Time flies, and in a blink of an eye it is April of the seventh year of the Apocalypse. The weather is gradually getting warmer. Even the grassland and Liaodong borders have broken free from the bitter cold winter in the snow. Even if it is not as rich as the south of the Yangtze River, the weather is as warm as the flowers, at least the ice and snow melt, and the branches of the trees are full of green.

Zhang Chunniu took office and began to take charge of the 17th Regiment of the Purchase Army. The entire regiment was organized into five brigades, with more than 1,000 people in each brigade, with more than 150 large chariots, and a large number of engineering tools. Almost everyone has tools such as shovels and shovels to issue them.

Nowadays, the baggage soldiers are becoming more and more engineered and professional. Zhang Han, Sun Jingting and Li Dongxue and others are considering to make the baggage soldiers a larger-scale engineering transportation force. Of course, the original garrison function and many miscellaneous tasks are completely preserved.

As a result, the logistics corps gradually became differentiated. Some engineering personnel and transportation teams were small in scale, and there was almost no large fleet or engineering team organization. This type of logistics corps received more professional training and was only responsible for the garrison of fire roads and military stations in various places. Not only these fixed defense facilities, there were some important roads, such as Qingcheng to Zhongdu, Zhongdu to Kulun and Made and Shop City, as well as Qingcheng to Sushou City, and Qingcheng to Ketunan City. These roads were not only maintained by engineering personnel and supplies, but were also divided into several areas for guarding.

It is not difficult to destroy the road artificially. The nearby tribes gather thousands of people and can destroy dozens or hundreds of miles of roads overnight.

They may not have this courage, but as long as they have this ability, the senior management of the military command will take precautions.

More baggage troops were mainly converted into engineering or transportation. In recent years, due to the cessation of war, Sun Jingting and others expected that there would be no major war within one or two years. They took this opportunity to build several important roads. The east-west road from Qingcheng to Zhongdu and Sujiangcheng is very important, and it is nearly two thousand miles long, which is an important node connecting the foundation of Heji Xuanda and the foundation of Ji Liao in the northern part of Ji Liao.

The road from Sushucheng to the Mongolian place of Barhu is also very important, and the supply of the third regiment there will be continuously transported by this road.

The Third Regiment and the Advance Force went along the Nenjiang River to the old city of Nuergandusi, repairing the original roads from the Liao, Song, Jin and Yuan to the Ming Dynasty and various post stations, reconnecting the garrisons dominated by small tribes until the restoration of the former site of Nuergandusi City, which is also a very important road.

The most important thing is the road to Qingcheng to Taubu and Ketunan City. The road to Ketunan City is the most important. From a commercial perspective, Zhangjiakou is no more than 2,000 miles from Zhangjiakou to Made and Saicheng and Chaktu, which is also the main route for later Shanxi merchants.

The Shanxi merchants went to Ulya Sutai and then to Kobdo, which was another trade line. The distance from Zhangjiakou to Ulya Sutai was 4,530 miles, which was more than 4,400 miles from Beijing to Guangzhou, and Beijing to Guangzhou. It was 4,530 miles from Zhangjiakou to Ulya Sutai. It took more than 1,300 miles to arrive at Kobdo. This distance was too far, but the Shanxi merchants walked down.

Hutchison is not as good as a group of real businessmen. What Shanxi merchants can do, Hutchison can not only do, but also must do better.

The Qing army regarded Ulya Sutai to Guihua City and then to Kobdo as an important lifeline that controls Xinjiang and western Outer Mongolia. In addition to reaching the Western Regions along the Hetao area, in Outer Mongolia, it was from Naturalization to Ulya Sutai and then to Kobdo. Kobdo was called the Front Camp, while Ulya Sutai was called the Hou Camp. There were a large number of troops stationed all year round, as well as military personnel and local herders and people.

Shanxi merchants made money from these people, and of course there were tribes along the way. When they were in full swing, Dashengkui's convoy not only arrived in Kulun and Chucktu, but also directly arrived in Kobdo.

Hutchison now has twenty-one baggage corps, and there will be more in the future. A small number of baggage corpses will become garrisons for copper ore iron ore, road bridges and military fort piers. Most of the baggage corpses will become engineering troops and undertake the task of building bridges and building roads.

During the Northern Song Dynasty, there were 200,000 to 300,000 imperial guards in the field, and the Xiang army, which is more than 600,000 second-line troops. The tasks they undertake were also local garrisons and guarding prisons, maintaining and supervising the army's forage yards, and also undertaking disaster relief and engineering tasks. However, in terms of real efficiency and cost-effectiveness, the Xiang army in the Song Dynasty was of course incomparable to the Hutchison's baggage soldiers, and they were not products on the same plane.

Zhang Chunniu should have been transferred to a more combat-effective team, but Sun Jingting should have considered this person's "ambition". The senior executives of the military department were unwilling to force their subordinates to serve. Moreover, the current Heji scholars are full of talents, but there is no shortage of talents to lead troops.

On the contrary, there are fewer talents who are quite capable and unwilling to be a warrior or a combat baggage soldier. Zhang Chunniu is now a regiment-level commander, and it is likely that he will be a division-level commander or future army-level commander in a short time, so his future prospects are not bad.

Under the leadership of Nie Lei, Zhang Chunniu took control of the troops in a short period of time and was officially appointed after receiving the order.

There is no drink allowed in the army, and the handover ceremony is relatively simple. Everyone went to the conference room of the regiment headquarters together. Nie Lei introduced Zhang Chunniu's resume and achievements to everyone on behalf of the military and political army. Then he stepped down as commander and handed over the seal letter, returned to the Military and Political Department to wait for the new appointment. Zhang Chunniu received the order under the supervision of military and political officials, and the entire ceremony was completed.

Shortly after taking over, the 17th Regiment assembled to the north of Jizhen according to military orders and stayed at a boundary a hundred miles away.

This place was originally the territory of Duoyanwei, mainly composed of Kalaqin people, and also composed of other tribes.

Now that Duoyanwei has completely disappeared, the Kalaqin people have also followed the story of the Hunting and have been scattered and placed.

The vast place is lonely and deserted. Looking around, there is only the vast sky, and the withered grassland grows more than one person tall, and no one can cut it.

If a few years ago, there were still quite a few Mongolians here to scatter herding, before autumn, a large amount of turf would be cut off and stored, and in autumn and winter, the herder would complete the work of storing grass.

At this time, Mongolian's mouth has dropped sharply. After several years of war, although Hutchison did not launch a large-scale massacre, death in war is inevitable.

In previous wars, the Mongols in the south of the desert lost at least 100,000 Dingkou. In addition, a large number of Dingkou were converted into peasants, and some Mongolians became baggage soldiers or combat soldiers. Most of the nobles were concentrated in Qingcheng, and some were surrendered in the city.

The entire Mongolia in southern Mo was not said to have been crippled, but the losses were also heavy. In the Mongolian in southern Mo was around 400,000 to 500,000. After several years of war, at least one person was killed in the five Dingkou, and more than half were diverted. It was inevitable that the original ranch was abandoned in large quantities.

Now Hutchison is trying to restore the pastures as much as possible. After all, fur, meat and dairy are all high-quality goods, which can not only supplement Hutchison's own production shortcomings, but also sell in large quantities.

Even if Hutchison can obtain the entire Ming Dynasty in the future, the northern pastures still need to continuously provide war horses, sheep, cattle herds, and related fur and various productions to the Han area.

But Hutchison will firmly take root in the grassland. This time the occupation is completely different from the time of the Han and Tang dynasties. It is almost impossible to complete the task to drive the Han people away again.

The large area of ​​barren areas makes people feel quite silent. Fortunately, there are many people in the garrison, and the Military Command and Privy Council are constantly transferring people.

The Second Lancer Regiment, the First Hunting Cavalry Regiment, the Sixth Dragoon and the Thirteenth Dragoon Regiment were constantly coming to station. When the first snow fell between heaven and earth, more than 30,000 troops were stationed in Jibei from Da'ankou to Gubeikou, a hundred miles of land, along with the baggage troops.

This army is enough to fight another annihilation battle against the Chahar people. It costs a lot of money to move troops. It is not only the troops consumed every day, but also the transportation costs and additional expenses.

Zhang Chunniu didn't know the intention of the military command. He only realized that this was an exercise, code-named Donglei after stationing with other troops for more than ten days.

The generals and officials did not understand the intention of this exercise. Shortly after the war against the Chahar people ended, the General Staff Department should not have a large-scale exercise plan.

And from the actual situation, this is true. A large number of troops gathered together, but the General Staff Department did not issue an exercise plan, and there was no movement in the Military Training Department. After the stationing, each unit mainly trains on a daily basis, which is actually no different from being stationed in the area of ​​Sujiangcheng.

A few days later, everyone's nervousness relaxed, and many troops began to take turns to take holidays for soldiers, but the soldiers had nowhere to go.

Zhang Chunniu reads books every day. He has no interest in hunting and fishing. The temporary camp is also a tent to protect the wind and keep warm. There is also a brazier in his tent, which is much warmer.

The soldiers took turns to take holidays every day and went out of the camp to hunt. This place was originally a territory of Kalaqin, and there were also a small number of Neikhalkha people. Now there is no way to see a felt bag in a few hundred miles apart. The land is vast and the population is sparse, and there are many hunting every day.

Zhang Chunniu reads books every day until noon before leaving the tent. He knows that he is likely to rise further in the future, and he should pay equal attention to cultural courses and military courses, so he cannot be pulled down.

Especially after the transformation of the baggage engineering, many arithmetic and geometry courses need to be added, and there are also special engineering and bridge courses. Zhang Chunniu used to think that these were simple things, but now he realized that just building roads depends on the natural environment such as soil quality and climate. There must be several layers of rammed earth layers. In addition, drainage and maintenance are also very particular. As for civil engineering operations during siege or during garrison, there are also special knowledge. In the past, these things were done by engineers. When the baggage soldiers took action, the engineers might only retain combat engineers to attack and blast the city. The rest of the things were covered by the baggage soldiers.

Zhang Chunniu felt that the burden was heavy now. He had a lot of things to learn. If he was in the division or army level command in the future, he would have more things to be responsible for... He never doubted that he could go to a higher level. What his old boss Li Shouxin and others could do, and Zhang Chunniu believed that he could do it too.

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Chapter completed!