However, it was such a superior place, but it was not very developed before 1980 AD, and it was always a place of exile during the Tang and Song dynasties, which shows how backward it was at that time; The Ming Dynasty was slightly better, at least not the first choice for exile prisoners, but the people were still poor.

Yun Xi has not been very understanding of this. Therefore, Yun Xi specially arranged to stay in Qiongzhou for a few more days during his southern tour to explore the reason.

Li Xuliang introduced: "Your Majesty, Qiongzhou was a place of "southern service and waste" when the three emperors and five emperors were in ancient times, and it was a land outside the country; Xia Shang was of southern descent as Yang Yue. ”

"In the thirty-third year of the first emperor (214 BC), he sent Zhao Tuo (Wei It) to the south to unify the land of Lingnan, set up Guilin County, Nanhai County and Xiang County, and migrated hundreds of thousands of people from the Central Plains to his place. Then the Central Plains war, Longchuan ordered Zhao Tuo to establish himself as the king of Nanyue, and also ruled Qiongzhou. ”

"In the sixth year of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty (111 BC), the Fubo general Lu Bode and the Lou Chuan general Yang Fu led their divisions to pacify South Vietnam; In the first year of Yuanfeng (110 BC), Zhuya County and Daner County were set up in the land of Qiongzhou today. It is under the jurisdiction of Jiaozhou Thorn History. In the third year of Emperor Yuan (46 BC), Zhuya County was dismissed in the spring and Zhulu County was set up, which belonged to Hepu County, Jiaozhou. ”

"When Emperor Guangwu of the Later Han Dynasty ,......, Emperor Wu of the Three Kingdoms (Sun Quan), when ,......, Northern and Southern Dynasties, the land of Qiongzhou was subordinate to the Southern Dynasties,......, and Emperor Wu of Liang was in the same year (535~546 AD), Yazhou was set up and unified in Guangzhou. This is since Emperor Yuan of the Han Dynasty abolished Zhuya County, and set up prefectures and counties in Qiongzhou to govern this place. ”

"When Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty,......, Tang Dynasty changed the county to a state, and set up 22 counties in 5 prefectures, including Yazhou, Danzhou, Zhenzhou, Wan'an Prefecture and Qiongzhou, which were under the jurisdiction of Lingnan Province. The name of the current Qiongzhou is derived from the Qiongzhou in the Tang Dynasty. At the end of the Tang Dynasty, the world was in turmoil, and this place belonged to the Southern Han Dynasty. ”

"In the fourth year of Song Taizu's Kaibao (971 AD), Pingnan Han set up a state and three military ,......。 in Qiongzhou. After the former Yuan Dynasty destroyed the Song Dynasty, Yuan Shizu to the fifteenth year of the Yuan Dynasty (1278 AD), set up the Qiongzhou Road Pacification Division in Qiongzhou, which belonged to Huguang Province. ……。 In the second year of Wenzong Tianli (1329 AD), it was changed to the Qianning Military and Civilian Pacification Division. Soon, Ding'an County was promoted to Nanjian Prefecture. In the last years of Yuan Huizong, Hainan was changed to Guangxi Xingzhongshu Province. ”

"In the first year of Hongwu of the Ming Dynasty (1368), I swung my army to the south in March and surrendered to Liangguang in June; In October, the Qianning pacification division was changed to Qiongzhou Prefecture, and the Jiyang Army was changed to Yazhou,......, and 13 counties of Sanzhou were established here (later the three counties were abolished in the fourth year of orthodoxy (1439), which still belonged to Guangxi. In June of the second year, Guangdong Province was changed to Guangdong Province, Haibei Hainan Province was changed to Guangdong, and Qiongzhou was transferred from Guangxi to Guangdong Province. In nine years, Qiongzhou Prefecture belonged to Hainan Province. ”

"Qiongzhou Mansion is the southernmost territory of the Ming Dynasty, and even the southernmost territory of the previous dynasties, the north is bounded by the Qiongzhou Strait and the Guangdong headquarters, the west is bordered by the Beibu Gulf and Annam, the east is bordered by the Nanyang and Taiwan Town, and the southeast and south are the land of the barbarians. In the 26th year of Hongwu, there were more than 47,000 households on the whole island of Qiongzhou, 195,000 mouths, and more than 5 million mu of land,......。 ”

Hearing this, Yun Xi asked: "The land of Qiongzhou is about one-and-a-half of Guangdong Province, and there are only more than 190,000 people in the twenty-sixth year of Hongwu?" At that time, there were more than 3 million mouths in the entire Guangdong. ”

"There are too few fields. There are hundreds of thousands of hectares of land in the entire Qiongzhou capital, how can there be only such a small amount of land? ”

"Your Majesty, the ten prefectures under the jurisdiction of Guangdong Province have always been subordinate to the prefecture, half of the population is in Guangzhou Prefecture and Huizhou Prefecture, followed by Chaozhou Prefecture, the people of the above three prefectures have more than sixty percent of the people of the entire Guangdong Province, and the rest of the prefectures have no population."

"Among them, Qiongzhou Mansion is located in Tiannan, the place is remote, even if the government of successive dynasties encouraged the people to migrate to Qiongzhou, but most of the people are still reluctant to come, so the population is so small."

"As for the fact that there are so few fields, it is naturally because the population here is so small that no one cultivates the wasteland." Li Xuliang said.

"But I heard that the climate here in Qiongzhou is humid, the four seasons are like spring and summer, there is never winter, although the fields are not very fertile, but it is very easy to survive no matter how you grow melons and fruits, vegetables and vegetables, and grain, why don't the people want to come here?" Yun Xi was a little puzzled. You say that people in modern industrial society are willing to go to big cities, but what kind of land did the ancient peasants not plant? Why not come to Qiongzhou? In particular, the local food is already very easy to survive, and it is very easy to farm.

"Your Majesty, the minister thinks that there are several reasons." Li Xuliang said: "First, Qiongzhou is too remote, and it has been a place of exile since ancient times, and the people of the Central Plains do not know that it is easy to grow grain here, so they will not come; ”

"Second, the migration of ordinary peasant households is naturally from the barren land to the fertile land, although it is easy to grow grain in Qiongzhou Prefecture, but it is still not as fertile as the land around Guangzhou Prefecture, and Guangzhou is the provincial seat of Guangdong Province, and it is very rich, so if the people migrate, most of them move to Guangzhou, not Qiongzhou;"

"Third, Qiongzhou is separated from the mainland across the strait, and farmers have been farming all their lives, and when they heard that they still need to cross the sea to come to Qiongzhou, they are afraid that their legs and stomachs will tremble, so they are reluctant to come, and would rather stay in Leizhou Mansion opposite."

"Fourth, the road is inconvenient. Although the area of Qiongzhou Island is large, but it is mountainous, more than sixty percent of the place on the whole island is mountainous, except for the northern Qiongzhou capital city nearby, the rest of the local people, fields are all on the coast, except for Anding County, the counties and counties are also on the seaside, the whole island has only one official road around the island, even if the post station of the imperial court is also located on the coast, can not enter the inland. ”

"Can't they go by sea?" Yun Xi interjected. It is said that the most convenient road for an island like Qiongzhou should be by sea, and there are no trains in this era, and the speed of sea transportation may not be much slower than that of land.

"Your Majesty, you need a ship by sea, but it is not easy to build a ship, and it is not easy to build a wharf. There were no craftsmen who could build large ships in the local area, and ordinary small boats were very easy to capsize under the wind and waves of the South China Sea, and it was difficult to go to sea, so they could only use large boats, and there were few ports, so it was not easy for people to take the sea route. Li Xuliang explained.

Seeing that Yun Xi didn't ask any more questions, he continued: "Fifth, it's the local barbarians. Qiongzhou is mountainous, the mountains are barbarian, the local Li people live in the dense mountains and forests, they are savage by nature, and from time to time they go out of the mountains to harass the nearby people; Many of the local mountains spread to the sea, not far from the county seat, and the people had no way to hide except to enter the city. In the former Yuan Dynasty, the government also organized soldiers to go into the mountains many times to clear and suppress, but the mountains were high and dense, and it was difficult to catch a few people who were not long-sighted, so they could only give up in the end. ”

"After the first emperor pacified Qiongzhou, the town of Li Qianhu was specially set up for this purpose, guarding the main roads out of the mountain, so that the people were free from the suffering of the Li people."

In fact, what Li Xuliang said in the last paragraph is very biased. Originally, the entire Qiongzhou Island was the place of the Li people, and the Han people were foreign invaders, and from the perspective of the Li people, it was natural for them to attack the Han people. But Li Xuliang is an official of the Ming Dynasty, and he is also a Han person, of course, he must look at the problem from the perspective of the Ming Dynasty and the Han people; Yun Xi, as the emperor of the Ming Dynasty, is naturally the same.

'Barbarians are a problem. Yun Xi thought to himself: "Although there are many barbarians such as Yao people and Li people in Guangdong Province, they are all far away from the city, but the barbarians here in Qiongzhou are almost under the nose of the Ming government, and it is really difficult to deal with." ’

The first four problems are not easy to solve, and it may not be easy to let the people move here freely, but if I really want to solve them, of course I can solve them, and the government can forcibly move the people here and build more docks and docks. ’

But now that the population of the Ming Dynasty is too small, and there are too many places that need population, is it cost-effective to forcibly migrate people here? Yun Xi thought again. Now the Ming Dynasty needs to move people to the northwest, northeast, southwest, Nanyang and other directions at the same time, and many places have migrated population, and now at least hundreds of thousands of people go to these places every year, voluntarily or involuntarily, to settle in these places.

If you want to develop Qiongzhou, you will have to move at least hundreds of thousands of people, and although you won't move so many people here in a year, you will have to move in at least tens of thousands of people a year. If he can squeeze out tens of thousands more every year, why does he have to put them here?

At this time, Yunxi had already retreated from developing Qiongzhou: the value of using tens of thousands of people here was not necessarily higher than that of migrating to other places; But I feel that Hainan's geographical location is so good and the resources are also very rich, if you don't develop it, you always feel bad.

If you want to wait for the future, it is estimated that many years will pass, and you may not have time in your lifetime; After his death, who knows that Qiongzhou is a good place? It is estimated that it will not be developed until the tourism industry develops in a few hundred years, or the Shilu iron ore is discovered and mined.

He pondered for a moment, and thought to himself: 'Ask about the other situation here, if there are other restrictions on development, then the development of Qiongzhou will be suspended.' ’

He then talked to Li Xuliang about the local situation. "Li Aiqing, can the local people live a rich life?"

"Your Majesty," Li Xuliang hesitated for a moment before he said: "The people near the capital city of Qiongzhou are living in good health, the people in the city in the rest of the cities are still living and working in peace and contentment, and the peasant households in the rest of the prefectures and counties can always have a full meal. ”

"Huh?" Yun Xi was a little surprised: You have to say that because there are too few people and they are not backed by a vast area, it is understandable that the economy is underdeveloped, but the land here is so good, and the people should live in a state of not being too rich but worry-free; But now listening to Li Xuliang's words, the local people are struggling to even worry about food and clothing? What's going on?

"Your Majesty, the fields in Qiongzhou are indeed very easy to grow, but in addition to grain, vegetables, melons and fruits, items other than grains, vegetables and fruits here cannot be produced locally, and all kinds of things need to be transported from the mainland, and the price is high, so the people are deeply affected by the high value of all things."

"And if you want a field to be productive, you need not only fertile land, but also other things. The most important of these are agricultural tools and water conservancy. If there are not enough agricultural tools and complete water conservancy, a farmer will not be able to serve many fields, and the grain per mu of land will not be high. But the price of an iron hoe in Qiongzhou Mansion is five times that of Guangzhou Mansion and twice that of Leizhou Mansion opposite. ”

"The local water conservancy is also not successful. Even large families in Qiongzhou do not have much wealth, and they can't save much money except paying taxes. However, ordinary small households do not have the ability to build water conservancy, so the government can only organize large households to contribute money to renovate large ones, and large households organize small households to renovate small ones. But the big local families don't have much money, so how to renovate the water conservancy? Without neither, how can the local people produce so much food? ”

"So the people of Qiongzhou don't have to worry about starvation, and they are not rich." Li Xuliang explained.

When Yun Xi heard this, he suddenly remembered that he had read a report on the expenses of the South China Sea Navy Division for a year, and at that time, Yun Xi immediately checked some of the accounts and found that the per capita expenses of the detachment and wharf stationed in Qiongzhou Prefecture were higher than those of the detachment stationed in Guangzhou and other places, and even higher than that of Leizhou Mansion opposite. He inquired at the time and learned that many local items in Qiongzhou could not be produced by themselves, so the cost was larger.

Because the expenses of the Qiongzhou Mansion Detachment in that account were only fifty percent more than those of the Guangzhou Mansion, he had a lot of things to do at that time, so he forgot about it. When he went to Qiongzhou in person now, he learned that the price of goods in Qiongzhou was not fifty percent higher than that of Guangzhou, but several times higher.

The per capita expenditure of the Guangzhou Squadron should have been less than half of that of the Qiongzhou Squadron, but the reported accounts were only so much less, and it seems that many people in the South China Sea Naval Division were corrupt. Go back and let Jinyiwei check to see who is corrupting. Yoon-hee's first thought was about it.

He secretly wrote down the matter in his mind and began to think about what was in front of him.

"Just now I asked Aiqing why the people in other places are reluctant to migrate to Qiongzhou, why don't you say this?" Yoon-hee asked.

"Your Majesty," Li Xuliang said, "although the people of other places would not be willing to migrate over if they knew about the Qiongzhou Hundred Things Tenggui, how could ordinary people from other places know about such a thing? Therefore, the minister did not include it in the reason why the people of other places were unwilling to migrate to Qiongzhou. Li Xuliang said seriously.

Yunxi glanced at him, but didn't speak. Well, Li Xuliang's idea can't be said to be wrong, but it is problematic to answer it this way when asked by a superior leader. Yun Xi is magnanimous and will not take this matter to heart, if an emperor who is not magnanimous asks him to answer like this, Li Xuliang's future future is estimated to stop at Zhengsipin.

Yun Xi took his thoughts back to the things in front of him, thought about it for a moment, and asked him a lot about the local situation in Qiongzhou, and took out a map of Qiongzhou and said while comparing it.

Finally, he thought about it for a while and said: "Now it seems that one of the important reasons why the people of Qiongzhou are not very wealthy is that all kinds of things here cannot be produced by themselves, and they need to be transported from the mainland. ”

"Therefore, I decided to relocate hundreds of families of various craftsmen and settle them in Qiongzhou City, Danzhou City, Yazhou City and Wanzhou City, so that the local people can produce many items themselves, and the price of the province remains high."

"In addition, I also want to change the Yangpu Port in Danzhou to a dual-use port for military and civilian use, and allow past Ming merchants to stop here."