September of the 26th year of Xuanping, South Africa City.
The westernmost and southernmost overseas territorial city of the empire, after continuous expansion and transformation, has become very different from the era of Portuguese occupation.
Today's South Africa City is also a very typical bastion city, divided into an inner city and an outer city. The outer city includes ports and commercial areas, while the inner city houses various official agencies, garrisons, strategic warehouses, etc.
The inner and outer cities are integrated into each other, forming the South Africa City.
However, due to the high cost of building the bastion, even if the inner and outer cities are combined, the actual area is not large. According to military estimates, during the war, South Africa City can accommodate about 10,000 soldiers fighting, and can accommodate up to 10,000 soldiers at the same time.
Ordinary civilians.
In other words, this South African city can actually only meet the garrison and living needs of 20,000 people, and the strategic reserve warehouse in the city is also reserved for 20,000 people.
Of course, there are not as many as 20,000 people in South Africa City now, just over 10,000, and most of them are soldiers of the army and navy.
However, this will change soon. Now South Africa's colonial officials have received reports from fast communication ships and know that the immigrant fleet coming from the country is about to arrive in South Africa.
The number of immigrants in this group reached 10,000.
The empire attaches more importance to South Africa than even the Island of Ceylon. Even though this place is extremely far away from the mainland, in order to strengthen the defense and rule in this area, Li Xuan personally ordered the Immigration and Reclamation Division to organize immigrants from the country to South Africa.
And the amount of 10,000 people was directly approved.
There is no way, the strategic position of this place is too important. Not to mention that the Suez Canal has not yet been dug, even if the canal is dug in the future, the shipping role of the Cape of Good Hope will still be huge. In the next few hundred years, this
Every place will become a strategic location.
Li Xuan naturally wanted to completely occupy this area for the future of the Chinese nation.
If you want to completely control this area, you cannot rely solely on garrisoning. A large number of immigrants are necessary.
As long as people from the Tang Dynasty live here, we can completely control these places.
In the inner city of South Africa City, at the Xiyinzhou Yamen, Hu Qiaokun was wearing a thin shirt and was still waving a folding fan in his hand.
"At this time, I'm afraid the autumn wind will be cold at home!" Hu Qiaokun stood on the balcony on the third floor, looking outside. The sun was shining brightly outside.
South Africa is located in the southern hemisphere, and its winters and summers are opposite to those of the empire in the northern hemisphere. To be honest, when he first came to South Africa last year, Hu Qiaokun was still a little uncomfortable with it.
However, after staying here for more than half a year, I finally got used to it. Although the climate here is opposite to that of the empire, it is generally good, at least much better than the Wandan Mansion where Hu Qiaokun stayed in the early years.
Hu Qiaokun was the first governor of Xiyin Prefecture in the Tang Empire. Although the empire established Xiyin City and Xiyin Prefecture in Africa in its early years, it did not set up a formal state capital.
A year ago, the empire established the State of West India based on South Africa City, West India City, Motor City and several other imperial colonial cities in central and southern Africa. The state governed South Africa City and theoretically governed the entire southern Africa and the island of Madagascar.
Xiyin Prefecture is a typical overseas territory model. The state government is actually more appropriately called the Governor's Palace of Xiyin Prefecture. Hu Qiaokun is the first governor of Xiyin Prefecture, and his rank is also modeled after that of the Luzon Prefecture Prefecture.
, like the governor of Wandan Prefecture and other overseas prefectures with relatively large jurisdictions, their rank is relatively high, starting from the third grade.
Its powers are not limited to administrative matters, but also have many other powers.
Because in addition to being the governor of Xiyin Prefecture, he also has another more important assignment, which is to "co-organize overseas traffic and trade matters". Although he is not a supervisor, he is just a co-organizer, but the problem is that he has not supervised the overseas traffic.
Minister of Commerce.
Moreover, his official position is not actually the governor of Western India. His official position is the deputy director of the European Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
For many officials who have been transferred to serve overseas, going overseas to serve is tantamount to devaluation and frustration in their official career. Under normal circumstances, few officials are willing to serve overseas. They are the unlucky ones who have failed in officialdom struggles and are transferred.
Work overseas.
However, Hu Qiaokun is not such a person. His coming to South Africa is not about devaluation, but promotion!
On the contrary, his early experience in serving in Wandan Mansion was a serious demotion. However, when he was serving in Wandan Mansion, he showed his talents in dealing with foreigners and indigenous people, which made his superiors value him. After he was transferred back to China, he became
He was transferred to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Although within the empire, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is just a Qingshui Yamen, it is still a central agency.
After becoming a diplomat, he basically traveled around all year round, and his rank gradually rose.
Before being transferred to South Africa, he was already in the fourth rank, and had also served as the governor of Gohe State. After the empire decided to establish the West Indian State, senior officials came to ask for his opinion and asked if he was interested in taking up this position and taking charge of the empire's affairs in southern Africa.
At the same time, he was also responsible for the empire's diplomatic and commercial affairs with Europe.
Hu Qiaokun agreed, not only because of his power, but also because he thought that as long as he agreed to work in South Africa, a place that was a no-brainer for Chinese people, as compensation, he would be promoted to two consecutive levels and receive the European Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Compensation for the deputy director of the department.
The boss even hinted to him that as long as he did a good job in South Africa and established a complete diplomatic network in Europe, the position of director of the European Department would be his in the future.
Therefore, when Hu Qiaokun came to South Africa, he did not look sad like many of his subordinates. On the contrary, he came with the mentality of making achievements.
It's been more than half a year since he came to South Africa, but he feels like there's nothing wrong with him!
Because we were still at war with the Portuguese and the road to Europe was cut off, there was no way to talk about diplomatic and commercial affairs. As for the State of Western India itself, it seemed that its jurisdiction included the entire southern Africa, but in fact it was only a few
It was a colonial city with only a few people in it.
Among them, South Africa's city now has a total population of nearly 10,000 people, but most of them are army and navy officers. Only one or two thousand people are businessmen and sailors from the country. As for immigrants, they are estimated to only be about a hundred people.
He still ran here from Xiyin City.
In such a place, the internal government affairs were of little concern, so he focused on communicating with the Portuguese.
After all, a war cannot go on forever. It has to stop and do business.
With his help, the Portuguese took the initiative to sue for peace and sign a humiliating treaty.
After the war, he was counting on domestic immigrants to arrive earlier and continue to consolidate the empire's rule in South Africa.
The area where the city of South Africa is located is a small plain called the South African Plain by the empire. This plain is very suitable for cultivating and growing crops, and there is another small plain to the east called the West Indian Plain by the empire.
Taken together, these two small plains can support at least hundreds of thousands of people, even if they grow random grains.
It was precisely because of these two small plains that the empire made up its mind to immigrate here on a large scale.
The first batch of 10,000 immigrants has already set off, and according to the scheduled voyage, it is estimated that they will arrive next month.
As long as these immigrants arrive, Hu Qiaokun will be able to launch his own large-scale reclamation plan.
As the saying goes, if you have food in your hands, you won’t panic!
Although the Tang Dynasty had developed shipping and a more powerful navy, South Africa was extremely far away from the mainland. If it could not maintain self-sufficiency in terms of food, then it would be almost impossible to completely control this place.
Thinking about the settlement, Hu Qiaokun held a folding fan and looked at the port in the distance!
At this time, a carat ship was lowering its sails in the port. Next to it was an offshore patrol ship of the Tang Navy, which was eyeing the Tang Navy. Although this carat ship from England was unexpectedly more than ten nautical miles away, it had already accepted the patrol ship.
Inspection, but as a precaution, the Datang Navy has formulated a strict patrol and supervision system in South African waters.
All ships heading to South Africa City need to be monitored by at least two maritime patrol ships before they can enter the port following the fixed route set by the Tang Navy.
This is naturally to avoid accidents and prevent ships with evil intentions from entering the port and causing trouble.
After all, merchant ships these days are all armed merchant ships, and any merchant ship is equipped with many naval guns. Moreover, sometimes they are merchants, and sometimes they become pirates.
Faced with this chaotic maritime security, the Tang Dynasty Navy was helpless. It could only conduct strict inspections and require all merchant ships or pirate ships to shut their gun doors, lower their sails and so on.
It is to confiscate all the gunpowder for temporary storage!
At first, many ships were very dissatisfied with this kind of careful inspection, especially the confiscation of gunpowder, and there were many brave warriors who resisted with arms. However, the Tang Navy always had only one way to deal with this: if they disobeyed, just fire!
After sinking several unscrupulous European merchant ships, the European merchant ships that subsequently came to South Africa became much more honest.
This carat ship from England is no exception, very honest!
Alvin Grant was a captain who loved the sea and freedom. He often took his sailors on his beloved Alvin throughout the Atlantic Ocean, sending cannonball greetings to merchant ships from various countries, especially the Spanish merchant ships!
Well, he's actually a pirate!
It's an officially certified one, with a smuggling certificate officially certified by the British royal family!
However, pirates and maritime merchants these days are not separated. The merchant ships of Datang's overseas trading companies went to the waters of other countries and often did part-time piracy work. The merchant ships of other countries were almost the same.
How should I put it? Maritime merchants from all over the world are doing this these days, and no one can say who is wrong.