Lin Yaocen immediately frowned, and said: "Lord Zhao, the Holy Lord has strictly ordered to colonize overseas places, and should 'promote both grace and power, focus on education, and reduce killing'." The sound is still in your ears, you actually did the evil act of robbing the village of the local people?! ”

Although he is only a seven-rank secretary, the governor sent by the imperial court is seriously ill, and he is the highest-ranking person in the whole of Australia.

Zhao Weisheng was startled, and hurriedly knelt north, "Lord Lin clearly sees that this village has been abandoned by the local people for a long time, and no one cares about it, and it is definitely not a ...... that the lower officials robbed it."

"Oh? Are you true? ”

"Adults don't know. Within a radius of 200 miles, there were 178 native tribes, which often fought with each other, and would easily destroy other people's villages and plunder the living as slaves.

"And the local customs here, the winner only takes the population and livestock, but taboos the unfortunate residence of the loser, most of them are burned down, but a small number is not burned, and they are abandoned. Xia Guan found such an abandoned village. ”

Hearing this, Lin Yaocen looked at Hu Yuancai on the side. The latter nodded again and again, "What Lord Lin said is true. Forty miles away there is a tribe of natives called 'Belun', who are extremely fierce and often attack other tribes. According to the natives, we live in a tribe called 'Abyan', which was destroyed by the tribe of Belon seven years ago. ”

Lin Yaocen's face softened at this time, and he hurriedly helped Zhao Weisheng up and said, "Lord Zhao, please get up, it's the lower officials who blame you." ”

"It's okay, it's okay."

Not long after, Lin Yaocen and his entourage walked into the camp of "Little Quanzhou", and saw that in the middle of the village was a huge granary, next to which was the grain drying field, with two strange-looking animals and a bunch of sea fish on the ground, as well as a large number of unnamed fruits.

Later, he learned that the animal's name was kangaroo, and the fruit was mango and baobab fruit, but it had been picked months earlier and taken out to dry. These things were almost everywhere in Australia, supplementing thirty percent of the expedition's food rations.

There are also Chinese people with the natives digging and drawing water, or handling animal skins, or using simple looms to weave threads, or feeding a very beautiful long-tailed finch, or holding short spears and shouting exercises, a busy and lively scene.

Lin Yaocen frowned slightly, and asked Zhao Weisheng: "Lord Zhao, there are hundreds of natives here. You have only been here for 100 days, but where have you found so many people, not to take the people of the vicinity captive? ”

"The lower officials don't dare." Zhao Weisheng hurriedly said, "Most of them are slaves bought by Xia Guan from nearby tribes, and some of them are escaped from the 'Tonatu' and 'Shuhu' tribes that were defeated last month. ”

Hu Yuancai continued: "My lord, although our 'Little Quanzhou' has been here for a short time, it has become famous in the neighborhood because of the repeated reception of slaves or homeless natives, and many natives have come to vote. Especially the old and young children, who are usually slaughtered by the victorious tribes, are now mostly bought by us to continue their lives. Now there are more than 150 people in the village. ”

Lin Yaocen's staff on the side, Li Shi, looked at those ** natives, and couldn't help but feel pity: "My lord, it's getting cold at this time, why don't you give them some coarse cloth clothes?" ”

"This gentleman doesn't know that every one of the natives who come here has a shirt, but they are used to showing their breasts, but they don't want to wear it."

Lin Yaocen shook his head and said, "It's not enough to just take them in, it must be supplemented by education." Teach him the way of etiquette, righteousness, honesty, and human beings, so that the people of the land can obey me and be used by me. Otherwise, even if there are thousands of 'small Quanzhou', this Australia will not be able to achieve government decrees and obey the king. ”

Zhao Weisheng said: "What Lord Lin said is extremely true, it is just to educate the natives, but it is not something that can be achieved overnight. He said and looked at Hu Yuancai, "Besides, there is only one shopkeeper Hu here who understands the indigenous language." ”

"Take your time." Lin Yaocen seemed to be very confident, "From now on, all literate people will learn the local language from Shopkeeper Hu for an hour every night. ”

He asked Zhao Weisheng again, "How long do the people here work every day?" ”

"Back to my lord, the strong man is six hours, and the rest is four and a half hours."

"In this way, from now on, young children will be reduced by one hour every day, and adults will be reduced by half an hour to learn Mandarin and literacy."

Shopkeeper Hu heard that it was distressed, you know, there are not a few natives in the village, there are a lot of shares in it, let them work less, and the income of the expedition will naturally decrease. But he didn't dare to disobey, and still said with Zhao Weisheng: "It's all up to the orders of the adults." ”

Lin Yaocen said: "By the way, when I was in Longjiang Shipyard, I saw the 'performance system' created by Shengshang, which is extremely effective in motivating craftsmen. We might as well copy it and use it, and in the future, all Chinese people who can speak local will have their wages increased by 30%. The natives who learned the official dialect of the Ming Dynasty the fastest and most conscientiously reduced their work by two hours, and they could also be asked to be stewards and command other natives. ”

Hu Yuancai pondered that if the natives and the Chinese could communicate better, the efficiency of work would inevitably increase exponentially, which was a good thing, and this Lin Daren really had some solutions.

As soon as he thought of this, he thought of the copper mine that haunted him, so he arched his hand and said: "My lord, there is a copper mine in the thirteenth or fourteenth mile here, and the grass people let people explore it, and there are ores in a radius of more than 100 zhang, and some are even exposed outside the soil, which is very easy to mine. ”

When he mentioned this topic, he immediately became energetic, "In addition, more than 100 miles away in the southwest, there is an iron mine, which contains very pure iron, and almost melts out of fine iron. There is also a gold mine, although it is a little far away, but we can build a new camp......"

Australia's copper and iron ore is of high quality and easy to mine, and it has been the world's top exporter of ore until the 21st century. This is evident from the fact that Australia is able to support the income levels of developed countries by selling these minerals and wool.

Zhao Weisheng immediately waved his hand and said, "Shopkeeper Hu is too anxious. It was the Governor who brought hundreds of men, but it took at least seven or eight hundred men to mine a copper mine, and he had to divide people to build camps, farm, hunt, and guard and patrol...... I estimate that there will be 2,000 people in Xiaoquanzhou before the mine can be opened. ”

"I want so many people to ......," Lin Yaocen pondered, "I wonder if I can recruit more natives?" ”

"This is easy to say," Hu Yuancai immediately said, "Every day, there are local people who come to vote, and we are afraid that we will not be able to afford it, so we dare not take it in." In addition, the large tribes in the vicinity all sold slaves, and the prices were very cheap. A short steel knife can be exchanged for twenty strong men. ”

At this time, there were only stone and wood tools in Australia, and steel knives were simply artifacts to them. If the lions of the expedition opened their mouths, it was not impossible that they wanted to exchange a hundred slaves.

Zhao Weisheng shook his head again, "Shopkeeper Hu, don't you know how much grain we have?" Counting the Shaohuashan to transport grain every two months in the future, it can feed 13,400 people at most. ”