When the "New York" slowly sailed into New York Harbor, another schooner clipper also slowly entered the harbor, and hundreds of women wearing Han Confucian skirts on the deck were all staring at New York City with anticipation.

New York in 1681 was a very different time and space, and although the name of New York had not changed, the architecture on Manhattan Island had changed—Ming-style houses replaced European buildings on both sides of the street. However, as in Manhattan hundreds of years later, Manhattan was a neatly naturalized city, with checkered blocks scattered across the island, and even the location of Central Park in later generations showed the rudiments of the park.

"This is the city of the Celestial Empire!"

Michelle looked at the exotic buildings and couldn't help but ask the people around her.

"This is the city of the Celestial Empire!"

"The City of the Celestial Empire", this is another name for New York by Europeans, because it is full of exotic buildings, which fully reflect their imagination of the Celestial Empire.

And for this title, the Ming people of New York gladly accepted it, and even called themselves "the city of the Celestial Empire".

As the first colony of the Ming Dynasty in North America, the emperor himself paid special attention to the city - he actively participated in the municipal planning of the city, and the overall plan of Manhattan was designed by the Xingqian Emperor himself. All New Yorkers are proud of this.

To a certain extent, the "City of the Celestial Empire" also belongs to them and the glory of this city.

As the colonial governor of New York, Fang Zhongfa seemed very enthusiastic when welcoming the arrival of immigrants, and even climbed relatives among the new immigrants.

"Oh, this official is also from Nanzhili, this official's family is in Tongcheng, where is the virtuous brother's family in Nanzhili?"

"Back to the governor's words, the small people's house is in Suzhou."

"Suzhou is a good place, no matter how beautiful the world is, no matter how beautiful Jiangnan is, no matter how beautiful Jiangnan is, Suzhou and Hangzhou, speaking of which, this official has not been to Suzhou for many years."

Not only Suzhou, but also Daming has not been back for five years.

"Governor Fang is from Tongcheng?"

Seeing the intimate conversation between the governor and the immigrants over there, Li Mingdian turned his head and asked the clerk who was registering.

"That's right."

"Isn't that the same township as the current Shousuke?"

The clerk who was registering the roster replied without raising his head.

"Not only is it a fellow villager, the governor is Fang Shoufu's own nephew, and the governor's father is Shoufu's younger brother......"

The seemingly casual answer made Li Mingdian look at the governor who was chatting and laughing with the immigrants in surprise.

Oh my God, it's Shousuke's own nephew!

Shousuke's own nephew actually went to these tens of thousands of extraterritorial colonies. Originally, Li Mingdian, who had come so far away for himself and left his ancestral land, and was a little dissatisfied, would only have one thought left - since Shoufu's nephew can come here, I, a common person, should naturally come here.

Sometimes, some casual things can change people's lives, for Fang Zhongfa, at least a few years ago, he didn't expect to come to North America one day, like his other cousin, as Fang Qiyi's only son, although his father died when he was nine years old, since his uncle's return, he has taken great care of him, although he has never shown favoritism, but it is certain that his life has been destined to be. However, when he graduated from the academy and passed the civil service examination to become a low-ranking official, when he realized his dream step by step with his uncle as a model, the news of his cousin's triumphant return from exploring new routes made him unable to calm down for a long time.

Do you grow up in the glory of your parents, or do you start your own business?

Everyone needs to face the reality that five years ago, at his uncle's house, he was about to be promoted to the Ministry of Literature and Literature, and he asked for a post in the colony. At that time, Fang Yizhi was even a little incomprehensible, and directly refused, after all, he was his younger brother's only bloodline. Although Fang Yizhi refused, Fang Qiyi still took the initiative to go to the scribe's department and asked to serve in the colony.

The governor of the colony, who seems to be in a high position, has never been liked by officials, after all, it is too far from the mainland, in a wild place, who knows what the result will be?

No one wanted to go to the colony unless they had to.

After the expiration of the term of office, all colonial officials would return to their homeland in a hurry, not wanting to stay for a day. But after the five-year term expired, Fang Zhongfa asked for re-election. Originally, as the farthest colony of the Ming Dynasty, the governor of the colony of New York had no suitable candidate, so the officials naturally agreed to his re-election.

In the past five years, he has missed a lot, missed his son's graduation from college, missed his son's marriage, missed the birth of his grandson, but on the other hand, he has witnessed the rise of this "Celestial City", which is now the largest city on the East Coast of North America, and the most prosperous city.

However, in just a dozen years, the Han Chinese, like Europeans, proved that they were far ahead of Europe in urban construction and municipal management.

Just as Fang Zhongfa was chatting with his fellow villagers, a customs official ran over and whispered.

"Governor-General, the "daughter ship" from England is here. ”

Hearing that the "daughter boat" was coming, Fang Zhongfa said to the surrounding immigrants with a smile on his face.

"I still have something to do with the official, so I won't bother you, and after a while, after everyone settles down in the new village, the official will definitely go to the new village to have a drink with you."

The so-called new village is a resettlement site for migrants, and a new village is a small city and a settlement. There are now dozens of such new villages in the New York colony.

"How many people are on the daughter's boat?"

As he walked towards the dock, Fang Zhongfa asked.

"There were 413 people in total, and three died of disease on the way."

"Well, 413 women, it's okay, it's okay, this time next year, my New York colony, there will be more than 400 more children, so, over time, this North America must be all my Chinese."

On the way to the pier, you can see many Western women wearing Hanfu, often pulling a child with obvious mixed-race characteristics. And these Western women often come here on their daughter's boat.

When Britain agreed to lease the New York colony to the Ming Dynasty, the entire New York City had a population of only four or five thousand, while the Ming people only had more than a thousand people, and even after a year, there were only two or three thousand people, which was seriously insufficient compared to the British and Dutch people in the colonies. The two or three thousand men were mostly soldiers, merchants, and a small number of exiles, and few women. Most of the women were servants or family members of officials, and their numbers were pitifully small. At that time, His Majesty was bent on making the North American colonies prosperous, so he was very active about "marrying a daughter". But at that time, there were very few women in the country who were willing to marry so far away.

The same problem occurred not only in New York, but also in African colonies such as Xiping (South Africa), where some exiles even had to marry local natives. In order to solve this problem, the officials of the colonies eventually made another choice - to bring in young women from Europe.

In Europe's slums, where millions of Europeans languish, starvation, disease, and young women even sell their bodies for a slice of bread, many of them would like to come to the New World and start a new life here, but they can't afford a ferry ticket.

As a result, under the planning of the colonial officials, the "maid plan" was released, and a program funded by the colonial governor's office to hire maids from European countries began to be implemented in Britain, France, Spain and other countries. In just 12 years, more than 70,000 young women from various European countries were brought to various colonies by Ming ships as maids, and became maids of Ming immigrants without wives, but in the end they all married their employers without exception.

These foreign daughters lived up to the expectations of the governors of the colonies, raising hundreds of thousands of children, often in the same way that the population of these colonies has grown rapidly over the past decade or so. Almost all of these European girls who crossed the sea to the Ming colonies came from poor backgrounds, and many were sent to orphanages or exiled to the streets by their mothers who could not afford to support them after losing their fathers at an early age. For them, crossing the sea to become a "maid" in the colony of the Ming Dynasty was an opportunity to improve their situation and get rid of their old lives. The ship that transports them is called the "Daughter's Ship".

"My God, look, those houses are beautiful!"

The girls who came ashore looked around happily, of course, not just at the surrounding buildings, many of them had already looked at the Ming people on the dock smartly, although the language barrier, although the appearance was very different, but they could still see that these Ming men were different from the British men.

Despite the different colours of the men on the docks, there was no doubt that they all looked healthy and burly, not at all malnourished like many civilians in London and elsewhere. What's more, they are all good-looking, and even the dock workers are cleanly dressed.

"Sure enough, they were all gentlemen......"

After this discovery, the girls finally breathed a sigh of relief, after all, before that, they were still worried about what kind of "masters" they would meet, and now it seems that these masters are not bad.

Like her girls, as soon as she got off the boat, Faith took the mirror out of her purse - ten years ago, there was an influx of cheap mirrors from the Ming Kingdom, and glass mirrors have turned from a luxury to an extremely common commodity, which is why the company provides portable mirrors to the girls' luggage.

Faith, who was holding the mirror, did not talk to others, but looked at herself in the mirror, dressed up, she was very beautiful in her appearance, she knew how to make herself more beautiful, besides, she knew that her fate depended on her appearance.

While Faith was carefully dressing herself, Fang Zhongfa went to the dock and said to the girls.

"I am the governor of the New York colony of the Ming Dynasty, and welcome to you!"

When the Governor's mouth unexpectedly spat out English, these girls from England all looked quite surprised, but in addition to being surprised, they heard Fang Zhongfa speak in Chinese.

"How many of you can understand what I'm saying?"

There were only dozens of people who raised their hands, but even so, Fang Zhongfa still nodded with satisfaction, it is not easy for these girls to learn some Chinese on the road.

"Ladies, soon your employer will bring you home, as a maid, you need to take care of their daily life, and language is the premise of communication between you, if you can't master the Chinese language, then how can you let the employer understand you, how can you get to know him?"

Fang Zhongfa, who has been in New York for five years, of course knows that these European women are not as subtle as the women of the Ming Dynasty, they are more direct, so he also directly expressed their thoughts.

"I know that many of you don't just want to be maids, of course we welcome you to be the mistress of a new family, but a real mistress must first communicate with her husband, so I hope that you can learn Chinese as soon as possible in the next time, of course, there are many women in your neighbors who are like you, they can all speak fluent Chinese, you can learn from them Chinese......"

Every time, facing these girls from Europe, Fang Zhongfa would emphasize to them the importance of language, language, writing and its culture, which is the foundation of Chinese civilization, especially in this land where there are also many European immigrants, and the Daming colony wants to continue to develop, and the Chinese language must be promoted, only in this way can it ensure that eventually the Daming immigrants will assimilate European immigrants, rather than be assimilated by European immigrants.

After welcoming the arrival of the girls, Fang Zhongfa smiled and watched the girls walk towards the warehouse, where they will have another month of training, where they will learn simple Chinese conversations and learn how to cook Daming meals, although many families in the current New York colony also eat bread and eat European food, but these women must learn how to become Daming.

Although in fact, the men who had been single for a long time did not care about this at all, after all, all they needed was a wife, and they did not care about the rest, but the Doge's Office cared, after all, it was related to the future of the colony, and many of them were married to their employers within six months. Then they bear children for their hired masters.

Standing on the pier, you can occasionally see children running on the pier, and whenever he sees them, Fang Zhongfa's mood seems to be very happy.

Perhaps, by the time this term is over, the population of this colony will exceed 100,000, and it will become the richest colony in the whole Ming Dynasty.

Perhaps, in a decade or decades, a railroad will connect the increasingly prosperous New York City to the new city, and the east and west coasts will be united by railroad......