Super Cultivation System of the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 73 The strength surges
After careful counting, together with the previous seizures of the Lianghe and Hongye mountain strongholds, the total amount of grain seized in this encirclement and suppression of the bandits was nearly 1,000 dan, more than 700,000 coins, more than 70 sets of armor, more than 600 weapons, 14 war horses and pack horses, 97 bows and arrows, more than 2,000 feather arrows, in addition to more than a hundred livestock and poultry of various kinds, and countless sundries used in daily life!

For those powerful princes in the future, they might not even bother to even take a look at these things, but for Liu He and Huangshui Township now, they are a huge fortune.

Especially these more than 600 weapons, plus the nearly 500 weapons currently owned by the militia, totaling about 1,100. I believe that this will be enough to cope with the expansion of the militia for a long time.

As for war horses and bows and arrows, they are also good things. Among those captured bandits, some were originally cavalrymen and archers, so they just need to continue to be strictly trained with these equipment.

As for the remaining large amounts of materials, Liu He certainly couldn't just distribute them to the villagers for free, as that would not bring out the value of these materials at all.

After discussing with three pavilion chiefs including Liu Qian, Liu He decided to build several special granaries and warehouses to store the food and weapons. He then sent people to guard them and checked the accounts himself. He would distribute them according to military supplies. To a certain extent, this could also be regarded as the food and wages he needed to recruit troops. After all, who would fight for you without money?

As for the livestock, except for three oxen and some poultry that were left in the pen, the rest were all handed over to Xu and others to be slaughtered and prepared as additional dishes for the celebratory banquet.

On the fourth day, all the work was finally done. Many village women stopped working in the fields and got up early to wash vegetables and clean pots. The villagers also brought over home-grown vegetables, hunted game, picked wild fruits, etc.

That afternoon, all the villagers of Huangshui Township gathered in Liu He's village for a great feast, making the villagers from the neighboring township drool with envy.

It was also because of this grand banquet that the news that the Huangshui Township militia had captured five mountain strongholds in a row became known to everyone. It can be said that it shocked the entire Langdiao County. Farmers in various townships, ordinary people in the city, and people on the streets were all talking about this matter.

Even the county government got the news, which really surprised several officials!
However, although they were surprised, the county magistrate and the new county lieutenant also bought their positions with money, and they did nothing at all. They only knew how to enjoy themselves and never thought about doing practical things. The militia helped them eliminate the banditry, and although they had less "gray income" every year, this was something they had always wanted to do but dared not to do or could not do successfully. Now that this credit had fallen from the sky, they certainly would not push it away.

Therefore, they basically did not praise or care about the militia team of Huangshui Township. In a word, it had nothing to do with them and they were too lazy to pay attention to it.

Of course Liu He would not know about this, and even if he knew, he would be unable to do anything about it.

However, this does not mean that this "reputation" has no benefits for him. On the contrary, in the days that followed, this reputation brought him so many benefits that he, and even the entire Huangshui Township, was so busy that he could not stop.

A few days after the celebration banquet, some villagers from the neighboring township began to move to Huangshui Township. At the beginning, there were not many people. In two months, only a dozen families came, and the three pavilion chiefs were more than enough to handle it.

In ancient times, the head tax was a very important type of tax. Therefore, the management of personal household registration was much stricter than in modern times. During the Qin and Han dynasties, the management of household registration was relatively strict. Under normal circumstances, ordinary people would face many problems if they moved in large numbers.

Now in the late Eastern Han Dynasty, management is lax, but ordinary people still dare not migrate recklessly. Therefore, even though the living conditions in Huangshui Township are very attractive, there are not many people who have the courage and ability to move here and settle down in such a short period of time.

However, there is one type of people that is not included in this list: refugees! Refugees are people who have suffered disasters in other places and cannot make a living, so they are forced to wander around. The so-called household registration management system has no deterrent effect on them. All they want is two words - to live!

There were countless refugees in various parts of Bingzhou, as well as in the neighboring states of You, Ji, Liang, and Si. There were people suffering from famine, people on the northern border unable to bear the looting of the barbarians, and people who could not survive in their hometowns for various reasons.

Liu He remembered that he had read the Book of the Later Han in his previous life, which recorded the life in the first year of Emperor Heng's Yongxing reign, which was 154 AD: "The people were hungry and poor, and there were hundreds of thousands of them wandering on the roads."

Similar things were commonplace in the late Eastern Han Dynasty. Today, the world is even more difficult than it was in 154 AD, and the phenomenon of refugees has become even more serious.

Taiyuan County was relatively stable, and many refugees wandered here, hoping to beg for food. Strictly speaking, even Guan Yu and Cheng Liang were refugees who had left their homes in a sense, and so were most of the bandits roaming around the Taihang Mountains.

After hearing about the story in Huangshui Township, these refugees who made a living in Taiyuan County felt as if they had seen a guiding light when they were lost, or people trapped in the desert had discovered an oasis water source. They all began to rush towards Huangshui Township in groups!

Even some small gangs of roaming bandits turned away from evil and turned to good, hoping to live a normal life in Huangshui Township.

More than nine months passed, and by the end of this year, nearly a thousand new households, totaling more than 3,700 people, had moved into Huangshui Township. Most of them were refugees from various places, causing the total population of Huangshui Township to jump from more than 5,000 to nearly 9,000 people!
A township with a population of more than 5,000 is only considered medium in Bingzhou, but the current size of 9,000 is enough to make Huangshui Township the largest township in Bingzhou, and its population size can be compared with that of a small county like Langtiao County!

With so many people suddenly appearing, the pavilion chiefs had to put down their own farm work and were busy every day registering these people, arranging houses for them, and reclaiming farmland.

Chief Qian even asked his thirteen-year-old son to help. Unexpectedly, the young boy handled the affairs in an orderly manner and quickly got the hang of it, which made Liu Qian and Chief Lu admire him very much.

However, there are too many people. Although there is enough wasteland to be reclaimed, the original vacant houses in each village are far from meeting the living requirements of so many people.

Under the coordination of the three village heads and Liu He and others, many villagers worked overnight and soon built hundreds of tiled houses so that the new villagers would not be left homeless.

Everyone here was busy and exhausted, but Liu He was so happy that he couldn't stop smiling.

In this troubled times, territory and population are the most important resources. Without territory and population, there will be no place to recruit soldiers. No matter how capable you are, you will have no place to use your skills. Moreover, you have vowed to restore peace to the people, so you must start now!

(End of this chapter)