I want to be emperor

Chapter 72
In Songshan Village, Funiu Mountain, Lin Dongsheng walked up to Luo Zhixue in military uniform, bowed and saluted, and said, "General, I have returned safely from my first sentry to collect food."

"This time when we went south to collect grain, I went to five villages successively. The landlords of the other two villages did not resist and handed over the grain directly. The landlords of the remaining three villages resisted, and we captured the manors one by one."

"Not only a large amount of grain was confiscated, but also a batch of gold and silver, iron and copper materials, mules and horses, cloth and other goods were obtained."

While listening, Luo Zhixue also looked at the large amount of food and other goods that were being put into storage not far away, and said with a smile: "Officer Lin has worked hard, and the first post on this trip has been a great contribution."

The first sentry led by Lin Dongsheng went south to collect grain, and the results were great. Just now, there are more than 30 carts of grain brought back, not only on the back of the carriage, but also on the shoulders of the soldiers who went out and the civilians recruited along the way.

In addition to food, there are also very important iron and copper utensils.

Copper, in fact, can also be directly regarded as money. After all, copper coins are made of copper. In the later stage, Luo Zhixue plans to directly use copper to cast cannons.

Iron is more important. Now Baoxiangying has a great demand for iron materials, not only for making weapons, but also for making agricultural tools. However, there is no iron ore on Funiu Mountain, and all iron materials need to be imported. Some were purchased through caravans, while others were seized, but only relying on the current channels, the gap in iron materials is still very large. Luo Zhixue is already thinking about how to get in touch with those big merchants outside to obtain more Much iron.

In order to bring these materials back, Lin Dongsheng naturally bought a large number of carriages, mules and horses, and these carriages, mules and horses were naturally another batch of big income.

Among them, there are six horses available for riding, and a total of 35 mules, horses, and donkeys are used for work.

The first sentry sent out a lot of rewards, and Luo Zhixue would not be stingy with the rewards for the first sentry. He directly stated to Lin Dongsheng that after the first sentry sent out, they would be the next batch of infantry sentries who were equipped with muskets.

In addition, the soldiers at the first sentry, including Lin Dongsheng, will receive additional rewards according to their positions and achievements.

Mainly to issue additional subsidies.

With the gradual formalization of Baoxiangying, Luo Zhixue also established a formal food and payment system, not in the name of official salary, but in the name of subsidies, and the subsidies were very small, and ordinary soldiers only had [-] cash per month.

Because the system of the Baoxiangying is different from that of ordinary troops, the soldiers of the Baoxiangying have all their food, drink, clothing and weapons in a unified package. They will not pay the soldiers a high salary in name like other armies, but The cost of rations, clothing, and even weapons will be deducted from it. In the end, there is not much that the soldiers can get.

Moreover, this kind of deduction is often shoddy, and the soldiers' rations are deducted.

This is no longer necessary in the Baoxiang camp. The rations, clothing and other daily necessities are uniformly allocated by the logistics department, and because of the high-intensity training, the standard of rations given is still low compared to the living standards of ordinary people in this era. relatively high.

Therefore, despite the fact that the subsidies that the soldiers can get are not much, the soldiers have no opinion on this at all, and even still feel that the benefits are extremely generous.

Everyone is not stupid, and the soldiers also know that they only eat so much food every day, which costs four or five taels of silver a month.

As for the subsidy, it is considered to be purely extra pocket money.

And this time the first sentry sent out to collect food, Luo Zhixue waved his hand and directly gave the soldiers at the first sentry some additional subsidies.

Nowadays, there is also a warehouse set up by the commercial office in Songshan Village, which sells some daily necessities to the mountain people or insiders, and the soldiers can find places to spend their pocket money after receiving it.

After the first sentry was arranged, the second sentry led by Wang Dazhuang returned to Songshan Village within a few days. Wang Dazhuang of the second sentry had sent a message a few days ago, saying that the second sentry had also finished collecting food. The operation is currently on the way back to Songshan Village with the booty, and it is expected to return to Songshan Village in another four or five days.

There were no accidents in the follow-up, and they returned to Songshan Village smoothly all the way, bringing back a large amount of food and other supplies.

These two posts went south this time, basically leaving more than a dozen villages in the southern periphery of Funiu Mountain. For the time being, it is impossible to talk about actually controlling these places, but at least they have completed the grain collection and turned the resources of these places into their own. use.

And there is no need to worry about not being able to recruit soldiers in these places in the future, or causing large-scale famine.

Because these two sentries did not target ordinary people when collecting grain, but targeted the landlords in the villages.

All kinds of food, mules, horses and other materials collected were collected from these landlords and had nothing to do with ordinary people.

It even has some benefits for ordinary people.

Because during the grain requisition process, except for the five landlords in the dozen or so villages who saw that the situation was not good and directly donated food, mules and horses and other finances obediently, the other landlords resisted stubbornly and were led by Lin Dongsheng and Wang Dazhuang to break into the manor. .

With the temperament of Lin Dongsheng and Wang Dazhuang, after they broke through the manor, they would not behave in a proper manner and only take food. In fact, the fate of these landlords was not good.

The landowners were all dead, and according to Lin Dongsheng and Wang Dazhuang's orders, they burned the land deeds, loans and other documents on the spot.

By the way, he also presided over a wave of points.

The land was not divided randomly, but was mainly distributed to the tenants who had cultivated the land in the first place.

It was the first time that Luo Zhixue had someone try such things as killing landlords and dividing land, and it remains to be seen how effective it will be.

As mentioned before, in the villages deep in Funiu Mountain, there is no such thing as a landlord, let alone a tenant, so there is no division of land.

The mountain people in the depths of Funiu Mountain are all refugees who have fled to the mountains in recent years. After they fled to the mountains, they will reclaim wasteland and plant on their own.

After all, there is no one in the mountains to control them. If you want to reclaim the land, you can just open up wasteland. Although the land in the mountains is relatively barren, no one cares about you. You can open up wasteland as you like.

Therefore, in a short period of time, the more than a dozen villages in the depths of Funiu Mountain did not have the relationship between large-scale landlords and tenants, only sporadic ones.

This time, the two sentries went out to collect grain, which was the first time to do such a thing.

Luo Zhixue also paid more attention to this, and listened carefully to the reports of Lin Dongsheng and Wang Dazhuang, but according to the reports of Lin Dongsheng and Wang Dazhuang, it was said that the progress of the land division was very mediocre.

Those tenants were not too touched by this, and many people didn't even think that the land distribution hosted by a group of rebels meant that they had obtained the land.

Regarding this, Luo Zhixue also knew where the problem was. It was nothing more than that although the Baoxiangying camp attacked the landlords in some villages and presided over the division of land, the Baoxiangying camp always left after allocating the land. According to the order, someone from the local area was appointed as the village head.

In other words, the Baoxiangying has not yet formed actual control over these villages.

Since there is no actual control, people will naturally think that what you say is farting.

In this regard, Luo Zhixue had expected it long ago. After he tossed the internal structure of the Baoxiangying, he would optimize and adjust the management of each village, set up a real jurisdiction system, and send some troops to garrison and patrol the periphery to protect the villages. Fully control the territory of Funiu Mountain.

Before that, he had to continue to toss about the internal structure of the Baoxiangying. Although various departments had been set up and directors appointed, in fact they were all empty-handed and could not play a real role.

The problem that caused this situation was the lack of people.

Because illiteracy is everywhere in Baoxiangying, and even the managers at all levels are illiterate, Luo Zhixue has not even come up with various rules and regulations yet.

Recruiting talents and establishing a sound administrative and military management system have become an important guarantee for the further development of the Baoxiangying.

The question is, where do we get enough talent?
After much deliberation, Luo Zhixue still turned his attention to the seven scholars brought back by Lin Dongsheng.

These seven scholars were all scholars brought back by Lin Dongsheng when he swept through the villages in the southern outskirts.

Of course, they were not the children of the various lords who were attacked by the Rural Protection Battalion.

Lin Dongsheng and the others are not stupid. It is impossible to kill their family members and bring them back to use as talents.

In fact, although the seven scholars came back tied up, they were not children of landlords who had their families exterminated, but children of landlords from various lands who surrendered to food restrictions.

On the one hand, bringing them back is to serve as hostages, so that those landlords who surrender will not mess around, and it will be convenient for them to continue to collect grain next time.

On the other hand, Lin Dongsheng heard from Luo Zhixue that there was a shortage of scholars several times, so he simply tied up these people and brought them back.

When Luo Zhixue saw these seven scholars, he didn't immediately recruit them. Instead, he threw them into a prisoner-of-war camp to work for a few days, and then asked them to talk one by one.

It is nothing more than giving them two choices, one to continue working in the prisoner-of-war camp, and the other to enter various places as clerks.

They all work, but the treatment is completely different.

These seven scholars are not stupid, and they also know that once they go to work in various places, it is tantamount to casting a thief. disaster.

So they started rejecting one by one.

However, after a few days, they all succumbed one after another.

The life in the prisoner-of-war camp is not easy. I am so tired every day that I still can’t eat enough. No matter how tough a man is, he can’t last long.

Even Huang Guangmao, the fourth-rank general, couldn't bear the suffering of the prisoner-of-war camp. The day before yesterday, he took the initiative to say that he would do his best to protect the countryside. He paid more attention to this man, Luo Zhixue, and directly gave him a staff office There is no need for the false title of senior staff officer, just observe first.

After the few scholars couldn't bear it, after expressing their surrender to the thieves one after another, whether they wanted to or not, they went to work in various places one after another.

After seeing the good results, Luo Zhixue simply asked Wang Dazhuang to take another trip with people, and 'recruited' the scholars from the villages he had been to before.

Luo Zhixue estimated that with this group of high-level talents, together with the talents recruited from among the mountain people and the defected talents from among the prisoners of war, this initial management system should be able to be established.

At least, the official documents were written and read by others.

And this is already a huge improvement for the rural protection battalion.

(End of this chapter)