Xia Village was peaceful once again after the Yellow Turban Catastrophe. However, popular sentiment and public security had declined due to the influx of refugees.
Currently, the popular sentiment of Xia Village was 75 and public security had become 73.
Theoretically, as long as public security and popular sentiment were adequate, they wouldn't easily decline with Li Kui in charge of the judiciary. However, Chu Tian's OCD tended to act up once those values dropped below 80.
A prison was built in Xia Village using the drawings seized from the renegade general of Langya. Once the prison was built, public security instantly increased from 73 to 80.
It was realistic, in a sense. No matter how pristine and simple the folk custom of a place was, security could only be ensured with the presence of a law enforcement agency.
Except during the busy farming seasons, Li Kui had to manage public security, and in the meantime, supervise the grand-scale construction in the village.
Ever since he was recruited by Chu Tian, Li Kui, who held many posts concurrently, felt as if he was being drained. Due to his joining, the operational efficiency of Xia Village increased marginally.
During the period in which he consigned the team of merchants from Xiaozhu Village to go purchase materials in Langya City and nearby villages, Chu Tian was preoccupied with an important task— household registration.
Xia Village only had 100 villagers in the beginning, with less than 30 households, but they now had over 1,500 villagers, some who came from nearby villages.
After the Yellow Turban Catastrophe, many villages surrounding Xia Village had been devastated, and Xia Village was one of the very few villages nearby. The refugees from different villages had formed small groups in Xia Village, which posed a considerable challenge on public security.
For the sake of the village's long-term development and allocation of labor forces for production, it was imperative that Chu Tian had all the villagers register for residence. Li Kui brought four elite infantrymen and two literate officials for inspection, going house by house. He also brought along Elder Li, who was adept at interacting with the villagers, to placate the public.
Currently, the team handling the internal affairs of the feudal lord's residence predominantly consisted of clerks, household officers, agricultural officers, labor officers, warehouse officers, commercial officers, and prison officers.
Clerks were in charge of documentation. They assisted Chu Tian in dispatching orders and putting up public notices, just because Chu Tian couldn't write all those notices by himself.
Household officers managed household registrations, wedding ceremonies, offerings of sacrifices, and celebrations.
Agricultural officers encouraged and supervised farming and the textile industry, preventing natural disasters and manmade mishaps. They also observed and tracked soil fertility, irrigation and locust plagues.
Labor officers mainly oversaw civil constructions.
Warehouse officers were responsible for the warehouses.
Commercial officers collected industrial taxes and rent.
Prison officers were in charge of law enforcement, prisons, and maintaining public security. Currently, 20 local soldiers had been recruited as makeshift constables.
That was the simple management system in place at Xia Village.
A village of 1,500 could not afford to support a bulky system, especially when several small units were enough to ensure the day to day operations of the village. Besides, if there were too many officers, Xia Village wouldn't be able to pay all their wages.
After all, Chu Tian had an army to feed. The army wasn't incorporated into internal affairs but was directly under Chu Tian's management.
Amidst the raging chaos of the world, armies and forage were everything. The officers of internal affairs helped Chu Tian collect money and food, whereas for the army, Chu Tian himself had the highest command.
The army of Xia Village consisted of 8 light cavalrymen, 70 elite infantrymen, and a great deal of local soldiers.
The training period of the light cavalry and the elite infantry was 14 days, and a maximum of 100 individuals could be trained at one time. Chu Tian could urgently train another batch of infantrymen before the great war began, so there was no need to worry about expanding the army.
The real trouble would be purchasing warhorses. An ordinary warhorse alone cost 20 taels of silver. 200 taels of gold could purchase 100 warhorses at most, but he could not afford to feed them.
"Old man, which village did you come from?"
Li Kui held an account book in his left hand and a quill in his right. A minister like him, who had the qualification of the chancellor of a country, had to do this documentation by himself. It was quite a waste of talent.
Even so, Li Kui still took his tasks seriously, bearing his responsibilities without any grudges.
"I am a teacher, and these are my two sons. We have fled here from the Taohua Village, about 20 miles from here. Those Yellow Turbans burnt our village to ashes, but Xia Village luckily gave us shelter..."
"Be honest with me about your names, ages, and occupations, and whether you have other relatives that are still alive."
"Fine, fine. My name is Wang Sanzhu..."
Li Kui jotted down all the details of their family in the name book.
Currently, Li Kui was holding the post of a household officer, an agricultural officer, a labor officer, and a prison officer all at once. Surprisingly, he could manage all of them very well.
A minister who was capable of managing a whole country certainly wasn't intimidated by managing a large-sized village with a population of over a thousand.
Elder Li served as Li Kui's assistant. His 30 points of politics were nothing in comparison to Li Kui.
With Li Kui around to deal with these types of trivial matters, Chu Tian could basically sit back and do nothing. He had more time to concentrate his efforts on the important things.
Zhao Qi was drilling the local soldiers, while Wu Shang went with the hunters to nearby forests, wanting to improve the meals the villagers had. Hidden requirements like the adequacy of food or the frequency at which the villagers got to have meat could affect popular sentiment.
As for most of the elite light infantry and light cavalry, Chu Tian left them to Hua Mulan training.
Soldiers could obtain experience through daily training as well. The gained experience was relevant to the status of the drilling ground and the commander's attributes of the general. Not only could commander's attributes influence the size of the army under their command, they could even affect the training speed of armies.
For instance, if Cao Cao and Dian Wei were to train a cavalry with an average grade of 10 at the same time, the average grade of Cao Cao's cavalry could reach Grade 50 after a year, while Dian Wei's cavalry would probably have only reached Grade 30.
"I have consigned the merchant troop of Xiaozhu Village to purchase 22 warhorses. Once they arrive, our village will have 30 cavalrymen and 70 elite infantrymen. The soldier to citizen ratio will be 1:15, which is a very stable ratio. Once war breaks out, we will only have to prepare a fortnight in advance in order to train 100 elite infantrymen in time. By then, the ratio will be 1:7.5."
Chu Tian mentioned the military status of Xia Village to Hua Mulan while she was taking a break.
A ratio of 1:15 was difficult to maintain, because the proportion of professional soldiers occupied the youngest, strongest labor forces. They did not have to labor, all they had to do was train every day to enhance their grades.
"You can decide the matter of recruiting soldiers based on the circumstances, master. I am not adept at internal affairs, but in leading the army in wars. I will never take a step back."
Hua Mulan wasn't interested in internal affairs.
The commander charged and stormed in the frontline, while the feudal lord and the civil officers had to crack their heads over recruiting soldiers, collecting forage, paying wages, distributing pensions, transporting forage, and many other nerve-racking logistical affairs.
Li Kui spent three days completing a thorough inspection on all the villagers.
"Lord village chief, I have done as you instructed, and had everyone in the village to register for their residence. There are 479 households in the village. Among them are 625 males, ranging from 15 to 60 years old, and the remaining 963 consist of women, infants, the elderly, and the young. The women can also take part in jobs like spinning, farming, livestock-rearing, and fish-catching.
"Judging the current situation, there are 112 people in the village with special talents, including teachers, seasoned farmers, wandering fighters, doctors, blacksmiths, wine brewers, pig-rearing professionals, dance hostesses..."
"We even have dance hostesses?"
Chu Tian listened to Li Kui's report. Experts wandered among the folk indeed. A tiny village like Xia Village turned out to have 112 special talents.
Li Kui nodded very intently, "We do."
"Bring them to me."
"Master, you have to be a judicious feudal lord. You can't coerce the girls."
"I'm just trying to see what effects the dance hostesses have..."
Chu Tian had not expected Li Kui to be a righteous subordinate, who had the courage to offer honest advice on top of his other talents.
Very soon, two dance hostesses were brought to Chu Tian, both with fairly good looks.
"Xiaozhu and Xiaoqing here, greeting Lord Village Chief."
Chu Tian had called them over to check their attributes, taking a casual glance at Xiaoqing's first.
[Name]: Xiaoqing
[Age]: 17
[Status]: 25
[Command]: 10 [Strength]: 10 [Intellect]: 47 [Politics]: 10 [Charisma]: 75
[Occupation]: Mid-grade dance hostesses (effects of royal academies and brothels +5% when they are stationed in those places)
[Skills]: Low-grade encouragement (slightly enhances morale of the territorial armies), mid-grade music (slightly increases the probability of attracting special talents to the territory)
Chu Tian was taken aback when he saw the effects that resulted from regular life occupations.