On December 28, Li Zhi's three pointed ships returned.
The ship came back almost empty, and there were only three messengers on board besides the boatmen. Li Zhi took the three messengers to the General Military Mansion and inquired about the development of the colony.
"Squad Leader Di, did you successfully set up camp on Taiwan Island?"
When the squad leader surnamed Di heard Li Zhi's question, he stood up suddenly and answered straightly: "Back to the Governor, Commander Zheng found a small hilltop with a small river at the foot, set up camp on the top of the hill, and dug.
Three trenches."
Seeing that the squad leader was a little nervous, Li Zhi waved his hand for him to sit down and asked with a smile: "Have the local students attacked the camp?"
The squad leader slowly sat down and replied loudly: "Back to the Governor, we detected a Shengfan tribe in the woods. But when we set sail back on the 18th, the Shengfan had not yet attacked the camp."
Li Zhi thought for a while and nodded.
Seeing that Li Zhi stopped asking, the squad leader said: "Grand Governor, we encountered nine large ships of red-haired barbarians on our way back. Those red-haired ships seemed to be on the way to plunder, and they came up to rob us as soon as they saw our ship.
"
Red hair is what the Ming people called the Dutch in this era. During this era, Dutch merchants or pirates had already reached East Asia, sometimes doing trade and sometimes plundering. They fought many wars with the Ming Dynasty. The Ming Dynasty was robbed.
Several times later, the Dutch were prohibited from landing in the Ming Dynasty, which caused the Dutch to lose their sources of Chinese goods.
The Dutch have a stronghold in southern Taiwan, mainly a castle called Jelanje City. If the Dutch want to buy silk, they can only wait for Chinese merchants to sell it in Jelanje City. So Jelanje is still an important trading point.
.
The armed merchant ships of the Dutch were active in the waters north and south of Taiwan.
Li Zhi was stunned for a moment. Unexpectedly, the three ships encountered Dutch pirates on their way back and asked: "What happened next?"
"Grand Governor, later Lu commanded Qian Shi to let three of our boats sail eastward. Our boats were fast and we avoided the red-haired pirates."
Li Zhi nodded and said: "These Dutch pirates are looking for death! When we have more ships, we will blow them all into the sea."
The three messengers reported to Li Zhi various situations on the island of Taiwan. Li Zhi listened carefully and chatted with the messengers for a full hour.
Li Zhi's three large ships stopped in Taku for two days, and before the Chinese New Year, they carried a thousand people to Taiwan. Li Zhi was determined to strengthen Zheng Hui's camp and sent another 200 soldiers there this time. In addition to
Soldiers, the other personnel who went to Taiwan this time are all farmers who have been recruited to open up wasteland. After arriving in Taiwan, these farmers will start building canals to reclaim wasteland, and strive to clear the land and start sowing by March.
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Fang Laosan is the platoon leader of the Trap Regiment. He joined the army in the ninth year of Chongzhen and is now a four-year veteran. Relying on the military exploits accumulated in previous battles, he became the company commander.
This time, even before the New Year, Fang Laosan led forty soldiers onto the ship and sailed to Xiaoliuqiu.
This was Fang Laosan's first time on a sea ship. The pointed boat looked quite big, but it was bumpy on the sea. The ship rocked up and down with the waves. Fang Laosan vomited more than a dozen times on the way, and his intestines almost came out.
It took ten days to arrive in Taiwan. Fang Laosan rested in the camp for several days before he finally recovered.
But when he arrived in Taiwan, Fang Laosan looked around and immediately understood that the journey of thousands of miles to Taiwan was worth it.
This is a fertile virgin land.
Looking around from the hill where we camped, we could see lush broad-leaved forests everywhere. Fang Laosan knew that the forest grew so densely because the land was fertile. As long as the forest was burned with fire, the land would be destroyed.
It turns into fertile farmland, and the ash produced by burning the forest is the best fertilizer.
A quiet river runs through a plain, and it is very convenient to get water. As long as a dragon tail car is set up by the river, the river water can be continuously irrigated into the paddy fields.
There are no officials who scrape the ground, no officials of the Ming Dynasty who oppress the common people, and no despicable gentry who stare at the land of small farmers all day long. There is only inexhaustible sunshine, water and land. As long as the farmers work hard, they will soon be able to
can become rich.
I heard that the General will give each man and able-bodied woman who opens up wasteland twenty acres of paddy field with irrigation canals. For every five men and strong women, they will be lent a buffalo, and the land rent will be 60%. The climate in Taiwan is warm and humid.
You can plant two crops of rice in the morning and evening every year, which is more than enough to harvest two and a half kilograms of rice per mu.
Calculated in this way, excluding the sixty dan land rent paid to the general, a farmer and his wife can collect 40 dan of grain for storage.
What is this concept?
You must know that one stone of rice sold to the governor's cheap grain store can earn two taels of silver, and forty stones of grain is eighty taels. This is equivalent to the monthly income of each strong man of three liang of silver.
What kind of good life is it to earn more than three taels of silver per month?
Nowadays, as long as young people in Tianjin enter Fanjiazhuang's factory, they will become the most popular Wang Laowu, and the girls nearby can choose at will. And the income of these workers is only two taels of silver. Even including the food provided by the general, one worker
The monthly income is only three to five taels of silver.
Farmers work in the fields and do not need to leave early and come home late to work in factories, nor do they need to compete with others for worker positions. They can live a prosperous life with a monthly income of three to two or three yuan.
The couple earns more than six taels of silver per month and can support a family of eight!
Fang Laosan felt that this place was really good, so he decided to write to his eldest brother, sister and younger brother, asking them to sign up to come to Taiwan. Instead of just a few members of his family, they would guard the more than 30 acres of dry land at home in Tianjin, eating chaff and drinking water.
, it would be better to go to the south and open up a new world.
Fang Laosan attended the General's night school to learn literacy over the years, and now he can write letters. His brothers and sisters at home are illiterate, but he can find someone who has read to read letters. Three large ships sail between Tianjin and Taiwan every month
One round trip. Fang Laosan's relatives will soon receive Fang Laosan's letter.
Thinking about the good life of his relatives in this new land in the future, Fang Laosan fell in love with this virgin land more and more, and he was in a good mood when doing things.
Commander Zheng has planned the location of the first batch of farmland these days. These first batch of new fields are located on both sides of the river, stretching for more than 30 miles, just on the east and west sides of the camp, enough for five thousand farmers to farm. Eight hundred
Farmers and 400 soldiers were dispatched to cut down and clear a grass-free isolation zone outside the planned new field, preparing to burn the forest.
On January 13th, before the Lantern Festival was over, Fang Laosan and fifty soldiers were busy near the woods, when they suddenly saw a cloud of smoke rising in the distance.
Fang Laosan was stunned, suspecting that he had seen it wrong, and looked at one of his squad leaders. The squad leader under Fang Laosan also had a look of shock, and Fang Laosan knew from his face that he had seen it right.
Could it be that the birth episode is coming again?
Fang Laosan shouted loudly: "Everyone goes back to the camp, everyone calls it a day! Go back to the camp!"
Forty soldiers followed Fang Laosan and hurried to the camp. After half an hour, Fang Laosan returned to the hill where the camp was set up.
Fang Laosan walked into the camp from the gate of the camp and shouted to the soldiers standing guard beside the gate: "What's going on? Is Shengfan here?"
The soldier on guard replied: "It's not the baby, it's the red hair!"
