After discussing the business of captive trading with his eldest brother, Xu Shiyang followed Xu Shisong and walked into the gate of the first tun of the Xu family together.

Essentially, most of the forts in the Jiangbei region were built in a very similar pattern - relying on thick rammed earth walls to defend against foreign enemies, and enclosing all the burghers, along with the castle owners, as well as important buildings such as warehouses and wells.

Slightly different from the fifteenth tun, the first tun is the core of the Xu family, and there is an important building in the wall: the ancestral hall.

Of course, the situation is compelling, and now the ancestral hall in Jiangbei is slightly different from Jiangnan, in addition to the effect of ancestor worship, this "luxurious" building made of blue bricks and boulders also has a strong defensive function, and also serves as the headquarters of the entire Xu family and other tasks.

Every autumn harvest, after the Tartar raid, and before the snowfall, the men of the Xu family and important guests will gather here to make a summary of the past year and make some plans for the upcoming new year.

At present, it seems that this kind of annual meeting may be a self-proclaimed heirloom of poetry and books, and the Xu family, who has experience in being officials, can always stick to it.

Xu Shiyang himself hated meetings very much in his previous life, but in this life, he felt that this kind of annual meeting was very beneficial to the future development of the family.

In fact, the largest number of people in the Jiangbei area is only about 1,000, mainly because if the population is too large, a larger scale of arable land is needed, but if the arable land is too far away from the wall of the fort, when attacked, the villagers who farm in the marginal areas will not have time to flee back to the fort.

And now in this world, attacks on villagers are too frequent.

The Tartars and the large group of displaced people are actually good to say, the former does not come every year, they have their own wars to fight in Liaodong, and every time they enter the customs, they are basically picking up the season of autumn high horse fat, and it is not particularly difficult to avoid it.

The situation of the latter is similar, the national identity of the Han people is that if they can live in peace, most people are not willing to leave their homeland to become refugees.

If they are given 1 or 2 years of peace, the displaced people actually prefer to cultivate in the already sparsely populated Central Plains rather than plundering everywhere.

The most troublesome thing is actually the bandits and robbers who can never be eliminated.

When the Great Zhou Dynasty still had authority in Qi Province, bandits in the southwestern mountainous areas of Qi Province were rampant, and Juzhou suffered greatly.

After the collapse of the Great Zhou's rule in Jiangbei, the bandits quickly grew into the biggest threat to Wubao, after being constantly replenished by exiles, routs, and ruffians.

Unless there are Tartars or large groups of displaced people crossing the border, the rest of the time is the time for the bandits to "hunt".

Anyone who was unable to quickly take refuge in the Dock Fort after receiving the warning was a prey for the bandits, and the Dock Fort lost the possibility of cultivating land too far from the wall.

Under this very real threat, if the population of Wubao in the Jiangbei area is too large, it must find a way to find a new piece of land, quickly build a new wall, and then reclaim the surrounding land.

And the new Dock Fort, because of the distance and the threat on the road, the connection with the family will become very weak, and the owner of the Dock Fort appointed by the family is almost an existence like the Earth Emperor in his own village, and he completely kills the people in the village.

This kind of person does not have much obligation to his own family, and if he is a foreigner, he has to pay a certain amount of grain and cloth to the lord of the family every year as "rent".

If it is a castle owner with the same surname, such as Xu Shiyang, he simply saves this "tax", and he can not give a penny to his family and be completely responsible for his own profits and losses.

Of course, if you encounter a big problem, don't expect your own support.

This level of feudalism was very rare in the history of China in the previous life, but it was very similar to the medieval society in Western Europe.

The advantage of this is that the smaller fortress can easily encircle itself into a hedgehog, and even if the wall is breached, the harvest is likely to be insufficient, and it is easy for the most dangerous enemy, the Tartars outside the pass, to feel that the siege is a move that outweighs the cost, and instead of wasting their strength and risking the danger of attacking the thick earthen wall, it is better to leave with the grain woman who paid tribute to the dock fort.

In this way, when you come next time, you can harvest another wave, just like you treat cows, sheep and fruit trees.

Therefore, unless the Tartars are not found in time and let them directly find an opportunity to rush into the dock fort, or the Tartars are poor and crazy and must break a few villages, otherwise, as long as the castle owner pays tribute honestly, the two sides will generally be safe.

And the disadvantage of this practice of scattering eggs in small baskets is also very obvious - never want to twist into a rope and form an independent big force.

The costly task of rooting out bandits, absorbing displaced people, opening up land, and training a strong army to fight the Tartars is out of reach.

All the dock forts could only endure the ransacking of the Tartars, large groups of outcasts, and bandits, year after year.

Xu Shiyang's fathers, the solution to this problem is to hold a meeting, the 15 dock forts under the Xu family, whether the owner of the fort is the Xu family or a person with a foreign surname, must participate in the annual meeting held in the Xu family ancestral hall.

The meeting could strengthen the Xu family's dominance in the fifteen dock forts, solve some problems that could only be solved by uniting, and coordinate the materials and manpower between the various dock forts.

Xu Shiyang felt that the reason why his family was able to have 15 dock forts and become the largest local family power in the entire Juzhou region was that in addition to the strong foundation laid at the beginning, this annual meeting system was also a great contribution.

In the Xu family, even if it is a foreign surname castle master, the speed of centrifugation is slower than that of people with their own surnames in other families, not to mention the core members of the surname Xu.

Xu Shiyang felt that the unity of his family's strength was very beneficial to his future plans and ambitions.

Of course, the more realistic advantage is that the castle master of the Xu family, even if he is not yet an adult, can quickly gain a foothold in the dock fort.

In addition, when this kind of family meeting is held, each of the castle owners attending the meeting will bring a lot of guards and laborers, which will form a small bazaar in the first tun.

Xu Shiyang can use his excess wealth here, barter, in exchange for some urgently needed supplies.

For example, this year, Xu Shiyang seized a lot of cloth from the Tartars, and the linen and cotton cloth were all left, and the dock fort could use these things, but there were still 20 silk silks, and only Xu Shiyang could afford to use it in the entire fifteen tuns at present.

But Xu Shiyang himself prefers warm cotton clothes, and these luxury goods have naturally become the best export goods in Wushitun this time.

Xu Shiyang planned to give 5 silk silks as gifts to his father's uncle's wives and concubines, and the other 15 horses were all exchanged for lead, iron, sulfur and other materials here in the first tun.

In addition, Xu Shiyang also brought hundreds of taels of silver, and he didn't plan to bring them back.