The Blackwater area in midsummer is full of vitality, especially on Sakhalin Island, a core territory with an increasingly populous population. After years of hard development, this small society has initially formed a system, and the strongholds have gradually been firmly tied together under the combination of administrative, economic and military means.

Although Heishui Port is the first settlement in the region to build a complete castle - and it is the only one - and is also the most important industrial center in the region: it has many companies such as shipyards, wood processing plants (including logging yards, wood drying kilns), coal mines (including coal washing plants, honeycomb coal factory), salt cooking yards, building materials plants (including brick and tile wheel kilns, lime kilns, cement kilns), etc., Dabo Port is undoubtedly much more economic and population.

First of all, the population. As of August 1648, the permanent population of Dabo Port had exceeded 4,000 and was scattered in seven or eight natural villages around. It is worth mentioning that the proportion of handicraftsmen among these people is quite high, including masons, carpenters, blacksmiths, doctors, bamboo craftsmen, jewelry craftsmen, etc., almost all of them were plundered by the whole family and transported here.

Now they wear leather clothes in Dabo Port and live in large pointed brick and tile houses with fireplaces and warm kangs. They often eat fish. In addition to being unaccustomed to the climate, their living standards are much better than those in the chaotic times in Shandong. Over time, many people have become less interested in finding opportunities to return to the mainland, slowly accept the status quo, and begin to take root in Dabo Port.

After living for several years, some of them were mobilized and boarded the ship to the legendary East Coast, where everyone had land and meat were eaten every meal - this is no joke. There are now some Ming people who immigrated to the East Coast many years ago in the Hei Shui area. They are now sent back to the Hei Shui area to do immigration work by the local immigration department. The personal experience itself is very convincing.

Of course, there are also many people who are unwilling to go to the East Coast. After all, there is too far. But at this time it depends on how the superiors identify it. If it is a craftsman who is lacking in the East Coast, then I'm sorry, you may be forcibly "invited" to go there; if it is not a shortage of personnel, the East Coast government has begun to respect your personal wishes. You can settle in the Heishui area locally, but which city needs to be adjusted by the top, and you can express your opinions. But there is not much autonomy.

The population of 4,000 is already scary in the cold temperate zone where the temperature is low all year round, especially in summer and autumn, these areas will also accept migrants with as many as 20,000 (waiting for immigration to board the ship in the winter and spring). Although the urban area of ​​Dabo Port has been expanding again and again, it is still overwhelmed. Therefore, considering that a serious epidemic may cause half of the population here to be reimbursed, with Wei Boqiu's application and Shao Shude's approval, the Blackwater Development Team set up a series of villages from Dabo Port north along the narrow mountain valley, and finally set up an institution to manage these settlement villages on the original site of later South Sakhalinsk: Nankuye Reclamation Bureau.

The Nankuye Reclamation Bureau manages as many as 20 villages and cultivated villages from Nansakhalinsk to Dabo Port, with more than 200,000 acres of farmland. They even have an armed force formed: the Nankuye Garage (400 posts, including 300 infantry and 100 cavalry), which basically effectively ruled these areas.

In each village, there are only a few dozen people, including the village chief and a few villagers, who are permanent residents. The other hundreds are temporary residents, that is, they are immigrants waiting to board the boat. These people usually arrive in spring and leave in late autumn. In the middle of the year, they will take care of crops in the village to "earn enough" their food and other expenses on the way. People on the east coast do not expect these people to be concerned about farming, as long as they can almost collect some land per mu. The accumulation of small amounts is also a sum of grain that cannot be ignored for the Heishui area, which has been suffering from food shortages.

After these people start boarding the ship and leaving in mid-October every year, the left-behind personnel (permanent residents) of each village start hunting, mowing grass, and finally drying a piece of grain to make full preparations for the winter. Generally, after the first heavy snowfall, the villages will also close the gates and will not open again until the spring of the next year. If there is any emergency, it is still convenient to contact the villages by sledding.

This year, the permanent population of these villages has been replenished again. The main source is the officers and soldiers who have been injured and retired after fighting with the Qing army on the Shandong front line this year. There are 1,275 people, almost all of them are wounded soldiers who have lost some or all their labor capacity (they were amputated after being injured, mainly from the forward team system). Among them, there are 501 Ming people, 229 Poles, 208 Black people in Xhosa, 109 Tatars, 106 Japanese, 96 Shandan people, and 26 Koreans.

These wounded soldiers had been assigned to each village by the Nankuye Reclamation Bureau a few days ago. In addition to receiving 30 acres of mature land, 20 acres of forest land and 20 acres of rivers and ponds, they also received a one-time compensation of 200 yuan and ten large and small livestock issued by the Finance Bureau of the Hei Water Development Team. In the future, four yuan of subsidies will be received from the Finance Bureau every month, and the payment will not be terminated until twenty years later. In addition, the residents of each village are obliged to do farm work for these disabled soldiers' families during the busy season of sowing and harvesting. This benefit is guaranteed by the swords and guns of all 12,000 officers and soldiers of the forward team. No village dares to neglect this matter.

From this we can see that the worries of retreating and leaving the world in the past, which was worried about by the majority of officers and soldiers, have been basically solved. The Blackwater Development Team has not hesitated to bear huge financial burdens and also resolutely implement these policies and continuously improve the social status of soldiers. The soldiers are more determined when fighting. Although the soldiers work hard to get money, they are not slaves without any dignity. The prestige of the officers not only comes from the horse whip, but also comes from whether they are sincerely considering them. If you really think about the personal interests of the soldiers, then those who are in the battlefield may give you a surprise. If you just fool them, then they will most likely fool you!

After the first batch of disabled soldiers on the East Coast were placed, the effect was quite good. At least the morale of the officers and soldiers of the forward team was greatly improved. There is no way to improve. Disability in battle originally meant the end of the world for the soldiers, but now it seems like they have a job of iron, so that's not a big deal! In the troubled times, many people with good hands and feet starved to death in the wilderness in the end, and they can still have a good way out. I'm sorry for their conscience if they don't fight during the war.

It is already early August. As the East Coast army retreated into the Qingzhou Prefecture, Shandong Province, the Eight Banners of Manchu and Mongolia, who had been chasing all the way, finally stopped their pursuit. It was not that they did not want to destroy the yellow-clothed thief army that was like a thorn in flesh, but that they could only draw out more than 10,000 people now, and faced the elite yellow-clothed thief with excellent equipment, well-trained and fierce artillery fire. The losses were not light. In addition, if they chased to Laizhou, the supply line behind would be too long. With the current situation of war in Shandong, this was tantamount to death. Therefore, they decisively stopped in Qingzhou Prefecture, vigorously plundering the local prefectures and counties that had been carefully combed by the East Coast people, while waiting for the subsequent army to pacify the shocking local bandits and chaos, and then come to join them.

The whole month of July was a situation where the two sides passed in a whole confrontation and local small-scale fighting. After August, the East Coast army had stabilized its defense line in Weixian, Anqiu and Gaomi under the command of Mao Desheng. At this time, the so-called "rebel army" that could not stand the battle had been driven back to Dengzhou for training, and a large amount of supplies, livestock and people also returned to Dengzhou in advance under their escort. After receiving a supply, the East Coast army, which had successfully lost weight, had its combat power not discussed, but its morale increased instead. It could basically be compared with the core troops. Of course, it was limited to the Green Camp. Compared with the Eight Banners, their combat effectiveness was still not enough, and the South African heavy infantry and regular East Coast troops still needed to go to battle. However, their number was limited. If the Eight Banners were willing to fight with them without regard for casualties, this East Coast army would still not be able to withstand it.

But if the Eight Banners soldiers were willing to kill and injured thousands of people to attack the elite army on the east coast, then is it still a wild boar skin? Can the commander who gave this order survive? Now that we are not just starting out, we will need everyone to fight for our lives. Now we have families, businesses and coated people, and we can even fart! We can pinch soft persimmons, and don’t expect us to fight hard for many people.

The army of yellow-clothed thieves in front of us is quite insane, especially those who hold muskets and cannons. They seem to have a good fighting style; and the black vassal ghost slave soldiers are also taciturn, but they don’t speak, but they put dozens of kilograms of iron armor on their bodies, and the iron spears that are more than ten feet long will be extraordinary. In the past, the Khitans in the Liao Kingdom had a tradition of "not fighting in order to fight" against the Northern Song Dynasty imperial guards. The Eight Banners of Manchu and Mongolia now have an unwritten rule of black vassal ghost slave soldiers and the East Coast regular army (usually called "real yellow-clothed thieves", each of which has a reward of twenty taels of silver) and a row of unwritten rules. After all, too much casualties will only damage one's morale.

Under such circumstances, both the Qing Dynasty and the east bank of Shandong entered a period of adjustment. Especially the people on the east bank successfully mobilized the Qing army and captured a large number of personnel, materials, money and food, and at the same time, they continued to expand their influence in Shandong, and the harvest was quite great.
Chapter completed!