86_86695Speaking of which, in the last years of the Ming Dynasty, Wang Shuhui, whose career was just starting, seemed to be quite majestic and powerful. However, if his current strength is put into modern times, he will die, that is, the level of a township chief.

Judging from the sphere of influence he has at his disposal, he may have a larger territory than many village chiefs in modern society. However, in terms of the population under his control, the population of the more than 30 base villages under Wang Shuhui's control may not reach 10,000.

In modern society, not to mention the large provinces with a population of hundreds of millions. Even in an ordinary Central Plains province, the population of a township is at least around 100,000. In a border province like Heilongjiang, which has a small population density, an ordinary agricultural township has a population of at least 20,000 or 30,000 people.

Therefore, in terms of actual population, Wang Shuhui is not as good as a modern township chief. The population he currently controls is only a fraction of the population that a township chief in modern society can control.

You must know that in later generations, China's population was around 1.4 billion. In the late Ming Dynasty, there were no peasant uprisings and foreign massacres, even in the middle of the Wanli period, which was at its peak. At that time, the population of China was about 100 million. Moreover, the population distribution of Ming China was extremely uneven. This is less than 100 million people, and most of them are distributed in the Central Plains and Jiangnan regions.

Therefore, Wang Shuhui found that there are obviously some differences between the land contradiction in the last years of the Ming Dynasty and the land contradiction in the last years of the Qing Dynasty.

The land contradiction in the last years of the Qing Dynasty was the product of the dual combination of resource contradiction and institutional contradiction. In other words, in China at the end of the Qing Dynasty, the contradiction between the actual cultivated land area and the huge population, resulting in the shortage of per capita cultivated land area, was one aspect of the contradiction, and the feudal land ownership system in feudal society was another aspect of the contradiction.

The land contradiction in the last years of the Ming Dynasty was the problem of a large reduction in per capita grain possession caused by the severe reduction of production caused by natural environmental variation (Xiaoice River climate), and the problem of excessive concentration of land by feudal land ownership.

According to the survey data at hand of Wang Shuhui, among the more than 30 villages under his control, many of the land with great development value in his eyes was generally undeveloped in the last years of the Ming Dynasty, like most other places in this era. Moreover, he found that the land occupied by those local tyrants and inferior gentry was all extremely fertile, ripe and good land with convenient irrigation. However, many peasant households, even if they were tenants of the landlords and gentry, were reluctant to exploit the wasteland that was everywhere. This phenomenon made Wang Shuhui very puzzled.

Wang Shuhui's question was quickly answered from the mouths of his subordinates. It turned out that in ancient society, ordinary farmers did not have the ability to exploit wasteland.

It was only at this time that Wang Shuhui understood why more and more people were participating in the militia in the villages he controlled, and even some villages began to form the second militia team.

Ploughing cattle and high-quality iron farming tools, which were very common in Wang Shuhui's eyes, were extremely scarce and valuable materials in the agricultural society of ancient China.

However, even though Wang Shuhui controls more than 30 villages, more than 100,000 acres of land, and tens of thousands of people. The actual manpower that Wang Shuhui was able to mobilize in these villages was only more than 100 people who were trained and managed by semi-militarization. The new militia of more than 100 young and middle-aged people did not solve the problem of Wang Shuhui's shortage of manpower.

Wang Shuhui now sees that there are not many manpower and material resources in charge, and he is not even a township chief in later generations. However, at the present stage, the matters of conducting education, running industry, and training troops have already made Wang Shuhui feel in a hurry.

Even though he mastered dozens of villages and indirectly controlled tens of thousands of people, Wang Shuhui found that he couldn't do anything he wanted to do. He found that the fundamental reason was nothing else, but a problem that Wang Shuhui, as a Chinese, had never thought of: the shortage of human resources.

Wang Shuhui needs a population. Actually, he needs the population too much. Whether agriculturally, industrially, or militarily, in order to achieve the goal of controlling the entire Huguang region, he needs a large population.

As far as agriculture is concerned, although land is allocated to landless and landless farmers according to the size of five acres per person. However, Wang Shuhui's current land occupation is still quite huge. Judging from the current situation, the land allocated to the peasants only accounts for two-thirds of the land under Wang Shuhui's name.

There are also nearly 50,000 acres of land, which are currently in a state of abandonment. The reason for the abandonment was that there were not enough people to cultivate the land.

Industrially speaking, the small blast furnace that Wang Shuhui brought back from modern times was officially put into operation. Under Wang Shuhui's all-round training, more than 20 "workers" of the Ming Dynasty finally mastered the basic operation of small blast furnaces.

In fact, in modern society, a technician with a few days of special training, plus seven or eight completely uneducated laborers, can operate such a small blast furnace.

In later generations, small iron factories and small foundries were blooming everywhere. In order to be able to make their own small blast furnace equipment, to achieve the maximum promotion. These small blast furnaces, which are simple to install and easy to operate, have actually been fooled by the manufacturers of these equipment.

These workers in the late Ming Dynasty, Wang Shuhui personally cultivated, but they just lacked practice. After blowing up a small blast furnace and killing two Foshan iron-making masters. The workers had no strength to rely on, no help from experienced ironsmiths. They had to follow the manual, bit by bit.

This step-by-step approach has actually put their work on track faster. For the time being, if it weren't for the intermittent supply of iron ore, which produced 1,000 to 1,200 catties of iron per day, it would still be possible.

A thousand catties of iron are produced every day, which sounds like a lot. However, a thousand catties of pig iron is only to build two or three hundred hoes. However, in the area controlled by Wang Shuhui alone, nearly 10,000 hoes and nearly 10,000 rakes are needed. And agricultural tools are not just two kinds of hoes and rakes.

Therefore, what Wang Shuhui needs is to train more workers and build more larger and more standardized steel workshops and factories. However, without sufficient manpower, this is all in vain.

Militarily speaking, even if the militia units of the newly formed villages are counted together, plus the more than 100 specialized armed personnel in the battalion, the armed forces that Wang Shuhui can control are only three or four hundred.

What's more, in fact, the militia forces in the villages are not yet able to undertake the task of fighting across regions. Wang Shuhui's direct control of the armed forces is still the more than 200 and nearly 300 displaced people in the original camp.

Although qualitatively speaking, the level of Wang Shuhui's armed forces is the highest in the entire Huguang region, and even in the whole world. However, no matter how high-quality the troops are, they will not be able to resist in the face of an enemy who has an absolute majority. At least from the perspective of Jingzhou Mansion, a guard post in Jingzhou Mansion has the number of troops on paper, which Wang Shuhui's three hundred people cannot contend with.

Because, according to the regulations of the Ming Dynasty, a guard post should have 5,600 soldiers. Even if this number of words is discounted in half, it is only two thousand people. If these two thousand people were driven by the officers of the guard post to attack Wang Shuhui. Although it will not fail, I am afraid that Wang Shuhui's 300 elite soldiers will be reimbursed about half.

Therefore, whether it is agriculture, industry or military, Wang Shuhui is in a situation of manpower bottleneck.

In ancient societies, the problem of manpower was really a big problem. That is why all sorts of uprisings arise only in the event of a large-scale natural disaster. Without the large number of people who could not survive as a result of natural disasters, the work of rebellion and uprising would not have been carried out.

Wang Shuhui is not short of money, and he is not short of materials. The dumping of cotton cloth and salt can bring Wang Shuhui a huge amount of silver income every day. In addition to spending a small amount of silver to buy antique gems, Wang Shuhui's remaining expenses were to pay his subordinates. And he himself, in the time and space of the last years of the Ming Dynasty, basically did not have much expense.

However, having money does not solve the manpower problem.

Wang Shuhui wants to recruit people, but also consider the social conditions of this time and space. A royal family member buys a large number of people at every turn, which in itself is also a very taboo thing. What's more, although in recent years, Henan, Shaanxi, Shanxi and other places have experienced severe droughts year after year, resulting in a large number of displaced people. However, it is not easy to move these displaced people from Henan, Shaanxi, Shaanxi and other places to the Huguang area.

In ancient societies, population migration was not like in modern societies, where people were stuffed on a train, and a day and a night passed until they arrived at the place.

In ancient times, it was impossible to move thousands of people from Henan, Shaanxi, and Shanxi to Hubei, thousands of miles away, without hundreds of people doing it.

At least in Wang Shuhui's view, like the group of homeless people under his current command, wandered all the way from Shaanxi to Hubei alone. This is extremely rare.

And the most important thing is that even if Wang Shuhui sent relevant manpower to Shanxi and Shaanxi. On the way to relocate the population, there will be no difficulties from local governments. Whether these displaced people themselves are willing to move to Hubei is still a big question.

The relocation of the ancients was not just a restriction of the laws of the imperial court. This view itself is also a psychological sentiment and national habit of the ancient Chinese.

Even if the displaced people from Shaanxi and Shanxi are willing to move to Hubei, thousands of people and thousands of miles away, whether it is an organizational problem, or a food supply problem and a security problem, Wang Shuhui cannot come up with a solution.

The distance is too far away, the organization is too difficult, and the supply cannot be maintained. Even if Wang Shuhui had money, grain, and land, he would not be able to transfer the population from Shanxi, Shaanxi.

Fortunately, in the Xiaoice era, there was no shortage of natural disasters in various regions of China. Wang Shuhui is ready to send people to recruit displaced people from the disaster-stricken areas in Huguang and the surrounding provinces, especially in Henan.

Wang Shuhui is ready to work hard this time, and he is even ready to lead the team in person.

Just when Wang Shuhui was conducting adaptive training for the Jiading camp, his partner Sima Feng brought him good news. Wang Shuhui entrusted him to recruit nearly 1,000 miners from all regions of the country, and they will soon arrive in Zhijiang County