Spring comes and goes, and the fallen flowers are in a hurry, and it is early April in a blink of an eye.

The Song Dynasty changed its reign to Xihe again, implying the reunion of the whole family. It was looking forward to regaining Yunzhou and bringing all the sixteen Youyun prefectures back to the Song Dynasty.

Yunzhou was Datong Prefecture, and the Liao Kingdom was changed to Xijing, which was an important town in the western part of the Liao Kingdom. In fact, the Liao Kingdom did not give up on Xijing.

Despite the financial shortage of the Liao Kingdom and the difficulty of recruiting troops, the Liao Kingdom still recruited 30,000 troops from the mature women in Huanzhou, Zhengzhou, Luzhou, Dingzhou and Xuanzhou in Tokyo Road in a way that forced the pressure, and placed them in Datong Prefecture to increase the defense of Datong Prefecture, increasing the Liao army's troops in Datong Prefecture from 20,000 to 50,000.

That morning, a cavalry ran along the edge of a forest, with about fifty cavalry teams, which were a typical Song army scout team. After several years of war, the Song army's war horses increased greatly. The entire army's war horses had reached 400,000, and basically more than half of the soldiers were equipped with war horses. Although many soldiers were not cavalry, after being equipped with war horses, the mobility of the army quickly increased.

For example, it took only ten days for 100,000 Western Army to be transferred from Shaanxi Road to Hebei Road, and only 100,000 soldiers were equipped with war horses.

At present, the Song army deployed 85,000 troops in Yingzhou, south of Datong Prefecture, led by veteran Yang Wenguang. The fifty cavalry scouts set off from Yingzhou and headed north to Datong Prefecture to investigate the enemy's intelligence.

There are two types of scouts of the Song army. One is an undercover scout who sneaks into the city and uses various identities to explore information. The other is an outer scout. These fifty cavalrymen are the outer scouts.

In fact, undercover scouts of the Song army had long been infiltrated in Datong City. They kept sending information, but according to the intelligence system, some intelligence still needed to be confirmed by the peripheral scouts, such as the enemy's equipment, etc.

From Yingzhou, all the way north is in the Datong Basin. The terrain is flat and the climate is relatively dry. I don’t know when or what channel, corn from the Song Dynasty was introduced to the Liao Kingdom and was especially widely planted in Datong Prefecture. It is very suitable for the soil and climate of Datong Prefecture. In addition, the yield per mu is high, so it became popular very quickly. In previous years, wheat fields were no longer visible, and there were endless corn fields everywhere.

"The coach, that's right there!"

A soldier pointed to several houses in the distance, which looked like peasant houses, but they found that they did not live in nearby farmlands, but seven or eight Liao soldiers. These Liao soldiers came to farm. According to the experience of the Song army, Liao soldiers would also change to the dress of local farmers, but these soldiers were still wearing military uniforms, and they should have just arrived.

The brigade commander observed for a moment, and waved his hand and fifty cavalrymen surrounded him from all directions.

A Liao soldier suddenly noticed something was wrong, turned around and ran, shouting and running, and an arrow shot from behind and shot through his neck, and the soldier fell to the ground.

But his shouts had already alarmed the other soldiers in the room. They rushed out with their swords. The Song army's arrows shot from all sides and instantly shot down three more people.

"Others catch live!"

The brigade general shouted, and the Song soldiers stopped shooting arrows, picked up short wooden sticks and big nets and rushed up.

In just a moment, the remaining three Liao soldiers were firmly covered by the Song army's large net and could not move, so their weapons were taken away.

The Song soldiers tied them up like rice dumplings and took them away on three horses.

...........

Yingzhou Prefecture is called Jincheng County, which is today Ying County. Ying County is built as the southern gate of Datong Prefecture. It is built in a particularly tall and solid manner, surrounded by a moat. Although Ying County is a strongly defensive city, in the battle of Loufan Pass, the Liao army in Datong Prefecture had only 20,000 people left, which was not enough to divide the troops to defend the city. The Liao army had to give up Yingzhou and retreat north to defend Datong Prefecture.

The county town of Jincheng County is more than 20 miles in the circumference, and more than 50,000 residents are in the city. Because of the war, the people outside the city move into the city one after another. Han people and Khitan people each account for more than 40%, while the other Qiang people, Xi people and Bohai people account for less than half.

In addition to Jincheng County, Yingzhou also has Hunyuan County and Heyin County, each with a population of more than 10,000. However, the wealthy families in the three counties fled to Datong Prefecture. The remaining people were poor people who farmed for a living or merchants who did small business. They were unable to escape north and could only accept the rule of the Song Dynasty.

Before October last year, Yingzhou implemented military control, with Yang Ying as the governor. However, in late October, Su Che, a civil servant appointed by Fan Ning, arrived in Yingzhou, and Ying County was officially changed to civil servant governance.

Su Che has been in Yingzhou for half a year. The wind, sand and fatigue have made him dark and thin. He remembered what Fanning said to him. The governance of Yingzhou will become a model and will become his most solid political foundation, just like the significance of Kunzhou to Fanning.

Therefore, for the past six months, Su Che spent most of his time in exchanges with people of all ethnic groups, verifying land deeds, developing business, solving the difficulties of the elderly and widowed, guiding farmers to return home, and spreading the five-year tax exemption policy and ethnic equality policy formulated by the court from door to door. Whether it is the Khitans or the Xi people, as long as they are willing to live and work in peace and live in harmony, they are all people of the Song Dynasty. Su Che even learned Khitan language.

When spring comes, Su Che mobilized soldiers to help farmers grow corn, and at the same time introduced pumpkins to Yingzhou. Pumpkins are planted in front of and behind every household.

His hard work was not in vain. Many of the Khitans and Xi people who were preparing to escape gave up their migration and stayed in Yingzhou with peace of mind and were assigned to their household registration in Yingzhou.

That afternoon, Su Che returned to Yingzhou from Heyin County. In addition to a few followers, there were 200 cavalry guards. Yang Wenguang knew very well that Fan Ning was focusing on cultivating Su Che. Although Yingzhou did not have the main force of the Liao army, he was afraid of meeting the Liao army spies.

Su Zhe rode on the horse and pointed at the Sanggan River and said enthusiastically: "Did you see that the amount of water in the Sanggan River is not small, but there is no water truck on the Sanggan River, which means that farmers' utilization of the Sanggan River is still too low, and they basically rely on the weather for their income. This is not possible. Agricultural irrigation must be carried out. As long as there is water, agriculture can develop."

"Eunuch, it's good to grow corn now, and it doesn't seem that you need much water!" a follower said with a smile.

Su Che glared at him, "Who said that there is no need for water to grow corn? Corn in the south of the Yangtze River generally bears two ears. One acre of land can produce three thousand kilograms. The northern corn is only 17000 to 800 kilograms. It is similar here. One stalk only carries one ear, and the stalks do not even bear ears. There is a big reason for insufficient water."

At this time, several old farmers in front were standing in front of a corn field talking about something. Su Zhe rushed over and rushed over, and the followers and soldiers behind him hurriedly followed.

Several old farmers knew Su Che and hurriedly bowed and said, "See the great official!"

Su Che turned over and got off the horse and asked, "Is there any problem with this cornfield?"

One of the old farmers said: "I have reported to the great officials that this field belongs to a villain. The yield per mu was only 500 kilograms, and more than half of the stalks did not have ears. I don't know why, so I asked a few villagers to come and take a look."

Su Che looked at the corn seedlings and they all grew one foot tall, green, no different from other corn fields.

He asked several other old farmers, "Is your fields normal?"

Several old farmers nodded together, "We are all normal, each stalk has an ear."

In fact, Su Che has found the reason why he does not form ears. It is not entirely because the water volume is insufficient. These farmers have to carry water from the river to irrigate every day, which should have nothing to do with the water volume.

Su Che looked at the surrounding environment again. It was surrounded by bare yellow soil, no trees, no green grass, and it was also leeward. The reason should be the same as the one in Heyin.

Su Zhe smiled and said, "Corn is like planting fruit trees. It requires bees and butterflies to pollinate, or to pollinate by wind to produce ears. If there is no pollination, it will only bloom but not bear fruit. There are no grass and trees around your land, and it happens to be in the leeward place. Pollen cannot spread, so of course it cannot produce ears."

Several farmers suddenly realized that they actually didn't know the reason, so Su Che made the reason.

The old farmer suddenly became anxious, "What should I do?"

"There are two ways. There are two specialized beekeeping companies in Lishu Village, 30 miles away. When the corn blooms, you can invite a box of bees to be placed by the field. There is another simple way. You collect pollen yourself and sprinkle it on the corn shavings. This is also OK. Jiangnan does this, but you have to grasp the timing and need experience. However, I still recommend renting a box of bees, which is more than ten cents. If you have any difficulties, the government can come forward."

The other farmers asked in a verbal manner: "Master, can we do this?"

"Okay, it's usually the wind to spread pollen, but it can be assisted with artificial pollen sprinkling, and the effect may be good."

Everyone was overjoyed, and another person asked, "Master, what should I do if the corn production is too large and I can't finish it?"

Su Che smiled, "I told the farmers about this yesterday in Heyin. There are two ways to solve the excess corn, one is to raise pigs and the other is to make wine. If you find it troublesome, the government can also buy it in a centralized manner. There are large winemaking workshops in Taiyuan that can be sold to it. The government does not make money from everyone, and the price will be charged as much as you sell. The transportation costs will be borne by the government."

After thinking about it, it would be better to make wine and raise pigs by yourself, and wine lees can also be used as fertilizer.

"Thank you, the great official, for your advice!"

Su Che got on the horse and smiled and said, "If you have any difficulties, you can go to the state government to find me. I will try my best to solve them for everyone, so I will take the lead."

"The great official walked slowly!"
Chapter completed!