Like his companions in the Red Chamber, Governor Hou is facing a major bottleneck: a labor shortage.

Of course, the conditions here are better than at home, after all, Dili Port is full of people.

Now, there are probably only three categories of people that Hou can hire: Han Chinese, Japanese ronin, and a small number of natives.

For the first two, as an outsider, Hou Xianglin knows that Australia has a natural affinity with them, after all, everyone is a group of people who have left their hometowns to make a living in a strange environment, and they have basically the same circumstances and demands.

However, Hou Xianglin also knew that Pimont's attitude towards the Chinese was basically the same as that of the Dutch, but the current problem faced by the governor of Dili was a bit special, these Chinese and Japanese ronin all participated in the battle to recover Dili, and they all gained a lot of land and wealth in Dili, especially the Ming military households.

After most Chinese acquired the land, they immediately put all their body and mind into the land, to be honest, if it weren't for their own high salary, even the twenty or so Ming military households would not follow them.

Because Hou Xianglin offered a price that allowed these mercenaries to raise an indigenous slave or hire an indigenous person to work on their own land, there was still a surplus of silver.

And Pimont is now very short of silver, and now most of his army is Portuguese or Portuguese half-blood, obviously he is trying his best to maintain this army, so he seems to be less willing to spend the silver on those former Ming military households and former Japanese ronin, which is also understandable, after all, there is a word called "not my race", although this group of people can not talk about "their hearts must be different", but people have distant relatives, and it is also human nature.

Therefore, the Australians naturally have an affinity for the Ming military households, and if you add enough silver to the money, then this affinity will be even stronger.

Hou Xianglin believes that all kinds of factors are superimposed, and Pimont should transfer the Ming military household and the Japanese ronin in his hands to him.

Hou Xianglin gave the Japanese ronin the same treatment as the Chinese, because they did the same work as those Ming military households, and the quality of the work was not bad, after all, equal pay for equal work was a natural concept in Hou Xianglin's mind, but in this world, equal pay for equal work is not a natural thing in the concept of the world, and it must be corrected with the bargaining chips of the identity to be called natural, and because of this, Governor Hou has gained the loyalty of this group of Japanese ronin, and this loyalty even lasts to the next generation.

In addition, Hou Xianglin also had to turn his attention to the nearby indigenous tribes, near the free trade zone, there are some pro-Portuguese or not hateful Portuguese indigenous tribes, this is Hou Xianglin has always been concerned about the population, many years of construction site foreman professional experience told him that as long as the organization is good, the management measures taken are to their liking, whether it is lazy or diligent, whether it is a man or a woman, can find a suitable job for these people on the construction site.

Perhaps, it was difficult to recruit troops from these people, but he was very keen to recruit labor from these people, and it was clear that it was much cheaper to use as ordinary labor than other ethnic groups.

Therefore, a long time ago, he entrusted the Duchess and Pimont to help him recruit the local natives, and the wages offered were enough to impress some people who had no food and clothing to come to him, but the work has not made much progress at present, mainly because the natives have a natural wariness of outsiders, and it will take a process to make the surrounding natives fully trust him as an outsider.

That morning, Pimont received Hou Xianglin in his luxurious palace, which had been rather shabby, but the former king of Toolne, who had been in Dili, had completely renovated the mansion with a great deal of construction during his reign in Dili, except that the outer shell of the building had not been moved, and the inner chamber had become two worlds and two worlds with the past.

So Pimont, after taking over the Doge's Palace, naturally took it all for himself.

Soon, the two governors began to talk in chairs carved with fine sandalwood and tortoiseshell marques, across a hard mahogany table decorated with ivory and gold thread.

"Dear Hou, I just followed your suggestion to renovate the ventilation system and toilets in this building, and that Orne is a hillbilly ......"

Pimont spoke to Hou Xianglin in jerky Nanking Mandarin, and then waved his hand, and a black servant brought two small porcelain bowls to the two with a silver plate, and in them were some cloudy liquid.

This is a "tea" made by the locals with spices, tea leaves, sugar and salt, I don't know why, Pimont likes this drink very much, no, in fact, the whole city of Dili likes to drink this drink, although it is something to entertain distinguished guests, but Hou Xianglin is not used to drinking it at all.

However, Hou Xianglin still has to abide by the principle of following the local customs, he frowned and sighed, and said to Pimont straight to the point:

"Brother Pi, my side is in ruins, I need to build a deep-water dock that can dock the Nicole, I need to recruit some qualified laborers, can your Chinese and Japanese subordinates be transferred to me?"

"Is it a dock where the Nicole can dock?"

Pimont suddenly realized that this was really a problem, obviously this wharf was related to the business of Diao Mining, and no matter how much coal and iron ore he mined on land, wouldn't it be in vain if he couldn't transport it?

And he knew the situation in the port of Dili, where it was difficult to dock the Pride, let alone the Nicole, which was like a hill.

"This ...... Dear Hou, I just raised their military salaries......"

"The problem is that there are only a dozen people who are still willing to renew their employment contracts with you in the coming year, right? Unless you are like me, and give each man two taels of silver a month. ”

Hou Xianglin is not polite, he actually likes to talk like this straightforwardly, the key is that the other party also likes this, after all, in the final analysis, the two are young people in their twenties, otherwise, the two would not become friends.

"Maybe I'll have money next year......

Pimont muttered.

"The size of the business depends first on the input of labor, and the second is on the transportation conditions, and it is impossible for the Han and Japanese under your command to go to the jungle to mine for you, you can only rely on the local aborigines to do this kind of work.

So you can only keep this group of mercenaries for nothing in most cases, or give it to me, although I give me a high salary, but they can do a lot of work and are important, these people can create wealth in my place, and in you can only consume your silver, to be honest, save this silver, you can recruit more than twice as many people as mercenaries for you, I'm not wrong, Brother Pi? ”

"It seems like that......"

Just a few days after this conversation, Hou Xianglin received 230 Chinese mercenaries and 210 Japanese ronins in front of his "governor's palace", the humble row of stilted wooden houses, plus the Ming military households and Japanese ronins he had obtained a while ago, his subordinates suddenly expanded to 392 people.

With nearly eight hundred taels of silver a month for labor, plus food and other expenses, the new security tax district now costs almost one thousand five hundred taels of silver a month, not counting other construction projects that are not currently on the agenda of the General Assembly, as well as the Governor's own salary.

In addition, there is another account for various infrastructure materials invested in the early stage.

However, a considerable part of this general ledger will be counted on the head of the future Diao Mining or Aotuo Mining, according to the requirements of the "Northbound Fund", this expenditure will be transferred in the form of taxes in the future, so as to finally balance the financial statements of Xia Da Meinu (Cao Limei: Sister Xia, little sister, I have a lot of pressure...... ）。

So these people, under the leadership of Hou Xianglin, began various constructions in the free trade zone, just a week after the Nicole and Pride left Timor Island......