As the Spring Festival passed, crews returned to Daishan one after another, not by themselves, but with their families in tow, because there was a newly granted field waiting to be reclaimed on Daishan Island. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

The castle was too small to accommodate too many people, so the newcomers built houses near their fields, and new villages were formed.

The cattle farming tools entrusted to Liu Defu were shipped by boat, and the entire Daishan Island entered the mode of land reclamation. Sha Fu came to Gaoting from Dongsha Town early, leading the newly hired scholars to measure the land.

A total of 23 scholars were recruited from Yinxian County, all of whom were down-and-out scholars, including students in their 40s who had not even been able to pass the examination for many years, and scholars whose families were poor and had to give up the imperial examination. There are also 'scholars' who have only been in private schools for a few years and are not even children, because they were recruited by Song Liben because of their literacy. Ren Siqi sent all these people to Liu Defu, and asked Liu Defu to take them to measure the land, and then distribute the fields to the various archers and crews.

The title deeds stamped with the bright red seal of the Inspection Department were handed down, and the soldiers smiled happily while holding the title deeds.

Throughout the first month, the entire Daishan Island fell into a busy wasteland, and Ren Siqi also reduced his training time, except for the soldiers on duty, everyone else joined in the wasteland.

The ploughing oxen "moo" scrambled to pull the plough in the wilderness, and the fresh earth flew as the ploughshare moved. With smiles on their faces, people plough their fields and sow seeds of hope.

"My lord, more than 18,000 acres of barren land have been reclaimed in the past month, because there are less than 100 ploughing cattle, and it is already the limit to be able to reclaim so much." Shafu reported to Ren Siqi.

"Well, that's good. It's easy to talk about ploughing cattle, can we continue to buy wheat grown on this 18,000 acres of land in the future? Ren Siqi asked.

"Most of it is wheat, but more than 1,000 acres of paddy fields have been cultivated near the reservoir and are ready to be planted." Shafu replied.

Ren Siqi nodded, leaving the matter of farming to the professionals, he decided not to ask anymore.

"By the way, what about the recruited readers?"

Listening to Ren Siqi's question, Sha Fu smiled bitterly.

Many of them couldn't endure the hardships at all, and many of them were clamoring to leave. However, there are some people who are more able to endure hardships, gritted their teeth and persevered, running around with me every day, fortunately with a few of them, the spring ploughing field measurement and distribution can be successfully completed. ”

"Those who can't endure hardships and like to complain give them some silver, and leave those who can really endure hardships. All our start-ups in Daishan need people who can do things in a down-to-earth manner. Ren Siqi commanded.

Farming is one thing, and there are many things that Ren Siqi needs to worry about, such as setting up a firearms workshop. With a naval battle, the ship's musket pellets and gunpowder shells were almost depleted and urgently needed to be replenished. In the past, it was supplemented by Lu Zonghan, who was a hundred households in Jinyiwei, and in the future, he couldn't beg Lu Zonghan every time, not to mention whether he could buy a large amount of gunpowder, even if he could buy it, he would definitely be controlled by others. So Ren Siqi decided to set up his own workshop to produce gunpowder, projectiles, shells and the like.

In the trade years ago, Ren Siqi purchased a large amount of sulfur saltpeter, enough to make hundreds of thousands of catties of gunpowder, but the manufacture of gunpowder requires specialized talents, take Ren Siqi himself, although he knows what one sulfur, two nitrate and three charcoal, but if he really makes gunpowder, it is very difficult. It is good that there are such talents among the Dutch captives.

With the surrender of the German Duncan years ago, more and more Dutch captives chose to surrender and followed the same path as Olier Duncan. Ren Siqi did not break his promise, and signed a five-year service agreement with them one by one, and agreed on each person's salary. Among these people, there are really some talents, such as Hoyle who can make gunpowder, Bell the blacksmith, White the watchmaker, and so on. They were originally Dutch craftsmen, and they got on the ship with the intention of going to the Far East to pan for gold.

Ren Siqi handed over the gunpowder workshop to Hoyle and assigned him several assistants, including Chen Zhong, a scholar recruited from Yin County. Chen Zhong loves miscellaneous studies, the road to the imperial examination is very unsmooth, at the age of thirty, he has not even taken the college examination, the imperial examination has spent all the money in the family, and it is not easy to find a job to do, because he is not a showman, and he is not even qualified to teach a private school, and he is disliked by people who go to the business and dislike him for his age, Chen Zhong prides himself on being a scholar and does not want to be a coolie to make money, and it is not high or low, it just so happens that Daishan Island recruits scholars, and he hears that there are twenty taels of silver every year, so he is recruited to come.

After coming to Daishan, the first thing he did was to measure the land in the wilderness, Chen Zhong attached great importance to this hard-won opportunity to make money, and he was conscientious, and was appreciated by Sha Fu, so he recommended him to Ren Siqi, and Ren Siqi handed over the management of the gunpowder workshop to him.

On the mountainside of Moxin Mountain, there are several stone houses, and a large courtyard surrounded by a tall wall, which is where the gunpowder workshop is located.

Dozens of craftsmen, on Hoyle's orders, crushed sulfur, saltpeter, and charcoal, mixed together in certain proportions, and became black gunpowder.

The black gunpowder is poured into a large wooden barrel, and then the water is poured into the wooden barrel, stirred vigorously, the gunpowder dissolves in the water and becomes a black liquid, a craftsman takes a strainer to filter out the dregs, then pours the black liquid into a large wooden container, and puts it in the sun to expose it, as the water evaporates, the gunpowder will crystallize and reappear.

Chen Zhong recorded the whole process on the side, discussing with Hoyle from time to time.

There is also a mansion in the valley at the eastern foot of Moxin Mountain, but this is a blacksmith shop. In Japan, Ren Siqi purchased hundreds of thousands of catties of copper and iron to cast weapons. There was no blacksmith on Daishan Island, so Ren Siqi entrusted Liu Defu to hire several blacksmiths from Ningbo at a high price, plus Dutch craftsmen Bell and White, to form this blacksmith shop.

However, the Ming blacksmiths, led by Liu, did not look down on the Dutch, and the Dutchmen Bell and White could not speak Chinese, so the two sides had difficulty communicating, so they went their own way.

It's a good thing to have competition, Ren Siqi simply arranged the same manufacturing work for them, let them make the simplest cannonballs first, and after giving the size parameters of the cannonballs, they let them work on their own.

With the influx of a large number of soldiers' families into Daishan, more and more people live near Gaoting, according to preliminary estimates, more than 2,000 families have poured into Daishan, with Gaoting Castle as the center, forming several villages.

On both sides of the road from Gaoting Castle to the wharf, more than a dozen new houses have been built, this is a shop opened by Ren Siqi and Liu Defu in cooperation, grain stores, salt stores, grocery stores and all kinds of shops, which can fully meet the needs of the entire Daishan Island, of course, the price of goods is higher than that of the inland, but these family members are now rich, although they complained a few words, but think that the goods need to be transported from the mainland by ship, and the price is acceptable. (To be continued.) )