Chapter 434 Drawing fire from the bottom of the cauldron
Seven or eight days later, Wang Fu returned to Chengdu.

Some small, tenacious wild flowers have already bloomed in the suburbs of Chengdu.

Wang Fu returned to the provincial government office in the city to report on his work. Liu Zhang's mansion in Chengdu was sealed up, and the original provincial government office was changed into the Prime Minister's Mansion, which was also sealed up.

I thought the Grand Marshal would come to Chengdu. These two places were closed by Liu Mao at the first time, and there were many sensitive documents inside.

But it’s already sealed, we can’t just burn it down.

Even after Liu Zhang proclaimed himself king, he demolished a large number of houses in Chengdu and planned to start building the royal palace when the people had free time in winter.

Therefore, the new provincial government office was built on this open space, and military tents were used.

Just wait until after the spring plowing and then organize manpower to repair it.

When Wang Fu came back, Governor Li Feng was in a meeting.

Wang Fu was listening outside, and he vaguely understood that the case was to be resolved as soon as possible.

If mediation is possible, then mediate; if mediation is not possible, give a light sentence.

The accumulated cases in Yizhou gave Li Feng a headache. Some counties in prosperous areas could have a backlog of thousands of cases, which was beyond his imagination and understanding.

Over the past three months, cases in various places have been sentenced leniently and quickly, and two-thirds of the cases have been cleared as scheduled in accordance with the requirements from above.

Then the Huang and Gao families gathered the barbarian soldiers and attempted to rebel. Upon hearing the news, the Grand Marshal led more than a thousand personal guards, each with three horses, to attack day and night.

The two forts were easily broken through by the Grand Marshal as if they were made of paper. Before the foreign troops arrived, both forts were destroyed.

At the same time, many envoys from various families who came to negotiate with the two families were arrested, as well as letters and the like, which suddenly filled the prisons in Shu County and Guanghan County.

The top priority now is to repair the Shu Road. Ordinary transportation work is just a little harder, but not too dangerous.

But there is always a lot of dangerous work to be done between the cliffs.

It could not be done by the army, conscripted laborers, or hired laborers, so it had to be handed over to criminals and slaves who had no personal rights.

With spring ploughing approaching, various prisons are overcrowded and the relatives and friends of these people are in urgent need of comfort.

Li Feng didn't want to suppress rebellions everywhere. The most important thing was to stabilize the situation as soon as possible and resume production.

Those who can be given light sentences will be given light sentences, those who can be released will be released quickly, and those suspects in unsolved cases that are difficult to convict, as well as prisoners... can only be crammed into the Shu Road construction site as quickly as possible, and their life or death will be decided by fate.

Wang Fu didn't have to wait long outside before he saw a dozen low-level officials filing out. They were envoys from various counties.

Li Feng had to convey his attitude clearly so that the county magistrates would dare to release the people or give light sentences.

Under the current circumstances, county magistrates will not resign easily; if they do, their names will be recorded in the roster, which will make it difficult for them to enter officialdom in the future, but they are also afraid that their children, nephews, and three clans will be implicated.

In the square and spacious tent, Li Feng met Wang Fu and asked, "How are the hired workers sent by the state officials?"

"My Lord, after the hired workers of this state arrive at Jiange, they will be trained and given uniforms. They will be assigned to teams after five days of training. They will have the same rest days as the officials, and their diet will be changed from two meals a day to three meals a day."

Wang Fu took out a stack of sorted papers and handed them over with both hands: "I am worried that after they adapt to the life in the camp, it will be difficult to place them when the construction period is over."

Wang Fu's worry was written all over his face. Most of the unemployed young men in Shuzhong were transferred to the north of Mianzhu and put under militarized management.

The three meals a day were more adequate than what the soldiers in Shu had eaten before. They were also fully fed with every meal when they went to work. This was a life they had never imagined before, and it was also something that Wang Fu could not imagine.

It was true that Yizhou had abundant food and fodder reserves, which was something Black Bear had not expected.

The shelf life of grain is only two or three years, especially the rice produced in Shuzhong.

The summers here are hot and humid, and the winters are cold and humid, making it difficult to preserve rice.

Wang Fu was worried about too many aspects. In his eyes, the hired workers in Shuzhong had become a dangerous sign that could not be ignored. These people had adapted to the militarized management of the shogunate. In a few months, they would join the Taiping Dao. Those with management skills or talents would even stand out and become grassroots leaders.

If their organization is maintained, this group of people will work happily.

I’m afraid that when the work period ends, I won’t be able to find a new job.

The most important thing is that these people have escaped from a precarious and hungry life and have now become people who have enough food to eat three times a day.

This is very important. The amount of grain produced in Shu is limited every year... These people have three meals a day. If they are full, should others eat less?
The fixed output of a region is limited, and the number of people who can have three meals a day is limited.

After three meals a day, in their spare time, Taoist priests from the Taiping Dao and Tianshi Dao would organize activities to preach and tell stories to enlighten these people's wisdom... Wang Fu really didn't dare to imagine any further.

Even if there had been no enlightenment from the Tianshi Dao and Taiping Dao, we should release these people right now.

It is also impossible to make up for the losses in spring farming in the Shuzhong area this year!
The reason why the proletarian evil youths were not starved to death collectively was that they could always find various temporary jobs that would not starve them to death throughout the year.

The existence of these people indirectly made Shu more prosperous.

During the spring ploughing season, the fifty or sixty thousand or even more workers who could be easily recruited in the market in previous years suddenly disappeared. This was an immeasurable loss for many poor and wealthy families who hired workers for spring ploughing!

Not only these people, most of the weavers in Shu are women.

Some weavers would also buy land and not participate in farming themselves. Instead, they would engage in Shu brocade weaving work, which had a higher labor value return. The work in the fields would be left to servants or hired workers.

Spring plowing has been affected this year, and summer and autumn harvests are less than in previous years... This will definitely trigger a new round of suspicion from the Grand Sima Shogunate.

If the data on summer and autumn grain storage is reduced without reason and I put myself in a high position, I will also be suspicious.

Wang Fu really had no choice but to investigate the importance of these workers and write down the details clearly for Li Feng.

Li Feng read the stack of papers and frowned, "So, spring farming in Shuzhong cannot do without these people?"

He had known about it before, but it was not as detailed as Wang Fu's introduction.

Wang Fu only introduced the importance of propertyless hired workers to spring ploughing and the development of various industries; but what Li Feng saw was the cruel exploitation behind the prosperity of Shu... These hired workers were not even qualified to be tenants!

To put it another way, this group of employees belong to the shared use of the prosperous industry in Shu.

When various industries in Shu were affected, hired workers would lose their income at certain times of the year and would be on the verge of starvation.

So when the situation is unstable, these hired workers will also join the army.

The army will not support them for a long time. They will be disbanded after the war, and they will not be given the opportunity to eat and take more.

Now the shogunate has cut off the fuel supply and directly taken away the firewood shared by all industries in Shu.

Li Feng was also clear that after the Taiping Dao or the Tianshi Dao carried out organizational life, collective care and wisdom enlightenment, this group of hired workers would become a solid force for the shogunate to check and balance Shuzhong, just like the Ba people and Tianshi Dao believers.

He roughly understood Wang Fu's intention. Although the Wang family of Guanghan had also completed the division of their property... it was still the same. The land allocated to the Wang family clan and fellow villagers was not something they could cultivate at all. Some people even didn't know how to cultivate it.

It is necessary to obtain cheap technical manpower from outside, otherwise spring ploughing will inevitably be affected.

An idea came to his mind, but was quickly suppressed by Li Feng, who comforted Wang Fu and said, "The hired workers are already on the plank road. The Grand Marshal attaches great importance to this matter, and it is difficult for me to persuade him. Let me explain this to the Grand Marshal. If this year's spring ploughing is affected, many future problems will also be explained to the Grand Marshal."

However, Li Feng already had a plan to redeem the excess farmland of the people, but this year was not appropriate to make it public or reveal it.

In addition, Guanzhong originally planned to announce a new military merit and title system this year, which will have a wide range of impact.

The level of your title limits the amount of land you can own. When this system was promulgated, Guanlong would have been destroyed long ago, so it really doesn't matter.

The significance of this system to Guanlong lies mainly in clarifying the appointment and promotion of people with military merits and titles, rather than restricting their means of production.

It’s different in Shu… There are so many people here, but only a few of them have merits and titles?
(End of this chapter)