A small soldier of the frontier army in the late Ming Dynasty

Chapter 56
Since the establishment of the Jingbian Fort, the life of the military households in the fort has continuously attracted the attention of the surrounding military households and civilian households. Since the beginning of this year, some military households have come to join Wang Dou one after another, making the population of the fort finally reach more than 100. Household, more than 400 people, can be regarded as a well-known Datunbao.

After the grain was harvested in Jingbian Fort in June this year, Wang Dou fulfilled his promise. In the first year in the fort, the military households were indeed not taxed, and all the income from the fields belonged to them.For those more than 50 military households who were allocated land, even if the millet and sorghum harvested in their fields were only a few buckets per mu, there would be a total of more than a dozen stone grains in [-] mu of land, and winter wheat could be planted after autumn.

Seeing so much food in their hands, many military households shed tears of joy. Therefore, in the next land reclamation, everyone is very motivated. If they can get another [-] to [-] acres of land, they will life is peaceful and worry-free.With these examples of military households in front, those later military households are also full of energy, just go out to work with Qi Tianliang every day.

This is also the reason why the military households of Jingbian Fort now respect and fear Wang Dou. Without Wang Dou, everyone would not have a good life now. Their interests are closely related to Wang Dou.

After the grain harvest in Jingbian Fort in June, the life of the military households in the fort was spread all over Shunxiang Fort, and even spread to thousands of other households far away.In this year, being able to eat enough and have a stable residence is like heaven. What is working every day?
From mid-June to the current mid-July, refugees from military households continued to come to seek refuge every day. They built huts around Jingbian Fort to live in. They just hoped that Wang Dou could take them in and let them become military households in Jingbian Fort.Counting these people back and forth, I am afraid that there are dozens of other families.

Wang Dou was both happy and worried about these people taking refuge in him. What he was happy about was that he had always been short of people, and these people could greatly increase his power by coming.What is worrying is that there is not much money and food left in the castle. All these people will join. I am afraid that I don't have so much money and food to support them.

First of all, Wang Dou still had to guarantee the priority of survival of Jingbian Fort military households.

But how could Wang Dou let go of these people?He ordered Mrs. Liu to cook some porridge every day to keep these people alive, and at the same time selected the thicker men and women among them to work in the field livestock farm.For the time being, Wang Dou did not allow these people to join the military households of Jingbian Fort, nor did he allow them to live in the fort, but let Zhong Rong register their names in the register first.

These people lived around Jingbian Fort, and every day they looked forward to the day when they could join the fort.

Looking at the situation of these people, while the military households in the fort were proud, they also developed some hostility towards them, fearing that these people would take away their rations.

Wang Dou did the math, the current money and food in the fort could only last for one or two months, it seemed that he had to go to suppress the bandits.

Due to the addition of these new laborers, Wang Dou drew out four teams of soldiers, two teams of veterans, one team of new recruits, and one team that was not recruited at night.Let these people stop working and resume training.At the same time, the Korean and North Korean teams don't have to work after they don't close at night, they just need to practice reconnaissance every day.

While these teams of soldiers resumed training, Wang Dou asked Han Chao to lead the team Ye Bu Received to scout out bandits.

There will be disasters and man-made disasters in the future, and there are as many bandits and bandits everywhere. Although Baoan Prefecture is located in the hinterland of the military town, bandits and bandits are also rampant.

These thieves and bandits are a source of income for Wang Dou, but the military forts of the guards of the Ming Dynasty have their own defense boundaries, and it is a taboo to reach out to cross the border, especially for a fort like Wang Dou.Maybe I should choose a few teams of soldiers, let them pretend to be bandits, and often cross the border to have a bad time?

A few days after Han Chao led Ye Bushou out, news soon came that there were a few small groups of bandits entrenched on the hills near Shunxiang Fort, Huiyao Fort, and Luanzhuang, ranging from a dozen to dozens of people. They didn't wait for people, and they went out from time to time to rob houses, kidnap and blackmail.

These places are considered to be mountainous and hilly areas, where bandits are most likely to be harbored, and there are not many bandits, so they are just suitable for suppressing bandits and training soldiers to make money.Although these places are not considered to be Wang Dou's shoujing area, especially Luanzhuang is still the boundary of other thousand households, but under the pressure of survival, Wang Dou can't control so much, he gritted his teeth and did it!

At the end of July, Wang Dou asked Han Chao, Han Zhong, Gao Shiyin, and Zhong Tiaoyang to take turns leading troops to fight, wiped out several hills nearby, and copied hundreds of taels of silver and dozens of weapons from the bandit nest. More than a dozen mules and more than 200 shi of grain and rice greatly relieved the pressure of survival in the fort.

Looking at these seized materials, Wang Dou and the others all stared brightly. Sure enough, the suppression of the bandits would bring in money quickly, and it would be safe for the people, and they could also train troops in actual combat.

In terms of rewards for meritorious deeds, after rewarding part of the seized materials to the soldiers who fought, he looked at the surrounding forts and there was still no movement at all, and Wang Dou became more active.He was thinking whether he should look farther and be bolder.

At the end of July, Wang Dou liberated the five soldiers, the second team and the first team from the land, and resumed training. At the same time, he formed two new teams. As for the soldiers, Wang Dou now has 120 troops, all young and strong, much more than Zhang Gui, the team manager of Dongjiazhuang.

Right now, even Xu Zhongjun, the defense officer of Shunxiang Fort, only has 300 troops, and it is estimated that there are still a lot of vacancies and old and weak among them. Xu Zhongjun's combat effectiveness is his team of 50 servants.

Of the 120 soldiers, most of the young and strong men in Jingbian Fort are here. For these out-of-production soldiers, Wang Dou will use the captured proceeds to support them in the future.These sergeants can eat enough on weekdays, but they don’t have food and pay. Only after the battle, are the rewards issued. After several victories against the bandits, everyone has gained more or less, which makes everyone want to fight. very high.

Supporting war with war greatly reduces the pressure on Wang Dou to raise troops.At the same time, Wang Dou is planning a big move. He needs a lot of money, at least the same harvest as last year when he wiped out the Siqingliang Bandit Village.

……

At the end of July, due to Wang Dou's several times of suppressing bandits, he had the confidence to accept all the refugees from military households outside the fort as Jingbian Fort military households, making these new military households happy.

According to Zhong Rong's records, there are more than 60 military households with a population of nearly 130. Among them, there are more than 50 males and more than 170 young and middle-aged.Including these new military households, there are currently [-] households in Jingbian Fort, with a population of [-], and nearly [-] middle-aged men, which can be regarded as a very large fort.

Wang Dou took all these new recruits as military households in Jingbian Fort, but still let them live outside the fort.The population of the fort has been saturated, and some places in the fort need to be reserved for public buildings, such as building some temples, theaters, archways, military merit temples and the like.If all these people live in the fort, it will definitely be very crowded.

Wang Dou asked the craftsmen in the fort to plan a few pieces of land along the outside of Jingbian Fort, and built a few barracks along the outside of the fort. When the money, food and population increased in the future, they would consider building a new fort wall.

Wang Dou asked several teams of young and strong soldiers to train every day, as did the soldiers.The rest of the military households continued to reclaim the land, feed pigs and grow vegetables, and none of the military households in the whole castle could be lazy.

Wang Dou, who came from later generations, of course knew the importance of the base area. The income from suppressing bandits can support some soldiers and horses. However, when the external demand is exhausted one day, the money and food for raising soldiers and people will need to be driven by the population of his own territory.Therefore, the management of one's own land cannot be slack.

……

In July of the eighth year of Chongzhen, as the population of Jingbian Fort grew and its reputation spread quietly, some businessmen approached Wang Dou, hoping to allow them to open shops in the fort.

Not to mention the shortage of land in the castle, even if these merchants buy land and build houses in the castle to make Wang Dou some money, Wang Dou is not uncommon.

Wang Dou has always been wary of merchants in the late Ming Dynasty!Many merchants in the towns on the Nine Sides are the secret operations of the Hou Jin Army. Even if they are not secret operations, they often inform them and provide information. The fall of Tieling, Kaiyuan, Fushun, Liaoyang and other places in the last year of Wanli was the opening of the door by the bad insiders. and on.

Wang Dou didn't want such a fate to happen to him in Jingbian Fort one day.

However, some merchants needed materials for themselves. After careful consideration, Wang Dou decided to implement the inspection system and establish a merchant registration system.

These businessmen are only allowed to buy land and set up shops along both sides of the avenue at Yongning Gate outside the fort, and they need to apply to Jingbian Fort with their household stickers for a letter of guarantee for city registration and opening. Only after the registration is approved can they obtain the right to live outside the fort. A certain amount of rent and tax must be paid before they are allowed to set up shops outside the city and engage in commercial sales and other business operations.

This kind of city registration system for merchants was implemented in the early Ming Dynasty, but after the middle and late Ming Dynasty, this kind of city registration system has existed in name only.

Moreover, in the Ming Dynasty, the combination of government and business is now, the government is the business, and the business is the government.Many big merchants were descendants of official families, and even had their spokespersons in the court, such as Shanxi merchants, Beijing merchants, and Huizhou merchants. Even middle-level merchants in various places generally had close ties with local officials and gentry.

Moreover, the commercial tax in Ming Dynasty was very low. In the early Ming Dynasty, it was stipulated that every commercial tax should be reduced to one of thirty, and those who exceeded it would be regarded as violating the order.In the 40th year of Wanli, there was another regulation that the purchase price of the next three tax-exempt deeds is less than 40 taels and the pawn price, all of which are tax-free.If the purchase price is more than [-] taels, there will be one five cents for every tael of tax-excluded silver.

The burden of merchants in the Ming Dynasty was very light, coupled with the combination of government and business, so the merchants in the late Ming Dynasty were very powerful and arrogant, and they would strike at every turn and threaten the government.Wang Dou wanted to prevent such things from happening in the future, and his trip to Zhoucheng made him even more vigilant. Those merchants were hoarding and driving up prices, which had reached an unbelievable level.The prices in the future castle cannot be affected by their control.

Therefore, Wang Dou has to strictly manage the merchants, and regularly review them every few months, and leave this matter to Zhong Rong.As a low-level money and food official, he is still proficient in these things.

In addition, the arrival of these merchants also touched Wang Dou's inspiration. With the increase in the population of military households in Jingbian Fort, there is still a lot of demand for daily necessities such as salt, cloth, medicine, tea, tea oil, etc. In the past, there were only a few peddlers. Carrying some small groceries such as needles, threads, dyes, scissors, and spoons to sell outside the fort is far from meeting the needs of military households.

Wang Dou plans to open a trading market a few miles away from Jingbian Fort. From now on, military households and civilians in the surrounding area can pick up some agricultural and sideline products to go to the fair every Monday, Thursday, and Seventh. Buy some useful substances.

Seeing Wang Dou's attitude towards him, those merchants were naturally dissatisfied. The merchants who came to Jingbian Fort could not be some big merchants, but they were able to buy land and set up a store, so they naturally had certain strength.Most of these businessmen are the sons of country gentry or from wealthy families in various parts of Baoan Prefecture. They have always been very popular in various parts of the state, but they have hit a snag with Wang Dou.

Wang Dou's attitude inevitably offended them and the forces behind them, but Wang Dou didn't care what they thought.

It's just that the current population and wealth of Jingbian Fort is a big source of customers. After thinking about it, these businessmen still have to follow Wang Dou's words, honestly take the household stickers to apply for city registration and open, and wait for the future. Registration approved.

On July [-]th, Du Gong, a hundred households in Shunxiang Fort, came to Jingbian Fort with a smile on his face again, accompanied by his brother-in-law who opened a bull market in Shunxiang Fort.

(End of this chapter)