From the fourth year of Chongzhen to the seventh year of Chongzhen (1631-1634), the Ming Dynasty ushered in the first small climax of the imperial twilight.

In August of the fourth year of Chongzhen, in order to disrupt the deployment of the Ming army, the Houjin army suddenly surrounded Dalinghe City, and then played the old method of "encircling the point to send reinforcements" again, and defeated the Ming army from Jinzhou and Shanhaiguan in turn. Dalinghe City was trapped for several months, and finally ran out of ammunition and food, and a generation of famous generals Zu Dashou killed the deputy general He Kegang, Zhang Cunren and others after Kaicheng surrendered, and began to write his legendary life of "two dynasties and two dynasties, disobedient to the former master, negative to the latter, and really not a person inside and outside".

At the same time, Kong Youde, the general of the Dongjiang town stationed in Shandong, launched a rebellion on the halfway road that was ordered to rush to the aid of Liaodong. Thousands of hungry and cold rebels swept through northern Shandong like madmen, and then with the cooperation of Geng Zhongming, the former general of Dongjiang Town, they captured Dengzhou and destroyed the northern munitions base that the Ming Dynasty had painstakingly managed.

The Shandong Rebellion broke out and lasted for three years, and the Ming court still desperately suppressed the dispatch of troops under the crisis of fire on all sides, until the Guanning army stationed in Shanhaiguan was transferred, and it was barely quelled, but Kong Youde and others like Xiaoqiang still crossed the sea with thousands of dead friends and a large number of captured military shipwrights to surrender after the surrender.

The surrender of Kong Youde and Geng Zhongming, instead of Mao Wenlong's general soldier Huang Long who led Dongjiang Town, died in battle, if something was touched, the generals of Dongjiang Town began to follow the Houjin in a pile, and Shang Kexi also officially joined Kong and Geng's team, and the historical lineup of the "Dongjiang Three" was complete, and Dongjiang Town also came to its end.

No matter who is credited with the victory in quelling the Shandong Rebellion, at least for Emperor Chongzhen, it is an out-and-out complete defeat. Shandong, which belongs to the heart of the north, was shattered, and a large number of chaotic people poured into the surrounding provinces, and the White Lotus Sect, which had been pacified for many years, also resurrected among the chaotic people. And the most embarrassing thing for future generations is Sun Yuanhua, the governor of Denglai, who painstakingly presided over the development and manufacturing of arms. In the process, he died as a political abandonment. The Shandong rebellion drove another pivotal nail into the coffin board of the Ming Dynasty.

Although the Shandong Rebellion suffered heavy losses, it was still a "local battle", and the Northwest Peasant Army that entered Shanxi from Shaanxi was the real fire of the prairie and had lost its control. Gao Yingxiang, Li Zicheng, and Zhang Xianzhong finally emerged, and they moved around, so that the Ming army that encircled and suppressed them could not care about the end.

From Shaanxi to Shanxi, from Shanxi to Hebei and Henan, and then to Huguang and Sichuan...... Once the beans are spread, they are nourished by the "nutrition" of the locust plague for many years. Like cyanobacteria, it continued to grow and split, and the peasant rebellion at the end of the Ming Dynasty was completely uncured.

Isn't there anything good in all this? Not all, at least in the eyes of later academic circles, the compilation of the "Chongzhen Almanac" that began in 1629 can be regarded as a commendable event in the late Ming Dynasty, but the death of Xu Guangqi, a great scientist of a generation, in 1633 added some regrets to this good thing.

At the end of the seventh year of Chongzhen (1634), the one hundred and thirty-seven volumes of the "Chongzhen Calendar" were finally compiled, and they were in the process of revising the calendar. Xu Guangqi personally measured the eclipse of the sun and the moon, and recommended Li Zhizao, who was proficient in astronomical algorithms, and the Italian missionaries Long Huamin, German missionaries John Tang and Deng Yuhan to participate in it, which can be regarded as an important development of the astronomical calendar in modern China.

……

Wednesday, January 17, 1635. The twenty-ninth winter month of the seventh year of Chongzhen of the Ming Dynasty.

More than ten years after the strange snow disaster cold wave of the Xiaoice River that swept through Liangguang last time, the temperature in Qiongzhou Mansion has plummeted again today, and the temperature in the early morning is close to zero, even at noon. The temperature is also less than 10 degrees.

However, at this time, Ding'an County, in the south of Qiongshan County, the capital of Qiongzhou, did not show the panic of the people like the sky falling last time, and the villages and fields outside the city were crowded.

Fortunately, the climate anomaly in Qiongzhou in winter occurred after the sugarcane matured. This year, the tens of thousands of acres of sugarcane fields in Ding'an County are finally safe and sound. Thousands of peasants were wielding machetes to chop down the grove-like sugar cane, then pack it up and load it onto the roadside wagons, one just pulled away, the other ready again. At the end of the farm trail, strings of horse-drawn carts laden with sugar cane are heading north, bound for docks in Qiongshan County to be loaded.

"Be careful, don't crush the car, it's no trouble to pull a few more trips!" A middle-aged man in a thick robe greeted back and forth in front of a large sugarcane field, for fear that the farmers would be greedy enough to carry a few more bundles of sugarcane and let the already precarious carriage fall apart.

"Steward Huang, this year's sugarcane is in good condition!" An old farmer respectfully stood by the middle-aged man's side, touching his gray beard and smiling and squinting.

Stroking the harvesting section of fresh sugar cane, the sticky feeling of his fingertips made the middle-aged man smile gradually. This year's sugarcane is still full of sugar, and the yield per mu has reached 35 quintals (about 60 kilograms per kilogram), and even if the Nanhai firm is picky, it will not dare to push the price below two cents per quintal.

To say that the Huang family, the largest family in Ding'an County, was very resistant to the behavior of the young shopkeeper of the Nanhai business to occupy the land four years ago, thinking that the other party wanted to grab the local land and labor, but the other party had the support of the Yamen of the Qiongzhou Prefecture, which made the Huang family dare to be angry and dare not speak.

Seeing that they were about to be suppressed by the strong dragon from outside, the Huang family planned to secretly contact a number of local landlords and gentry to incite farmers to make trouble, but it didn't take long for the Nanhai firm to take the initiative to come to the door and jointly purchase sugarcane plantations with the gentry of Ding'an County in the form of free contracting of the land that had been acquired.

"Reclamation of new fields and joint production and joint operation" is the Nanhai firm, under the guidance of Zhao Mingchuan, imitating the intensive large-scale farm agricultural model carried out by Huamei. Tenants or yeoman farmers participate in the form of labor or contracting, large-scale operation and unified marketing, and the unit comprehensive cost will be much lower than the traditional economic agricultural model of small-scale family farmers.

The local gentry in Ding'an County were responsible for recruiting people to organize farming, while the Nanhai merchants were responsible for purchasing the technology, and only the sugarcane seedlings transported from the South Seas were allowed to be planted on tens of thousands of acres of land. According to the agreement, each load of sugarcane was offered at a price ranging from two to three cents of silver, depending on the condition of the year. It is said that one acre of high-yield sugarcane field in Nanyang can produce at least 30 quintals of sugarcane every year, which means that the income is at least six taels of silver per mu, which is several times higher than growing grain.

Although sugarcane cultivation had entered the Ming Dynasty at the end of the 16th century, and there was a certain scale of cultivation in Fujian and Guangdong, and the sugar trade was also quite prosperous, there had never been such a large-scale concentrated cultivation, and the land was provided for free. Could it be that the Nanhai merchant thinks that he has too much silver? Listen to it at first time. Almost no one in the Huang family believed it.

With all kinds of doubts, the Huang family, as a "representative", was pushed out by the local gentry, and was the first to try this peculiar intensive farm contract cooperation model, and organized more than 200 tenant farmers to go underground with anxiety, but the first year's harvest made the Huang family startled.

The farmers in Qiongzhou who tried planting for the first time still did not understand the temper of this high-yield sugarcane, but 10,000 acres of sugarcane fields still harvested 300,000 quintals of sugarcane, and according to the observation of the old farmers, the daily care and service of this sugarcane field is much simpler than that of the rice fields with fine roots.

The sugar factory on Pearl Island opened the purchase price of 300,000 quintals of sugarcane to the Nanhai firm that year, and the total purchase price reached 140,000 taels of silver, and Liu Yaoyu, who got the money, did not say a word, and transferred 76,000 taels of silver to the Huang family neatly. 200 tenant farmers who did farm work for the Huang family for a year. After deducting the various government taxes spread on the head, each household received more than 50 taels, almost four to five times the income of the best years in previous years! After deducting the miscellaneous expenses and the expensive Nanyang fertilizer purchased in a unified manner, the Huang family made a profit of 60,000 taels of silver, which is like a dream when I think about it.

This is still a market that is not very familiar in the first year, and now the gentry and farmers in the entire Ding'an County are crazy. The old man patriarch of the Huang family smiled from ear to ear, and quickly signed a twenty-year contract with the Nanhai firm, and the other gentry families were even more envious, jealous and hateful. It is said that even the Ding'an County Order, who was watching the play on the side, was shocked, and in previous years, he didn't expect any land income here. This time, it is easy to put forward a completely different algorithm for the field tax of that year than in previous years, and under the "coercion and inducement", the field tax of three coins of silver of the Huang family was added to each mu of sugarcane field, and another 3,000 taels of silver was withdrawn.

Although the flesh hurts. But how could the Huang family not know that this was the best chance to keep their family eating "alone"? What's more, the backstage behind this Nanhai business is the Yamen of Qiongzhou Mansion, which must be tied to by the local county order.

The Huang family is developed, and they are holding on to the thighs of the Nanhai business, and other landlords and gentry in Ding'an County also flocked to Qiongshan County, and talked about cooperation intentions with the young shopkeeper of the Nanhai business named Liu Yaoyu. The South China Sea firm is also arrogant. Almost all of them agreed, but they were required not to hinder the Nanhai firm from acquiring and integrating the wasteland and waste land in Ding'an County, and then jointly contract planting.

Although he was dissatisfied with the other party's wanton occupation of the surrounding land in Ding'an County by relying on the backstage. But they couldn't resist the temptation, so after several struggles, the remaining gentry of Ding'an County simply united to make up 10,000 acres of land conducive to centralized management under the construction of the Nanhai firm, and then signed a contract for the establishment of a sugarcane farm joint planting and marketing.

By the end of the seventh year of Chongzhen, the entire Qiongzhou Prefecture had more than 30,000 acres of sugarcane fields, more than 1,000 working farmers, and an annual output of at least 900,000 quintals of sugarcane. Every year, the Nanhai merchants pay more than 200,000 taels of silver for the purchase of sugarcane to the gentry in Qiongzhou! The local government of Qiongzhou also extracts tens of thousands of taels of "miscellaneous taxes" from it every year.

Not only sugarcane, but also more than 30,000 acres of cotton in Yazhou in the south have long been under the joint intensive management of the local gentry and have become no less than sugarcane's agricultural income project. The territory of Yazhou, which was conducive to the cultivation of cotton on the island, was once poorer and the local gentry were weaker, but the strong cooperation between the Nanhai firm and the prefecture government quickly gained the upper hand, making the promotion of cotton farm planting more smoothly.

Although the Nanhai merchant Tong Guò made huge profits by reselling industrial and agricultural raw materials to Pearl Island, Liu Yaoyu and Zhao Mingchuan knew from the beginning what the real difficulties they would face in Qiongzhou were. Ownerless barren land can be easily reached, but it requires manpower to cultivate it. Don't look at Qiongzhou, which is vast and sparsely populated, and the gentry are weak, but it is exactly the same as other Daming prefectures, and a large amount of local land and labor is still controlled by local clans.

At a time when every household is in full swing to harvest sugarcane, in the foothills of Jinniuling Mountain, which is dozens of kilometers east of Changhua County, Danzhou, about 100 people are carrying out difficult road repair work on their shoulders.

At this time, the Hainan Shilu Iron Mine has not yet been really named, but under the investigation led by the Huamei "geologist" Frey, not only the Shilu Iron Mine and the nearby copper ore resources have been revealed, but also the open-pit coal mine rich in oil shale has been found in Changpo Village in the west of Danzhou (the proven reserves of oil shale account for nearly 8% of the country and the single ore reserves are the first in the country). Danzhou, which used to have the deepest contradictions between Han people and raw and cooked Li, suddenly became a cornucopia of Qiongzhou overnight.

The living environment of Shengli, who lives deep in the inland mountains, is very harsh, and it was extremely difficult to exchange some coarse salt and iron pot from Shuli or Hermes-Epitek in the past, which is also the root cause of local conflicts for a long time. In order to solve these ethnic contradictions, the Nanhai firm, with the support of the Qiongzhou government, took over the mutual market with the local Shengli. With trade as an entry point, a year-long infiltration began. Faced with the whiteness of fine salt, cotton cloth and brand-new ironware, the local Shengli village could hardly believe its eyes. The blockade policy of Shengli District, pursued by the Ming Dynasty in Qiongzhou, has finally changed this time.

Happened many years ago in Qiongzhou Li riots, under the suppression of the Ming Dynasty, Danzhou around Shengli also suffered a huge population loss, now there are dozens of Shengli villages in the Jinniuling area, but the total population is only a few thousand. In the past few years, relations between Han and Li have improved dramatically, but in order to truly develop the iron and copper mines in Danzhou, it is necessary to go deep into the foothills of the Jinniuling Mountains.

Although they are all open-pit mines. However, the pristine mountain forests make large-scale development almost impossible, and even if the local men, women, and children go into battle and use manpower to carry the ore out of the mountains, the annual output is only a few hundred tons, which is completely meaningless. Therefore, the construction of a road leading to the mining area at the foot of Jinniuling Mountain has become the biggest problem for the Nanhai firm and even the Dongfang Industrial Company behind the scenes.

Danzhou itself fell into a situation of lack of labor because of the large-scale "reclamation of new fields", so it only relied on the local people who took a "salary" of one penny a day to open the way.

……

Saturday, January 20, 1635. On the second day of the seventh month of the seventh year of Chongzhen of the Ming Dynasty, it was cold.

More than 30 well-made hard-sailed warships came from the north and slowly sailed into the chicken coop fort in the north of the Ming Dynasty. It seemed that he saw a certain letter flag hanging on the wall of the fort, and the plank of the ship had just been stabilized, and a man in armor could not wait to run ashore and carefully inspect the left and right. Three more steps and two steps towards a sturdy building on the side of the dock.

"Hehe, let Mr. Sun wait for a long time!" Zhang Jianye respectfully bent down at the middle-aged man with two short beards in front of him.

"Lord Garrison has worked hard, I heard that this time I have gained a lot?" Sun Erxi drank the tea without changing his face. Turning his gaze to the direction of the dock, "Where are the displaced people this time?" ”

"Hehe, the garrison or something can't be mentioned for a long time. Don't hide it from Mr. Sun, this time he got more than 3,000 people from Jinzhou, Liaodong, and according to Mr. Sun's orders, at least half of them are women! Zhang Jianye's eyes flashed with color, and he seemed to be very satisfied that he could get these refugees under Houjin's nose, "After the thieves and slaves who ate inside and outside the hole and joined forces with the Jiannu Tartars to capture Jinzhou, the local people scattered and fled, and many households were captured by the Tartars and left for slavery. This time I met a fellow villager who threw himself into the Tartar, he still had a little humanity, and he didn't dare to do anything to Zhang, the man bid one or two, and the woman and the young child were five dollars, and I ......"

Zhang Jingye, the former garrison of the Phidao Navy Division of Dongjiang Town, immediately gathered his subordinates according to someone's prior arrangement when the Shandong rebellion began and Dongjiang Town disintegrated, and defected to the senior Yan Sihai with dozens of warships and hundreds of henchmen, and he was also renamed Sun Jianye.

The fragmentation of Dongjiang Town, as well as the chaos after the surrender of Kong Youde and others, Zhang Jianye was glad about his choice and secretly frightened. Although he has taken a lot of benefits from the other party in the past few years, he is really unpredictable about the identity of Sun Erxi in front of him, and once thought that the other party was a subordinate of the master. Seeing that the senior Xuanwei Division had no impression of this person, he immediately fell into consternation again, but in a cautious and cautious manner, he never mentioned Sun Erxi, the "introducer".

Although Zhang Jianye was obviously deployed by Yan Siqi, he had to be "summoned" by Sun Erxi from time to time, and every time he accepted Sun Erxi's private money reward under the pretext of handing over the displaced people. Zhang Jianye's daily task in Dayuan is very simple, that is, to transport displaced people from the coasts of Shandong and Liaodong to Dayuan, and then select those who meet the requirements to take Huamei away. For this reason, the Asian Intelligence Department privately rewarded Zhang Jianye with a "high price" of three taels of silver for each homeless person, and for the current situation that Liaodong and Shandong are a large number of homeless people, Zhang Jianye, who has long lost confidence in the Ming Dynasty and is committed to the big man, and a cadre of henchmen are doing extremely hard.

"Hehe, yes, yes! However, today I am here to congratulate Master Zhang......" Sun Erxi smiled slightly, took out a letter from his arms for the signing, and handed it to Zhang Jianye. "Last time, Mr. Fan praised you in front of Yan Xuanwei, it is estimated that it will not be long before you can still be the guard of this big Chicken Coop Fort, or even a bigger official...... You will burn this letter after reading it, so as not to make people think that I am playing right and wrong in the Yan family. ”

"This ...... The small ones can have today all thanks to Mr. Sun's help, such a big grace is unforgettable! Zhang Jianye was stunned for a moment, and quickly knelt down and kowtowed.

"Lord Zhang is polite, Sun will have to rely on adults more in the future." Sun Erxi laughed, flicked the dust on his clothes, and picked up the teacup again in a chic manner. Looks like I'm going to send off a guest.

"Hehe, if Mr. Sun has something to do in the future, even if he is instructed, Zhang should do it." Zhang Jianye, who relied on his own hard work to live a life of tens of thousands of taels of silver a year, was actually unwilling to be the official of the Propaganda Department in his heart.

Zhang Jianye's observation over the years has secretly come into contact with the power of the person behind Sun Erxi, and he has long known that Sun Erxi regards himself as the eyes and ears of the Yan family. From hinting at Yuan Chonghuan's death, to instructing himself to secretly collect the Phi Dao warships, to acting as soon as the Shandong Rebellion broke out. It unfolds almost in one go, ring after ring, as if it were an unpredictable prophet.

The other party was actually trying to raise his status in the Yan family this time, and even solemnly gave himself a secret letter, as if he was still continuing an invisible and untouchable dark line. At the beginning, the other party chose a self who was eating and waiting for death to cooperate. It won't be as simple as giving yourself silver, and if you refuse, I'm afraid that something bad will happen when you turn back.

With all kinds of doubts, Zhang Jianye said goodbye to Sun Erxi. went out and entered the Chicken Coop Fort City, intending to contact the magistrate of the Minister's Propaganda Department to settle these Ming refugees who were about to be sent to Nanyang, as for whether these refugees would live or die after that. He couldn't take care of it.

"Is this man reliable?" Zhang Jianye said goodbye to the door with his front foot, and a low man's voice came from the inner room behind Sun Erxi with his back foot.

"In addition to loving money, after observing over the years, his temperament is quite pure. If you have a place in the big office, it can bring a lot of convenience to our company in the future. Sun Erxi hurriedly turned around and lowered his head, and replied respectfully.

"Well, in addition to using him to transport displaced people, other arrangements must be kept strictly confidential, which is the highest secret in China." The voice in the inner room was even deeper, and then quietly faded away.

"Yes......" Sun Erxi maintained a deferential attitude of bowing his head until there was no more noise in the inner room.

……

At the moment when Sun Erxi and Zhang Jianye met in Jilong Fort, in the former Anping Fort on the west bank of Dayuan Island, which had been renamed "Dongning", Yan Sihai was looking at the annual general ledger of Chongzhen's seven years that was about to pass, and Yan Sicheng, the only younger brother in the clan who was the same knowledge of the Dayuan Xuanwei Division and the only one in the clan who had a reputation for showing talent, was explaining.

“…… Since the beginning of the year, Jilongbao has mined more than 200,000 quintals of refined coal, and most of it is sold abroad. and four thousand and forty taels of gold, one thousand three hundred taels of silver, and four thousand two hundred pounds of copper......"

“…… The three forts have a total of 354,500 acres of paddy fields, which are divided with the people's 'eighty-two', and obtained 200,000 stones of grain, and 20,000 stones of Siamese rice were purchased from Huamei Pearl Island, which was enough to support the military and civilians of the whole island for more than three years. ”

“…… A total of 10,000 acres of cotton and sugarcan fields. Last month, all the cotton was shipped to Pearl Island, and this month's sugarcane fields are ripe and will be harvested, and the harvest will not be less than 150,000 quintals. In addition to the main family, the fleets of the Li family in Luzon, the Yang family in Quanzhou, and the Wu family in Chaozhou are also waiting, and they should be able to be transported within a month. Brother, the captain's own ship strength is limited, and he has not dared to increase the planting of sugarcane fields, and he will not have to share seven cents of silver for each load, and he must build a large cargo ship of 1,000 materials before he can ......."

“…… Huamei Oriental Union Union Group has already negotiated that it will be able to order a big ship with Huamei next year, and will also help our staff, send hundreds of children to the United States to study, and plan to build and renovate Dongning City. ”

Listening to his brother's one-stroke explanation, the smile on Yan Sihai's face never came down, and in the end, he had already stretched out his arms and stood up and laughed.

"Well, that's all for today, I'm going to Tamsui Fort tomorrow, and I'll take the ship to see the account books of the sea trade." Yan Sihai is not a character engaged in internal affairs, just listening to a lot of numbers gives him a headache, and finally waiting for the other party to finish talking about the numbers in agriculture, he wants to go out and punch to relieve his fatigue.

"The elder brother is slow, the younger brother has some thoughts, and I don't know whether to talk about it or not." Yan Sicheng saw that his brother was planning to "run away" again, so he hurriedly walked around in front of the other party.

"My brother heard that the Pearl Island in China and the United States produces more than 40,000 stones of snow salt every year, which is worth more than one million taels of silver. Only my Yan family is not there? The big man loses more than 100,000 quintals of Huamei sugar cane every year, but only gets 10,000 quintals of refined sugar, isn't it favoritism? It's better for me to make my own sugar. ”

"I know what you're going to say...... The rules of the East China Sea and Sea Trade Road set by the Zheng family, the Li family of Luzon, Liu Xiang and others are the result of the all-out efforts of China and the United States, and all parties obey them. I also know that 'snow salt' and "refined sugar" are profitable, but they belong to other family dealers, and my Yan family does not have any more monopoly shares. It is not easy to obtain the method of making gorgeous refined sugar. Yan Sihai groaned slightly, and guessed the thoughts of this younger brother who was in charge of the government's money and food, "However." The rest of the gorgeous seafood is the most obtained by my Yan family, you are too careful. ”

"Yes......" Yan Sicheng saw that his brother was like this, so he shut up.

"By the way, a few days ago, I bought two hundred-year-old ginseng from the north, and you asked someone to go to the gorgeous Pearl Island to visit the old seventh uncle who was recuperating. By the way, please ask the seventh uncle to come forward and ask if Huamei will agree, let Xianfeng (Yan Xianfeng. Yan Sihai's eldest son, Yan Xianping's cousin) returned to the senior early. Before going out, Yan Sihai seemed to remember something, and hurriedly turned around to greet him.

The eldest son was in order to "escape the disaster". and niece Yan Xianping went to Huamei ten years ago together, and now it should be nineteen years old, and I heard that he still went to Huamei Jingshi to take some "Ivy League". Now that the family is big, I think of my eldest son who was away from my side when I was not yet ten years old. Yan Sihai has always felt a kind of uneasiness in his heart.

Although he has Yan Xianping, a heavyweight family backer, is backstage for the entire Dayuan Island in Huamei, but over the years, he has been recurring because of old injuries. Coupled with the excessive color of the wine, the body is gradually a little "sleepy".

The other sons are either too young, or they don't learn and don't know how to learn, and they have long since lost the kind of toughness and courage that the first generation of the Yan family worked hard, it seems that it is time to call the eldest son back to his side, and then take it personally for a few years, and he is ready to take over. Yan Sihai, who has reached the age of forty, thought secretly in his heart.

Looking at the back of the elder brother, Yan Sicheng's expression slowly changed from deferential to a little lonely.

was thinking about things in a daze, when suddenly a housekeeper walked into the main hall again, bowed his head respectfully and bowed his hand: "Eighth Master Qiqi, those scholars you looked for from Chaozhou and Zhangzhou a few days ago have already arrived." ”

"Come to the house, be treated, and I'll be there later!" It seemed that he had finally heard something to be happy about, and Yan Sicheng's feelings quickly improved.

……

In the process of collecting the southward transportation of Shandong refugees, you can even see the figure of Zheng Zhilong, the "Fujian Jinxia Coastal Defense Commander", and the Huamei Oriental Union Group paid Zheng Zhilong a higher salary, at least ten taels of silver for each homeless person, and every time the captain's fleet passes through the Ryukyus, the Zheng family can also get an additional batch of gorgeous seafood or munitions, so that Zheng Zhilong's huge coastal influence protects the sea route from Shandong to the southeast coast.

Even if some people tried their best, they could only fish out tens of thousands of people, but they also made Zheng Zhilong, the Dayuan Xuanwei Division and the overseas consulate of Huamei Pearl Island all become the beneficiary. Judging from the results, the Dayuan Xuanwei Division seems to be more advantageous, but in three years, Zhang Jianye has transported more than 20,000 northern refugees to Dayuan Island, plus the Yan family's own mainland channels, excluding the "divided" to the Huamei displaced population, now Dayuan Island has more than 70,000 soldiers and civilians, which is nearly twice as large as when the Huamei Expeditionary Fleet broke the siege.

Dayuan Xuanwei Division Jilong Fort was established in the fourth year of Chongzhen (1631) in the natural deep-water port Jilong Bay in the northeast of Dayuan. Since the end of the 16th century, there have long been Spanish and Dutch explorers in the vicinity of sporadic gold panning activities, and the Yan family has also been engaged in gold panning for many years, but after the survey of Chinese aestheticians, the Yan family knew that the income from the river sand gold before them was a pediatric, and their feet were a treasure that would make anyone crazy.

Coal, gold, silver, copper, sulfur, all of them shimmered with the luster of wealth, and the Yan family quickly took the area around Jilong Bay as the core business base of the Dayuan Xuanwei Division. Under the policy of sticks and jujubes, the Yan family's soldiers and horses and warships poured out, quickly surrendered and collected the nearby Dayuan natives, and those who tried to resist were captured and sold to the Eastern Union Group as slave labor, and even moved tens of thousands of mainland refugees, firmly establishing a fortress town integrating military and economic development.

The nearby Jilongshan Coal Mine and the river sand gold and gold, silver and copper mines in the east of Jinguashi have become important places for the Yan family to vigorously operate. Huamei Pearl Island's demand for coal and stone is almost open, and even because of the lack of smelting capacity of Dayuan itself, gold, silver and copper ore has also become a "hard currency" for Dayuan Island to exchange for seafood and ordnance from Huamei.

In the past 1634, the coal transported to Nanyang from the Jilong Fort of the Dayuan Xuanwei Division alone reached 10,000 tons, plus the introduction of Nanyang rice seeds, Taixi Island cotton, sugarcane and other gorgeous crops, as well as the development of mulberry silkworm reeling in Dongning, the Yan family used the huge wealth not only to introduce a large number of mainland refugees, but also the three strongholds on the island were also impregnable, which can be called the most rapid development of Dayuan Island after Yan Siqi's death.

If it weren't for the fact that the overseas lords of Huamei Pearl Island were guarding the "rules" of the East China Sea, I am afraid that the Yan family, who had restored their strength, would have ambitiously restored trade between Ryukyu, Japan, and the South Seas in an all-round way to break the monopoly of Zheng Zhilong and Li Guozhu of Luzon. (To be continued......)