On December 28, Li Zhi's three pointed ships returned. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 ｉｎｆｏ

The ships came back almost empty, with only three messengers on board except for the boatmen. Li Zhi took three messengers to the palace of the general army and inquired about the development of the colony.

"Captain Diban, have you successfully set up camp on the island of Taiwan?"

When the squad leader surnamed Di heard Li Zhi's question, he stood up abruptly and replied straightly: "Back to the Governor of Dadu, Commander Zheng found a small hill with a small river at the bottom of the mountain, set up camp on the mountain, and dug three trenches. ”

Seeing that this squad leader was a little nervous, Li Zhi waved his hand to sit down, and asked with a smile, "Is there an attack camp for local students?" ”

The squad leader sat down slowly, and replied loudly, "Back to the Grand Duke, we have detected a Shengfan tribe in the woods. But when we set sail on the 18th, Ikuban hadn't attacked the camp yet. ”

Li Zhi thought for a moment and nodded.

Seeing that Li Zhi didn't ask, the squad leader said, "Governor Dadu, we met the nine big ships of Hongmaoyi on the return trip. The red-haired boats seemed to be on their way to plunder, and as soon as they saw our boat, they came up to rob them. ”

Red hair is the name given to the Dutch by the Ming people of this era. At this time, the Dutch maritime merchants or pirates had already killed East Asia, sometimes trading and sometimes plundering, and fought many battles with the Ming Dynasty. After the Ming Dynasty was plundered several times, the Dutch were forbidden to land in the Ming Dynasty, which deprived the Dutch of Chinese supplies.

The Dutch had a stronghold in southern Taiwan, mainly a castle called the city of Geranza. The Dutch wanted to buy silk and could only sell it to Chinese merchants in the city of Geranza. So this Geranza was also an important trading point.

The armed merchant ships of the Dutch were active in this sea area north and south of Taiwan.

Li Zhi was stunned, but he didn't expect the three ships to meet Dutch pirates on the way back, and asked, "What happened later?" ”

"Governor Dadu, later Commander Lu let us sail three ships to the east, our ships were fast, and we avoided the red-haired pirates."

Li Zhi nodded and said, "These Dutch pirates are looking for death!" When we have more ships, we will bombard them all into the sea. ”

The three messengers reported to Li Zhi about the situation on the island of Taiwan, and Li Zhi listened carefully and chatted with the messenger for a full hour.

Li Zhi's three big ships stopped at Dagu for two days, and before waiting for the Chinese New Year, they carried another thousand people to Taiwan. Li Zhi had the intention of strengthening the armament of Zheng Hui's camp, and this time he sent another 200 soldiers over. Except for the soldiers, the other personnel who went to Taiwan this time were all peasants who had been recruited to open up the wasteland. When these farmers arrive in Taiwan, they will start building canals to reclaim wasteland, and strive to clear the land and start planting seeds by March.

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Fang Laosan is the platoon commander of the trapping regiment, he joined the army in Chongzhen in nine years, and now he is a veteran for four years. Relying on the combat exploits accumulated in previous battles, he became a company commander.

Before the New Year had passed, Fang Laosan led forty soldiers to board the ship and sailed to Xiaoliuqiu.

Fang Laosan was on a sea boat for the first time, and the pointed boat looked quite big, but it was very bumpy at sea. The big boat swayed up and down with the waves, and Fang Laosan vomited more than a dozen times on the road, and his intestines were about to vomit out. It took ten days to reach Taiwan, and Fang Laosan recuperated in the camp for several days before he recovered.

However, when he arrived in Taiwan, Fang Laosan looked around and immediately understood that it was worth coming to Taiwan for thousands of miles.

This is a fertile virgin land.

From the top of the hill where the camp is encamped, there are lush broadleaf forests everywhere in sight. Fang Laosan knew that this forest grew so densely because of the fertilizer of the land, as long as these forests were burned with a fire, these lands would become fertile farmland, and the grass and wood ash burned by the forests was the best fertilizer.

A quiet river runs through a plain with easy access to water. As long as the dragon tail cart is erected by the river, the river water can be irrigated into the paddy fields endlessly.

There are no officials who scrape the ground, no Ming officials who oppress the small people, no despicable gentry who stare at the land of small farmers all day long, only inexhaustible sunshine, water and land. As long as the farmers work hard, they will soon become rich.

I heard that the general wanted to give each man and strong woman 20 acres of paddy fields with irrigation canals. For every five men and strong women, a buffalo is lent to a buffalo, and the land rent is sixty percent. The climate in this part of Taiwan is warm and humid, and two crops of rice can be planted in the morning and evening a year, and it is more than enough to harvest two and a half stones of rice per mu in a year.

In this way, after deducting the 60 stone rent given to the general, a peasant husband and wife can collect 40 stone of grain and put it into the warehouse.

What is this concept?

You must know that one stone of rice sold to the Governor's cheap grain store can get two taels of silver, and forty stone of grain is eighty taels. It is equivalent to the monthly income of each strong man three taels of silver.

What kind of good life is it to earn more than three taels of silver a month?

Nowadays, as long as young people in Tianjin enter the factory in Fanjiazhuang, they will become the most popular Wang Lao Wu, and the girls in the neighborhood can be picked at will. And the income of these workers is only two taels of silver. Even if the food provided by the general is included, the worker's monthly income is only three or five cents of silver.

Peasants, on the other hand, work in the fields, do not need to go out early and return late to work in the factory, nor do they need to compete with others for the position of a worker, and they can live a rich life with a monthly income of three or three yuan.

The couple earns more than six taels of silver a month, which can support eight people!

Fang Laosan felt that this place was really good, and he decided to write to his eldest brother, sister and younger brother and ask them to sign up to come to Taiwan. Instead of a few members of the family guarding the more than 30 acres of dry land at home in Tianjin, eating chaff and drinking thin, it is better to come to the south to open up a new world.

Fang Laosan has participated in the night school of the general to learn literacy over the years, and now he can write letters. Brothers and sisters in the family are illiterate, but they can read letters to someone who has read a book. The three large ships make a round trip between Tianjin and Taiwan once a month. Fang Laosan's relatives will soon be able to receive Fang Laosan's letter.

Thinking of the good days of his relatives in this new land in the future, Fang Laosan became more and more fond of this virgin land, and he was in a good mood to do things.

Commander Zheng has planned the location of the first batch of farmland these days, and this first batch of new fields is located on both sides of the river, stretching for more than 30 miles, just on the east and west sides of the camp, enough for 5,000 farmers to cultivate. Eight hundred peasants and four hundred soldiers were dispatched to cut down and clear a strip of vegetation around the planned new field, ready to burn the forest.

On January 13, before the Lantern Festival ended, Fang Laosan was busy with fifty soldiers at the edge of the forest, but suddenly saw a wolf smoke rising in the distance.

Fang Laosan was stunned, suspecting that he had made a mistake, and looked at one of the squad leaders under him. Fang Laosan's squad leader was also stunned, and from his face, Fang Laosan knew that he was not mistaken.

Could it be that Shengfan is here again?

Fang Laosan shouted loudly: "Everyone go back to camp, everyone call it a day!" Back to camp! ”

Forty soldiers followed Fang Laosan and hurried towards the camp. After rushing for half an hour, Fang Laosan returned to the camping knoll.

Fang Laosan walked into the camp from the gate of the camp and shouted to the soldiers standing guard next to the gate, "What's the matter? Shengfan is coming? ”

The soldier standing guard replied, "It's not Shengfan, it's Hongmao!" (To be continued.) )