Chapter 90: A Thousand Boats Race to Set Sail

In October of the 11th year of Jiading in the Great Song Dynasty, in the village of Zhigu, Chen Zhaohua staggered with his hands on his back.

He looked numb, hiding the hatred in his heart deep in his heart, he knew that if there was a slight hint of hatred in his eyes, what was waiting for him was a bright sword.

Fifteen hundred, all like him, were tied up, ragged and skinny on this cold winter day. They were guarded and driven away by a band of Hu warriors, moving forward step by step, towards a fate they did not know.

Riding on his horse, Shima Guangyan looked at these people with complicated eyes, these people of the Jin Kingdom living south of the Taihang Mountains, there were Han Chinese, Khitans, Jurchens, and other peoples, and even some of them were Hu people—but those tribes who were hostile to Temujin. This batch was fifteen hundred, and many more were sent in exchange for the fine silks, fine teas, and glassware he had brought from the Great Song Dynasty. In particular, glassware is now extremely sought-after among the Hu people, and most of the Hu warriors who cannot send small round mirrors to their wives and concubines will be ridiculed by their wives and concubines, while those noble chiefs have a soft spot for a full set of glassware, glass glasses, glass ornaments, and the most valuable is the glass wine bottle that is said to be produced overseas, a bottle full of spirits can be exchanged for thirty young and strong slaves, even an empty bottle, can also be exchanged for ten.

For the Hu people and noble chiefs, as long as there are people in the Central Plains, they can be captured in exchange for goods.

"Stone Wipe Hirohiko, Stone Wipe Hirohiko!"

While he was thinking, someone shouted at him, and when he looked back, there was a young man in his early twenties, who was very valiant, and came on horseback, and in a moment he was in front of him.

"Brother Polu, why are you here?" He was taken aback and asked the man.

The person who came was none other than Mu Huali's son Polu, who was calm and resolute, much more generous than the rest of the Hu people, and knew all Chinese, and spoke Chinese with Shi Ma Guangyan. Because Shima Guangyan made a bold move, he had a relationship with Mu Huali through Yelu Ahai and Yelu Bald Flower, so Polu also made friends with him.

"After you go this time, you must bring that Yelu Chucai back, and we are willing to exchange a hundred slaves for one." Polu smiled: "That's the person named by the Great Khan, we didn't know last year, we were taken away by you, you don't bring it back to us, my father is not good to explain to the Great Khan!" ”

"That's going to be difficult, Brother Polu." Shi Mo Guangyan said with a sad face: "He was sent overseas to mine, as I expected, I am afraid that his body will not be able to bear the suffering overseas." ”

Seeing that Polu was still staring at him, he looked at Zuo Jin, and quietly approached Polu: "Brother Polu, those mines opened by the Song people overseas, the dead are extremely heavy, or they wouldn't be staring at you to buy people." You see, even the women, let alone the men! ”

He pouted to another group of women, who were black and thin, and had naturally been picked up by the Hu people.

Polu snorted, knowing that Shi Mo Guangyan was reasonable, but how much was still a little unhappy, the last time Genghis Khan's envoy came to ask for Yelu Chu material, Mu Huali truthfully reported that he was sold as a slave, and it didn't take long for Genghis Khan to send someone to scold him, and took away several Jin courtiers who were still in Youyun, these courtiers were all over forty years old, and they were locked up for a long time, and it may not be known whether they can survive through the desert.

"Brother Polu, you take care of me, don't let people kill indiscriminately, these are all treasures of money, all of them are glass and spirits!" Shi Mo Guangyan leaned into his ear again and said, "Although I am a greedy person who loves money, I am by no means a stingy ghost of those Hui businessmen. The warriors of the Great Khan and the Taishi have come all the way to kill here, and they have to bring some good things back to their wives and children at home, right? ”

"I know, I know, next time you bring more boats, I don't have so much food here for these animals!" Polu was a little impatient: "You remember, I want Yelu Chucai, as long as people live, no matter what method you use, you must bring it to me!" ”

"Don't worry, Brother Polu, whether it's Yelu Chucai or Yelu's coffin, as long as you live, I'll get it for you." Hirohiko Ishima laughed.

Polu shook his horsewhip and whipped a slave who passed in front of him, and it was Chen Zhaohua who received this whip. He didn't even look at Polu, he just gritted his teeth tightly and walked forward step by step.

"Just don't die and swear revenge!" He thought to himself.

It is not only the hatred of this whip, but also the hatred of the family and the country.

At the same time, in Mizhou, Zouping, Linqu, and Anqiu on Shandong East Road, official documents covered with the seal of Li Quan, the general manager of Jingdong Road in the Great Song Dynasty, were posted everywhere. Wherever there are still people, there is this official document, which is to recruit displaced people to go overseas to cultivate. Although it was necessary to leave his hometown, it was only in the past few years that the Red Jacket Army and the Jin Army had repeatedly fought on the East Shandong Road, and the prefectures and counties had been ruined.

In just two months, more than 2,000 families had gathered here, and if it weren't for the large amount of rice brought in from the south, Li Quan would not have known how to resettle these displaced people. Every time a shipload of rice arrived, a shipload of displaced people was carried away, and while they waited for the ship to arrive, they were placed in makeshift camps. It was not Li Quan's Red Jacket Army who managed the camp, but people from the overseas island, who were still members of the Red Jacket Army two years ago, but now they can all read three or five hundred words and count the addition and subtraction of thousands of people. Listening to the local sounds coming out of the mouths of these people, seeing these equally honest faces, and seeing the bright swords, the immigrants are all very peaceful, even if one or two want to stir up trouble, they will be driven out of the village immediately.

Although there is not enough to eat in the village, there is no hunger to death, so all those who are driven out cry bitterly and beg to come back, but whether it is pleading or threatening, the village is unmoved. For these people, the Red Jacket Army also pretended not to see it and let them go.

In the first month of the twelfth year of Jiading in the Great Song Dynasty, when Zhao Youju had just celebrated his fifteenth birthday, he received the news of the arrival of the first batch of Yilan immigrants and the opening of a shipping route to Luzon.

"It is located in a flat and fertile field for hundreds of miles, driving horses to gallop, several days and nights to see the end, this sincere foundation of the world. The natives here are divided into two parts, one is docile, its name is Kamalan, and it is divided into 36 societies, which take the lowland swamp as their place and live by fishing and hunting; A violent, its name is Atayal, and it has the habit of cutting people's first achievements. According to Dalang's words, we used silk glass to exchange the land on the north bank of the Yilan River from the hands of the natives, build a walled city, and reclaim wasteland. There are many people in the Kamaran tribe, but Ayaya is fierce, and it has attacked several times, but they have been driven back by the bows and crossbows of the guards, and they have escaped far away from the mountains and do not know where they are. (Note 1)

The housekeeper in charge of Yilan's development is Chen Ren, who said in a letter to Zhao and Ju. He and his arrival in Yilan were not new immigrants from the Central Plains, but a team of 300 heavily armed convoys (100 of whom were equipped with iron-intensive full-body armor) and 500 old immigrants from Tamsui who had received military training. The new immigrants sent from the Central Plains to Liuqiu will first live in Tamsui for half a year to familiarize themselves with the climate of Liuqiu, and more importantly, learn the rules of Liuqiu and receive corresponding training. This is necessary in order to develop as many resources as possible in the shortest possible time, otherwise it will take decades for them to develop naturally.

"The weather is rainy, the water is abundant, and the miasma is very heavy." In Qiu Shuang's letter to Zhao and Ju, he said that Yilan's environment, as Chen Ren's deputy, he was responsible for Yilan's health status.

Yilan's development was even faster than Zhao and Ju had planned, and stimulated by Zhao and Ju's fifty acres of land, the immigrants of Xinda Tamsui devoted themselves to learning the rules of the island with unparalleled enthusiasm. There is almost no difference between the people's attachment to the land a thousand years ago and a thousand years later. In order to exchange their pioneering achievements for the pastel-colored paper printed with the words "Liuqiu Pass Gold Dollar Coupons", and then in exchange for the cement bungalows they have been accustomed to living in Tamsui, and to decorate their windows with glass and other freshwater self-produced items, they have enthusiastically signed up. The first batch of old immigrants who granted land were almost all on the list of subsequent reclamation workers in Yilan.

In the absence of more men than women, almost all of these old immigrants became the first batch of people to marry on the island. Over the course of a year, more than 100 babies are born in Tamsui, which means that the land they have carved out and the houses they have saved have inherited.

The two Dingyuan-class ships were named "Dinghai" and "Dingyang" respectively, and were remotely controlled by Meng Xisheng to carry out the triangular trade of hanging islands, Wa kingdoms, and Tamsui, and transported books, Buddha statues, porcelain, glass, quarter clocks, and silk from the hanging islands to Hirado, where the agents took these goods, and exchanged them for gold, silver, pearls, iron, mercury, iron pear wood, and iron knives (Note 2), and then transported them to Tamsui, where they were transported to Tamsui after gold, silver, iron knives, iron, mercury, etc., and the remaining goods were exchanged with glass, Freshwater cotton, freshwater silk, quarter-hour, etc. were transported to the hanging island.

Except for the shipbuilding department, all the other departments of the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau on the hanging island have been moved to Tamsui and merged into the Tamsui Manufacturing Bureau, but due to the increase in cargo throughput, the number of children has not decreased, but has increased. In addition to the recruited fishermen, a considerable number of the sailors on the island were military dependents from the coastal control envoys.

In this triangular trade, only the raw silk, silk, porcelain, Buddha statues, and books transported from Qingyuan Mansion to Hanging Mountain need to be taxed, and most of them are outside the jurisdiction of Qingyuan City. A large amount of gold and silver from the Wa Kingdom flowed into freshwater, and silver was gradually replaced by gold when freshwater coinage, which further reduced the cost of coinage to a certain extent.

The Dingyi, another Dingyuan-class ship, carried a three-yuan-class Yangyuan to trade between Guangzhou, Quanzhou and Tamsui, and its main materials were to purchase cotton (Note 3) and pig iron in Guangzhou and Quanzhou, and transport them to Tamsui for processing.

Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau specially built a large sea ship between Tamsui, Keelung and Yilan, the speed of the ship is slow, but the carrying capacity is large, the draft is shallow, and it can enter the inland river. The ship, named "Lux", was mainly used to transport minerals and grain, masonry, and cement, with a deadweight of 8,000 Hu (400 tons), and it took a lot of effort for Meng Xisheng to drive it to fresh water.

In addition to these five ships, the rest of the sea ships are all used to transport new immigrants from Shandong East Road and Hanging Island to Tamsui, a total of two Dingyuan-class ships, six three-yuan-class ships, if it is not for the shortage of sailors, more ships can be sent. In the past two years, Tamsui has hoarded 180,000 stone of rice, of which 50,000 stone will be used in exchange for immigrants according to Zhao and Ju's arrangement. The Red Jacket Army was short of food, and the agreement between Meng Xisheng and Li Quan was that one stone of rice was exchanged for one person, and if it went well, it should be possible to exchange nearly 50,000 people after deducting the loss. Coupled with the population in exchange for the Hu people, Zhao and Ju plan that within three years, the number of immigrants will be close to 100,000.

In order to achieve this goal, Meng Ransheng divided the entire journey into three sections according to what he had learned, the first section was from Zhigu Village to the Hanging Island, which was the longest section, but all the boats used were Cao, and there was no need to send a ship to the Hanging Island, which could come once in about 60 days, and each trip could transport 1,500 people. The second section is from Mizhou to Hanging Island, because the Red Jacket Army lacks large ships, this road is mainly two three-distance class ships and hired sea ships, and the troop carriers of the coastal control envoys are occasionally bought to make cameos, and they can transport 1,000 people every 30 days. The third section was transported from the hanging island to Liuqiu, relying on two Dingyuan-class ships and four three-yuan-class sea vessels, all of which had been modified to have sails, so that they were not afraid of headwinds, and the routes were already familiar, and on average, they could make a round trip in about 15 days, and each trip could carry away 1,200 people.

In this way, the number of fresh water will increase by 2,400 per month, or 28,000 a year. Moreover, the speed of shipbuilding of the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau has increased as the craftsmen have become more and more skilled, and the ships built have also become larger and larger, and since Jiading November and August, the construction of the Sanyuan-class ships has been completely stopped, and the larger 10,000-ton (500-ton) class ships have been replaced. The Dingyuan-class ships can be built in less than three months, and only the recruitment of sailors can keep up, and the capacity can be doubled in the coming year, so as to speed up the flow of immigrants.

However, Zhao and Ju did not want to blindly speed up the emigration, and all the immigrants on the island, without exception, had to receive more than three months of training in Tamsui, and in the process, either cultivated farmland or built city walls, and initially cultivated discipline in the day and night work, and then settled in Tamsui, Keelung, and Yilan respectively. He is also very concerned about the gender ratio of immigrants, who are more quickly and more easily accepted by freshwater than men. Children and adolescents, especially those without parents and fathers, are given priority over female immigrants. This is not only because children and teenagers are more receptive and more restrictive, but also because they are more likely to develop loyalty.

In another two to three years, the first batch of graduates of Tamsui Primary School will come out, and they will all be young and strong at about eighteen years old, which can come in handy.

Note 1: The information here comes from Shi Tianfuwen, a professor of the Department of Geography of Taiwan Normal University, "The Traditional Settlements of the Lanyang Plain and Their Humanistic and Ecological Significance", which is actually a historical material of the Han people when they entered Yilan in the middle of the Qing Dynasty, and may be different from the 13th century.

Note 2: You can see the article "Qingyuan City Bosi and Yuan-Japan Trade Research".