Three days later, Ren Baqian brought his men out of the city and went to the captive camps to take a look. The situation made him frown.
It was filthy, chaotic, and lifeless.
Nearly 100,000 people were held in three captive camps. There were more than 30,000 people in each camp, and they were sleeping directly on the ground. Ren Baqian didn't know where Tong Zhenye's previous arrangements went. Other than a fence around the three captive camps, there was nothing else.
Everyone in the captive camps was dirty, and their faces couldn't be seen clearly. It was as if they had rolled out of the mud, and it was unknown how long it had been since they last bathed.
They probably hadn't bathed since they were captured.
Occasionally, they would raise their faces, but their eyes were still full of fear.
"Is this how you arranged these people?" Ren Baqian furrowed his eyebrows. He saw that everyone was curled up in a pile here and there, and it was a complete mess. The most outrageous thing was that he actually saw two women among the crowd.
It was easy to imagine how terrible it would be to have two women and a bunch of men huddled together.
There was also defecation everywhere. From the moment he entered the camp, he had been smelling the lingering stench, which mixed with the rancid smell of the captives, almost making him faint.
A large number of fly-like insects flew around the camp, annoying people.
However, many of the captives couldn't be bothered to drive the insects away even if they landed on their bodies.
"Sir, what's the problem?" Accompanying Ren Baqian was a captain and a few captains. They were all transferred from the Protectorate of the Center to be the backbone of this auxiliary army. They were surprised to hear Ren Baqian's words. They looked at these people and felt that they were very honest. Those who stirred up trouble had all been killed.
"Do you know what these people are used for?" Ren Baqian asked.
"I don't know, Sir," the captain answered honestly.
"We need them to repair roads, bridges, cities, and mines. There are many things for them to do. If we want them to do these things, we first have to keep them alive and well. Only living people can do things.
We didn't ask you to painstakingly escort them here from the Yun Nation so that their corpses can be buried in the soil to become fertilizer after they die. "
"Oh, I really thought they were going to be buried! It's said that the crops grow especially well when the corpses are buried! " The commandant had a simple and honest look on his face. Last year, hundreds of thousands of corpses were buried in the north. After that, the crops in the north grew extremely well.
"If they are dead, should I drag you to mine and build roads?" Ren Baqian really wanted to get someone to dig a hole and bury him.
"Sir, what should we do?" The captain scratched his head and looked at Li Yi. Although it was a little dirty, it was still quite stable. These people wouldn't die if they were given food.
"Let's continue watching first!" Ren Baqian said with a straight face. He continued to walk around the captive camp and discovered more problems.
Many of them were injured and moaning on the ground. However, there was no one to take care of them and no doctor to treat them. Many of their wounds were rotten and smelly. Those who were still alive were considered lucky. It was estimated that many of the people who had died along the way were injured like this.
Moreover, many of the injuries on these people's bodies were caused by the journey.
He didn't even need to ask to know how it was caused.
During this period of time, he saw them eating once. The food was unexpectedly good. It was meat soup filled with fragrant fatty meat and vegetables. When it was time to eat, it was chaos again. Pushing, trampling, and even brawling could be seen.
The militiamen didn't seem to be surprised. They only went in with sticks and smashed the heads of more than a dozen people at the height of the disturbance. They even broke the limbs of two people to make the captives behave. They didn't care about anything else.
After roughly walking around the three captive camps, Ren Baqian first ordered everyone to take a bath and set up some public toilets. He then frowned and returned to the palace before starting to write at a great speed.
The situation in the captive camps had to be improved. These people couldn't be left lying on the ground. They also needed to build simple residences and improve their living conditions.
Otherwise, not to mention the dew every morning and evening, a heavy rain would cause many of them to fall ill. If the weak ones didn't receive timely treatment, their lives would be very short.
Then, some ordinary doctors and apprentices would be assigned to them so that they wouldn't die from minor illnesses that could be cured with a few herbs.
The most important thing was the various systems. The systems for these captive camps had to be set up first.
Nothing could be accomplished without rules. With rules, there would be order. With order, these captives would be able to survive.
The first rule was the formation of the captives. These captives were to be organized into ten large groups with 10,000 people in each group.
Each large group was divided into 10 middle groups with 1,000 people in each group. Further down were the small groups with 100 people in each group. Further down were the small groups with 10 people in each group.
At the same time, a captive would be selected to be the team leader to manage the group. The aboriginal militiamen would be the team leader, and the captives with high prestige would be the deputy team leader to assist in the management.
In the future, all the actions of these captives would be done in small groups, regardless of whether it was work or living quarters.
At the same time, men and women weren't allowed to mix in the small groups. Even if they were from the same family, they had to be separated.
The most important thing was to implement the punishment system.
If one person in the small group ran away, the whole small group would be punished. If one group ran away, the whole small group would be punished.
At the same time, if someone in the small group caused trouble, everyone in the small group would be punished. If there was any negligence in the work of the small group, the entire small group would be punished.
Following which, Ren Baqian wrote down dozens of rules, including everything that he had seen and everything that he could think of.
This included everything from going to work in the morning, eating, finishing, sleeping, hygiene, daily behavior, and everything else. With these systems in place, the captive camps should be able to look more presentable.
If there were any problems in the future, he could just add more to the list.
However, there was an extremely important rule that he noted on another piece of paper. As a modern person, he wasn't used to using some people as slaves forever. He also understood that people needed a certain amount of hope to survive. He also understood the significance of a little hope for these captives.
They would struggle to grasp the light in the darkness that was the size of a firefly.
Ren Baqian needed to give them hope, and they would continue to move toward that little bit of hope and grasp it tightly.
The hope he gave them was very simple, which was to give them freedom after a certain number of years. As long as they could live until then, they would be able to live like normal people in this world and reunite with their families.
For this goal, these people would work hard to survive. At the same time, it would reduce a lot of uncertainties.
Otherwise, if there was no hope at all, these people would either be thinking about how to escape or be like the walking dead. One could imagine the efficiency of this kind of work.
The efficiency of doing something with hope and living day by day was completely different.
Even though building a road wasn't a very meticulous project, it wasn't easy to do either. In particular, many places had to cross mountains and rivers.
If there were any problems during this period and there was no hope, these people definitely wouldn't say anything because it had nothing to do with them.
However, if they had a little subjective initiative and a certain reward and punishment system, they would take the initiative to point out the problems.
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