On the 14th day of the Lunar New Year in the twenty-eighth year of Chongzhen, the afterglow of the New Year was not over yet, and Li Zhi had already begun to handle government affairs in the Qinzhengyuan.
Li Xing, Zheng Kaicheng, Han Jinxin and Gao Ligong, who lived in Tianjin, all rushed to Prince Qi's Mansion and sat in the Qinzheng Yuan waiting for Li Zhi to give orders.
Li Zhi stood in front of the wall of the office, silently facing the huge world map.
Nowadays, the power of one town and nine provinces is rapidly expanding all over the world, and the territory controlled by Li Zhi has already reached a huge territory, even surpassing the Ming Dynasty managed by Emperor Zhu Youjian.
Directly to the south, the entire Southeast Asia has been completely controlled by the Tiger Army. Whether it was the early occupation of Indochina, Java or Borneo, the Tiger Army continued to penetrate deep into the land, build bunkers, and educate the local indigenous people. Even the Tiger Army marked the influence of Europeans in Asia.
Malacca, the starting point, also fell into Li Zhi's hands without any bloodshed.
As more and more ports and strongholds were established, the entire Southeast Asia was completely Han land.
In the southeast, Australia and New Zealand have become Li Zhi's possessions. The vast land of Oceania is completely virgin land, full of open wilderness and fertile land. The only thing to do next is to continuously transport Han people from all over the country.
Go to those distant lands and turn those fertile lands into the new homeland of the Han people.
In North America, the Tiger Army is also expanding rapidly. After the first expedition successfully occupied the coast of Northern California, two more groups of Tiger Army landed in North America within a year. Today, the number of Tiger Army in North America has exceeded
Ten thousand people crossed the Rocky Mountains in the west and actually controlled half of the west coast of the United States and thousands of kilometers of land.
However, these lands are no man's land.
Now Li Zhi's most scarce resources are the ships transporting immigrants and the money to finance immigrants.
For the current scale of immigration in one town and nine provinces, the original fleet of ships is no longer enough. Shipyards are working day and night to produce new ships, and even some large ocean-going fishing vessels have been converted into passenger ships for carrying immigrants. But even so, once
Groups of immigrants still can't get tickets from private steamship companies.
There is no other reason than that the overseas territories are too fertile and there are too many poor tenant farmers who want to move to the colonies. For example, the tenant farmers in Jianghuai Province may have only a few acres of rented land and are so poor that they cannot eat a piece of meat for several months.
But once you go to the colonies, you can directly get dozens or hundreds of acres of land with the best water conservancy facilities and fertile soil.
Not only that, Li Zhi also provided subsidies to those who were willing to immigrate overseas. The government funded and lent each immigrant six taels of silver to buy food rations. It also lent the immigrants various agricultural machinery, building materials, and self-defense weapons suitable for their destination. In Li Zhi
With the support of Zhizhi, overseas expansion became a matter of minimal risk and guaranteed profit.
The risk of personal failure is borne by Li Zhi. And because Li Zhi has huge resources and strength, overall, the risk of failure of a few people is negligible.
Decolonization has become a trend.
The Chinese people do not lack the pioneering spirit. In the later Qing Dynasty, the history of continuous immigration of southern Han people to Taiwan and Southeast Asia for hundreds of years has proved the enterprising spirit of the Chinese people.
Nowadays, in one town and nine provinces, ocean liner tickets are hard to come by, and can even be sold on the black market for dozens of times the original price.
However, this surging immigration wave could not bring any benefit to Li Zhi.
After the immigrants arrived in the colony, they spent the first two years cultivating new fields, building water conservancy projects, and building housing. It was basically impossible to bring in taxes. Li Zhi also funded and lent a large amount of materials to the immigrants, which put a lot of financial pressure on them.
The value of the materials an immigrant needs to borrow from Li Zhi to immigrate overseas is about 90 taels of silver. The number of immigrants in the 27th year of Chongzhen was about 1.6 million, and the total cost in one year was more than 100 million taels of silver.
In other words, the more colonies expanded and the flow of immigrants became more intense, the more funds Li Zhi paid and the tighter the finances became.
The financial ledger of the twenty-seventh year of Chongzhen was quite ugly. The originally prosperous finances of one town and nine provinces suffered a huge deficit due to immigration affairs. But in the twenty-eighth year of Chongzhen, Li Zhi found that he could no longer speed up the immigration wave.
Li Zhi looked at the world map and was silent.
"The Tiger and Ben troops in Indochina have always been on standby?"
Zheng Kaicheng stood up and said: "Yes, Your Majesty, there are no enemies in Indochina now. After last year's military expansion, there are now 60,000 tiger soldiers, 60,000 Yizi battalions and 50,000 samurai troops on standby in Indochina."
Li Zhi frowned and said nothing.
Maintaining an army of 170,000 people in Indochina is not a simple matter. A soldier needs to be paid monthly, supplies and ammunition must be provided, and various equipment must be maintained. A soldier needs at least 100 taels of silver a year. An army of 170,000 people
The expenditure was close to 20 million taels of silver.
Li Zhi looked towards India to the west of the Indochina Peninsula.
India is a rich place with flat land and dense residents. Unlike expanding into colonies with almost no people, if you occupy India, you can get a large amount of taxes every year. These taxes can not only support an army of 170,000, but also become a
The continuous supply of silver helped Li Zhi's colonial enterprise.
After the collapse of the Mughal Empire, there was no unified country in this land, only the lingering local states remained.
Li Zhi asked: "What's going on with the princes in India?"
Originally, Li Zhi's military strength was relatively tight, and it was difficult to rule the entire India. However, after the expansion of the army, the maneuverable strength of the Huben Army increased greatly, and it already had the strength to control India.
Han Jinxin bowed and replied: "Your Majesty, the princes of India are leaderless after their defeat in Burma. At present, no force has the ability to subdue other forces to establish a political power." "There is some news that the princes of India frequently go to Persia.
, seems to be contacting the emperor of Persia. Persia used to be the patron of the Mughal Empire and had close relations with India. However, India and Persia are too far away and have a language barrier, so we cannot get specific information. "
Li Zhi frowned and looked towards the Persian Empire in the northwest of India.
Is Persia also interested in India?
Li Xing handed over his hands and came out of the queue and said: "Brother! We have defeated the Mughal Empire with our own hands and turned India into a chaos of feudal lords. We cannot let Persia reap the benefits of the fishermen!" "Brother, now that our Tiger Army has expanded, we
We have strong troops and horses in Indochina. Without further ado, we should send troops to India to completely defeat the princes of various Indian states and rule the prosperous India!"
Zheng Kaicheng also handed over his hand and said: "Your Majesty, our finances are tight now, so going to India to grab some is the best choice."
Li Zhi asked: "How many troops does Persia have?"
Han Jinxin replied: "Persia has more than 300,000 soldiers and horses, but only 200,000 elites can be drawn to fight in India."
After a pause, Han Jinxin said again: "The princes of various Indian states also have some soldiers, and there are probably 200,000 of them."
Li Zhi nodded and said, "We can win."
After taking a picture of the map, Li Zhi said: "Inform Li Laosi and ask him to start preparing to march westward and conquer India as quickly as possible!" 19
