"It's finally ......"

In the first month of the ninth year of Yongle, as many people sighed in unison, when the Ming Dynasty was practicing its internal skills, a ship also successfully sailed into a seaport that did not look prosperous.

It's a big harbor, but it's not bustling, as evidenced by the many empty shipping bays in the harbor.

Of the 50 ship slots, only 13 were berthed, and only a few people were walking around on the concrete pier, which was three miles wide from north to south.

"Bang ......"

As the ship under their feet stopped into the ship's position, many people on the deck looked at the torii on the pier.

【Port of Luzon】

Looking at the big characters on the archway, everyone was very worried, and the dock had been taken over by more than ten officials.

With tin trumpets in their hands, they shouted at the three-thousand-material horse-boat:

"Everyone disembarks and assembles according to the team at the time of departure, and if you can't read, ask people, don't squirm like a big girl, waste everyone's time!"

The clerk shouted, and the ladder was placed on the dock.

On the ship, many people began to help each other unload their belongings, and judging by their coarse linen clothes, they were obviously a group of ordinary people who were not having a good life.

The carts were pulled out of the deck by manpower, and each car was a family's belongings.

However, due to the restrictions of the imperial court, their belongings were very limited, only clothes, pants, cloth, rations and other things, and things such as furniture were not allowed on the ship, and they were all sold and disposed of before boarding.

Although it was only a horse boat of 3,000 materials, as the people poured onto the dock, this seemingly small boat had already walked out of nearly 1,000 people.

"How can there be so many people?"

On the dock, the clerk frowned and questioned the captain, who was a forty-year-old man, and could only stubbornly say when he heard this:

"Originally, there were two ships, but the other one had a mast blown off, so I had to carry people first."

"It's overload." The official's face showed displeasure: "If the ship sinks, you will all be exiled." ”

"We can't help it." The captain explained in a hurry, but the officer raised his hand to interrupt:

"Forget it, I won't take credit if nothing happens this time, but next time there is such a thing, I will definitely report it."

"Not next time, not anymore......" The captain hurriedly stuffed a drop of money into the officer's arms, and the clerk also vaguely accepted the money when he saw this, and said, "Don't take it as an example." ”

After that, he abandoned the captain and began to explain the matter to the dozen or so officials he had brought.

In a short time, these officials led the nearly 1,000 people to the depths of the dock.

When they were far from the coast, the group was divided into eight flags according to the numbers marked on the iron plates, and each of them was taken to an open space not far from the other flags.

"You have the least number of bannermen, only seventeen households, and now start reporting the number!"

"One! Two! Three ......"

As soon as the officials spoke, this group of flat-headed people who dragged their families responded reflexively, as if they had been trained.

"Eighty-two!"

When an eight- or nine-year-old boy finished counting his number, the clerk frowned: "Now you stand together according to your own households." ”

According to the scribes, the eighty-two men began to gather together as units of their families.

Of the 17 families, most of them have parents and children, and a few even have three generations in the same house, and only one of them stands out from the crowd.

"Don't you have any adults in your family?"

The clerk walked up to a family and questioned it, saying that it was a family, but it looked very different.

There were eleven people in the family, but the oldest of them was only fifteen or sixteen, and the youngest was only eight or nine years old.

"My lord, we are from the Chaozhou Mansion Nursing Home."

The eldest boy asked, but when the clerk heard that it was from the almshouse, he said nothing.

"Each of you chooses the head of the house to go into the house with me and learn the rules."

The officer gave an order to the crowd, and then walked into a concrete bungalow behind him.

Seeing this, each family separately launched each family of men to study inside.

Among the group of children in the Chaozhou Mansion Nursing Home, the eldest fifteen-year-old boy also walked into it.

Walking into the bungalow, the space inside is about half a point, quite spacious, and there are tables, chairs and benches inside, enough to accommodate 50 people.

Everyone cautiously took their seats, and when the officials saw this, they spoke directly:

"From today onwards, I will be your lieutenant chief, my surname is Liu, my name is full, you can call me Liu lieutenant."

After introducing himself, Liu Quan continued:

"You are all immigrants who have gone south to beg for a living, and when you come to Luzon, the imperial court will settle you on a wasteland thirty miles north of Luzon."

"Although it is a wasteland, you don't have to worry, it is basically a plain, the local natives have also been cleared, and there is a small stone fort under construction, and a small flag of soldiers and horses is stationed in the small stone fort."

"In a little bit, I will take you to get food, animal power, and slaves, as well as farm tools, concrete, and other materials for the construction of the wasteland."

After Liu Quan finished speaking, the people below looked at each other, their surprise was not that the imperial court gave them so many things, because they already knew these things before they went south, and many relatives also wrote to tell them.

What surprised them was that the imperial court would actually give them slaves.

"That...... My lord...... What is a slave? ”

A man in his forties carefully raised his hand to ask, but Liu Quan said indifferently when he heard this: "The prisoners of war who were captured after the defeat will be sent to you if they don't have enough animal power, but not too much." ”

"In addition, regarding the matter of slaves, the imperial court also has a law, once a Han girl has an affair with a slave, both are punished with capital punishment, and the whistleblower can get half of the family property of the person being reported."

The forest is big and there are all kinds of birds, and the reason why this policy came about is because this kind of thing did happen in Luzon, and it was very bad.

Seeing that it was still early, Liu Quan told everyone about this matter in detail.

To put it simply, a murder occurred in March of the seventh year of Yongle, where a woman was found to have fornicated with a slave and jointly killed her husband and two children.

Due to the severity of the case, Xu Chai Lao escorted the two to Luzon City and sentenced them to Ling Chi.

Afterwards, Xu Chai Lao deliberately promulgated this law to warn everyone.

In the bungalow, everyone gasped when they heard this, and Liu Quan glanced at everyone:

"Okay, now let's talk about the rules......"

Under the attention of everyone, Liu Quan explained the rules of Luzon.

The immigrants who came to Luzon, regardless of their previous status, came under the jurisdiction of the Propaganda and Comfort Department, and their status was that of Tuntian households.

After they came to Luzon, they did not collect any taxes for the first three years, but they would organize the work of measuring the acres of land every year, and they would also distribute forced labor from time to time, but the forced labor was basically carried out around the affairs of the village.

For three years, their rations were taken care of by the Propaganda Department, and supplies such as cloth and salt were distributed annually according to the capita.

From the fourth year onwards, they had to bear a tax of five and one, and the imperial court began to stop distributing rations, cloth, salt, and other materials.

It was not until the Propaganda Department was changed to the Political Envoy Department that the tax payment would be changed according to the Ten Taxes of the Political Envoy Division.

"You don't have to worry about food, when you go to receive food, it will be distributed according to four buckets per month for large mouths and three buckets per month for small mouths."

"Is there any objection to the distinction between large and small mouths based on the age of twelve?"

Liu Quan glanced at everyone, and when he saw that no one spoke, he closed his booklet and said, "Now you can go out, and then line up according to the family to come in and register and make a book, the name of our village is Donghetun." ”

With that, he watched as the crowd got up and lined up as a family unit.

They went into the bungalow and made a household register of the gender, place of origin, and age of each person.

More than eighty people don't seem to be much, but Liu Quan was busy for half an hour.

The position of the children in the nursing home was at the end, Liu Quan looked at their surnames, they were all unified Lu surnames, and the eldest child was called Lu Yu, sixteen years old.

Glancing at Lu Yu, Liu Quan sorted out the booklet, and after confirming that there were no mistakes, he took them out of the bungalow and walked towards the gate of the dock.

The entire pier was surrounded by a wall, with only one gate to enter and exit.

There are not many immigrants in Luzon, and it is often good to have a ship in eight or nine days.

Therefore, today's nearly 1,000 people are the only immigrant team at present.

In the team, Lu Yu, the leader of the pile of children in the nursing home, looked at Luzon City, which was laid with concrete floors, and in his eyes, Luzon City was much more prosperous than Chaozhou Mansion.

On the streets, horse-drawn carriages run back and forth, and many merchants dressed as merchants are busy in the city.

Their ranks were slowly lined up, and behind the city gate was a granary, supervised by soldiers.

Standing in the team, Lu Yu looked at the warehouse, where he saw a round fat man in an official robe.

He didn't know if it was a blue-robed official or a few officials, in short, it was probably the biggest official he had ever seen in his life, because Liu Lichang, who led the way for them, had to be far away when he saw that person, and there were green-robed officials beside him nodding his head.

"The head of the household, Lu Yu, has one big mouth, ten small mouths, and thirty-four buckets of grain ......"

The official sitting in the chair muttered the information in the document recorded by Liu Quan, then looked up at Lu Yu and said in surprise:

"With such a small physique, I'm afraid you can't pull away these thirty-four buckets of grain."

Thirty-four buckets of grain have more than 500 catties, even adults need two people to pull it, and it may be very difficult for Lu Yu, who is only more than five feet tall, and the pile of three or four feet dolls behind him to pull away this batch of grain.

"What's wrong?"

Hearing the official's words, the fat official standing on the side turned his head sideways and asked, seeing Lu Yu and their doll family, he glanced down at the booklet, and couldn't help laughing:

"Thirty miles of road, thirty-four buckets of grain, I'm afraid you won't be able to transport it."

"My lord, can we ......" Lu Yu was worried that this group of officials would withhold food, so he hurriedly defended himself.

"Xu Xuanwei, a little mark will transfer a cow to this doll."

Liu Quan stood up at a critical moment, and the only one who can be called a consolation is Xu Chai Lao, the Luzon consolation envoy.

Xu Chai didn't want to deduct it, because only if he developed Luzon well, would he have a chance to be promoted.

For the rations of immigrants, he still does not care.

"That'll do." Xu Chai nodded and said to a clerk who was in charge of the livestock behind him: "Turn the cow to this doll and give them a cage of chickens." ”

"Yes!" Hearing Xu Chai Lao speak, the official took out a cow and instructed the ox to step forward and put the ox martingale on it.

"Doll come forward." The official called Lu Yu forward and taught him how to drive the ploughing oxen.

Seeing this, Lu Yu nodded: "Thank you, my lord, I learned these in the nursing home." ”

"Just learn it, this is your chicken coop, there are twelve chicks, you take good care of them yourself, and it will be convenient to sell them for money or what to do when you grow up."

"Master Xie." Lu Yuzuo expressed his gratitude, and then took his younger brothers and sisters to step forward and carry 34 buckets of grain and farm tools onto the ox cart.

When he looked back, Liu Quan and the others were carrying bags of gray ash.

When he drove the ox cart to follow, Liu Quan stopped him and said, "You take care of your younger brothers and sisters by yourself, these adults are busy." ”

Although he didn't say much, Liu Quan still took good care of Lu Yu and their group of orphans who came out of the nursing home.

For a whole hour, Liu Quan commanded more than 20 young adults from the remaining 16 households to load more than 300 bags of cement onto the ox cart.

When everything was done, the nearly 1,000 immigrants here at the city gate were also hungry.

Fortunately, it was also dusk, and everyone was arranged to enter the camp where the immigrants lived temporarily, and ate a hot big pot meal here.

The meal was not hearty, but just a bowl of rice and vegetable soup with some pickles.

Although it was not rich, for the people who had eaten cold rice at sea for a month, it was already the most satisfying meal they had eaten in the past month.

After a short night's rest, the next morning, with the sound of gongs and drums in the camp, nearly 1,000 migrants began to get up one after another, and walked out of the camp to line up, through the not bustling but very clean streets of Luzon, and walked out of the city gate and headed north.

Compared to yesterday, today's team looks very "bloated".

More than 100 ploughing oxen, as well as nearly 1,000 short and thin natives pulling carts, under the supervision of a cavalry team of 50 people, walked north with these nearly 1,000 immigrants.

In the middle of the team, Lu Yu looked around after the team walked out of Luzon City.

Outside of Luzon, the cultivated land stretches for more than ten miles, the rivers crisscross it, and many shirtless people are sowing food, and even those who don't farm can see the fertility of the land.

Although the road outside the city is only a rammed earth road, it is built in all directions, and there is a village every few miles.

Because it is so far away, a lot of farmland suddenly borders on wasteland, and as you walk, you see a large area of farmland in front of you.

Around Luzon are dozens of villages, large and small, ranging from hundreds to a few dozen.

For a whole day, Lu Yu's team did not decrease, because they had not yet reached the outermost outermost part of Luzon City at this moment.

After simply setting up camp in the wilderness, and resting for the night, they set out again the next day, and by the afternoon their ranks began to separate, some along the auxiliary road in other directions, while others continued on the official road to the north.

On the road to the north, there are waist-high weeds everywhere, and Liu Quan said that every year the army of the Xuanwei Division will set fire to these weeds, but because of the heavy rainfall, they will be lush again in the next year.

Like the occasional woods on the plains, they have been destroyed by fires many times, but after the rainy season, they can take root and sprout and emerge a little green.

"Okay, let's take the auxiliary road to Donghetun, and we can walk in about three miles from here."

On the way forward, Liu Quan, who was holding a flag with the word "朙", suddenly stopped and explained to Lu Yu and the others behind him.

Everyone looked at the other teams that were still taking the official road to the north, and couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief.

They waited for a long time, until the people behind followed, and Liu Quan began to lead them towards the auxiliary road that had been burned down not long ago.

Probably because of the immigrants, the weeds here were burned, and the ground for miles was covered with thick piles of plant ash.

Looking at these ashes, many experienced farmers in the team couldn't help but swallow their saliva.

There are naturally many forests in Liangguang and Fujian, but for the people living in the coastal areas, the coastal forests have already been cut down, and even if they want to set fire to the mountains to obtain grass and wood ashes, they need to walk hundreds of miles north and go deep into the mountains to obtain them.

But here, looking at the thick piles of plant ash, everyone couldn't help but feel that the road ahead was a little brighter.

They walked in the middle of the wasteland covered with grass and ashes, and Liu Quan explained as he walked:

"After you've built your house and settled down, we'll need to build canals, dig ravines, and tamp down the road before we can clear the land."

As he spoke, a concrete stone fort appeared in front of him standing on the wasteland.

Seeing Liu Quan and them coming, the door of the stone castle was opened, and the team wearing mandarin duck jackets walked out of the stone castle and waited quietly for Liu Quan and them to arrive.

On the side of the stone fort, a small river two feet wide flows slowly southward, and the mountains can be vaguely seen in the distance, and the distance does not seem to be too far.

Liu Quan's group had only eighty-two nominal immigrants, but there were seventy-one prisoners of war and slaves in the team.

These slaves only had to work for three years for immigrants to obtain "white nationality", which was a native with legal status.

They could work with the Han people in the towns and villages, or they could go to Luzon to work and earn a living, but most of them chose to go to other villages to cultivate their own fields after three years of living in the wilderness.

"Donghetun small flag official Wang Yao."

"Liu Quan, the chief of Donghe Tunli."

Before coming to the stone fort, Wang Yao and Liu Quan reported their homes to each other, and then briefly communicated about the issue of immigrants settling down.

When they were communicating, Lu Yu and the others also looked up at the concrete stone fort that was two feet high and more than ten steps wide from east to west.

In terms of the size of this stone fort, it is not a problem to live in hundreds of people, but it is obviously impossible for immigrants to be eligible to live in it.

Not long after, after the exchange between Liu Quan and Wang Yao ended, Liu Quan also began to command everyone to start splitting up in the south of the stone fort, less than twenty steps away from the stone fort.

Although it is a wasteland, but for the matter of dividing the family, it is not a random address that can be divided, because there are natives in the mountains not far from Donghetun, so their houses cannot be built alone, and must be close to other neighbors.

"Each family occupies an acre, and a few men follow me to measure it with a tape measure and sprinkle lime powder."

"The others, following Wang Xiaoqi to unload the goods, and after leaving people to guard them, they took the ox cart and the slaves to the northeast mountain to cut down trees and collect firewood, and all the trees and firewood were distributed uniformly."

"The woman and the child stayed and dug the ravine with a hoe where the lime dust had been sprinkled!"

Liu Quan seemed to be very experienced, and soon planned this team of more than 100 people, and selected Lu Yu to pull the tape measure.

When he measured the land and drew the tape measure, Liu Quan would sprinkle lime with his own hands, and the women who followed him would dig out a two-foot-deep ravine according to Liu Quan's request.

The mud mixed with grass and wood ash was piled up next to it, and from afternoon to dusk, as the addresses of the eighty-seven houses were planned and excavated, Liu Quan began to assign their own portals to everyone.

Lu Yu's family was lucky and was allocated a piece of land next to the stone castle.

"Okay, starting tomorrow, the women and children of each of your families will dig out the foundations of each house, and the men will follow me to the river every morning to pull river stones, and in the afternoon to the woods to cut wood."

"That's it for tonight, each of you pitches your tent on your own door."

After Liu Quan said that, he used the language of the local natives to direct those natives to live on their own address.

In the future, most of these natives will live in the same courtyard, and they will all have to accept unified management.

Once a native does something that violates the "Law of Reclamation", if other natives report it, there is still a way to live, and if they cover it up, they will be suppressed.

Although there were only twelve Ming troops in the stone fort, it was easy for them to defeat these more than seventy natives after wearing armor, not to mention that there were post stations on the official road for every ten miles, and the post stations were also stationed with hundreds of troops who could support the Quartet at any time.

After setting up the tent and transferring the grain, farm tools and salt on the ox cart to the tent, Lu Yu and his younger brothers and sisters began to rest, and the cattle were taken to the stone castle by Wang Yao and them to be raised in captivity, and they would only be released to them when Lu Yu's house was built.

"Big brother, how many acres of arable land do you say we can open up in three years?"

Lying in the tent, a young man of twelve or thirteen asked Lu Yu, and Lu Yu didn't know very well, but he still said according to what he had heard in the nursing home before:

"Our family is just me and you, as well as Wang Yao, and the three of them have a little strength to open up the wasteland, but we have cultivated cattle, and I think we can still reclaim 20 acres of cultivated land in three years."

"Is it enough?" The young man's face was worried, and Lu Yu couldn't eat it:

"If this place is the same as Liu Lichang said, each mu of land can produce eight buckets of grain in the first year, one stone in the next year, and one and a half stone in three years, then it should be enough for us to eat."

When he said this, Lu Yu looked at his ten younger brothers and sisters, there was no doubt that most of them were burdens, but since they came out of a nursing home, he naturally would not leave them.

Thinking of this, Lu Yu clenched his fists: "It's all here, come on!" ”

(End of chapter)