A group of soldiers guarding the city came out of the city to practice in the morning mist. Their marching slogans were so loud that they woke up the city.
Accompanied by the creaking of axles and the neighing of horses, dozens of heavy-duty carriages came from the Black Forest, pulling hundreds of tons of lignite into the city to meet the fuel needs of the nearly 100,000 people in the city.
In addition to coal, wood, food, cloth and other goods were also transported into the city by horse-drawn carriages. Products from surrounding villages and towns were brought into the city in exchange for products from workshops.
Although transportation around Cold Wind City is still inconvenient, the regular freight carriages stimulate the scattered productivity of villages and towns. This is how cities gather and supply more resources, creating economies of scale.
Materials are still in short supply, but at least the problem of whether there is any has been solved. In the past, there really wasn't.
Of course, the prerequisite for doing these tasks well is to have good managers. Not to boast, Zhou Qingfeng feels that his current management is quite qualified.
For example, in the past six months, the population of Hanfeng City has increased from more than 200,000 to 300,000.
A large number of refugees are coming to the Northland. In summer, the carrying capacity of the city is limited, so many refugees can only gather outside the city to build shacks and make a difficult living. If these people are allowed to stay outside the city in winter, it will not take long for them all to freeze to death.
In order to obtain enough labor, the Inspection Office sent people outside the city every day to take in the refugees to prevent them from dying. After entering the city, these people were placed in the Artisan District - the area that was flooded by waterlogging last year was renovated this summer.
Thanks to the hydraulic wood processing plant, the price of building materials in the city has dropped significantly. Rows of simple houses have been built in the craftsman area, which are very simple houses built with wood and covered with two floors.
There is little furniture in the simple room, and there are not many living facilities. Four or five people can fit into a room of more than ten square meters. But compared to the open-air internment camp last year, this is a shelter from the wind and rain.
The mobilization ability controlled by Zhou Qingfeng is much stronger than last year. There are more than 200 followers of the Mother of Diseases alone providing medical services to the refugees.
These believers form a medical team, which can at least see a doctor, dispense medicine, control some infectious diseases, and even collect corpses more professionally than ordinary people. However, they sometimes have ideological problems and like to use intimidation to spread their faith.
The advantage of using all the above methods in turn is that the mortality rate of refugees has dropped significantly. Life is still very hard, but both the elderly and children can survive.
The resources that were originally concentrated in the hands of the nobles were diluted and fell on the common people like pepper noodles. This is a great kindness.
Early in the morning, the craftsman district began to ring the bell. The refugees came out in groups to receive relief.
The so-called 'relief' is simply porridge with salt, and some stamina potions in each large bucket. The containment conditions are better than last year.
The refugees all received "stick education" and queued up to receive relief. Zhou Qingfeng came back every three to five days to check whether the relief was being deducted, and from time to time beheaded a few people who dared to commit corruption.
"It's difficult!"
Zhou Qingfeng stood at the street entrance of the Craftsman District in the posture of a lord, and let out a long sigh. The surrounding refugees peeped at the earthly dragon that the lord was riding timidly, and queued up to receive breakfast in an orderly manner, each with a large bowl.
White steam spewed out from the nose of 'Swift Shadow' from time to time, deliberately scaring the refugees in evil ways, and enjoyed seeing them frightened. It turned around and asked: "Master, you are already the strongest lord in the North.
What’s so difficult?”
Zhou Qingfeng didn't say anything. He inspected the craftsman area and left. In terms of strength, he was no longer a weakling. With various means taking turns, ordinary opponents could not defeat him at all.
The combat power of the strange maids has increased dramatically after being promoted to level ten. Even the fairies have evolved acupuncture short bows to deal with the soldiers, and the other girls have many more powerful skills.
But these are of little help in ruling the 300,000 territorial citizens. Ninety-nine percent of the population inside and outside the city are illiterate, and only two to three thousand can read and digit. Most of them are at the primary school level under emergency education.
If it sounds good, it means it has huge potential, but if it sounds bad, it means the city is full of wimps and there are problems everywhere.
According to household registration statistics in the first half of the year, the ratio of men to women is two to one, and the number of women is significantly smaller. The average life expectancy is only 30 years old. Most of the women do not live past their 20s.
Most people start a family at the age of fifteen, and almost all their teeth are lost by the age of thirty.
Zhou Qingfeng personally inspected the newly liberated 'freedmen'. Most of them were originally slaves, hard laborers, prisoners, and sharecroppers. Basically all of them had their tooth sockets worn away by poor food.
Ask the "free people" what they usually eat, and they will eat whatever is available. It is also common practice to chew tree bark when they are hungry.
As for clothing, the poor have no choice at all, and the bloody clothes of the dead have to be stripped off.
Many poor ghosts seem to be carrying a garbage dump on their backs, with all the messy things wrapped around them, and the stench is unpleasant. When the clothes are taken off, their skinny bodies are exposed, and a gust of wind can blow them away.
During the process of liquidating the nobles, mass graves were discovered in all manors outside the city. There were dozens to hundreds of corpses in the pits. Many of the corpses had their hands and feet tied and pushed directly into the pits to be buried alive.
Many of the corpses were still those of young children, with pitifully small skeletons.
Every time a mass grave was dug, Zhou Qingfeng would get so angry that he would go crazy and wish he could catch some bullshit nobleman and whip his corpse.
There is no need for a grievance meeting at all. Take the "free people" to the mass graves and take a look. They may burst into tears and tell about their past experiences of being bullied.
As for diseases, they are even more common. In the past six months, half of the items Zhou Qingfeng brought from the real world were medicines, just to deal with many inflammatory skin diseases and parasitic diseases.
Although there is still an extreme shortage of medicines, the cheapest oxytetracycline was diluted in large amounts of water and given to everyone in the city. After a random inspection a month later, the incidence of inflammatory diseases among residents dropped by more than half.
Many residents' old problems have been effectively alleviated. Combined with measures such as drinking boiled water and repairing toilets, minor problems such as dysentery and diarrhea have almost disappeared.
According to statistics from the government affairs department, just because diseases such as dysentery were brought under control, the working hours of urban residents increased by 20%.
Coupled with the provision of nighttime heating and lighting, the craftsmen in Cold Wind City can work twelve to sixteen hours a day without having to pay overtime pay.
Zhou Qingfeng also forced all pregnant women in the city to go to fixed hospitals for delivery and postpartum care. The neonatal and maternal mortality rates immediately dropped from the terrible 20 to 30 percent in the past to 34 percent.
Eileen specially trained a group of midwives to perform disinfection and help pregnant women with difficult labor give birth. In half a year, she saved hundreds of lives from death.
The reason why the female population in the city is small is that most of them die in childbirth, especially young mothers who have their first child.
Zhou Qingfeng harvested a huge amount of power of faith in the real world, and was extracted by various goddesses to give back divine magic. The altar of faith produces a large number of magic gems every day.
A real priest will worry about how to squander these gems, and will feel that he is incredibly powerful.
But 70% to 80% of these gems are invested in maintaining the city's medical care. With a population of two to three hundred thousand, a few hundred magical spells every day are simply not enough.
'Jiying' said that Zhou Qingfeng was the strongest lord in the North, and he sneered at this - he was so strong, and the deeper he managed, the more problems he exposed. He was not happy at all.