Chaling colony on the south coast of the Persian Gulf.
In the later generations of the Qatar Peninsula, now the Li Family Chaling Colony, no one knew the name of Qatar, because the surrounding generation of Arab tribes had already been wiped out by the Li family, and they either moved away early or died.
They were used as slaves by the Li family and sold to all over the world.
Naturally, no one here remembers its previous name. Everyone only knows the current Chaling Colony, which was one of the many overseas colonies of the Ming Dynasty, and the vassal state was regarded as one of the most fertile colonies.
Here in the Chaling Colony Governor's Mansion, Li Zhaofan, the stepson of former Ming Dynasty Cabinet Minister Li Dongyang, is sitting in front of the huge floor-to-ceiling window, drinking tea leisurely and looking at the prosperous and lively Chaling Colony in front of him.
Calculating time, almost 20 years have passed. When I first came here, it was a barren desert land.
Today, this place has become the most prosperous, lively and rich area in the entire Persian Gulf region.
Thinking of the hard days in the past, Li Zhaofan couldn't help but sigh.
At that time, the Ming Empire had a craze for going overseas to occupy colonies and establish vassal states. The vassals of the Ming Empire went to sea one after another to establish their own vassal states overseas. At the same time, a large number of wealthy families, dignitaries, and big families of the Ming Empire also went to sea to establish overseas states.
A colony of its own.
Due to various reasons, the Li family failed to keep up with the trend of the times, so that after all the good places overseas were occupied by others, the Li family took action.
In the end, after hopping around, there was really no place to go, so I chose the Persian Gulf and established Chaling Colony here.
When the colony was first established here, life was really hard at first. There was very little drinkable water here, and there was a desert everywhere.
Not to mention gold or silver, there is not even the most basic arable land. Many tribesmen are scolding themselves, saying that they have chosen a desert, a place where birds do not poop.
At that time, all the drinking water needed to be transported to Persia on special ships. Life was so difficult that we had to sell half of the ownership of the colony to Liu Jin, the current chief minister of the Ming Dynasty cabinet, so that we could persevere.
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Later, a continuous war broke out in the two river basins, and the Chaling colony slowly persisted by relying on transit trade, buying and selling slaves, grain, and fishing for pearls from the Persian Gulf.
But it is still impossible to become one of the richest colonies, and the sales are simply not enough to support it.
It was not until later that Liu Jin bought half of the ownership and pointed out that there was a large amount of oil buried underground. After exploration, it was discovered that there were extremely rich oil resources under the desert here.
Later, with the discovery of the internal combustion engine, the development of oil smelting technology, the demand for oil became increasingly strong, and the price continued to rise, the Chaling colony truly came out of its difficult days and began to rapidly become wealthy.
Today's Chaling Colony not only has a large number of oil fields, but even if you sit down every day, the continuous flow of oil has also brought a steady stream of wealth to the Chaling Colony.
There are many oil ships coming here every day. The oil produced here is mainly sold to the South African colonies, Ning Kingdom, Chu Kingdom and other overseas colonies and vassal states.
The huge oil revenue also made the Chaling Colony become rich almost overnight. Billions of money continued to flow in. Last year alone, the Chaling Colony earned more than 30 million taels of silver just from selling oil.
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The income of thirty million taels of silver was certainly nothing to the huge Ming Empire, but to Chaling Colony, a colony with a population of only tens of thousands.
This is very scary, very terrifying, and it is an extremely huge number.
With such considerable oil profits, Li Zhaofan did not forget to give back to his people.
Of course, speaking of itself, all the people in Chaling Colony are related to the Li family.
When Li Zhaofan came to Chaling, he received strong support from the Li clan. They not only provided money and effort, but also provided people. Almost the entire Li family moved from Chaling, Huguang to Chaling.
In addition, there are a large number of fellow villagers, relatives and friends from the Chaling area who believed in the Li family and followed the Li family overseas, believing that one day they would be able to live a good life.
Who would have known that after coming to Chaling, there would be no good days. This miserable life lasted for several years. It was not until the emergence of oil that things became easier.
So now that we have considerable oil profits, we have begun to continuously give back to our own people.
In addition to regularly distributing money to his tribe, Li Zhaofan also invested heavily in his colony.
For the Li family, this place will be their land and home passed down from generation to generation. This colony is equivalent to an independent kingdom.
The Li family not only has its own governor-general organization here, but also has an army of several thousand people. If necessary, the entire population can be mobilized.
This Chaling is the kingdom of the Li family, and the kingdom of the entire Li family must of course be managed well.
After getting rich, Li Zhaofan became more willful.
There is no decanted water, right? So just check out the colonies and build several large seawater decanted chemical plants. They spend money to hire people to research this seawater decanted technology. Now they mainly rely on boiling seawater and then condensing it to obtain decanted water.
water way.
This method is obviously not as good as the advanced decomposition technology of later generations, and is very inefficient and requires a lot of energy.
But the rich and willful Chaling Colony doesn't care about this now. It's just about money. They have plenty of money now.
I will directly install several large-scale seawater dewatering chemical plants for you. The seawater decanted not only meets the needs of daily life, but is also used to water a large amount of flowers and plants in Chaling Colony.
Chaling Colony, which was originally a desert, has now changed its appearance. It is full of birds and flowers, lawns and trees can be seen everywhere, and the level of greening is quite high.
Moreover, with the rapid growth of Chaling colonial population, it continued to extend into the desert, resulting in extremely spectacular scenes.
The place where there is irrigation through the Chaling Colony's tap water system is an oasis, while the place where there is no tap water irrigation is a desert and extremely hot.
In order to plant trees in this desert, Chaling Colony even imported a large amount of soil from Persia, covered the sand with soil, and then planted trees. It was not short of money.
The wealthy Chaling colony was the first to truly enter into a welfare social system similar to that of later generations.
Based on the Chaling Colony's oil revenue last year, Chaling Colony has introduced some related welfare systems. Based on the population, everyone, regardless of gender, age or child, can receive 300 taels of silver from the Colonial Governor's Office every year.
This number is much higher than the average income of the Ming Empire, and is enough for every family here to live an extremely wealthy life.
You need to know that regardless of age or gender, this means that children in the family can receive this money. If a family has 10 people, they can receive 3,000 taels of silver this year.
With such huge and considerable income, everyone in Chaling Colony can sit and eat without having to do any work at all.
In addition, free medical care and education are implemented in Chaling Colony. There is no need to spend money to see a doctor here. The Governor's Palace pays for it. There is no charge for studying. The schools here are all opened by the Governor's Palace, and they are all free.
All children can study for free.
If you can read and want to take the imperial examination or the higher education institutions of the Ming Empire, Chaling Colony will also provide a lot of subsidies, rewards and support.
The Li family has a famous official like Li Dongyang, so it is naturally a scholarly family. Most of the family's children mainly study. Even if they go overseas, they can return to the Ming Dynasty to take the imperial examination.
As long as you can pass the examination, you will not only be rewarded in the colony, but you can also hold important positions in the Governor's Mansion.
If you can get into Ming Dynasty or any higher education institution in the South African colony, there will also be rewards. Support and investment in study is what the Li family has always been willing to do.
Under such rewards, the Li Family Colony produced a lot of talents, not only those who passed the Juren Examination, but also many new talents studying in colleges and universities in Ming Dynasty and South Africa.
They are the future of the Li family. The rich Li family can also develop in some scientific and technological fields in the future, investing in South Africa and some industries of the Ming Empire.
Compared with the rich people of later generations who only know how to show off their wealth and spend money in various ways, the Li family of Chaling Colony understands the long-term strategy better and pays more attention to education.
Of course, this is also because the Li Family Colony is under the system of the entire Ming Empire and can rely on the Ming Empire. It does not mean that it is completely and truly a separate country.
There are many welfare systems similar to this, and the entire Chaling colony is currently the first place in the world to establish such a complete welfare system.
This system is similar to the welfare system of later generations, taking into account all aspects.
Of course, this is also related to the special situation of the Li family's Chaling colony. This place is basically filled with members of the Li family, relatives and friends. Everyone has come here to live a hard life. When there is a good life, it is natural to take care of everyone.
Other colonies may have similar situations, but they do not have resources like oil that can make them rich overnight. Even if they want to develop these benefits, they do not have enough funds.
"We have a lot of money, but we still have to find ways to keep investing. Letting money make money is the way to go!"
Li Zhaofan looked at the prosperous Chaling colony, but he was thinking about long-term things in his mind.