Chapter 92: Set fire to Dafeichuan

At Huaergou Steel Workshop, Ma Mengming followed Chen Ying to Huaergou. When he looked at the busy construction scene in front of him, Ma Mengming was a little dazed. He had been to Huaergou. The land here is barren and sparsely populated. Not only does it grow crops, but even weeds are rare. Not only are there no Han people who reclaim land here, but even herders do not come here to graz.

Originally, there was no road in Huaergou, but in front of me, there was a road that looked like a six-meter wide, with frequent vehicles coming and going, and countless people of all ethnic groups were working in a tense manner. The wooden hammer and the round stone mills alternated, pressing the paved road surface smoothly as a mirror. Ma Mengming secretly smacked his tongue in his heart. Even the imperial roads in Gaochang City might not be of this level.

In front is a horse-changing station. Next to the station, there are rows of houses built by scattered houses. The texture of these houses is very strange. Unlike thatched huts and adobe houses in the mainland, the walls are blue-gray and the touch is hard and cool. Just by the roadside of the station, a tall wooden drum device is connected to a millstone through a strange machinery. Two or three donkeys pull the millstone and rotate constantly, and the drum also rotates. There are bursts of metal friction and scraping sounds inside. The shaft of the wooden barrel is a wooden stick wrapped in iron sheets in a key part. When the drum rotates, the shaft does not rotate accordingly. Firewood is piled under the barrel, and the fire is on the rise. The flame is still far from the barrel, but you can see the naked eye that the heat is still wrapped around the barrel.

Ma Mengming looked for a while and saw that one side of the drum was suddenly opened. The young men rushed forward and shoveled out a thing from the drum with a wooden shovel. The thing was gray, black and viscous. When they looked closely, there seemed to be a smiley particle mixed in it. In an instant, the things in the drum had been shoveled clean by the men, and the chassis was resealed. Two men from afar came with a bucket of small slag and stones.

A pungent smell came into his nose, and Ma Mengming asked curiously: "Master, can this stone fat water be used to pave the way?"

"This is not stony water. I call it asphalt. It is just the residue after stony water is refined. It is best to use it to pave the road!" Chen Ying laughed in silence when he heard this.

Since the iron ore and coal mine were discovered in Huaergou, Chen Ying accidentally discovered a large amount of crude oil in Heihaizi, southwest of Jinman County. In fact, Chen Ying did not know that these crude oil and coal would spontaneously ignite and form a burning mountain after several years.

However, Chen Ying naturally would not give up this unexpected material. After simple distillation and refining of crude oil, light gasoline or diesel can be obtained, which is used to burn the enemy, which is much more powerful than turbulent oil and the so-called Greek fire. Because the crude oil in the Black Sea Zi is exposed to the air for too long, the amount of oil inside is not too large. On the contrary, when refining, there is a lot of residues of crude oil - asphalt.

Yes, Chen Ying mixed the residues from steelmaking together with small stones and paved asphalt into later asphalt roads. In this way, the road construction speed was much faster. The people in front flattened the ground, rolled and compacted it with stones, and finally laid it with asphalt and stones, sprinkled with fine sand, and then rolled it by the stones, and finished it.

With the road transportation volume in this era, I am afraid that it will take dozens or hundreds of years to use it without any renovation.

Since there is no special road in the Western Regions, it becomes a road when people walk too much. Therefore, the Western Regions are famous for being easy to attack and difficult to defend. As long as you cross the Shang Shule, the Lower Shule, and the Geluoling Valley, there are almost no strategic areas in the Western Regions that can defend.

But it is different for Chen Yingxiu to make such a way. Once people get used to walking this way and using four-wheeled carriages to transport materials, in the future, Chen Ying can set up checkpoints on the road and can also effectively defend!

When he arrived at the Iron and Steel House in Huaergou, Ma Mengming was shocked. He actually rose to the ground. Moreover, this city was larger than most cities in the Western Regions. To give the simplest example, Loulan Ancient City, a famous ancient city in the Western Regions, covers an area of ​​about 120,000 square meters and the area of ​​about 16 standard football fields.

However, this city is at least three times that of Loulan City.

Now there is no war to fight. These energetic soldiers were captured by Chen Ying. They mined, made steel, and built cities. They had many people and strong power, and achieved gratifying results.

After Chen Ying arrived in Huaergou, he immediately ordered: "The whole army gathered!"

The sound of "Dongdong..." war drums sounded. When the soldiers heard the order, they hurriedly stopped the work they had at hand, quickly returned to the military camp, wore armor and knives, and returned to the schoolyard to gather.

The fastest reaction actually arrived at the school ground at a stick of incense.

"The morale is high, and the morale of the army is available!" Ma Mengming looked at such an efficient army assembly and gained a new understanding of the elite troops under Chen Ying.

Chen Ying shook his head and said, "No, no! Have you noticed that these quickly assembled troops are the troops of Cao's troops in the Ninth Division of Zhaowu?"

"Well, so what?" Ma Mengming asked in confusion: "What's wrong with them?"

Chen Ying smiled slightly and said, "Why do they run so fast?"

Ma Mengming said: "Maybe General Cao Dan's training team is proper, he wants to make contributions, right?"

Chen Ying said seriously: "Maybe there is a reason, but this is not the most important thing. The most important thing is that they are escaping a torture, a torture that is ten times more painful than the enemy's desperate efforts on the battlefield. At least I see Cao Dan's son Cao Yaqian."

"Escape from a torture?" Ma Mengming said in confusion: "A torture that is more miserable than going to the battlefield? What?"

"Just learn Tang Yan." Chen Ying smiled and said, "Didn't you find that Tang Yan is very difficult to learn for them? I see that although Cao Yaxi didn't dare to act too obviously these days, her expression accidentally showed was like a knife sawing her neck."

In fact, it is precisely because of learning from Tang Yan that whether it is farming or reclamation of land or fighting against the enemy, it is more exciting to the Anxi soldiers than learning from Tang Yan.

Ma Mengming was a little stunned when he heard this. Perhaps it was because of his childhood contact, or perhaps he was a genius of human language, and he did not think that Tang Yan was difficult to learn.

But after hearing Chen Ying's words, he felt something was right.

It took about a quarter of an hour to complete the entire army. The Modao Army, the Cavalry Army, the Shooting Army and the Hebei New Army were all arranged in an orderly square formation based on the Zhechong Mansion. As for the cavalry, the elderly, the weak, the sick and the disabled, only 50,000 troops were left behind. The array was tight, with long spears like forests and swords like walls.

Chen Ying inspected Anxi's troops and felt a sense of pride. He asked in a sequel: "Do you know why you gather?"

The 100,000 troops were silent, and the needles were heard on the school ground. In fact, except for the generals in front, no ordinary soldiers could hear what Chen Ying said.

"Because the Tubo people went down the mountain, while our brothers left Liangzhou, they rushed towards Liangzhou, and burned, killed and robbed the five prefectures of Sha, He, Gua, Gan and Su! They dared to invade the Tang Dynasty, which clearly did not take our brothers seriously. They were brave enough to come and kick us!"

The generals in front listened to Chen Ying, which was like the gangsters who were encouraging morale before the battle. Their facial muscles twitched slightly. It was a shameful thing to be asked by Tubo people to come to play. Those damn Tubo people were slapping them in the face!

However, Chen Ying said with a gaze: "It's good, it's good. The Protector of the Great is worried that there is no hard work to build roads in the Western Regions, so they come to the door. You must keep these Tubo people, don't kill all the hands you have left for the Protector of the Great. I will keep them, and let us reclaim more land and roads. Whose land is reclaimed? Of course, it's the brothers. If you reclaim ten acres of land, you will also have an extra income, so that you, your family, can all have food and clothing. Even if you are killed in battle or injured, your children can live a prosperous life with this inheritance. You will not be missing from your war!"

Hearing that the military achievements were a lot, the soldiers' breathing became rapid. Originally, they were the Anxi Army and the Liangzhou General Administration was not their defense zone, but they were all excited to hear that Chen Ying wanted to use these prisoners of war to reclaim land for them and liberate them from this heavy labor.

"The old rule is to kill an enemy and give you five stakes of money. Those who are seriously injured will be given ten stakes of medicine, and those who are killed will be twenty stakes of money!" Chen Ying said: "Captain an enemy and behead them according to the merits of beheading!"

The soldiers raised their arms and shouted: "The Great Protector is mighty, and the Great Protector is thousands of victories!"

Chen Ying said again: "Now I order the Shesheng Army, Hebei Xin Army, Modao Army to stay guarding the camp! The others will bring all their equipment and set off immediately, let's go and make a fortune!"

Wencheng's troops began to prepare, but Duan Zhigan opened his mouth and wanted to take the new army in Hebei to practice, but Chen Ying's order had been issued, and military orders were not a joke, so he had to give up for Chen Ying's authority. He looked at Chen Ying eagerly, hoping that he could give himself a chance to make contributions.

Chen Ying looked at Duan Zhigan and said, "Let Ma join the army explain to you why you are left behind!"

Ma Mengming thought for a while and said, "Is it because of Murong Fuyun?"

"Yes, the Qu family's father and son are thieves. They colluded with Murong Fuyun, but they didn't hold back!" Chen Ying looked at these cheerful servants and pointed at them and said, "If they are not my clan, their hearts will be different. Whether their hearts are with us is still difficult to judge now, but this requires time to test. Now that we are taking us to Liangzhou, you can guard the Western Regions for me, especially the newly reclaimed 750,000 acres of land. Please keep it for me, don't let them burn the Great Protector with a fire!"

Having said this, if Duan Zhigan doesn’t understand it anymore, he will be stupid.

As Chen Ying said, it is impossible to determine whether the more than 50,000 servants of the Western Regions are truly loyal to the Tang Dynasty, but as long as they follow Chen Ying to Liangzhou, with the combat effectiveness of the cavalry, even if they are not good intentions, they will not be able to gain any advantage.

However, staying in the Western Regions is different. They can do a lot of good moves in secret!

After arranging all these matters, Chen Ying said to Liu Tong and Xunxiang, who had just arrived in Jinman, "I know you have worked hard, but I believe you understand the significance of the original Beiwei Army. The Tubo people returned to the plateau with only two roads. One was to go from Grim to Tanggula Mountain, and then to Ando, ​​and to Nagqu! As far as the original Husband knows, this Tubo army is not Ru of Nagqu, so they can only retreat to the snow field from another road."

As he said that, Chen Ying pointed out from the map: "They will go from Shancheng (Xining) through Linfancheng (Doba, Huangzhong) to Suirongcheng (South of Huangyuan County), along the Qiangshui (Yaoshui River in the south of Huangshui) through Shibaocheng (Shicheng Mountain in Huangyuan), Chiling (Riyue Mountain), Yuchichuan (Daotanghe) to Moliyi (Dongba, Gonghe), and through Dafeichuan (Checiji Grassland), and your goal is here!"

"Da Feichuan?" Liu Tong tried to ask.
Chapter completed!