After all, Li Zhengang didn't get a letter from Mo Ming. In fact, this can also be understood, people sit on a strong city, thousands of elite soldiers, and more than 4,000 acres of tuntian under the city, this small life is good, how can you work for you because of a letter of appointment? It is only the local armed forces such as Guo Jiangpai and Zhai Wu, who have neither food and grass, nor are they very good soldiers, will take Dashun's appointment seriously.

However, it is not bad that things have been done this way, at least this Moji chief, who is said to have come from overseas, did not explicitly refuse Dashun's appointment. Looking at the attitude of him and his generals, I am afraid that it is also the idea of waiting and seeing, if Dashun gradually gains a foothold in Shandong, then they will naturally really return to it; If Dashun can't stand in Shandong, then naturally everything will be closed. So, after all, this matter still depends on when Guo Shuai can really control the situation in Shandong, and when the Beijing division will send a large army south to reinforce it, without these two things, if you want to let this group of lords who don't see rabbits and don't scatter eagles be driven by you, it's really a fool's dream.

After Li Zhengang left, Mo Ming and others immediately held an emergency meeting, mainly to discuss how to deal with Dashun's solicitation. Truth be told, the locals have been lacking a clear attitude towards the various forces of the Ming Dynasty, they only ask for the population, and everything else is entrusted to the front-line commanders. Mo Ming used to think that such a policy was very good and had the least constraints on him, but now he also felt that the local guys were too irresponsible and dug such a big hole for themselves. You must know that if one of them is not handled carelessly, and if it is caught by someone with a heart, it will bear a lot of political risks. Therefore, at present, it is better to pull some more people on their backs.

However, which of these military leaders present is easy to get along with, and when asked the substantive question. I started doing Tai Chi. like "call the shots" and "we listen to you" is starting to come out. Let Mo Ming's head be as big as a bean. However, Xiao Xi, the company commander of the 102nd Company of the Army, was quite kind, and he expressed his support for accepting the position appointed by the Dashun Imperial Court, which did not mean anything, just for convenience. After all, if everyone accepts the position appointed by the Qing court, I am afraid that it will cause greater criticism in the local area, and in addition, the Dong'an people and the gentry and literati are seriously opposed, and there is no basis for cooperation with the Southern Ming court. Therefore, it is better to accept Dashun's solicitation for the time being. Anyway, it's just in name, and it's convenient for me to act in Shandong, as for what happens in the future, then we'll see.

Mo Ming looked at a group of subordinates who were neither yin nor yang, and he was also annoyed, so he simply stopped asking for their opinions, and directly decided to accept the position of "Ninghai Defense Envoy" appointed by Dashun. However, it is only in name, in principle, one does not go to Jinan to meet the officials, and the other does not accept military command, in short, it is to maintain the existing independent state. At the same time, he expressed his goodwill to the Dashun regime. Dashun plundered military salaries and collected people on the east coast. The two sides coexisted peacefully and jointly dealt with a possible counterattack by the armed forces of the landlords and gentry in Shandong.

After this matter was settled, Mo Ming summoned Luo Tiansheng and Jin Wugui, and accompanied by them, began to inspect the castle construction site and the nearby Tuntian. May has almost passed, and there is not much time left for the people on the east bank, and now the east city wall has been basically completed, and the artillery brothers have begun to install artillery on the turret; The northern wall is still under construction, with more than 2,000 people working on it, and it is estimated that it may take more than a month for the wall to be completed.

After most of the castle walls were completed, most of the manpower has been turned to the construction of the castle headquarters, warehouses, underground ammunition depots, health centers, barracks, prisons, residences, drinking water treatment facilities, public bathhouses, canteens, toilets and other facilities, and all the materials used are from the bricks and stones transported back after the city walls of Ninghai Prefecture and Fushan County were blown up. Under the strict standards of the people of the East Coast, these bricks and stones may not be good enough for building walls, but they are not a problem at all when used to repair buildings in the city. When all the buildings were completed, the city would have the capacity to accommodate thousands of people at once, and the castle designers were convinced that such a strong fortress would not be possible in the Far East.

Immediately outside the castle is a large area of farmland cultivated by the people of the east coast. These farmlands were carved out along the western, southern, and eastern walls of Yantai Fort (outside the northern city walls were sand barren terrain, and the land was barren), forming a belt of farmland around the city walls. The farmland extends about 120 meters from the city wall, and the total area is about 200 acres. Most of these fields are planted with a variety of vegetables, as well as soybeans, which are supplied by the passing naval vessels.

The farmland belt is surrounded by two short strips of barbed wire, about a man tall, wound around evenly spaced wooden piles. Barbs hung from the barbed wire, and iron sticks were inserted between the two wires, and braziers were fixed to the stakes for lighting at night. On the outside of the barbed wire fence is a wide moat, two meters deep, filled with water from the Dagujia River, which flows into Zhifu Bay on the east side after a circle around the city.

On the outside of the moat was a large area of reclaimed farmland, no less than 4,000 acres, which had been sown with corn and sweet potatoes. After inspecting the soil texture of this place, the technicians of the Ministry of Agriculture solemnly suggested that the sweet potato and corn intercropping should be implemented here as in the New China Colony, that is, one more corn should be planted for each four-fold sweet potato. These two crops are not very picky, adaptable, and the yield is relatively high, which is suitable for the actual situation of Yantai Fort today.

Last year, they planted once, and the yield was low, less than 400 catties per mu, which was worse than Xinhuabao, which was known as a barren land, and set a new low yield for sweet potato and corn intercropping in China. However, this yield was definitely much higher than the wheat and corn commonly cultivated in Shandong, much to the surprise of many Ming Dynasty refugees who cultivated the area. Even, after the harvest in the autumn and winter of last year, some Ming Dynasty refugees carried some sweet potatoes and corn seeds and disappeared, and they should have fled back to cultivate their own crops.

This year, much more area has been opened up than last year, because the East Coast people now have a lot of human resources at their disposal. These sweet potatoes and corn were sown as early as last month when the soil temperature just rose, and the growing season is almost four months, that is, they can be harvested in mid to late August. These seeds have been carefully selected, and after a year of cooking on last year's raw land, such as applying farm fertilizer, plant ash, silt, etc., the soil is now much more fertilized, and this year's grain production should be considerable.

By August, the potatoes near Rishiri Island, Blackwater Port, and Omari will almost be able to be harvested, and if the people on the east coast are tight enough, they may be able to plant another crop of potatoes near Yantai, and then harvest them in time for the snow at the end of November, so that the grain reserves in the entire fortified area will be much more sufficient. The so-called food in hand is not panicked, and at that time, the people on the east coast may be able to take advantage of the chaos to accept some more refugees.

Since most of the people who work in the fields are forcibly captured, the motivation to work is certainly not too high, but with the assistance of a large number of cattle and horses and other livestock in the camp, they still quickly completed the deep ploughing of the fields last month, and then sowed the hope of the next year. Most of these people are former tenant farmers, and they are excited about the promise of land to them from the East Coast, but they also maintain a certain suspicion, after all, everyone will say empty words, and no one will believe you until they see you. And I heard that these Yi people (although they claimed to be descendants of the Song people) were going to take them on a boat across the ocean to another place thousands of miles away, how did this happen! My ancestral grave, ancestral hall and so on are all here, can I have a chance to come back in this life?

Some people who did not want to cross the ocean began to flee one after another, but many more chose to stay. After all, even if you don't think about your family, you have to think about what to eat when you run out of Lu, and now it is the season when there is no green and yellow outside, and you have no food to spare, and not long after you run out of Lu, you are either chased back by the cavalry of the Yi people on the east coast or you starve to death in the open field outside, and you really can't do it. But if you stay here, sooner or later, you will be carried away by the people of the East Coast, and then go to some unknown foreign country, how can this be? In this way, many Ming people wandered between reality and feelings, until they were loaded onto ships by the people from the east coast and sent to the rear.

After inspecting the fields, Mo Ming went to the dock outside Dongcheng to check the construction of the dock. Due to the dumping of a large amount of construction waste (demolished walls, houses), the east coast has now filled in a long section of the trestle bridge in the bay. After the ground of the trestle is compacted in the back, it is repaired with masonry and cement, and almost a permanent wharf trestle is formed.

In addition to the trestle bridge, a considerable number of displaced people built forts and land defense bunkers on Zhifu Island. Although it is unlikely that the enemy will attack from the sea, it is always right to be prepared, so a few batteries and a dozen or so large and small guns can almost cover the entire bay. In addition to Zhifu Island, a fort with seven or eight cannons and a small coastal fort will be built on Kongtong Island. The island is home to a temporary camp for displaced people set up by the people of the east coast, as well as a nitrate yard and a gunpowder preparation workshop, and its strategic location is also relatively important, so it should not be overlooked. After the construction of this fort is completed, it will work with the fort on Zhifu Island to firmly block the direction of the enemy's attack at sea, and together with the fleet of the people stationed in the bay on the east coast, it can basically achieve heavy damage or even annihilation of the enemy in the future.

On June 5, 1644, Guo Sheng, the envoy of Dashun Shandong Jiedu stationed in Jinan, officially confirmed Mo Ming as the defense envoy of Dashun Ninghai, and at the same time transferred Li Zhengang to the county commander of Yantai County, the capital of Dashun Dengzhou. (To be continued......)