Just as the surrounding countries, especially Ningguo, were reacting to Zhou Qing's promotion to innate.
Lu Yuan didn't know anything about all this.
However, he had already anticipated that various countries would react, and had already made arrangements for all parties in the country.
Xiangyang and Baling both have 40,000 imperial troops stationed in each city. Together with local county soldiers and militia groups that can be recruited, they can ensure that when an enemy invades, they can quickly expand a force of more than 100,000 soldiers and horses. enemy.
Coupled with the fact that there is an innate master guarding it, it is enough to deal with any sudden crisis.
Even if big powers such as Zhou, Liang, and Ning invade, relying on these strengths, they can hold out until Lu Yuan leads his army back to fight with other countries.
Therefore, as for domestic affairs, after making arrangements for all parties before the expedition, he did not pay much attention to them.
Now that power has been delegated to Zhou Qing and Lan Cai'er, Lu Yuan did not want to interfere in any way, based on his attitude of trusting people.
Compared with the country, at this time, he focused more energy on the newly conquered Southwest Yi territory.
It’s the end of the year, and the Spring Festival will soon be here.
The battle ahead on the Lushui front line gradually turned into a pure confrontation as Daecho and the country continued to build defense lines to further consolidate the defense here.
The fighting gradually calmed down, and conflicts involving more than a hundred people rarely occurred.
And when Lu Yuan saw that there was no fighting here, he temporarily put down his military duties and took the time to return to the rear from the front line.
Xixie Mansion, Qingshui County.
When Lu Yuan led a wave of personal guards to arrive here, the local county magistrate and officials from the city, large and small, hurried out of the city to greet them.
He briefly asked about the county's government affairs, and then asked the county magistrate to take him on a tour of the county without saying much.
After two months of renovation, this small town that had just been devastated by the war has gradually regained some of its popularity.
Some shops on the street have reopened, with occasional pedestrians passing through. However, most of the pedestrians on the road are old and weak, mostly women, children and the elderly, with few young and strong men.
All the way out of the county town and on the official road outside the city, there were more and more adult men.
On the road outside the city, hundreds of civilians who had been recruited from the army began to clean the road under the supervision of officials.
If you look carefully, you can find that the accents and costumes of these working men are quite different.
One group of people had their hair disheveled, while the other group had their hair tied up. One side was dressed in weird clothes with bright patterns and short sleeves and wide trousers. On the other side, the people sitting in Dongyang, wearing long robes and long robes, are dressed in ordinary clothes.
Yes, the people working here are the Dongyang people and the local Yi people.
Lu Yuan stared at these people for a while, and finally looked at the county magistrate next to him and asked: "How are the lives of the relocated Yulin immigrants in the local area? Are they dissatisfied with running away? Are the local barbarians still obedient? No one rebelled?"
This Qingshui County Magistrate can also be regarded as Lu Yuan's disciple.
This man's name was Zhao Xianzhi. In March of the ninth year of Zenue Hongdao's reign, he participated in the last enke competition held by Lu Yuan. He finally passed the two-level examination, passed the imperial examination, and then passed the Jinshi examination. Finally, he passed the eighth-level official examination. He was appointed as the Minister of Household Affairs.
After serving in the Ministry of Household Affairs for one year, he was promoted to a higher level and transferred to a local government, where he served as chief clerk for two years. Later, when his political performance was assessed, he ranked among the best in the county, so he was promoted to the seventh rank of county magistrate.
Then he worked as county magistrate for more than half a year, and was finally transferred to the newly established Qingshui County to serve as county magistrate.
Judging from Zhao Xianzhi's resume, it can be said that his official career is prosperous. However, in just four years, he was promoted to the fourth rank and became the parent official in charge of a county.
Although it was also due to the continuous expansion of the Chu State and the large number of official vacancies, it was rare among his peers to be promoted so quickly, so Zhao Xianzhi was considered quite capable.
After hearing the king's inquiry, Zhao Xianzhi, who was accompanying him, replied fluently without thinking too much: "Your Majesty, this year Qingshui County was newly established, and two hundred households from Yulin County were moved to the Ministry of Household Affairs, totaling one thousand people." One hundred and twenty-three people have now been assigned houses and fields and settled in their respective places.
However, most of them had just migrated here, so most of them had no money left and their livelihood was very difficult.
Although the government provides relief, it is only enough to keep people hungry.
Therefore, after I took office and became familiar with the details of the county, I began to clear roads, build canals, and recruit the best of the immigrants to help with the work on a work-for-relief basis.
This will not only provide a large number of sufficient manpower to help local construction and recovery, but also solve the livelihood problems of these immigrants.
Here in Qingshui County, the Yi people have previously cultivated a lot of fields. These are mature fields. With a little care, you can get a lot of harvest.
In recent years of war, many barbarians have died, leaving many fields vacant. The king conquered this area and captured a lot of it. Only a small part of these fields were allocated, which could provide 30 acres for each of the two hundred immigrant families.
As long as they survive the New Year period, until the spring of next year, these immigrants can cultivate fields and sow rice, and there will be a harvest until June.
In this way, these immigrants will be able to overcome the difficulties.
With these hopes, although many immigrants are afraid of being in a barbarian land, Master Wang still has a lot of protection here. Moreover, there are barbarians around and there are many smoke barriers, making it even more dangerous to leave here.
Despite all the concerns, there was no escape.
As for the local Yi people, it is not yet clear how many there are because there are no villages or towns outside the city and village mayors have been appointed.
The county has not yet recruited county soldiers or small officials, and it is temporarily unable to control the barbarian settlements outside the city.
Therefore, I have not yet figured out how many barbarians there are outside the city. I need to stay and slowly investigate and sort them out in the future.
However, the Yi people in the city have been cleared out this month.
There are about 300 barbarian households in the city, with a population of 972. Most of them were women, old and weak, and there were very few adult men left. They were all recruited by the king to serve in the front line.
Because there are not many adult men, these Yi people are very honest. With Master Wang around, everyone was very afraid and couldn't afford to cause trouble.
And like those immigrants, they have experienced several years of war, and their families are impoverished, even lacking food rations.
Many people don’t have enough food in their homes to survive this winter.
Now I have recruited the healthy women and old people of the Yi people in the city, and also used the work-for-relief method, asking them to help with some work in exchange for life-saving food.
However, these methods can only solve temporary difficulties.
Without adult men, these barbarian women and children will not be able to grow much food even if they start farming after spring.
One year's harvest is enough to support oneself. If taxes were imposed, it would basically be impossible to survive.
Therefore, I beg you to ask your Majesty to temporarily pardon these barbarian women and children, and not to tax them in the next few years, otherwise they will really be driven to death. "
When Zhao Xianzhi said this, he couldn't help but kneel down and ask for Lu Yuan's orders.
Lu Yuan looked at the county magistrate kneeling in front of him and couldn't help but fall into deep thought.
This person is indeed an official. He has only been in office for less than two months and has already thoroughly investigated the Qingshui County he wants to govern and has done a lot of things.
Let this person come here to be the county magistrate, and the staff department has made good arrangements.
I believe that with this person here, Qingshui County will be able to achieve great governance within a few years.
However, the problems Zhao Xianzhi raised in his report just now are indeed serious and need to be solved urgently.
The old, weak, women and children of the barbarians are currently struggling to make a living, and it is indeed difficult to continue to force them.
Otherwise, if these people are forced to death, there will be no one left in the place.
Lu Yuan has conquered so much territory in Southwest Yi. It would be unrealistic to rely solely on immigrants to settle these areas.
How many immigrants are there?
There were only over 200,000 fugitives from the Soviet Union gathered previously. All these people moved here, but they couldn't fill this huge land.
Therefore, the best way for the southwestern barbarians here to quickly digest this territory is to immigrate on a small scale while assimilating and absorbing the local barbarians.
After thinking for a while, Lu Yuan said: "I am correct about what you mentioned. Not only the taxes of the barbarians in Qingshui County, but also in all the newly established prefectures and counties in the southwestern barbarian region, the barbarians are the same as the immigrants. Three years of tax exemption.
As for the old and weak women and children of the barbarians, I have asked the Ministry of Household Affairs to recruit single men from all over the country and move them here. At the same time, the Ministry of War has also begun to recruit prefecture and county soldiers in the mainland, and they will be transferred soon.
At that time, your local government offices will cooperate with the Ministry of Household Affairs and the Ministry of War to find out the local barbarian women and children who have lost their husbands and men, and assign them to the single men and county soldiers recruited.
This can not only provide new homes for single men and soldiers from prefectures and counties, enrich local household registration, but also solve the livelihood of Yi women and children who have lost men, so that they can have a backbone in their families and avoid starving to death. "
When Zhao Xianzhi heard this, he was immediately overjoyed and hurriedly kowtowed and said: "Your Majesty is benevolent. With this edict from Your Majesty, the barbarians and people everywhere will have a way to survive. I don't know how many people will survive. This is just the benevolence of Your Majesty. Minister. I must obey the king's edict and personally supervise this matter so that nothing goes wrong."
"Yeah." Lu Yuan nodded slightly and said nothing more.
Recruiting wifeless men and county soldiers to come to the southwestern barbarians was Lu Yuan's original strategy to control the barbarians, and it has been being implemented.
Domestically, these two personnel are already being recruited, but because the work has just begun, the progress is a bit slow.
According to the work progress submitted by the Ministry of War and the Ministry of Household Affairs, 5,000 prefecture and county soldiers have been recruited, as well as 2,000 single men.
The two items combined are only 7,000 people. To be honest, this number is very small.
What can these people do?
If it reaches the sky, it can only digest 7,000 households of barbarian women and children, or 20,000 to 30,000 people.
Compared with the dozens and nearly millions of Yi people in various places today, it is just a fraction and not worth mentioning at all.
And the reason why we recruited so many people.
The reason is also very simple.
Many people immediately backed down when they heard that they were coming to Southwest Yi, even before the officials said what kind of treatment they would receive after coming here.
Nowadays, the three counties of Chu State have just experienced war, and the local population has been reduced to a certain extent. Most of the local people have fields and houses, and those who do not have can go to the city to work. In addition, Lu Yuan is doing light corvee, and his life is It was still quite comfortable.
Under such circumstances, who would want to come to this poor place where barbarians are everywhere and fighting.
Therefore, even the officials from the Ministry of War and the Ministry of Household Affairs have been praising their chests and telling the recruited soldiers and immigrants that after moving to the southwest, they will be divided into fields, houses, wives, and children, and they will even be exempted from taxes for three years.
But even with such favorable conditions, there are still not many people willing to come here.
Lu Yuan had a headache when he thought of these detailed reports from the Ministry of Household Affairs and the Ministry of War.
no way.
There was a big discrepancy between the reality and his original strategy.
The original plan of relying on garrisoning troops and relocating single men to digest the barbarian women and children, and then further digest the entire barbarian ethnic group, had problems from the most fundamental point.
No one wants to come to Southwest Yi?
'Are my days in Dachu really so good? All of them would rather squat in China than come here to try their luck at wealth. '
Thinking of this, Lu Yuan was also speechless. He didn't know whether to be angry or happy.
But whether you are angry or happy, the problem still needs to be solved.
Because just two months ago, from the end of September to the beginning of October, we saw that the situation on the front line was stabilizing one after another, Zhou Qing's breakthrough came innately, and the domestic situation was also stable.
Therefore, there is a high probability that the land acquired now can be kept and will basically not be lost later.
Lu Yuan ordered the establishment of prefectures and counties in the occupied southwest Yi area for unified management and digestion.
Today, his control area roughly includes all the former Wuman and Nongdong countries and their vassals, as well as Huichuan Kingdom and a small part of its vassals.
The total area of these areas is about 4,000 miles. Lu Yuan divided it into eight prefectures, namely Jinxi Prefecture, Qianshi Prefecture, Ashan Prefecture, Fuchuan Prefecture, Nanbo Prefecture, Shougong Prefecture, and Dongfu Prefecture. Xie Mansion, Xixie Mansion.
At the same time, Qianzhong County was established in the area of these eight prefectures.
One county and eight prefectures were established, and counting the 80 affiliated counties, more than a thousand official positions were immediately vacant.
Even though many of the prefectures and counties in the current planning only exist on paper and have not been actually established, the lack of officials still amounts to more than 500 words.
So in November of this year, just as a large number of scholars in the country had guessed, the imperial court really increased the number of people admitted to the imperial examination this year.
However, Enke's method was not used to select officials. Instead, the county examination was held in November of that year, and the number of admissions was increased to 500 in one go.
The scholars who participated in the county examination this year are very lucky.
Because the matter was rushed and no publicity was carried out in advance, only a total of more than 5,000 people from the three counties of Chu State participated in this imperial examination.
The admission ratio of one out of ten immediately allowed a large number of lucky people to pass the exam and get tickets to become officials.
From then on, you can become an official and truly become a member of the ruling class. This is where your career begins.
But they are also unfortunate.
Because basically more than 90% of the scholars admitted this year are from the southwestern barbarian lands that have just been conquered and are in the process of setting up prefectures and counties.
Troubles are rampant here, there are countless barbarians, and the war has not stopped yet. It can be said to be a first-class dangerous place.
If you come here to serve as an official, if you are not careful, you may be killed by the barbarians who appear out of nowhere. It is also possible that due to the acclimatization, the large number of malaria diseases here took away lives.
Therefore, when the official positions were arranged, a large number of new candidates who were assigned to serve as officials in the southwest were so frightened that they would rather be deprived of their honors than take up their posts after seeing their official positions.
Fortunately, there were not many of them, only about twenty people.
When these people were dismissed from office and deprived of their honors and honors, some other new candidates chose to obey the order and serve as officials in the newly established prefectures and counties, although they were unwilling to do so.
But some people are afraid, and some people are happy.
It is extremely dangerous to come to Qianzhong County to be an official, but the white land here is easy to paint.
If you have some achievements, you will be quickly noticed by the superiors, and then you will be promoted.
Therefore, for officials who aspire to higher positions, coming to a place like this will actually make their wishes easier.
Zhao Xianzhi was one of the many officials transferred to Qianzhong County who had this idea.
Now it seems that with the recognition of King Chu, he has indeed got what he wanted. Next, as long as he can do things well here, he will be very prosperous in the future.
…
After inspecting Qingshui County, Lu Yuan went to several prefectures and counties one after another to check the local situation one by one. The final result was generally satisfactory to him.
Although not all officials are as capable as Zhao Xianzhi and can handle many things in the county in an orderly manner. He also exerted his subjective initiative to help immigrants and barbarians in the county solve their livelihood problems.
But the new dynasty has a new atmosphere.
Although the officials currently selected by Dachu are somewhat lacking in ability, they are still very good-tempered.
When he came to the official position, he was able to complete the basic job requirements and handle various tasks properly according to the orders of his superiors without causing any big troubles.
It was still very effective in appeasing the local barbarians and immigrants.
As long as these officials can gradually and stably implement the policies set by Lu Yuan according to the current situation, then I believe that in less than ten years, the prefectures and counties in central Guizhou County will be generally stable.
In twenty years, most of this county will be transformed into kings, reaching the level of Jiuzhen County in the Song Dynasty.
In another forty or fifty years, this place should be almost like an inland county.
At most, there are just some rebels similar to the Five Poison Sect and Shengmiao in the past, who are nesting in the mountains and forests and constantly fighting guerrillas.
But these are just scabies diseases. Although there are occasional pains, they do not affect the overall situation and can be tolerated and controlled.
Therefore, after completing this inspection, Lu Yuan finally felt relieved and led his people back to the frontline camp.
After returning to the camp, he did not rest, but immediately asked someone to prepare an edict.
This edict was issued to Xingbu.
The general content is also very simple, which is to let the Ministry of Punishment change the criminals who have violated the law in the country, whether they are guilty of capital crimes or small and medium-sized criminals who steal and fight, to rebel against Qianzhong County in the future.
Aren’t the people in the country afraid of the poverty and danger here and unwilling to respond to the call and immigrate here?
Lu Yuan thought about it, but there was no good way to solve the perception and impression of the people in the country.
Because that's the way it is.
Compared with China, it is indeed poorer and more dangerous here.
So since he couldn't recruit voluntary people, he simply gave up this approach and switched directly to forced ones.
But instead of forcing good people, it forces criminals.
