In the Chengjia Village meeting hall, sitting in the hall at this time were Cheng Yuanzhi, Deng Mao, Cheng Ming, Xu Kang, Guan Yu and several people in charge of affairs in Chengjia Village. In addition, Zang Jie, Zang Ba and his son were also invited by Xu Kang.

Kang specially invited him over.

Cheng Yuanzhi announced the matter of 10,000 dan of grain. After all, the 1,000 dan of grain had been proved. The people below who did not know the news were obviously excited at this time.

The white-haired Cheng Ming was so excited that he had tears in his eyes and said: "I have always been worried about not having enough food this winter. I didn't expect that there would be 10,000 more tons of food all of a sudden. It's God's blessing. A great teacher has appeared."

ah."

Deng Mao laughed and said, "What Mr. Cheng said is wrong. This is obviously the work of Xu Kang's nephew. What does it have to do with God?" Cheng Ming is the patriarch of Chengjia Village and one of the three elders of Gu'an County.

Therefore, everyone usually calls him Mr. Cheng.

Cheng Ming glared at Deng Mao and said: "Don't talk nonsense. There is a god three feet above your head. How can you say such blasphemous words?"

Cheng Yuanzhi stopped Deng Mao and Cheng Ming from further joking and said: "Okay, now let's arrange how we will get back the remaining grain and some matters to be done this winter. Xu Kang, you make the arrangements."

Xu Kang was stunned. He really didn't expect that Cheng Yuanzhi would leave this issue to him. In fact, Xu Kang and Cheng Yuanzhi had already discussed everything on the way back. They just waited for Cheng Yuanzhi to announce it at this meeting. Now Cheng Yuanzhi

Giving this opportunity to himself was obviously a consideration to improve his status in Chengjia Village.

This was also an opportunity for Xu Kang, so he did not delay. He coughed and said: "After discussion between my adoptive father and me, we decided to escort the grain back to the counties of Jizhou as soon as possible before the world was in chaos.

, 200 soldiers from each of Deng Mao, Guan Yu, and Zang Ba took the documents and went to each county to collect grain. As for the transportation problem, you can recruit your own fleet at the time."

Deng Mao, Guan Yu, and Zang Ba immediately clasped their fists in response.

"In addition, since we have food, we cannot ignore the life and death of the Taiping Taoists in other counties in Zhuojun. Therefore, after the meeting is over, we will immediately announce a message and order the Taoists in each county who have no livelihood to gather in Chengdu immediately.

When I came to the village, I told Master Cheng Xian that he would work with everyone to overcome the difficulties."

Regarding this order, some people immediately questioned it, saying that there were more than 10,000 Taoist households and tens of thousands of people. If they all moved here, even 10,000 dans of food would not be enough to consume for one winter.

But on this point, Xu Kang and Cheng Yuanzhi were very insistent. After all, Zhang Jiao had begun to prepare for the rebellion, and Zhuojun's military strength must also be strengthened. In the past, due to lack of strength, too many soldiers could not be gathered, but now that there is so much more food,

It would be unreasonable not to make good use of it. However, in order not to cause unnecessary panic, these things have to be kept secret. Xu Kang had already thought that there would be objections in advance, so he had already thought of his words and was about to say it now.

Cheng Ming stood up and interjected: "We are all Taoist Taoists from Taiping. We can't watch them starve while we have a full stomach. Okay, let's call them all together." Mr. Cheng is older and has high prestige. Since

Now that he has spoken, no one else dares to object.

Xu Kang had just enough words left, so he continued: "Since everyone has agreed, in view of the shortage of food, I will arrange for additional people to continue to purchase food. In addition, I will immediately organize manpower to build new camps to accommodate the upcoming large-scale

Taoists."

Everyone had no objections and all agreed.

All that's left is to arrange the specific division of labor. These are also discussed in advance, and others only need to follow them.

After the meeting, when everyone left, Cheng Yuanzhi suddenly said: "Is this enough? By building a camp, can we really improve the organizational capabilities you mentioned?"

Xu Kang nodded and said: "That's right. We have given the order to gather the Taiping believers. There will definitely be a large number of people coming by then. Although we expected 10,000 households, due to the severe drought this summer, many people have no livelihood. Among them, there should be

There is no shortage of people pretending to be Taiping believers and coming to our Chengjia Village. Therefore, it is estimated that there will be 10,000 more households this time. With so many people coming and not knowing each other, conflicts will inevitably arise. We happened to take this opportunity to organize them separately and appoint chiefs.

Officers, they can become our private servants, and with a little training, they can become ordinary soldiers, which can strengthen our momentum."

Cheng Yuanzhi heard this and had no other opinions.

For the rest of the time, Xu Kang stayed with Cheng Yuanzhi, helping him choose a site for the new camp and helping him receive believers from other counties. As they initially expected, due to the worsening of the drought, more refugees began to gather in Chengjia Village.

, in just over a month, nearly 10,000 households and more than 30,000 people came to Chengjia Village. Fortunately, in the past month, Guan Yu and others also successively transported the 10,000 shi of food, otherwise the food alone would bring down the entire village.

Chengjia Village.

In order to facilitate management, Xu Kang began to make organizational changes according to his own plans and implement real military management. First, he ordered all the young men to gather together and select 5,000 people to start formal, or at least semi-regular, off-duty military operations.

The training was led by Cheng Yuanzhi and Deng Mao; then all teenagers under the age of 18 and above 12 were gathered together to form a youth camp, led by Zang Jie, who taught them literacy and martial arts. In Xu Kang's view, he could teach

With a son like Zang Ba who is both civilized and military, this job belongs to him. The elderly, women and children formed the old camp, with Mr. Cheng in charge, and Xu Kang assisting him and taking care of the logistics.

At the same time, various places were ordered to collect food, and they purchased and stored it at all costs.

In the Li family of Gu'an City, the patriarch Li Suzheng summoned the stewards of each house in the Li family to discuss matters in the hall.

The topic is mainly about the impact of this year's drought on agriculture. One of the managers is reporting: "---Due to this year's drought, the harvest in our fields has been reduced by at least 30% this year."

Li Su frowned and said: "Our land is close to water sources, and most of it is fertile land. Our income has been reduced by 30%. You can imagine how serious the drought is in other places. How is the matter of purchasing grain that I ordered you to do?"

"The price of grain has risen very fast recently, especially because there are suddenly a few grain dealers from other places in the city who are buying grain at high prices. This has greatly affected our purchase plan."

"Grain merchants from out of town." Li Su pondered for a moment and said, "Tell them and tell them that I will pay 10% more for the grain they harvest."

"I'm afraid they won't be willing?"

"I don't want to." Li Su snorted coldly and said: "Then say hello to the county government and tell the county government that we are in a famine now and food is precious. We in Gu'an County must unite to overcome the difficulties together and cannot let unscrupulous businessmen take advantage of us.

grains of grain are shipped out of our county."

"yes."

"By the way, what's going on in Chengjia Village recently?" Li Su asked again.

"Chengjia Village is still recruiting refugees on a large scale. There are already tens of thousands of refugees, and they are almost catching up with the population of Gu'an County."

"So much." Li Su's face turned ugly and he said, "Where did they get so much food to feed so many mouths?"

"I heard that a month ago, a large number of grain transport convoys drove into Chengjia Village, carrying an estimated 10,000 loads of grain."

"10,000 dans." Li Su said in surprise: "Why didn't you report such an important matter in advance? 10,000 dans of grain. I didn't expect that Cheng Yuanzhi, a pariah, knew how to hoard food. But where did he get so much money to buy such

More food?”

No one could answer this question, and there was silence.

After a while, Li Shi stood up first and said: "Now is not the time to think about this. Father, if the Cheng family survives this disaster, then so many people will undoubtedly become members of the Cheng family. By then, where will the people in Gu'an County be?"

There is also a place for my Li family to live."

Li Su pondered for a moment and said: "Pass on the mission and buy all the surplus grain in Gu'an City at all costs. Without grain, I don't see how they can feed so many mouths."

"yes."

After a month of transformation, today's Chengjia Village is very different from before. Surrounding the original Chengjia Village, a large village was built on three sides to serve as a guard, housing nearly 10,000 people.

At this time, in the Xizhai, the craftsmanship camp had gathered craftsmen who came from all over the country and were skilled in craftsmanship. These people were specially selected by Xu Kang, including 10 blacksmiths, 30 carpenters, and a large number of stonemasons and craftsmen.

Other craftsmen.

At present, the main task of the Craftsman Camp is to process wood and help others build houses. However, with the saturation of the population, Xu Kang has clearly felt that the growing population is stagnating, and feels that the mission of the Craftsman Camp can be appropriately adjusted.

Therefore, he first gathered the 10 blacksmiths together and said: "Now most of the tunnels have gathered in my Chengjia Village. It has been really hard for everyone these days."

"Master Xu, what are you talking about? If it hadn't been for the kindness of the immortal master and the young master to take in useless people like us, I'm afraid we would have starved to death on the roadside."

"Yes, yes." "That's right, that's right." Others agreed.

Xu Kang waved his hand and said: "Although it has been a bit hard for everyone, there may be more troubles in the future. I would like to thank you all in advance."

Everyone immediately expressed their willingness to advance and retreat together with the immortal master, and the young master did not hesitate to give orders.

"From now on, other people can do the building of houses, and everyone's task is to build weapons." Of course, the purpose was to prevent thieves from plundering Chengjia Village.

One of them said: "I'm really sorry. Although I have been forging iron since I was a child, I mostly made some farm tools, iron pots and the like. I have never made weapons. I really don't know how to do this."

Xu Kang smiled and said: "It doesn't matter. Making weapons is not something that happens overnight. You can learn slowly and learn from the masters who know how to do it." The man could only say: "Young man, try your best."

At that moment, Xu Kang took out some simple broadswords and spear heads, and ordered them to fight according to the pattern.

At this time, someone suddenly came to report that there was news from Feng Dehai in Zhuo County. Xu Kang immediately bid farewell to everyone and rushed to his room. As the population increased, the consumption of food also reached an alarming level. Now

Chengjia Village consumes tens of thousands of kilograms of grain every day, and the food problem has been completely left to Xu Kang alone.

"Report."

"Come in."

A man pushed the door open and said, "In Zhuo County, Feng Dehai sent news that another 500 dendrobium (stones) of grain have been prepared and are now being transported here."

"That's great." Xu Kang said happily. Although 500 hu of grain is really a drop in the bucket compared to the daily consumption of tens of thousands of kilograms, it is still better than nothing. "It's just that Feng Dehai said that food is really hard to buy now, so this may be his plan.

The last batch of food has arrived.”

Xu Kang sighed and said: "Forget it, it's hard for him these days. Let him find a way to come over quickly. I am short of manpower here."

"yes."

After a while, another person came to report: "There is news from Gu'an City that the Li family is buying grain on a large scale and does not pay attention to the price."

"Oh." Xu Kang pondered for a moment and said: "They are specifically trying to do something right with us. It doesn't matter, let him buy it. If possible, sell part of our grain to him. I am short of money now.

."

"yes."

"In addition, tell our people that the purchase of grain is no longer the main thing. Now we start to purchase pig iron and ironware. The more the better."

"yes."

Due to the drought, many poor people went bankrupt and had no food to eat. Xu Kang ordered people to exchange food for the ironware in their hands, such as pots, bowls, pans and other daily necessities, as long as they were made of iron.
Chapter completed!