Chapter 1816 Digesting Refugees
"Sir, the barracks on the island are already full of refugees. There is really no place to resettle these people brought here today..."
"I got it. There are more than twenty large tents in the Army's munitions warehouse. Go and tell the company commander and ask him to take them out, and arrange for the old, weak, women and children to stay first. As for the others... they will be in the open air tonight. Just make do with it, we should be able to make room for resettlement tomorrow." Liu Shang looked at the many refugees disembarking from the boats at the seaside pier and ordered his subordinates calmly.
Since the coalition forces officially launched large-scale raids on the Liaodong coast this month, the number and frequency of refugees sent to Guanglu Island have increased several times compared with before, so that the island's refugee camps have become overcrowded. If Liu Shang hadn't taken the time to build some simple houses after arriving on Guanglu Island, speeding up the registration and transfer of refugees, the current situation would have exceeded the refugee camp's reception capacity.
There are now more than 2,000 temporary residents in the refugee camp on the island, and the number of refugees sent by this fleet today is at least 700 to 800. His subordinates can only come to ask for instructions on how to resettle these new refugees. . As for the tents in the military's inventory, civilian officials have no right to requisition them. Only after Liu Shang came forward to greet the military could the refugee camp use these military supplies.
Fortunately, the coalition forces had contacted Jinzhou early and transported a large amount of food, clothing, medicinal materials and other supplies to Guanglu Island in advance. Apart from the crowded accommodation on the island, there was no gap in material supply. Liu Shang had slightly less things to worry about. But he knew that to alleviate the problem of insufficient reception capacity on the island, it was not enough to expand the capacity of the refugee camps alone, because the number of military and civil affairs staff stationed on the island was ultimately limited, and there was an upper limit to the refugee population that could be managed. The manpower in Jinzhou is also tight, and it is impossible to mobilize more professionals for Liu Shang to command, so he can only adapt to local conditions and find ways to solve the current difficulties on his own.
Liu Shang was able to be entrusted with the important task of handling matters related to the Guanglu Island refugee camp on his own, so he naturally had a method in this regard. How to select people who are obedient but not too stupid from the refugees as temporary subordinates? Liu Shang has practical experience in Zhifu Island and Lushun, and the current situation on Guanglu Island just allows him to use this method. means to solve the problem.
Of course, he would not use his precious time to interview refugees one by one. That would be too inefficient. At this time, the refugee registration procedures came into play. Although the recorded personal information was very brief, people with special expertise would make notes in the information. For example, those who could read and write would have a mark on the information. The word "文" in the circle indicates that the person is educated, and a skilled craftsman will be marked with the word "craftsman", and so on. If his expertise is extraordinary, there will be more detailed notes, and he may even be directly recommended to Liu Shang.
Since he came to Guanglu Island, he has successively selected more than 20 available people from the refugees on the island. Most of them were village chiefs, government servants, and scribes in the countryside during the Ming Dynasty. The staff who work in this department have certain practical experience in how to manage the people, and can also understand and carry out the tasks assigned by Liu Shang. Some people with strong initiative will also make some specific suggestions to Liu Shang to improve the efficiency of the existing refugee identity verification and registration procedures.
Although these people could not be said to be loyal to Haihan, Liu Shang told them that as long as they completed the errands assigned to them on Guanglu Island and settled down in the Haihan Kingdom's ruling area, they could still work as yamen errands. , or even become a grassroots official. Liu Shang himself gave his own personal account of his transformation from a commoner to an official with real power. This example is undoubtedly very convincing.
For these "former civil servants" who once served in the Ming Dynasty yamen and were later kicked out by the Manchus, they can have the opportunity to return to the yamen to work. Even if the yamen does not belong to the Ming Dynasty, as long as the Han people are still in power, it will not matter. It can give them hope of starting a new life. Moreover, they had heard about the news that the Haihan people had established a ruling area in Liaodong to fight against the Qing Dynasty in the past two years. It would be much better to be protected by the Haihan people in the future than to be ignored by the Ming court. As long as you can live well, working for the Haihan people is not a taboo option.
What Liu Shang instilled into these people was this idea that the east is not bright and the west is bright. As long as their ideological imprisonment is unlocked and they are willing to start working for Haihan, then as their work experience increases, they will naturally Gradually realizing Haihan's powerful strength, they will know that loyalty to Haihan is the wisest choice in their lives - just like Liu Shang's own journey along the way.
For these local Han people in Liaodong, Liu Shang's role model is still quite important. Since everyone is a Han from the Ming Dynasty, they all have two arms and two legs. If others can become high officials in Haihan, they will naturally have the idea of "I can do it". And such ideas will naturally continue to stimulate them and give them more motivation to work, thus improving their work efficiency and reliability.
Of course, most of Liu Shang's methods were learned from the professional training he received during his time in Sanya, and only a small part were the results of his own work in the past few years. To deal with these country people who have never seen the world, just using some small means is enough.
Although Liu Shang is not sure about the battle situation on the front line, from the number of refugees and wounded soldiers sent to Guanglu Island in recent days, it is not difficult to guess Haihan's current dominant position in the Liaodong war situation.
Especially the refugees recently sent to the island were packed and shipped from entire villages or even entire towns, and most of them were in good condition without any casualties. This shows that the coalition forces organized by Haihan did not encounter too much force when they captured these places on the front line. resistance.
Of course, this is a reasonable phenomenon. After all, I heard that the Qing army was concentrated on the Yalu River to fight North Korea, and almost most of the defenders of the Liaodong Peninsula were piled in Jinzhou to prevent the Haihan army from moving north. At this time, from the sea In an attack, the Qing army's defense line near the long coastline will definitely be like a sieve, allowing the Haihan army to take whatever it wants locally.
According to Liu Shang's own statistics, if the population of Dongjiang Town is not included, then the population gained from the Liaodong region last year was probably not as much as the gain in the past month. Since he came to Guanglu Island alone, the number of refugees brought to the island by various ships has been almost four thousand, and this is only a part of the population captured from the Qing-controlled areas. It is said that there are thousands more people. He has been sent to the new colony in North Korea for resettlement, which shows that this period of time has been really fruitful.
For Haihan's colony in Liaodong, the population would never be too large. Although the actual area occupied by Haihan in the area south of the Jinzhou Isthmus is less than 200 square kilometers, it is already quite large compared to the actual area controlled by other overseas colonies. For example, in the Zhifu Island area of Dengzhou, Shandong, across the sea, even if most of Fushan County is included in Haihan's control area, it is only about 70 square kilometers, and the population living in this area has exceeded three. Thousands of people. To compare horizontally, the total population of Lushun plus Jinzhou is about 30,000 people. However, according to Haihan's development plan, it is normal to settle 70,000 to 80,000 people in this area. Today, we are still nearly half the distance from this goal. .
As for how these people will arrange their livelihood in a place where arable land is not abundant, there is actually no need for the civil affairs department in Sanya to make plans. Liu Shang can make arrangements based on his gradual familiarity with the local environment over the past year or so. eight.
In addition to traditional farming that requires a large amount of labor, it is undoubtedly a very wise choice to vigorously develop the shipbuilding industry and fishery based on the local hydrological conditions of Lushunkou and Dalian Bay. If a large shipyard and port facilities of the same scale as Victory Port can be built, it will at least solve the employment problem for thousands of people. The labor required for large-scale fisheries and seawater salt production is also very considerable, and will not be less than the employment opportunities provided by the shipbuilding industry.
In addition, because this area borders the Qing occupation zone, the armies of the two countries have been in a long-term military confrontation. Haihan also has thousands of troops stationed here all year round, so there are many related industries surrounding the military and logistics. As far as Liu Shang knows, the military dignitaries stationed in Liaodong in the past two years have deliberately wanted to build the Jinzhou area into Haihan's largest military base in the north. In the future, it may gradually become more prosperous in the form of a military town.
Although both the Ming and Qing dynasties may be unwilling to lose this land, under the shock of Haihan's absolute force, neither country dared to take the initiative to raise troops here, so this is a war zone full of gunpowder. But it is also the safest area in Liaodong. Liu Shang looked at the panic-looking refugees in front of him and thought that you are lucky to be picked up from the Qing Dynasty by the Haihan Army. The people who will be squeezed under the rule of the Qing Dynasty on their behalf are the Koreans who are now being ravaged by the iron hoof of the Qing army.
After the Qing army invaded North Korea, they attacked three cities in a row in three days. Their advance was so fast that the Haihan reconnaissance cavalry who originally stayed in North Korea to observe the movements of the Qing army had to retract their activities to the coast. Be able to evacuate from the sea in time in critical moments.
However, after these three axes were used, the speed of the Qing army's main force moving south began to slow down. This was not because they encountered stubborn resistance from the North Korean army, but because their own logistical equipment could no longer keep up with the advancement of the frontline troops, Huang Taiji had no choice but to temporarily slow down the pace of the attack.
In fact, it is not impossible to solve the supply problem after penetrating into North Korea. If the same situation is handed over to Haihan, it can be easily solved. However, the shortcoming of the Qing army is that they have almost no sea transportation capabilities - although the Haihan fleet has withdrawn Yalu River, but there were still several warships left near the mouth of the sea, so the Qing army did not dare to let the sailing ships in the inland river carry supplies out to sea. And these heavy military supplies had to be transported on land by carriage and horse to the front line hundreds of miles away, and the speed can be imagined. Moreover, the condition of the official roads in North Korea was not very good. The cavalry of the Qing army's leading troops had already caused obvious damage to the roads, making it difficult for the subsequent carriages to pass.
Of course, although there are certain difficulties, they are nothing compared to the gains. The Qing army had captured more than 4,000 Koreans on their way south. After the war, these prisoners were all slaves that the soldiers who participated in the war could get, so their morale was very high.
What makes Huang Taiji most relieved is that he was originally worried that the Haihan people would assist North Korea in fighting, but judging from the current situation, it seems that Haihan has really fallen out with North Korea and has no intention of getting involved in this war. As long as Haihan did not send troops to intervene, even if North Korea sent all its troops to the north to fight the Qing army, Huang Taiji would not feel too much pressure.
But this relaxed feeling only lasted for three days. Just as the main force of the Qing army marched towards the next stop, Xuanchuan, bad news came from the Qing Dynasty. The Haihan army frequently attacked on the Liaodong coast. Within a few days, several villages and towns have been captured, and more than 5,000 people have been kidnapped. According to reports from the local defenders, the Haihan Army's attacks were all launched from the sea, and the landing force numbered at least two to three thousand people. The Qing troops dispersed and garrisoned in various places simply did not have the strength to fight, and they had suffered losses intermittently. There are one or two thousand soldiers and horses.
These news immediately diluted the joy brought by the Qing army's series of victories in North Korea. Haihan adopted such tactics, obviously because he saw that the domestic defense was empty after the main force of the Qing army entered the country, so that he could attack unscrupulously. The areas controlled by the Qing Dynasty were looted and plundered on a large scale.
"Sure enough, the Haihan people took the initiative to evacuate the Yalu River because they had other plans!" In addition to being angry at the arrival of the bad news, Huang Taiji also found helplessly that he had no good countermeasures to immediately stop the opponent's actions.
It is impossible to turn back the army. The war against Korea has been prepared for more than a year, and now the war is going smoothly. It is obviously not cost-effective to turn around and return home to defend against Haihan's attack, and it may also hurt the current high tide. morale. And given the temperament of the Haihan people, maybe the main force will be transferred back to the country for defense, and the Haihan people will play the golden cicada escape shell again, continue to avoid fighting, or quickly move from the sea to other places to carry out sneak attacks. For the Qing army, Haihan's offensive was impossible to defend against, and it was very difficult to rely on passive defense to stop their actions.
Huang Taiji couldn't even think about mobilizing troops from the direction of Jinzhou. A year ago, he finally sealed the Haihan people to the south of the Jinzhou Isthmus. If local troops were mobilized to let Haihan notice, once the troops were assembled, If the Qing army's defense line is broken through in this area, the army that entered the DPRK will have to return without returning. At that time, it will be a situation where the gains outweigh the losses.
(End of chapter)