Chapter 47 From Vagrants to Law-Abiding Citizens

Accompanied by Chen Kai, Fang Xuanling and Dai Zhou leisurely inspected Li Tai's arrangements for the displaced refugees.

Although these refugees had arrived in the city with blank and dazed expressions, after emerging from the large bathhouses and successfully changing into clean clothes, each of them appeared vigorous and refreshed, as if thoroughly reborn.

"The Prince of Yue is truly extravagant!" Dai Zhou could not help sighing as he looked at the scene. "Even if it is just coarse hemp cloth, satisfying tens of thousands of disaster victims like this is by no means a small sum!"

"Indeed!" Hearing this, Chen Kai also nodded and said, "After these victims put on our uniforms—which are identical in style but vary in color—they have become much easier to manage. Even students like us can easily command them!"

"Oh?" Fang Xuanling uttered in slight surprise upon hearing Chen Kai's remark.

"You might not believe it!" Chen Kai continued, noticing the astonishment in Fang Xuanling's voice.

"At the very beginning, before our grand bathhouse was built, these disaster victims came to Gaoling knowing nothing except how to eat. They were listless and sluggish, living as if they were merely waiting for death, completely devoid of any vitality. But later, once the grand bathhouse was completed and they put on our school uniforms—which share the same style but have slightly different colors—they began to take a bit of initiative. Although they held a certain amount of envy toward us, they themselves became much easier to communicate with."

"Oh?" Fang Xuanling was rather surprised to hear this, looking at the grand bathhouse with a measure of curiosity. He could not understand what kind of magic the bathhouse possessed that could bring about such a startling transformation in the refugees. Surely, merely giving these refugees a bath and a change of clothes could not make them so spirited.

"Sir Chen, might we go over and take a look?" Dai Zhou asked Chen Kai.

"Of course!" Hearing their request, Chen Kai led the way forward.

As they drew closer, they saw that at the exit, the common people were queuing up to be diagnosed by medical students and teachers.

"What is this?" Dai Zhou asked Chen Kai, looking puzzled at the scene before him.

Chen Kai immediately replied, "This is to diagnose whether these people carry any plague and to assess their physical condition. If they pass, they will be registered in the census records; if they fail, they will be given alternative arrangements."

"Is this preparing to give up on them?" Fang Xuanling asked thoughtfully upon hearing this.

"No, those who are ill will be properly cared for and treated. Once they recover, they will be tested again!" Chen Kai shook his head.

"The children who have become orphans, the elderly who have lost their children, and those who are disabled but have not lost their ability to survive will be uniformly organized into homes for the aged and orphans. They will then be assigned proportionally to various villages, leaving the entire village to care for them. Furthermore, our students will visit them one day out of every ten to look after them and report on any problems they encounter."

"In that case, one can truly say they have exerted their utmost effort!" Hearing this, Dai Zhou stroked his beard with satisfaction.

"Then where does the funding to settle them come from?" Fang Xuanling asked directly.

"Primarily, a portion comes from the newly formed villages, a portion from Lady Kongque's large store, and another portion from the school itself. The standard of living certainly cannot be called luxurious, but at the very least, it enables them to survive and make a living here in Gaoling!" Chen Kai answered.

Fang Xuanling nodded. Observing the medical consultations before him, he noticed that many of the doctors appeared somewhat callow and untried. Some were even flipping through medical books on the spot—a display of sheer unprofessionalism that left Fang Xuanling somewhat dumbfounded.

"Sir Chen, are the doctors of Gaoling learning their trade on the fly?" Pointing at a medical student who was currently thumbing through a medical manual, Fang Xuanling asked with a hint of disbelief. Could people nowadays diagnose illnesses directly by cross-referencing books on the spot? How utterly daring!

"Ah, that is a medical textbook written by the immortal elder Sun Simiao. It was originally supposed to be introduced in the latter half of this year, but with the drought striking early, we can only use these disaster victims to practice on!" Chen Kai said with a helpless shrug.

"Surely none of the refugees raise any objections?" Fang Xuanling asked, gazing at the scene.

"I am not sick! I am not sick! Why do you say I am sick? This kid can't even take a pulse properly, what right does he have to say I'm ill?"

Soon, a man abruptly stood up, pointing aggressively at a youth who was holding a medical book in one hand and looking completely innocent.

However, before the man could finish speaking, a sudden palm-chop landed on the back of his neck from behind, and his entire body went limp, collapsing instantly.

With one eye glaring fiercely at the crowd, Wei Xu shouted, "Making a loud disturbance and creating chaos! Since you have so much energy, drag him off to the coal mines for half a year of labor."

Faced with the menacing Wei Xu, nearly all the refugees lowered their eyes, not daring to meet his gaze. They had just remembered that the man before them was no gentle pushover; if they did not wish to die, lowering their heads was the wisest course of action.

"Isn't this handling things far too crudely?" Dai Zhou asked, dumbfounded by what he had just witnessed.

"I didn't expect to witness a good show today. It seems yet another person didn't know when to cherish his life!" Chen Kai, clearly accustomed to such scenes, explained, "Commander Wei's palm-chop has become even sharper. I remember the very first person who caused trouble was beaten until his face was covered in blood, and when he was finally dragged off to the coal mines, he left a long trail of blood behind him. Commander Wei has actually held back quite a bit this time."

"Is this compliant with the laws of our Great Tang?!" Dai Zhou could not help exclaiming upon hearing Chen Kai's words.

"Refugees do not possess the rights granted by the laws, nor are they protected by them!" Chen Kai replied calmly. "To have the Tang laws shield them, they must at least wait until they are registered in the census and officially become subjects of our Great Tang. After all, if a civil riot were to break out because of them, an even greater price would have to be paid! Right now, it is merely one man being sent to the coal mines to redeem himself through labor. If the garrison stationed here were alarmed, heads would roll by the thousands!"

"Sir Chen, who told you these words?!" Fang Xuanling suddenly asked upon hearing Chen Kai's remarks.

"The headmaster did," Chen Kai answered quite frankly, a hint of pride in his voice.

"I never imagined the Prince of Yue, at such a young age, could be so... decisive!" Dai Zhou leaned in close to Fang Xuanling and whispered.

To be honest, Fang Xuanling could understand Li Tai's conduct. Regardless of anything else, before these refugees were fully integrated into Gaoling, using armed deterrence was indeed an effective way to maintain order. To a certain extent, this was also a preliminary show of force—do not think Li Tai was truly benevolent just because he gave away coarse hemp garments for free. If they refused to work honestly, those hemp garments would eventually become their shrouds!

Chen Kai led Fang Xuanling and Dai Zhou to the medical station's stamping area. At that moment, cartloads of hemp garments were being delivered. The pushcart operators efficiently transported these tailored garments straight into the large bathhouses.

"If virtually every single refugee is provided with a set of hemp clothing, just how many garments has the Prince of Yue prepared?" Dai Zhou sighed. "A bolt of hemp cloth should cost around seventy *wen*, rising to a hundred *wen* at its peak and dropping to fifty *wen* at its lowest. To satisfy the needs of so many commoners, this is definitely not a small sum of money!"

"This is the capability of the Prince of Yue!" Fang Xuanling said. "Do not forget that one of his chief maidservants belongs to the Zheng family!"

"He truly has remarkable methods!" Dai Zhou could not help exclaiming upon hearing this.

Meanwhile, inside the large store, a quality control employee approached Kongque and whispered in a low voice:

"Elder Sister Kongque, the quality of this second batch of hemp cloth delivered is clearly much worse than the first batch. Some of the cloth has even shrunk by a tenth. We cannot continue doing business with the Zheng family; they are trying to swindle us!"

"Did you pass the Zheng family's cloth anyway?" Kongque asked the quality control employee calmly.

"With your order, Elder Sister Kongque, naturally we let it pass," the employee said with a trace of hesitation. "You even had us hand over gold bricks on the spot. From the looks of it, the Zheng family is treating us like fools. Elder Sister Kongque, I think we should cut off the transactions for the next batch."

Kongque nodded and said, "The various branches of the Zheng family are all driven entirely by greed. If my father fails to persuade them within three days, they will surely observe the rhythm of my father's transactions with me, and afterward try to test me directly themselves. Even so, the time remaining for them to gather the hundred thousand bolts of hemp cloth is very limited. Moreover, even with ample time, given their nature, it would be a miracle if they did not substitute inferior goods for superior ones! A bunch of fellows whose eyes see nothing but money, without even checking who the buyers are!"

Seeing that Kongque was fully aware of the situation, the employee said no more, nodded respectfully, and withdrew.

At that moment, Fang Xuanling and Dai Zhou watched as the medical students completed their diagnoses of the refugees and conducted an initial sorting.

Those who met the labor requirements, even those with families in tow, completed their household registration with Lü Cai.

At another window, the elderly, the weak, the sick, and the disabled were registered and organized into homes for the aged and orphans, which were then established in locations where the labor force had reached a certain scale. Naturally, these settlements were not limited to retirement homes; they also included medical clinics, primary schools, small grocery shops, and carriage agencies. To maintain the supporting infrastructure of a village, a population of four to five thousand was generally required.

Li Tai used administrative planning to forcibly group this batch of people into small villages. Apart from basic infrastructure, these small villages were allocated a considerable amount of farmland. However, the farmland in these areas was mostly uncultivated—in plain terms, barren wasteland. Yet, if they intended to clear and farm the land, Li Tai gave them his full support, decisively leasing them tools and seeds.

If they had a harvest in the first year, they only needed to return the seeds; by the second year, a thirty percent tax would be collected, and by the third year, fifty percent. Although taxing them fifty percent all at once sounded harsh, Li Tai's protective umbrella exempted them from numerous harsh exactions and miscellaneous taxes, allowing them to successfully settle down in Gaoling.

Otherwise, stripped of his protection, even if they managed to clear the fields, Chang'an could seize them at a whim.

And by settling in Gaoling, Li Tai would not treat them unfairly. At the very least, they would be able to heavily enjoy the dividends of Gaoling's development over the next few years, and their children would even have the opportunity to study within Gaoling's schools. Although the reputation of Gaoling's agricultural academy was not yet prominent, there was no denying that an academy aiming to root itself among the common people only needed a single opportunity to soar against the wind.

Simultaneously, the homes for the aged and orphans were established in these small villages. To be honest, the elderly who had fled the drought and managed to survive all the way to Chang'an were a tiny minority. Those who survived undoubtedly possessed remarkable willpower, but the moment they were finally allowed to settle down peacefully, the tension sustaining them might suddenly vanish, and their lives would quietly fade away. Thus, some elderly folks, after only a few days of eating millet gruel, would pass away peacefully in their sleep.

In contrast, Li Tai was more than happy to welcome the children who had been orphaned, immediately enrolling them in basic schools to learn reading and writing, cultivating them regardless of gender. After all, he was desperately short of manpower. Putting aside the administration of the empire, merely settling these refugees and transforming them into talents nurtured by the agricultural academy had stretched his resources to the limit.

After touring the grand bathhouses, the makeshift hospitals, and the household registration office, Fang Xuanling and Dai Zhou boarded a carriage and traveled to the newly constructed village. They saw with their own eyes how these slightly revitalized refugees were escorted into wooden cabins.

These cabins were meant for temporary residence, and a team of house-builders led them in constructing houses equipped with *kang* (heated brick beds). It did not matter if the construction was crude, as long as it was done. Within a maximum of one month, they had to build their own houses with their own hands. If the time limit arrived and their houses were still unfinished while they lingered stubbornly in the wooden cabins, the law enforcement officers would come to drag them away and throw them directly into the coal mines to dig coal.

Without producing enough coal every day, there would be no food. They would have to dig for a year; if they managed to survive, presumably they would deeply cherish the days of seeing the sunlight again—though by then, they would likely only be allowed to settle on the outskirts!

Once these people began to labor, the power of life naturally manifested. As human beings, merely having a shelter was not enough; they would proceed to build cooking stoves, construct sleeping beds, make tables for their belongings... bit by bit, filling the house. Then they would open their doors, feeling that they should find a way to make a living and sustain themselves.

At that moment, the agricultural societies formed around the core of the agricultural students at the village entrance began recruiting people with great fanfare:

"Come work! Come work! Work brings food, work brings money, come work quickly!"

In a village where everything awaited revival, there was truly no shortage of work to be done. Repairing roads, reclaiming farmland, transporting grain... in short, wherever there were people living, there was no shortage of labor.

"These refugees finally have a home here!" Seeing this, Fang Xuanling breathed a sigh of relief and turned to Dai Zhou. "Let us go to the wharf. I hear that is the liveliest place in Gaoling right now!"

"Two honored guests, I shall go summon the carriage. Please wait a moment!" Chen Kai offered thoughtfully.