The diligence of the officials made the lives of millions of Han people orderly. The craftsmen worked in several major cities in the commercial district. They worked in government-run workshops or privately run workshops, and their daily wages were guaranteed.
As for the farmers, they did their old business, farming the land in the agricultural area, harvesting food, and sharing the profits with the Marquis Zhennan's Mansion. If the Marquis Zhennan's Mansion wanted 20%, they would keep 80%. However, the grain output was too high. What should they do if they couldn't finish it? Let the food rot?
No, no, no, of course not. They also had two choices. One was to sell to the Marquis Zhennan's Mansion. The Marquis Zhennan's Mansion was in the grain reserve and grain export business. The second was to organize themselves and go to the vegetable market in the southern commercial district to do business and do retail business to earn extra money. As for doing business with the Westerners, Xiao Ruxun did not open it to the Burmese people. All the products of Myanmar Town were officially responsible for foreign trade.
Xiao Ruxun couldn't care less about the merchants in other places, but among the one million people in Myanmar Town, there really weren't any big merchants. The big merchants were living a good life elsewhere, so why would they come to a poor place like Myanmar Town? Xiao Ruxun did not propose any policies to attract investment because Myanmar did not need it at all. On the one hand, Xiao Ruxun had money, and on the other hand, there were only so many people, so there was no need for big merchants to participate.
The number of goods in Myanmar Town itself was not large. Tea, silk, and simple porcelain were the mainstream. These three were the exclusive business of the Marquis Zhennan's Mansion and could not be found among the people. Therefore, Xiao Ruxun arranged officials to be responsible for dealing with the Westerners. The grain business was the exclusive business of the Marquis Zhennan's Mansion and no one was allowed to intervene. The other non-mainstream handicraft products were not very attractive to the Westerners. It was difficult to form a major export scale and did not become an industry.
With the current population of more than one million, such a division of planning was very suitable. It was enough to cope with the current situation. As for the rest, it was not necessary to consider it at present. As for the local construction and development tasks, Xiao Ruxun did not let the Han people undertake them. The Han people were mainly responsible for production. Xiao Ruxun directly asked the indigenous tribes to handle the construction and development tasks.
They had more than enough to live by themselves. Usually, there was some surplus labor but no work to do. Xiao Ruxun also wanted to limit their development, so he hired some tribal young and strong laborers to build river embankments, reclaim wasteland, build villages, build houses, build walls, and dredge rivers. These basic of work were done by the army under the supervision of the tribal laborers.
As for the army, it was the construction project that Xiao Ruxun paid attention to. After all, the Ming court only left 5,000 firearms barracks in Ningxia and recalled the rest of the army. It was not realistic for Xiao Ruxun to use 5,000 troops to manage the increasing population. Therefore, according to the regulations of the court, he had a suitable order to recruit 30,000 troops, so naturally, he had to recruit all of them.
There were many areas that required the use of the army. He could even postpone some of the construction tasks and complete the establishment of the army first. Many unexpected situations required the army to maintain and solve. In the beginning, there were many conflicts between immigrants. Xiao Ruxun used the army as the police. When the population was sufficient and there were sufficient young and strong laborers, Xiao Ruxun recruited 30,000 young and strong men into the army.
Here, Xiao Ruxun played a word game. You said 30,000, but you didn't say if it included the 5,000 firearms barracks. Therefore, it was also appropriate for me to recruit 30,000 troops excluding the firearms barracks. Of course, he told the Ming court that it was still 30,000. The Governor of Yunnan also gave the army a salary of 30,000. Naturally, it was common practice to deduct the salary of the army. Even with the help of Shi Xing, about 30% of the salary was deducted. They only got 70%, which was equivalent to the salary of 20,000 soldiers.
The rest had to be paid out of Xiao Ruxun's own pocket. However, it didn't matter. All of Myanmar's foreign business was under Xiao Ruxun's control. Every month, the financial income was quite large. There was no shortage of money. The main reason was that Xiao Ruxun wanted to separate the army from the troops in charge of public security. The army would perform their tasks, and the town's security would be handed over to the police.
Therefore, in this time and space, Xiao Ruxun was the first to propose the concept of the police, meaning vigilance and supervision. He also separated the police force from the combat force. Among the 30,000 newly recruited people, 5,000 were arranged to become the police force. They were scattered in the eight cities that Xiao Ruxun had initially controlled. Chen Xie retired from the army and became the first Police Commander.
Since then, in Myanmar Town, the police force and the army were separated. All civil disputes were handed over to the police force. Theft, robbery, fraud, and whatnot were all handled by the police force. The army was completely withdrawn from the city and stationed at the various barracks. For this reason, Chen Xie had specially hired Daming Law to strengthen his assault training. It could be seen that he would be a good Police Commander.
Xiao Ruxun naturally had his own arrangements for the 30,000 troops. Other than the 5,000 Firearms Battalion who were in charge of guarding the northern mountains, the other divisions took turns to guard different places. For example, the army stationed at the perimeter of the various cities, the navy stationed at the coast, and the vigilance and surveillance troops stationed at the perimeter of the aboriginal settlements. Even so, Xiao Ruxun still felt that the troops in his hands were not enough. He wanted to expand, but he was afraid that it would interfere with production.
Xiao Ruxun did not intend to use the Wei Suo military system. All the soldiers were recruited. In name, they were soldiers of the Wei Suo and were organized in Myanmar Town. However, Xiao Ruxun did not care about the so-called military households. They did not need to be soldiers for generations. Their descendants could do whatever they wanted. Lao Zhu's hereditary military system was a major cause of the fall of the Ming Dynasty. Xiao Ruxun did not want to repeat Lao Zhu's mistakes. Disregarding everything else, the hereditary military system must be abolished in Myanmar.
On this point, Yuan Huang was very supportive. He even sharply pointed out that the root cause of the Tumu Fort Rebellion was the weakening of the military aristocracy. Even without the Tumu Fort Rebellion, in at least 20 to 50 years, the civil officials would still be able to seize control of the military and marginalize the military aristocracy.
This was because the military talents produced under the hereditary system could not compete with the elite civil officials who were chosen after millions of people fought for their lives. The quality of the two could not be compared at all.
Yuan Huang had even proposed the idea of setting up a military school to cultivate military talents. Just like the civil officials, the idea of selecting military officers through an examination system would be used.
He wanted the military officers to be the same as the civil officials. They needed to be selected through an examination system. The talent pool for both sides would be exactly the same. There would not be any difference in status. Only in this way could the civil officials and military officers be able to compete with each other and keep each other in check. It would not develop to the point where the civil officials were the only ones in power.
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