Chaiting County, Nanhai, in the study room within the county school. A scholar put down "The Kingdom of Gentlemen" and sighed: ". Therefore, the ancient gentleman legislates, and the villain follows it. If all the people of a country are gentlemen, then the autonomy of the gentleman, the law of propriety and righteousness, is just a gentleman's agreement. The so-called sage makes people self-governing. The world has changed over time, and in addition to the old etiquette, the gentleman has agreed on the etiquette. To choose the good and stubborn, to repay virtue with virtue, to repay grievances with straightforwardness. Etiquette and law are also based on heavenly principles to control people's desires. In the name, clear rights and responsibilities, and disputes. ”

The other person stroked his palm and smiled: "Wonderful, wonderful! When the float is white! ”

These two people who drank with books, one was named Qiu Hong, and the other was called Qu Shimeng, both of whom were officials in this place. Qiu Hong is a scholar in Chaiting County, and Qushi Meng is the main book. Thinking of the peaceful era when everyone was a gentleman, the two of them showed fascination, each raised their wine glasses, touched them with "ding", and then raised their heads and drank them all. The sweet wine made from sugar cane is stronger than the rice wine in Jiangnan. Sugarcane liquor is cheap but not in line with the taste of the Central Plains, and it is the most popular product among the officials of the South China Sea.

Shuanglong Gorge, also known as the Ivory Strait, where Chaiting County is located, is an important point connecting the South China Sea and the Southwest Sea. The land here is fertile, the port is suitable for ships to stay and shelter from the wind, so the Nanhai City Bosi immigrated here, cultivated the wasteland, provided for self-sufficiency, and sold grain, vegetables, cane sugar, etc. to passing merchant ships, and flourished in a few years. In the various reclamation areas, the officials deliberately maintained the habit of reading and discussing, believing that this was the only way to distinguish them from the local barbarian leaders and wealthy people. The homeless people have a respectful and fearful attitude towards the homeless officials. Even when Bianliang fell and the Liao army swept the Central Plains, there was no major chaos in the reclamation of the South China Sea.

"I don't know when my Great Song Dynasty will become a real country of gentlemen."

"I heard that Lord Zhao will lead a fleet to pass us soon, if I can have the opportunity to ask him for advice in person, I am very lucky, I am very lucky!"

A slightly drunken voice drifted with the sea breeze. With the county government as the center, it is surrounded by a bunch of people's houses, and even more outside are flat paddy fields. Shallow canals crisscross the fields, dividing the fields into lattices. The place where the Song people reclaimed was an alluvial plain, and the water source came from a nearby river. At the beginning of the reclamation, the immigrants first cut down trees to build houses, and then set fire to the vines and weeds, and the government organized the people to build dams to divert water, and used the method of flood irrigation to completely soak the wild land, and the croppers skillfully sowed the first seeds.

By this time, the sun had set, and wisps of cooking smoke were wafting from most of the huts. Ordinary Song people's houses, even if the roof is covered with thatch, the rammed earth of the walls must be very thick, the inside of the house is tall and spacious, many people also built a small courtyard, and the courtyard is reclaimed inside and outside the vegetable field, the style is like the Central Plains. This is completely different from the stilted houses in the Tibetan village more than 20 miles away. The houses in the Tibetan province were very poorly built, some of them made a shed with a few palm leaves, or simply built a shack on the tree, which was immediately overturned in the event of a strong wind and rain, and only a very small number of Brahmin nobles or wealthy merchants could afford to live in the large mansions made of earth and stone in the great city of Srivijaya farther away.

"Uncle He, will you sow seeds again tomorrow?" In the staggered manner, the voice was a little surprised.

At the end of the year, the climate is probably between mid-spring and mid-summer in the south of the Yangtze River, and the first batch of immigrants could not calculate the time of sowing and harvesting by relying on the traditional agricultural time, so they could only continue to sow seeds under the urging of the officials, and then watch with joy as the crops were brushed up in the hot and humid climate. However, weeds also pop up horrifyingly, leaving farmers with a lot of time to hoe every day. The locusts here are a favorite delicacy. In the initial difficult period, the Song people quickly learned to eat all kinds of snakes, insects, rats and ants, and preserved the experience of eating all kinds of insects. With countless people eating up, it is impossible for locusts to become plagued like the Central Plains.

"That's fine." Dong He picked up the porcelain bowl and took a sip of tea, "In this place, if there are no ghosts and typhoons, then it will be a race to heaven." He smacked his lips and narrowed his eyes, as if reminiscing about the taste of tea in his hometown. But to be honest, before fleeing here. Dong He has never drunk tea in his life, most of the grain in the field has paid rent, and the family of five can't even eat enough to eat the chaff vegetables, how can they have spare money to buy tea to eat. Later, because the old lady was ill urgently, the family even treated the sick and held funerals, and the debts were high, and Dong He was also imprisoned. happened to encounter the imperial court's immigration reclamation, and his family of four was all sent to the prison ship here. Now that Dong He thinks about it, it is really a blessing and a curse.

"That's right, Brother Dong is an old man, and in the crop farming, he needs the eldest brother to bring more brothers."

Wang Shuang blushed, picked up the wine bowl, and the people around him said together: "I also respect Brother Dong." "Brother Dong should bring more brothers." If you don't have a good harvest in a year, you'll go hungry. They all grow crops, although Dong He only arrived four or five years earlier, but in terms of water, soil and climate, he can give these new arrivals good guidance. Especially when people leave their hometowns, although the officials here are still honest and capable, there are always places where the government can't control them. Everyone is uprooted from their hometowns, and they have no relatives to rely on, so they must make friends with each other, so as not to be bullied by others.

"Where, where, the brothers think too highly of Zhou." Where did Dong He receive such a lift in his hometown in Mizhou, when others came to toast, he did it without refusal, his head was already groggy at this time, and his tongue knotted and said, "This, here, insert a stick in the ground, plant - trees, all become, grow fast, and there are few insects, where, where is the ability." ”

"Brother Dong, don't say it, the same wind and rain, the same water and soil. The proprietors of Longzhu Island use black slaves to farm the land, whether it is sugarcane or millet, but they are too far behind us. Wang Shuang said triumphantly. Not far from the reclamation land, about 20 miles, there is a large field cultivated by Black Fannu on Longzhu Island, and the crops there are too far from those planted by the Song people.

"yes, it scared me when I first saw the black slave." Another sneered, "It turned out to be a fake trick that didn't work." ”

"You can grow like this in such a good place, and if the black slave becomes a tenant in the north of us, he will starve to death in a year."

Everyone laughed, and at this time, Dong He was already asleep on the wine table. It's a comfortable day. As soon as I got off the boat, I was told that I would receive a 100-acre land deed per household, and after reclamation, I could continue to ask the government for wasteland reclamation every year, and I would count it as much as I wanted. He could barely believe his ears. Is there a better dream for these farmers who have a lot of strength? A ray of crystal light flowed from the corner of Dong He's mouth, and he smacked his lips and sucked it back again. It's a good idea to keep this dream going. Tomorrow the seeds will be planted......

On the opposite side of the walled city of the Song village, an undulating island faces the mainland across the sea. This island is the Dragon Ball Island in the mouth of the Song Dynasty, because the land on both sides of the Ivory Strait is like two big dragons that meet north and south, and Dragon Ball Island is like the pearl of the double dragon playing with the pearl. Longzhu Island is more than 80 miles long from east to west and more than 40 miles wide from north to south. Because the island is not big and the place is rugged, there is no fall on the island, and the Song people did not choose this desert island to establish a reclamation land. Most of the passing ships replenished food and fresh water in the cities on land in the north and south, and only occasionally stopped at Dragon Pearl Island.

However, in the past two years or so, the mysterious proprietor of Dragon Ball Island in the Song Dynasty has built a walled city at the north and south ends of the island, and by the way, some flat land has been reclaimed. Through the narrow sea, the lights in the walled city are faintly visible. The wind blew through the two walled cities like two giant beasts crouching in the darkness, and they sometimes opened their sparkling eyes, one staring at the vast fertile land to the north and the other at the shallow, narrow waters of the south. This island happens to be choked in the narrowest part of the Ivory Strait, and the narrowest part of the sea is only five miles, and the heavy artillery cast by the Ordnance Division of the Xia Kingdom has been able to completely block this strait as thin as a intestine valley.

According to the laws of the Zhu State Government, the detailed atlas of the topographic survey was completed, there were basic walled cities and reclamation, the resident population was maintained all year round, and the annual tax of one penny, this island belonged to the territory of Li Yong, a native of the Xia Kingdom. When the Xia Kingdom and the Great Eclipse Princes were locked in a vicious war, a marching priest discovered the island on a vast sea chart and was ecstatic to discover its importance in choking the sea routes of the Southwest Sea and the South China Sea. Li Yong was richly rewarded, and it was very likely that Longzhu Island would break away from its territorial status and become the first overseas territory of the Xia Kingdom in the strict sense of the word.

The imperial court bought the Nanzhai that controlled the Ivory Strait at a price of 200,000 guan and named it Longmen Village. Because of the distance, Longmen Village is still mainly guarded by Li Yong's "regimental training", but at the same time, it is also under the orders of the Great General's Mansion. As a reward, Zhang Shanfu promised Li Yong to win the title of founding marquis for him. The marching division came out to the Protectorate to ask for a salary for the soldiers, and the two heavy guns with a range of six miles were cast in the iron yard of the Ordnance Division of Zhennanbao, and immediately loaded on the merchant ship and transported from Yuntun Port to Longmen Village, and a team of gunners came with the ship, and the gunners loaded the heavy artillery into the gun position of Longmen Village almost without delay for a day. Subsequently, the Firearms Division made many modifications to the firing boundaries of the gun positions in the north and south villages, and added Zhao Xingde-style corner barricades.

After all this was completed, Liu Zhiyuan, the steward of Longzhu Island and the captain of the regimental training battalion temporarily appointed by the Protector Mansion, breathed a sigh of relief. Although Longzhu Island is just a chicken rib in the eyes of others, in order to hide people's eyes, Liu Zhiyuan also arranged for Black Fannu to reclaim some wasteland on the island, and also sent people to pick up the Fanluo on the northern peninsula and the big island in the south, asking them to allow Longzhu Island to use Black Fannu to reclaim wasteland on the plains to grow sugarcane and rice. Of course, Hei Fannu's ability to grow crops is far from being compared with that of the farmers of the Song Kingdom, and it was just a cover-up. Every year, Longzhu Island also buys a batch of grain from the northern reclamation land, and various supplies from the merchant fleet.