Da Tang: Father, can I resign?

Chapter 386 A Fire on the Mountain, His Majesty Falls in Love with Me
Yes, Li Ming led a large army all the way from Pingzhou to Shanxi, and recruited millions of heroes with ideals and ambitions from all over the country. He was not just playing around.

He did not forget that he came here to fight.

It is not his style to open champagne and raise flags at halftime. It is still a war period, the enemy is in Jinyang, and everything is centered on winning the battle.

We're at war, be serious.

Therefore, all his actions, including dispersing civilians in the rear of Shanxi to carry out large-scale infrastructure construction, were actually part of the plan to flatten Jinyang.

Improving the level of local infrastructure is just a side job; the main goal is still to fight the war.

"There is nothing special about building bridges, roads, houses and embankments. We just need to proceed based on past experience.

"But speaking of which, how is the progress of our 'opening up'?"

Li Ming asked casually.

Yuchi Xunyu scratched his head:

"I don't know that."

Li Ming glanced at him and said in feigned anger:

"How come you are an intelligence officer and don't even know what's happening right in front of you? What use do I have for you?"

Yuchi Xunyu was not afraid at all and said with a wry smile:
"Brother Ming, I am in charge of foreign intelligence and counterintelligence, domestic affairs are not my responsibility.

"This is the job of your chief secretary. Go ask him. If I take over everyone else's work, what will he do?"

Zhong Heitan spread his hands. Although he was still young, he had already grasped the essence of bureaucracy and shirking responsibility.

Li Ming didn't hate this, on the contrary, he appreciated it.

This kind of "energy-saving" bureaucrat who does things within limits and with discretion is much easier to control than those power-hungry political animals.

But no matter how much I admire you, I still have to kick your butt.

"I knew you were useless. Go, go, call my personal servant here!" Li Ming scolded with a smile.

Yuchi Xunyu covered his buttocks and pretended to run out of the tent in a panic, not forgetting to scold the little brother:

"'I' and 'Zhen' cannot be used together, Your Majesty!"

…………

After a while, Li Ming's military "book boy" Qibi Heli came to the tent.

"Your Majesty, Yuchi Yushi."

He saluted respectfully to the leaders of the 14 parties and the founding fathers of the party.

Li Ming got straight to the point:
"How is the work of having the laborers cut down trees, burn the mountains, and plant trees going?"

"Your Majesty, according to Xue Wanche's report, in the six prefectures and 45 counties of Bing, Fen, Xi, Jin, Lu, and Pu, a total of 150,000 hectares of forests were destroyed, 40,000 hectares of new arable land were reclaimed, and more than one million trees were transplanted."

Qibi Heli answered fluently without even looking at written materials, the numbers were already firmly memorized in his mind.

After joining the army and switching jobs for a few months, he has gradually mastered the skills of secretarial work and is doing it quite well.

Li Ming raised his eyebrows and said in surprise:
"The progress is quite fast. It's only been a few days. You know, Shanxi has many mountains, and the workload is much greater than in the plains."

Qibi Heli glanced at the black charcoal head who was in a trance and replied:

"Perhaps the 'friends' from Guanzhong worked very hard and motivated others to work hard together."

"Oh, really..." Li Ming didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

It is hard to imagine how hard a hungry person would try to get chicken legs for every meal.

Li Ming and Qibi Heli continued to discuss the details of deforestation and afforestation, while Yuchi Xunyu listened attentively beside them.

Domestic affairs were too boring for him and he was really impatient.

But he was no longer a child who could do whatever he wanted. It would be impolite to just turn around and leave. He could only stay by the side and serve as a background figure.

As he listened, he suddenly realized that there was something wrong with this conversation.

After the two of them had almost finished talking about the business, he couldn't help but ask:

"Brother Ming, Qibi Counselor, I have a question -

“Why do we need to destroy forests while creating new ones?”

He was very puzzled by this behavior of taking off pants to fart.

Isn't this just like stepping on your right foot with your left foot and going up to the sky from where you are?

This won’t get you to the sky, only statistics can go up there.

Qibi Heli immediately replied:

"Your Majesty, there must be a reason for this."

Yuchi Xunyu simply ignored the answer of this imperial licker and stared at Li Ming.

Li Ming smiled and said:

"Because these trees are not growing where they should be."

"Where it should grow?" Yuchi Xunyu repeated dully.

Where should a tree grow? Shouldn't it stay where it takes root and sprouts for the rest of its life until it rots?

Seeing his friend's wise look, Li Ming patiently explained:
"To be specific, the trees grow in clusters in the wild mountains and ridges, accompanied by snakes, insects, rats, ants, tigers, wolves and wild beasts.

“Not only is it difficult for humans to reach and settle down, but the trees also consume the fertility of the land, making it difficult to cultivate.

"These are the trees that are 'growing wrong' and need to be removed."

At this point, Yuchi Xunyu finally came to his senses:

"I understand. When the world is stable and under Brother Ming's benevolent rule, the population will grow and the existing settlements will become overcrowded and the farmland will be overloaded.

"By burning the forests, we can transform the barren mountains and wilderness into villages, towns and fields, which will be able to accommodate more people in the future."

Li Ming nodded with satisfaction:

"This young man is teachable, that's all."

"But, Brother Ming..." Yuchi Xunyu scratched his head in confusion:
“Why are you transplanting and planting trees while you’re cutting down trees and burning down forests?”

Reclaiming wasteland is an instinct engraved in the genes of agricultural civilization. It has existed since ancient times, and there is nothing innovative about Li Ming's approach.

But what is strange is why he planted trees while burning them?

What does this mean?
"It's not that these trees shouldn't grow, but they grow in the wrong place." Li Ming said slowly:
"Have you noticed that in the wilderness of Shanxi, vegetation is lush, but near towns and villages, trees and vegetation are very scarce?"

Is this a problem? ... A question mark slowly rose in Yuchi Xunyu's mind.

It's not just in Shanxi, which town or village in the entire Tang Dynasty is not like this?
Why are there dense forests in places where there are few people, but no vegetation in places where people live?
The reasons for this situation are not difficult to understand.

On the one hand, it is naturally because of farming, which requires competing with nature for land.

On the other hand, it is because residents need to cut down trees as fuel to make fires.

Among firewood, rice, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar and tea, firewood is the most important. Therefore, the number of trees destroyed by burning firewood and charcoal is much greater than that destroyed by simply farming.

Therefore, except for the two capitals in the east and west, which were strictly managed and had some street trees preserved, the trees in other towns and villages were chopped down by the people for firewood and there were not many left.

This was the case throughout the Tang Dynasty, and Shanxi was no exception. In some villages and towns, there was not even a single tree to be seen within a radius of several miles or even dozens of miles.

Because this has been the situation since he was a child, Yuchi Xunyu didn't think it was a problem.

Of course, the situation in the Ming Dynasty was quite different.

Because the Ming Dynasty is actively promoting the use of "green new energy" - that is, coal, the demand for firewood and charcoal has decreased, so the vegetation around the city is still well preserved.

"There are big problems with what Shanxi is doing. If there are no trees in the city, it will not only be dusty but also look unsightly," Li Ming said seriously.

"What's more serious is that cities and villages in Shanxi are all built along rivers, and without the support of tree roots, the land is easily washed into the river by heavy rain, causing soil erosion.

"So, I plan to redistribute Shanxi's forest resources and mix them up. This way the dilemma will be solved."

"That's right." The charcoal-haired man nodded.

Although he didn't quite understand what he was saying, seeing Brother Ming's serious expression, he also felt that this move of stepping on the right foot with the left foot was very clever. "Of course, this is just the superficial reason why I did this." Li Ming curled his lips.

"In fact, this is a cover-up for the assault on Jinyang."

Yuchi Xunyu felt that his brain was running out of power:
"How can this be a cover-up? Brother Ming, you are doing this in such a big way. What are you trying to cover up?"

"Reporting to Yuchi Yushi, it is to cover up the real purpose of our army burning the mountain." Qibi Heli continued.

Yuchi Xunyu had a puzzled look on his face, and his thick eyebrows were furrowed more deeply than the Vajra sculpture in the temple.

"Burning the mountain?"

"Yes, burn the mountain." Li Ming smiled and nodded:
"When two armies are at war, every move is under the watchful eyes of the other side. If you want to hide any action from the other side, you have to make a bigger noise to cover it up.

"I moved trees to open up wasteland, built bridges and roads, and even gathered millions of people here, all to cover up one action -

“Burn the mountain.

"This is my real killer move to flatten Jinyang."

The corner of Yuchi Xunyu's mouth twitched.

He sincerely felt that compared to the real plan that was so wild, the "fortress tactics" in the false intelligence might be more feasible...

"Brother Xunyu..."

Li Ming sighed and walked out with his hands behind his back.

The two men immediately followed and walked out of the military tent.

Outside the military tent was a mountain peak by the Fen River, with an excellent view, allowing one to see everything that happened within a few miles of the Fen River Basin.

At his feet is the busy Fen River Port, where transport ships flow continuously, receiving labor from all over the country and transporting it to various parts of Shanxi.

Starting from the river port and heading north along the upper reaches of the Fen River, there is an escort fleet consisting of dozens of Ming warships, which monitor the river day and night to prevent the Tang army from attacking the river port.

Further north, at the limit of vision, separated from the Ming Navy by a stretch of open water, there were rows of iron chains with a few small boats anchored here and there.

Compared with the Ming Dynasty's invincible warships, those ships were so small that they were almost invisible.

However, it was an indispensable part of the Tang army's consolidation of defense, causing headaches for the Ming army.

Arson ship.

Li Ming rubbed his swollen temples and said:

"On land, there are Li Shiji's troops, and on water, there are iron chains and fireboats. The two lines of defense on land and water cooperate with each other and support each other, making them impregnable.

"If we don't come up with a surprise tactic, I'm afraid our army will have to spend at least a year and a half here."

"A year or two is not long at all." Yuchi Xunyu retorted subconsciously:

"When my father-in-law was under the command of General Tian Ce, he participated in the Battle of Hulao Pass. Even though he had the best timing, location and people, it still took more than half a year to completely capture Luoyang.

"This is considered amazingly fast. I've heard Aung brag about this since I was a kid."

Li Ming stood with his hands behind his back, facing the rolling water of Fen River solemnly.

"ten thousand years is too long, fight for now."

"What?" Yuchi Xunyu didn't understand.

"..." Li Ming sighed helplessly and told his younger brother in plain language:

"I'm impatient, I can't wait that long!"

…………

At the other end of the defense line, the Tang army camp.

There are iron ropeways in the water and soldiers hiding on the shore.

It is worthy of being the defense line that even the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty could only sigh in despair, it is indeed as solid as a rock.

On the Fen River, a Ming army warship quietly approached and stopped several feet away from the outermost iron chain.

This warship was different from other large ships of the Ming army. It was very small and flexible, but it had a disproportionately large crossbow on its bow.

This boat was trying to get closer to the outer perimeter of the Tang army's water defense line, so it took advantage of the Tang army's negligence to light a few rockets and whizzed towards the incendiary boats behind the iron chains.

Several fire ships were hit accurately, and the dry wood met the fire, instantly causing a raging fire.

"Hebei rats! They only do sneaky things!"

The Tang army commander on the shore was so angry that he drew his sword and ordered:

"Draw the crossbow, release the arrows! Shoot that guy into a hedgehog!"

However, the range of the Tang army's crossbows was not as good as that of the Ming Dynasty's advanced crossbows.

Before the Tang army pushed the crossbows forward and prepared to launch a counterattack.

The small Ming army boat quickly went downstream and returned to its own fleet in a shameless manner, not forgetting to spread out its sails, with an adorable look of "come and hit me".

Fortunately, there was a certain distance between the burning ships, and the fire did not spread. After the ships that were hit were burned to shells, the fire was extinguished.

On the top of a nearby mountain, the chief steward Li Shiji saw the entire scene.

But he didn't take it to heart.

The cost of the few fireboats lost was very low, nothing more than piles of hay.

The fact that the Ming army could only gain small advantages in this way shows that they were helpless against their own defenses.

It is true that Li Shiji was tricked and passed false information to the Jinyang headquarters, resulting in the loss of five thousand men in vain.

However, after confirming that the Ming army had no intention of attacking the bunkers, the Tang army did not have to risk attacking and harassing them and could concentrate on defense.

This made it even more difficult for the Ming army to break through.

However, Li Shiji felt that things were not that simple.

His gaze did not linger too long on the front line of the battlefield, but fell on the farther south.

"What are they doing?"

He put his hands on the pergola and looked out with a heavy heart.

Behind the Ming army camp, wisps of green smoke first rose and soon developed into billowing thick smoke.

"Reporting to the chief steward, it is the civilians on the other side who are clearing the land and burning the mountain."

The deputy general replied, and then added:
"They do this everywhere in Shanxi..."

"I know that." Li Shiji interrupted his subordinate's explanation, his eyes still fixed on the fireworks in the distance.
"The question is, why would they do that?"

Li Shiji was no stranger to the work of land reclamation.

Because there was no separation between civil and military officials in the Tang Dynasty, he also served as a civil servant and was in charge of local work. Reclaiming wasteland was one of the important indicators for evaluating officials.

As a highly mature agricultural civilization, the Chinese people have long had a simple concept of sustainable development, and the environmentally unfriendly method of land reclamation such as slash-and-burn farming has long been abandoned.

How come the Ming Dynasty, which claimed to be advanced, reversed history and revived the intangible cultural heritage of "burning mountains"?

“This is unusual, I’m afraid there’s something fishy going on.

"Is the other side planning to use fire attack?"

Li Shiji murmured.

The deputy general echoed:

"Should we report this situation to Jinyang?"

"Of course..."

Li Shiji was about to give the order when he suddenly remembered the tragedy of passing false information to Jinyang last time, which resulted in five thousand tigers and wolves being turned into cattle and horses.

He paused and changed his words:

"Of course it's not necessary. It's just a baseless guess, and it shouldn't interfere with the judgment of the emperor."

(End of this chapter)