Reborn as King of South America

Chapter 113 Dividing the Land
The development and growth of a team is inseparable from the correct command of the core leader. In the peasant uprising war, a small armed force needs a wise and courageous commander to lead the team to continuously defeat the enemy and grow stronger. When the team size grows to a certain extent, the initial armed force obtains one or several stable bases. At this time, the team needs not only a daring entrepreneurial leader, but also some professional talents to manage the entire team and ensure the smooth operation and progress of the team.

The Chinese Independence Army grew from small to large, from a chaotic group of Taiping remnants and laborers to an emerging force that fought thousands of miles away and had more than 100,000 soldiers. Li Mingyuan's reasonable planning of the army in the early days played a significant role. At the same time, a complete set of promotion and reward and punishment systems within the Chinese Independence Army cleared the space for ordinary soldiers to rise, excavated and mobilized the development potential of more than 100,000 Chinese to the greatest extent, and enabled a group of capable Chinese to stand out in the army, such as Liu Pu, Chen Guozhu, Luo Dapao, Wang Dashan, Luo Linshan, Sun Bin and others. Except for Luo Linshan, who later launched the Chinese uprising in South America and was considered a recorded commander in history, the others were ordinary people who were unknown in the vast history. If Li Mingyuan had not come, their fate would either be to survive under the oppression of the white people in South America, or to rise up in resistance because they were unwilling to be enslaved. Then, because the Chinese forces were scattered and there was no influential and persuasive leader to command them, they were eventually annihilated one by one by the white people in South America, just like the result of the Chinese labor uprising in history.

When three people walk together, there must be one who can be my teacher. In a large group, there are bound to be all kinds of people. In normal times, people with special talents will be like everyone else because they have no chance to show their talents. When the country is in chaos or encounters a major crisis, those people with potential talents in their bones will take advantage of the situation and step onto the historical stage that belongs to them.

Current events create heroes. Because of the emergence of Li Mingyuan, more than 100,000 Chinese in South America were eliminated through brutal battles, and a group of key military talents and logistics management talents were selected. These people ensured the normal operation and strong combat effectiveness of the Chinese Independence Army. They were the solid foundation for maintaining Li Mingyuan's rule.

After fighting for thousands of miles and more than half a year, the Chinese Independence Army arrived in Rio Grande do Sul in southern Brazil. On the way, 15,000 Chinese died in battle or due to illness. Many soldiers embarked on the journey with the tempting promises of land, property, etc. made by Li Mingyuan in their hearts. Some of them died on the way to the expedition, but most of the Chinese in South America persisted. Because they had nothing and suffered from the oppression of white people in South America, they understood how precious a piece of land of their own was. With a yearning for land and a stable and free life, and trust in Li Mingyuan, they overcame many difficulties and finally arrived in Rio Grande do Sul. Now, Li Mingyuan is ready to fulfill his promise in advance. Every Chinese soldier who arrives alive will receive 300 acres of land, and soldiers who have made contributions in the battle will receive additional land as a reward.

The three hundred acres of land were not awarded to individual Chinese soldiers, but were intended to be the owners of the land for the Chinese soldiers who obtained it to form normal families. Each family would have two young laborers, a man and a woman, and children to be born one or two years later. A family of four or five people with three hundred acres of land was the perfect family structure that Li Mingyuan envisioned.

The population of the Chinese Independence Army is relatively small, and immigration from the mainland and Southeast Asia will take a long time to take effect, so encouraging Chinese soldiers and newly recruited women of childbearing age to have more children is the main policy to be implemented in the early stages. With the policy support of the Chinese Independence Army, it is the basic goal for a couple of childbearing age to raise three children. Four or five are the numbers the government advocates, while one or two are not up to standard.

In Li Mingyuan's plan, when the first and second generation children grew up, the eldest son would inherit the family's land and property, while the second, third, fourth, and other sons would be directed by the government to divide the fields on the newly expanded land.

Families with few offspring will not be punished on the surface, but they will suffer a loss compared to families with many offspring when the newly expanded land is distributed. Li Mingyuan plans to use this covert method to encourage Chinese families to have more children.

After Li Mingyuan sorted out the methods to encourage Chinese people to have children, he discussed them with Liu Pu. After reading them, Liu Pu generally agreed, but he also added a sentence: Han people have always emphasized having many children and being blessed since ancient times. As long as the family living conditions permit, raising more children is the first choice for the vast majority of Chinese people. Therefore, solving the problem of single Chinese soldiers and distributing 300 acres of land to Chinese soldiers, Chinese soldiers who have land and wives will naturally consider continuing the family line as their top priority without Li Mingyuan's encouragement.

In order to encourage Chinese people in South America to have children, the government needs to implement a lot of policy publicity and rewards. However, after hearing Liu Pu's words, he realized that now is not the time when the economy is developing rapidly. The three unfilial acts, and the greatest of them is to have no descendants, is still the orthodox concept in the minds of Chinese people.

Dividing land, getting married and having children, and encouraging population growth will eliminate concerns, and the top priority of dividing land must be put on the table and implemented.

Li Mingyuan followed the first batch of 20,000 field troops to arrive in Rio Grande do Sul. In the more than ten days when most of the Chinese in South America had not arrived yet, the work of counting the combat achievements of all soldiers and officers had been proceeding in an orderly manner. Most of them arrived in Rio Grande do Sul and the troops were temporarily stationed around Porto Alegre. Li Mingyuan summoned all senior generals. In addition to the plan to expel Brazilian residents that he had just discussed with Luo Linshan, the rest of the time was mainly spent on discussing the division of land.

The land was divided, with each soldier getting 300 mu of land, and soldiers with military merits getting an extra piece of land. The principle of land distribution was easy to confirm, but the specific division of the land, where the land was divided, and how fertile the land was were all questions that could not be explained in just a sentence or two.

Rio Grande do Sul is vast in area and has fertile land. Porto Alegre, the most stable occupied area of ​​the Chinese Independence Army, alone can accommodate more than 28.1 Chinese. However, Li Mingyuan's focus is not on Porto Alegre or Rio Grande do Sul, but on a larger area of ​​fertile land in South America. He dispersed more than Chinese across square kilometers of land in Rio Grande do Sul, expelled local Brazilian residents, reclaimed land, built small fortresses, and connected Rio Grande do Sul into a group of interconnected fortresses using fortresses and smooth trading roads. At that time, if the Brazilian army took the initiative to invade, they would be greeted with ubiquitous blows and the all-out attack of the main force of the Chinese Field Army, which would eventually kill any Brazilian army that dared to set foot in Rio Grande do Sul.

(End of this chapter)