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Two hundred and eighteenth new city outside the Great Wall

...

On September 17th, the territory of the Monlo Grassland...

The weather outside the border gradually began to turn colder. In previous years, what the herders who lived by nomads should do was to store winter food, clothing, and burnt cow dung and firewood (coals were only qualified to be enjoyed by Monroe nobles), and then strengthen the fences of the sheep pens and lay hay to prevent them from freezing to avoid huge economic losses.

However, this year is different. In a large abandoned pasture sixty miles outside Xuanwu Pass, a four-meter-high circular wall that can be seen from the naked eye stands proudly on this foreign grassland. The bamboo scaffolding built around the city wall can be judged that the entire city wall is far from being completed.

Inside the city wall, the situation in various places where the grasslands gradually began to depress, was a vibrant scene. To the naked eye, there were houses repaired with brick walls everywhere, and the houses were surrounded by a wide range of warehouses, making people dazzled.

This is the foreign trade place planned by Liu Ce and Tuoba Yuhai. It is 32 miles in a radius, expanding fourteen miles further than the originally planned 18 miles.

The rivers in the city were crisscrossed and all of them were dug up last month, solving the problem of obtaining water sources for the people in the city. Many herders have begun to settle in. Some merchants from the Northern Central Plains risked their lives to trade. In April, they began to enter the Neizhong Warehouse and carry out trade activities with the herdsmen of the Monroe tribes.

In addition to the warehouses, shops and residences where merchants and ordinary people live, the city also set up various yamen such as the Works Office, Inspection Office, Statistics Office, Commerce Office, Foreign Affairs Office and Tax Office, which really opened the eyes of the Monroe and called the Military Governor's delicacy.

In early June, after the city began to take shape, the first batch of Monroe herders and slaves, about 40,000 slaves, took the lead in entering this brand new city and became the first herders to abandon traditional nomadic life on the grassland.

In the same month, the first 300 merchants from the Central Plains came to the city with a large amount of salt, tea, wine, porcelain, tobacco, vegetables, iron and other grassland essentials, and the transaction between the two parties quickly got on track.

Since the Governor's Office and the Monroe people had agreed that the trade in goods was based on gold, silver and copper as the unit of pricing, which was convenient for tax statistics.

Facts have proved that there is really nothing on the grassland, with only salt. In the first month of entering this new city, 600 stones of fine salt were quickly purchased because of its fine quality and affordable price. Other goods were sold out, making the herdsmen and merchants laughed happily, and the barriers between them gradually began to disappear.

By early September, 70,000 Monroe people had moved in the city. In the Central Plains, except for craftsmen, merchants, people who maintained public order and various government offices, there was no large-scale migration here, which made the Monroe people's nervousness slightly calm down.

Although this city was designed and constructed by the people of the Military Governor's Office, every soil, stone and the manpower and material resources required were all produced by the Monroe people. If they were suddenly dominated by the Central Plains people from the north, they would feel uncomfortable.

"Sir, the price of this salt is 150 cents per pound. Look at the quality, it is better than the green salt I bought from Xia Guo. The key is that the price is four times cheaper, which is really eye-opening..."

Tuoba Hongye's fourth son, the 24-year-old Tuoba Si, became the first city lord of the city. Now, seeing the goods purchased by his subordinates from the shops, they are comparing them one by one.

The subordinate continued, "Look at this broken tea brick, one piece weighs half a pound, and the price is only 250 cents, which is enough for those herdsmen's family to drink for ten days and half months, but they are so happy that they are about to wake up laughing when they dream?

Of course, there are also good tea, but the price is very expensive. The Longjing in Jiangnan costs fifteen taels of silver. Most herders cannot afford it, but the price is more cost-effective than the ones that were made from border vendors before..."

"Sir, when you look at this iron pot again, I really didn't expect that Liu Ce would even dare to sell ironware. Look at the texture, it is really well-made, and there are also the bowl, porcelain, tobacco leaves..."

Seeing his subordinates happily introducing the grassland necessities purchased from the market to him, Tuoba Si silently remembered them in his heart. After the subordinate finished talking about the dozen items he purchased, he asked:

"Did those Central Plains merchants do any bad things? Also, what about our Monroe merchants? What did they sell out?"

The subordinate said embarrassedly: "Sir, so far, the merchants in the Central Plains have not done anything to cheat,

They all took the initiative to pay taxes at the tax office, and our merchants only sold a small amount of goods, all of which were some animal skins and the like…”

Tuoba Si sighed softly and fell into deep thought. Before he came to this city, Tuoba Hongye personally explained to him to learn management experience from the people in the Military Admiral's Office.

The Monroe lacked effective governance of cities and their practices were too simple and crude. They either massacre cities or plundered them. The people would kill them directly if they were dissatisfied. For this reason, the entire Monroe Empire was working hard to find ways to change.

They had spent a lot of money to seek advice on the experience of governing towns in the Western Regions and people from the Central Plains, but unfortunately the effect did not satisfy the upper class of Monroe, because the "brickers" they invited had too little vision and were not suitable for promotion on the grassland outside the border.

Fortunately, the Military Governor's Office took the initiative to let the Tuoba royal family take office as the first city lord. Tuoba Hongye naturally would not miss this once-in-a-lifetime learning opportunity. He immediately sent his 24-year-old son Tuoba Si to serve as the city lord in order to "sneak" the extraordinary management experience of the Military Governor's Office and facilitate the management of major cities in the Central Plains in the future.

Don’t think that nomadic races outside the Frontier must be barbaric and unreasonable. In fact, nomadic races have one place compared to farming races that have an advantage, that is, due to the environmental factors, the spirit of daring to explore is worthy of recognition. You know that you are backward and are brave to make progress, and you dare to constantly learn the excellent knowledge of others.

(Don’t believe it, the origin of the Chinese nation in the past was also gradually moving from nomadic groups to agricultural civilization, and recently created a glorious Chinese civilization of 5,000 years. The Mongols also gradually absorbed the fresh knowledge of various civilizations in their ignorance, and then fought all over the world, establishing the once prosperous Mongolian Empire. The era of Great Discovery in Europe, which has created the golden age to this day, was also facilitated by a group of nomadic descendants.)

At first, Tuoba Si was not very optimistic about whether he could learn the experience of governing the towns in the military governor's office. After all, this was someone's administrative method, so how could he let himself know for free? So he made up his mind to be a hand-off manager in the new city...

However, after Tuoba Si arrived in the new city, his concerns were completely redundant.

The Military Governor's Office was located in various government departments in the new city, and immediately threw all the information in the city onto his desk. He was afraid that he would not understand the Central Plains text, so he specially asked the people from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to serve as a translator for him.

Tuoba Si vaguely remembered the detailed records on the table that made people scalp. He immediately felt that the boss was afraid that he would not be able to be the boss and that he was not here to enjoy his happiness. So he immediately became enthusiastic and devoted himself to his work as the city lord.

Often when he became busy, Tuoba Si read it almost at night, day and night. From the documents he reviewed, he felt for the first time that it was not as simple as he thought to manage a city well, and the knowledge inside was so profound that it was outrageous.

But Tuoba Si enjoyed this fulfilling and busy life very much. Out of the rising period of the Monroe Empire, the nobles of the Monroe Empire were all very studious and willing to endure hardships...

Tuoba Si would take the initiative to ask the officials in the city for what he didn't understand. For example, now, when he learned that the expenditure of the Monroe people was much greater than he expected, he immediately thought of the civil service of the City Civil Affairs Office, Wu Shizhao.

"Take me to Wu's place, and there are some things you want to ask him for advice..."

Tuoba Si muttered, immediately put on a cloak, and regardless of the obstruction of his subordinates, he rushed to the Civil Affairs Office against the cold wind.

On the brand new streets, Tuobasi can see the herders of the former Monroe Empire being selected for their favorite goods in the market. Their faces are filled with joyful smiles from the bottom of their hearts.

"Oh, I have been established for so many years, but I have never seen herders with such a comfortable look..." Tuoba Si sighed and then walked towards the gate of the Civil Affairs Office in the city.

As soon as he entered the Civil Affairs Office, Tuoba Si heard a sound of flipping books, and then smelled a faint fragrance of paper and ink.

In the Civil Affairs Office, there were officials from the Central Plains and officials from the Monroe people. They were all focused on dealing with the affairs at hand at this moment, and even Tuoba Si had not noticed it when he came in.

Tuoba Si's subordinate was about to shout, but was stopped by Tuoba Si. Over the years, he has also been used to the way of doing things in various parts of the city. He has never seen this in the royal court.

"Sister Wu, I have something to talk about again..."

"So it's Lord Tuoba, please..."

After celebrating each other with Wu Shizhao on the main case, both parties quickly entered the next living room. After the tea was delivered, Tuoba Si began to humbly ask Wu Shizhao for his doubts.

Wu Shizhao, who was in charge of civil affairs in Xincheng, and Gu Ziyan, became a new group of officials responsible for the management of affairs outside the Far East.

Because Wu Shizhao has been working diligently for two years, he was appointed by the Civil Affairs Department here to be responsible for the civil affairs issues of the new city outside the West.

This is definitely not a bad person, but it is a huge test to train one's ability to handle civil affairs. If one is not handled well, it may even lose his life.

But this was not a problem at all. After he took office, he immediately launched a series of plan adjustments based on the people's conditions in the city, and used the fastest investment to recruit literate herdsmen from the Monroe people in the city to serve as the starting point of the Civil Affairs Office and also serve as the defense responsibility.

This action directly resolved the ethnic disputes between the Zhou and the Mongolian people, and resolutely implemented the plan to use Mongolia to control Mongolians. Whenever the unreasonable Monroe people were encountered, the recruited Monroe people would be allowed to communicate with them, and even acted as a thug.

However, those Monroe people didn't even know that they had become Wu Shizhao's chess pieces. With their help, the public security in Xincheng quickly became formal. The bloody incident caused by civil affairs disputes dropped by more than 70% to 80% compared to the few months before he took office.

Tuoba Si highly appreciated such a Central Plains man who has rich experience in governing civil affairs. He asked him to solve his doubts several times when he had any confusion in his heart, which was very meaningless.
Chapter completed!
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