"Thousands of households, the two of us have traveled all over Dengzhou, Laizhou, Huangxian, and Zhaoyuan in the past few days, and have found a total of 1,260 qualified homeless soldiers and more than 2,300 family members, and finally completed the task of the thousands of households! Damn, now that there are so many soldiers, the strength of our army will be greatly enhanced. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info" In the cold weather, Tian Wei's face was full of dust, but a layer of fine sweat appeared, and his words revealed obvious joy and pride.

"My lord, this land of Shandong is different from when we were in Jinzhou. There is no fixed place for the homeless people here, sometimes you can meet hundreds of homeless people in one place, and sometimes it is difficult to find a person for half a day, it is really not easy to find. I've been looking for these days before I have to find all these homeless people. In addition, the weather is extremely cold now, and most of these displaced people, the elderly and the weak, have died of cold and starvation, so the number is relatively small. Wang Yishou also smiled and added on the side.

Li Xiao smiled, patted the two of them on the shoulder, and said, "The two of you have worked hard, and take these homeless people down to rest and eat, let them rest for two days and recover some strength, and then we will discuss the future plan together." ”

The two took the order and left. Li Xiao thought to himself, fortunately, he had built hundreds of straw houses, but he could arrange for these homeless people to live in a few households, so that they could all settle down.

The day after the displaced people settled, Chen Monkey and Hou Dao, who went to Laizhou, Dengzhou and other places to sell fur ginseng Dongzhu and other goods, also returned in the No. 2 lucky boat.

"My lord, in the past few days, I have gone to Dengzhou and Laizhou, and I have sold all the goods on the ship, and I have sold a total of 127,000 taels of silver!" Chen Monkey looked happy, and respectfully handed over a bill in his hand, asking Li Xiao to look at it.

Li Xiao read the bill, and estimated it in his heart, but it was almost the same amount, so he praised the two of them a few words, and then arranged for Wu Liang and others to put the gold and silver obtained from these sales into the warehouse.

After the money was put into the treasury, Wu Liang quietly reported to Li Xiao the amount of gold and silver accumulated in the treasury, according to preliminary statistics, a total of 14,000 taels of gold and 260,000 taels of silver.

When Li Xiao heard this, he was extremely happy in his heart.

Now Li Xiao's whole army, with this huge amount of money, will finally no longer be as constrained in money as he was in Jinzhou.

It's just that Li Xiao still plans to go step by step, after all, now he has no financial resources except for this money, and careful planning is the right thing to do.

In the evening of the same day, Li Xiao summoned Wu Liang, Tian Wei, Wang Yishou, Mo Changrong, Chen Monkey, Duan Shidi, and Zhao Jie to discuss Li Xiaojun's army expansion plan.

Entering the core circle of Li Xiaojun, Zhao Jie, the chief of firearms, was very excited in his heart, and secretly vowed to do the best of what Li Xiao had confessed.

In the end, everyone agreed that Li Xiaojun's plan was as follows:

First of all, priority is given to supplementing the cavalry, Li Xiaojun after the last coastal battle, originally had 48 cavalry, and then accepted 12 cavalry of the garrison Wang Daoqi, with a total of 60 cavalry, Li Xiao decided to use the existing more than 70 vacant war horses, from the 1260 people of the rogue soldiers, add 70 people who know how to ride into it, and expand the entire cavalry team to 130 people, of which the heavy armor Xuanhu cavalry expanded to 70 people, and the light cavalry flying harrier expanded to 60 people.

Next, to expand the infantry, Li Xiao planned, from now on, among the spear and shield soldiers, the smallest unit is A, with two chief and deputy armor commanders, including the main and deputy armor chiefs, and the number of each armor is 20 people.

Each of the top five is a team, plus the captain and vice captain, and the number of people in each team is 122.

Li Xiao decided to form a total of 3 teams of shield soldiers and 6 teams of spearmen. The total number of spear and shield soldiers is 78, so it is necessary to add another 1,020 men. The newly formed troops, such as the captain and deputy captain and the first captain, are all selected from the original spear and shield soldiers, and then the existing spear and shield soldiers are dismantled into each team, and the whole team can master the combat skills and battle essentials faster through the way of veterans leading new soldiers.

Li Xiao then arranged for these three teams of shield soldiers to be combined into one outpost. The shield sentry chief is Mo Changrong, and the deputy sentry chief is Bao Zhao, the former deputy captain of the shield guard.

The 6 teams of spearmen are also combined into one sentry, the spearman sentry chief is Duan Shidi, and the deputy sentry chief is Jiang Zun, the former captain of Team B.

After the infantry was arranged, next, Li Xiao picked out another 150 people to supplement the firearms unit, and Zhao Jie, the chief of firearms, made specific arrangements.

As a result, only 20 of the 1,260 outcasts have not yet been arranged.

Li Xiao finally decided that because the total population of the fort has increased greatly, in order to strengthen management, these 20 people will be listed as auxiliary soldiers, and they will patrol the fort to maintain law and order in peacetime.

As for the sailor, Li Xiao didn't have any specific plans for the time being, so the Fu boat temporarily anchored in Longkou Bay. It's just that he demanded that dozens of sailors on the whole ship, all go ashore, and like those recruits, be led by the chief Chen Monkey and the deputy chief Hou Dao, and receive the most basic military training.

After all the soldiers were arranged, everyone felt relaxed and full of hope for the future.

Only Wu Liang proposed that now that the expansion of so many troops is a big problem with the armor and weapons to be supplemented.

Li Xiao also thought of this.

Because the current blacksmith Zhang Tongzhu and a few blacksmiths had just set up a blacksmith shop in the grass shed, Li Xiao couldn't expect them to quickly produce many armors and weapons. Therefore, he decided to let Wu Liang and Wang Yishou go to the blacksmith shops in various places in Denglai during this time to order necessary military items such as horse armor, spears, shields, riding knives, and riding spears.

As for the armor worn by the soldiers themselves, after the remaining two dozen pairs of armor in the warehouse are exhausted, they will not be replenished for the time being, and it is important to give priority to the craftsmen to make weapons.

The military discussion dispersed late at night, and Li Xiao could clearly feel that after the military discussion arranged for the expansion of the army, everyone looked at themselves with a look full of respect.

In the following days, the soldiers were led by various generals to clear large blocks of flat land in the field, and then trained in different branches of the army.

Thousands of craftsmen and family members are digging the foundation and putting bluestone in the hot atmosphere, everyone is enthusiastic, hoes and pickaxes are flying, and there is a lot of noise and dust everywhere.

High-intensity work requires a lot of physical strength, which requires eating more meat to supplement consumption, otherwise the body will not be able to support it, and it is easy to urinate blood.

Li Xiao now has financial support, and he ordered that all craftsmen and their families, like the soldiers, ensure that each person has enough meat for each meal, so as to make every craftsman and family member have enough physical strength to do things as much as possible. Even the medical hall that Chen Mazi is hastily erecting now has boiled a lot of warm-up soup and health soup and sent it to the construction site, so that the people who built the fort are more motivated.

The construction team of nearly 2,500 people was willing to work hard, so the progress of the construction was greatly accelerated, and in just one week, the foundation of the entire castle of Chifeng Fort had been dug and paved with large strips of bluestone.

Next, the inner city wall was built using the loess excavated during the excavation of the foundation, as well as the loess excavated from the field, and rammed earth.

In the process of ramming, digging soil, mud, debilitating, and drying also require a large number of manpower.

Under Chang Dali's arrangement, a large number of men and healthy women carrying dustpans and baskets carried soil and mud back and forth along the fort wall, while the old men and women sifted the sand and mixed the mud, and the craftsmen were scattering ash to set the line and ramming the fort wall, and the scene was busy and in full swing.

"Lord Li, according to the Ming military system, the standard for ramming earth walls is to be fifteen steps away, and arrows cannot enter. However, in order to meet this standard, it is necessary to mix the yellow clay with slurry before it can be used. ”

Chang Dali's words made Li Xiao stunned.

"What, slurry?"

Seeing that Li Xiao was stunned, Chang Dali hurriedly explained that now in the Ming Dynasty, when the city wall was built, it was built with loess pulp, river sand, marl, and glutinous rice pulp mixed into a certain proportion to make mixed soil to build the city. If you are more particular, you also need to pour child urine and dog urine in the position of eight yang and eight yin. The people of the Ming Dynasty believed that after doing so, they could seek good fortune and avoid evil, and reconcile yin and yang, so as to make the city solid for a long time and peaceful and peaceful.

Li Xiao suddenly remembered that he had read Wang Xiaobo's book in his previous life, which seemed to be "Wanshou Temple", which also wrote that in the big city or imperial palace building of the Tang Dynasty, craftsmen rammed the fortress wall, in addition to adding a large amount of glutinous rice juice, and even added a large amount of brown sugar, egg whites, red beans, boy feces and urine and other substances to make adhesives, which cost countless money, and it was also thanks to the Tang Dynasty emperor who was rich that he was willing to spend so much.

Li Xiao sighed in his heart, this ancient building is really a mixture of essence and dross, which has opened the eyes of future generations.

Now Chang Dali's request, loess and river sand, thinking of using a large amount of glutinous rice, Li Xiao couldn't help but feel heartache. Glutinous rice is much more expensive than ordinary rice, and the whole fort staff are reluctant to eat it, but they didn't expect it to be built into the castle wall.

Li Xiao secretly thought, this is also the helplessness of the ancients, after all, they can't make cement, of course, it is impossible to make concrete commonly used in modern society, this kind of practice, although it costs a lot of money, but the building effect is still good, strength and hardness are almost the same as later generations.

Li Xiao had no choice, he didn't study Portland engineering in his previous life, of course he couldn't make cement, so he could only put forward ideas in the future and let the craftsmen explore and develop it themselves.

Li Xiao finally agreed to Chang Dali's request, but emphasized one point to him, he must ensure the quality and ensure that the city wall he repairs is strong and durable.

Chang Dali patted his chest and assured Li Xiao.

At the same time, Chang Dali arranged to purchase a large number of green bricks from Huangxian, Dengzhou, Laizhou and other places, and at least more than 500,000 pieces of bricks should be transported to ensure that they were used in the construction of the city.

These days, as Li Xiao's entire army built Chifeng Fort here, his fame began to spread widely. A week after ramming earth to build the wall, a merchant came and offered to build a shop and open a storefront in Chifeng Fort.

Li Xiao readily agreed to their request.

However, before these merchants could rejoice, Li Xiao proposed that they could only build shops on both sides of the official road half a mile outside the fort, and hire their own craftsmen at their own expense. At the same time, he also had to take his household sticker to Wu Liang and others in Chifengbao to apply for a guarantee for the opening of the city, and only after the registration was approved did he obtain the right to live and open a store outside the fort. In addition, a certain amount of tax must be paid in the future before it is allowed to set up shops outside the city and engage in commercial sales and other business operations.

The merchants were quite unhappy that they could not open a shop in the fort and had to pay taxes, so after some discussion, they pooled money together to give gifts to Li Xiao, hoping that the officials of the thousand households could be accommodating and let them build shops in the fort and reduce or exempt commercial taxes.

Li Xiao rejected them in one bite.

Then, Li Xiaoyi said to them solemnly: "Everyone, you are willing to come to my Chifeng Fort to open a shop, Li is welcome." It's just that this official doesn't know all of you, and my Chifeng Fort is also newly built, so in order to ensure safety and strictly prevent thieves, I have to make this decision. After you have been operating outside the fort for a few months to half a year, and you are found to be legitimate and decent businessmen, the official will issue you a license, and then you can enter my Chifeng Fort to open a shop. ”

For businessmen in the late Ming Dynasty, Li Xiao has always been wary. Historically, many merchants in the towns of the nine borders, in fact, are the fine work of the Houjin army, even if it is not a fine work, but also often report to them, provide intelligence, Liaodong Tieling, Kaiyuan, Fushun, Guangning and other places fell, it is because of these bastards who are clearly businessmen and secretly work for the fine, and the Houjin should cooperate with the outside to deceive the city gate, so that these Daming cities that could have been strong and long-term fell instantly.

The businessmen exchanged their heads for a while, and although their faces were unhappy, they still reluctantly agreed with Li Xiao's point of view.

A merchant suddenly asked, "I heard that Lord Li plans to collect taxes on shops, but I don't know how much the tax is set by my lord?" ”

"For the first month of opening the store, it is tax-free, and for the second three months, one-tenth of the monthly sales are taxed every month. After three months, the tax was one-eighth of the sales of each store, and since then it has been the law forever, and no tax will be raised. Li Xiao replied with a smile.

"Your Excellency!" After Li Xiaofang finished speaking, the businessman shouted in a trembling voice: "You have to register with the guarantee of the household sticker, there is no work to say about the small one, but this commercial tax is really heavy, and in the entire Ming Dynasty, I am afraid that there is no place to collect such a heavy commercial tax!" ”

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