Yes, Madam Prime Minister

Page 457

On the other hand, Jiangnan did not expect to encounter so much harassment. Although the other side was not good, this kind of harassment was very annoying.

They had thought their army could advance directly into Wuhan and, together with their navy, capture this important city.

They simply couldn't understand why people from Hubei, who also liked doing business, looked down on them.

I may not understand, but that's the situation.

Hubei itself was also on the verge of collapse. The reason it couldn't hold out was not because it was indefensible, nor because too many people had died, or because there was a shortage of weapons and food. Rather, it was because the superhumans in power felt that continuing the fight would be a losing proposition, and they had to find a way to choose sides.

Inside the Ronan family mansion, Ronan and his women gathered together for the first time in a long time.

Ashley reported on the situation in Hubei, as well as intelligence indicating that Hubei was beginning to lean towards making a choice.

The intelligence came from their high-level informants, but these informants could only learn some inside information and could not influence the decision-making in Hubei at all.

“We can’t let Hubei vote; it can’t vote for either side,” Ronan said. “You can all share your thoughts.”

“What’s there to say?” Isabel, with her arms crossed and legs crossed, was the first to speak. “We can’t support Hubei, and it’s useless for us to support these fence-sitters. The right way is to take advantage of their mentality.”

"Therefore, the solution is to force the imperial court and Jiangnan to withdraw their troops. Forcing Jiangnan to withdraw is not difficult; we can advance from eastern Hunan into Jiangxi, and Jiangnan will have to come to their aid, since Jiangxi is very important to them. Forcing the imperial court to withdraw sounds simple, but it is actually difficult. It is simple because as long as the Northwest Army sets out from Chang'an and marches straight towards Luoyang, it will threaten the rear of the imperial army that is attacking Xiangyang in Hubei, and they will have no choice but to withdraw immediately. It is difficult because the Northwest Army will not act rashly. Look at them now; they are using allies from other ethnic groups to conquer Shanxi while keeping their own troops in check. To put it bluntly, the Northwest's economic foundation is generally weak. Under the deliberate control of the imperial court in the past, their war potential is low. Whether it is troops or weapons, once lost, they are lost, and replenishment is very slow."

"Once they are lost, will the few military leaders still be able to command those barbarians?"

"It will be difficult to persuade the Northwest Army."

Isabel said a whole string of things.

Forcing the troops in Jiangnan to retreat is easy, but forcing the imperial court to retreat is not so easy. If only the troops in Jiangnan are forced to retreat, then the imperial court will gain Hubei for free.

“We can only send envoys,” Ronan said. “At the same time, we should rest and prepare to send troops to Jiangxi.”

"Not waiting for the outcome of the lobbying?" Lu Jianling asked. If the Northwest Army doesn't agree by then, and they force the Jiangnan troops to retreat, the imperial court will benefit from the situation.

Ronan was also helpless. "There's nothing we can do. If that's the case, we'll have to temporarily form a united front with Jiangnan."

How can things in this world always go as planned?

“Actually, I think it’s not difficult to persuade the Northwest Legion,” Ambrina, who was eating roasted pigeon as a snack, suddenly said.

Everyone was somewhat surprised, including Ronan.

“It’s normal for military leaders to treat their troops as their own capital and be reluctant to fight. If we try to persuade them, they will only think we are using them as pawns,” Ambrina said slowly. “Therefore, we should contact those Hu people who are working hard to conquer Shanxi and tell them that the Northwest Army is likely using them, or even trying to deplete their manpower. If that’s not the case, why doesn’t the Northwest Army itself march out of Chang’an and advance into Henan?”

"At that time, the Hu people will certainly hope that the Northwest Army will show sincerity."

After saying that, Ambrina stuck out her tongue at her sister Isabel and gave her a smug smile.

Ronan thought to himself, "In the end, one person's plan is short-sighted, but many people's plans are long-sighted. It was definitely the right thing for me to do to discuss things with everyone."

"Okay, let's do it that way, but all parties need to be in contact."

Chapter 1060 Actions by All Parties, Temporary Peace, and the Issue of Military Expansion

Upon the resolution being passed, the Progressive Association immediately took action.

First, they sent people to Hubei to inform the Hubei leadership through liaisons that the Gongjin Society was about to send troops to Jiangxi to force back the Jiangnan Army, and that they had already contacted the Northwest Army Corps, which would also send troops from Chang'an to force back the imperial army.

If Hubei can hold on a little longer, people will soon be able to go back to their normal lives.

The reason we prioritized contacting Hubei was because we were afraid that these people would vote before the Gongjinhui even started its operations, at which point it would be truly irreversible.

As for the Hu people, Ronan and Dinia went there in person. Because of the distance and the fact that they had to cross the area under the control of the imperial court, only the two of them were fast enough, strong enough, and had the ability to hide. Moreover, their status in the Gongjin Society was high enough to show their sincerity.

Lu Jianling returned to reorganize the army and prepare for another expedition.

Ambrina and Isabel stayed in Guangdong, temporarily taking Ronan's place.

Everyone else just went about their business.

August arrived in the blink of an eye, the height of summer.

The fighting in Seris has finally subsided.

Over the past two months, initially, the Gongjinhui army completed its reorganization and advanced towards central Jiangxi, forcing the Jiangnan army, which was already in Hubei, to retreat.

Almost simultaneously, the Hu people who were conquering Shanxi suddenly gave up. When the Northwest Army sent people there to question them, they were scolded harshly. Then, the Hu people turned around and questioned the ulterior motives of several military leaders of the Northwest Army.

After some explanation, the Northwest Army set out, making it appear as if they had mobilized their entire force. The court, which had initially thought Hubei was about to surrender, could only retreat in resentment.

Chang'an is very close to Luoyang, only a few hundred kilometers away. Of course, it is not easy to take Luoyang from Chang'an, not because Luoyang is a strong city, but because there are many mountains between Chang'an and Luoyang, and many fortresses built on these mountains, which have strong defensive capabilities.

Furthermore, there are numerous passes surrounding Luoyang.

The most famous barrier to the west is Hangu Pass.

The problem was that the Northwest Army Corps had come out in full force. With its absolute advantage in manpower and firepower, it would not take long to eliminate them one by one.

The imperial court had no choice but to withdraw its troops.

As soon as the imperial army returned, the troops in the northwest withdrew. Their main purpose was to show sincerity to those ungrateful barbarians. Of course, if the imperial army returned slowly, or even if they simply decided not to return at all, they were willing to take a gamble, capture Luoyang, and then stay there permanently.

Jiangnan is gone, and so is the imperial court.

The Gongjinhui army also immediately withdrew from Jiangxi. The Gongjinhui's current forces still dared not confront the Jiangnan army head-on in Jiangxi.

Ultimately, Hubei returned to its original state, which is hardly surprising.

The top officials in Hubei are not fools; they know that if this time passes, there will be a next time, and the next time will be even worse.

Because next time it will be the imperial court, Jiangnan, and the Gongjin Society coming together.

Their position is extremely important.

The imperial court believed this was a strategically advantageous location; capturing it would allow them to advance down the Yangtze River and completely drive the Jiangnan army out of the Jianghuai region. Jiangnan, on the other hand, saw this as a way to open a second front for the Northern Expedition, eliminating the need for a direct confrontation with the imperial court in the Jianghuai region. For the Gongjin Society, however, without effectively suppressing Jiangnan, Hubei was the only route for the Northern Expedition; without capturing it, they would never have a chance to conquer the Central Plains.

"We should be able to have peace for the next year or two."

Ronan sighed in his office.

This massive battle, which lasted for several months, didn't result in many deaths—a drop in the ocean compared to the era of cold weapons hundreds of years ago. But the amount of money spent was staggering. This wasn't the industrial age of large-scale machine production; it was the agricultural age, albeit with a relatively developed semi-machine, semi-manual manufacturing sector. Guns and cannons were still very valuable items in this era.

After sighing, Ronan looked again at the large stack of battle reports on the table.

To live is to keep learning. This battle for supremacy has only just begun, and he must continue learning.

As he watched, Ronan couldn't help but sigh again.

As soon as she entered, Lu Jianling, who had been standing at the door for a while, suddenly spoke up, "Why are you sighing so much?"

"It's just a pity that once the war lines are stretched out, they become completely out of control. Our side can't execute the original plan, and the other side repeatedly exceeds expectations. In the end, the initial plan becomes a piece of waste paper. To be honest, the fact that we were able to achieve such a satisfactory result this time is largely due to luck."

Ronan said to Lu Jianling.

Lu Jianling smiled and said, "Ha, with this understanding, you've at least entered the basics of military affairs."

Ronan's eyelids darkened. "Actually, I used to lead an army."

"Are you sure?" Lu Jianling questioned.

“Well, basically other generals were in command, and I just held the title of commander-in-chief.” Ronan admitted that he had never actually led an army.

"You are too thoughtful and not suited to lead troops into battle. Lady An is more suitable than you. I have heard about the battle in which she led the army to defeat one of your emperors. To be honest, she is very talented. No matter what moves the opponent makes, she seems unaffected and stubbornly sticks to her own ideas."

Lu Jianling genuinely believed that Ambrina had this talent.

Ronan couldn't help but laugh. "Come on, she's just carefree and doesn't care about anything. She doesn't care if she's the king or not."

That's what they say, but Ronan also admired Ambrina back then; she really dared to gamble.

"Oh right, we still need to expand our army," Lu Jianling said, this was the important matter she wanted to discuss.

Ronan was troubled when he heard this.

Guangdong is very rich, or more accurately, it has a lot of silver, but silver alone cannot solve the problem.

The frenzied recruitment of soldiers, coupled with generous stipends, resulted in soaring prices due to resource shortages. The people who were originally responsible for production became impoverished, and all industries declined.

"Start with Hunan," was all Ronan could say.

“The farmers’ associations haven’t been established over there, and there’s no trade union based on large-scale manufacturing. Are we going to conscript farmers into soldiers? The farmers’ soldiers are still a bit lacking in willpower,” Lu Jianling said.

There's a reason for that.

Soldiers from peasant association and labor union families can be considered citizen soldiers to some extent. They can be described as good-natured, with excellent personal qualities and a strong fighting spirit, which is incomparable to the peasant soldiers who were forcibly conscripted. Qualities can be trained, but fighting spirit cannot be developed through training.

In the previous battles against the Hunan Army, despite being outnumbered and fighting in unfamiliar territory, we held off the enemy, whose morale collapsed first. While there was an element of luck involved, our stronger fighting spirit was also a major factor.

Ronan shrugged. “There’s no other way. We’ll build and recruit people at the same time. We’ll also have experienced people mentor new ones. We shouldn’t separate the Hunanese into a separate group, but we also shouldn’t break them up too much. We need to keep them in small groups to prevent newcomers from being easily bullied and feeling insecure.”

Complete decentralization is the approach of certain types of people who like to make assumptions.

Forming a separate army is the practice of those who say that the ancients were like this and that, and then do not change anything.

As a time traveler, some things need to be changed, but changes must also be made in accordance with reality.

"We didn't have a good New Year this year. Let's make up for it when the weather gets a little cooler."

Chapter 1061 Vacation, Foreigners Are Better at Farming, Fifteen Pairs of Stockinged Legs

In September, Ronan and his party arrived in Meizhou, Guangdong.

Why not conduct an undercover inspection while on vacation? With Ronan's foreign face, how could he possibly conduct an undercover inspection? Besides, Ronan even brought women along.

The inspection focused on agriculture. When Ronan saw the locals and the foreign agricultural instructors getting along well, even eating together, he smiled with satisfaction and felt relieved.

Foreigners instructing the Seres on farming? Is that absurd? Actually, it's not absurd.

Because the foreigners of this era were already better at agricultural production than the Cypriots.

The same applies in Ronan's original timeline.

The Qing Dynasty was the period when agricultural productivity was at its peak among ancient dynasties. Of course, this was partly due to the emergence of new high-yield crops. However, in terms of rice and wheat alone, the average yield per mu in the Qing Dynasty was higher than when the climate was better during the Ming Dynasty, and it far exceeded that of the Tang and Song Dynasties.

However, compared to Europe at the same time, it was just a little brother.

While Europe certainly had favorable geographical factors, its greatest contribution lay in the numerous agricultural revolutions and continuous technological advancements that occurred over several centuries.

The most famous example is soybean-wheat rotation, while soybeans originated in China.

There are always those who like to recite the saying that the economic base determines the superstructure, but they never think about it and don't understand that the root cause of Europe's comprehensive surpassing of China is that Europe's agricultural productivity has surpassed that of China.

Agriculture is the foundation of industry.

A time traveler who doesn't improve agriculture and instead tries to climb the technology tree is a complete fool. The reason is very simple: without enough people to leave agricultural production, the production and consumption of a product cannot be sustained. If there aren't enough people to produce, there will be even less consumption, so all efforts will be in vain.

Ancient Seres had countless "ingenious skills and ingenious crafts," but they were all eventually abandoned. The reason was not that the upper class studied Confucian classics, nor that small farmers were easy to rule.

There's only one reason: nobody uses it.

There is an even more absurd fact: on the eve of the Industrial Revolution, the best farmer in Europe was Britain, which is often described as "sheep eating men." At that time, Britain only needed less than half of its population to engage in agricultural production. It was precisely because less than half of the population could farm and feed a country that more people could do science. Of course, this does not mean that Britain eventually reached that point because of agriculture, but without such agriculture, Britain could not have reached that point.

You could say that the Anssa gang was despicable, shameless, barbaric, and brutal, but you can't say that they didn't know how to "farm".

Of course, in this world, it's not up to "bring in" the British. France, where Ronan ruled for decades, is the best at farming and has a huge agricultural technology team. Ronan spent a lot of money to hire a bunch of "retired experts" and "young adventurers" to help develop agriculture.

Why was Meizhou chosen?

Because damned capitalism is eroding the best places in Guangdong for farming, and Meizhou has the potential to do so. At the same time, there are conflicts between the locals and the new immigrants. If we don't develop agriculture properly, we can't suppress the social conflicts.

In fact, the same problem is even more serious in Jiangnan.

Of course, this situation is nothing compared to what it will be like hundreds of years later. Hundreds of years later, the truly "good land" will all be used to build houses.

After completing their inspection, Ronan and his entourage arrived at their vacation spot.

Changtan in Jiaoling, Meizhou, is located at the junction of three provinces.

Here, towering peaks rise abruptly, cliffs hang precariously, and green mountains flank a rushing river on both sides, creating a vast expanse of emerald water. In autumn, the riverbanks are adorned with red maple leaves, making for a stunningly beautiful landscape with picturesque views every few steps.

However, at that time, it was not developed, no roads were built, and no river embankments or dams were constructed, so it was not as beautiful as it would be after development.

Some people always talk about how pristine nature is, but that's a one-sided view. Some landscapes are even more beautiful after development.

Ronan loves camping, and this vacation was also spent camping.

Besides him, there were fifteen women, fifteen pairs of beautiful legs in different stockings.

It was originally supposed to be fourteen, but Zhao Yingqi insisted on dragging Madam Zhao along as well.

The original plan was to build a few earthen stoves and then have hot pot.

But it was already close to noon, and there wasn't much time left, so the group simply spread a few blankets on the ground, put their shoes aside, and sat down on the ground.

There's no need to carry it. Ambrina's magic has a huge food preservation space. When she returned home recently, she stocked up on a lot of cheese and various wines. In recent years, she has also stored a lot of Seris cooked food in it, which can satisfy everyone's taste.

Ronan took a long bread roll filled with sausage and cheese, and started munching on it while watching the others.

When you sit down, you can see stockings to some extent; in some cases, you can see a lot, while in others, you can only see the feet.