In fact, a long time ago, the civil and military officials of the Great China and North Korea, at that night banquet, through the large globe made by Xiao Tianjian, knew that in this world, there is not only such a continent, but there are several other continents, but because of the limited maritime power of the Great China and North Korea before, the main energy is focused on the South Sea and the Indian Ocean, except for a few small formations composed of one or two ships or two or three boats, to go to sea to the east or to the south for an exploratory voyage, and no large formations were dispatched. Conduct expeditions to occupy new colonies.

But with the rise of China's naval power, after more than ten years of vigorous development, the sea power of China and North Korea now controls the entire South Seas, and finally has the strength to do this.

Moreover, in the early stage, the maritime trading group company and the naval department, after continuous small-scale expeditions, finally sailed to North America and South America, and more importantly, an expedition ship finally sailed to Australia, and drew a route map, these expedition ships finally successfully returned to Guangzhou, and submitted the first-hand route information they had worked so hard to obtain to the Admiralty, making relatively full preparations for the next expedition between China and North Korea.

In these years, the Great China and North Korea have sent dozens of various types of exploration ships, and more than 6,000 sailors have participated in this kind of exploration activities, but less than half of them have returned to China and the rest have lost their news.

This kind of perseverance and hard work, at this time, can finally begin to be harvested.

So it was not until this time that Xiao Tianjian officially issued an order, formed the first expeditionary fleet, began to go to sea, and went to Australia to establish the first colony of Dazhong and North Korea on another continent, announcing that Australia would become a colony of Dazhong and North Korea, and this time Xiao Tianjian left Beijing for his southern tour, just to see off this expeditionary fleet.

In fact, Australia is not the first time for Western countries to discover, as early as the beginning of the seventeenth century, there were Dutch ships have arrived in Australia, and then Dutch, French, British explorers have also arrived in Australia, but these Europeans have not given enough understanding of Australia, and even did not mark it on the chart, until the beginning of the eighteenth century, the west coast and north coast of Australia were officially marked on the Western chart for the first time, in these decades, Westerners did not attempt to establish settlements in this vast land, much less declared their actual occupation.

So this is a rare opportunity for the Great China Dynasty, and Xiao Tianjian, a person from the old time and space and later generations, knows better than anyone the importance of this vast land, China is a copper-deficient country, and all dynasties have always been very scarce for copper as a metal, and copper is also an important hard currency in China, China's own copper production is very limited, so China urgently needs to find a place rich in copper resources overseas and bring it under Chinese rule.

According to Xiao Tianjian's memory, the largest source of copper ore should be in Chile, and New Guinea is also rich in copper ore resources, of course, Australia also has a lot of copper ore resources, and the most important thing is that Australia's iron ore reserves are very huge.

Only by occupying the continent first will the Chinese not have to be blackmailed by the so-called Rio Tinto to blackmail iron ore, and China will be worried about the lack of iron ore for hundreds of years to come.

Therefore, in the selection of the first overseas colony, Xiao Tianjian after careful consideration, finally took Australia as the first target, of course, this does not mean that Xiao Tianjian does not pay attention to North and South America, but the first step is particularly important for the Chinese.

What's more, many places in North and South America have been actually controlled by Western countries in advance, and once the Great China and North Korea choose to land in North and South America first, it is inevitable that they will first have a head-on conflict with the local colonizers as soon as they arrive there.

This is not very advantageous for the big China and North Korea, which lack experience in long-distance sailing, so Xiao Tianjian believes that Australia can be taken as the first step to actually occupy and control it, and then after accumulating a certain amount of experience, it is not too late to go to North and South America and Western colonists to compete for colonies.

According to Xiao Tianjian's plan, in order to allocate the resources of Greater China in advance during his lifetime, it is necessary to control some of the most important mineral resources on the earth in advance, and the Chinese in the province will still be worried about these things in the future.

Therefore, under the joint consultation of the Admiralty and the trading group company, the Great and Chinese Dynasty finally determined the colonial plan of the expedition to Australia in the thirteenth year of the Tianyuan Dynasty.

This time, for the expedition to Australia, the Great China and the DPRK prepared 15 ships of various types, including a newly launched first-class battleship, two second-class cruisers, three third-class destroyers, five fourth-class frigates, and four large four-masted armed cargo ships.

These ships are all new ships that have been built in the last two or three years, and the timber used for the ships is not only the timber produced in Liaodong, but also a lot of fine timber from the South Seas, and the ships are very strong and can fully withstand the huge waves and bad weather at sea.

In addition, for this expedition, the Great China and the DPRK recruited more than 6,000 sailors and warriors in the navy and the maritime trade group, and with their strength, they were fully capable of dealing with a war at sea and on land of a considerable scale.

In addition to these sailors and warriors, the Great and Middle Dynasties also recruited more than 1,000 technicians from various industries, including carpenters and blacksmiths in the fleet, dozens of students who graduated from mining schools, and some scholars who studied biology, as well as technicians who were good at agriculture, and even a group of construction craftsmen and herdsmen who were good at herding, and of course, a group of medical officers who were proficient in medical skills were sent to join the operation as a guarantee for the health of the fleet members.

Most of these people will be the first Chinese settlers to settle in Australia, and according to the plan, once they land on the north and west coasts of Australia and establish a bridgehead, their families will be transported to Australia to settle in Australia with them, and establish regular routes between Chinese mainland and Australia.

Therefore, this led to Xiao Tianjian's southern tour in the fourteenth year of Tianyuan, and he came to Ningbo Mansion this time to see off this group of adventurers.

Xiao Tianjian first led the officials to worship the statue of Mazu on the dock, prayed for the fleet, and then climbed to a high platform near the dock, and loudly gave an impassioned speech to these people who were about to sail and those who came to see them off, he called all the people involved in this trip heroes, and explained the importance of colonization, loudly encouraging them to bravely open up new territories for the Chinese.

When his speech ended, the crowd at the entire Ningbo Mansion wharf was boiling, everyone cheered loudly, and countless people knelt down reverently, shouting long live.

Then under Xiao Tianjian's wave, these people who went out immediately began to fish and board the ships that had already docked at the dock.

Xiao Tianjian stepped down from the high platform at this time, came to the trestle where the Dragon Quan docked, and once again personally met with the commander of the expeditionary fleet.

The commander of this expeditionary fleet was none other than Shi Lang, a young naval officer who had distinguished himself in all the naval battles over the years.

Although Shi Lang is a very controversial figure in the history of the old time and space, some people say that he is a national hero, and some people say that he is a traitor, but in this time and space, he is an excellent commander in the navy, he could not have been the commander of the expeditionary fleet, and now he is the deputy commander of the Southern Fleet, and he can stay in Guangzhou or Zhoushan safely and live a very quiet life.

But for this kind of person, he is not born to live this kind of life of eating and waiting for death, when he learned that the Admiralty began to recruit expeditionary personnel, Shi Lang immediately signed up, and immediately Xiao Tianjian directly named him and awarded him the position of commander of the expeditionary fleet.

Shi Lang, who was wearing a new white navy uniform, immediately took all the crew to salute Xiao Tianjian when he saw that His Majesty the Emperor had actually come to the dock again to see them off.

Xiao Tianjian looked at these energetic crew members, today he did not wear a dragon robe, but also changed into a new military uniform, wearing a delicate waist knife at his waist, raised his hand vigorously, and returned a standard military salute to these crew members.

After the star officer loudly announced the end of the salute, Xiao Tianjian and all the crew members lowered their arms, walked slowly in front of Shi Lang, patted Shi Lang on the shoulder, and said to him in a deep voice: "Go!" This is just the first step you take on behalf of me to the sea! There are many more places to conquer for me! ”

After saying this, Xiao Tianjian suddenly whispered to Shi Lang's ear: "Haoyu will be handed over to you, don't deliberately take care of him because of his identity, only the sea eagle that has experienced wind and rain can really soar above the blue sky!" Let him do what he should do! This is my command to you! I hope you can do it for me! ”

Shi Lang was excited and immediately replied loudly: "Thank you, Lord Longen!" Please rest assured! Wechen knows what to do! We will never fail to live up to the expectations of God! ”

At this time, Xiao Tianjian set his eyes on a young man standing behind Shi Lang, this young man still looked childish with a trace of childishness on his face, but his figure was already very tall, his waist was straight, and he was also wearing a standard military uniform of the Royal Navy of Dazhong, North Korea, which looked heroic and very eye-catching.

(Two news to the brethren at the first time!) One good news, one bad news! Let's start with the bad news: my new book has failed once again, and I have one last revision! So the new book upload can't catch the old book! It's really sad! Disrupted my original plan! The good news is that it is preliminarily confirmed, the new book is not very problematic, and it is basically guaranteed that the upload will start in early December! I hope that the brothers will continue to support me when the time comes! Thanks a lot! ）