The next day, the hungry people who gathered outside Dapanbao finally left. Hundreds of hungry people helped the elderly and children retreat northward in the cold wind.
For the sake of safety, the team officer Wang Wenzhen specially sent the flag officer Jia Hongyu to lead his people to "send him out of the country immediately". Wang Wenzhen himself happily led his troops back after a banquet in Dapanbao. Wangjiazhuang.
At this time, Liu Yan and six small flag officers, Chen Xun, Wang Bo, Wang Yue, Xu Ming, Miao Shao, and Zhang Yi, stood on the fort wall, looking at the hundreds of hungry people gradually walking away, feeling very uncomfortable in their hearts.
"In this kind of world, in such a disaster year, I don't know how many people can survive."
Liu Yan closed his eyes. He had tried his best to save more than 500 people from fifty households. In addition to the more than 170 half-year-old children he bought, he had also saved about 700 people. He was considered a success. A lot of effort.
"Captain A, let's go back to the meeting."
Chen Xun looked at Liu Yan with a sad expression and spoke softly. Liu Yan opened his eyes and nodded, saying: "Let's go, send someone else to the winery, soap workshop, salt drying field, and firearms supervision office." The principals are also called here, and principal Zhao is also coming together, we are going to have a meeting today."
"yes."
In the general flag officer's hall, Liu Yan was sitting in the middle. On the left were six small flag officers, Chen Xun, Wang Bo, Wang Yue, Xu Ming, Miao Shao, and Zhang Yi. On the right were Wang Yunhe, Chen Jiangshi, Tan Xiaoda, The five principals are Chu Yunfei and Zhao Min.
Seeing that everyone had arrived, Liu Yan started his agenda.
The first step is to deal with the more than 170 children bought by Liu Yan.
"Most of these children are fifteen or sixteen years old, half male or female. I plan to let them learn trades in the fort."
Liu Yan had his own plan. Among the more than 170 children, there were 82 girls. Liu Yan divided these girls into two parts and placed them in the soap workshop and the wine shop respectively. The koji-making craftsmanship in the soap workshop and winery requires carefulness. These girls are of the right age to learn a craft and at the same time supplement the manpower of the two workshops.
Liu Yan also divided the remaining more than ninety boys into two groups. One group was responsible for distillation and other processes in the winery, and the rest were placed in the firearms supervision office to learn crafts.
After Liu Yan allocated the manpower, he said to Tan Xiaoda, Wang Yunhe and Chen Jiang: "These are still children. When they arrive in the various workshops, they should not only let them work, but also be patient and let them do their job." , if there are talents among them, we must focus on training and promoting them, they are the future of our Dapanbao!"
"In addition, although these are half-year-old children, they still need to be paid. The specific amount will be based on the lowest salary in each workshop. Once they are skilled in skills, they will be increased as appropriate."
The three of them took the order respectfully.
"correct,"
Liu Yan said to Zhao Min again: "Master Zhao also has something to do. These children are all hard-working people. I think that if Master Zhao has time, he might as well open a private school in the castle to teach these children how to read and write." All necessary fees will be paid within the fort.”
When Zhao Min heard this, he immediately respected Liu Yan. This was not something that ordinary people could think of. Zhao Min stood up, saluted, and said respectfully: "Chief A has a long-term vision and a kind heart. This move is of no use to those children of hungry people." Different from being reborn, you can be said to be the reborn parents of those children. I am here to thank you on behalf of these children!"
Liu Yan helped Zhao Min up with a smile and said, "This is just a whim. I have to do the specific things personally."
Zhao Min said seriously: "This is my duty as a subordinate, I should do my best!"
Next, there is the resettlement of the fifty families of hungry people.
Liu Yan thought for a moment and then said: "As for the fifty hungry households, all must be converted into military households as soon as possible."
Zhao Min cupped his fists and accepted the order.
"There is still a shortage of manpower in Juntun, and the salt field is also short of manpower. I plan to divide the fifty military households into two parts. Thirty households will go to Juntun to open up wasteland and prepare for spring plowing together next year. The remaining twenty households will arrive. Working in the salt field."
At this time, Chen Xun was also taking care of military affairs, so he and Chu Yunfei took orders together.
Liu Yan looked at Chen Xun, who had already lost weight twice, and thought to himself: "Whenever there is time, we should find someone who is specifically responsible for farming affairs. Well, let's go to Wangjiazhuang sometime."
The hungry people who have been taken in this time have been resettled, and what is left is the specific implementation. There are several people in charge who are responsible for this, and Liu Yan does not need to worry about it anymore.
However, Liu Yan also had another agenda item at this meeting, which was to expand the number of men and troops under each banner of the Dun Army.
Now the population of Dapanbao has reached nearly 4,000. Such a population size is second to none in Qianhusuo in Xiahe Village, second only to Qianhusuo City, but its prosperity is not as prosperous as Qianhusuo City. There are basically few shops in the fort, they are just small shops.
Therefore, Liu Yan also had the population base to expand his troops, and this meeting had to be discussed properly, so Liu Yan expressed his thoughts, so that he could just accommodate the newly arrived hungry civilians and military households, as well as Chu Yunfei's group of subordinates.
Regarding the expansion of the army, the six small flag officers, Chen Xun, Wang Bo, Wang Yue, Xu Ming, Miao Shao, and Zhang Yi, were the most excited. This meant that the six of them had more troops.
Chu Yunfei on the side also showed envious eyes. After all, he had a group of people under his command before, and they were very prosperous. But now Chu Yunfei is very clear about his position, that is, as the head of the salt drying farm, he can just dry the salt and make money, and let others do the killing.
So Chu Yunfei stood up first and said: "Since Chief Jia wants to expand his troops, then the more than seventy brothers before me are all good players. If Chief Jia doesn't dislike it, I will definitely take him in and integrate him into the army." Among the flags!”
Liu Yan laughed and said, "Okay! Now Chief Chu is already a member of our Dapanbao, and naturally the same is true for those Yanding brothers."
Then Liu Yan announced a new military system, adding a first-level organizational structure on top of the original flag, called a sentry post.
Now the flags led by Chen Xun and six other small flag officers have been expanded into sentries, as follows:
The original organizational structure at the team level was unified into a single unit. A team consisted of a captain (who also served as the flag bearer), three sword and shield bearers, and eight gunners or spearmen. The organization of a team remained unchanged at twelve people. .
The flag-level organizational structure has been expanded from the original three teams of Dunjun to have four teams of Dunjun, including two teams of gunners and two teams of gunners. The chief officer of a flag is called the flag general, and he is also accompanied by a messenger (who also serves as a drum and bugler) and a flag bearer. This brought the strength of the banner to fifty-one.
Above the flag-level organization is the sentry.
Each post has three banner troops under its jurisdiction. The chief officers of each post are still six small banner officers: Chen Xun, Wang Yue, Wang Bo, Xu Ming, Miao Shao, and Zhang Yi. Liu Yan assigns each of them a team of guards. A group of soldiers kept at night, five drum and buglers, and five messengers, the strength of a sentry was one hundred and eighty-seven.
In this way, Liu Yan appointed the small flag officer Chen Xun to command the front outpost, the small flag officer Wang Yue to command the rear outpost, the small flag officer Zhang Yi to command the left outpost, the small flag officer Wang Bo to command the right outpost, and the small flag officer Miao Shao to command the middle outpost, following Liu Yan acted.
All the Ye Bu Shu flags originally commanded by the small flag officer Xu Ming were assigned to various posts, and then Liu Yan supplemented the vacancies based on the remaining Ye Bu Shu Dun troops to form cavalry posts.
At this point, after the expansion of Dapanbao's Dunjun Army, there were six sentry troops, with a total of 1,122 people, which was a direct increase of five times based on the original strength.
At this time, everyone was stunned after hearing Liu Yan's expansion plan. It was unheard of for a small fort to form an army of a thousand people. Such a force already exceeded the garrison of Qianhu Station in front of Xiahe Village. Horse!
Flag Officer Wang Bo murmured in a low voice: "Isn't it possible that Commander A was stimulated by the thousands of hungry people?"
The other people nodded subconsciously.
Liu Yan did not take it seriously and continued: "In addition to the more than 70 salt soldiers brought by Chief Chu, the troops needed for the expansion must be drawn from the military households in the fort to make up the troops within half a month. Then start training immediately.”
"In addition, the standard of military pay for the Dapanbao Dunjun Army must also be raised. Ordinary Dunjun troops will receive three taels per month per person, captains will receive three to five taels per month, flag generals will receive four to five taels per month, and small flag officers will receive sixty taels per month. Night is not over The standard for recruiting officers is one level higher than that of Dunjun at the same level, three to five dollars per person per month, and four to five dollars per month for captains who are not recruited at night."
Chen Xun frowned slightly and said: "Captain Jia, in this case our Dapanbao will have to allocate a quarter of its manpower to form troops. Almost all the young and strong men in the fort will have to be mobilized. In this way, there will definitely be insufficient manpower for next year's spring plowing. ”
Zhao Min also said worriedly: "If we follow the new military pay standards proposed by Commander Jia, then our monthly expenditure on military pay alone will be more than 3,500 taels. This expenditure is too much!"
Next to him, Tan Xiaoda also expressed his opinion: "We all understand the ambition of Commander Jia, but the sudden expansion of so many people also requires the equipment to be equipped. Now we have spears, swords, shields and birds in Dapan Fort. We can almost get the muskets, but there are a lot of shortcomings in armor, and I’m afraid we won’t have all the equipment in a short time.”
Xu Ming, the flag officer, also said: "The same goes for the war horses. To add dozens more war horses, the cost is not small."
Nowadays, the monthly expenditure of a war horse is basically equivalent to the military salary of three Dunjun troops. It requires more than ten taels. One post has 187 war horses, plus the messengers in each post also need to ride horses. Together, there are more than 300 horses. Not to mention the purchase cost, the monthly expense of raising horses alone is more than 3,000 taels of silver!
Such a huge expenditure is unsustainable even if Dapanbao now earns a lot of money. After all, military camps and other places have to spend money, and the dishes are too big.
So Liu Yan thought for a while and said: "The matter of military pay has been decided. It must be increased. There is nothing to discuss."
"However, the armor mentioned by Director Tan is a problem. I think it is better to equip the sword and shield bearers and spearmen with armor first, and the gunsmiths will be postponed. I will also find a way to recruit blacksmiths and other people. How about it?"
Tan Xiaoda said: "If that's the case, then my Firearms Supervisory Office has no objection."
"As for the problem of war horses, the messengers in each department can temporarily not be equipped with war horses. First, we can find some people who are good at running to act as messengers. We will wait until we have more war horses and then equip the messengers with war horses. In this way, we only need to provide the cavalry with sentries. It will be fine if you and the various ministries don’t collect their equipment and horses every night.”
But everyone calculated that even so, at least 260 war horses were needed. Liu Yan had to let the flag officer Xu Ming take charge of this matter. No matter how much money was spent during this period, all the war horses must be purchased as soon as possible.
Fortunately, in order to survive and make money, guards everywhere now sell war horses secretly on the black market. The court has repeatedly banned this, so Liu Yan was able to get so many war horses.
Of course, there are many "war horses" that are actually just pack horses, but Liu Yan doesn't care about many. Having them is better than not having them.
Finally, Liu Yan talked about the issue of manpower.
"Among the six sentry troops, except for the cavalry sentry who must be trained off-duty, the remaining five sentry troops can be trained in turns. Two sentries must be in training status every month. You small flag officers will discuss how to rotate. .”
Chen Xun thought for a while and said, "If that's the case, I can mobilize some strong women and older men in the fort to find the manpower for next spring plowing."
As for the problem that Zhao Min raised about the huge consumption of money and food, Liu Yan had nothing to do. Fortunately, all the businesses in Dapanbao were now very profitable, so that would be enough for now. Liu Yan would not have to worry about money in a short period of time.
Liu Yan breathed a sigh of relief, and then said to Tan Xiaoda: "That's it for today's meeting. Tomorrow morning, I will go to the firearms supervision office to have a look. After talking about people, we have to take a look at the equipment. Condition."
