1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 1931
Of course, Qiao Zhiya's politeness was only verbal. In fact, with the quality of the banquet, even if it was placed in a big city like Sanya to entertain high-level figures, it would be high enough.The only thing that is almost interesting is that the dining environment here is still relatively crude. After all, it is a mine garrison camp in the inland mountainous area, and the conditions of infrastructure facilities cannot be compared with those of the specialized reception institutions outside.

Li Lu would not be too picky about these details, nor was he surprised by Qiao Zhiya's arrangement.Since he went abroad, the meals arranged by Haihan have basically never disappointed him. Even if such a large table of sumptuous banquets were arranged in the deep mountains and old forests, he habitually believed that this was Haihan's basic operation—— With Haihan's official abilities, there seems to be nothing impossible.

Qiao Zhiya also specially called Lu Li, the commander of the local garrison, to accompany him, and asked him to introduce the situation of the local garrison and the labor camp to Li Lu and others by the way.

The main task of this army specially stationed at the Shilu Mine is actually to guard the local labor camp. In 1631, there was a big riot in the hard labor camp. At that time, Haihan dispatched many armed forces to clean up the entire Qiongzhong mountainous area. The settlements of mountain dwellers have been cleaned up.After that, the management of the hard labor camp became extremely strict, and there have been no similar emergencies in recent years.

It was only this year that Lu Li officially took over the management of the labor camp. His predecessor was Yu Zhen, who was born as a Yacheng police officer. Now he has been transferred to Manila to take up the post of the local police chief. Made it out of this difficult environment.And Lu Li is now the commander of the garrison, and concurrently serves as the supervisor of the hard labor camp, and there are quite a few people in charge under him. The hard labor camp alone has maintained a detention capacity of more than 3000 people for a long time. It surpassed any prison in any place under the rule of Haihan Kingdom.

At present, the prisoners in the Haihan Hard Labor Camp are mainly the severe criminals who have been sentenced in various parts of the country, as well as the prisoners of war captured in the Haihan foreign wars over the years.For example, after the end of the Battle of Manila at the beginning of this year, a large number of prisoners of war were sent to labor camps in Shilu, Xingdao and other places, bringing the population of Shilu labor camps, which had declined once last year, back to the level of 3000.

These prisoners are generally sentenced to long sentences, and there are not a few of them who are sentenced to life imprisonment. There are very few prisoners who can survive their sentences and regain their freedom. Most of them cannot withstand years of high-intensity physical labor and harsh living conditions.Now those lucky ones who have more than three years of experience in the hard labor camp and have no physical disabilities can have the opportunity to be promoted to be foremen and get relatively easy working conditions.

Li Wei was quite interested in this special institution, and asked how the labor camp managed prisoners or prisoners of war from other countries—this year, after the Qing army retreated after the defeat of the Korean War, the coalition forces captured thousands of prisoners of war , and now they are temporarily handed over to North Korea for detention. How to deal with these prisoners of war is also a problem that needs to be solved urgently for North Korea.The management experience of the Haihan people in the hard labor camps seems to serve as a reference for North Korea to deal with this issue.

"Usually, we will arrange foreign prisoners in scattered groups. For example, each group of prisoners will only have one or two prisoners from the same place, so as to prevent them from taking the opportunity to form a group." Lu Li has worked in this place for several years. There is also a certain amount of experience accumulated in the management of hard labor camps, and it is straightforward to say: "For those thorny heads who refuse to obey the discipline and arrangements after they come in, we must kill them and deal with them early, and we must not let these prisoners give birth to themselves. The idea of ​​going against the authorities!"

When Lu Li said these words, he was full of murderous intent, which made Li Wei feel a little terrified. He thought that since this old man has been stationed in this inland mining area all year round, he should not have much chance to lead troops to fight, but there is still such a difference in the conversation. With a heavy murderous intent, there must have been quite a few prisoners executed during his tenure.

Li Xi, who was next to him, spoke to verify this guess for him: "Then Lord Lu must have personally executed many of these disobedient people who did not obey the arrangement in the past, but if there were too many of them killed, it would probably still affect the labor efficiency of the labor camp. Bar?"

Lu Li said a meaningful sentence noncommittally: "Master Li, in this hard labor camp, the most valuable and the least valuable are human lives. For us, we only need to keep the valuable part of the people."

After thinking about it carefully, Li Lu felt that although Lu Li's words were harsh, they were indeed true.Prisoners who can't be used by themselves, with Haihan's shrewdness, why spend money to support them, naturally they will be regarded as a burden.Immediately, he bowed to Lu Li, expressing that he was educated, and Lu Li hurriedly got up to return the salute.

After taking a break after this lunch, Qiao Zhiya took Li Mo and his party to visit another mine that was mined by hard labor prisoners.And here there is a clear difference from the mine pit seen in the morning. The number of steam machinery and equipment has been greatly reduced. Didn't see any other steam machinery.

"The main reason is to prevent prisoners from destroying these expensive equipment." Qiao Zhiya took the initiative to explain the reason for this difference: "In the past, some prisoners would use labor tools to destroy steam engines in order to create chaos or interrupt construction, so later we Adjustments were made according to the actual situation, only the steam equipment outside the pit was kept, and all mining operations in the pit were completed by manpower.”

Li Wei thought that the Haihan people probably suffered a lot from this, so they had to withdraw the steam engine and adopt a more primitive mining method.But the labor cost of the hard labor camp is low, and there is no need to worry about assigning tasks. Of course, these prisoners are used like livestock.

In fact, this situation is obvious. At the mining site in the mine, some people can be seen constantly whipping the prisoners who have slowed down or are exhausted with whips, asking them to cheer up and work as hard as possible.These people were quite ruthless, and Li Luo, who was not used to this kind of scene, couldn't help feeling a little flustered.

"These guards are so vicious, aren't they afraid that the prisoners around them will suddenly revolt?" Li Lu still couldn't help asking Qiao Zhiya his own questions.

Qiao Zhiya shook his head with a smile and said, "Your Majesty, are you talking about those people in the mine? They are not guards, but those who are standing at the mouth of the mine."

Li Luo was taken aback when he heard the words, and then immediately understood what Qiao Zhiya meant—these people who flogged the prisoners desperately were actually prisoners, but they should have been given special powers by the government to act as supervisors in the mine.And for some reason, they were so keen on the job that they risked the anger of the other prisoners by whipping and insulting them.

Qiao Zhiya quickly solved the mystery for Li Luo: "These prisoners with whips are the foremen among the prisoners. Each of them is in charge of a mining site and has a corresponding production task. Naturally, there is no need to say more after the task is completed. If they fail to do so, in addition to routine punishments such as ration deduction, they may also lose their positions. Those who can climb to this position have made it through hard work. After climbing up, they will not They are willing to fall down again, so they will work very hard to supervise the work of other prisoners, and they will not even consider whether they will offend other people."

After hearing this, Li Lu suddenly realized that these prisoners who were officially appointed as foremen probably got the chance to be in charge after a long time of whipping. If they can't complete the task, they can only go back to the past The position of being whipped by others.In this way, offending other prisoners is not a big deal, the most important thing is to keep one's own job first.Afterwards, other inmates who made it to the top became foremen, so of course they had the same idea.Even if there are occasional soft-hearted people who appear in the position of foreman, they will be eliminated soon because of this cruel system. In the end, those who hold these positions must be some ruthless characters who are willing to obey the official assignment.

According to what Lu Li said earlier, these supervisors with whips were a relatively valuable group of prisoners.Using them to urge prisoners to work is far more effective than official personnel.And even if this led to a fight among the prisoners, the official did not actually suffer much actual loss, at most it was just a few fewer people.

Haihan has indeed accumulated quite a lot of experience in the management of large-scale engineering projects and prisoner groups, but it was a very novel experience for Li Mo, who had rarely had the opportunity to come into contact with these fields in the past.He mentioned to Qiao Zhiya the thousands of Qing prisoners of war currently being held in his country, and asked whether these prisoners could also be used in the same way as Hai Han.

Qiao Zhiya said: "The situation in your country is different from ours. The prisoners of war in your country are almost all from the same camp, which makes it difficult to disperse them. If they are to be used on construction sites, they must be equipped with more Armed guards, stricter management."

Li Lu said: "Many barbarians in Liaodong are fierce by nature. Even if they are prisoners of war, there are still many who refuse to tame them. If they are used directly on the construction site, they may cause problems."

Qiao Zhiya said: "No matter how hard a neck is, it's not as hard as a steel knife. The prince should still remember what Major Lu Li said earlier, right? As long as there are valuable people left, it's fine. Otherwise, keep these prisoners of war and eat up your country's thousands of catties every day." Food, that would be too bad."

Li Luo said with a worried expression: "Although that's the case, I'm afraid that after killing the prisoners, the Qing Dynasty will take revenge..."

"Whether your country kills these prisoners of war or not, Huang Taiji will never let your country go." Qiao Zhiya decided to wake up Li Mo, who still had some illusions: "It is not a joke that the Qing Dynasty sent troops to invade your country this year. What the soldiers of Wan Dajun are pointing at is to destroy the Li family! If your country hadn't reacted quickly and sent reinforcements, forgive me, the prince might already be a prisoner of the Qing army at this very moment!"

What Qiao Zhiya said was not a joke, but the historical fact that Bingzi was indiscriminate. After the Qing army crossed the Yalu River, they arrived in the capital of North Korea in twelve days. Several main officials who were pro-Ming and anti-Qing were handed over to the Qing army for disposal.Afterwards, North Korea removed the reign title of the Ming Dynasty, handed over the royal seal bestowed by the Ming Dynasty, regarded the Qing Dynasty as orthodox, and sent the eldest son Li Hao and the second son Li Hao to Shenyang as long-term hostages.

Li Luo felt a little unhappy when he heard this statement, but he still calmed down and didn't show it on his face.In his opinion, even if no allied forces came to North Korea to support the battle, he should still be able to deal with the Qing army slowly, so that he would not even become a prisoner of such absurd things.He didn't even consider the possibility of his own country surrendering to the Qing. He felt that he might indeed be unable to defeat the Qing army, but only to the extent that the situation could not develop to the point where Qiao Zhiya said that the country would be destroyed.

But such a statement, in fact, has been mentioned more than once by high-ranking Haihan officials on his way south, but this kind of theory that lacks empirical evidence is just a kind of self-boasting of Haihan people in order to show their merits in his opinion.Haihan's force is indeed powerful, but without Haihan's help, will North Korea surely perish?Li Wei doesn't think so.

Qiao Zhiya continued: "The problem between your country and the Qing country cannot be solved by treating the other party's captives well. The Qing country needs to annex your country to strengthen its national power, so that it can have enough strength to fight against Ming. You might as well think about it carefully. When expanding abroad, which country should be attacked first is the most sensible."

In fact, there is no need to think too much about this question. Even with Li Wei's limited knowledge, he knows which of the neighboring countries of the Qing Dynasty is strong and which is weak.The Raksha State in the north, the Mongolian State in the west, and the Ming State in the south are all hard bones that are not easy to talk about, and only North Korea, which is located in the southwest of the Qing Dynasty, can be regarded as a relatively weak country in this region.North Korea had already been severely beaten by Hou Jin ten years ago. Now the gap in national strength between the two countries is even greater. If the Qing Dynasty is looking for a soft persimmon, it will definitely choose North Korea.For Qiao Zhiya's argument, Li Wei quite agrees.

"Whether the Qing Dynasty makes a comeback or your country revives its forces and goes north to take revenge in the future, the two of you will fight each other on the battlefield sooner or later. Therefore, regarding how to deal with the prisoners of war from the Qing Dynasty, I advise your country to really not have any luck. Xin, even if you put all the people back, Huang Taiji will not be grateful to your country." Qiao Zhiya said in a deep voice: "What your country should consider is how to maximize the value of these prisoners of war. Whether it is asking for ransom or serving as hard labor, it is better than raising them for nothing."

"Master Qiao is right, I will remember it." Although Li Mo disagreed with some of Qiao Zhiya's views, the other party's suggestion about prisoners of war was indeed reasonable.The most important thing is that people's successful experience is in front of them, which can be said to be quite convincing.

(End of this chapter)