Chapter 436 Food
Because of the betrayal of those miscellaneous troops, coupled with the distrust of the clan, it is to ensure the stability of the battle situation and avoid greater changes.
Zhong Yu had no choice but to send these hundreds of thousands of well-trained troops to the eastern forest as cannon fodder for consumption, squeezing their last remaining value.
As for these cannon fodder are all innocent, what do you think. From the moment they wavered before and did not work hard on the battlefield, the current ending was already doomed.
Zhong Yu is not a benevolent master, the methods used against traitors in the past are far more ruthless than the gentle land reclamation now.
Now it is only punished to open up wasteland and farm, which can be regarded as very generous.
In this way, under Zhong Yu's order, the remaining miscellaneous troops with a number of about 200,000 all received the order to be transferred, and rushed to Dongjiang Province one after another. Under the persecution of the people, they marched towards Sanlin thousands of miles away.
There, they will go through countless trials of life and death, go through many dangers and obstacles, and less than one out of ten can survive in the end.
Thousands of miles of mountains and forests are not a place for talking and laughing.
The land within the forest is certainly fertile and fully developed, almost equivalent to half of the Ming Dynasty. This is a piece of fat in the current situation in the mainland where the basic territory has been allocated and it is difficult to expand the territory.
But it was such a piece of fat that would not move, no matter whether it was the Ming Dynasty or other dynasties adjacent to thousands of miles of mountains and forests, none of them took a bite of this piece of fat.
The reason for this is naturally not that the emperors of the major dynasties did not want to, but because the situation in the mountains and forests is too dangerous.
Within a thousand miles of mountains and forests, poisonous smoke and miasma are densely distributed, and poisonous insects and snakes can be seen everywhere. Even the water to drink is poisonous. If you take two steps, you will encounter swamps or subsidence, and you may be poisoned if you touch a leaf or grass.
The situation in it can be described as extremely dangerous, even if ordinary human beings have a certain level of cultivation, it is absolutely difficult to survive in it.
Even some powerful monks of the fourth and fifth ranks may fall into these tricks and die due to a careless mistake.
Even those monsters who grew up in the mountains and cultivated into spirits, if they are not familiar with the situation in their original basic territory, they may die if they go farther, which is extremely dangerous.
Even the Huangshan Demon King, who guarded the thousands of miles of mountains and forests in the school, can only run rampant in most areas. There are four or five secret realms in the mountains and forests. He dare not even break into them because it is too dangerous.
Now that the 200,000 troops are filling in, Zhong Yu estimates that he will be able to open up the territory of 2 to 3 counties for him, which is equivalent to a small state and small mansion in the Ming Dynasty.
It can support 200,000 troops, but it needs the full support of a province, which consumes most of the finances.
So much effort has been put into it, but only so much has been gained, and it would be a loss-making business for anyone. Naturally, the great courts where countless smart people gather will not foolishly go to do such thankless things.
The miscellaneous army was transferred away, and the Ming court on the opposite side naturally couldn't be like before, where there were countless insiders leading the way everywhere, so as to take down cities smoothly.
As I said before, the total military strength of Yu Kingdom is about 1.5 million.
Today, among them, the previous battle damage and countless defections have been shaved off, as well as the 200,000 troops who have just been used as cannon fodder and transferred to the mountains and forests to open up wasteland.
Zhong Yu probably has about 800,000 troops left. These are all reliable, and the fighting morale is relatively high.
Among these troops guarding the southern border, and part of them were set aside to maintain law and order in various provinces and places. In the end, there would probably be about 400,000 troops left.
Zhong Yu planned to use the 400,000 or so elite to slowly take advantage of the city's defense and consume Daming's strength little by little.
As I said before, the logistics pressure of the Ming Dynasty is actually very high. To maintain an army of hundreds of thousands, the Ming Dynasty has to do it with the strength of the whole country.
And because of the prediction of the current situation, Zhong Yu mobilized the strategic materials from various places to the rear early and strictly controlled them.
After several years of preparation, countless people who wanted to hide strategic materials were all dealt with. After some killings, the remaining people became honest and did not dare to openly disobey again.
Up to now, the most important strategic materials in various places, that is, military rations, have been dispatched by Zhong Yu early, and there is not much left.
If the Ming Dynasty wanted to obtain supplies everywhere, it would be impossible, unless they took the risk of offending everyone and forcibly snatched the one-month ration left by Zhong Yu from the common people, and forced them into dead end.
If he really did that, Zhong Yu would be very happy even if Daming could get enough rations to last a longer battle.
Because this means that the hearts of the people of the Ming Dynasty have completely dissipated. In the future, Zhong Yu will rule those areas that have been plagued by scourges, and there will be no obstacles or difficulties in the slightest. defection.
Even because the Ming army was filled with a large number of defected soldiers, these surrendered soldiers might turn back again because their relatives were harmed by the Ming Dynasty.
In order to avoid the same fate, the common people in the rear will really start to support Zhong Yu with all their strength.
The Ming Dynasty captured seven or eight state capitals on various fronts, adding up to the territory of a province. Even the army expanded by hundreds of thousands, reaching a scale of more than 900,000 and nearly one million, which is extremely huge.
However, although the number of troops has increased, it also means that the logistical pressure has further expanded.
Every time the Ming Dynasty captured a treasury, they could find that there was not much military rations in it, at most it could only maintain the defenders of that city, and the consumption of half a month to a month, no more.
Then I went to the major grain stores in the city to buy, only to find that those who sold grain did not have much, and the grain they sold were all official allocations, and there was not much.
A food rationing system has been implemented in the entire Imperial Kingdom, even the army.
Now that the Ming Dynasty has captured many prefectures and counties, it is natural that they cannot lay down territory and leave it aside. They are the court's teachers of justice, so naturally they will send officials to comfort and train the people and stabilize people's hearts.
Therefore, the Ming Dynasty did not lay down a territory, and all the officials accompanying the army acted as local parent officials, and then built a basic administrative framework, and slowly began to restore people's livelihood.
But the first problem facing them is that the local food is not enough, and it can only last for half a month or a month. If the food cannot be transferred during this period, there will be a famine in the local area, and all the people may starve to death.
In addition to millions of troops, the Ming Dynasty added millions of civilians waiting for subsidies, and the burden was even heavier.