For many days, Li Xiao and Zhu Huiyan were immersed in the joy of wedding. The two fell in love with each other, snuggling and entangled, and it was really as if they were as close as a paintbing, and it was hard to separate for a moment. If others saw each other, they would envy them secretly in their hearts. They were such a loving couple with a talented and beautiful woman.

However, Li Xiao has always been rigorous and fast in his work and never wastes time easily. Within more than a month of preparing for the wedding, Li Xiao has seized the time and made detailed plans and arrangements for all the work to be carried out, ensuring that all kinds of plans related to Li Xiaojun's future can be carried out in an orderly manner.

Two weeks after the end of the Battle of Iron City, Monk Tian Wei'an and others recruited a total of more than 60,000 refugees from the county town near Shandong, as well as the areas of Guide Prefecture, Henan and Fengyang Prefecture, Nanzhili.

In addition to the people in the villages and towns of Shan County who were hiding in Tielong City, the number of people in Tielong City now needs to be resettled is as many as 80,000.

Chen Zilong made a statistics on these people. There were more than 30,000 strong men, more than 25,000 strong women, more than 5,000 old men, more than 4,000 elderly women, and more than 10,000 young girls under the age of 14, with a total of more than 20,000 households.

Among them, in addition to strong men and women, there are about 3,000 healthy old men and women who can be used as labor force. The remaining more than 10,000 are all elderly and weak people who are incapable of working.

In addition, the number of prisoners in the Iron Dragon City is more than 10,000.

In other words, there are nearly 100,000 people in Tielong City now, and Li Xiao needs to make arrangements.

Li Xiaojing discussed in detail with Chen Zilong, Wu Liang and others. Given the sufficient manpower now, all kinds of large-scale actions and related specific plans can be implemented.

First and most important thing is to expand the army.

In order to make up for the huge loss of soldiers in the last battle, Chifeng General and Iron Dragon General, plus the auxiliary soldiers to be supplemented, recruited more than 6,000 new recruits to join Li Xiao's army.

Among the new recruits who joined the army, in addition to the 5,000 soldiers recruited from the refugee strong men, there were also nearly 1,000 bandits with fewer bad records from the newly surrendered bandits and new affiliated troops, and they also selected about 1,000 bandits with fewer bad records and added them to the army.

Li Haoran, the son of Shandong Governor Li Maofang, volunteered to go to the cavalry unit. Li Xiao, who had originally wanted to keep him by his side, saw that he was so eager, arranged for him to become a captain of the Chifeng Wei Feiyaozi, who was in charge of a hundred light cavalry under his jurisdiction. Li Haoran was very happy and happily went to take office without mentioning it.

Next, the key task Li Xiao needs to do is to expand the production of the steel industry.

The earliest iron-making blast furnace has been demolished. Three newly built iron-making blast furnaces are all 30 cubic meters of high-aluminum vanadium bauxite refractory brick blast furnaces. In addition to the construction of iron-making blast furnaces, Li Xiao added another steel-making blast furnace to 2, requiring 3,000 labor force to be added. Li Xiao required that the effective volume of a 30 cubic meters of blast furnace is about 20 cubic meters. Even with a low utilization coefficient, such as 2 to 3, each blast furnace can produce at least 6 tons of dripping iron every day, ensuring that more than 18 tons of dripping iron is produced every day.

Due to the increase in iron smelting blast furnaces, the number of workers required for mining, crushing and washing outside the city naturally increased significantly.

According to research by Li Xiao and Yan Jun and others, the iron content of the ore in the pulse-rich iron ore dug in Dan County can reach 50%, and this purity is quite considerable. You should know that China is an iron-poor country, with most iron ore producing areas, and the iron ore content is only about 30%.

However, in many places in the Ming Dynasty, due to the primitive process, a ton of hematite with an iron content of 50% could only produce less than 300 kilograms of iron. If the ore contains a lot of impurities such as thiophosphate and arsenic, it would be quite good to produce 200 kilograms.

What Li Xiao now uses is a variety of advanced technology iron smelting methods, which can produce 450 kilograms of steel by a ton of ordinary hematite with an iron content of 50%.

Li Xiao can greatly increase the iron production volume so greatly, which will undoubtedly greatly save production costs. Compared with other iron ores, under the same quality, the steel produced by Li Xiao Tielong City will have considerable advantages in price.

Now, it can be simply calculated that if the production of Li Xiao’s three blast furnaces is maintained for 20 days a month, including transportation and wear and tear loss, a total of about 800 tons of iron ore will be produced every month to ensure that the blast furnace will not be shut down and ready for material.

Since it is now purely human excavation, a laborer can dig about 150 to 200 kilograms of iron ore in a mine cave. In addition to the monthly illness rest time, one month can be calculated based on about 25 days, and one month can be digged about 0.4 to 0.5 tons.

It can be easily calculated that the production volume of an excavation team of about 2,000 people is required to ensure normal production.

In order to be on the safe side and to allow the excess iron ore to be deposited into the warehouse, Li Xiao arranged a total of 3,000 prisoners to do mining work.

More than 2,000 people were also arranged for grinding, washing and round-trip transportation.

Li Xiao stipulated that the most difficult and tiring mining work is the most serious crimes committed by the bandits who committed the most serious crimes in reporting each other. Those with slightly less crimes will be punished and mine-washed.

These prisoners are all voluntary laborers of labor reform. They have no salary and benefits except for food and accommodation. They work under the whip of supervisors every day, which is considered a redemption for the crimes they committed.

More than 2,000 Henan people and local people in Shan County who used to do such hard work were arranged by Li Xiao to other places.

In this way, more than 10,000 captured bandit soldiers and more than 4,000 people need to be arranged.

Li Xiao selected 3,000 prisoners from the more than 4,000 people who were more guilty than the mine mill and mine washing team, and arranged them to become steelmakers who operate blast furnaces and fried furnaces, just to meet the manpower needed to expand blast furnaces and fried furnaces. In order to make them more responsible in their work, in addition to providing food and accommodation, Li Xiao also gave them 2 yuan of salary per month.

In the end, the remaining 1,000 prisoners who committed the least crimes entered the forging ground to be apprentices, with a monthly salary of 3 cents and 5 cents of silver.

Li Xiao divided the prisoners into different levels in this way, and artificially creating differences in treatment can effectively prevent them from merging together, so that even if they want to resist, they will not be able to form cohesion.

Next, Li Xiao divided the forging smelting farms as large workers into three groups, one specializing in producing weapons, including solid shells, thunder shells, etc., one specializing in producing armor, and the other specializing in producing various daily necessities. According to the requirements of the head-headed copper pillar, a large number of refugee male workers were recruited. As apprentices, in addition to the 1,000 captured apprentices above, 2,000 Henan people and 3,000 refugee strong men were recruited from the mining site to enter the forging factory.

In fact, the forging grounds not only accept such male workers. In addition, in places such as armor groups that require a lot of manual work, more than 5,000 female workers have been absorbed into it to sew and splice armor.

The next step of Li Xiao's arrangement was the ammunition factory, which was temporarily responsible for the firearm chief Zhao Jie. In order to save labor, Li Xiao arranged all the work such as kneading pelleted gunpowder, loading thunder gunpowder, and packaging and loading bullets. The male worker was responsible for heavy work such as mixing and preparing and transporting black gunpowder, and initially recruited 200 male workers and 300 female workers.

Another artillery factory recruited 300 male workers, whose main job was to manufacture trench machines, and Zhao Jie was also responsible for it.

So far, all the prisoners in the Iron City have been arranged, and the original people have been arranged. Another 8,500 strong men and 2,300 strong women have been arranged.

Next, Li Xiao focused on arranging the field teaching work in Dan County.

Speaking of which, although the bandits plundered various villages and towns in Shan County this time, they caused tragic damage to Shan County, they also brought unexpected benefits to Li Xiao.

That is, the landlords and gentry in Shan County have basically been eliminated by the bandits, and their land has become a homeless land. The original remaining villages and towns have also been incorporated into Tielong City by Li Xiao. Now, Li Xiao is just in time to divide the land according to his own wishes.

Because of the experience of Chifengwei, Li Xiao divided Shan County into 8 townships, and like Chifengwei, he also divided the civil affairs offices of each township, as well as basic official positions such as township chiefs, village chiefs, and lizheng.

According to Chen Zilong and Wu Liang, the two of them, who investigated the land in various parts of Dan County during this period, they found that in the entire Dan County, there were 400,000 mu of arable land, 80,000 mu of upper land, 130,000 mu of medium land, and 190,000 mu of lower land.

Similarly, Li Xiao, like Chifengwei, gave priority to the granting of land by his military meritorious family members. A total of 2,500 military families. Because of his significant contributions and a large number of laborers in his family, he obtained the right to grant land by his military merits.

Each family of military meritorious families issued a land deed and granted 40 acres of land. According to the size of the merit, they were given priority to good quality land. Then, the ox was divided into one ox for each five households. In order to commend the merits of the military soldiers, Li Xiao specially gave these oxen to them.

The families of military soldiers divided 100,000 mu of upper and middle fields. Next, the original Dan County people divided the remaining fields first. After the original Dan County people were divided, they were assigned to refugees to cultivate. These Dan County people and refugees were granted 20 mu of land each household, and required each household to have at least 4 people, and two strong laborers could produce and farm to ensure sufficient labor. The ox used by refugees was based on one plowing ox for every 10 households, and they would need to pay their own expenses and be deducted from the grain tax at that time.

The remaining 300,000 mu of land was distributed to 15,000 households, and more than 60,000 people were arranged in total.

Li Xiao stipulated that, like Chifengwei, these families who divide the land, will collect one dou of grain for one acre of land, twice a year in summer and autumn, and will pay in kind, without having to pay it into silver. In the following year, they will collect two dou of grain for one acre of land, twice a year. From then on, they will always be a fixed rule and no more grain tax will be increased.

Since the winter wheat cultivation season is over, Li Xiao arranged for the people to give priority to planting millet with short-term lengths, so that after the millet matures, they can start planting sorghum immediately.

As for agricultural tools and wheat seeds, Li Xiao bought them from Yanzhou and nearby counties, and then sold them to each family at a fair price.

At this point, all the land and industries in the entire Dan County have been arranged, and the local people and the refugees they have attracted have basically been properly resettled. There are also a very small number of refugees who have been recruited as partners by various shops outside the city, which can be regarded as solving the employment problem.

However, Li Xiao was still not satisfied with the current situation in Dan County.

Because according to the results of Chen Zilong and others' inspection in the countryside, there are nearly 150,000 mu of wasteland in the entire Dan County, and it is not developed because the land is barren and difficult to grow grain.

Li Xiao planned to transform these wastelands into mulberry fields like Chifengwei to maximize the land use in Dan County as much as possible.

He thought very clearly that if these 150,000 mu of mulberry fields were developed, how considerable the benefits would be brought to himself.

According to Zheng Rubao, the head of the sericulture class, these improved mulberry fields can produce about 1,000 kilograms of mulberry leaves per mu, and can reel 5 to 6 kilograms of silk, which can produce 750,000 kilograms of raw silk every year. Together with the 30,000 mu of mulberry fields in Chifengwei, a total of 900,000 kilograms of raw silk can be produced every year. If sold to China, you can get 540,000 taels of silver every year. If sold to overseas, you can get at least 1.2 million taels of silver!

This is an amazing wealth, and Li Xiao wants to keep this profit firmly in his hands.

Next, Li Xiao began to arrange industrial production of Chifengwei.

Now all the Chifeng Guards have been built, a city with a circumference of 12 miles, with blue bricks, moats, urns, forts, corner buildings, female walls, horse roads, pheasants and other defensive facilities all over the city. It is located in the north Ma River in the east, Longkou Bay in the north, and the river crosses the sea, and is a magnificent new city at the end!

The zoning planning of the city is also divided into six districts according to Li Xiao's requirements, and according to their location, it is named Northeast District, East District, Southeast District, Southwest District, West District, and Northwest District. The specific plans are as follows:

The East District is a civilian area, and a large area of ​​civilian houses have been repaired. The original residents in Chifeng Castle have moved out of the inner city and moved to new houses. Li Xiao, the refugees who came to Chifeng City, also asked them to move in early, and stipulated that they would pay the housing fee in the future with their wages. In the East District, public bathhouses, wells, clinics, and schools have been built to facilitate the lives of residents.

The West District is a wealthy area, and buildings such as stages, temples, clubs, small gardens are built to attract wealthy families to buy residential land and live in a long-term stable life. However, because Chifeng City is still newly built, there are only a few rich people from Huang County or Zhaoyuan County who buy land and build their own luxury houses here.

The southeast area is the location of large-scale markets, such as silk, tea, ceramics, wine, etc., which can be traded here. Because it was just established, only a few companies have opened here.

The southwest area was built by Li Xiao as it was close to the wealthy area in the west and large trading markets in the southeast area, and was preparing to buy land by merchants themselves to build various shops, restaurants, business shops, clubs and other places here for the people in the city to spend and rest with wealthy merchants traveling from south to north.

In the northwest area, the professional warehouse area established for Li Xiao is used to store grain, ironware, wool velvet and other items produced by our army. Since Li Xiaojun has not produced much, a large number of warehouses repaired here are still vacant.

The Northeast District is set up as a special trading area for Li Xiaojun to produce products, such as various iron tools, wool cloth and other items, which are traded here. In addition, the four-wheeled carriage production line was also moved from the original Chifeng Fort here.

Now the inner city of Chifeng City has been changed to the locations of Chifeng General Military Camp and a number of official offices.

Looking at the brand new and energetic Chifeng City, Li Xiao was very excited.

Perhaps, in a few years, this Chifeng City, close to the excellent harbor, Longkou Bay, will become Shandong's number one commercial center and the most prosperous overseas trade city.

It’s great to change history and create a prosperous city with your own hands.

So far, there are still more than 15,000 refugees from Xuanfu Town who have come to make arrangements in Chifeng Guard.

Among these refugees, there are about 7,000 strong men and more than 5,000 strong women and the rest are old and weak.

Among these refugees, more than 500 have been absorbed into the company of all kinds of newly established shops in Chifeng City, and the rest, Li Xiao began to dispatch them to other places.

Now the expansion of the salt factory has been completed. A total of 1,000 acres of salt fields have been opened. Xue Dafu, the head of the salt farm, has recruited 1,500 male workers and 500 female workers. The male workers are drying salt, turning salt, and shipping, while the female workers are responsible for bag-and-packing and other work.

In the four-wheeled carriage business, 300 male workers and 100 female workers were recruited to work.

Now the Jinchiling Gold Mine in Zhaoyuan has been initially built and a mine cave has been planned. Li Xiao appointed Ma Tang, who surrendered on the same day, as the person in charge. In addition to more than 500 bandits being treated as courier labor reform, Li Xiao recruited 500 migrant male workers in order to expand gold production.

Li Xiao was not satisfied with mining gold mines only in this place. After all, he had already negotiated with Zhao Yungong, the magistrate of Zhaoyuan County. Now, in Zhaoyuan County, all remote mountainous areas are stationed and managed by Li Xiao's army. Li Xiao planned to explore these places. Perhaps, more gold mines can be found and more refugees can be found.

The remaining refugees were arranged by Li Xiao to an agricultural site.

Now Chifengwei has 50,000 mu of heavy saline-alkali land, of which 20,000 mu have been converted into military horse farm farms, where alfalfa and forage grass are planted, and the surplus war horses that Li Xiaojun has temporarily useless are recruited, and a total of 200 male workers have been recruited.

The other 30,000 acres of more than 30,000 acres were converted into economic crop plantings, which were contracted according to the number of households, Li Xiao stipulated that each household contracted 60 acres, with a total of 500 households, and a total of more than 2,200 people were arranged.

For these contractors, Li Xiao decided that because the saline-alkali land had just been improved and was too barren, Li Xiao decided not to collect any taxes within two years, and all outputs belong to the growers. Taxes start from the third year, only once a year, and only one bush of cash crops per mu.

This is a decision made by Li Xiao considering the meager output of these lands. After all, it would be a good thing to use these originally useless land to resettle these refugees. Li Xiao does not expect that he can get much profit and profit with such a cash crop planting.

Next, the distribution of 30,000 mu of mulberry fields that Chifengwei has improved. Li Xiao decided to contract according to households and give priority to those improved saline-alkali land and open up Henan people who can plant mulberry fields. After the arrangement is completed, the refugees in Xuan Town will be arranged. One household will contract 30 mu. After the cocoons are produced, 10 kilograms of silkworm cocoons will be paid per mu in the first year. From the second year, 15 kilograms of each mu will be paid per mu. From then on, it will be a fixed order and no tax will be added. The remaining cocoons produced by the sericulture will be purchased at the market price by the sericulture department. The mulberries produced by mulberry trees will be left to the mulberry silkworm households for their own consumption.

In this way, a total of 1,000 households became mulberry households in Chifengwei, and more than 4,000 people were arranged.

Next, Li Xiao plans to build Longkou Bay Port.

Li Xiao believed that after the completion of Longkou Bay, it will greatly help Chifeng City's foreign trade. Perhaps, the grand trade with thousands of ships with bows gathered in the port will be realized under his own hands.

There are still more than three thousand refugee men and more than two thousand strong women who have not made any arrangements.

In order to save costs, Li Xiao decided to build the construction materials for the port and tried to purchase them from brick factories, lime factories and quarries in Shouquanshan. In order to expand production, he arranged 700 male workers and 300 female workers to join each factory respectively.

For the remaining laborers of more than 4,000 people, Li Xiao arranged for them to work with craftsmen such as Chang Dali to build the Longkou Bay Port and the official road connected to Longkou Bay and Chifeng City.

If these people complete Longkou Bay, they don’t have to worry about unemployment. Because they can naturally become dock workers and become friends of major businesses who will settle in Chifeng City in the future. As a result, the employment problem has been basically solved.

After resettling all the refugees, Li Xiao let out a long sigh and felt an indescribable sense of relief in his heart.

Now he feels clearer and clearer.
Chapter completed!