"General Liu, after meeting with General Zuo this time, in addition to sending an order to His Majesty, His Majesty also wants me to join the army directly and be a front pawn for the General!"

"If you are expeditioning to Xinjiang in the west, your subordinates will definitely die!"

Alas, the soldiers present were even more moved. It turned out that they were not just guards who issued the order. The Emperor Long lived to make them vanguard officials. He really came to the Western Regions to fight desperately!

It’s really not a good example. Judging from their half-life look, no one dares to treat them as a useless Eight Banners playboy!

"Everything is easy to say. Let's go to Guazhou City first... The general has arrived. Even if you want to fight, you have to take good care of your body first!"

"And there are two of your acquaintances in Guazhou City, waiting for you..."

"Acquaintance? Who..." Guan Lu and Doro looked confused.

Liu Jintang smiled slightly, "The King of Shangtai in the ancient Ryukyu Kingdom..."

Ah! Doro and Guan Lu were stunned. They were really acquaintances. They had met several times when they were with Emperor Tongzhi in Ryukyu. But they were the noble kings and we were just little guards. Can they be considered as familiars?

"How is this possible? How could King Shangtai remember the caterpillar of us so small?"

"Haha... Don't belittle yourself. Is it a little caterpillar who can cross Central Asia thousands of miles to fight to meet with the army?

"After hearing your deeds, King Shangtai and Dashang got drunk several times..."

"But why did King Shangtai come to the Western Regions?" Duolu asked in confusion.

"I can't explain this clearly, you'd better ask yourself..."

Doro and Guan Lu are angels, and they are carrying the emperor's will. Of course, they must meet first. After talking to each other for a few words, Liu Jintang asked many guards to go on the snow sledge, and then he went to meet his old acquaintance Gordon.

"General Admiral...we meet again..." Liu Jintang called Gordon's official position in Shanghai back then and smiled.

Gordon also performed a fist-holding ceremony commonly used by military generals. "It turned out to be Liu Daotai, it's really a long time no see..."

When Liu Jintang quelled the Changmao Rebellion in Jiangnan, he fought with his uncle's team. After accumulating merits, Changmao finally gave him an official position.

The promotion of the Admiral General was after entering Gansu and Shaanxi. Now the two of them saluted each other with their old official positions, which also inherited the relationship between the war of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.

This is to tell everyone that I was a comrade-in-arms back then!

"After leaving Shanghai, Xiaguan thought he would never see each other again in this life, but he didn't expect to meet again in the northwest. This life experience is really hard to say..."

"Isn't this what the Chinese call fate? General Liu and I have a fate with General Zuo... Of course, it's also because I have a fate with China!"

"Haha, that's it, that's it... I wonder what gift will Sir Gordon come to China this time?"

"The gift is nothing. I was lucky enough to meet Master Long live in London. Thanks to Master Long live's wrong love, I just wanted to be a counselor around me... I would like to give me some advice, give me some advice!"

"Haha... I'm going to have a good idea. I hope the Lord will have more... I'll have a good idea..."

The two of them dealt with each other with a needle in a slumber, and then Gordon introduced Liu Jintang to the actual captain of the expedition team, Samuel Baker, and praised the explorer's feat in Africa.

"This is Samuel Baker, an English explorer who found the source of the Nile River. He also abolished slavery in Sudan and other places. He was a very noble gentleman with noble moral qualities..."

How could Liu Jintang know about the Nile River or Sultan? When he heard that this person was just an explorer and scholar who was familiar with geography and humanities, he just said a few words of respect and politeness to the literati.

"Mr. Samuel seems to be very weak? Hurry up and go to the snow sled. We have the best military doctors in Guazhou..."

"Thank you... Thank you, General, I just got sick after overwork and got a typhoid cold, it's okay..."

Liu Jintang welcomed the expedition team and finally started heading towards Guazhou at around 11 o'clock. Under the guidance of familiar terrain, they quickly walked around the road that local people often walked. When they arrived here, Thomas could run, and the snow sledge was pulled very fast.

The further you go south, the more you can see people, and it will no longer be like a no-man's land. Spotted ruins of villages begin to appear.

Liu Jintang told Doro and others, "These villages were destroyed by the rebels during the war before, and some of them were horrified that they had burned their houses..."

"The local military and civilians gave up their homes and began to gather in desert forts. The forts that used to be only two or three hundred people can now be stuffed with more than one thousand people..."

After running dozens of miles, Guan Lu finally saw what a earthen fort is. It turned out that it was a small fortress surrounded by a purely dry earthen city wall. The area was not large and I never thought that thousands of people could squeeze into it.

When these fortresses saw the brigades of people appearing far away on the road, they nervously blew the trumpet and knocked on the gong, and then locked the city gates.

It was not until I saw Liu Jintang's banner that I relaxed my vigilance and could faintly see countless people kowtowing to the cavalry team on the earthen wall.

A proud soldier explained on the side, "It's all thanks to the mercy of the general! Let these people exchange labor for food... The army in the Western Expedition needs civilians and husbands, and they need food to survive!"

"Our army does not steal their property, but also gives them work so that they will not starve to death... It's unlike those rebels who know how to steal it!"

Liu Jintang nodded, "Traveling troops is like water, the destruction of war is too serious. In fact, from now on, we have to consider restoring the economy..."

"The most scarce thing in the Western Expedition is the civilians who transport military rations. Although the Chinese people provided a lot of portable military rations, the prices were still high, and the proportion of ordinary grain in all supplies was still very large..."

"Weapons, ammunition, grain cloth, and even huge wood that is not available in the local area must be transported from the rear..."

"We recruited husbands from these war-damaged areas, and only a small part of the rewards paid were money, and the rest were food and lambs and other livestock..."

"Food let them survive this cold winter, lambs, calves and so on. The wives and children of these local herders can go to herd after the beginning of next spring..."

"Men follow our army to earn wages, women and children grow crops at home, raise livestock... It is actually not difficult to restore the economy. In one or two years, they will have no problem with food and clothing..."

"Haha, we have to see a better one. Although the war has been damaged, it has allowed the grassland and Gobi to recuperate for several years..."

"The rebels stole cattle and sheep, and there were not so many livestock on the grassland to eat grass. The grass has grown wildly in recent years... Once the grazing resumes, you can wait. In three or four years, this is a beautiful view of cattle and sheep all over the hillside!"
Chapter completed!