Chapter 607: Chapter 282: Patrol and Enthronement_2

And the locations where the military corps were set up were all close to the front line, and in the areas closest to the Great Changhe Country.

Situated in the hinterland of the Yi people, with the battlefield in front and surrounded by Yi people, there was no need to worry about these serious criminals escaping due to layers of local government checkpoints.

Eshan Mansion, located on the front line, was one of the settlement points for serious criminals.

Of course, although they were strictly supervised, Lu Yuan did not send these serious criminals here just for them to work.

Their most important task was to marry and have children, helping to assimilate the large number of Yi families who had lost their husbands nearby.

Thus, under the arrangement of the local government, more than 3,000 serious criminals were quickly allocated to their own Yi wives and yi stepchildren, according to one family per person.

These Yi families would follow their newly assigned pillars of support and together bear the responsibility of developing local areas and building prefectures and counties for the Great Chu.

Not only these serious criminals, but other lighter criminals who had been exiled here, were also assigned to Yi wives and children according to specific circumstances.

However, there were even more of these lighter criminals. By the end of last year, more than 5,000 had been exiled here, adding more than 5,000 households to Qianzhong County.

And this year, the exile of criminals has reached a peak.

By the end of the seventh month, a total of 700 serious criminals and 12,000 lighter criminals have been exiled to Qianzhong County from various prefectures and counties in the Chu State.

Among them, 1,000 criminals also had their families following them, migrating to Qianzhong County together.

After two years of continuous exile, nearly 25,000 people have been added to Qianzhong County, greatly enriching the local area and making outstanding contributions to the rule of Chu in this land.

It is precisely because of this that Lu Yuan attaches great importance to this work of settling migrants.

He carefully inquires wherever he goes.

“Your Majesty, by the end of last year, Eshan Mansion received 1,200 serious criminals and 1,100 lighter criminals. By July of this year, we received another 300 serious criminals and 3,300 lighter criminals.

A total of 1,500 serious criminals and 4,400 lighter criminals have arrived.

According to the Migration and Garrison Laws for Migrants to Qianzhong issued by Your Majesty, these 5,900 serious and lighter criminals have all chosen Yi women and children, been allocated and settled, and have become part of the local household registration in Eshan Mansion, enriching the population.

Among the 1,500 serious criminals, three military garrison towns have been set up according to the regulations, each with 100 county soldiers to supervise and watch over them.

Nowadays, criminals in various places, both military and civilian, have been gradually settling down and producing.

Even the newly exiled have caught up with the summer planting under the supervision of local officials, and in a few months, they will have their autumn harvest.

If this continues every year, it won’t take ten years for Eshan Mansion to have 50,000 Chu households and thoroughly turn this land into royal land,” Eshan Prefect Chen Yuanxiu confidently replied.

With today’s intensity of exile, Eshan Mansion can receive 5,000 to 7,000 serious and lighter criminals every year. After arriving in the local area, these criminals will be assigned corresponding Yi women and children for assimilation purposes.

At this rate, in ten years, they could compile 50,000 to 70,000 households and add about 300,000 registered population to the area.

Thirty thousand people in one prefecture would be roughly the same scale even in the Chu interior.

With such a population, of course, it can help the Great Chu to gain full control of this land.

Of course, all of the above is only an ideal state.

In practice, it is not possible to achieve such perfection.

For example, in the Chu interior, as the years go by, local commoners will be deterred by the severity of punishment and will certainly restrain their actions, not daring to provoke punishment easily. The number of offenders each year will naturally decrease.

The number of criminals to be exiled in subsequent years will naturally decrease accordingly, and it is impossible for five or six thousand people to be sent here every year.

Moreover, on the side of Qianzhong County, there are many Yi women and children from the local area who have lost their husbands and fathers, and it is very easy to assign them without any resistance.

But after the initial two or three years of allocation, all suitable Yi families will be distributed, and some Yi children will grow up and form new families. Then, those Yi women will get old and no longer be of reproductive age.

In such a situation, it will not be so easy to find suitable Yi families for allocation.

Therefore, this practice of assigning Yi women and children to criminals after exile can at most last for three to five years.

And in the local area, whether there are so many Yi families available for criminal allocation is also a question.

After all, the entire Qianzhong County has only six to seven hundred thousand native Yi people left, according to rough estimates.

This number of people, a maximum of 200,000 households, can’t be allocated for more than a few years.

Therefore, with all the above factors, it is almost impossible to increase the registered population of Eshan Mansion to more than 50,000 within ten years.

After all, the total population of Eshan Mansion, including local Yi people, is less than 70,000.

With these 70,000 people, it would be impossible to increase the population to 300,000 in ten years, even if each family had one child a year.

This is obviously a lie.

But what time is it now?

The king is here to inspect the work, and as a local official, it is natural to speak well.

Never mind whether it can be done or not, at least the face-saving talk must be pleasing to the ear.

After all, taking care of the king first and making him happy is the most important thing.