(Updated three chapters for red tickets, two more chapters ahead)

  **********

  Lin Xie couldn't directly stretch out his hand to the local area, and the resettlement of refugees or disaster victims could only be done with the local authorities as the main body. After blowing their beards and glaring at each other for half a day in the camp, all the arrangements were discussed and settled before Ning Ze arrived.

  The Xisha Islands and the sandbars in the river all belong to official fields. Chen Kun, representing local forces, only agreed to allow migrants to settle locally, but the homestead land was provided for rent and sale. Two mu of mulberry orchard were allocated per household, and five mu of irrigated dry land were allocated per person. In addition to the land tax, newly registered households also had to pay an additional 20-30% of their annual harvest as land rent.

  Xisha Island is a newly opened up wasteland, and according to the new household registration system, it can be exempt from three years of land tax, but Chen Kun insisted that the land rent cannot be exempt.

  It's no wonder that Lin is getting more and more irritable, hearing Chen Kun refusing to waive the rent, he couldn't help but slap the table and was about to pour the hot tea directly on Chen Kun's face.

  Chongzhou's fertile fields are rich, with winter wheat and summer rice. One mu of land can produce 500-600 kilograms of wheat and rice per year. A household in Chongzhou with 20 mu of paddy fields is already considered a relatively well-off family.

  The Xisha Islands are prone to natural disasters, with typhoons and floods in the summer and shallow river water and seawater backflow in the winter, resulting in salt tides almost every year, causing severe salinization of the land along the beach, making it difficult to cultivate. Furthermore, the Xisha Islands are formed by accumulated sand and have poor soil quality, with no irrigation facilities, so even in a year with favorable weather conditions, the yield is still far lower than that of ordinary fertile fields.

  Chen Kun bit to death Tian Zu, saying that in the end, they still had to drive these refugees out of Chongzhou.

  Lin tied his eyes and only hoped that the more than 20,000 disaster victims could formally settle on Xi Sha Island. The land rent was enough to pay two or three thousand taels of silver per year, which would not drag down Ji Yun Society.

  The reason for the dispute was that Lin Xie also wanted to make this a condition, forcing Chongzhou County and Hailing Prefecture to agree to let Hu Zhiyong, Hu Qiaoyi and others from the East Shehu Village of Chongzhou move out and settle in Xisha Island with Hu Zhiyong as the head of the village, agreeing to let Li Shuyi represent Chongzhou County to handle the affairs of settling refugees and registering households, agreeing to a quota of 300 troops for the local militia, and selecting the leaders of the local militia from among the settled refugees.

  Li Shuyi was originally an official of Chongzhou County, and Hu Zhiyong was a scholar-merchant of Chongzhou County. Although they had been close to Lin Xie for some time, with the suspicion of licking Chu Party's buttocks, after all, they were local people. Wu Meijiu and Chen Kun didn't worry that Li Shuyi and Hu Zhiyong would follow Lin Xie wholeheartedly, thinking in their hearts that everyone was hard to avoid following the trend at this time, but when the Chu Party fell out of favor, they thought Li Shuyi and Hu Zhiyong would know what choice to make.

  After all, Chen Kun and Wu Mei were still not at ease with the refugees. In addition to being under the control of the county lieutenant in terms of training and other matters, they also took the initiative to propose that Hu Zhiyong concurrently serve as commander-in-chief, directly controlling the rural camp. Lin Xie naturally "reluctantly" agreed.

  After examining Ning Zhen's abilities, especially his weak and pale appearance which lowered their resistance to him, Chen Kun and Wu Meijiu also agreed that Ning Zhen should take the post of deputy commander of the Xisha Island Garrison, in charge of training the local militia.

  Many things have been discussed and settled, but it is still necessary to draft a written memorial for submission to the Grand Coordinator's office for approval.

  ************

  The Donghai bandits were rampant in the Taihu Lake area again, and Chen Kun, Wu Meijiu and others did not dare to spend the night outside the city. Seeing that it was getting late, they bid farewell and left. Lin Xie sent them to the campsite and stopped there, while Li Shuyi and Hu Zhiyong insisted on sending them to the boat.

  "You two take care of yourselves..." Chen Kun threw out this sentence and boarded the ship, not even bothering to look at Li Shuyi and Hu Zhiyong.

  Li Shuyi looked embarrassed, as he himself wished, compared to being in the county and fighting for power, without any real power, he would rather stay on Xi Sha Island and be responsible for the settlement of refugees, but inevitably, he could not avoid getting entangled with Lin again, and also avoided being labeled as a member of the Chu Party.

  The power of Chu is great, and those who follow the trend may think this is a rare opportunity, but things are far from that simple.

  Gu Wudu's main task in Jiangning was to increase the grain supply from Jiangdong Prefecture to Yanjing, aiming to raise it from 600,000 dan to 2 million dan per year. Chongzhou County would need to provide around 30,000 dan.

  This was something that the local authorities strongly opposed, but Wang Xueshan, the prefect of Jiangning, had a handle on Gu Wuchen and softened his attitude towards the summer tax, and other prefectures and counties were also unable to take a hard line. However, from the bottom of their hearts, they all detested Gu Wuchen and Zhang Xiechu's faction.

  The burden of transporting grain can still be spread to tenant farmers and self-cultivating farmers, but now there are rumors that Zhang Xie intends to raise market taxes and impose mining taxes in the southeastern counties to prepare for military expenses, which is even more unbearable.

  Dongyang Lin's family also has more than 20,000 mu of land, but the annual rent income is only about 4,500 to 5,000 taels. The Lin family can accumulate huge wealth and privately raise more than 500 village braves, relying on their monopoly on local commerce. Even most of the market tax revenue in Shanglinli Grass Market falls into the private pockets of a few families like the Lin's.

  Dongyang Lin family is like this, Jiangning Qu family is like this, the big families with some power in the southeastern counties are all like this.

  In addition, city taxes are also the main source of income for local government officials, and it is also the main source of income for local officials to accept bribes and fill their private pockets.

  The Chu Party's desire to increase the collection of market taxes and other commercial taxes in the southeastern provinces can be said to have directly harmed the interests of the gentry and local officials in the southeastern provinces.

  Although this matter is just a rumor, it has already been discussed and speculated by the locals, who view it as a fierce beast.

  It was also the aristocratic and bureaucratic groups of the southeastern provinces that were extremely resistant to the Chu Party. Although the Chu Party was in power, Gu Wu Chen was invincible in Jiangning, but local officials such as Chen Kun and Wu Mei Jiu avoided Gu Wu Chen and Lin Fu like a poisonous scorpion, with no intention of surrendering or flattering them.

  Hu Zhiyong and Li Shuyi had different thoughts, he saw Li Shuyi's worried face and smiled: "In the future, many things on the island will still rely on Li Shu to handle..."

  "Mr. Hu smiled and said, 'It's all thanks to Mr. Hu that I'm able to understand the book.' Li Shuyi bowed and said."

  In Li Shuyi's view, Chongzhou localities were again dissatisfied with the Chu Party and Lin Xiang, but according to Lin Xiang's strategy of settling refugees on Xi Sha Island, it was also beneficial to Chongzhou without any harm.

  Eliminating the hidden danger of refugees is one benefit, and organizing a county garrison on Xisha Island to serve as the southern shield for Chongzhou's defense against pirates invading from the East China Sea is the second benefit.

  Li Shuyi let out a faint sigh in his heart, thinking that for now, this was the only way to go about things. He had no regrets about doing these tasks well, and he couldn't control what would happen in the future. Seeing Lin Xie and Ning Zechen, Ao Canghai, and others standing in front of the camp tent, Li Shuyi and Hu Zhiyong hurried over quickly.

  *************

  Lin stood in front of the camp, looking around, it had been six days since the lake bandits raided the island, and the remains of the tragic event were still visible everywhere on Guanyin Beach. Li Shuyi and Hu Zhiyong walked over, he pointed to a sunny slope not far away and said: "Build a cemetery on that slope, all those who sacrificed for Xi Sha Island this time and in the future will be buried there, with their names and deeds engraved on the monument for posterity to admire and remember. The construction of this cemetery should use blue bricks and stone materials, do not be frugal, coffins should not be shared, this matter should be done together with the surrounding tower, do not delay. Calculate how much silver is needed, report a number to me..."

  "Ah, I'll arrange for someone to come and survey the land tomorrow," Hu Zhiyong replied. In those times, people took death seriously; even if they couldn't be buried in their hometown, no one wanted to become a lonely ghost. Building a ancestral temple for later generations to worship was the ideal expectation of scholars and gentlemen after they passed away. Using Lin Xian's sacrifice to inspire the civilians and soldiers on Xi Sha Island might still lead to ridicule and exclusion from the scholarly community, but it could also motivate them to fight harder to defend the island.

  Lin Gu said: "The settlement of the refugees is more or less settled, but this time the civilian heroes who sacrificed and died in resistance against the lake bandits, their families will be given special consideration when allocating land. The Hu family has 300 mu of fertile land at Guanyintan, which will be bought by the Ji Yun Society with silver, and an additional 200 mu of fertile land will be opened up to give to these families, each household getting a certain share. The land deeds will be given directly, exempting them from land rent. As for the land tax silver that this portion of land should bear, it would be more appropriate for the villagers to jointly undertake..."

  "The 300 mu of fertile land is considered a donation from the Hu family for the defense of the island. The Hu family should do something for Xi Sha Island," said Hu Zhiyong, although the 300 mu of fertile land in Guanyintan was the result of two generations of hard work and the last bit of property that the Hu family could take out, Lin Mou did not count the cost to pay so much for Xi Sha Island, how could he not have this spirit?

  In front of Li Shuyi, Lin Xie didn't say much more. He said that if Hu Zhiyong wanted to win people's hearts on the Western Xia Island, the Hu family needed to make contributions to the settlement of refugees on the island. He continued: "After two major disasters, many families have been torn apart, with husbands and wives, parents and children not being together. Some old customs can be changed appropriately, of course, we won't force it, but if they can voluntarily form a household, we will encourage and reward them accordingly... You discuss and decide how to do it..."

  Li Shuyi nodded, he was in charge of household registration and settlement. Many families only had one person left, if they didn't merge households, it would be very troublesome.

  Affected by Lin, Li Shuyi also became pragmatic and diligent. There were still things waiting for him to do at the refugee settlement in Western Hemisphere. Seeing that it was still bright outside, he thought that going there tonight would allow him to understand more about the situation, so he bid farewell and rode his horse over.

  After dinner, Lin Xie called Hu Zhiyong into his tent. When Hu Zhiyong arrived, he saw that Lin Mengde was also in the tent.

  "Everyone sit down and talk," Lin invited Hu Zhiyong to sit down, saying, "The Hu family donated 300 mu of fertile land in Guanyintan, I'm afraid the sugar factory can't operate anymore?"

  "It can't be maintained anymore," Hu Zhiyong said frankly, "Closing the workshop will also allow everyone to focus on this side."

  "You will transfer the foreign debts owed by the Hu family and the workshops to Jiyun Society," Lin Fu said, "The workshop not only cannot be closed, but also needs to be expanded in scale. The Guanyintan side requires you to invest all your energy, and when things are slightly relieved on this side, let Second Master Hu Zhicheng take charge of the workshop affairs."

  In fact, donating 300 mu of land on Xisha Island would put great pressure on the Hu family's foreign debt. It would be embarrassing to have creditors gathering at their doorstep during festivals and holidays. Lin wanted to take over both the workshop and the Hu family's foreign debt. What else could Hu Zhiyong do but nod in agreement? He also thought: it would be better for his second brother to work in Jiyun Society, Xisha Island is always dangerous, and it's like not putting all eggs in one basket.

  "The silver and grain allocated from the Pingjiang Prefecture's relief funds for the disaster in Xi Sha Island is just a cover, something that can be accounted for to the local officials. In addition, I will allocate another 20,000 taels of silver to you, do not spare any expense on building the tower and the Weiyuan Dam at Guanyin Beach should also be built as soon as possible... Lin Fu continued, "This time in Anji County, I intercepted over 20,000 taels of silver from the Shu family, this is also what they owe to Xi Sha Island, it will be used for Xi Sha Island."