On September 15, 1681, in Shangyu County, it was drizzling.

"A war of aggression is a costly adventure. The invaders had to bear the costs that came with it, such as the cost of sending troops, the money and food needed to maintain the military occupation and the costs of running the new Government. The vast majority of these costs can only be plundered from the occupied territories, and nothing else. The wounds and losses suffered by the war in the occupied territories, such as the loss of wealth and population, the destruction of infrastructure, the decline in productive capacity, etc., cannot be recovered in the short term. In the renovated military management bureau in the county, Lieutenant Colonel Sun Wu, director of military management, smoked a cigarette and said to Min Honggui, who was sitting opposite him: "Shangyu County lost a lot of population during the war, and experienced a period of chaos after the war (Liu Fubo, a naval officer in charge at that time, had no interest in running the local area), it only took you more than half a year to restore the county's economy to this extent, to be honest, I am surprised, and I am even more gratified." ”

Strictly speaking, like Liu Fubo, the first director of military management, Lieutenant Colonel Sun Wu is actually not a member of the Southern Pioneer Team, let alone Ma Wenqiang, the captain of the Pioneer Team. Lieutenant Colonel Sun Wu, who is in charge of the intelligence work of the entire Far Eastern Domain, has a relatively detached status, although his rank is half a level lower than Ma Wenqiang and others, but his power and responsibility are very heavy.

Of course, since he agreed to do the job of the military director, Lieutenant Colonel Sun Wu planned to do it well, not like his predecessor, the absent-minded naval director Liu Fubo. In the work plan he drew up, the first task of the military administration was not to restore production, but to establish a new order that was more familiar to the people on the east coast. Obviously, the process of establishing this new order will require the help of a large number of East Coast troops, otherwise how can it cope with the resistance and non-cooperation of the locals?

These expatriate troops, including the army and navy, totaled more than 20,000 people, and the daily training, preparation, patrolling, and fighting (exterminating the bandits scattered all over the country) required was not a small amount, and it had all relied on the support of Shangyu and Yuyao counties for a year, but it was a large number for the localities, not to mention that there were still some large-scale construction projects in the localities. I believe that if it weren't for the good foundation of Shaoxing Mansion, the situation stabilized quickly, and the people under the bottom were more effective in collecting taxes, they would not have been able to support it.

Under his leadership, he has done an excellent job of collecting money and grain in Shangyu County and Yuyao County (Linshanwei is really negligible, and a large number of cadres have been dispatched to Ningbo to take over the two places, that is, they are nominally under the jurisdiction of their military administrative region, but in fact have little to do with the Military Management Administration) for the excellent work of collecting money and grain in Shangyu County and Yuyao County (Linshanwei is really negligible, and Shengxian County and Xinchang have already been taken over by Ningbo, that is, nominally under the jurisdiction of their military administrative region, but in fact has little to do with the Military Management Administration).

"But Shangyu County suffered too many losses in the previous war, not counting the soldiers and horses of the Manchu Qing Green Battalion, the people lost 30,000 or 40,000 people, some of whom were captured by us, and some were killed and wounded in the siege, of course, they also died of hunger, disease and looting, in short, it was very miserable." Lieutenant Colonel Sun Wu added: "The peasants lost their livestock, the landlords lost their funds, and many handicraftsmen were forcibly relocated by the Ningbo authorities, especially the weavers, which, alas, further destroyed the local economic base." Even some of the most productive workshops or self-employed people have had to close their operations due to a lack of raw materials and reliable transport systems. It's really not easy for you to maintain this mess, yes, Deputy Director Min, yes. ”

"Director Sun is overrated, I just did what I had to do, and the help of my peers is also very important." Min Honggui said with a smile: "But just like what you just said, Director Sun, Shangyu County has lost too much blood and urgently needs to replenish blood. At present, the reason why we have collected so much money and grain is that the county has a good foundation, even if it has experienced war, but there are so many taels of oil in the looting and looting; After all, it has been less than a year since the end of the war, and people's forgetfulness is not so great, and under the urging of the East Coast army, even if they are unwilling, they have to gather the money and food that should be paid. ”

"However, this is actually an overdraft of the future of Shangyu County, not a long-term solution." Min Honggui continued: "If we fail to recover the economy as soon as possible and recover from the wounds of the war, our military government will have nothing to rely on and no ability to survive. This, in turn, can make it impossible for governments to pay the necessary economic inputs to circumvent the vicious cycle of fiscal paralysis. To put it simply, if there are no crops in the fields, then there is no way for the government to pay for food, and this must be observed. ”

"But if the government can't afford to pay for the garrison, the local militia and the police, then even if the crops in the fields are good, everything will be in vain." Lieutenant Colonel Sun Wu lit a cigarette and added: "After all, we are a military region, and we are the politics of the First Army, so we should still pay more attention to the army." Of course, there is a degree to this, and we should have a good grasp of how to carry out local economic construction while maintaining the garrison and the cost of construction. ”

In fact, although Lieutenant Colonel Sun Wu is a soldier, it is not that he has not invested any energy in people's livelihood after taking office. At least, at the beginning, he also asked Ningbo to return part of the population of Sili and Eight Townships in Shangyu County, which had been taken captive, to resolve local hatred in order to advance the work, but the Southern Pioneer Government simply refused. And this was not allowed, and soon he retreated to the next best thing, asking Ningbo to repatriate at least some handicraftsmen to assist the economic construction of Shangyu and Yuyao counties, but was also rejected by Ma Wenqiang of Yin County, on the grounds that the industrial development there was relatively rapid and the talent gap was relatively large, so he did not return it for the time being, and at the same time let Sun Wu carry forward the "spirit of hard work", so that he had an urge to be angry and scold.

Eventually, Lieutenant Colonel Sun Wu wrote a harshly worded letter to Ma Wenqiang in Yinxian County, threatening to resign and not do anything, and from there he brought in about dozens of elite cadres to help carry out the work. These people are basically people trained by Yantai University and Heishui Transportation College (there have been fewer and fewer cadres in the Far East in recent years, and the reason is that the local area is not enough), and most of them are related to the local people's livelihood and economy, so they were soon assigned to various key jobs and presided over various tasks.

But considering that the people on the east coast have established a modern government, and there is a great demand for all kinds of management or technocratic bureaucrats, these dozens of people are really a bit of a pepper feeling, and they are not enough at all! And after learning that the Ningbo side had put more energy into Shengxian and Xinchang, which they considered to be "familiar land" and communicated with the Lu Wang's regime in the south, he decisively put out the idea of continuing to dignitale people from Ningbo, and instead promoted more talents locally.

"You can't ignore the issue of cadres, and now the work of the military administrative region has gradually been put on the right track. The selection and appointment of this talent can no longer be as casual as before. Loyalty to our eastern republic is of course important, but now even the Qing court has pulled down its subordinates to talk to us, and our military administration has passed the most dangerous stage, and it can be said that it has gained a firm foothold. Therefore, at such a stage, the ability, integrity, and conduct of cadres must also be gradually raised to a level on a par with loyalty, and all kinds of speculators can no longer be appointed, as was the case in the past. After all, we can't be an occupation force with no future for a lifetime, and we have to gradually change our role as rulers and parents, which requires us to change the way we work. Lieutenant Colonel Sun Wu smoked a cosmic brand cigarette from the mainland, and at the same time pointed out to Min Honggui the next stage of work, only to hear him say: "Of course, this matter is not urgent, the existence of the stability maintenance committee is still necessary for the time being, but it must be restricted." I have heard that some people rely on our prestige to pretend to be a tiger in the county, and they bully and dominate the market, and this kind of behavior must be prohibited. On the side of the stability maintenance committee, Deputy Director Min, you take the time to give me 'guidance' on the work, and beat the people who have gone too far, and if they still don't listen, then report it to me, and I will let the military police deal with it." ”

"Some people don't cherish the most important opportunity in their lives that we give them, and if they do anything wrong, then they can only take it. You keep an eye on this and write me a special report next month. Lieutenant Colonel Sun Wu finally said.

When Min Honggui heard that he promised that he should be, he said that he would do it beautifully, and then at the suggestion of Sun Wu, he left his director's office (formerly the Houya of Shangyu County) and walked outside. When he passed by the original detention room, he saw several young cadres from Ningbo talking with some men with pigtails on the back of their heads, and from time to time they took notes, looking quite busy.

Yes, this is to confirm some details of the peace with the Qing State, and Min Honggui quickly remembered this section.

It is said that since the East Coast Army under the command of Colonel Joinio withdrew its troops from Xiaoshan, Accounting, Shanyin and other counties, and the East and Qing Dynasty tacitly agreed to take the Cao'e River as the new border, Xu was afraid of the endless invasion of the people on the east coast, and after a long time of friction, the Hangzhou battalion of the Qing State finally sent an envoy to ask for peace with the East Coast side, so that "the two countries will be in harmony forever" and the people will no longer suffer from "the suffering of war."

This is a nice remark, but in essence, it cannot hide the weak nature of the Qing side under the repeated attacks of the people on the east coast. In other words, once the people on the east coast gathered a relatively elite tens of thousands of horses and horses, and at the same time grasped the strategic initiative (using the navy to confuse and disperse the forces of the Qing army), the Qing side could only face one humiliating defeat after another. Therefore, after realizing this painful fact, the Qing court sent an envoy here to tentatively propose to the east bank the sincerity of the peace talks.

Originally, they probably didn't have much hope, because in the past, the people on the east coast often bluntly rejected their requests for peace, but who would have thought that this time they would actually get a positive response from the east coast, which made them feel surprised and a little happy at the same time. After all, the situation facing the Qing State is not good now, there are quite a few threats in the east, northwest, and south, and it is definitely a great thing for them to be able to solve the threat in one direction, although they may still not dare to draw troops stationed in the border area with the east coast, but at least they don't need to invest more here, right?

The main reason why Ma Wenqiang of the Southern Pioneer Team started the war before was to collect population, and now the remaining reserve population in Ningbo is more than enough to last until the end of his term, and his performance in this office should be "excellent". Therefore, he now does not want any more things to happen during his tenure, and if there is any unexpected situation, it is his biggest requirement to get through it smoothly. Therefore, after receiving the signal of peace talks from the Qing court, he thought about it for a day, and then agreed in principle, and authorized Lieutenant Colonel Sun Wu, director of the East Shaoxing Military Administration, to handle the matter on his behalf.

As a matter of fact, there is nothing left to "discuss" about the so-called peace talks between the two sides, and the Gaine Cao'e River is already a natural boundary between the two countries, and there is nothing that can be amended. The two sides talked more about commercial trade, because this is the basis for the peace talks between the two countries proposed by Ma Wenqiang, that is, peace is okay, but the border cannot be closed, normal trade must be possible between the east and west halves of Shaoxing Province, and the Cao'e River must also be able to be navigable freely.

In fact, the Qing side was not very happy to open up trade between the two countries. They are not stupid, and they know that once this opening is opened, with the reputation of the people on the east coast who are good at commerce, they will definitely make a place in this trade. In that case, the Qing court may be a little difficult to control the situation, they are still the same as the agricultural society, they are very unsuitable for everything in the commercial society, and the management must be full of loopholes, and then they may be infiltrated into a sieve by the people on the east coast. In the future, once the sword soldiers between the two countries rise again, it is not good that as soon as the army on the east coast lands, many wealthy families and wealthy businessmen from all over the country will raise troops to respond, so what is there to play!

But it's really out of their hands. The people on the east coast made the opening of the so-called Cao'e River trade part of the peace talks, so the Qing people struggled for months, asking for instructions back and forth countless times, and finally reluctantly agreed. What Min Honggui will see is that the principal officials of the two sides have already negotiated the principles and frameworks, and the subordinates and attachés have begun to consult on the details.

Once the Cao'e River trade is officially launched, it will be a major benefit to the integration, digestion and development of Shangyu County. Min Honggui still has a deep understanding of this point, so he plans to focus on it in the next stage of work, so as to produce results as soon as possible.