is shipbuilding. The asphalt is burned and some other materials are added to make waterproof fillers, which are specially used to fill the seams of shipboards for waterproofing.
At the beginning, the Han tribe used fish bladders to waterproof ships, but later, as the ships became larger and larger, the output of fish bladders was not enough, so they began to use asphalt, a byproduct of the coking plant, for waterproofing. At present, it is still enough. If you don't consider paving asphalt roads, there is really no need to mine natural asphalt from the north.
So Luo Chong wrote directly in his reply that after You Ye brought back this ship of asphalt, he would temporarily stop mining asphalt. As for the wild people around the asphalt lake, he could absorb them into the camp first.
Then in terms of supplies, the Han tribe will provide enough cotton and cotton cloth, and then provide them with some iron ingots so that they can make iron tools by themselves. They need a lot of manpower to smelt copper by themselves, which is completely unnecessary, and copper tools are not as good as iron tools. Luo Chong plans to use iron ingots to exchange all the copper tools from You Ye for currency.
Finally, there is the issue of the army. Luo Chong has already considered the army to deal with the cannibals. That is the pure firearms army that he considered before, all modern light infantry with rifles as the main weapon.
The weapons have all been finalized, but the troops have not been formed yet, and the weapons have not been mass-produced. However, the firearms army can be formed very quickly. As long as there are enough weapons and a little training, they
can go to the battlefield. There is absolutely no problem in using them to deal with the cannibals. The most important thing is that if the firearms army is fully invested in the war against the cannibals, then the Han tribe will not need so many people. Only one guard post is needed to win the war. This is determined by weapons and tactics. The Han tribe has an absolute firepower advantage.
Thinking of this, Luo Chong immediately made a decision. Now let Qubing form this firearms army. The number of people should not be too large. Two thousand people are enough. First, train them, and produce firearms while training. Moreover, if only two thousand people are produced to produce ammunition, the Han tribe can fully afford it. If there are more, they will have to expand production, and then they will have to mobilize more resources, which is unnecessary.
After making the decision, Luo Chong immediately wrote in the letter, asking Youye to organize a thousand immigrants and the asphalt ship to form a fleet to go south immediately.
In terms of materials, we will also have sufficient supplies, but we have to ask them to stop mining copper. If they need metal in the future, we will provide iron ingots. This time, we will also give them a batch of iron ingots to exchange all the copperware in their hands.
The last thing is to send the garrison army. The tribe cannot take it out now, but it will be formed immediately. The army will arrive at the latest by the beginning of winter this year.
At that time, the generals of this army will lead them to fight a real war with the cannibals. I will provide full support, but Luo Chong does not want nothing.
I will give the army, but I want population, prisoners of war, and slaves.
The Han tribe is now in a period of great construction. There are many places that need slaves, such as the construction of the cross-sea bridge, such as the construction of the imperial palace and the capital. There is a shortage of people everywhere. The cannibals are the best free labor for the Han tribe. Just give them a bite to eat. It's too cost-effective.
Just for this, it's worth investing an army.
After writing the reply and waiting for the ink to dry, Luo Chong immediately summoned the guards of the gate.
"Someone come!"
"Chief, what do you want?!" A guard came to the door immediately.
"Send this letter to Youye in the north by flying eagle, and then call Qubing to me!" Luo Chong immediately arranged for the guard.
"Yes, chief, I will do it right away!"
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