On Akasumi Island, Li Zhi's navy captain Lu Hu held his nose and jumped off the boat and landed on the island.
The island is fifteen miles long and eight miles wide, with a bay in the middle. There is no fresh water on the island, and there is no flat terrain suitable for growing food. The narrow island is densely populated with various seabirds. Every time you take a step, you will be surprised.
Several birds flew.
Shi Dingping, the captain of the First Fleet next to Lu Hu, was walking with bird droppings on his leather boots. He was a little disgusted and said: "Captain of the fleet, this island really stinks, is this place a cesspit?"
I have never worked in such a smelly place.”
Lu Hu pinched his nose and laughed loudly, and said: "This is a treasure island! The Duke specially asked me to come and see it."
After walking a few steps and wiping the sweat from his head, Lu Hu said: "The Duke is really a god. He actually knows that there are such islands thousands of miles away."
The two people held their noses and walked on the island, gradually reaching the hinterland of the island and climbing up a hill.
There is no difference between the mountain and the foot of the mountain. There is bird droppings everywhere, which sticks to your feet when you step on them. I don’t know how many hundreds of years these bird droppings have accumulated. The lower layer turned into black bird droppings soil, covering all the rocks on the hill.
, making the lines of the entire hill very soft.
Lu Hu pinched his nose, pointed to the bay in the distance and said, "Shi Dingping, how about we build a small dock at that bay?"
Shi Dingping shook his head and said: "The water there is shallow, so we can only use small boats, and large ships cannot berth."
Lu Hu was a man with a good temper towards his subordinates. When he saw that his opinions were overturned by his subordinates, he was not angry at all. He just asked: "Then where do you think it is best to build a dock?"
Shi Dingping pointed to a seaside in the north and said: "The water seems to be deep, let's go and take a look!"
Lu Hu said hello and followed Shi Dingping to the north. After walking ten miles to the far north, the two of them searched for a long time on the coastline and finally found a rocky coast with deep water.
Shi Dingping put his face into the sea water, looked at it, raised his head and said: "Chief Commander, the water here is indeed deep, and we can rely on large boats."
After saying this, Shi Dingping spit out the sea water in his mouth and cursed: "The sea water on this island smells like bird droppings, it's really disgusting!"
Lu Hu laughed heartily, took off his clothes, and jumped into the sea with a splash.
Lu Hu's water quality was very good. He dived for a long time before he came up. When he came to the surface and wiped the sea water on his face, Lu Hu said loudly: "You are right. The coastline here is straight and deep. With a little construction, we can
Large ships can dock directly.”
Shi Dingping quickly pulled Lu Hu up.
Lu Hu was soaked, and he was not in a hurry to put on clothes. He only wore a pair of underpants and a pair of leather boots and walked on the beach. Fortunately, the tropical climate was very warm. The temperature was as high as 30 degrees at this time, and Lu Hu was not cold at all.
.
Walking back to the hill again, Lu Hu grabbed a handful of black bird droppings and said with a smile: "It smells a bit smelly, but it is really a treasure. Let's take some back to show the Duke of Guo. He must be
You want to reward us!"
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On August 29, Zheng Chenggong stood in Li Zhi's three halls with some anxiety, respectfully.
Zheng Chenggong is now the head of a transportation company under Li Zhi. The Zheng family pirates who originally dominated East Asia no longer have the ability to dominate the oceans under the threat of ironclad ships, and they all became sailors in the transportation brigade.
This transport brigade has been following Li Zhi's ships for a long time, shuttling back and forth on the Taiwan-Tianjin route, transporting food back to Tianjin, and then transporting materials needed by Taiwan to Hsinchu. Because the Zheng family's ships are all old-fashioned Fu ships, in order to overcome the sailing
The most feared turbulent winds were that the Zheng family's ships were pulled forward by Li Zhi's transport ship.
As a result, the technical content of the Zheng family's fleet is even lower. For unskilled work like the Zheng family's fleet, Li Zhi's remuneration is not high. The sailors of the Zheng family now only receive a monthly salary of more than 20 taels.
, this income is very low for sailors. Because sailors are at sea for a long time, they cannot take care of their wives and children, and they even have no time to share a house with their wives to have children.
In fact, the income of the tenant farmers under Li Zhi was higher than that of the sailors of the Zheng family.
Therefore, there has been a serious loss of sailors under Zheng Chenggong in recent years, and at least 70% of them have quit.
Of course, Zheng Chenggong also wanted to change. He once wanted to buy the large steam engine of Jin Guogong and transform the sailing ship into a ship. In this way, the Zheng family fleet would not be limited to the Tianjin-Taiwan route, and could pick up and transport goods along the coast.
Business. Various commercial activities under the government of Tianjin are developing rapidly, and there are more and more exchanges of people and materials. Zheng Chenggong believes that as long as he owns a steamship, he will be able to continue to make profits.
But Zheng Chenggong was short of money to buy a steam engine. Zheng Chenggong once thought of raising money by issuing stocks, but the people in Tianjin did not recognize Zheng Zhilong's son, and Zheng Chenggong's stocks were not sold.
So basically, Zheng Chenggong is now just a down-and-out business owner under Li Zhi, and his status is not even as good as that of an ordinary businessman.
The only difference is that Zheng Chenggong's name was changed by Li Zhi, which made the common people feel a little awe when dealing with Zheng Chenggong.
Li Zhi looked at the somewhat reserved Zheng Chenggong and smiled.
According to the history that Li Zhi knew, Zheng Chenggong was a capable person, and Li Zhi was not prepared to let this young man live in inaction for the rest of his life. After several years of training, although Zheng's fleet continued to lose talents, Zheng Chenggong had already become the leader of Li Zhi's fleet.
Li Zhi decided to give Zheng Chenggong some development opportunities.
Li Zhi looked at Zheng Chenggong and said, "Zheng Chenggong, do you know the guano soil in the Paracel Islands?"
Hearing the name of the Paracel Islands, Zheng Chenggong was stunned for a long time.
"My lord, back home, the common people don't know about the Paracel Islands."
Li Zhi opened the map, pointed at it and said: "In the southern waters of Guangdong, these small islands between Beijiao in the north and Akasumi Island in the south are called the Xisha Islands. There are very precious guano soil resources on these islands.
,do you know?"
Zheng Chenggong thought for a while and said: "It is true, Lord Duke, I have heard people say that there are layers of bird droppings piled up on several small islands there, and the smell is terrible."
Li Zhi smiled and said: "This is a treasure!"
Li Zhi opened a box, took out the guano soil brought by Lu Hu, and showed it to Zheng Chenggong.
Li Zhi planned to ask Zheng Chenggong to transport guano to the Paracel Islands.
In the history of human development, before the invention of chemical fertilizers, guano fed Europeans for half a century.
In the 19th century, the population of European and American countries was growing rapidly, especially in Europe. The population pressure was great. Although the industrial revolution was booming at that time, the pressure on agriculture was very high. If you want to increase crop yields, you need to improve the fertility of the soil, and increase
The fertility of the soil requires fertilization. At that time, in order to increase food production, Europeans used a large amount of Peruvian guano.
In the 19th century, Europeans dug up more than 10 million tons of guano in Peru.chaptererror;
