Late Tang

In early March, spring plowing began in full swing.

On the three big islands of Shamen and Heishan, which are arable land under the entire Shamen Town, the imperial court began spring plowing.Except that the fields in Shamen Town were used as land rewards for officers and soldiers, all the Black Mountain Forts, large and small, resettled the common people in the way of hoarding the forts and carried out camping.

There are twelve bunkers on Daheishan Island, housing more than 250 people from [-] households, and four bunkers on Xiaoheishan Island, housing more than [-] people from [-] households.However, due to the limited land on the island, each castle has only [-] mu of land, and the average household has only two and a half mu of land.

All the bunkers on Heishan Island have been preliminarily completed, and there is one bunker for every [-] households, which is equivalent to a large village.Li Jing arranged for some retired and disabled officers to serve as generals in each bunker. In the bunkers, the Baojia and joint defense were implemented. Ten households had one armor, one hundred households had one guarantee, and five hundred households had one bunker.Tunjiang is equivalent to Lizheng, the village head, who is responsible for the camping of each Tunbao and other matters.

Everywhere in the field was busy. Li Jing, Zhang Chengye and other military officers boarded Heishan Island for inspection.

Daheishan Island has another name, Snake Island.In summer, there are thousands of vipers all over the mountains and slopes on the island, the real island of snakes.In addition to countless snakes, there is another precious resource on Daheishan Island, which is flint.In addition to these two things, the drinking water on the island is salty and unpalatable, and the sound of the huge high tide at night makes people sleepless at night; once the weather is bad and the navigation is closed, Daheishan Island becomes a true isolated island.

However, due to the large area of ​​Daheishan Island, which is equivalent to ten times that of Shamen Town, and has nearly 2 mu of farmland, the island is quite lively. The original garrison and their families, fishermen and businessmen on the island, etc. Nearly ten thousand people.This time, Li Jing set up another Twelve Tunbao, and moved in nearly [-] people.For Li Jing, Heishan Fort is very important to Shamen Town and needs to be managed carefully.

Li Jing recruited Lin Wei, the new town general of Daheishan Fort, "The black bear camp moved to Daheishan Island, everything is going well, right?"

"Everything went well. The island was not damaged before. After the Black Bear Battalion moved in, they only built fortifications on the two piers of Heishan Island, and the castle did not need to be repaired." Lin Wei replied.

"Spring plowing has already started. How is Heishanbao doing?" Although there are only [-] mu of farmland on the island, even if there is a bumper harvest in one year, it will produce less than [-] shi of grain at most.However, Li Jing still attaches great importance to this. Now that there are few lands and few people, it is time to try out effective management. When the land grows in the future, there is no need to panic.

Wu Qian stepped forward and said: "The matter of spring plowing is temporarily under the responsibility of the post. At present, according to the general's instructions, the field on the island has been allocated to twelve bunkers. Each household in the bunker is allocated two fields. Half an acre, because the people have little arable land, so we publicize the plowing years and farm tools pulled out of the town, and lease them to the people in need in turn. Now every [-] households with [-] mu of land are allocated one cattle for spring plowing."

"How's the well digging going?" Li Jing asked.There has always been a big problem on Montenegro Island, that is, the water on the island is salty and undrinkable, and deep wells must be drilled.But deep wells must use masonry, which consumes a lot of money and food, and each well needs [-] guan.

Li Jing knew that this year was another year of severe drought. Although Shamen Town did not rely on this little land to produce food, it was the people who immigrated to the island who worked hard to cultivate it.Li Jing had asked Zhang Hong to pay for drilling wells in advance, and planned to dig wells on the island, not only to solve the problem of drinking water for the residents on the island, but also to prepare the cultivated land for the Tunbao to prevent drought.

Wu Qian said with a sigh in his heart: "Zhang Bingcao has pulled out [-] pieces of special funds for well drilling, and this money has been designated as a special fund under his post. At present, well-drilling craftsmen have been recruited, and the well-drilling workers are from the island. The common people work, and we always pay them. We plan to drill [-] deep masonry wells, and each fort will have one well on [-] mu of land to irrigate the field. There are twenty wells in total. In addition, there will be more Four drinking water wells need to be drilled, including the castle and the military camp, etc., a total of [-] wells. Now it has fully started, and it is estimated that all the wells will be ready for use within a month."

Wu Qian has been in Daheishanbao for almost ten years. The water on the island is undrinkable, and the lack of water is an old problem.In the past, he issued a document to apply for funding to dig a well to solve the problem of drinking water for the soldiers and civilians on the island and to irrigate the fields, but every time he reported it, nothing came of it.In the end, it was he himself who squeezed out some of the money and rations of Heishan Fort, and then dug a few deep wells in the fort, which solved the problem of drinking water for the garrison troops and their families in the fort.As soon as Li Jing took over Heishan Fort, he immediately pulled out three thousand coins to dig a well, which made him, an old man in Heishan Fort, feel a lot of emotion.

Li Jing smiled all over his face, "Okay, this matter is done well. Not only do we need to dig deep wells, but we also need to build a batch of water trucks. If there is a drought, manpower can't fetch water, we need water trucks. Make water trucks The craftsmen and special funds in the town will be pulled out immediately, and the specific matters will be taken care of by Montenegro."

He glanced at everyone with piercing eyes, "Although we have limited farmland now, please don't just take this matter to heart. Farmland must be taken as an important matter. My plan is that all the farmland All the money and food produced in the fort this year will be exempted from land taxes. Your town and fort will also be responsible for renting out cattle, grain seeds, farm tools, waterwheels, etc. to the people. It is best to give one cow to every ten households with 25 mu of land.”

Hearing Li Jing's request, everyone nodded and took it down, especially Wu Qian, who now took the initiative to rely on the civil affairs in Montenegro and avoided military affairs.Although Li Jing trusted him, he still took the initiative to avoid suspicion and did not want to arouse suspicion.These decisions of Li Jing surprised him. In the past, neither Heishanbao nor Daxie Village paid too much attention to the matter of hoarding fields. Those hoarding fields were just a subsidy for the family members of the garrison army.The output is too little, and no one pays attention at all.Guarding Dengzhou Port is mainly about doing business. If it is really not possible, you can go to sea and pretend to be a pirate to do two things.

However, there are ten households with one head, and now there are six thousand households in Daheishan Island. In this way, six hundred cattle are needed, which is not a small number.Li Jing was shocked that so many farm cattle were leased to the common people for free.

Wu Qian, an imposing general, now started to work as an aide with a book and a pen.He flipped through the ledger with him, looked at his handwriting with iron and silver hooks on it, and said with a slight frown: "I have initially planned, even if I dig a well now and rent farm cattle, seeds and farm tools to help, but the arable land on the island is not fertile enough. Even if we do two seasons of crops in one year, the maximum yield per mu is only about one and a half stones. The maximum output of 3 mu of land is only [-] stones. Even if we don’t collect any taxes, there are more than [-] people on the island. The whole output is not enough for their rations."

A standard soldier's ration is two liters of rice per day, which is three stones of grain for a year.Even if the elderly and children are halved, it will cost half a stone.Calculated in this way, even if the minimum average ration of two stones per person per year is calculated, no matter how well they grow such a small amount of land, after a year, they will still be short of at least half of the ration.

Regarding this point, Li Jing had already prepared for it. It was impossible for so many people to live on these fields.He compiled five hundred households into one storehouse for the convenience of management, but he also had other considerations.

"Don't worry, the rations are not enough, and the town will provide the subsidy for the difference. But this is not free, you have to buy it with money and food, or exchange it with their other output." Li Jing said: "Last time I sent you a message to let How are you preparing for the workshop?"

"Everything is under preparation. At present, the main ones are the fishing team and the construction team. In addition, there is also the women's knitting team. We organize the young and strong in Tunbao to go fishing in the sea during the slack season. Work on construction sites. In addition, women organized to weave, spin, and embroider for workshops in the town.”

Li Jing nodded, noncommittal.

After a while, he said: "Your idea is good, try to get more work, but it's not enough, and your mind is not open enough. Let me tell you, our current plan for financial resources in Shamen Town is to strive to do something for others. No, it is a way to produce rare things. For example, our island does not produce food, so what should we do, so many people need to eat? And our current liquor workshop is consuming a lot of food, so our current liquor There is a special requirement for the sale, that is, half of the selling price of liquor must be traded in grain, and we only collect money and silk for the remaining half. To tell you the truth, we only take back half of the selling price of grain, which is actually already consumed by our production. The food has been returned several times. You see, this liquor business not only helps us make money, but also helps us earn a lot of food."

Wu Qian was thoughtful.

"It's the same for others. At present, our armory workshop has also begun to produce and sell to the outside world. Many generals in the army responded that we don't have much surplus in our own weapons. Why should we sell them? It's actually very simple. , Weapon manufacturing also needs raw materials. Every time we manufacture a weapon, we have to purchase the corresponding raw material from outside. After the output is stored in the warehouse, then we just spend and don't pay. In the long run, the Armory Workshop will be a big hole. "

"Let's change the way of thinking and divide the armory workshop into two parts. Some of the best craftsmen are reserved to manufacture the best ordnance for ourselves. Most of the rest accept orders from outside and give Others, such as Qingnipu, make ordnance. However, our ordnance does not sell money, but collects raw materials, such as zhe wood, beef tendon and horn for making bows, iron ore and iron materials for making knives, etc. We collect materials, Then process and make finished ordnance and then sell it. Once again, this finished ordnance is much more valuable than ordinary raw materials. The difference in the middle can be used to build our own ordnance instead of paying for it. In this way, Our own ordnance is constantly increasing, but the ordnance workshop is no longer a big hole with only expenses but no income, and can even borrow and train a large number of ordnance craftsmen."

"Do you understand what I said?" Li Jing asked with a smile.

Wu Qian seemed to understand, but what Li Jing just said had a great impact on him.It turns out that business can still do this, but how should Montenegro do it?

People have permanent property and then have perseverance.

History tells Li Jing that most of the real uprisings are proletarians.Most of them are farmers, and they were originally low-yielding. Years of natural disasters and other factors, they finally had nowhere to go. In order to survive, they did everything they could.

At the beginning, a group of outsiders from Ziqing Town who crossed the sea from the west of Liaoning actually ruled Ziqing Town for six to seventy years. Some people only knew that there was Li Shi, the commander-in-chief of Ziqing Town, but not that there was Li Shi, the emperor of Chang'an. The biggest reason was that That is, the Li Zhengji family in Ziqing Town has been separatist for several generations. Although they are self-respecting, because they control the largest port and sea passage in the north, they are doing private trade and bringing in a lot of money and food. That little money.The lives of the common people are better than those in other places. The society is peaceful, the prices are extremely low, and the life is stable.

If Shamen Town really wants to rise in the late Tang Dynasty, it is not enough to train troops.People are water, and water can carry a boat or overturn it.All the big and small warlords in the late Tang Dynasty knew the importance of soldiers, but many warlords only searched for the common people in order to support the army. Attack, the people under the rule have no support at all.

The treatment of the army in Shamen Town is quite generous, not even worse than that of the government soldiers in the Tang Dynasty.At this time in the late Tang Dynasty, the standard treatment for the garrison army was two guan pay per month, and two liters of rice per day.This amount of money seems to be a lot, but now even the most ordinary people do work for others, and they have sixty Wen a day.But when the soldiers guard the frontier, there are so many dangers and hardships, and they are not allowed to go home for a few years, but they only have so little money and food.For the current price of two hundred Wen for a bucket of rice, this amount of money is really too little.

The salaries in Shamen Town are very high, and the food and salaries are higher than those of other garrison troops. What is even higher is that the soldiers in Shamen Town are often rewarded, and various pensions and allowances are very high.It is precisely because of this that the Shamen Township can train hard with peace of mind and go to the battlefield without any scruples.Li Jing also doesn't have to worry about the loyalty of the soldiers from time to time, fearing that they will turn up and make troubles at every turn.

The army has been arranged, and the people must also be arranged.The military and civilians are like a bowl of water, and it doesn't matter which side is tilted.

There are now hundreds of thousands of people in Shamen Town, and it is not easy to arrange these people well.If it is not arranged well, it will not work.If the backyard is not stable, how can we talk about rising?A stable rear is not only the source of economy, but also a supplementary source for a strong army.Right now Li Jing has enough soldiers and horses, no need to replenish them, and enough money and food.However, these people still need to be resettled. Only when these people are settled and their lives are improved, can Shamen Town move forward more worry-free.

Many military officers didn't understand this, and felt that since Shamen Town didn't plan to collect food from these people, it was already good, why bother to take care of these people.Anyway, if they don't collect their food, they are already very grateful.After all, that's how it's done everywhere else.

(To be continued)