Chapter 220: Tuntian

The displaced people are an extremely unstable factor for the government, these poor people who have been displaced by famine bankruptcy will riot and destroy at the slightest incitement, and they are the White Lotus Sect, the Wenxiang Sect and the source of soldiers who break into the army.

After the emergence of displaced people, the land could not be cultivated, the taxes collected by the government became smaller, and the source of troops also shrank.

At present, for Li Meng, although he has money and soldiers, he has no fixed source of recruitment, and every time he only recruits soldiers from Shandong, relying on full salary and a sense of honor to attract young people to join, but after a few years of serial disasters, such a source of soldiers is becoming less and less.

Relying on the current 10,000 soldiers and thousands of salt dings, it is a bit difficult to control Qingzhou Mansion and Laizhou Mansion and Yandao, not to mention the entire Shandong.

If you don't expand your strength as soon as possible, after defeating Liu Zeqing, the expanded space will soon be occupied by others, Li Meng has been planning this matter these days, at the wedding ceremony, the gentry from all over Shandong either came in person, or sent people to go, Li Meng still considered each household to form an army, guarding the area of Yanzhou Mansion, in his heart, the better the family in the Jiaozhou battalion training system, the easier it is to become a strong soldier, regardless of the understanding of war technology, is still much better than the poor family in terms of physical fitness, but there are always hidden dangers in the control of using the children of the wealthy gentry to form an army, for example, those children of the wealthy families who were transferred in Laizhou Mansion and Dengzhou Mansion can only be used as auxiliary troops and armed salt soldiers so far.

There is also a good way in front of us, which is to recruit young and strong children in the guard, although these people are also farmers, but they have also grown up in the military camp physique, and some have received certain military skills training, and because of Li Meng's own military background, his loyalty is also the highest.

However, there is a problem on Li Meng's side, the young people who Lingshanwei and Ao Shanwei are willing to participate are almost all recruited by him, and the Da Songwei, Jinghaiwei, Fang Shanwei, and Chengshanwei in Dengzhou are dilapidated because of Kong Youde's chaos, and most of them maintain the scale of a thousand households at most.

In Qingzhou Mansion, near Nanzhili, Andong Wei is the loyal lackey of the two Huai salt merchants, although the Wei is located in Shandong, more than ten years ago has shrunk to the territory of Nanzhili, these guards are either worthless, or there are many models in moving, and the rest are soldiers recruited by military generals from all over the country.

Now these soldiers are equivalent to the private soldiers of the generals of each family, those personal soldiers are desperate for the generals and cannot be recruited, and the remaining ones are like bandits and rogues, with no combat power at all, and their style is extremely corrupt, and they are of no use at all, which is also after Li Meng's raid on Caozhou, and he will not pay attention to Liu Zeqing's direct troops after they are scattered, according to the rules of this era, they should be annexed.

If the army does not expand, no matter how big the wealth is, he is a rich man, and only by controlling more and more territory will there be more and more soldiers.

For thousands of years, the peasants of China have been the source of the greatest destructive force, and they are also the most patient and docile class.

With the field, there is grain, fixed on the land of the peasants is the best source of soldiers, the Ming court of insight are calling for this, Lu Xiangsheng and other elites are even more hands-on, it is ridiculous to say that even if it is a catastrophe, as long as it is the law of the tuntian, the harvest is good.

It can be seen that in the chaotic times at the end of the Ming Dynasty, natural disasters are certainly one thing, and it can be seen from the effectiveness of Tuntian, the army gathered hundreds of thousands, crisscrossing the hinterland of the Ming Dynasty, and more man-made disasters.

The method is a good method, but for Li Meng, a little difficult is where the fields come from, Shandong has been in drought for two consecutive years, many ordinary people, and even small landlords have gone bankrupt, and can only wander to eat, but in addition, many large landowners took this opportunity to buy a large number of fertile land at a low price, but it became more and more inflated.

If it weren't for the monster Li Meng in Laizhou Mansion and Qingzhou Mansion, there would have been a so-called powerful clan that would have taken the lead and blackmailed the government and committed lawlessness.

There are not many fields suitable for cultivation in Shandong, and these lands are more and more concentrated in the hands of a small number of wealthy families, Li Meng pondered that there are still some barren fields in Dengzhou Mansion, but that place is directly under the Shandong General Qiu Lei, and Shandong General Qiu Lei is nominally the general of the Shandong Soldiers and Horses, or his superior, although the two sides are cold, there are not too many conflicts, and they cannot rashly provoke.

After Zhou Juren said the word Tuntian, Li Meng was indeed tempted, but after thinking of the field, he was a little embarrassed, and he didn't know where to engage in the field.

"Where are you looking for fields?"

Hearing Li Meng ask, Zhou Juren laughed, the two sides were quite casual, Zhou Yang didn't care about any etiquette, he leaned forward and said"

"My lord, this thing is very simple, you can buy it without a field, Jiaozhou is rich in the world, and you can buy it with a dignified mouth."

Li Meng was stunned for a moment, and then laughed, there were still some things in his mind that he hadn't figured out, this matter was not complicated at all, spending money to buy, doing business in an upright manner, how could he not buy a field. This is really a happy place, seeing that the tea in the cup of the person raised that week was about to be drunk, Li Meng smiled and picked up the teapot, and poured another cup of tea for the other party, Zhou Yang knew that Fang Cai's suggestion was to scratch the itch, and he was quite proud, and got up to thank him.

The two sides chatted a few more words, and Zhou Yang was just about to say goodbye, Li Meng groaned, knocked his fingers on the table, and said lightly:

"Wu Tongzhi took over the position of Zhizhou, he always had to be done by someone, Mr. Zhou is outstanding, honest and good, it is suitable, in a few days the official document appointing you by the Ministry and the Governor Yamen will come down, congratulations here."

Zhou Juren is like being struck by lightning, these years the local people from Shandong, like his family role, most of them are not official, lucky, to do a teaching, that luck and willing to spend money, maybe can go to the experience department to do an experience, of course, if Su Songchang's Donglin Party lifter, a county can not run. Zhou Juren's brain is clear, knowing that his family is the one who has no luck and is too lazy to spend money, so he is just a Taiping rich man in Jiaozhou, after Li Meng appeared, his judgment on himself is to be the leader of the staff, and it is enough to be a civil official of the shogunate in the future.

Who would have thought that now that such a big pie is dropped, the position of Jiaozhou Tongzhi, that is a real official from the sixth grade, the stream, it is impossible to let a new imperial examination person do this position, but in the hands of Li Meng, this kind of thing is really easy, Jiaozhou is the territory of the Li family, how about arranging a Tongzhi, the relationship is also hard, not afraid of making it silver, naturally it is hand-to-hand.

This week, the people also know that their own family is different from Jiaozhou to do Tongzhi, if it is an ordinary state and county, then Tongzhi is pressed by the Zhizhou above, and the Zhixian is topped by the Zhixian below, which is really splinting, but his Zhou family is a big family in Jiaozhou, and there is Li Meng's support behind him, this official must be extremely majestic.

Seeing Zhou Juren stunned there, he hadn't turned around yet, Li Meng's face was full of smiles, sure enough, the word rich and noble was the most impressive, Zhou Juren was also a celebrity, but today he was stunned by the position of the same acquaintance in Jiaozhou.

After Zhou Juren reacted, he turned around calmly, regardless of the usual etiquette, he just knelt on the ground, bumped his head a few times, and said solemnly:

"Zhou's official position was given by an adult, and he must be loyal to his lordship, but if he is sent, he will never give up."

Li Meng's side had to step forward to help, this week's head is really active, he is grateful, he doesn't mention the court at all, only says that he is loyal to Li Meng. Although Li Meng didn't say it, he was extremely satisfied, he gave Zhou Juren this official position, just to envelop this person, if he didn't know how to be grateful, it would be meaningless.

stepped forward to help him up, patted him on the shoulder, and said with a smile:

"Come to me again tomorrow, I will call Chen Liuyi and his people here, and talk about the plan of this Tuntian, let's start from our Jiaozhou side, how about you preside over it."

Zhou Yang was in a mood because he suddenly became an official, but his mind was still sober, and as soon as he heard Li Meng, he knew that the other party understood the so-called key to buying land.

"Your Excellency commands, the lower officials will go all out."

There is really nothing to say at the moment, and after kneeling down again, Zhou Yang lowered his hand and retreated, and walked to the corridor, although Shandong in the first month is still cold, but Zhou Yang feels that the scenery is the most beautiful at this time, and he also feels high-spirited when he walks in the cold wind.

walked out of the corridor more than a dozen steps away, but saw a little child running over, saw Zhou Yang in the corridor, the child hurriedly stood on the side of the corridor, and shouted respectfully:

"Teacher, are you going home?"

Since Zhou Yang entered Li Meng's shogunate, the original teacher who taught Su Anqi to read and read has become two, Master Ning and Zhou Yang served together, Zhou Juren was very fond of this intelligent and precocious student, and said with a smile:

"It's freezing this day, be careful to run and sweat to catch a cold, slow down."

"Teacher, here's an urgent letter for the master to see!"