From the port to the nearest village, it is only a dozen miles at most, so no matter how bad the road conditions are, it is bearable, and you will reach the entrance of the village by bumping up.

"The Arrow Tower, the Arrow Tower has been built, so fast."

As soon as the ironclad car stopped, Li An raised his eyes and saw the two arrow towers standing at the entrance of the village, at this moment, the construction of these two arrow towers has been completed, and there are already soldiers standing guard at the top of the arrow towers.

"Li Shilang."

The soldier standing in the middle of the road in the middle of the arrow tower bent down and saluted.

"The action is fast enough, when did these two arrow towers be built?"

Ang Lee asked.

"It was done half an hour ago."

The soldier replied.

Li An nodded, stretched out his hand, and said, "Enter the village." ”

After that, he took fifty soldiers into the village, like a devil entering the village, however, Li Anjun was strict in discipline and did not do anything bad, and, through a day of familiarity and understanding, the villagers of the village are no longer so afraid of the Tang Dynasty soldiers, some bold children, and even, take the initiative to run to the side of the Tang soldiers to play, however, there is still effective fear in the eyes, and it looks very cute.

After entering the village, Li An found that the completed arrow towers were only two at the entrance of the village, and the remaining two were still under construction, and the three arrow towers in the center of the village had not yet begun construction.

The villagers are still busy, yesterday's wages have been paid on time, which makes them have greater trust in Datang, this is a good phenomenon, as long as they cultivate more, they can inquire about pirates from their mouths, and even, let them go into the mountains to help find the remnants of pirates.

"These villagers work very hard, since they are paid by the day, they can still be like this, they are really a group of simple people."

Ang Lee happily appreciated.

"Li Shilang, these are people from the countryside, they have very little knowledge, they don't know what laziness is, and they don't know what procrastination is, they are indeed good at work."

The subordinate said.

Li An said happily: "This is a good thing, the construction of the port requires a lot of labor, as long as the people in dozens of nearby villages are all willing to work, the construction of the port is relatively easy." ”

"That's, that's, the work in front of you can be done in a day or two, do you want to talk to them first, so that they can get ready to work in the port?"

The subordinate asked.

Li An shook his head and said, "This is not in a hurry, let these villagers finish the work in front of them first!" One step at a time. ”

"Yes, my subordinates understand."

This village is not far from the port, and it can be considered a coastal village, but it is effectively far from the sea, but the main food of this village is still sea fish.

After walking around the village for a long time, Li An smelled a strong smell of grilled fish and salted fish, which is enough to show that the main food in this village is fish and shellfish.

It is said that relying on the mountains to eat the mountains, relying on the sea to eat the sea, this village is so close to the sea, they naturally have to ask for the food they need.

However, they did not have boats, nor did they go to the harbor more than ten miles away, their food came from the ordinary seaside next to the harbor, and their method of obtaining sea fish was also very primitive, that is, they took huge fishing nets to fish on the seashore, and they caught as much as they wanted, as for building boats to go deeper into the sea to fish, they probably thought it was too dangerous, so they did not take this good method.

Moreover, this small village is not only not too far from the sea, but there is a forest behind it, and a certain amount of food can be obtained by hunting, plus a small amount of land can be cultivated, and some harvests can be obtained.

In short, although this small village looks poor, it can still reach the level of food and clothing, and all the people will not go hungry.

But their standard of living is limited to being able to fill their stomachs, and a more exciting and richer life is something they can't think of and can't do.

If you look at the dilapidated houses in the villages, you can guess how bad their standard of living is, the material life can barely be satisfied, and the spiritual life is completely invisible, and it would be too pitiful to say that playing with a slingshot is also a spiritual life.

Moreover, Li Ang also learned that many of the people in this village have never left the village in their lives, or have only been to places very close to the village, and the things they have seen are the things that can be seen nearby.

Such a barren living condition must be changed, and as long as the harbor more than ten miles away is greatly developed, then the living conditions of this small village will definitely be changed.

If the size of the harbour continues to expand outward, the small village will become part of the harbour city, and the villagers will become city dwellers.

The construction of the Harbour City requires a large amount of labor, and the people of all nearby villages must join in the construction, even if they are unwilling to leave the village, they can also provide raw materials for the Harbour City to support the construction of the Harbour City.

For example, the construction of the harbor must be indispensable for materials such as wood and stone, as well as sand, and the people of the nearby villages are fully capable of providing these materials that are in large demand.

And by helping to build seaports or provide supplies, they can also get a lot of income, so that their living standards can be improved to a certain extent, which can be described as a win-win situation.

Yesterday, the villagers cut down a lot of trees, and these trees are enough to build nine arrow towers, so today they did not continue to cut down trees, some went to the beach to catch fish, and some had nothing to do, wandering around the village, watching the carpenters work, and from time to time they would go to help the carpenters improve their efficiency, but because they were not working, they did not have their share when the wages were paid that night.

In this way, whether it is the person who helps or the carpenter who is helped, they all suffer a loss, but the villagers here are so simple, they will not deliberately delay time because of a loss, and they work very hard, which makes Li An very happy.

Seeing that there were many villagers in the village who had nothing to do, Li An suddenly felt that he should find something for them to do, and at the same time, it was also to increase their income.

"The construction of the port will inevitably require a lot of timber, and since there are so many timber resources here, and there are many villagers who have nothing to do, why not let them continue to cut down trees? In this way, it can also bring them additional income, improve their living standards, and help us build the seaport faster and better. ”

Ang Lee opened his mouth to give his opinion.

"What Li Shilang said is that the village is surrounded by trees, and it is indeed a good idea for them to cut down trees and sell them to us, the price has already been negotiated, and the subordinates will arrange it."

The subordinate answered, got up and went to arrange.

Since yesterday's tree cutting, Datang officials have learned about the price of various trees, which has been formed over many years, and the local villagers know it in their hearts and will not blackmail Datang officials.

As long as there is a reliable price, this business will be easy to do, no one on both sides will suffer, the villagers earn money with physical strength, Datang gives money according to the rules, and long-term cooperation continues, maybe there will be discounts.

When the Datang officials told the villagers about the purchase of a large number of trees, the villagers in the village were very happy, and many villagers who had nothing to do had already been idle for a long time, and it was naturally very happy to be able to make money from the trees everywhere.

In less than a cup of tea, dozens of villagers picked up the tree cutting tools at home and went to cut down trees together, because cutting trees is not a one-person job, and they must work together to cut down more trees at a faster speed.

Because there will be a conflict of interest in the division of labor and cooperation, when they are together, they are basically blood relatives, for example, two brothers, each with their two own sons, so that six people form a tree cutting group, because they are blood relatives, so there will not be too much care, and there will be no unnecessary contradictions in the process of tree cutting, so as to ensure the highest efficiency of tree cutting.

The price of different sizes and types of trees is different, so the villagers who cut down the trees naturally want to cut down the thickest and best varieties of trees, and the smaller and poorer trees will be the last to consider, so as to get the most benefits per unit of time.

Fortunately, there are all kinds of trees around the village, so they don't have to fight, and different small groups will consciously separate and go to different places to cut down trees.

Among them, each tree-cutting group will bring its own flat cart that can be used to transport timber when it sets out, so that the felled trees can be transported back to the village in time and sold to Datang at the specified price.

This time, Li An did not follow the tree-cutting team into the nearby mountain forest, but more than half of the bear children in the village followed, and only a small number of bear children remained in the village.

Li An stayed in the village and was not idle, but visited the villagers door to door, first expressing that he was a high-ranking official of the Tang Dynasty and was here to help the villagers, and then sent some condolences to the children at home to show his sincerity.

The so-called condolences are just some sweet fruits, which are worthless snacks, and they are also the children's favorite food, with little investment, but the effect is good.

When the later generations of Japanese invaders entered the Central Plains, they also adopted a candy strategy, giving some candy to the children of China so that these children could like them, so as to achieve their goal of occupation and enslavement, of course, in the end, it was a ruthless failure.

The Tang Dynasty represented by Li An will definitely not fail, and Li An will never have any worries about this, but what should be done still has to be done, it should be better for the people, it must be better, and many forms must be done, so that the local people can identify with the Tang Dynasty earlier.

The children in the village have never seen candy before, and they don't know how to eat it, so whenever this happens, Ang Lee will personally demonstrate, or directly peel off a candy and stuff it into a child's mouth, as long as the mouth is sweet, the child will laugh, so that other children will know that this thing can be eaten, and they also know how to eat it.

The purpose of giving small gifts is to connect with sensibility, and there is a more important purpose to enter the homes of villagers, that is, to see more about what there are in the villagers' homes, how much food is stored, what is eaten, what is the hygienic condition, etc.

Only by entering the household can we better understand the living conditions of the local people, so that Li An can grasp the overall situation of the local area.

Li An entered a total of six people's homes, and through some understanding, he had a relatively deep understanding of the general situation of the people in the village, from which he could also infer the general situation of the other nearby villages.

After all, the natural conditions of these villages are similar, and the distance is not too far, and the situation of one village can fully represent the characteristics of the rest of the villages.

"Li Shilang, this village is even poorer than the poorest village in Datang, which is a good thing for us to build a port."

When his subordinates enter the villager's house, he finds that the villager is even poorer than he thought.

Li An understood what his subordinates meant, the poorer the people, the more capable they are, because they are poor, they are willing to spend a lot of effort and things to do coolies, if they live a rich life, no one is willing to do coolies, because it is too hard, too unbearable.

When they walked out of the sixth villager's house, the first batch of timber had already been shipped, and Datang officials were measuring the thickness of the timber, identifying the variety, and paying at a reasonable price, so that the villagers would not suffer or pay too much money.

After selling the first batch of timber, the villagers all smiled with satisfaction, and they first returned home, presumably hiding the money, and then, pushing the cart, continued to cut wood in the nearby forest, the more they fell, the more money they could get.

The carpenter villagers who are responsible for building the arrow tower are a little eager to try, they find that the income from logging is higher than that of them building the arrow tower, after all, their work is dead, and there is no limit to the number of logging, the more you cut, the more money you make, as long as you keep logging, the income of a day is at least twice as much as building the arrow tower.

These carpenters also want to go to logging, since they can build arrow towers, they will naturally also cut wood, however, the work in their hands has not been done, if they throw away the work in their hands and go directly to logging, it will definitely not work, because they have already said that they will help the Tang Dynasty soldiers to complete the construction of the nine arrow towers, as long as the nine arrow towers are not built, they can't do anything else, otherwise, they are not trustworthy, for pure and simple villagers, they will not do things that are not trustworthy, and, The Datang soldiers and horses are so strong, they don't dare to do this, in case they annoy the Datang soldiers, they will be in big trouble.

However, the greedy carpenters really wanted to cut the wood in order to make more money, so they worked harder, hoping to finish all the towers sooner.