Late Tang Dynasty Floating Life

Chapter 469

The tank boat that Shao Dashuai saw in Fengzhou has already sailed down the river and sailed to the area of ​​Lan and Shi.

This is the section of the Shanxi-Shaanxi Canyon that later generations call, the boundary river between Shaanxi and Shanxi.

The water is relatively turbulent, and navigation is not easy, but it is difficult for the businessmen who have racked their brains to do business.

The old road of Jinmeng grain and oil was very famous during the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty. It started in Dengkou (in Fengzhou at this time) and ended in the ancient town of Qikou in Shanxi (in Shizhou at this time).The goods are unloaded here and transported to Taiyuan by land, mainly grain, oil, saline, glycerin, and fur.

After this section, the river gradually narrows, the current becomes more urgent, and the probability of ship crashes and fatalities is greatly increased. Old boatmen must operate the boat.But even so, accidents of shipwrecks and fatalities occur from time to time.

At this time of war, a ship crash to a certain extent is a tacitly acceptable loss...

However, the military envoy Yamen has now also improved the transportation method.

After the large tank boat set off from Lingzhou, it sailed all the way to Linzhou, and then docked to transfer the goods to the small boat.

This kind of ship is light and flexible. Although the cargo capacity is not large, it can effectively deal with shoals, rapids, and flood peaks in the downstream voyage.

Yes, this section of the Yellow River downstream is very violent.

"Raging waves, suddenly brushing sand in shallow water and suddenly deepening, suddenly silting up with mud in deep water and suddenly shallowing, every time the ship is capsized and stuck..."

After the boat departs from Linzhou, it sails to Wushuiguan in Yanchuan County, Yanzhou, where warehouses and docks are set up, cargo is unloaded, and ships are changed.

Before sailing to the downstream waterfall, docking, unloading, and sailing on dry land for several miles.

In this section, if you go through the river, the road will be much easier, but the cost of Hexi is much higher.

Moreover, the hydrological conditions on the west bank are not as good as those on the east bank, and the distance to travel by boat on dry land is also long, making it difficult to find a suitable dock.

After sailing on dry land, the ship is launched and loaded.

But there is still a difficulty, that is the pontoon bridge in the three cities of Pujin Pass.

The pontoon bridge built by Guochao is actually capable of navigating, but a few pontoons in the middle channel need to be temporarily dismantled, and the pontoon bridges are arched on both sides, so as to ensure the north-south ship navigation while not interrupting the east-west traffic on the river.

But Wang Chongying refused to let go of the floating bridge!

Because he was worried that the Shuofang army would take the opportunity to attack Zhongli City and seize the pontoon bridge.

It's fucking unloading and changing ships again!
Every berth, unloading, ship change, etc. will lead to a sharp increase in costs. I don't think about it in this river!

I pissed off Lao Tzu and set your ghost floating bridge on fire.

In order to bypass the pontoon bridge, it has to be transported by land, and the distance is not short, because the hydrological conditions are not good and the water is turbulent, it is not easy to find a place to build a pier on the west bank.

After this section, change to a slightly larger ship until Tongguan.

After arriving at Tongguan, the ship had to be changed, that is, the ship of the Imperial Court Shanzhou Transshipment Institute, otherwise it would not be able to adapt to the hydrological conditions of the downstream channel.

Tongguan to Shanzhou is not open all the way, there is still a section of land transportation in the middle, and the boat cannot be used, which is also very tricky. The cargo must be unloaded and loaded, and the cost has increased sharply again.

Calculating carefully, the sinking of the ship, the damage of the cargo, the compensation for the personnel, the cost of various ship replacement and transshipment, and in order to motivate the boatmen, a high reward was offered. The cost of transporting a bucket of rice to Shanzhou is more than [-] yuan, which is not cheap!

The transportation cost in Henan is about ten yuan, which is ten times worse.

In the previous discussions of the Yuhou Division of Lingzhou Capital, all the government officials unanimously suggested that Hezhong be taken down!

Not only can it reduce part of the transportation cost, but it can also use the money and grain of the 37 counties of the four prefectures and four prefectures in Hezhong to support the army.

But taking Hezhong may lead to Li Keyong sending people to cut off the Yellow River water transport, and he will hit two if he hits it. This determination is not easy to make.

……

Outside the Shanzhou Transit Institute, there were crowded and busy people.

Taiyuan warehouse was used up.

This warehouse city can store millions of dendrobium grains, and the scale is huge. After all, when the ships moored on the river were burned during the Tianbao period, 100 million dendrobium grains were lost.

A convoy full of grain, beans and other military supplies left the Transfer Yard and moved forward along the deep and winding valley road.

"These are the wheat and Uighur beans that were transported from Lingzhou through untold hardships, so be careful." Cheng Yi, the new governor of Cangcang in Taiyuan, was sweating profusely.

This Cangcheng is theoretically owned by the imperial court, but it is controlled by Shanzhou, and the actual user is Shuofang Army.

who cares!
After Cheng Yi rushed over from Yanzhou, he went straight to the position of Cangdu, and he still managed two hundred soldiers under his command, with one Cangshuai and two deputy commanders under his command.

In the war against the Bian army, at first they used the supplies accumulated last year, and then they began to requisition the money and food from the two prefectures of Shanxi and Guozhou on the spot. Now a ship finally transported supplies from Lingxia, but it seemed that the price was not small.

The National Army of Tongguan Town sent 500 people to escort them.

The two armies of Tianxiong and Shunyi had already headed to Shangnan Road in the mountains to the south, where they set up strongholds to block the Bian army brigade that might come.

On the plateau on both sides of the road, the sound of horseshoes echoed.This is a constantly active ranger, to prevent a small group of Bianjun troops with great powers from infiltrating.

This kind of plateau terrain is the most annoying.

The road is very narrow between the plateau and the plateau. The plateau is tens of meters high. If people shoot arrows and rocks from the plateau, it doesn’t take many people to paralyze the road. Haven't done that yet.

Wang Jiao was the leader of the team, and he was in charge of 49 local peasants conscripted from Huizhou.

It is not quite accurate to say that the Tutuan soldiers, because they have been incorporated into the town's national army and became a member of the foreign town's army.

The Zhen Guo Army may have the largest number of troops in the Shuofang Army system (it has expanded to more than [-] people), but it is also the army with the worst combat effectiveness.

Mainly composed of state soldiers from various states, native peasants and some surrendered soldiers, Marshal Shao dared not send them to fight in the field, and had to guard the city gates to maintain his life.

Suddenly there was a horse neighing in front of him, followed by angrily shouting and cursing.

Wang Jiao strode forward and asked, "What's going on?"

"Team leader." A sergeant was whipping his master, but he stopped and said, "The horse has lost its temper and refuses to leave."

"What's going on?" He asked his master this time.

The master is from the same state, and when he saw a military academy coming, he was a little scared, and Nuonuo dared not speak.

"The leader of the team." The master's fellow countryman rushed over and said, "Don't blame me for waiting, you are too cruel. People are cruel, and animals are also cruel. People can bear it, but animals can't. "

Wang Jiao glanced at the carriage, which was full of bundles of arrows.

"The military envoy has an order that food, supplies and equipment must be delivered on time. If the deadline is missed, do you know what the consequences will be?" Wang Jiao's voice was not loud, but these words made people shudder.

Masters in Huazhou and Weibei towns flee almost every day, and they don't even want their homes.

The reasons vary, but there must be many delays due to various reasons.The military situation is urgent, and failures range from flogging to beheading. Some people flee in fear of punishment, which is really common.

"Take off the harness, and pull the cart aside, out of the way." Wang Jiao ordered.

As if they were pardoned, the masters immediately got to work.

The convoy continued on, winding for miles.The one in front has gone a long way, and the one behind is still hidden among the mountains and forests of Taiyuan, as if it has disappeared.

There are many abandoned carriages on both sides of the road, and food has been spilled all over the ground, which has not been cleaned up yet.

There are butchers slaughtering sick and exhausted draft animals by the roadside. The dried horse meat is hung all over the branches, and the leather is processed one by one and handed over to the military envoy's yamen.

What is creepy is that there are still some human heads hanging on the branches, all of which are escaped masters who have been captured, which makes everyone's morale even lower.

Sending into service has been the most feared thing for the common people since ancient times.

After leaving Xiashi County, the road opened up a little bit, but it couldn't be said how smooth it was.

The north-south mountain ranges are connected one after another, but the road is east-west, and they hurried all the way, and finally arrived at the camp of Ganhaozhai before the end of June.

……

"Wow!" The "background sound" sounded one after another appropriately around, and Wang Jianji smiled with satisfaction.

Xiao County is in Zhoubali.The base is more than six feet wide and nearly two feet high, which may be shorter than Xin'an County and higher than Mianchi County - this height is obviously designed as a military fortress.

Thirty steps away from the city, there is a city god dug, but it is not yet possible to divert water.The sheep and horse wall is still under construction, but it is almost finished.

There are four gates in the county seat, two are normally open and two are normally closed, and a suspension bridge has been built outside the gate.

This is a bit strange, the former enemy's important town, it is almost enough to open two doors.It can only be said that Li Tangbin is very confident that the four doors are actually opened. He feels that this will be the rear area in the future, and a large amount of food, grass, equipment will be stationed, and people will come in and out.

Wang Jiao looked carefully at the city wall and found that it was similar to the Dingxi County he had been to.

An urn city was built outside the city gate, with female walls and enemy sheds on the city.

There are crossbow towers on all sides outside the city, where troops can also be stationed.

The urn city, the enemy shed, and the crossbow platform are all for protecting the city gate. Wang Jiao understands this, and the cities built in the Helong area basically look like this.

It is common sense to connect the land to the frontier and be heavily guarded.

"Rest overnight outside the city today, and early tomorrow morning, transport these arrows and equipment to Xiaoshan, and then transport the damaged swords, spears and armor on the mountain to repair." Wang Jianji knocked a few with the scabbard to see Fascinated master, said.

Everyone should be.

Wang Jiao turned his gaze to another place, and found that a large open space had been cleared in the field outside the City God.

Some people are busy on the top. Judging by their attire, they should be officials or civil servants.

Isn't it measuring the land and registering it?

He is too familiar with this!
In the early years, Huizhou was still a frontier, and people were dispatched here every three days, often with their families.After settling down, some officials came with small envoys, driving officials, etc., to measure the fields, and people gave them one hectare.

It's building cities and counties, and measuring land. This is to stick to it.

The sound of drumming came from the east, and Wang Jiao turned his head to look again.

At the end of the field of vision, the sergeants of the brigade were marching eastward, and there was faint smoke and dust brought up by the cavalry, which was the sound of the drums of the whole team during the march.

There must be a large number of camps in the east!

"Don't look at it, it's tens of miles to the east, and you can't see it." Wang Jianji walked up to him and said with a sneer, "You can see it when you go to Xiaoshan. The company is several miles away, so don't be scared. "

Wang Jiao glanced at him: "I have seen thousands of Tatars rushing forward, and they didn't let the thieves steal the food."

"Are all Zhen Guojun so powerful?" Wang Jianji said in a teasing tone, "What's your name?"

"Wang Jiao, the Zhen Guojun's left wing is in front of the Jin Dou Guan camp."

"You look quite majestic, how about being my foster son?"

Wang Jiao's eyes suddenly turned fierce, and regardless of the fact that the person standing in front of him was probably a lieutenant general or ten generals, an unruly wildness was undoubtedly revealed.

"I don't know how to flatter you!" Wang Jianji cursed resentfully.He really can't manage foreign military academies.

The rapid sound of hoofbeats suddenly caught the attention of the two of them.

I saw a messenger with a recognition flag on his back and three horses galloping from the east. He didn't stop when he passed Xiao County, but went straight west to Xiashi County.

"Fucking fights again!" Wang Jianji cursed in a low voice, then gloated at Wang Jiao, and said, "You're unlucky, escort the military supplies tomorrow, be careful of losing your life."

(End of this chapter)