Chapter 610 [First Update]
Before coming to Liaoxi County, Liu Tan had already set his sights on the long coastline of Yan State.
Regardless of the fishing industry or whether there are pearls or not, there is sea water.
Having sea water is basically equivalent to having salt. Liu Tan had previously given the method of drying salt to Princess Dangli, but he himself had never tried it. In the final analysis, it was because the Northern Border Kingdom had no coastline. Now that there was a chance, he decided to build a few more salt fields, leaving a few for Liu Ku and keeping the rest for himself.
When Liu Ku grows up and becomes a qualified King of Yan, he will hand over all the salt fields to Liu Ku.
Anyway, he will never be short of money no matter who is short of money.
The governor of Liaoxi County immediately began to send people to the countryside to preach. This period of time was considered the slack season for farmers in Yan State, so people should be able to be recruited.
To be honest, after learning about the wages offered by Liu Tan, the governor of Liaoxi County wished he could personally help build the city.
He has the strength, after all, he also needs to farm the land.
Yes, the life of the Liaoxi County Magistrate was so miserable. If he didn’t farm himself and relied entirely on his salary, his whole family would have starved to death long ago.
After all, he cared about the people and never imposed heavy taxes, and this place was poor, which meant that he had very little money. The wages offered by Liu Tan made him a little jealous.
Unfortunately, as the county magistrate, he has too much to do, but it doesn’t matter. He still has sons and grandsons, and even the women in the family are all very capable and can all go to work.
The King of the North requires that the entire city be built within two months. As long as it can meet the occupancy requirements, the rest can be completed slowly.
The money they earned in two months was much more than what they had earned in a year of farming!
There will always be brave men when there is a big reward, let alone just doing some work. The people of Liaoxi County almost burst out with great enthusiasm and devoted themselves to the construction.
Food is provided on the construction site, although accommodation is not. Everyone is fighting for their lives. The weather is not very cold now, so it is no problem to sleep under the sun.
Liu Tan actually foresaw this, after all, the Northern Border Kingdom had experienced exactly the same thing back then.
But this time he was more calm. No matter what happened, he had a plan to deal with it and could even teach others.
The person he taught was Dou Sibo.
Liu Tan was once again thankful that it was Huo Guang who followed him to the Northern Border Kingdom. If it was Dou Sibo, the two newcomers would probably cause a big mess.
Now Liu Tan is guiding Dou Sibo to do things little by little, and Dou Sibo has gradually become able to cope with the situation from being flustered at the beginning.
Although Dou Sibo lacks in cunning, he is careful enough. If he had no advantages at all, Liu Che would not have sent him to Liu Tan. Otherwise, it would not be sending helpers, but would be causing trouble for his son.
Dou Sibo worked diligently, but just as he got started, his prince gave him a difficult problem.
Liu Tan called him over and said, "I heard that even people from other counties are coming here to work now?"
Dou Sibo immediately said, "Your Highness, rest assured. I will prioritize the people of Liaoxi County."
Liu Tan waved his hand. "That's not what I meant. Aren't the people the same everywhere? They're all citizens of Yan State. We shouldn't be too partial to one over the other. I just suddenly remembered something. You can do other work while you're at it, such as the Great Search."
Dou Sibo: ???
What should they do if the court does not issue an order?
Liu Tan saw Dou Sibo's expression and knew he must have misunderstood something, so he said, "It's not that strict. If someone signs up, they must verify their name and place of origin."
Dou Sibo was a little embarrassed after hearing this: "It's easy to check in Liaoxi County, but it's inconvenient to travel to other places."
"Even if it's inconvenient to travel, we have to do it. Remember to make sure that publicity is thorough. Even those who don't have household registration will not be punished this time and can still get registered."
Dou Sibo was puzzled after hearing this: "No household registration?"
However, he only didn't understand for a moment. After repeating it, he immediately understood: "Your Highness, are you saying that there will be refugees?"
Liu Tan nodded. "Yan State is mountainous. Although the climate is not suitable, there should be some hunters living in the mountains. They might be interested in doing this kind of work."
After all, you can make money. For some families, working for two months means they may not need to work too hard for two years, and they can have some financial resources.
Dou Sibo once again admitted defeat: "Your Highness is indeed far-sighted. We cannot compare to him."
Liu Tan smiled awkwardly. To be honest, he just suddenly remembered this matter.
He knew before that Liaoxi County was short of people, but he didn't take it too seriously. Whether he brought people here himself or the upcoming 100,000 troops, Liaoxi County would have sufficient manpower.
However, Liu Tan has now learned to make follow-up plans and cannot just focus on the present.
Then he thought, after the army left, wouldn’t there still be a shortage of people?
His attention was focused on the refugees. As for attracting people from other places... don't joke. Yan's neighbor is the Northern Border. The people of the Northern Border live well. No matter how bad the climate there is, it will not be worse than Yan's.
Maybe some people will come here to work, but they will definitely not settle down here.
The people in the remaining places will not be poorer than Yan State, unless Yan State can become like the Northern Border State.
Well, the Northern Border Kingdom now no longer easily accepts outsiders to settle down.
Anyway, these tasks are easy to do, so I'll give Dou Sibo some extra work so he can get familiar with it in advance.
Right now, this is just a matter of one county, and the affairs of the entire Yan State are at a standstill. Dou Sibo can take this opportunity to accumulate more experience and avoid being in a hurry in the future.
After leaving all the work to Dou Sibo, Liu Tan also started to busy himself with his own business - opening a salt field.
Salt fields cannot be opened casually, and the right place must be chosen. However, the Yan State is different from Dangli or Jiaozhi. The coastline here belongs to the inland sea area. In addition, the climate is cold, and it will freeze when it is extremely cold in winter. No matter how much sunlight there is, it will be useless.
So there may only be a few months in a year when salt can be dried, but that's enough. There is no problem in supplying salt to the entire Yan State.
If enough are opened, perhaps we can even supply salt to the Northern Border Country.
Although the Northern Kingdom has salt alkali ponds, they only alleviate some of the pressure on salt.
This time, Liu Tan had no psychological burden in enclosing the land - the area by the sea was all sand or mud ponds, and there were basically no minerals in such places. If minerals could be found in such places, he would be really convinced.
Unfortunately, this time it was not the land he enclosed himself, but the governor of Liaoxi County specially enclosed a part of the land and gave it to him after knowing that the King of the Northern Territory wanted to use the land by the sea.
This part of the land is actually wasteland, but there are no fishing villages around. The governor of Liaoxi County has repeatedly assured that no one will spy on it.
Liu Tan couldn't help but smile. Although the governor of Liaoxi County didn't talk much, he was very capable in doing things.
He gave the address directly to Wei Deng and asked him to take a hundred elite soldiers to clear the place first, and then build some simple buildings so that everyone could live there.
At the same time, it was repeatedly emphasized that one must keep warm and be sheltered from the wind.
Liu Tan had never felt the sea breeze of Yan State in winter, but he knew from hearsay that the sea breeze was still very strong.
Even if the salt field cannot produce much salt in winter, someone needs to be there to guard it, and Liu Tan also needs someone to survey the area to see where it is suitable to build a port.
Thinking about building a port, Liu Tan couldn't help but look at the map again, and then found that some places in Liaodong County and Liaoxi County could basically be regarded as facing each other across the sea. In this case... Liu Tan couldn't help but want to take the sea route.
On land, the Wuhuan are quite powerful, so there will definitely be some fighting.
The most important thing is that they are now occupying their territory, and they may force the people of Liaodong County to come and die. By then, even if Liu Tan has something like gunpowder in his hands, he will be tied up.
Even if we win, we still lose after killing so many of our own people.
On the contrary, the Wuhuan will be more confident.
If they go by sea, it will be different. Liu Tan is confident that his ship is the most advanced ship of this era. The most important thing is that he can land and attack from behind when the enemy is not prepared.
Liu Tan had an idea and sent people to conduct an on-site investigation. He felt that there was indeed a way forward, so he wrote a letter to Huo Guang, asking Mo Shi and others to come over and study how to build a deep-water port.
However, there was actually no need for him to study things like deep-water ports, because after he gave Sang Hongyang the idea, Sang Hongyang had already started working on the construction in this area.
Liu Tan did not intervene in this matter. He did not know much about it. Perhaps he would remember some things when he arrived at the site. However, the construction of a deep-water port, especially a deep-water port these days, did not require too high a technological content. As long as it could allow ships to dock, it would be fine.
He had heard before that Qi had almost completed the research and had started construction - the biggest evidence was that the court had bought a lot of cement from the northern border country.
When Liu Tan learned about this, he was really at a loss whether to laugh or cry. They didn't even feel tired after transporting the goods from the Northern Border Country to the Qi Country for such a long distance.
At that time, his intention was to let the court build a cement kiln in Qi State itself, but his idea was directly rejected by Liu Che.
In Liu Che's words, "You saved so much cement, are you planning to pass it on to future generations?"
Liu Tan: ...
He knew that Liu Che wanted him to make some money, but my dear father, the Northern Border Kingdom is different now than before, they are not short of money anymore.
In any case, Liu Tan finally had the opportunity to ask his father for something - the construction drawings of the deep-water port.
Although it may not be possible to copy it directly, it can still be used as a reference.
However, the blueprint of the deep-water port did not arrive, but the general sent by Liu Che came with an army of 100,000.
He had never heard before who Liu Che had chosen, but he didn't particularly care. Anyway, if this person was obedient and cooperative, then he would naturally be able to stay. If he was disobedient, then he would be sent back to where he came from.
And judging from Dou Sibo's point of view, Liu Che would not try to trick him.
However, when this general actually arrived in Liaoxi County, it was still beyond Liu Tan's expectations.
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