Chapter 59
The two sons were assigned to building houses, and the four grandsons were assigned to digging ditches, supposedly to build sewers. Finally, Father Qi was assigned to the carpentry team, making furniture. He had some carpentry skills; as a farmer, making a table and nailing a chair was no big deal.
Old Man Qi didn't expect that when he arrived, he would run into the elder brother whom he had met once before.
The man also saw him and waved to him.
Father Qi walked over with a smile, "Brother Luo, you work here too? We have a connection."
"Come on, give me a hand. You can't just talk and not do anything."
The two worked together and chatted from time to time.
"If we work hard here, we can earn ten work points a day. When we get off work, the team leader will record it." said Old Man Luo.
Old Man Qi was stunned. "Work points, are they wages?"
Old Man Luo explained to him, "Work points aren't wages, but they're very useful in the military settlements. You'll need them later when you're assigned housing. A certain amount of work points will be deducted from each house before you can move in. Besides that, you can also use them to exchange for food and currency."
"But we heard that this new area of military housing will be allocated to us, right? As long as we work hard."
"That's true. But the newly built housing for military families comes in different sizes. Some have three rooms, some have five rooms, some have small courtyards, and some have large courtyards. For example, if there are fourteen people in your family, and we only give you a five-room apartment with a small courtyard, would you be happy with that?"
Old Man Qi thought for a moment and said, "There are fourteen of us in five rooms. Even if we squeeze in, we can still live here. Besides, my four grandsons are new recruits and will live in the barracks."
"What if another family of ten people also got a house as big as yours, but that family didn't do as much work as you and your family did? Would you be happy with that?"
"That's impossible. I'm not bragging, there's no lazy person in my family. My sons, grandsons, and I are all hardworking. If we divide the room like this, I'll feel uncomfortable."
"That's all. The house isn't given to you for free. Exchanging it for work points is the fairest!"
Father Qi thought about it. The value of the house was equal to the total value of their work points. "So, does that mean everyone gets the same amount of work points for a day's work?"
"It's different. Those who work hard and those who work laxly get different work points, and it also depends on the type of work. But the most a person can get in a day is ten work points. I've seen as few as four or five."
"So, these work points are really a good thing."
"Yes, and I heard that when the military settlement's exchange building is built, there will be some rare items that can only be exchanged for work points or even merit points."
"What are merit points?" Father Qi felt quite fresh. There were quite a few new things in this military settlement.
"Merit points are actually used by soldiers. They will be awarded corresponding merit points after going on a campaign or performing meritorious deeds. Merit points are very valuable. Our children's promotion speed in the army depends entirely on them. I heard that merit points can be exchanged for work points in the future, but work points cannot be exchanged for merit points."
"So, these merit points are quite valuable. Can we, the settlers, earn merit points?"
"Yes, but it's difficult. You have to make a significant contribution to get it. I know that a few days ago a team of bricklayers created something called a fire kang, and each member of the team received ten merit points."
The two old men didn't know that because these craftsmen built the kang with the guidance of Yao Chunnuan, each of them only received ten merit points, and the team leader received fifteen. If they had built the kang from scratch, each of them would have received at least fifty merit points.
That day, when Old Man Qi was leaving work and recording his work points, he asked the team leader, "Sir, is there any work in our village suitable for the young children?"
Last night, after work, he received a record of the total work points earned by the members of his Qi family. There were fourteen people in their family, nine of whom were working, leaving his wife, Yingshan, and their three youngest children at home. Their family earned a total of eighty-six work points that day. This was expected. Except for him, all nine of the working family members were able-bodied. The men had earned the full ten work points, while the two daughters-in-law had earned eight points, a high number for women.
After the family learned about work points, they all felt that they should be more diligent and earn more work points. Even the two eldest children expressed their desire to go out to work, which led to his question today.
The team leader asked, "I remember that there are already eight or nine people working in your family, right? Do you still need children to work?"
"Your Excellency has a good memory. It's just that the two children are eight or nine years old now, and they feel sorry for us and want to share some of the work. We are all farm children, and we used to help the family by collecting pig grass, digging firewood, or weeding the crops in the fields. We are not afraid of work."
The team leader was speechless. The children were not idle either. Wasn’t it enough for them to help share the housework at home?
Old Man Qi said that they are now living in the barracks for new recruits, eating in the cafeteria, and do not have much housework to do.
"There is such a job." The team leader suddenly remembered the job of picking up cow and sheep dung. Isn't it suitable for an eight or nine-year-old child? It's a bit dirty, but it still earns six or seven work points a day.
Father Qi was stunned for a moment, "How can there be such a job?"
"Of course not! Our military settlement not only has so many people, but we also raise seven or eight hundred cows and several thousand sheep. But look, isn't the area around our military settlement quite clean and tidy?"
Old Man Qi thought about it and realized that it was true.
"This is all thanks to our Chief Secretary Yao."
Hearing this name, Old Man Qi was no stranger to it. She was a rare woman with real power in the military settlement, and she worked in the Shogun's court. Her rise to power had been well-known to the new arrivals, and many were deeply inspired. After hearing this, Old Man Qi thought that if this girl wasn't exceptionally capable, she was either incredibly fake, a role model deliberately promoted by the Shogun.
After listening to this, Old Man Qi finally understood why there was a job like picking up cow dung in the military settlement.
Nowadays, there is a public toilet every thirty or forty meters in the military settlement. These public toilets were built by Yao Chunnuan to address the problem of random urination and defecation.
Military settlements are full of rough men, and men, after all, are incredibly convenient when it comes to going to the bathroom. Many people in these settlements have experienced this: one night, they wake up outside their door, on the road, or somewhere else, and there's this little thing, standing out against the snow, making it incredibly conspicuous. This is just the visible stuff, but there are many more invisible things.
Yao Chunnuan was thankful countless times that it was winter now and most of the flavor was frozen. If it were a hot summer, the taste would be so sour and refreshing.
So, upon taking office, Yao Chunnuan's first order of business was to build public toilets. They cleaned up the living environment and also provided fertilizer, which was quite beneficial. If left unattended, when the snow melted in the spring, bacteria would likely breed, leading to epidemics.
Once the public toilets are built and the problem of people defecating and urinating indiscriminately is solved, it is the turn of animals.
The military settlements had their own oxen, but they weren't many, only about 700 or 800, with an average of one ox for every 100 mu (approximately 100 acres) of land. They also had sheep, 2,000 to 3,000, though originally there had been 5,000 or 6,000. Before the general took charge of the settlement, the Yichun camp had taken away two or three mature sheep under the pretext of hauling in grain. And there were pigs...
These cattle and sheep pooped as they walked, so Yao Chunnuan also had several septic tanks built in remote areas to collect the feces of cattle, sheep, chickens, and other livestock. People were assigned to the North District Labor Department to collect this cow, sheep, and pig manure. They even had people cleaning some of the main roads along the way.
At first, many people thought Yao Zhubo was too particular. But once these public toilets were built, the villagers soon realized the benefits.
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The flourishing military settlements were noticed by the Yichun camp. They were receiving a large number of refugees every day, and entire barracks for new recruits and housing for military families were rising from the ground. The walls surrounding the settlements were especially high, and it was unclear who they were protecting them from.
Marshal Zhu slammed the teacup in his hand onto the table. "Recruiting soldiers, building barracks, and housing for military dependents, all of this money and food is used to support so many people!" He was angry. Ah—
None of his generals said anything, all thinking, "General, they've already raised 30,000 men. How much food did they take from your secret vault?"
"Marshal, why don't we reorganize the barracks in our main camp as well?" a general suggested.
Di Luo will not be heading south this winter, as the old leader is critically ill and can no longer raise his troops. His sons are all surrounding him, eyeing the position of leader. This is just the right time to expand the new barracks. I heard the new barracks at the Yichun military camp are very well built. They're jealous.
The old accountant went on to say that they might as well build a secret vault and use it. After taking it out, they could also recruit more soldiers.
Previously, their main camp had been constantly outmatched by the Yichun military settlement because they had no food or money to pay for the new recruits. As a result, a regular barracks was not as popular as a military settlement when recruiting soldiers. How could they seek justice? If the Marshal could take out one of the secret vaults, they would have the confidence to stop the Yichun military settlement from taking the lead.
"No!" Marshal Zhu refused. He had already lost one of the three private warehouses, leaving only two. He would not move!
As soon as Marshal Zhu said this, the scene became very quiet. Everyone lowered their heads slightly. Only they themselves knew what they were thinking.
The old accountant said: "Their commander is good in every way except that he's a bit of a miser. Otherwise, he wouldn't have been able to save enough money for the three secret vaults." But this won't work. Although he doesn't understand the economics of later times, he knows that money, grain, and currency need to be used to revitalize the situation. If they are left there, they are just dead objects.
Shi Mei waved his feather fan. As Marshal Zhu's most trusted aide, he felt deeply worried. A marshal who was too selfish and too self-indulgent was not qualified. Sometimes, the more he wanted to hold on to something, the less he could keep it. But he had not realized this yet.
Moreover, strength always rises and falls. As the commander of one side, if he doesn't manage his own territory well, you won't see any results in the short term, but it will definitely be affected in the long term, not to mention that there is a thriving Yichun military settlement next to it for comparison.
The generals said: The commander-in-chief is old, and his pioneering and enterprising spirit is not as strong as before.
Marshal Zhu saw the unhappy expressions on his men's faces and realized that his refusal was too abrupt, so he said slowly, "We added a lot of barracks two years ago, so it's not necessary to add more now. Old Yu, you can allocate some money to renovate the barracks and make sure the soldiers live comfortably. As for recruiting new soldiers, we have already recruited 5,000 new soldiers this year. With the original 70,000 veterans, our army is not in great need of new recruits. Since you feel that the comparison with the military settlement is embarrassing, you can suspend recruitment. Now let's think about the settlement next year."
Shi Mei thought for a moment and said, "Marshal, General Xing previously promised to give us 30% of our total land next year. I think we can do something about it."
"How do you say that?"
…
The Yichun military settlement was thriving, and this wasn't just noticed by outsiders like those in the Yichun camp. Wang Lang, who lived there, felt it even more deeply. He had a feeling that the settlement would remain busy, constantly moving forward, and never idle.
When the Yichun camp stopped recruiting soldiers, he sighed leisurely and said, "If Qin is to be destroyed, Chu will be the one to be destroyed; if Zhu is to be destroyed, there will be punishment."
Wang Lang's prediction was correct. According to the plan of the military settlement leaders, the military settlement would enter a period of rapid development from the end of the year to the spring of the following year.
As a result, he was also busy and restless. He had no choice but to do so. He was being carried forward. If he dared to stop, he would be abandoned. He could only make the cakes bigger first. In the future... when the cakes were divided, how much they could get would depend on their own ability.
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