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At the beginning of March, Bengang had begun to show a bit of heat, and the sun above them was no longer as mild as before, so that the heads and cheeks of a group of farmers working in the fields were covered with crystal water droplets, dripping down their bronzed skin and falling on the black earth, splashing dust flowers.

On the vast land, there are farmers who work endlessly, some of them are wearing small coats, some are shirtless, waving the farm tools in their hands, full of reverie for the future and doing farm work, and from time to time they also talk a few words of gossip and chatter with the surrounding villagers.

They can't help but be unhappy, compared to the days when they didn't know where they belonged a year or two ago, now they not only have their own houses, can eat well, and even get a dozen acres of fertile land enough to inherit their families, life is like this, for them there is no regret.

And although Bengang is a little secluded here, the things needed for life can still be bought here, and more importantly, in addition to the 1/20 income that needs to be paid per mu of land, they no longer need to pay any other taxes, but it is much more relaxed than under the rule of the Ming Dynasty.

Of course, this freedom is also based on the premise of abiding by the dense rules and regulations in front of the camp gate. If someone accidentally violates one of the above paragraphs, the corresponding punishment will be imposed on you, so that you don't want to commit it again.

It's just recently, I don't know where the news came from, saying that in the future, the strong men of every family will be gathered in the camp to do the training on the killing matter, so that the villagers who have only lived a few days of leisure are worried and gossip.

Among the displaced people recruited by Li Tianyang, many of them fled from the vicinity of Guanwai and Guannei, and there was no small reason why they left their hometowns at the beginning was that they themselves were prevented from being killed by the soldiers, filling in the endless whirlpool of battles among the clans outside the Saiwai, and there was no place to die!

Even the homeless people in the interior have inevitably suffered from the hardships of labor, building city walls and maintaining grain routes, which is not a hard errand that will make an elite man shed a layer of skin, and it is not uncommon to die in it.

Now I didn't think that when I arrived in this stupid port, I would have to do this equivalent to inland labor, how could I not let these villagers who had suffered be frightened!

But they really can't bear this fertile land that has just arrived, and this stable nest that has been built with great difficulty.

Moreover, this stupid harbor camp is far away from the mainland, and it is an easy thing to get back to the mainland, there is no big ship that can go to sea and sail far, just with a few small boats in the port, out of the sea, a wave will overturn you in the vast sea.

"Camp master, this is the population book we have re-re-requisitioned this month." A young man held a thick stack of booklets in his hand and put them in front of Li Tianyang's desk.

Li Tianyang looked at the thick booklet, and then motioned to the young man to report in detail the results of this recount of the population in the camp.

Since the natives learned how to cultivate the land, the natives who came to settle and live in Bengang have gradually decreased, and the ensuing population growth rate of Bengang has suddenly returned to a slow rate, and there will no longer be an expansive surge like before. Unless, Li Tianyang recruits them from the interior again, or sweeps the pirates again and takes prisoners into the port.

Therefore, Li Tianyang and the others also decided to recount the population households among the settled population in the camp from February, and draw up a book to facilitate future management.

"The total resident population of the camp is 33,475, and the total number of registered households is 5,922. The number of children under the age of 16 was 18,113, and the number of children between the ages of 16 and 45 was 12,507. The auspicious data came out of the young man's mouth one by one, so that everyone had a correct understanding of Bengang for the first time: "Among the 12,507 adults, the number of men is 5,998 and the number of women is 6,509. ”

"In other words, if we want to set up a Self-Defense Force, we will have to draw from among the men who have less than 6,000 men." When Li Tianyang heard this, he interrupted the young man's report and asked carefully.

"According to the plan you have made, it is indeed like this." The young man replied calmly: "Moreover, among the more than 5,900 people, there are more than 1,300 people who have been incorporated into our Hongtang team, and the last remaining men are actually only about 4,600 people. ”

"Alas, this number is too small!" Li Tianyang shook his head.

I thought that the stalls in the camp were so big now, no matter what, the number of adult men in this camp should not be this number. But what Li Tianyang didn't expect was that this census once again failed his wishful thinking.

But in fact, think about it, in a team of more than 30,000 people, less than 1/5 of the head is an adult strong man, which is not an unusual thing. After all, Li Tianyang's source of population, in addition to attracting those natives on the island, the rest were either recruited refugees, or the families of the pirates who were taken in after killing the pirates, or the victims of the plague of the pirates. Every adult man is not dragged by his family, and he has many oil bottles.

Not to mention that in the past two years, life in Bengang camp has been peaceful, with plenty of food and clothing, and in the hearts of the children of Daming who aim to have children, without the entanglement of hunger and hardship, it is a good opportunity to have children.

Therefore, in the past two years, the proportion of children born is really not a small number, more than 5,000 households, basically every household has a big fat boy, a girl croaking to the ground, this statistics, there are more than 3,000 children under the age of one.

"It doesn't matter, only this little man is like this, Brother Yan, you have to do a good job in the selection of this group of players, and you must not be sloppy in training!" Li Tianyang immediately turned his head and explained to Zhang Yuyan: "If there are not enough training manpower at home, you can go to Brother Jie, his hundreds of team members are also decent now, and it is no problem to train these raw soldiers." ”

"Yes!" Zhang Yuyan responded in a deep voice, but the red light on his face inevitably betrayed his mood at this time.

The so-called Self-Defense Force is actually just a team of guards for Li Tianyang to protect the safety of the Bengang camp after Li Tianyang discussed with Wu Daofu, Zhang Yuyan and others, protecting the daily safety of the Bengang base camp and the safety of the surrounding area.

Although the Bengang Alliance is now in a honeymoon period, the unstable attitude between the clans some time ago has already sounded a wake-up call for Li Tianyang and them, and they have to be cautious.

Moreover, with the expansion of Hongtang's sphere of influence, it is inevitable that a part of the team needs to be drawn from the Bengang base camp to take care of and maintain the territory of Yuan Laoba and his group that have been occupied.

After strangling Yuan Laoba and other Ryukyu pirate forces, Hongtang also absorbed more than 1,000 usable pirate warriors from them, but compared to the original territory of Yuan Laoba and his gang that they occupied, this manpower was definitely not enough to guard this huge foundation. Therefore, Li Tianyang placed more than 1,000 members of Wu Shuying, who had originally built the Huludao outpost camp, in the Huludao camp that had been built to maintain order in that sea area.

In this way, there are more than 1,000 good hands on the Penghu side, so that Wu Daofu and their manpower to cruise this sea area are a little stretched.

You may be a little puzzled, at the beginning of the war, the Hongtang forces had more than 2,000 members, plus after the war, more than 2,000 people were temporarily recruited, adding up to a team of more than 4,000 people, even if you remove Wu Shu's more than 1,000 people on Huludao, there are more than 3,000 people, how can it be said that they are overstretched?

The account is not calculated like this, Hong Tang had a total strength of more than 4,000 at the beginning, which is true. However, after the first few battles, there were nearly 1,000 soldiers lost, and after the war, many temporarily recruited indigenous warriors left the team and returned to their tribes, and the last warriors who remained in Hongtang were actually only 2,4500 people.

In addition to the more than 1,000 team members deployed on Huludao, in fact, Wu Daofu's current team members are almost less than half of the Huludao team members, and the lack of team members can be imagined.

Therefore, Bengang Camp now needs to be formed by itself and train a garrison force that can protect the entire camp from foreign enemies, which is why this Self-Defense Force was born, and there are also disturbances from the people below about these things.

"Regarding the salary and rewards of this Self-Defense Force, Sister Yumo, you should also come up with a proper plan as soon as possible, so as not to cause unnecessary trouble."

"Okay." In front of many people, Yumo didn't want to make other expressions with her little husband, so she just replied calmly.

The military service system implemented in Bengang Camp today is a mixed system pieced together by Li Tianyang combining the compulsory military service system of later generations and the conscription system of this era.

Although Li Tianyang does not know much about the compulsory military service system in later generations, its core is precisely on the word obligation. Therefore, Li Tianyang also mentioned this obligation in the rules and regulations of their camp early on, but now he also has an important basis for acting, not acting arbitrarily.

Moreover, with the thriving appearance of the Bengang camp and the increasingly wealthy storage, Li Tianyang has never been stingy with these soldiers who were born and died and fought on the front line.

As much as five taels of silver per month, it is enough to compare most of the ordinary occupations of the Ming Dynasty. You must know that in this era, the annual income of an ordinary family is only more than ten taels of silver, less than twenty taels.

Moreover, a set of new clothes, shoes and socks will be distributed every quarter, and there will be benefits such as rice grain and meat during the New Year's holidays, which is another benefit that can be taken back to subsidize the family.

If you make a meritorious service, not only will you be rewarded with money, but you may even be given a few acres of fertile land as your family business in the future, and so on, for Hongtang's team members, such a beautiful profession in the world, I am afraid that many people will squeeze their heads, and they will not want to encounter good things.

Even compared to the pirate life that needs to rely on the sky to eat and rely on luck to live, it is also an undoubted good thing! This is also an important reason why many pirates are willing to put aside their hatred and resentment and devote themselves to Hongtang.

As for the crisis of licking blood from the knife edge and fighting for his life, under such heavy profits, it is not a discouraged thing!

The Self-Defense Forces are naturally much less risky and fighting than those at sea, so it is unlikely that they will receive the same salaries and benefits as these members. However, as the pillar of the family, joining the Self-Defense Forces will naturally cause inconvenience to the daily life of each family, and if the salary is low, the impact on the family will certainly be not small.

Since then, Li Tianyang has asked Yumo and her tents to come up with a feasible plan according to the current situation of the camp.

As for the end, Li Tianyang put forward a motion in an earth-shattering manner, which set off a wave among all the high-level leaders present: "Now that the strength and territory of our camp have entered a bottleneck, and if we want to have great development, it is no longer something that can be promoted overnight." The workshops in the camp, except for the cement, lime, and paper workshops that have made great progress after they moved to the vicinity of the Yushan tribe, the other workshops are either limited by the supply of raw materials, or limited by the sluggish sales volume, and it is not something that can be done in a year or two if they want to expand. ”

"However, with the increase in the population of the camp, it can be expected that in the future, the cost of our camp will also increase. The development of Jilong Port is a matter that was decided more than four months ago, and when the time comes, it will be infrastructure construction, migration of population, and recruitment of displaced people, which will cost a lot more than we build Bengang from scratch, and I don't need to say more about these! ”

"At the same time, in the battle with this Yuan Laoba and his gang of pirates, we also found many shortcomings in the defense against foreign enemies and naval warfare. Therefore, Uncle Wu and Uncle Zhao also mentioned to me several suggestions for the construction of defensive buildings for Bengang and Jilong Forts, as well as the requirements for carrying multiple guns and various firearms on each warship. These are things that cost a lot of money, but they are things that we have to do. ”

Speaking of this, Li Tianyang's face was filled with a little bit of a heavy mood that everyone present did not understand.

The reason why we are so eager to strengthen armaments and defense measures is because since last year, there has been no stop, and there has been a steady stream of wars that are not conducive to the Ming Dynasty from outside the border gates. The appearance of Nurhachi, Huang Taiji, these historical celebrities made Li Tianyang full of pessimism about the future of the Ming Dynasty.

Therefore, he had to seize every opportunity, work hard, expand his strength, and wait for the dynasty to fall, so that he could gain some strength to protect his family and friends.

"Therefore, I have decided that within this year, with the Qixintang firm as the core, two ocean-going fleets will be formed, one will trade with the Oriental Japanese Kingdom and Korea, and the other will go south along the ocean to Zhuyi in the South Seas!!"

It's another 4,000-word chapter, don't cut it, everyone reads a chapter

(End of chapter)

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