Back to the end of Ming Dynasty to be a warlord

Chapter 292 Picture Scroll
The Xinjiangkou area has entered a period of major construction since August.

Along the Yangtze River, about [-] peasants are busy digging ditches all day long. The deep ditch slowly extends from south to north and is more than ten feet deep. Adding stones will eventually build a long embankment.

Yang Chao himself studied architecture, so he has his own way of controlling the quality of the project, and the inspection and acceptance are extremely strict.

When the peasants mixed pebbles, lime, fine soil, etc., and tamped them in the deep ditch, Yang Chao would personally hold the iron drill to the eyes, and rework everything that was too loose, and at the same time threatened the head craftsman Bai Lei to buckle His project money.

This caused Bai Lei, a master craftsman in the Ministry of Industry who is proficient in water conservancy construction, to squat on the construction site day and night, watching the peasants ramming with his own eyes, and then poking his eyes one by one himself, knowing that he thought it was strong enough. Only then did I ask Yang Chao to look at it, for fear that if he was not careful, Yang Chao would deduct all the project funds, and he would lose all his compensation.

As a result, the quality of the project has been greatly improved. Although the progress has been affected a little, Yang Chao remains unwavering.

In addition to these peasants digging ditches nervously, on the wasteland surrounded by deep ditches, there are also farmers who are burning the weeds, leveling the land, plowing, and finally sowing seeds.

These farmers were not hired by Yang Chao, but the families of some soldiers in the barracks.

Things have to start more than two months ago.

At that time, Yang Chao failed to negotiate with a group of mid-level military officers who controlled Qian's headquarters. These people all rejected the proposal of using wasteland without title deeds in exchange for control over their heads.

Then Yang Chao planned to hire people to open up wasteland by himself. When the harvest in the field stabilized, he didn't believe that these officers would not be tempted.

But suddenly Huang Feng's mansion quietly told Yang Chao that many of his soldiers wanted to open up wasteland, and there were some complaints, saying that veteran officers of the water battalion like Huang Chong could occupy the wasteland, but they, soldiers who were born and died, could not. Farming, said Yang Chao was eccentric.

Yang Chao took this very seriously. According to the investigation, it turned out that those who spread these remarks were not soldiers in the camp, but those who were refused to enter the camp again by Yang Chao after they returned because they refused to go to Haizhou. Those ones**.

These people, like the soldiers in Yang Chao's current battalion, are all fellow countrymen. After Yang Chao left, it can be said that they had spent a lot of effort to open up a thousand acres of wasteland in the Xinjiangkou area. They were all taken away, and handed over to Huang Chong's family for farming, so these people were full of complaints, but they were all ordinary people, and they didn't dare to compete with Yang Chao, so they kept instilling rumors about Yang Chao's partiality to their fellow villagers and soldiers. .

Although it turned out to be a rumor, Yang Chao was still very concerned. The soldiers who had bleed together were Yang Chao's biggest reliance.

So a series of targeted measures were immediately introduced, and the already generous military salary was immediately increased a lot.

For an ordinary soldier, Yang Chao will give one or two taels of silver now, but only for these soldiers who have fought together, not counting recruits for the time being.

At the same time, after careful consideration, Yang Chao added some new military systems, that is, the soldier classification system.

Divide the soldiers into first, second and third ranks. Now this group of soldiers who have been in battle are all third-class soldiers, and the new recruits are called private soldiers.

The salary of a private soldier is set at five qian, the third-class soldier is already one tael, the second-class soldier is one tael and five qian, and the first-class soldier is two tael.

A corps commander’s salary is the same as that of a first-class soldier at two taels of silver, a team leader’s salary is three taels of silver, a flag’s total is five taels, a hundred’s total is ten taels, and a general’s total is 30 taels.

One can get nearly 400 taels of silver a year. This kind of military salary is not available to those officers in other armies who withhold military salary.

But after all, the number of Bai Zong and Ba Zong is relatively small. On the contrary, the first-class soldiers can get two taels of silver, which arouses stronger repercussions in the army.

Two taels a month, 24 taels a year, everyone will settle this account, even if each of them has received a reward of 200 taels, they still feel that this military salary is too generous.

You must know that the coolies who dig ditches earn less than one tael of silver a month.

However, this amount of military pay is not a burden for Yang Chao. You must know that Yang Chao is less than five hundred second-class soldiers, less than 600 taels a month, and 200 corporal leaders are 150 taels of silver. It is exactly 100 taels of silver, less than 500 flags are less than [-] taels, and if you add up the total, it is only three [-] taels.

The total sum is less than 2000 taels of silver, and the shipping and escort fees after straightening out can bring Yang Chao 2 taels of silver every month.

But after Yang Chao expands his army, the military expenditure may be doubled, because many of these soldiers will become corporal leaders or even captains.

As for those recruits, they still can't enjoy such good treatment for the time being.

Because Yang Chao stipulates that the third-class soldiers are veterans who have been in battle, and the second-class soldiers are elite soldiers who have seen blood. Among them, there are no more than two first-class soldiers, and Yang Chao's first-class soldiers are almost equivalent to Bayara in the Qing Dynasty.

Therefore, even if the size of Yang Chao's army expands to 3000 in the future, the military pay will not increase too much.

According to this condition, for the time being, only the soldiers who go to Haizhou with Yang Chao are the second-class soldiers, and the first-class soldiers have to pass the martial arts examination.

The increase in military pay is naturally welcomed by everyone, but Yang Chao's method behind it is to tie these soldiers firmly to the water camp.

That is to allow the family members of every soldier to come to Xinjiangkou to open up wasteland.

Yang Chao stipulated that every soldier can let their family members reclaim [-] acres of wasteland in Xinjiangkou, and the officers and soldiers have an equal share.

Yang Chao's 2 or so people, even if each of them allocated [-] mu, it would only be more than [-] mu, which is less than half of the [-] to [-] mu of wasteland along the Yangtze River.

Moreover, Yang Chao also made a rule that as long as the soldiers are still serving as soldiers in their own hands, their families are allowed to cultivate these wastelands forever.

At the same time, Yang Chao has not forgotten those soldiers who died with him in the battle. Although Yang Chao not only gave these family members all the pensions after the war, but also gave all the rewards these soldiers should have received to their families. Each family member of a martyr received 300 taels of silver, even with a silver reward and pension.

However, Yang Chao still sent someone to send a message to those family members, telling them that each family can come to Xinjiangkou to reclaim 2 mu of land, as long as Yang Chao is there, they can plant a day, and these [-] families will share another [-] mu of wasteland, but There are still more than [-] mu of barren land.

For the 2 mu of wasteland, Yang Chao was fortunate enough to hire these land reclamation tenants to help sow grass seeds. He still has thousands of horses that need fodder to feed.

After the policy was moved down, it received a warm welcome soon. I saw military households supporting the old and the young, dragging their families from their guards, to the outside of the water camp, building shacks, and So I started working in full swing.

Although many of these people received two or three hundred taels of silver and made a small fortune, they still have no land. The land in the guard house was divided up by hundreds of hereditary households as early as 300 years ago. , Even if they give money, they may not be able to buy it, and after buying it, it will involve a problem of how to defend the land in front of the hereditary military officer who is oppressive.

Therefore, even if these people have money, they have to farm for the officers of the guards, or just sit and eat. As for using the money to do business, few people choose, and they don’t know a single character. It is really embarrassing for them to do business. up.

As a result, Yang Chao's wasteland reclamation policy did not hesitate at all. Everyone came, the land, the land they had been looking forward to for hundreds of years, and they could finally plant it for themselves. Although there is no title deed, the land in the guard is still It's all military land, so where is the title deed?

Anyway, as long as Yang Chao is around, their land can be planted, and Yang Chao said that they won't charge them a penny for rent. Where can I find such a good thing, isn't it just like my own land?

In fact, they soon discovered that this land was better than their own land, because not only did Yang Chao not collect rent, but military land did not have to pay taxes, and no one thought of asking Yang Chao to collect taxes. Accept it, even if other people want to accept it, they have to weigh whether it will make Yang Chao unhappy, at least the magistrate of Jiangning dare not do so.

So Yang Chao saw with his own eyes that on the original large wilderness, shacks appeared one by one, and the familiar military households were still used to gathering their own shacks together, and then villages were formed one by one.

In the eyes of Yang Chao, the formation of villages in the wilderness in a very short time is like a beautiful picture scroll drawn on a blank canvas, and this is more vivid and full of vitality than the patterns on the painting, because the picture scroll The house above is always the same floor, but every afternoon, on the shacks here in Xinjiangkou, you can always see the faint smoke of cooking.

I have to say that a guy with a high level of education like Yang Chao sometimes has a bit of petty bourgeois sentiment. The scenery here in Xinjiangkou happened to touch the enthusiasm in his heart, and he even squatted in the wilderness for dozens of days, holding charcoal The eyebrow pencil draws sketches every day, and plans to turn them into oil paintings when the conditions are right, and I am still very sure in my heart that it will definitely be a famous painting.

With the formation of villages in Xinjiangkou, Yang Chao has accumulated more and more sketch materials.

Moreover, Yang Chao also started to add what he thought of to the naturally formed picture scroll at any time.

He saw a group of lively children playing in the wasteland, and suddenly thought of building a school, so he immediately found a few scholars, set up a water camp school, distributed books to these children for free, and asked the scholars to teach They read and write.

This won the gratitude of the soldiers again.

After several months of sketching in the wasteland farmland, Yang Chao, who was immersed in art, almost forgot the mundane things. Everything outside can be pushed as soon as he can, and he will not go to any banquets. The fawning of others.

But finally encountered something that couldn't be pushed away. Mother Zhao Lan was going to Linggu Temple to fulfill her vow, and sent someone to ask Yang Chao to accompany her.

(End of this chapter)