A huge fleet headed north and four days later, first arrived at the Tomali area in the southern part of Sakhalin Island.

Li Xiao immediately ordered Wu Liang, the general manager of the Espana, to lead 10,000 craftsmen and nearly 3,000 Japanese workers, to take all their living and building materials, and get off the boat. On a high ground about seven or eight miles away from the coast, according to Li Xiao's previous plan, Kuye Nan Fort was built on the spot.

At the same time, Li Xiao left behind the general armored soldiers and horses of Zhendongying, as well as the Manzhou cavalry sentry, and stationed on the spot to prevent malicious barbarians from harassing and attacking.

Li Xiao himself, with another 10,000 construction craftsmen and more than 5,000 Han immigrant workers, continued to go north to the former Nanghaerwei area of ​​the Ming Dynasty to build Kuye North Fort.

Considering that the territory of Nanghaerwei is only separated from the entrance of the Heilongjiang River, it is very likely that when the Tiger Army was building the Kuye North Fort, the Qing army would attack across the sea while the sea was frozen. Therefore, Li Xiao brought the entire General B soldiers of Zhendongying, as well as elite troops such as the Black Tiger Heavy Cavalry, Flying Harrier Light Cavalry, and Random Strike to take advantage of the unexpected situation.

Up to now, the troops in the entire Dongying Town were distributed in that General C remained in Jeju Island and Satsuma. General A was divided into three parts. General A was stationed in Songqianfan, while General B remained in Dongshengcheng, B was stationed in the Kuyenan Fort area that was being built. General B, Xuanhu Heavy Cavalry, Feiyazi, and all 1,000 auxiliary soldiers were concentrated in the Nanghaerwei area, to ensure that the construction of Kuye North Fort was not disturbed.

After all, for the guards of Sakhalin Island, if the northern entrance to Sakhalin Island can be successfully guarded, the invading Qing army cannot move south smoothly, is the key to defending the entire Sakhalin Island.

Two days later, the entire naval fleet successfully arrived at the territory of Nanghaerwei and came to this place located in the modern Russian city of Pojibi. This is the narrowest part of the entire Tatar Strait. Opposite the strait are the Haerman Wei and Buluwu Wei of Nurkandus of the Ming Dynasty.

Li Xiao was convinced that because the strait here was the narrowest, it should be the place where the Qing army was most likely to cross the sea after the sea was frozen. Therefore, building a fortress in this place was the key to defending the entire Sakhalin Island.

After all the soldiers and civilians got off the ship and settled in camp, Li Xiao and a group of officials personally inspected a highland six miles away from the coast. This place was surrounded by rivers and the Nanghaer River flowed through the entire highland to the north. The terrain was quite dangerous and it was the best geographical location for the construction of Kuye North Fort.

Li Xiao had made up his mind and started construction immediately.

Although the weather has become very cold, the entire high ground is full of hot architectural scenes.

In order to successfully complete the construction before the land is completely frozen and hard, Li Xiao ordered all construction personnel to work overtime. The construction time every day starts from the early morning and lasts until dark, so as to ensure that the working hours every day are nearly six hours.

Correspondingly, Li Xiao significantly increased their wages to motivate them to work hard. Like ordinary construction workers, they earn 3 taels per month, while Han migrant workers who help small workers also reach a monthly wage of 1 tael of silver. At the same time, the daily food supply is also very rich and sufficient, with meat and full meals, thus ensuring the labor intensity of craftsmen and workers.

Under the stimulation of money and the strong supervision of Li Xiao, there were always more than 15,000 craftsmen and workers working selflessly, digging foundations, filling bluestones, ramming the soil inside, and covering brick walls. The entire construction site was busy and orderly, bringing a busy scene full of vitality to this thousand-year-old deserted northern cold area.

With the joint efforts of all the people, the construction of Kuye North Castle was so fast that it was basically completed in less than 40 days.

During this period, although some bold and arbitrary barbarian tribes came to harass, steal money, and kill people from time to time. However, Li Xiao's magnificent soldiers and horses, with nearly 7,000 people, immediately gave these bold and a fierce head attack on these bold and arbitrary barbarians. From the start of construction of Kuye North Fort to the completion of the entire fort, in the past 40 days, there were more than 300 barbarian heads who dared to invade Kuye North Fort and were cut down by the Tiger Army. They formed a shocking Jingguan in a conspicuous land outside the city, which greatly shocked the bold and arbitrary barbarian tribes.

The final Kuye North Fort was built, with a standard square shape, with a circumference of four miles. The city gate faced westward and was directly opposite the Tatar Strait, so that the navy could transport items. The water of the Nanghaer River was drawn around the castle and poured into the moat, so that it could pass by the city.

Moreover, the North Castle of Kuye is also like Dongshengcheng, like moats, urns, city towers, corner towers, cannon positions, female walls, scepters, etc., and has been fully built. Moreover, the walls of the two castles are all designed to be 15 meters high and the walls are 6 meters wide, thus greatly enhancing the defense of the castle.

Originally, Li Xiao planned to build this Kuye North Castle into a bastion style to increase the castle's defense ability. However, he was not familiar with the structure of the castle with all the craftsmen. In order to prevent the tiger from becoming a dog from becoming a dog, it is safer to build a standard Chinese castle.

Li Xiao climbed to the gate of the newly built Kuye North Fort. He looked at the brand new inner city, such as the official office, barracks, granaries, forage yards, storage warehouses, arsenals, horse farms, and government agencies, and was very happy.

Then, Li Xiao looked out from afar and the vast and vast blue ocean outside, and felt even more excited.

Now that this Kuye North Fort has been built, Li Xiaojun finally firmly gained a foothold on Sakhalin Island. This Sakhalin Island, which is twice as big as Taiwan Island, regrettably broke away from the motherland's plump land in real history and finally returned to the embrace of China.

After the castle was completed, because there were no immigrants, except for the military departments such as the Security Department and the Supervision and Supervision Department, Li Xiao decided not to equip other various official offices. Moreover, the Kuye North Fort exists mainly as a military fort, so it is not urgent to arrange immigration to establish an official government.

In fact, for the entire Kuye North Fort area, because it is located on the front line of confrontation with the Qing army, Li Xiao does not intend to let immigrate for the time being.

In addition to continuing to settle on Heiyi Island, immigrants who arrive after the beginning of next year will also send another immigrant to settle in the area near Kuyenanbao.

Regarding the development of the area near Kuye North Fort, Li Xiao plans to slow down. Li Xiao believes that the situation is still unstable now, and it is more stable to wait until his next step is to build a castle in the outer Manchuria area, such as the estuary of Heilongjiang. After the castle is established, the entire Sakhalin Island will no longer be on the front line and then immigrate and settle down.

After the completion of Kuye North Fort, Li Xiao's navy installed a large number of food, grass, weapons, coal balls, wood and other materials, to protect the Beibao garrison. When the mountains and seas were frozen, he could still live in Kuye North Fort for a long time.

Eight days after the completion of Kuye North Fort, Kuye South Fort on the south was also completed. Li Xiao finally completed the construction of these two castles before the cold weather was frozen and could not be constructed.

Afterwards, Li Xiao appointed Wu Zhuang, the commander of the Dongying camp in Zhen, to defend Kuye North Fort himself. He brought all the craftsmen and laborers to the south to the Hokkien. After arriving at the Hokkien, he sent 5,000 Han immigrant workers and nearly 3,000 Japanese workers back to Dongshengcheng. Finally, Li Xiao led his entire fleet and more than 20,000 craftsmen to return to Shandong to the south before the sea water was frozen and the port was frozen.

At this point, after more than half a year, the entire Heiyi Island and Sakhalin Island have been under the control of Li Xiao. Li Xiao plans to send large-scale immigrants to these two places after the thawing of spring next year, so that the number of immigrants on Heiyi Island will reach more than 350,000, and the number of immigrants in the southern part of Sakhalin Island will also reach about 100,000, so that these two newly acquired islands can be successfully developed as soon as possible.

Before leaving Kuye North Fort, Li Xiao had a secret talk with Wu Zhuang, the general stationed at Kuye North Fort.

"Wu Zhuang, Sakhalin Island was first occupied by our army. In your opinion, what should we do to make the barbarians on Sakhalin Island live in peace with our army?" Li Xiao asked him with a smile.

Wu Zhuangmao's brow shook, and then bowed loudly and replied: "Report to the Marquis, I think our army should implement severe suppression and attack on the barbarians who dare to invade! If necessary, I will personally lead troops into the mountains and forests to suppress them, and give these bold and arbitrary barbarians a plow and sweep the caves and destroy them all!"

After hearing Wu Zhuang's words, Li Xiao shook his head and said, "Wu Zhuang, according to my opinion, it is probably difficult for me to do this."

"Oh, why did you say this?"

"Wu Zhuang, let me ask you, in the northern part of Sakhalin Island, there are so many Jurchens and Feiyakar people in the East China Sea, with tens of thousands of people. The tribes hide in the dense forests, and these places are rare places, without even a road. You are not familiar with the place, and if you don't have a guide, how can you attack? Moreover, most of these barbarian tribes have been favored by the Qing court and paid tribute to them, so it is normal to take hostile attitude towards our army. If you use force frequently and kill them blindly, it will only make these tribes even more rebellious to the Qing court. Even if they have to be afraid of the power of our army, they will still be difficult to convince and cannot be used by our army. Our army wants to be in a long-term state of peace here, but it is impossible to obtain."

"Sir, this... Takeo Shino Ichisuke really can't think about this long term." Wu Zhuang scratched his head and said.

"Wu Zhuang, I will give you a word. If you want long-term peace and stability, you must clean up people's hearts." Li Xiao's eyes were deep and he said slowly: "Our army first came, and it is difficult to use methods such as education for a while. Only by first using more and better interests than the Qing court to convince people's hearts is a safe plan."

"I would like to ask the Lord to give a detailed explanation."

"In my opinion, now that Kuye North Fort is built, we can send people to spread the news and tell the local barbarians that our Ming Dynasty is now building a fort and city on Sakhalin Island. This Sakhalin Island is already a land of the Ming Dynasty, so these barbarians are already subjects of the Ming Dynasty. Therefore, they no longer have to pay taxes to the Qing court as before. However, my Ming Dynasty is generous, but I can exempt the local natives from three years of taxes."

"Sir, you are a good plan! In this way, those native barbarians are people who value immediate interests. Compared with these two, the small favors of the Qing court are not worth mentioning. Seeing that the Ming Dynasty took care of him like this, the natives would be able to quickly turn to our army." Wu Zhuang's eyes suddenly shone.

Li Xiao smiled and continued, "Wu Zhuang, this is only a preliminary plan. The second step is to tell these indigenous barbarians that now I have built the Kuye North Fort in Ming Dynasty, and they can be allowed to trade in the Kuye North Fort. They use cigarettes, wool velvet, ironware, sea salt, cloth and other commercial goods produced by our army to exchange for their dried meat, animal skins, deer and antlers. In this way, on the basis of exempting their taxes, they can also obtain greater benefits from trade. And these indigenous people will definitely form a strong dependence on the excellent commercial goods of our army."

"What's the best strategy for this second plan for adults. These natives are in short supply of food and clothing, and all kinds of daily necessities are in short supply. Our army's commercial goods will definitely be very popular. Moreover, if those items such as animal skins and deer antlers are resold to the mainland, they will definitely make a lot of money." Wu Zhuang smiled happily.

Li Xiao nodded and continued: "After the indigenous barbarians formed a trade relationship with our army, further temptation and stimulation are needed. If this step is successful, these tribes will completely cut off their ties with the Qing court and become enemies with them."

After hearing what Li Xiao said, Wu Zhuang's face suddenly looked puzzled and eager to hear Li Xiao's further explanation.

Li Xiao took a deep breath and said slowly: "Wu Zhuang, this strategy is to spread news to tell those native barbarians that if anyone hunted the Qing Tartars, no matter how alive or dead they were sent to our military, they would receive a large reward. It is said that there must be brave men under heavy rewards, and I don't believe it. Under such temptation of profit, those barbarians will not suddenly have the intention to kill the Qing officials who came to Sakhalin Island to collect taxes!"

Wu Zhuang laughed loudly when he heard this, and said loudly: "My master's plan is a good plan to kill people with a knife! If those barbarians spontaneously attack and kill the Qing captives, it would save us a lot of trouble. From the following point of view, if the master's plan is implemented, those barbarian tribes will completely offend the Qing court and have to firmly rely on our army."

Li Xiao also laughed loudly, with a proud look on his face. Then, he agreed with Wu Zhuang to give various rewards to Tartars in the future.

After Li Xiao left with the navy, Wu Zhuang sent instructors of his subordinates to protect the civil servants of the Supervisory Office, and went to various barbarian tribes to preach the various policies of the Ming army.

Sure enough, after hearing that Sakhalin Island had been occupied by the Ming army and exempted them from taxes for three years, these barbarians were extremely happy. Some indigenous tribes even expressed their allegiance immediately.

Subsequently, various barbarian tribes sent envoys to Kuye North Fort to trade in exchange for wool velvet, ironware, sea salt, cloth and other goods from Li Xiao's army.

Under Li Xiao's two-pronged policy, the relationship between the Tiger Army and the local barbarians was greatly improved. Next, Wu Zhuang agreed with the barbarian tribes that after this transaction, the last three days of each month will be the opening of trade for the Ming army. Each tribe can send people to the urn city of Kuye North Fort to conduct trade exchange activities.

Time passed day by day, and before we knew it, it was the extremely cold and severe winter season.

In the mid-November of the lunar calendar in the eleventh year of Chongzhen, heavy snow fell on Sakhalin Island for three consecutive days, and the weather dropped to more than minus twenty degrees below the bottom. The entire Kuye North Fort was covered with thick snow, like an ice and snow castle in a fairy tale.

However, Wu Zhuang and other defenders did not have such leisure to enjoy the snow scene. At this time, he was leading the soldiers to take advantage of the snow stop and quickly clear the snow so that traffic in the fort can be smooth.

At this time, suddenly, the army on the building came to report that three barbarian men riding horses came from afar, walking forward in the snow and heading towards their own Kuye North Fort.

When Wu Zhuang heard this, he was very suspicious. It was not the time for trade, so why were barbarians coming?

He was stunned for a moment, and hurriedly led a group of guards to the city tower to check.

At this time, the three barbarian men were getting closer and saw from a distance that there were Ming troops watching them on the city wall. They raised a black thing in their hands and shouted loudly at the direction of the city wall.

"What are these natives shouting?"

Because the distance was still far, Wu Zhuang could not see the items in their hands, so he turned his head and asked a translator next to him who knew the language of the barbarians.
Chapter completed!