Chapter 2439
Although the current situation in Fushan County is relatively tense and the supply of materials is also very tight, this will not affect the various special treatments enjoyed by the travelers. Chen Yixin still arranged a sumptuous welcome banquet for Tao Donglai. It is hard to imagine that there are tens of thousands of refugees who lack food and clothing just a few miles away.
"There have been so many refugees entering Dengzhou recently that almost all the live animals that can be eaten in the wild have been eaten, so there is no game left. Fortunately, there is also a breeding ground for garrison troops on the island. Poultry There are a lot of livestock and various fruits and vegetables, so we can barely manage this period of time." Chen Yixin poured wine for Tao Donglai while explaining the origin of the ingredients on the table.
Tao Donglai asked: "Are the local food reserves sufficient?"
Chen Yixin nodded and said: "The reserves are sufficient. The grain shipped from the south during this period should be four to five million kilograms. People will definitely not starve to death in the short term. And now that the weather is getting warmer, it is easier for fishing boats to go to sea. Products can also be used as supplements.”
Although Fushan County is currently facing huge pressure from refugee resettlement, the main problem is that the scale of institutions such as refugee camps is still not large enough to bring all the refugees who have poured into Fushan County into control, resulting in a relatively large number of refugees in the county. A huge security risk. As for the food reserves, the situation is not bad. Although it is impossible for everyone to have enough food for the refugees, the food supply has been maintained in the past few months without food shortages, allowing the refugees to survive this cold winter.
At present, more than half of the food consumed locally relies on overseas transportation, so the food provided by Haihan to the refugees basically only meets the minimum survival standards, so as to ensure that the existing food reserves can survive when external transportation is cut off. Can last for at least twenty days.
Tao Donglai said: "I heard that many wealthy businessmen and dignitaries have come here to take refuge. What are the current arrangements for these people?"
Hao Wanqing took over the conversation and said: "Speaking of this, I really have to say that there are quite a lot of rich people in Shandong. The first batch of people who came to Fushan County spent money to buy houses and land as soon as they arrived here, as if they wanted to put down roots. As a result, local prices were quickly increased. By the end of February, house prices in the county had increased by more than ten times. All inns, commercial houses, and private houses were available for rent. The houses purchased are basically sold out in early March. You can ask Chen Yixin. His father-in-law is the largest landowner in Fushan County and has made a lot of money during this wave.”
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Chen Yixin laughed and said: "You are making fun of me again! The money earned by my father-in-law will not go into my pocket, so I have nothing to be happy about."
Hao Wanqing said that Ma Dongqiang was the largest landowner in Fushan County, which was not an empty lie. Ma Jiaben is one of the largest families in Fushan County, owning thousands of acres of fertile land. After moving to Shanghai, the property quickly expanded its business from agriculture to commerce, transportation, services and other industries. It can be said that as long as you step into Fushan County, you will inevitably have to deal with the Ma family's industry. Rich businessmen and dignitaries from outside who want to find a place to stay here will naturally not be able to get around it.
Tao Donglai joked: "Your father-in-law has so many industries in the local area, I'm afraid he will also make people jealous, right?"
Chen Yixin responded lightly: "It is true that there are some who are short-sighted, but after I dealt with a few fanatics, no one dared to break the rules anymore."
The Ma family owns so much property in the local area, so it is inevitable that they will get into trouble. Some people think that their status is much higher than that of Ma Dongqiang, a wealthy country man, and ask him to provide a house for their own use, or plan to use it at a very low price. Forced buying and selling at the price. However, such people often don't know Ma Dongqiang's background or that he has Haihan's support behind him, so such rude requests are naturally impossible to fulfill. At first, there were several attempts to threaten Ma Dongqiang into submission. After Chen Yixin heard about it, he sent people to expel the troublemakers and their families from Fushan County, and made harsh words - Fushan County is under the jurisdiction of Haihan. No matter what status you have in the Ming Dynasty, you must abide by Haihan's rules when you get here.
With Chen Yixin as his son-in-law to protect him, Ma Dongqiang naturally has less worries. Nowadays, at least half of the wealthy people who rent places to live locally live in properties under the Ma family's name. From luxurious mansions covering several acres with complete living facilities to small single rooms in inns with just one bed, there are houses of various grades, but the prices are of course extremely expensive compared to normal times, and most ordinary people cannot afford them.
But you get what you pay for, and the service advantage here is also obvious, that is, a safe environment that money can't buy. Not to mention the Qing army, even the Ming army could not enter Fushan County without permission. In troubled times, it is difficult to find any other safer place than here.
And as long as you can afford the price, you can buy a variety of goods here, including food, and even meat, wine, and fresh fruits and vegetables. Rich people can still continue to enjoy the life of a superior person.
However, not many people can afford to live in these places. From February to now, among the tens of thousands of people who have come to Fushan County to seek refuge, less than a thousand of them live in private residences outside refugee camps. Among them, Most people are just followers serving their masters, and the real financial sponsors are only a few hundred or so.
Strictly speaking, the Ma family's behavior can be regarded as making money for the country. However, at the same time, a considerable part of the organizational work of resettling ordinary refugees is also responsible for the Ma family, and thousands of refugees have been able to survive as a result. Chance.
Tao Donglai did not ask in detail how the Ma family made money from the rich people who had taken refuge. In his opinion, this behavior was actually normal. If there was not enough oil and water, how could local tycoons like Ma Dongqiang be driven to participate in the resettlement of refugees? Come in action. What he cared about was actually another thing.
"I heard that you took the wealthy businessmen who took refuge here to set up a chamber of commerce?" Tao Donglai asked.
Chen Yixin nodded and said: "This is indeed the case. I have established a Shanhai Club. As long as you join, you can get a half discount on all local fees, so these people are quite active in joining the club. Currently, they have dozens of members. ”
Taking the lead in organizing chambers of commerce to expand trade channels has been Haihan's traditional method of operation, and it has been tried and tested in the southern coastal areas. Although Chen Yixin had such a plan for a long time, he has never found a suitable opportunity to enter because the environment in Shandong is not as good as in the south. Haihan's control area is limited to Fushan County. It is not easy to meet with wealthy businessmen and dignitaries in various states. This time, by mistake, many people worthy of contact came to Fushan County on their own to avoid the war. Chen Yixin would not miss such a God-given opportunity.
These people may not have had business dealings with Haihan before, so Chen Yixin also gave up using trade preferential measures to attract them, and instead offered more practical conditions. And the actual effect is quite good. I heard that these people can enjoy half of all expenses. However, the Haihan people's request is just to join the Chamber of Commerce and become Haihan's trading partner, so why not?
It's just that they don't know something. Haihan's Chamber of Commerce has no threshold for joining. You only need to sign two documents to be considered a member, but it is impossible to withdraw from it in the future. As long as they care about financial interests, Haihan has plenty of ways to lure them into the water, which is as simple as recruiting them into the club now. Tao Donglai nodded and said: "The good thing is, if done properly, in two or three years, this place may not be the next Zhoushan."
Chen Yixin said: "Mr. Tao, please don't put your hat on me. I know very well what Fushan County is like. It is definitely not comparable to the conditions in Zhoushan. Moreover, there is a serious lack of professionals here, and many things are complicated. I’m just making do, and you’ll see when you can send me more people who know how to run the trade association.”
"Well, when I get back to Sanya, I'll ask Schneider to pick out a few useful people and send them over to you." Wherever Tao Donglai goes, he will inevitably be chased for various resources. He is already familiar with this situation. , two sentences put the matter on Schneider's head.
After taking a short rest after eating, Tao Donglai proposed that he would like to visit the local refugee camp and also go to Majiazhuang to visit Chen Yixin's family. Hao Wanqing had other official duties, so he said goodbye and left.
"Mr. Tao, shouldn't your itinerary be kept secret? Is it okay to show up in public like this?" Chen Yixin did not agree immediately, but asked Tao Donglai for confirmation again.
Tao Donglai waved his hand and said: "No one knows me here. We don't need to disclose our identity when we go to the refugee camp. You just need to keep your family secret."
Now that Tao Donglai had made his attitude clear, Chen Yixin would not object and asked his secretary Zeng Xiaowen to arrange the carriage and escorts, and then personally accompany Tao Donglai to Majiazhuang.
When he was still several miles away from Majiazhuang, Tao Donglai had already seen the refugee camps on the roadside from the carriage. The buildings in these camps are either military tents provided by Haihan, or simple shacks on the ground. They are surrounded by wooden fences or barbed wire, leaving only one entrance and exit, which is a camp.
However, there are currently dozens of such small refugee camps in Fushan County, and Tao Donglai is not so energetic to look at them all one by one. He only needs to look at one or two representative places.
"Chen Yixin, find a recently built refugee camp and let's go check it out." Tao Donglai had already made plans and immediately gave Chen Yixin the order.
After a while, Chen Yixin ordered the driver to stop the carriage on the side of the road, then got out of the car with Tao Donglai and walked to a nearby refugee camp.
"This camp was just built yesterday. It was completed in the morning and started arranging for refugees to move in at noon. It was already full yesterday." Chen Yixin led the way and explained the situation of the refugee camp to Tao Dong: "The construction plan is based on 500 people. Standard, but the actual number of people staying is definitely much higher than this number.”
There is not even a wooden fence around the camp. Instead, barbed wire is tied between wooden stakes as a barrier. The situation inside the camp can be clearly seen from the outside. The camp was almost entirely composed of simple shacks, with only two large marching tents. According to Chen Yixin’s explanation, these two tents were specially used to accommodate the elderly, weak, women and children.
After entering the camp, you can find that although these shacks are extremely simple, they are relatively neatly laid out and basically the same size. It can be seen that the construction is relatively orderly. Moreover, drainage ditches have been dug around the residence. Normal rainfall should not turn the refugees' residence into a flood.
This kind of simple building, which involves digging a shallow pit in the ground and erecting a roof on top, is actually very fast to build. With sufficient tools and labor, four to six people can build a residence for the same number of people in just half a day. In fact, all the buildings in this newly built refugee camp were basically built by refugees who were admitted earlier. The newly admitted people in this refugee camp only have one day of rest, and then they have to devote themselves to work and participate in the construction of the next refugee camp.
Of course there is no financial reward for participating in labor, but you can get more food. Ordinary refugees can only receive one meal a day, but those who participate in labor can receive two larger meals. Therefore, the vast majority of refugees who are capable of working will choose to accept official arrangements to ensure that they have more food intake. .
Of course, living in such a simple building can at best protect you from the cold wind, but it is definitely not comfortable. A shack was originally designed to accommodate four to six people, but since the current number of refugees has exceeded the resettlement capacity, eight people are arranged to live in it, which is very crowded.
The reason why each refugee camp is limited to a few hundred people is because Haihan officials have limited manpower and cannot manage large refugee camps. However, even if problems arise in small camps with hundreds of people, officials can quickly solve them. deal with. Especially since he had already caught spies who were preparing to sneak into Fushan County before, Chen Yixin did not dare to be careless. He kept a close eye on the security situation in various refugee camps. Those who caused trouble in the refugee camps did not care about the right or wrong reasons. , all sent to Fushan Copper Mine to do hard labor.
"We now have tens of thousands of free labor, but we cannot make full use of it. We do not have that many manpower to ensure the safety of the construction process, so we can only select those who are in good physical condition and obey instructions to come out to work. The actual situation every day The number of workers may not even be one-tenth of the number of refugees, so so far, our rate of building refugee camps cannot keep up with the increase in refugees.”
When it comes to the problem of refugee camps, Chen Yixin is also a little helpless. The vast majority of refugees have not yet been systematically disciplined. Haihan dare not assign labor tasks that require them to go out. Otherwise, if someone causes trouble, it will not be easy to control these thousands of refugees with working tools. live. Therefore, Fushan County now has tens of thousands of free laborers, but because there are too many concerns, the actual utilization efficiency is pitifully low.
(End of chapter)