Chapter 553: Large-Scale Reforms (3)

The first representative called upon stood up, but he was clearly somewhat flustered, and he kept his head lowered while speaking: "King, what I am concerned about is the towns outside; without the protection of city walls, what should we do? When the enemy comes, won't we have no way to defend ourselves?"

He sat down immediately after finishing, very flustered. Baifeng first asked everyone not to be too nervous and to speak slowly. Only then did he answer this representative's doubt: "Although there are no city walls, our Huaxia already has over one hundred thousand people. I suspect that perhaps only the Xuanyuan Tribe and the Shennong Clan have slightly more people than Huaxia now. The greatest threat, the Suiren Clan, can no longer be considered a threat; their strength is now only half of what it was. No tribe dares to attack Huaxia at will, so whether there are city walls or not is actually not much of a problem."

Huaxia City is where the most important things are—grain seeds, knowledge, and the largest population—so it must have the protection of city walls.

Furthermore, all towns will have armies to protect them. You yourselves are Soldiers, so why are you afraid? Huaxia will not be short of Weapons for you; you can have whatever kind of Weapon you want. Moreover, Bombs will also be distributed to every tribe. No matter which tribe attacks, every town will have enough time to hold out until people can retreat to Huaxia City, or until Huaxia sends an army to support them."

The complexion of the representative from the rear city border area looked much better. This was indeed a very obvious truth, but unfortunately, they were accustomed to the protection of city walls. Once they left the city walls, they seemed to feel that there was danger everywhere. However, given the current level of Huaxia's strength, what danger could there still be?

"However," Baifeng continued, "the stationing of troops and the configuration of weapons in each town still require the Ministry of War to carry out reforms. Because currently, the management and systems of the Ministry of War are still not very good, and the army also needs to be expanded. These all belong to the content of this meeting."

Baifeng pointed his hand at the second representative: "If you have any doubts, you may bring them up."

The second person's state was much better; they were not that flustered and tried their best to remain calm: "King, what about the infrastructure in the towns, especially water? Although it is not convenient to use water where we live now, if we still have to fetch water from the river in the towns, it will be even more inconvenient."

"Hmm, what you mentioned is also something that definitely needs to be solved. Every time a city or a town is built, water and food are the first things to be solved. For food, there is a large area of farmland next to the town that can provide food for the town. For housing, let's continue to use the previous model."

People who want to move to the town will provide the labor, the Ministry of Works will provide the construction work, and the government will provide all the necessary building materials. The size of the house and the size of the courtyard will be linked to the number of people in your family. If you want a larger one, you will have to pay the extra costs yourself.

The land for building the house will be your own cultivated land. Regarding this cultivated land, it seems that most of it was cleared by yourselves, and a portion was cleared by hired tenant farmers. We will discuss the distribution of cultivated land later. Anyway, for the first year, I guarantee you that you do not need to pay taxes; whatever you harvest is yours. We will collect taxes in the second year, and future taxes will all be lower than those in the city."

People who felt they might move to the towns had some joy on their faces. Now, this actually seemed not bad. In the city, the only relatively good thing was the protection of the city walls, which was safer. However, the conditions where they lived were not very good, and it was very difficult for them to quickly improve their conditions now. After all, Huaxia City was too small and the population was too large, so the competition was too intense. If they went to the towns, the possibility of becoming wealthy in the future would be much higher.

Baifeng pointed his hand at the third representative: "What question do you have to ask?"

The third representative hurriedly stood up and said: "King, I have no questions. What I wanted to ask, the two of them have already said."

"Good, what about the people behind? Are there any more questions?"

The remaining people were quiet, indicating that they had no more questions.

Baifeng pressed his hand on the table: "Good, then this item is considered finished. I will state my plan again. We need to build at least three towns around Huaxia City to cope with the large increase in population later. The towns must also start clearing wasteland today to increase more farmland. All preferential policies will be available to ensure that the more wasteland cleared, the better."

In the future, the towns will also be like the Xiao Town currently under construction, having simple government departments. This is also an opportunity for everyone. Perhaps these few towns around here can be built earlier than Xiao Town."

The situation at Lema City is the same; it also needs to build towns. The population of Lema City is already saturated. When the city was first built, it was built smaller than Huaxia City. Although the population is small now, the pressure is just as great. You must also build towns on the farmland cleared in the surrounding areas, do you understand?"

The officials of Lema City answered in unison that they understood. This could be considered as solving one of their major difficulties. Fortunately, the planning of Lema City was relatively reasonable, otherwise, it would already be full of problems.

Baifeng tapped the table: "Good, now let's proceed to the next item. Based on this population issue, many problems have been brought up, especially in medical care and education. But because medical care is also related to education—without schools to train them, there won't be so many doctors—therefore, for the next item, let's focus on this education issue. Cheng, you explain the current status of the schools."

Minister of Education Cheng, who is also the main person in charge of all schools, said: "Currently, Huaxia has three stages of schools: Primary, Intermediate, and Advanced. All students total twelve thousand three hundred and seventy people. Among them, the Primary stage accounts for eight thousand people. The focus of their training is to let them be able to read and write and know basic arithmetic."

Being able to recognize and write common characters and being able to use addition and subtraction meets the graduation standard. During this period, they will be constantly tested to screen out some people who are not suitable for learning, allowing them to learn other skills early. The proportion of such people is basically one-tenth every year."

After graduating from Primary School, one must pass an exam to enter Intermediate School; the pass rate is half. Those who do not pass will go to learn handicraft skills. After entering Intermediate School, they must reach the level of being proficient in reading and writing all characters and be able to use addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Then they can choose the direction they like to study as the direction for future study in Advanced School."

Intermediate School also has assessment and elimination. After graduation, there will be another exam to screen out those who will enter Advanced School. However, the pass rate is much higher; eighty percent can enter Advanced School."