On a hot day, the men and women of the island gathered, and the people of Summer City ran around, counting the number of people. The vast majority of people www.biquge.info have traces of slavery on their faces and arms, except for a few children born on the island.

After counting for a long time, and then going to the nearby sandbar swamp to find fugitive slaves elsewhere, Chen Jian summed it up.

There were more than 8,000 people in all, most of whom were light and strong laborers, and they were emaciated. There are very few old people and children, one is that Ben did not live long when he was a slave, and the other is that the old slaves are basically dead, and the rest have survived in extremely difficult environments.

Some of the island's flat land is cultivated with corn and the like, but as it is grown for too long, the fertility of the land is depleted, and there are no new cultivation methods, and the food production is simply not enough.

Most of the time you need to eat fish and shrimp thatch, many people are skinny, but their stomachs are bulging, they should have schistosomiasis, and they probably don't live long, and snails are also food that can be eaten for these people.

Even if Xia Cheng intervenes now, provides them with a normal diet, and cuts off the spread of schistosomiasis such as snails, not counting newborns in three years, these 8,000 people will be left with a maximum of 5,000.

The 3,000 sick people will die sooner or later, and they will not be able to do any heavy physical work, and it will be impossible for these people to do their work after the workshop is established in the future, and once Onozawa's clan distribution system becomes private ownership, these people will die about a year or two earlier -- this is the biggest difference between humans and animals, people are the survival of the fittest, animals are the survival of the strong, and the mutual aid clan distribution when the poor are in poverty is the greatest suitability.

Yu Qian'er and the others first heard Chen Jian tell the terrible story of snails in Xia Cheng, and later knew that eating this thing would cause illness and knew the symptoms, so they quietly ran to Chen Jianjian and said, "Brother, there are so many sick people, what should I do?" ”

"Isn't that easy? They are not our slaves, we just need their strength. We will give food and drink to those who can work, and we will not use them if we can't do it. It just so happens that after two or three years, those who can work and those who can't work will be divided, and Ze Ming's group of people want to help them when the time comes, so they can only beg us, not those who still listen to him now. ”

"But when you instruct them to build Yucheng, you should pay attention to digging toilets first, drinking boiling water, and telling stories about the flesh of snails being transformed into the souls of dead people. In the early days of the city, these people could still do some work, and when they needed to divide labor for a while, they would not be hired. ”

Yu Qian'er shook her head and said: "You have also seen that Ze Min and others are still very prestigious among the people, I am afraid that if we do this, the workshop will be unstable in the future." ”

"We'll talk about that then. I don't want to use slaves on a large scale in Summer City, just to prevent someone from leading a rebellion. Slaves rebel and we will never die, because there are only two ways to be a slave and not a slave. But even if the people in the workshop use it intensively, even if they resist, they will not be endless. For example, if you only give two catties of corn and a handful of salt for a day's work, and as soon as they resist, we will add half a catty of corn, just like an exchange, just talk. They have nothing but strength, so how can we talk about it? ”

Yu Qian'er was still a little worried, and finally asked: "Then there are so many people, can the things in our workshop be sold?" ”

"The workshop is secondary, I value the people here. Even if the workshop can't support it, then the land is cultivated, but when they work, they are hired to do it, listen to the whistle to work, distinguish between east and west, north and south, left and right, and know how to line up when eating, etc., and treat the field as a kind of big workshop. I want a few thousand workshop workers in a few years, not a few thousand slaves who farm alone. ”

Yu Qian'er may not be able to understand, but she knows that in Xia City, most of the slaves that Chen Jian gave to the wolf skin to expand westward were originally mining and logging, and perhaps they were easier to understand and obey the whistle and rules than others.

She thought about all kinds of possible crises, but since her brother said that it was okay, she no longer worried, and only thought about doing what she had to do.

Jian Chen took the pen and walked up to Yu Ze and the others and asked, "Among you people, who has done it in Taotang, Stone Field, Forest Felling and other places before?" ”

"There are a lot of them. I used to dig clay in the pottery pond. ”

"In this way, a few of you are familiar with this place, and you will find out those who have been slaves in Taotang, Shichang and other places, and those who have done the same thing, get together, and I will see how many people there are."

Ze asked puzzledly, "What is this going to do?" ”

"Good thing. Those who have done this will be given half a pound of corn every day more than those who have not done it. Even if I want to kill you, I won't be interested in killing you in batches according to what you did before you died. You just do it. ”

Several people were puzzled, but they didn't be more vigilant, and they all knew who used to do what they did on weekdays, and they soon became several piles.

Slaves used to work not necessarily skillfully and single-mindedly, ploughing the fields today and cutting wood tomorrow are common, but there are also a small number of long-term jobs.

According to Chen Jian's request, there were more than 1,000 in total, and Chen Jian did not interfere in their internal affairs, but only said that he would select a few trustworthy and familiar ones, and talk to him in the future in order to receive corn and salt goods.

Originally, a few prestigious people on the island were naturally elected by everyone to deal with Jian Chen, and Jian Chen asked them, "Do you all know the names of the people below?" ”

"Knowing is knowing, it's just that there are too many people with the same name, they are all slaves, and their names are nothing more than stables, 圉, mortar, and the like, Ji Xia can't recognize them, but we can tell them clearly."

"This is not good, you can distinguish it, you can distinguish it. We made it clear at the beginning, I don't care about the affairs of the island, but I will share the salt and food you gave me in exchange for your work. This is the rule, the rule that everyone swears to agree on, and this cannot be changed. ”

Chen Jian counted these people, and asked someone to cut some pieces of wood with an axe and knife, and after doing it in Taotang, he wrote a pottery character on it, and wrote one, two, and three numbers below.

After writing the words stone, wood, pottery, etc., he asked the people of Xiacheng to write a character and number according to the remaining number of people who had not done it in the workshop, and asked people to distribute it.

Basically, these people don't know the words pottery, stone, etc., even one, two, three, they don't know what it is, they just feel that they all look similar, and they can't understand what they are at all.

Jian Chen also knew their doubts, but he didn't explain that these people would inevitably be forced to learn to count in the future, and strive to let them count to a thousand within a month, just understand what number they are.

"Collect this piece of wood so that it is not lost. After the work, you will pay the corn and salt according to this wooden card, and you don't have to worry about the words on it, as long as you don't lose it. ”

"I have sworn to the people of the outer clans that no slave from the outer city will be allowed to come here, and that the oath of life will be kept. If you lose your wooden signs, I can only think that you have fled here from outside, and I do not know many of you, and I am afraid that you will lie to me. Send you back to the city, and you should know the consequences. ”

A group of people pinched the pieces of wood in their hands, which were as light as mussel shells, and suddenly felt extremely heavy, and the insect-like bends on it seemed to be heavier than stones, and they carefully put them away one by one, not daring to lose them.

As for the slaves outside the city, they no longer have the strength to take care of them, because the purpose of their escape here was never to make all the slaves in the world human, just to not be slaves themselves, and naturally no one has the world in mind.

Moreover, what Chen Jian said seems to be reasonable, the oath should be kept, this is a habit left over from the clan era, and it is not difficult to accept.

After even saying and frightened the group of slaves to accept the identity of not even having a name but only a code name, Chen Jian sold it well, and let people take a boat back to the shore to transport thousands of catties of grain that had been piled up on the shore, so that everyone let go and eat a real meal without wild vegetables and mussel shells. And told these people that as long as they work in the future, it will not be a problem to fill their stomachs, and the response was enthusiastic for a while.

After a hasty calculation, so many people need at least 15,000 catties of corn every day, and 5 million catties a year, it is not a problem to support these people with the current land of Xia City, but it is not easy to transport, and it is impossible to transport grain from Xia Cheng.

The nearby land could be reclaimed as a hired farm to facilitate management and exploitation, but the new wheat will not be harvested until at least next May.

However, with the layout that began in the spring, a large number of goods that can be exchanged for grain in Xiacheng have been transferred and stacked in the warehouses of Sucheng, most of which are military supplies, and the turmoil is imminent, and each clan needs weapons, gunpowder, linen, leather armor, etc., and it has caught up with the good year for three consecutive years, and the corn is abundant in public production, and it is still possible to exchange three or five million catties of grain, and it is only a hundred thousand catties to spread it evenly on the heads of more than 20 cities and dozens of clans.

In addition, all kinds of furs exchanged from the island, waiting until a month later when the workshop was built, and then teaching the women on the island to make leather armor and sell it to various ethnic groups and even Dongyi, can be exchanged for a lot of good things, which can be exchanged for much more than individual skins.

After roughly calculating the various gaps and future income, Chen Jian felt that there should be no problem. On the second day, it took three days to transport the three to five thousand people on the island to the headland island, and after seeing that Yu Qian'er and Hongyu had distributed everyone's work, the work was already in order, and after seeing the progress of the work, I was already relieved.

After telling everyone a few words, he left fifty people for Yu Qian'er and Hongyu, and returned to Sucheng with the rest.

On the ninth day of the seventh month, Xia Cheng was on the newly built small wharf in Sucheng, two ships were loading grain, and a large amount of corn in exchange for bronze weapons was piled up in the warehouse next to it, as well as various goods that Xia Cheng had transferred to Sucheng from spring to the present.

The people of Sucheng are already familiar with Xia Cheng, and when Chen Jian rode into the city on horseback, people have become accustomed to it.

There was no flooding in the river this year, and the civil strife in Dongyi was unintentional to the west, and if the battle against the same clan required the convergence of various leaders, Chen Jian did not know what was going on.

Although he is secretly the leader of the Caohe Alliance, he is still nominally a three-city alliance, and this kind of thing is not good to go alone, and he has to bring Ehuang Weixi and others in the city.

As soon as a few people walked into the hall of Sucheng, they heard a cry from inside, a young man in his twenties knelt on the side, looking a little familiar, he should have seen it when he met last winter, but it could never be the leader of any clan, this Jian Chen was very sure.

The walls blocked the hustle and bustle outside, and the young man's words could be faintly heard.

"After going to the New Year's meeting, my father's health was getting tired, and I prayed for days and days to use witch medicine, but finally I went at the end of last month. When my father went, I collected the summer fu outside the city, and when I returned to the city, the foolish people in the city had been deceived by that man, and they elected him as their leader. Although he has a good reputation on weekdays, his father knows that he is difficult to take on important responsibilities. If he becomes a leader, he is afraid that after three or five years, the city will be exhausted and everyone will be resentful, how can the laborer distinguish who is more suitable to be the leader? Moreover, I did not return to the city at the time of the election, and he did not first prepare for my father's funeral, but first elected the leader, which is intolerable to heaven and earth. ”

"I confronted him with some clansmen, and he actually killed his relatives if he didn't agree with him! I ask the chief of Suyue and all the leaders to uphold this justice so that the thousands of tribes in the city will not suffer for many years! (To be continued.) )