Chapter 1110 1105 [Who is more terrible, the wise or the germs? 】
It is said that Australians are descendants of British criminals, but this is not necessarily true.
Historically, before the gold mines were discovered in Melbourne, there were only more than 10,000 descendants of British convicts here. In just three years, more than 100,000 gold diggers arrived, most of whom were American civilians.
The Chinese are also one of the main groups of gold diggers.
Not mentioning the unregistered Chinese workers, only those who were allowed to go overseas by the Qing government. The first batch came with 1,586 people, and the second batch soared to more than 10,000 people, including 20 children and 1
women.
There were so many gold prospectors arriving by boat in a short period of time that the Port of Melbourne could not accommodate so many boats. They could only dock at the banks of the Yarra River, live in temporary shacks on the riverbank, and then walk to the mining area in batches.
There are more than 300 Chinese workers starting from the river bank every day.
Since the Chinese were the last to arrive and there were too many at once, they were naturally squeezed out by white miners from various countries.
In addition, the gold mining method at that time was very primitive and there was no professional machinery at all. The Chinese made all kinds of machinery themselves, and even made wooden water pumps by logging nearby trees. The gold mining efficiency was the highest among all gold diggers, which increasingly aroused the jealousy of white people.
and resentment.
But the Chinese basically come together from the same hometown, and they join the mutual aid association to be very united. They go out to hunt for gold in groups of a hundred, while white people always go in groups of three or five. Can three or five white people beat a hundred Chinese?
What to do if you can't beat the Chinese?
Then the government came forward and formulated a bill specifically to suppress Chinese workers. They continued to increase taxes, increase taxes, and increase taxes on Chinese miners. In the end, nearly 10,000 Chinese workers were forced to jointly protest. After a while, they achieved some results, that is, the Chinese miners' 6 pounds
Resident tax was reduced to £4. Chinese workers continued to protest, and three years later it was reduced to £2.
Although the official official taxes and fees have been reduced, exorbitant taxes and miscellaneous taxes on the Chinese are increasing. The entry tax for gold diggers from other countries has been cancelled, but the entry tax for the Chinese continues to be collected privately, and the new Chinese workers can only go all the way to land.
, it takes a month of trekking to reach the mining area.
The Chinese workers made money, not only opened various shops, but also raised funds to build various temples.
Unfortunately, the temple was soon burned down, and white miners rushed into the Chinese community with muskets, destroying, looting, and burning. Similar conflicts lasted for ten years and eventually ended with a reduction in gold production. Most of the Chinese returned to their hometowns with their money.
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This is not the largest gold mine in Australia, so why did it cause such a sensation?
You must know that the Chinese who came to Melbourne to dig for gold were not piggies. Especially the second batch of Chinese workers who came by boat. They were compatriots recruited by the first batch of Chinese workers who wrote letters.
First, the natural environment is suitable for human survival; second, the local population is sparse.
Melbourne has these two factors at the same time, so gold diggers who come from thousands of miles away can survive and take their income home.
When all the gold was mined in Melbourne, those Chinese who chose to stay even changed careers and became Australian farmers. To be precise, they had long since stopped mining and switched to farming, making money by selling their agricultural products to gold diggers.
This is one of the most suitable areas for farming in Australia.
A Fujian sailor stood on the river bank, grabbed the soil, rubbed it around, and said to Wang Chongdu: "The soil here is very fertile and can be used to grow food."
Wang Chongdu nodded and smiled: "If there is gold and you can farm, it is very likely to create a gold rush. The gold rush in Taiwan has cooled down. It is difficult for individual investors to find the remaining gold. Big merchants are required.
Organize the digging of deep mine tunnels.”
Gao Wenbao calculated the time and said: "From Guangzhou to here, starting in winter, with a smooth journey, it will take about fifty days to arrive. We can also resupply at Java Island on the way, and there will not be many storms. It is safer than going to India."
"What about the local indigenous people?" Li Bin licked his lips.
Li Zuqia said: "It's best not to start a conflict first. If you find a mining area, buy it and give the natives some rare goods. If they really don't want to sell it, you can only occupy it by force."
Wang Chongdu said: "First get a few pieces of nugget gold back and publicize it in Fujian and Guangdong provinces. Just transport a few hundred people over in the first batch. Farm the land and pan for gold at the same time. When a ship is sent to deliver supplies the next year, let the first batch come over."
We write letters to gold diggers and send gold home, and call friends to attract more people to come and dig for gold. We do not participate in gold mining, we only collect gold mining taxes and protection fees to protect gold diggers from being harmed by the indigenous people."
"What should I do if I collect gold mining tax privately and the court pursues it?" Li Zuqian asked.
Wang Chongdu said: "The imperial court will not care about small troubles. At least until there are nearly 10,000 gold diggers here, the imperial court will send tax collectors or even set up a governor-general here. Then we will hand it over.
It’s not too late. Of course, I will inform Your Majesty in advance.”
Sooner or later, gold diggers and natives will clash, especially as their numbers increase, and both sides will inevitably compete for limited land resources.
Do dwarf black people count as human beings?
At least those dwarf black people in Southeast Asia are not included. Whether it is Arabian maritime merchants, Indian maritime merchants, or Southeast Asian and Chinese maritime merchants, they do not regard the dwarf black people in Southeast Asia as human beings.
Whenever they have free time, they will catch dwarf black people as slaves, and the countries in Southeast Asia are the most enthusiastic about this.
In another time and space, the South Sea dwarf black people spread across various islands were captured, and only a few groups survived to modern society. Their numbers are so rare that they are almost as rare as giant pandas.
It is conceivable what the treasure hunting trio will do in Australia, and what the Ming Governor who comes later will do in Australia.
But it will definitely be much more merciful than white people, because white people are planning genocide.
All purebred Australian aborigines are dead, not a single one left!
The so-called Australian Aboriginals in the 21st century are not real Aboriginals at all. They are all mixed-race descendants who were raped by white people. Even the mixed-race descendants were forcibly driven into "reserves" and gathered into tribes to become tourist resources.
According to the Chinese people's peeing habits, most of them would just kill and drive them away. The natives were driven to barren areas. As long as they didn't cause trouble, Ming officials were even willing to civilize foreign races.
In addition, as the number of gold diggers from the Ming Dynasty increased, the primary enemy of the natives was actually foreign germs.
The local natives did not realize that the disaster was coming. After repeated body language communication, the chief sent someone to take them to find gold.
After walking along the river for several days, we met another tribe on the way.
The exchange process was quite peaceful. The two tribes were related by blood. In other words, several nearby tribes had formed an alliance to fight against the more distant tribal alliance.
About twenty miles east of Ballarat in later generations, the Ming Dynasty expedition discovered the first gold nugget.
We continued searching along the river for several days, but had no luck and found nothing.
The prospector simply took out a wooden sieve for gold mining and found gold sand in just half an hour.
In fact, when digging along both sides of the river, there is gold in the soil.
Chinese gold diggers in another time and space were excluded from exploring new mines and specialized in secondary mining in waste mines mined by white people. Coupled with their own logging and production of machinery, the gold mining efficiency could still catch up with white people. It can be seen that
How rich are the gold mines here?
More than 100,000 people have mined it for more than ten years!
After choosing several places along the river to pan for gold, the prospector said to Wang Chongdu after struggling for two or three days: "There is something here, and it is plentiful."
Wang Chongdu nodded and said: "The climate here is also good, and there is fertile soil for farming along the way. The place where we landed is a natural harbor, and it can be used as a port with any repairs. When the population increases in the future, it is best to build a port there.
A ship repair yard.”
Everyone returned happily and had enthusiastic exchanges with the two tribes.
Wang Chongdu took out cloth and other items and exchanged more than six kilograms of gold jewelry with the natives.
It was a bit difficult for the fleet to continue westward along the coast, because the wind direction was particularly chaotic. The wind was blowing from the southwest just now, but in an instant it turned to the northwest, causing Wang Chongdu to directly order to return the same way.
Therefore, the treasure hunting trio did not go to the most mineral-rich area in Australia at all.
In fact, it doesn’t matter whether you go there or not, most of them are uninhabited areas, and no matter how many minerals there are, they are temporarily lacking in mining value.
They returned to the northern coast of Australia and found that the wind was still against them if they wanted to return to Java. So they stopped at the beach and captured various animals nearby every day. They ate the killed or injured animals and brought them back home intact.
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Waiting until the monsoon changed, the fleet finally returned.
During the exploration in Australia, forty-six people fell ill, three of whom unfortunately died.
Another person had his bones broken by flying rocks thrown by the natives.
Three people were bitten by Australian poison, two of them were poisoned to death on the spot, and one of them had to cut off the bitten left hand to survive.
Li Zuqia also fell seriously ill and started to have a fever for no apparent reason. The ship's doctor said he was suffering from some kind of malaria, so he was isolated in the cabin and sent medicine and meals every day. After he recovered, he spread lime in his cabin and replaced him.
All the clothes were boiled with water. The doctor said this was to kill the disease.
Doctors on ships have seen this kind of situation many times. After all, they travel to various islands in Southeast Asia all year round and even have special cabins for storing medicines.
Only three of the crew members died of illness, but the natives who came into contact with them were in dire straits.
Although outsiders have been landing for tens of thousands of years, new pathogens that have emerged in recent hundreds or thousands of years still pose a fatal threat to Australia.
An infectious disease broke out in two tribes. The natives lacked relevant immunity, and in a blink of an eye, more than half of the disease spread within the tribe. Then it spread to nearby tribes, killing two to three thousand people one after another.
There's really no way around this.
Perhaps something happened to Zhu Guoxiang, Zhu Ming and his son during time travel. The corn and sweet potatoes they brought had mutated, and the modern germs they carried did not bring the plague.
The fleet arrived at Java Island with favorable winds, where they repaired the damaged ships and purchased some spices before setting off.
Along the way, we also replenished some goods and transported them all to Guangzhou for sale.
In Guangzhou, Wang Chongdu asked the crew to land in batches to have fun, and spread the news about their discovery of gold mines in brothels and taverns.
He also took out two opal gems and put them up for auction at the goods exchange.
This gemstone is so beautiful and no one has ever seen it before.
Two opal gems were auctioned for a total of 950 gems in Guangzhou for a sky-high price. The first one was sold for only 300 gems, but the second one was sold for a lot of money because Wang Chongdu only released two.
Repair the ship, sell goods, promote, buy goods, and set sail.
The goods purchased from Guangzhou were shipped to Hangzhou by Wang Chongdu for sale. At the same time, three opals were put up for auction again.
It’s still early for the trade winds to blow south.
Wang Chongdu sent people to send the disabled crew members home, and also sent the ashes of the deceased crew members home, and they all received huge pensions.
He handed over various affairs to Gao Wenbao and Li Bin, while he took Li Zuqia to Beijing to meet the emperor.
