Chapter 1688: The number of immigrants is increasing year by year
The military system of the Tang Empire was relatively complete. In addition to the regular army, there were also reserve troops and militia troops.
In the mainland, the regular army is mainly stationed, and the reservists serve as the reserve army. As for the militia forces, they played a more important role in the early years when bandits and landlords were more armed. However, in recent years, the mainland has basically
There are no longer any illegal armed forces.
As for the militia troops, they are not very useful.
Today's local militia forces serve more as a mobilization mechanism. When a large-scale war breaks out in the future, militiamen are quickly recruited to supplement reserve forces, and then mobilization divisions are formed to fight.
But in overseas territories, the importance of militia forces is much higher.
Limited by distance and military expenditures, the Tang Empire could not send too many troops overseas, and limited by the local population, it was impossible to have too many reserve troops.
Therefore, in addition to the regular army, the main supplement that the military can actually obtain is the militia.
Therefore, in overseas territories, militia troops will often assist the regular army in participating in wars, although their tasks are to escort supplies, maintain logistics lines, etc.
However, even in normal times, the militia is an important armed force that protects settlements from indigenous invasions.
These militia units are composed of retired military officers and soldiers as their backbone, plus many young and strong immigrants. They farm when the farming is busy, and train during the slack farming time. When there is nothing to do, they will sweep away the surrounding indigenous people. Even though their combat effectiveness is not as good as that of the regular army.
, but it is still considerable.
The same is true in the Americas. The natives couldn't defeat the regular army of the Tang Dynasty, so they liked to attack the ordinary immigrants of the Tang Dynasty. In order to protect themselves, the immigrants of the Tang Dynasty would frequently organize themselves into militias, and then attack the surrounding people.
Aboriginal tribes carried out raids.
This kind of thing is not unique to the Tang Dynasty. In fact, the Spanish and Portuguese also did this in their overseas colonies. When dealing with the indigenous people, the regular army was just a strategic strike force. Usually, most of them relied on the immigrants themselves.
Fight against the natives.
The militia formed by the young immigrants was also one of the important forces for the Tang Dynasty to maintain its rule in overseas territories.
Therefore, Li Xuan has always attached great importance to the construction of militia forces, especially the construction of overseas militia forces.
Usually the backbone of militia forces are retired officers and soldiers. Because of their military merit, these retired officers and soldiers can be allocated a large amount of land for free in overseas territories. In order to protect their own land, they will also be very active in training militiamen.
, and then fight with the natives.
It can be said that the expansion of Datang's overseas territories was actually more of a spontaneous act by immigrants, with militia troops taking the initiative to attack. The local regular army was usually only responsible for killing large-scale enemy troops, and the rest was not much.
Never mind, after all, the troops are limited and the garrison area is too big to be busy.
This situation is even more obvious in North America.
More and more immigrants are coming to the Americas, and more and more militias are coming to the Americas. At the same time, they are also expanding more and more inland.
Quite a few places in North America are very suitable for human survival, and the climate and environment are similar to those of the Empire itself. They have always been the favorite places for immigrants from the Empire.
In the early years, due to the slow speed and small tonnage of ships, traveling to the Americas was expensive and troublesome. However, with the emergence of steam and steel ships, navigation safety has been greatly improved, and the transportation volume has also been greatly increased.
The risk of immigration is low and the cost is also small.
Therefore, the number of immigrants from the empire to America is increasing year by year.
In the thirty-third year of Xuanping, in just one year, about 100,000 people from the empire immigrated to North America.
This number is quite terrifying.
Fortunately, the tonnage of today's ships is large enough. Passenger ships across the Pacific often weigh several thousand tons. In addition, in order to transport immigrants, many ocean liners adopt a high-low parallel strategy.
Nowadays, Tang Dynasty's ocean liners are divided into first class, second class, and third class. The first two are naturally for the powerful and the middle class, but in fact these cabins are very few, and most of them are cheap.
, a third-class cabin serving ordinary immigrants.
This trip can transport thousands of people, but with more people transported, the comfort is naturally not mentioned. To say it is crowded is not an exaggeration.
In addition, to transport immigrants, the Imperial Immigration and Reclamation Division will also provide subsidies for shipping tickets. Therefore, when designing ocean liners, current shipping companies will pay attention to the transportation of immigrants.
Otherwise, if there are not enough immigrants transported, relying solely on ocean liners of normal passenger shipping companies will make a huge loss.
Although the empire now has enough overseas territories, the immigrant population in various places is also large, and the number of normal tourists coming and going is also large.
But I can’t stand the competition!
The empire's shipping companies have a lot of them.
In addition to the two giants Feng Shipping Company and Yangtze River Shipping Company, Pacific Shipping Company has also risen rapidly in the past ten years. In addition, there are more than ten shipping companies engaged in ocean transportation business.
Relying on their cost advantages, these shipping companies have squeezed out most of the maritime transportation business of many ocean trading companies.
Many ocean trading companies have even given up their own fleets and instead hired ships from shipping companies to transport goods.
With so many shipping companies, they are already out of their minds on various domestic routes. The competition is fierce and profits are naturally getting lower and lower. Some powerful shipping companies are aiming at the overseas transportation market.
For example, the large-tonnage cargo ships they built have directly squeezed out the own merchant ships of many ocean-going trading companies. Nowadays, a considerable part of the route from the mainland to Malacca and then to India and then to the port of South Africa can
They are cargo ships of major shipping companies. Of course, the transport on them is from major ocean trading companies.
In addition to freighters, they have also been involved in the ocean passenger transportation business.
In fact, the profit in this area is not low, because there are not many shipping companies with the ability to participate, and the earth is so big and the empire has so many overseas territories, the competition between them is smaller.
However, the total number of mid- to high-end tourists is still relatively small, and most of them are immigrants.
If they rely solely on mid- to high-end passengers, these ocean liners will lose money!
This is why major shipping companies focus on immigration transportation.
At the same time, in order to carry out immigration at a lower cost, the ocean liner is getting bigger and bigger. After all, the bigger the ship is, the more immigrants will be transported at one time. Relatively speaking, the transportation cost will be reduced, and the ticket price will also be reduced.
Make it cheaper and attract more immigrants to take their ships.
Nowadays, ocean liners with a tonnage of four to five thousand tons are the normal standard, and even Fung Shipping Company has built a large ocean liner of more than seven thousand tons.
This thing is a huge immigrant city on the sea. Except for a small number of first-class and second-class cabins, the others are cheap third-class cabins. To put it bluntly, this is a ship specially designed to transport immigrants.
Ocean liner built.
This is related to Fung Shipping Company's consistent strategy.
Their competitive strategy in the past twenty years has been low cost, and they carved a niche in the freight market by relying on low cost.
They do the same thing in the passenger transport market.
Fung Line's ocean liner adopted a low-price strategy for third-class fares, and other shipping companies naturally had to follow suit. This also resulted in the price of tickets for overseas immigrants becoming increasingly lower.
Allow more people to immigrate.
Because of the development of shipping, the population of the empire's various overseas territories has also increased significantly.
The current total population of Luzon Province, Banten Province, Malacca State, and Australia in the Nanyang region has exceeded two million, and the important towns among them are the Port of Malacca and the Port of Luzon Bay.
The number of people in Luzon Bay Port and the entire port area has reached nearly 150,000, and the population density is even comparable to that of some areas in the mainland.
The Port of Malacca is a small place with a population of almost 100,000.
Not to mention Beihai Province, which has long been classified as the mainland, has a population of more than one million, and now it is almost reaching 2.5 million.
In the Indian peninsula, Gohe State, Ceylon Island, and Permu State are the main states, with a combined total population of about 400,000.
There are fewer in West Asia and Northeast Africa, with a combined total of just over 50,000 people.
On the other hand, South Africa and Western India in southern Africa have a larger population. The Port of South Africa has a population of more than 80,000, and the entire southern Africa region has nearly 200,000 people.
However, the number of immigrants in the above-mentioned areas is much inferior to that in the Americas.
Although the empire developed the Americas later, the number of people there was not large at all.
Today, the east and west coasts of North America have a population of nearly 400,000. The east coast has only been developed for a few years, but now it has a population of more than 300,000. This adds up to a total population of nearly 800,000.
Such a large number of immigrants is inseparable from the development of the empire's maritime industry. Without large-tonnage ocean liners to transport immigrants, and without large-tonnage freighters to transport various materials, it would be impossible to export so much overseas in just over twenty years.
to encourage more immigrants and ensure they settle down locally.
Of course, when immigrants have just arrived in overseas territories, most of their first year's living needs are not actually transported from the country. They are usually purchased nearby or directly recruited.
Otherwise, no matter how powerful Datang's transportation capabilities were, it would be impossible to do this.
For example, much of the food needed by the immigrants in North America in the early stages was actually purchased from colonies controlled by the Spanish and Portuguese.
But after they survived the first year and the food they planted in the second year began to produce, the situation changed.