The weather suddenly became cold.

After August, the temperature on the grasslands was obviously felt that the temperature had dropped a lot. When the Mid-Autumn Festival approached September, the first snow fell as scheduled.

It was only then that Zhang Han embarked on the journey back.

He presided over the war against the Chahar people in the old Zhongdu area. At the end of July, he followed Xinghebao to Angulinao from the old Zhongdu area, and then patrolled the area of ​​the official road in Mobei. He headed nearly a thousand miles northward to the depths of the Gobi Desert, and then stopped after passing through it.

The entire official road is more than 1,500 miles away. The standard is not high, but it is not low. According to the standard of Qin official road, the road is five feet wide, so it only allows one car to go straight. When two cars meet, they have to go in the wrong way. The technology used is rammed earth type, which is also the general specification of Chinese official roads. This has been the case since the Qin straight road.

What's good about this is that it is sufficient labor, never put in rammed earth, and constantly beat it with metal plates until it is as hard as iron. Compared with the shredded Ming official road, at least the official road built with Yusheng can be at least not worry about the unique problems of the official road such as sagging and bulging within a few decades. Of course, maintenance must be carried out once a few months, otherwise it will not be maintained for too long.

Drainage facilities are definitely needed, and there will be drainage ditches at a distance. Fortunately, the grassland has been mainly drought in recent decades, so there is no need to go all the way to the end.

In addition, the two sides of the straight road were originally planned to fix both sides with stones or bricks, but the military department calculated the project volume and the personnel and materials consumed... No matter how bold the people were, they dared not say that number, and even Zhang Han completely gave up this unrealistic idea and plan.

Zhang Han has read a lot of miscellaneous books and knows how the ancient Romans built roads. They dug soil in the middle, padded sand and stones on the two sides of the roads fixed with stones, and there are drainage ditches. In the past two thousand years, many Romans built roads have been preserved quite well. Moreover, the mileage of the Romans built was thousands of kilometers and thousands of miles away. As expected, the classical mileage power of the country was not built. With Zhang Han's current strength, he wanted to build a road from Qingcheng to Kulun according to the Roman standards. Not to mention bankruptcy, there would be no chance of bankruptcy!

The road has been repaired 70% of the roads, and a large number of civilians have begun to move south before the beginning of winter. Only a small number of technicians and baggage soldiers continued to survey and maintain the parts that have been repaired along the straight road to the north.

When Zhang Han returned from the Gobi District and arrived in the old Zhongdu, the war was coming to an end.

The Chahar people retreated across the board.

It was not the Shang army that defeated Lin Danhan, because according to Zhang Han's instructions, the Shang army was mainly stable and even if the fighter plane was right in front of him, he would never take the initiative to attack. Zhang Han was worried that once the large-scale extermination of the Chahar people and the great collapse of the entire left-wing Mongolia would lead to earth-shaking changes from Liaodong to left-wing Mongolia in the short term. This change may be beneficial to the deployment of the Shang army. For example, the Chahar people surrendered and a large number of small tribes surrendered, just like the three tribes of Tumote and Mobei.

But the larger variable may be that the Later Jin Dynasty received news and entered the grassland in large numbers. Originally, they had already conquered a large number of tribes. After the Chahar people crossed the eighth otok and the large number of herders and territory in their headquarters were likely to belong to the Jurchens. At that time, the trouble might be very big... It was very simple, because the military command was not ready to go to war with the Jurchens in the short term, and they didn't like to see an Later Jin Empire that officially entered the left-wing Mongolian territory a few years in advance, mastered more than 100,000 Mongolian tingkou and vast grasslands.

Zhang Han always believed that the Jurchens really threatened the Ming Dynasty in the years when Sun Chengzong built a castle in western Liaoning. The Later Jin Dynasty used Shenyang as the base and had been working hard to repair the Mongols. When he heard that Lin Danhan moved west in the sixth year of Tianqi, Huang Taiji led his elite troops to chase thousands of miles. He had to destroy the Chahar tribe thousands of miles away. The root of the matter was that the Jurchens had to occupy the grassland and obtain the help of the Mongols, so that they could truly transform from a small country in a corner of Liaodong to a great country that was actually an enemy of the Ming Dynasty. The changes in recent years have been silent, but it is crucial. Zhang Han felt that he had no need. Test Nuerhaci's determination... As long as the Chahars really crossed, the Jurchens would definitely arrive at the grassland in the shortest time. At that time, the merchant army not only could not get the territory left by the Chahars, but would also face a fierce battle with the Jurchens in advance. This situation was by no means what Zhang Hanlei wanted to restrain his subordinates, but only defend but not attack. Finally, before the winter came, the Chahars felt hopeless to advance westward and suffered a great loss. During the two months of confrontation and battle, the Chahars lost thousands of people. For a Mongolian tribe with less than 100,000, the losses were no longer bad.

Starting from the Abolition of Zhongdu, Zhang Bei, Xinghe, Shangyi and others visited Zhangjiakou and other great merchants such as Wang Datong and Ma Chaowen outside Zhangjiakou. They thanked them in person for their donations, and Zhang Han personally gave them the position of honorary director. Although it was an official article, it had to be done.

A lot of Zhangjiakou businessmen saw this scene with their own eyes, which also strengthened their determination to follow Hi-ji to continue north.

Most of these merchants were Shanxi merchants, as well as Shaanxi merchants and Beizhi merchants, and a small number of Shandong and Henan merchants.

After this day, Hutchison's image as the number one business world was established, and Zhang Han became a leader of the entire northern business world.

Of course, no one knows that Zhang Han’s development in Taiwan is actually a major business center among the southern maritime businessmen, and his strength is getting stronger and stronger. With the strong support of Heyusheng’s headquarters, the starting point of the foundation of Taiwan is more than a hundred times stronger than ordinary maritime businessmen, and even directly catching up with the Li family and Liu Xiang from Guangdong. After fighting against Yan Siqi, he became one of the giants in the southern seas. Six major forces in Fujian, Zhejiang, Guangdong and Guangxi to the Nanyang sea surface, Spain, the Netherlands, Liu Xiang, Li Guozhu, the Fujian Navy of the Ming Dynasty, and another is Hutchison Navy.

On the way back to Qingcheng, the north wind whistled and snowflakes fell in the sky. When Zhang Han arrived at the city gate, Li Shenming, Sun Jingting, Li Dongxue, Zhou Fengji, Li Yuchun, Zhang Xuezeng, Liu Peng, Tian Jitang and other civil servants all went out of the city to welcome him. Zhao Shiwen led his subordinates to welcome him.

"Wenlan is really hard this time." Li Shenming personally tied a cloak for Zhang Han, and after a moment, snowflakes fell on the cloak. Li Shenming said sincerely: "It's been a few more months since I went out, and I've been traveling thousands of miles. It's really hard. Please drink a cup of warm wine."

Sure enough, Sun Jingting came over with a hot pot, poured a glass of hot wine, handed it forward, and said with a smile: "This is what everyone wants, Wen Lan, please use it."

Zhang Han felt moved and didn't say anything. He took the wine and drank it all in one go.

Then everyone surrounded Zhang Han and got on the car together. Li Shenming, Sun Jingting, Li Dongxue, Tian Jitang and Zhang Han were in the same car. The rest were either riding horses or taking cars, and they walked towards Qingcheng together.

There are more than one hundred special guards on the periphery of the convoy. The soldiers in the Secret Service are highly mobile. They are the most elite and brave soldiers selected from the lances and hunters and hunters. The officers are rarely replaced. They usually only consider changing their posts for more than three years in the Secret Service, but the senior management has almost never changed... What matters when they reach the senior management is not ability, but loyalty.

In addition to the special guards, the Qingcheng Marching Division and the garrison also sent more than 100 cavalry to scatter the guards. This city stands alone on the grassland, unlike the Han people. No matter how small the city is, there must be villages and towns around it. Pedestrians and business trips are endless. In the twilight, smoke is curling, children ride cows and come back late, and there is the aroma of food and the voices are endless. This is the normal appearance of the Han people in the city.

Although Qingcheng in front of me has changed a lot compared to before, it still seems a little lonely and lonely. The snow is surrounded by snow. Looking around, the snow is endless, and there is no edge at all. It is snowy white everywhere. There are only some shallow black hoof prints where people and horses pass by, which are quickly covered by heavy snow.

Only within a very close range of Qingcheng, garrison barracks began to be built outside the city. Qingcheng was a big city for the Mongols, but for He Yusheng, he could only leave the administrative center in the city and keep the families of most middle-level personnel in the city... The conditions in the city were much better. Ordinary military forts were generally garrisons and merchants, and there were also some officials who moved out of the mainland, but the number was not large.

In those trunks, only ordinary lower-class officers and officials lived in, and in addition, they were mainly trunk people.

Outside the barracks is the military station, and there are only dense buildings thirty miles away from the pine-up land.

The land of the plate gradually recovered and prosperity, and many relocated Han people moved back. However, the military department had a unified plan for settlement. The talents of these Han people's farming under the rule of the Mongols were not yet utilized at all. There were also many lands opened by the Mongols themselves. After the shallow plowing, they were sprinkled at will, and almost relied on the weather to make a living. Some dry fields were not worthy of preservation and were directly abandoned. Some remote houses also demolished and used materials and re-planted the fort.

A large number of indigenous people have been moved away from Bansheng City, a small number of troops have been moved into, and a large number of houses have been used as storage areas. In the future, there will only be commercial banks and warehouses, which will be the transfer center to the East Road.

Seeing Zhang Han keep looking out the window, Li Shenming said: "Next, Qingcheng will reach Banshengcheng and all of them will be turned into cotton fields, with only a small amount of wheat and vegetable fields."

Zhang Han said: "How is this winter? How many grassland fields have we had so far, and what is the proportion of cotton, grain and vegetables?"

Li Dongxue owed his body and said, "Reporting to the adults, this year's manpower is not sufficient. Adding to last year, the total land acres have reached 2.7 million mu. It is expected that by the beginning of next year, it will reach about 3 million mu. By the end of next year, it may exceed 5 million."

Zhang Han patted Li Dongxue and said with a smile: "Dongxue doesn't have to be so serious. We can speak privately and be more calm."

Li Dongxue bowed a little and replied, "Yes..."

Zhang Han smiled slightly, no longer forcing his subordinate who had first-class ability and ethics, turned to Sun Jingting and said, "It is estimated that three million, but it is indeed three million."

Sun Jingting smiled and said, "We estimated that we were just calculating the weather. If we were based on the weather in the mainland, we could at least 300,000 acres of farming. Of course, if we had a handful of people and a hundred acres of farming land this year, we could always reclaim a hundred acres of land per person... In fact, the standard of Kong Zhizhi was too high. It was the matching set of ridges, canals, wells, and water trucks were all built. If we followed the Beilu method, there were more than 100,000 people and a large number of cattle and horses, and tens of millions of acres a year could be reclaimed!"

Li Shenming said: "What's the use of such acres!"
Chapter completed!