When it comes to city construction, Lei Yuan and Xiang Lang have different focus.

Based on the characteristics of his clan, Lei Yuan was used to seizing the people with a large number of docks and forts, and maintaining a strong mobile force to seek field battles to defeat the enemy. Therefore, the first draft he had previously proposed mainly focused on the Rongtai and checkpoints along the river and block roads, and building dock walls in appropriate mountains.

From Lei Yuan's perspective, the Rongtai and the checkpoints everywhere would be his eyes and ears, while the various docks of the soldiers in the garrison were to advance the prefect's orders to the outposts and support of the township and county.

But Xiang Lang obviously had other ideas. The plan he proposed today, on the grounds of preventing rainy season disasters, omitted most of the walls of the mountain docks, and retracted most of the household registration and population back to six county towns. It is expected that it will take two years to expand the six county towns on a large scale, closely connecting the city with the docks and ports under the city, and reserve a large area of ​​flat space in the city.

Lei Yuan stood in front of this map and pondered for a long time before he understood what Xiang Lang meant.

This plan is not a plan for local considerations. Its primary purpose is not to control and govern Yidu County, but to ensure land and water transportation between Jingyi and support the mobilization of exchanges at any time.

Xiang Lang looked at Lei Yuan's expression and tentatively said: "Ming Mansion, why is this..."

Lei Yuan laughed: "I understand, just do it."

Such a large-scale construction demands a huge amount of manpower, and the five counties except Lexiang all have shortcomings in this regard. Previously, in order to mobilize enough personnel, Lei Yuan specially gave cattle wine and food on a large scale on the grounds of celebrating his marriage, generals and soldiers' marriages, but the transfer of people in various places has its limits.

When the Han Dynasty was prosperous, Nanjun had seventeen cities under its jurisdiction, with a total of 160,000 households and more than 700,000 households. However, after the storm, the population was greatly reduced, and most of the townships and counties were less than one-fifth of the households at their peak. Yidu County, divided from Nanjun, was even more vast and sparsely populated, with less than two thousand households in Qishan County and Wu County. Yiling, Yidao, and Zigui County were slightly better, and there were only three thousand households.

Fortunately, there is Lexiang County and the power of the Lujiang Lei Clan. With Lei Yuan's order, Lexiang County mobilized more than 6,000 strong men, and the Lujiang Lei Clan also sent a considerable number of additional personnel.

In the following month, various construction projects continued to be carried out. After one project was completed, the civilians rushed to the next construction site.

First of all, the new look was Yidao City, which had been managed by Xianglang for a long time. The various walls built with logs were gradually replaced by more reliable rammed earth-covered brick buildings. Although the walls have not been reinforced and expanded, defense facilities for deep trenches and high barriers have been added everywhere.

In the city, core buildings such as General Fenwei's Mansion, County Temple, Grain Depot, and Arsenal are specially built with clay and stone plates, which are not only tall and majestic, but also enough to become the fulcrum of the entire city.

By this time, when the spring plowing season came, most people were preparing to rush back to serve their own fields. Many related developments had to be suspended. After that, only the Wuxi Man tribe in the south of the Yangtze River and the Juren tribe in the north of the Yangtze River were left.

Under the leadership of experienced craftsmen, these barbarians were responsible for the expansion of Yiling City in Jiangbei and the layout of Rongtai on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. After negotiations between Lei Yuan and Xiang Lang, the number of Rongtai checkpoints was reduced to forty. Each Rongtai was also a military stronghold, with one hundred people as a manpower guarantee. With Rongtai as a node, through gradually improved roads and water transportation, it will take no more than six hours for any important military information in the Jiangnan area of ​​Yidu County to be transmitted to Yidao City.

Most of the barbarians were closely attached to the chiefs and commanders of Qu, working from villages and land. In this process, the chiefs with people received rewards of gold and silk materials, while the barbarians themselves worked endlessly from sunrise to sunset, and only received food that could barely fill their stomachs every day.

But just this little food that made Lei Yuan sad has been treated as preferential treatment by the barbarians. Under the temptation of food and the strict constraints of the chiefs, the barbarians' enthusiasm for engineering construction is quite high, and there are very few perfunctory things that happen.

In the first few days, there were even several incidents of the barbarian Ding Zhuang fainting because of his hard work. Once, he almost killed someone. For this reason, Lei Yuan was furious in public and severely punished the generals who led the team. He then slightly increased the food rations and sent people to fish along the riverside, stewed fish soup every day and supplemented the laborers with nutrition.

Through Shamoko's relationship, he met with some more trustworthy chiefs. The chiefs came forward to send the elderly, weak, women and children who stayed in the mountains to pick wild vegetables, local potatoes and other foods.

As the project continued to advance, a group of barbarian chiefs who gradually escaped from the deep mountains and focused on Yidu County. In just a few months, they broke out from the backward environment of nearly slavery and became contractors active in Yidu County. Under their leadership, they were led by the barbarian men and women who were busy between the river gorges, with a total of more than 5,000.

Troubles arise.

Once these contractors became familiar with the rules of the Han family, they began to seek more benefits. Previously, in order to pave roads in various places as soon as possible, Lei Yuan contracted several clay and lime mineral deposits in Lexiang County to merchants under the Jingxiang clan, such as the Xiang family and Xi family. The merchants recruited barbarians to mine at a price slightly higher than the county government.

As a result, the contractors gained higher benefits, and the several projects officially promoted by Yidu County have become short of labor.

This situation made Xiang Lang, the county magistrate of Yidu, extremely embarrassed. He became angry and personally came forward to arrest the head of the Xiang family in Xiang, asking Lei Yuan to punish him severely.

Lei Yuan laughed. He asked Xiang Lang not to be anxious and allowed his own tribe to operate as much as possible; but at the same time, he informed Tao Wei, who was responsible for the actual command of various projects, which greatly increased the amount of food distribution to each barbarian laborer.

After all, the amount of food ration was very small, and even if it increased, it was still within the affordability of the county government. However, this increase caused many barbarians to tentatively leave the control of Qu Shuai and the leader, and to come to the construction site with the smallest unit of each household, asking if they could have a job.

Tao Wei honestly accepted them all without hesitation.

The county government immediately issued a notice announcing that if any barbarians who directly responded to the call of the county government and participated in the construction of various places would have obtained Han household registration in half a year. When they became households under the jurisdiction of Yidu County, they would immediately obtain their own land to cultivate according to the laws and regulations.

This operation was too unscrupulous, which caused a wave of dissatisfaction among the barbarian chief, General Qu, but the barbarians could not compete with the power of Yidu County. So more and more chiefs found that their own wealth was gradually becoming rich, but the people were gradually being less.
Chapter completed!