While Tong Lesheng was away investigating, Lu Yuzhi and the other person went outside the city alone, leaving Elder Tianji waiting for the investigation results in the small wooden house.
After leaving the city, they found a secluded spot and entered the space. Su Muqing purchased a box truck from the apocalypse mall, and then they loaded all the supplies onto the truck.
Taking advantage of the fact that no one was outside the space, Su Muqing moved the truck out, and Lu Yuzhi then drove the truck back into the city.
By the time they brought the supplies back, Tong Lesheng had also finished his investigation. The people who had come to join them were all registered when they first entered the settlement, so it was easy to check.
While they sat together for a cup of tea, Tong Lesheng reported the findings of his investigation. According to the information he had gathered, as many as half of the people in this settlement were temporary families formed with others.
The majority of these were widows with children or widowers whose wives had passed away. While they lived together voluntarily, a small portion of them did not.
Most of these individuals were adolescents. Upon learning that Huaxia City distributed grain per capita, they threatened the lone individuals not to speak out. Those who resisted or disobeyed were beaten severely by these people.
Su Muqing instructed Tong Lesheng to handle the matter immediately. It would be best to find people to investigate each case individually and separate those who were threatened.
These children had lost their parents and were already living a difficult life. Now that they finally had something to eat, it was being taken away by others. How could they survive?
Since they encountered this situation today, they might as well resolve it completely. Those who were not willing would be arranged to live in a separate room.
Their original plan was to distribute supplies during their break on the twenty-eighth of the twelfth lunar month. However, Elder Tianji said that heavy snow would start that night and continue for several days.
In this case, it would be impossible to allocate other living spaces for this group of people, and they would likely have to stay in the settlement until after the New Year.
Su Muqing thought about it and decided to start their holiday from today. They would use the next two days to distribute the New Year's supplies to all the settlements.
In addition, each settlement would be stocked with extra items, so they could cope with any refugees who came to join them temporarily.
Su Muqing also asked them to select some capable people from each settlement to cooperate with the staff sent from Huaxia City to manage the other residents in the settlement during the New Year.
"Staff" who stayed to be on duty at the settlement would receive double wages and double supplies daily, while those selected from the refugees would also receive a daily wage.
When selecting people, Su Muqing pointed to Qi San, who had just helped build the roof, and said to Tong Lesheng, "I think that person is quite good. He is willing to help with the work even though he knows he won't be living here long. Keep him when you select people later."
"Yes, City Lord," Tong Lesheng replied, took out a thick notebook, and made a mark next to Qi San's name from Qi Family Village.
After Su Muqing finished stating her requirements, Tong Lesheng took the roster and found the village heads and leaders of each village in the settlement. First, he asked the village heads to make recommendations.
As soon as they heard that selected people would receive wages, the village heads tried their best to push their own family members forward. Tong Lesheng compared the roster and listened to the names they reported. Although merit should not be avoided due to kinship, they couldn't always push their own family members!
Tong Lesheng interrupted the village heads who were still recommending people and then took the roster to find the staff members of the settlement.
They had been on duty here for the past two days, so they knew who was diligent, who spoke and acted righteously, and who were lazy slackers who treated their families badly.
They should have known a little about these situations. In any case, it was better than those village heads reporting the names of all their family members.
While Tong Lesheng was selecting people and investigating the situation, Su Muqing and the others continued to transport supplies.
They transported more than ten loads of supplies to the city's warehouse, each load filled with grain. In total, they transported over a hundred tons of various coarse and fine grains.
When they delivered the grain, the place responsible for the refugees' meals had already begun preparing dinner. Because there were too many people eating, the cooks worked in three shifts, and the stoves here were never extinguished.
The main food they made was coarse flour steamed buns and pancakes, which were more filling. The grain that Lao San and the others had transported earlier was almost consumed. With the large amount of grain they transported today, it was estimated that it would be enough for the tens of thousands of people in these settlements to eat for a month or two.
After transporting the grain, Su Muqing also transported several carts of charcoal. These items were consumed too quickly. She had lamented more than once that fortunately, Fengshen had given her this Ruyi space, otherwise, if she had to do it alone, this task would have failed again.
Su Muqing blew on her hands, wiped the sweat from her forehead with her sleeve, and felt very tired being the city lord. Other city lords just had to lie down and issue orders, but she not only had to pay and provide people but also personally get involved and take action.
Oh well! Who told her she brought this trouble upon herself! In fact, wouldn't it be more fulfilling to create the rules of this world and build it up?
The two of them worked for several hours and finally finished transporting all the grain. Now they just needed to wait until the day before the New Year to send another thousand catties of pork, two thousand catties of fish, and enough hot pot base.
After all, it was the New Year, so it was to add some meat to everyone's diet. Although they couldn't eat to their heart's content, it could change their taste and satisfy their cravings.
By the time Su Muqing and the other person finished with the grain, it was already past three o'clock in the afternoon. When they returned to the South City settlement, Tong Lesheng had already selected over nine hundred people who were waiting for them there.
Su Muqing did not rest. She activated the analysis panel of the space detector and began to move back and forth among the selected people, finally eliminating over a hundred people she deemed unqualified.
This was because the dots representing these people on the detector's analysis panel were all dark red. Su Muqing had encountered a similar situation once before.
Months ago, she met a man in the gladiatorial arena who instigated other children's parents to exchange their children and roast them. In the end, she killed him by hacking him to death.
At that time, the man's dot on the detector was dark red, so when Su Muqing saw the dense black and red dots on the screen, she felt extremely disgusted.
As Tong Lesheng had instructed the village heads not to reveal the matter of wages for the time being, the village heads naturally complied.
After all, almost everyone in their families had been selected, so these village heads would not oppose at this critical juncture.
As for those who were selected, they did not know why they were suddenly called out and then sent back. They thought that since they were just out for a walk and wouldn't lose anything, they didn't ask much.
After confirming the personnel, Su Muqing asked the person in charge of the South City settlement to divide the selected over eight hundred people into ten teams to uniformly arrange and assign the tasks to be done next.
The wages were 15 wen per person per day. For those who were diligent and responsible, there would be other rewards after the New Year.
Struck by a windfall, those who were selected only then realized that they had suddenly taken on a job and could receive 15 wen in wages every day.
The selected people could only giggle foolishly, so happy they were speechless. Their families were also very happy, especially those families with two or three people selected, who could now earn tens of wens in wages every day.
This was truly wonderful. With money, they could go into the city to buy things.
Once the personnel were confirmed, the matter of those who were forced to pretend to be a family and had their grain seized was also almost resolved.
Tong Lesheng tallied the number of people cleared out, and it was quite a lot, over seven hundred people.
Su Muqing instructed Tong Lesheng to arrange these people properly. They could form their own teams, or he could assign them, as long as everyone could be ensured to have enough to eat.
To prevent such incidents from happening again, Su Muqing said sternly in front of everyone, "If there are any future incidents of seizing others' grain, not only will the perpetrators be severely punished, but the staff responsible for supervising this group will also be held accountable. Therefore, I hope such incidents will not happen again."
It was not until after four o'clock in the afternoon that Su Muqing and the others left South City and went to another settlement. With the experience of the previous handling, this time they directly revealed their identities upon arrival, and their focus was on two matters.
First, to identify those who were forced into teams and reassign them. Second, to select suitable people from the refugees to manage the refugees together with the staff from Huaxia City.
This time, both Tong Lesheng and Su Muqing found it much easier to handle, and the time spent was significantly reduced.
However, even though they had increased their speed several times, they only visited three more settlements. By then, it was already past eight o'clock in the evening, and the refugees had almost started to sleep.
Su Muqing and the others had to rush back to Huaxia City overnight, as there were still more than a dozen places to visit there. The remaining three sites could only be handed over to Tong Lesheng and Elder Tianji.
Upon returning to the county office, Su Muqing took out a packet of hot pot base, prepared some meat dishes and meatballs, and cooked a large pot. The few of them ate the entire pot of food with the coarse flour steamed buns they had received.
They had worked from morning to night today, only eating breakfast before starting work. Their stomachs had long been rumbling, but they simply didn't have the time to eat.
After eating, Lu Yuzhi and the others drove the car to return to Huaxia City. After about an hour of driving, the SUV arrived outside Huaxia City.
Just as Lu Yuzhi was about to enter the city, Su Muqing suddenly asked him to change course. Thus, in the middle of the night, the two of them drove to the place where they had fought the Japanese pirates before.
Leng Qi and Leng Shi were responsible for the construction of the military camp here. Seeing the SUV suddenly appear, they were both stunned. It was already late at night; why had Young Master and the others come to the seaside?
Leng Nuo leaped down from the observation deck nearby, landing directly on the roof of their car. He hung his legs on the iron bar of the car roof and performed a bat-like inversion.
He patted the window of the passenger seat. Su Muqing lowered the glass and looked at the handsome face in front of her, leaning back. Leng Nuo grinned and asked with his white teeth, "Miss Su, Young Master! Is it really you? Why have you come so late?"
Lu Yuzhi got out of the car first, then walked to the passenger side, grabbed the inverted Leng Nuo, and gently threw him away with a flick of his wrist.
After being thrown several meters away, Leng Nuo skillfully spun in the air and then leaped back onto the car roof to chat with Su Muqing.
Leng Qi also walked over at this time and bowed to the two of them. "Young Master, Miss Su, you are here..."
"It's nothing, we just came to take a look. Are you on duty tonight? How is the progress here?" Lu Yuzhi asked him while shining a spotlight towards the military camp.
"Everything is being repaired according to the blueprints provided by Miss Su. Ninety percent is already completed. It's just that the temperature has been too low recently, and the workers are a bit overwhelmed." Leng Qi took out the blueprints, pointed to the unfinished parts, and truthfully reported the situation of the workers.
Lu Yuzhi looked at the blueprints, then blew his whistle to summon the eagle. He leaped onto the eagle's back and had it carry him around the entire military camp in a large circle.
The winter night was still clearly visible under the backdrop of the white snow. Moreover, after consuming a lot of spirit spring water, Lu Yuzhi's five senses were much more acute than ordinary people.
Sitting on the eagle's back, he looked down from above. The neat, square houses in rows below were the soldiers' dormitories.
On the other side, there was a spacious training ground, as well as small practice fields for learning shooting and other skills, and a large canteen that could accommodate thousands of people for dining at the same time.
After comparing them one by one with the blueprints, Lu Yuzhi confirmed that only some unimportant facilities were not yet completed. He then rode the eagle back to the ground and said to Leng Qi, who had followed him.
"Notify them. Starting tomorrow, work will be completely halted. You will supervise the payment of their wages here and then let these workers return to their assigned settlements to celebrate the New Year. As for the remaining unfinished parts, we will deal with them next year."
"Yes, subordinate obeys."
After inquiring about the construction of the military camp, Lu Yuzhi also asked about the general situation of conscription. Leng Qi told him that in the military camp by the sea alone, over seventeen thousand people had been conscripted. These new recruits would report on the sixth day of the first lunar month after the New Year.
As for the conscription situation in the two military camps built at the former Thousand Poisons Sect and bordering Mu Cang County, he did not know much.
Leng San had already reported to Lu Yuzhi yesterday that the western military camp bordering Mu Cang County had now conscripted over thirty thousand people, and the other military camp had about twenty thousand.
This means that in just a few months, Huaxia City had conscripted over seventy thousand new recruits. Lu Yuzhi nodded upon hearing this, and he was quite satisfied with this number in such a short period.