In the second year of the Apocalypse, on the twenty-eighth day of the fifth month of the lunar calendar. The gate of Zou County was opened, and Wei Qi and a group of Wenxiang Sect backbones offered Xu Hongru to the officials and soldiers, and surrendered!

The rebellion of the Wenxiang Sect lasted only 17 days, and it was roughly extinguished, and more than 300,000 rebels were captured by the officers and soldiers.

The operation to exterminate the Wenxiang Sect was still ongoing, and under the command of Yuan Keli and the full cooperation of Zhao Yan, the governor of Shandong, the prelude to a thorough encirclement and suppression was launched.

With the Beijing camp as the main force and the Shandong official army as the auxiliary, the official army launched a net-like encirclement and suppression operation against the remnants of the Wenxiang Sect in all directions.

Under such encirclement and suppression, the troops of the Wenxiang Sect in various places were quickly defeated one after another.

The number of prisoners and rebels continued to rise to more than 500,000, and at the same time, a large number of rebels who had escaped also took the initiative to run back and want the officials and troops to surrender.

The officers and soldiers had food to be distributed, and no one died of hunger. And the land will be allocated for resettlement in the future, which is really a good place. In addition to the rioters, refugees from all over the country also flocked to the temporary resettlement sites of the officials and soldiers.

Strictly speaking, those prisoners are no longer called prisoners, and although the officers and soldiers have detained them, they have only maintained order. At this time, it is more appropriate to call them refugees, and they are all waiting to be fed, and they all rely on the imperial court to send food and relief.

The number of hungry, refugee, and poor people used in various places has quickly risen to one million, and they are dragging their families with their families one by one. Fortunately, the temperature warms up at this time, and you can just build a simple shed to sleep at night.

Shandong's population is obviously also very explosive, and there was an outbreak of cannibalism during the Wanli period, and human flesh was openly sold in the market. After all these years, a new generation has multiplied. The population is saturated again.

The incense cult can spread in Shandong. A very important reason. That is, there are too many poor people in the area, and there are often famines. The Shandong of this year is not the Shandong of later generations, with such a developed heavy industry and agriculture. In many parts of Shandong, the land is more suitable for growing crops such as peanuts, but the grain is not so easy to grow.

A large number of people poured into one place, which really made Zhu Youxiao bleed heavily, but fortunately, Zhu Youxiao had a lot of food in his hands. Especially after the large-scale promotion of sweet potato planting in Beizhili. The consumption of flour and rice has been reduced a lot. At this time, it is already summer, and there are not many fresh sweet potatoes.

Sweet potatoes are such things as being stored properly, and they are generally stored for half a year. If the cellar is not dug well and stored improperly, it may also rot.

Therefore, if the farmer's sweet potatoes are too many to eat, and they don't know how to make sweet potato flour, they can only feed pigs and dogs, which is also a very good choice. Making dried sweet potatoes is a technical job, and if you don't have that skill. It's hard to eat, and it's hard to bite into. For the time being, the farmers in Beizhili are still relatively rudimentary in the production of dried sweet potatoes. So it's not very popular.

After Zhu Youxiao received the good news from Yuan Keli on the front line, he finally breathed a sigh of relief, millions of refugees were waiting for relief, but he didn't care so much, put down the recital, and muttered: "It's good to suppress it, and there is not much chaos in the end." ”

Immediately, Zhu Youxiao allocated 1 million yuan from the internal funds for the relief of the refugees. At the same time, the Royal Agricultural Company and the Royal Mining Company should immediately go to Shandong Province to stake land and resettle these millions of refugees as soon as possible.

Although the population of the Ming Dynasty is large, in Zhu Youxiao's view, the population is also a real wealth. The focus is on providing enough jobs for this population.

A large population means a large labor force, and a lot of things can be built when it is well organized.

The power of the demographic dividend is deeply experienced by Zhu Youxiao, a traverser. In later generations, China developed rapidly by squeezing the demographic dividend.

It just so happened that this Wenxiang Sect uprising, the royal capital could reach out to Shandong.

After a battle, the military expenditure was also not small, and the dispatch of the Beijing battalion, as well as the military salaries and rewards of the officers and soldiers in various parts of Shandong, had to be counted into the military costs one after another.

The Ministry of War eventually gave a bill of 2.3 million yuan. Coupled with the 1 million yuan expenditure to help those refugees, Zhu Youxiao lost 3.3 million yuan in finances this time.

"Although the cost is large, to a certain extent, it has accumulated some combat experience for the Beijing battalion." Sun Chuanting said, "At the same time, during the war, the loot captured was as high as more than 1 million yuan, and there was only about 2 million yuan in expenses on the account. In addition, the Royal Agricultural Company should be able to acquire a lot of land in Shandong, and in general, this suppression of the Wenxiang Sect should still earn some of it. ”

After Zhu Youxiao heard this, he thought about it for a while, but it was a little messy in an instant. Internal wars can reap war dividends, which ...... It's really speechless.

But that's clearly what happened, despite the losses incurred by the war. However, these losses are all private losses. At the same time, the turmoil led to the redistribution of assets, and this distribution link happened to be caught by Zhu Youxiao, so that the imperial court still made money.

At the same time, although those refugees want relief, as long as they are organized into production and construction, these cheap labor can continue to squeeze out the demographic dividend.

At this time, the royal capital has initially formed a system. The organizational ability is much stronger than it was at the beginning. So much so that the resettlement of millions of refugees this time has been relatively smooth.

Those who dragged their families were all resettled in the newly encircled land, which was divided into imperial villages, and the organization of the reclamation process was also very experienced, the Royal Agricultural Company was already a behemoth operating 30 million acres of land, and Zhu Youxiao was also a veritable super landlord at this time.

Zhang Hengsheng, general manager of the Royal Agricultural Company, personally rushed to Shandong to enclose the land this time, and only the local government counted that there were as many as 8 million mu of ownerless land abandoned because of the chaos of the Xiangxiang Sect, and most of these 8 million mu of land were planted with crops that were not yet ripe.

Now all of them are cheaper than the Royal Agricultural Company, 8 million acres of land, the value itself is not expensive, and most of them are located in the cotton producing areas of Shandong, and there is no need for reclamation costs.

At the same time, the Royal Agricultural Company also counted the wasteland resources in various parts of Shandong, and the coordinators soon spread all over Shandong. Where suitable for reclamation has been inspected and registered, and can be developed one after another. A few months later, when the statistics came up. The area of reclaimable wasteland has reached about 15 million mu. About 10 million acres of land are relatively easy to develop. This 10 million acres of land has also been developed one after another, and these people who have lost their homes have been resettled in these new imperial villages.

Huangzhuang in Shandong, like the one in Beizhili, gives each household 30 acres of land, loans to farmers to buy cattle, seeds, and farm tools, and builds tiled houses for them through loans. The land rent is 30% per year, and the conscription must be served during the slack period, and the conscription only provides food. There is no pay.

The key point is that the armor protection system of Huangzhuang has the characteristics of mutual supervision and semi-militarization. It feels a bit like a pig farm, in fact...... It's a bit like that, indeed. However, the people's lives are greatly guaranteed, and in today's chaotic situation, such a stable life is also what many people dream of.

A little tiredness can be borne by ordinary people, and what they want most is a stable, well-fed, and family life together.

Huangzhuang's crushing capacity is indeed relatively strong, but it is also the best in terms of security.

Those young people who didn't drag their families with their mouths. He was placed as a professional worker. The Royal Mining Company has taken a lot of it, and there are many arrangements to build roads.

Lonely elderly and orphans. He was placed in a nursing home and orphanage in Beizhili. For those who have lost their loved ones, arrangements are made to reunite their families with those who are young and strong.

As a result of these measures, millions of refugees have been properly arranged.

A few months later, the aftermath of the Wenxiang Sect rebellion in Shandong subsided, the local order was sorted out, and the resettlement of millions of refugees also eased the population pressure in Shandong.

This time, the incense sect made a rebellion, so that Zhu Youxiao's royal agricultural company added another 18 million mu of cultivated land. However, tens of millions of yuan have been spent on the reclamation of these lands. The loans of peasant households are the money provided by the banks.

Zhu Youxiao's pockets were empty again. Although there is still some silver in the inner money, it is already within the budget.

Obviously, the cost of reclamation must be paid, although agriculture is not very profitable, but arable land is the basic means of production, the value is there, there is no loss, but it will take a few years to recover the cost. Most importantly, agricultural resources were expanded and a large number of people were settled.

The Royal Mining Company, on the other hand, cooperated with Jinyiwei in Shandong to crack down on the illegal mining of gold by the people, arrested several typical cases, fined nearly 50,000 yuan, and included all the gold mines of the Zhaoyuan generation into the mining scope of the Royal Mining Company.

The Zhaoyuan gold mine in this era was far less than the scale of one million taels of mining in later generations. The main reason is that in this era, the soil method is used, and the ore veins are dug deeper and deeper, and there are more and more iron sulfide ores below, and the cost of many mines is too high if they continue to be mined.

However, there are still many veins that can be exploited profitably.

The Royal Agricultural Company's mining activities are still based on the soil method. Workers are hired on a wage basis and are paid 20 cents a day. For the mining of Zhaoyuan gold mine, it does not matter how profitable it is. The important thing is to be able to produce gold. In fact, this is not the point, the biggest point is to create output value, provide employment, and feed more people.

Gold cannot be eaten, but it can be used to buy food.

As long as there is sufficient market demand, food production will naturally increase. In fact, there is still a lot of land in the south that can be used to grow grain, especially the Jiangnan region, which was originally a production area, and as a result, a large number of cash crops are grown on the land, many of which are still used for export.

Therefore, as long as you can feed people, it is okay to make less profit. Even a slight loss of capital is acceptable, but the profit is still a line, and the mining of the lost cost will be abandoned.

Although gold mining may not make much money, when the common people have money, all kinds of consumption activities will not generate taxes.

This is the same as the tariff subsidies in later generations, many enterprises export their goods at extremely low prices, or even below the cost price, but the state still encourages them to do so, the reason is to create output value and drive employment.

The creation of output means an increase in the total amount of wealth.

Therefore, Zhaoyuan Gold Mine has become a good job-driven project. In addition, the Royal Mining Company has also begun to mine coal in Shandong to supply Shandong's coal demand.

Soon after, a drilling team arrived in Shandong. Began to drill holes everywhere in the area of the later Shengli oil field.

This drilling team was naturally sent by Zhu Youxiao. (To be continued......)

PS: First update!