Chapter 1931
Of course, Qiao Zhiya's politeness was only verbal. In fact, with the quality of this banquet, it was of sufficient quality even if it was placed in a big city like Sanya to entertain high-ranking people. The only thing that's a bit uninteresting may be that the dining environment here is still relatively crude. After all, it is a mining garrison camp in an inland mountainous area. The conditions of infrastructure facilities cannot be compared with those of specialized reception institutions outside.
Li Bo would not be too picky about these details, nor was he surprised by Qiao Zhiya's arrangement. Since going abroad, the food arranged by Haihan has basically never let him down. Even if he has such a large and sumptuous banquet in the deep mountains and old forests, he is accustomed to thinking that this is Haihan's basic operation—— With Haihan's official capabilities, there seems to be nothing that cannot be done.
Qiao Zhiya also specially called Lu Li, the commander of the local garrison, to accompany him, and asked him to introduce the situation of the local garrison and hard labor camp to Li Bo and others.
The most important task of this unit specially stationed in Shilu Mine is actually to guard the local hard labor camp. In 1631, there was a big disturbance in the hard labor camp. At that time, Haihan dispatched multiple armed forces to clear up the entire Qiongzhong Mountain area. In addition to hunting down the prisoners who escaped from the hard labor camp, they also killed those who disobeyed Haihan's rule. The mountain people's settlements were cleaned up. After that, the management of the hard labor camp became extremely strict, and there have been no similar emergencies in recent years.
Lu Li only officially took over the management of the hard labor camp this year. His predecessor, Yuzhen, was a police officer from Yacheng. Now he has been transferred to Manila City to serve as the local police chief. He can be regarded as starting from Shilu. I survived this difficult environment. Lu Li is now the commander of the garrison and is also in charge of the hard labor camp. He has a lot of people in charge. The hard labor camp alone has maintained a detention capacity of more than 3,000 people for a long time. The number exceeds the prisons anywhere under the rule of Haihan Kingdom.
At present, the prisoners in the Haihan hard labor camp mainly come from serious criminals who have been sentenced in various parts of the country, as well as prisoners of war captured in Haihan's foreign wars over the years. For example, after the Battle of Manila at the beginning of this year, a large number of prisoners of war were sent to hard labor camps in Shilu, Xingdao and other places, allowing the population of Shilu hard labor camp, which had declined last year, to return to the level of 3,000 people. .
These prisoners are generally sentenced to long sentences, and many are imprisoned for life. Very few prisoners can survive their sentences and regain their freedom. The vast majority cannot withstand years of high-intensity physical labor and harsh living conditions. Nowadays, only the lucky ones who have been in the hard labor camps for more than three years and are not physically disabled can have the opportunity to be promoted as foremen, and can receive relatively easy job benefits.
Li Bo was quite interested in this special institution, and specifically asked how the forced labor camp managed prisoners or prisoners of war from other countries - after the Qing army retreated from Korea this year, the coalition forces captured thousands of prisoners of war. , are now temporarily handed over to North Korea for detention. How to deal with these prisoners of war is also an urgent problem for North Korea. The Haihan people's management experience in hard labor camps seems to be a reference for North Korea in dealing with this issue.
"Usually, we will arrange foreign prisoners in separate groups. For example, each group of prisoners will only have one or two prisoners of war from the same place to prevent them from taking the opportunity to get together." Lu Li has been working here for several years. I have accumulated some experience in the management of hard labor camps, and my words are clear and succinct: "For those thorns who do not obey the discipline and do not obey the arrangements after coming in, we must kill them as a warning and deal with them early, and we must not let these prisoners give birth to themselves." The idea of going against the official! ”
Lu Li said these words with murderous intent, which made Li Shu feel a little frightened. He thought that since this man has been stationed in this inland mining area all year round, he probably wouldn't have much chance to lead troops to fight, but there was still something like this in his conversation. If he has a strong murderous intention, he must have executed a lot of prisoners during his term of office.
Li Xi, who was next to him, spoke up to verify this guess for him: "Then Mr. Lu must have personally executed many of these rebellious people who did not obey the arrangements in the past. But if he killed too many, it would probably still affect the labor efficiency of the hard labor camp. Right? ”
Lu Li said something meaningful without comment: "Master Li, in this hard labor camp, the most valuable and least valuable things are human lives. For us, we only need to keep the valuable people."< br>
Li Mu thought about it carefully and felt that although Lu Li's words were harsh, they were indeed true. With Haihan's shrewdness, there was no need to spend money to support prisoners who could not be used for his own purposes. He would naturally regard them as a burden. Immediately, he bowed to Lu Li to show that he had learned the lesson. Lu Li quickly stood up and returned the bow.
After taking a short rest after lunch, Qiao Zhiya took Li Bo and his party to visit another mine mined by hard labor prisoners. This place is obviously different from the mine we saw in the morning. The number of steam machinery and equipment is greatly reduced. In addition to the winch laid on the slope of the mine for transporting ore and the two crushers at the entrance of the mine, there are No other steam machinery was seen.
"The main reason is to prevent prisoners from destroying these valuable equipment." Qiao Zhiya took the initiative to explain the reason for this difference: "In the past, some prisoners would use labor tools to destroy steam engines in order to create chaos or block construction, so later we Adjustments were made according to the actual situation, and only the steam equipment outside the mine was retained, while all mining operations in the mine were completed by manpower. ”
Li Bo thought that the Haihan people probably suffered some losses from this, so they had to remove the steam engine and adopt a more primitive mining method. However, the labor cost of the hard labor camp is low, and there are no worries about imposing tasks. Of course, these prisoners are used like livestock.
In fact, this situation is obvious. At the mining point in the mine, you can see some people beating the prisoners who slow down or are exhausted with whips, asking them to cheer up and work hard. These people were very cruel, which made Li Bo, who was not used to this kind of scene, feel a little flustered.
"These guards are so vicious, aren't they afraid that the prisoners around them will suddenly rebel?" Li Bo still couldn't help asking Qiao Zhiya his question.
Qiao Zhiya smiled and shook his head and said: "Your Majesty, are you talking about those people in the mine? They are not guards, these are the people standing at the entrance of the pit."
Li Pu was stunned for a moment when he heard this, and then immediately understood what Qiao Zhiya meant - these people who beat the prisoners desperately were actually prisoners, but they should have been given special powers by the official to act as supervisors in the mines. And for some reason, they were so enthusiastic about the job that they even risked angering other prisoners by using whippings and insults to supervise the work. Qiao Zhiya quickly solved the mystery for Li Ba: "These prisoners with whips are the foremen among the prisoners. Each of them is responsible for a mining site and has corresponding production tasks. Needless to say that the task is completed. If they fail to do so, in addition to regular punishments such as deprivation of rations, they are also likely to lose their positions. People who can climb to this position have struggled to get ahead, and they will not be able to do it after climbing up. They are willing to fall again, so they will supervise the work of other prisoners very hard, and will not consider whether they will offend others. ”
After hearing this, Li Bo suddenly realized that these prisoners who were officially appointed as foremans probably got the chance to be in charge after surviving a long period of whipping. If they were unable to complete their tasks, they would have no choice but to return to the past. The position of being whipped by others. In this case, offending other prisoners is not a big deal. The most important thing is to save your own job first. Later, other prisoners who survived and became foremans had the same idea. Even if there are occasional soft-hearted people who appear in the position of foreman, they will be quickly eliminated due to this cruel system. In the end, those who control these positions must be ruthless characters who are willing to obey the official assignments.
If we go by what Lu Li said earlier, these whip-wielding overseers are a relatively valuable group of prisoners. Using them to supervise prisoners' work is far more effective than official personnel. And even if this led to fights among prisoners, the official did not actually suffer much actual losses, at most it was just a few fewer people.
Haihan has indeed accumulated considerable experience in the management of large-scale engineering projects and prisoner groups, but it is a very novel experience for Li Bo, who has rarely had the opportunity to be exposed to these fields in the past. He then mentioned to Qiao Zhiya the thousands of Qing prisoners of war currently imprisoned in his country, and asked if these prisoners could also be used according to Haihan's method.
Qiao Zhiya said: "The situation in your country is different from ours. Almost all the prisoners of war in your country come from the same camp, which makes it difficult to disperse them and place them. If they are to be used on construction sites, they must be equipped with more Armed guards and stricter management”
Li Ming said: "Liaodong barbarians are often fierce by nature. Even if they are prisoners of war, there are still many who refuse to be tamed. If they are used directly on construction sites, I am afraid there will be problems."
Qiao Zhiya said: "No matter how hard your neck is, it is not as hard as a steel knife. Your Majesty, you should still remember what Major Lu Li said earlier, right? Just keep valuable people. Otherwise, if you keep these prisoners of war, they will eat thousands of kilograms of your country every day." Food, that would be a big loss.”
Li Pu said with a worried look on his face: "Having said that, I'm afraid that after killing the prisoners, the Qing Dynasty will take revenge..."
"Whether your country kills these prisoners of war, Huang Taiji will not let your country go." Qiao Zhiya decided to wake up Li Ming, who still had some illusions: "It is not a joke for the Qing Dynasty to send troops to invade your country this year. The purpose of Wan Dajun's troops is to destroy the Li family! If your country hadn't responded quickly and sent in reinforcements, with all due respect, the prince might have been a prisoner of the Qing army at this moment!"
What Qiao Zhiya said was not a joke, but the original random historical facts of Bingzi. After the Qing army crossed the Yalu River, it arrived in the capital of North Korea twelve days later. The final result was that the North Korean king Li Zhu went out of the city to surrender and sued for peace, and the North Korean army Several major officials who were pro-Ming and anti-Qing were handed over to the Qing army for disposal. Later, North Korea removed the Ming Dynasty title, handed over the imperial seal given by the Ming Dynasty, accepted the Qing Dynasty as the orthodoxy, and sent the eldest son Li Fu and the second son Li Hao to Shenyang as long-term hostages.
Li Pu felt a little unhappy when he heard this statement, but he still calmed down and did not show it on his face. In his opinion, even if there were no coalition forces coming to North Korea to support the operation, they should still be able to deal with the Qing army slowly and avoid the absurd situation of even becoming a prisoner. He didn't even consider the possibility that his country would surrender to the Qing Dynasty and admit defeat. He felt that the Qing army might not be defeated, but it was only to the extent that it could not be defeated. The situation could not develop to the point of annihilation of the country as Qiao Zhiya said.
But statements like this were actually mentioned by senior officials of Haihan more than once on his way south. However, in his opinion, this theory lacking empirical evidence was just a self-bragging effort by the Haihan people to show off their merits. Haehan's military force is indeed powerful, but without Haehan's help, will North Korea definitely perish? Li Bo doesn't think so.
Qiao Zhiya continued: "The problems between your country and the Qing Dynasty cannot be resolved by treating each other's captives well. The Qing Dynasty needs to annex your country to strengthen its national power, so that it can have enough strength to fight against the Ming Dynasty. The prince might as well think about it carefully, the Qing Dynasty wants to When expanding abroad, which country should we attack first?”
In fact, there is no need to think too much about this issue. Even with Li Bo's limited knowledge, he also knew which of the countries adjacent to the Qing Dynasty were strong and weak. The Rakshasa Kingdom in the north, the Mongolia Kingdom in the west, and the Ming Dynasty in the south are all hard-nosed countries that are not easy to talk about. Only Korea, located in the southwest of the Qing Dynasty, is considered a relatively weak country in this region. North Korea had already been severely beaten by Hou Jin ten years ago. Now the gap in national power between the two countries is even greater. If the Qing Dynasty wants to find a soft persimmon, North Korea will definitely be its first choice. Li Fu quite agrees with Qiao Zhiya's argument.
"Whether the Qing country comes back or your country regroups its troops and goes north for revenge, your two countries will fight on the battlefield sooner or later. So regarding how to deal with the prisoners of war from the Qing country, I advise your country that you really don’t have to take any chances. "My heart, even if you put all the people back, Huang Taiji will not be grateful to your country." Qiao Zhiya said solemnly: "What your country should consider is how to maximize the value of these prisoners of war." Whether it’s asking for ransom or doing hard labor, it’s better than raising them for nothing.”
"Master Qiao is right, please remember it." Although Li Bo did not agree with some of Qiao Zhiya's views, the other party's suggestions about prisoners of war did make sense. The most important thing is that his successful experience is right in front of him, which can be said to be quite convincing.
(End of chapter)