The room goes through the late Ming Dynasty, and the back door leads to North America at the beginni

Liu Sheng shook his head, "These Ming army prisoners have to work for three months, which is already three times that of the rogue prisoners, and it cannot be extended any longer.

If Mr. Liu is worried about the shortage of manpower, he can only farm in places that are not prone to drought. The fields in other places can be cultivated by the people, and there will always be some harvest. "

The mid-level and senior generals captured by the Ming army have all been selected by the Ministry of Agriculture and will be sent to North America to serve for at least one year.

The grassroots officers and soldiers at the bottom of the Ming Dynasty may have some talent, but most of them are not much different from the captives of the bandits, so a three-month labor period is enough.

If the set time is too long, firstly, it will not be conducive to the Wei tribe's ability to absorb these prisoners, and secondly, it will easily form barriers and opposition.

Finally, Liu Sheng added: "Even if the labor service period expires, not all of these prisoners will be absorbed into the army. Some of them should stay and settle down to become Nanyang citizens."

After hearing this, Liu Huan didn't say anything more.

In fact, in his opinion, even with 40,000 old, weak, women and children, it would be easier to govern Nanyang (County) than in the past.

In the past, he was in Dengzhou and had a population of tens of thousands under his rule. However, the government, superiors, local gentry, and corrupt officials below were all constraints. If you want to implement a good policy, you must first spend a lot of time and energy to smooth out the relationships between various aspects.

Nowadays, although Nanyang has been almost destroyed by the war, the gentry, landlords, and wealthy businessmen have also been wiped out. Corrupt officials, even if they are still alive, dare not show up under the rule of the Yibu.

Liu Sheng also gave him great power and a lot of support in civil affairs, which made him feel much more comfortable than when he was the governor of Dengzhou.

He proposed to extend the labor service period of Ming army prisoners, purely because he hoped to have more young and strong laborers under his command.

After talking about the prisoners of the Ming army, Liu Sheng discussed farming with Liu Huan.

Li Zicheng came to Nanyang Prefecture in mid-May, and he and Luo Rucai captured Nanyang City in mid-June. Therefore, the wheat harvest in most places in Nanyang Prefecture was not greatly disturbed by military disasters.

In addition, the drought in Henan this year started only after summer, and the impact on wheat was not as great as last year, so Nanyang wheat has been harvested this year.

The problem is that most of the grain collected by the people was taken away by Li Zicheng and Luo Rucai!

In addition, summer millets in various places in Nanyang Prefecture were planted before the war, but they were already suffering from drought, and because of the month of war there was no one to take care of them. Now the weeds in many fields have grown one foot high!

"Therefore, my subordinates believe that there are two most important things in Nanyang's farming at present: one is to open ditches, and the other is to get rid of weeds. Only by doing these two things well can we save more summer millet."

Millet is the most drought-resistant staple food, but it does not require water at all, especially in the seedling stage, so ditches are needed to facilitate irrigation and watering.

Henan summer millet is usually planted in April and May of the lunar calendar and harvested in September and October. After harvesting, winter wheat can be planted.

In other words, during the intervening four or five months, the refugees in Nanyang Fucheng would need food rations from the Weibu.

This is why Liu Sheng insisted on relocating some of the refugees from Nanyang Fucheng.

As for planting sweet potatoes, potatoes, corn and other North American crops in Nanyang, Liu Sheng has naturally considered it.

At this point in time, there is no need to consider corn, and potatoes will have to wait until autumn to be planted.

Sweet potatoes can be used for seeding - the problem is that there are not enough sweet potato seeds in North America and Runing. Even if they are harvested, they are mainly used to save seeds for promotion in the coming year.

Therefore, Liu Sheng at most asked people to send a small amount of sweet potato seeds and let Nanyang plant them as sweet potato seeds for promotion in the coming year.

In other words, the food shortage problem in Nanyang cannot be solved for a while, and we can only rely on food transportation from other places.

Fortunately, 40,000 refugees are not too many.

After thinking about it, Liu Sheng said: "In addition to preserving summer millet, the people can also be allowed to grow more seasonal fruits and vegetables. If there are more, they can be transported along the river to Xinye, Xiangyang and other places in exchange for food."

Liu Huan nodded, "This is natural."

···

The next morning.

Liu Sheng personally sent the migration team off.

In addition to more than 12,000 virgin women and their children, there are also more than 7,000 refugees.

The 20,000 people will first go to Tang County, then to Biyang, and finally to the foot of Tianmu Mountain.

The whole journey is more than three hundred miles. At the speed of these old, weak, women and children, it is estimated that it will take ten or twenty days.

Therefore, Liu Sheng did not follow the journey back to Runing. Instead, he led the Guards and the standing armies of the two regiments to Xinye to preside over a new round of military expansion.

In addition to the Nanyang Guard Regiment, the army here in Nanyang also has a regiment led by Huang Gan (affiliated with the Fourth Brigade).

Huang Gan's regiment has one battalion stationed in Zhenping County and the other four battalions stationed in Nanyang Fucheng, which are enough to deal with various emergencies.

As for why the army was expanded in Xinye, it was because Xinye was more convenient for the transportation of grain, grass, materials and troops.

The fourth day of July.

Liu was promoted to Xinye.

He first talked with Wen You and Wang Dalu (the brigade military administrator temporarily concurrently served as the magistrate of Xinye County) to learn about the latest situation in the army, prisoners, and civil affairs.

Then they summoned Wu Ruyi, Xin Sizhong, Liu Rukui and Niu Wancai.

These four were all Li Zicheng's generals who were captured by Liu Sheng in the Battle of Jitan. They were imprisoned for nearly a month before they all figured out and were willing to surrender to the Wei tribe.

Liu Sheng chatted with these four people for a few words, and then asked them to go to the Guards camp - the training class for generals of the Yibu Department was set up in the Guards Army, and they traveled with the army, so that Liu Sheng could teach the generals anytime and anywhere.

The next morning.

Nearly 30,000 rogue prisoners gathered in the open space outside their camp, all with excited expressions and expectations in their eyes.

Because today Liu Sheng will personally announce the expiration of their labor service and officially release them from prisoner status!

Not all rogue prisoners can be released from prisoner status. A small number of people have to continue to serve as prisoners because they have made various mistakes.

However, there are not many such people, only about a thousand.

So today most of the prisoners are in high spirits.

Wu Ruyi and Xin Sizhong, along with other trainees from the General Officer Training Course, came to the venue with the Guards and watched Liu Sheng board the wooden platform that had been built in advance.

After a short but inspiring passionate speech, Liu Shengsheng said in a loud voice: "I declare that from now on, everyone present will be officially released from prisoner status and become our common people, with the rights and obligations that our common people should have." !”

The more than 20,000 captives present had already gained a lot of understanding of Weibu through the ideological work of the military and political officials of Weibu, and they were full of yearning to become common people of Weibu.

Now after hearing Liu Sheng's announcement, everyone immediately shouted excitedly, and then quickly gathered into one voice——

"Long live!"

"Long live!"

"Long live!!"

The excited shouts shook the sky, and hit the eardrums of Wu Ruyi and the other generals like huge waves, making the four of them look horrified, and then fell into a trance.

Among the four of them, the one who has followed Li Zicheng for the longest time has been nearly ten years. Even last year, when Li Zicheng supported hundreds of thousands of people, he had never received such support from the soldiers, and the morale among the army had never been so high.

It can be seen that Liu Sheng is more than one step ahead of Li Zicheng.