Ricardo judged that these poor households, after obtaining the land on which they depended, would gradually move closer to the people of the East Coast, and this was partly confirmed in some areas. After many poor people have taken over the land, it basically means that they have completely offended the village leaders such as the patriarch and the village elders (usually the local gentry, who are naturally very close to the Qing court), and if there is no endorsement from the East Coast army, they will probably be wiped out in minutes.

In the matter of supporting these people, the East Coast army was also unambiguous: the 4th and 6th Divisions of the newly built army, the 5th Brigade of the Standing Force (adapted from 2,000 German mercenaries), and the New Army of the Eight Banners of South Africa were almost not idle for a day.

And once the situation settles down, then time is on the side of the East Coast. With the passage of time, the poor people who have been allocated land will gradually gain a firm foothold, they are the basic plate of the East Coast, and they have formed a community of interests with the East Coast people, plus the veterans who are the leaders of the villages in the countryside, which means that the tentacles of the East Coast people have gradually penetrated into the countryside, and their control power has been greatly enhanced. In time, with the establishment of education, industry, and commerce, the traditional local gentry will be gradually excluded from the mainstream social circle, and their influence on the local will be greatly weakened, and eventually they will become dispensable figures, and will no longer be a threat.

This is true in Yin County. Other counties are also gradually implementing such policies, and for this reason, Liu Haiyang, Wei Boqiu and others even plan to ask Shao Shude to relocate another batch of immigrants from other places. to change the local demographics and break down the intertwined web of influence. It's just that due to various factors, other counties have not had such a big "achievement" as Yin County for a while, but with the arrival of a group of cadres from the Corps Fort who came from the local support, I believe that this situation will be improved.

In other words, the student corps system established by the people of the East Coast today is really the biggest stroke of genius since the crossing. After ten years of closed study and training, these cadets, who are mainly children between the ages of 7 and 12 (most of whom are purchased orphans), have mastered knowledge far beyond the average level of their time. Moreover, the individual combat skills and the spirit of unity and cooperation are also quite good, and they are a powerful weapon for the executive committee to control the local government.

The Bingtuan Fort in Luoqia County currently graduates 1,000 students every year. The Executive Committee will pay attention to almost all the military graduates of the 39th Regiment (graduated in 49 years), and also graduate the military students in the 40th Regiment (graduated in 50 years) ahead of schedule, and the two together formed a team of more than 1,000 people, which was packaged and sent to Ningbo. A few days ago, they landed at Dinghai Port on the second all-steam-powered ship in China, the "Tierra del Fuego."

These cadres are young and strong, their skills are quite good, their will to fight is tenacious, and their spirit of unity and cooperation is also very high. After a ten-year closed brainwashing education, they are also quite loyal to the Executive Committee, and their participation in the military and political system in the Heishui region is of great help to the implementation of the will of the Executive Committee, and it can also effectively deter some ambitious guys.

For the arrival of this group of cadres, Shao Shude is the most welcome. Mao Desheng expressed limited support, Liu Haiyang was noncommittal, and Wei Boqiu was not very agreeable - but it was not something he could resist. The first foothold of this group of cadres was Dinghai Port. They will first undergo rehabilitation training in Dinghai County, and at the same time learn all kinds of local knowledge to prepare for the full takeover of the local (military management) in the future. Of course, during the training and study period, more than 1,000 of their classmates who have been training together for ten years will arm themselves to the teeth. Then go to the local area to suppress some "lawbreakers". Some of the "outlaws" captured by them were exiled to Sakhalin Island and the four villages of the Amur River. Those with less serious circumstances will remain in the local salt works as coolies.

At present, the major salt farms in Dinghai County, which have been abandoned for a long time, have been restored to production, and in addition to local consumption, the largest part of the salt produced is naturally exported to Dabo and Heishui counties. As the fishery production in these two counties becomes more and more prosperous, the demand for coarse salt that can be salted is also increasing, which puts forward higher requirements for the production of salt farms in Dinghai County.

As we all know, the salt factory is a very labor-intensive place, and Ningbo Prefecture has experienced a lot of population losses after the war in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, so the increase in production has been limited. To put it mildly, fortunately, the gentry riots in various places gave the people on the east coast a solid excuse to send a large number of prisoners to the salt works to work as coolies, otherwise the salt works in Dinghai County would have resumed production so quickly.

In fact, not only the salt farm, but also the production of tea, sericulture, cotton and the most important staple grains in the counties under the jurisdiction of Ningbo Prefecture, which is not the most labor-intensive industry in this era? For example, the tea farms where the people on the east coast were the first to restore production order -- at present, many tea farms in the Siming Mountains and Tianmu Mountains that were formerly owned by Qing court officials have been nationalized -- last year they exported a total of 200,000 yuan of tea to the east coast, but these tea farms "consumed" thousands of laborers. With the increase in local tea consumption on the east coast year by year, it is believed that the number of laborers needed for these tea farms will increase day by day, but Fenghua County is a small county, and the population of the county is only 70,000 or 80,000 people. Isn't it time to engage in planting agriculture?

However, this seems to be an idea, and it is also a concept vigorously promoted by the Blackwater Pioneer Government, which comes from the Executive Committee's design of a single economic system in the colonies, that is, the economic system of each colony should be extremely homogeneous, and once it leaves the East Coast, it may fall into the long-term economic pain of economic collapse or "lost n years", so as to ensure that the East Coast can grab the most lucrative profits in the industrial chain.

Heishui is 108,000 miles away from the mainland on the east coast, and generally speaking, it is not suitable for this kind of economic system, but if it is improved, it will be beneficial to complement the economy of Heishui and other places. For example, Yin County, which has the most fertile land and the most complete water conservancy facilities under the rule of the people on the east coast, can focus on grain cultivation and sericulture; There are many salt farms in Dinghai County, so you can export salt and all kinds of pickled products, of course, farmers can also develop sericulture industry, after all, this is a straining commodity; Fenghua County is easy to say, as a whole, it will be dominated by sericulture and tea industry, as for the grain and salt needed for daily life, it can be imported from neighboring counties.

And if we regard the counties of Ningbo Prefecture under the rule of the East Coast people as a whole and participate in the operation of the entire Heishui economic system, we can find that the entire Ningbo Prefecture (including Ninghai County, Taizhou Prefecture, which has been occupied, a total of six counties and one Wei, Guanhaiwei has been occupied by the Qing army) exports grain, raw silk, tea, bamboo, salt and some handicrafts to the northern Shandong (including Jeju Island, Busan, Wonsanjin and other places) and Heishui region, and at the same time imports cement, lime, metal utensils, canned food, pickled fish and meat, seafood, Leather, livestock, medicinal herbs, high-quality furniture, large wood and some handicrafts, on the whole, the trade between the two sides is generally balanced, and Ningbo is slightly overpowering, but there is no doubt that the two economies are very complementary.

If the government guides and vigorously develops it, within 10 years, it will inevitably gradually affect the production, lifestyle, and social atmosphere of millions of people in the two places. Over time, these economic influences will eventually affect all corners of society, making the entire region, including Ningbo, Dengzhou, Laizhou, and the Heishui Islands, gradually alien from the ancient Central Plains, so that the rule of the people on the east coast can be truly consolidated. As the saying goes, the economic base determines the superstructure, and only when the economy of these regions is dominated by industrial and commercial capitalism will there really be no soil for the survival of the enemy.

The only thing to worry about now is probably that when the system on the east coast has not really been established and stabilized, it was forcibly broken by powerful foreign force, and then returned to the original state again. Therefore, what the people on the east coast need to do now is to desperately resist the offensive of the Qing army in the west and north, and then suppress the internal rebellion, carry out social reform step by step, and finally adopt it for their own use.

With the cooperation of the troops on the east bank, the troops led by Liu Guochang and Liu Shijun of Dashun relied on two fortresses equipped with a large number of artillery pieces, Che Stable Fort and Tianluo Fort, as well as the navy's shallow water gunboats that supported from the Cixi River at any time, to firmly block the Qing army in Yuyao County.

However, on the front line of Guanhaiwei and Cixi County in the north, the situation was not very optimistic, and Ding Weiyue's 3,000 men of the 10th Division of the newly built army were defeated by the Qing army with bronze artillery in Guanhaiwei, losing hundreds of soldiers and greatly losing their vitality. Now Master Ding has led the remnants of the defeat to Cixi County, relying on the city wall to defend it, and Liu Haiyang, who was sitting in the rear, was also taken aback when he heard the news, and immediately dispatched the Fifth Brigade of the Standing Force temporarily formed by German mercenaries to rush to Cixi to resist the possible offensive of the Qing army. At the same time, the navy also pulled out several warships and went deep into Hangzhou Bay to deliberately let the Qing army see them, so that they would have the idea that the army on the east coast might wait for an opportunity to land in order to contain some of their troops.

All in all, the shape of the people on the east coast in eastern Zhejiang is still very subtle, with the gentry and landlords making trouble inside, and the coercion of the Qing army brigade outside, which can be said to be dancing on the tightrope, and there can be no mistakes at all. However, on the whole, Liu Haiyang, Wei Boqiu, Huang Yi and others can barely cope, the situation is still in a controllable state, and as time goes by, the Ningbo Mansion will be farther and farther away from the Qing court, and eventually transformed into a force that can be used by the people on the east coast themselves. (To be continued)