China has always been a traditional landlocked country, the origin of civilization is believed to have come from the Loess Plateau in the northwest, and finally the Yellow River civilization was nurtured and matured in the Central Plains, and then there was the annexation and integration of the Yangtze River civilization in the south to form today's China.

This civilization rooted in the deep soil, the time of contact with the sea is very early, at least in the mature period of civilization of the Zhou Dynasty, has been sure to touch the sea without a doubt, King Wu of Zhou divided the Qi State, the first bold to the ocean to ask for wealth, Guan Zhong with the policy of official mountains and seas, so that the Qi State achieved the status of the first hegemon of the Spring and Autumn Five Hegemons.

But at this time, it can only be said that the sea is treated in the same way as the soil, and the wealth is obtained directly from the sea, rather than using the sea to expand the range of activities.

The real large-scale use of the ocean has reached the Tang and Song dynasties. Zheng He's seven voyages to the West are considered to be the first large-scale exploration of the ocean by the Chinese. However, a Shinto tablet found in Shaanxi rewrote this history, there was a Tang Dynasty diplomat named Yang Liangyao, who once went to South Asia and Middle East countries along the Indian Ocean as a state envoy and arrived in Black Clothes Food (Iraq), 620 years before Zheng He went to the West.

But this is just a misunderstanding of the Chinese themselves, in fact, the use of the ocean is much earlier than that. It's just that China is a country that has always been official, and it seems that only the behavior of the government can be regarded as a real exploration, while the exploration of the people often cannot leave a single word in the history books. In fact, whether it is Yang Liangyao or Zheng He, they go to the South Seas on the basis of the charts and experiences of the people's exploration, and without the people's exploration, they will not be able to move an inch.

China's real pinnacle in expanding its maritime business was in the Song Dynasty, the Song Dynasty was more liberal about commerce, especially in the Southern Song Dynasty, Zhao Gou was known as a faint monarch, but people are complex, he was a black-bellied man in political struggles, but in governance, he was a man of considerable achievements. His evaluation of maritime trade is more tolerant than that of previous emperors, "The market is the most profitable, if the measures are appropriate, the income is millions, will not win from the people?" So pay attention to this, and you can be less wide. "An emperor who tries to extract more wealth from foreign trade and then alleviate the looting of the common people, at least in this respect, is not a faint king.

Unfortunately, in the Ming Dynasty, the situation took a turn for the worse, and the conservative government of the old Zhu family made them worry about overseas dangers more than the pursuit of interests, and Zheng He quickly began to implement a sea ban after going to the West, so that the world's leading shipbuilding technology and navigation knowledge accumulated since the Tang and Song dynasties quickly became obsolete and backward.

In the Qing Dynasty, Qianlong finally kept a breathing hole in his mouthful of trade.

And Zhou Lang gradually expanded this breathing hole, and with the expansion of his power, it soon extended to every seaport. All this happened naturally under the general situation of seeking wealth and protecting finances, as well as the background of the dynasty and the Ding Revolution.

Quietly, the Chinese once again faced the sea.

But the Song Dynasty was also like this, but the Song Dynasty did not integrate the agricultural civilization with the maritime civilization, but structured the ocean with the consciousness of the agricultural civilization, just as the Song Dynasty's commerce was extremely developed but did not give birth to a reciprocal commercial culture, and the Song Dynasty's expansion did not bring the corresponding maritime civilization.

Zhou Lang did not do this now, but he introduced a relatively standardized Western management method for the sea, opened ports, and encouraged trade and commerce.

If the Chinese civilization has not been able to give birth to its own maritime civilization, Zhou Lang will not mind. Because that can only show that the traditional Chinese civilization will not lose to the maritime civilization in the absence of violent external shocks and in the case of reciprocal competition, which shows that the two civilizations are a kind of equal civilization. So is it possible for China's agricultural civilization to use the sea as a channel to export to the outside world?

This is the significance of foreign colonization.

Last year, Zhu Li's third galleon trade finally carried a thousand Chen Zhouquan's brothers, crossed thousands of miles of waves, and came to the distant shore. They sailed up the Columbia River in search of a suitable campsite. The Columbia River is named after the boat on which Robert Gray, a Boston merchant who came to explore the area in 1792, and Xie Qinggao later learned that he respected this tradition and used the name on his charts.

Zhu Li personally participated in this expedition, going as deep into the hinterland as possible, looking for the end that the sea ship could reach. Because Zhou Lang gave Zhu Lian the position of governor of all the thirty miles around the port. All the ports they established in the Americas were under the jurisdiction of Zhu Li. Therefore, Zhu Lian must go deep inland, and then turn the land between the port and the sea into his own ruling area.

If it was before, he wouldn't be so serious, but now he has a competitor, and Zhou Lang promised Chen Zhouquan that he could occupy all the land he had carved out and claim the king in those lands. If Zhu Li does not occupy these lands, then these lands are Chen Zhouquan's.

But after going deep for 300 miles, Zhu Li also felt that this was too far from the sea for the harbor, so he gave up continuing to advance inland, and set up camp at the confluence of the two great rivers to build their first port.

The Columbia River is really a river with excellent navigation conditions, and after the construction of the city, the river from the mouth of the Columbia River to Portland is 185km long, and a channel with a water depth of 12.2m and a width of 183m can pass through 26,000 tons of sea vessels. In this era, although it was not trimmed and it was still a natural river, it was easy to navigate sailing ships of several hundred tons.

Chen Zhouquan didn't care about Zhu Li's careful thinking, he came to this land with great ambitions, and brought all his brothers, all men, not a single woman, it's not that these men don't have women, but these men have to take root first before they can take their women over to enjoy the blessings.

They stopped at the harbor and trekked inland, and they had to leave the river bank thirty miles, which was their territory. They traveled south along an unknown river that joins the Columbia River, flanked by high mountains and dense forests, and in the middle of which are wide valleys of green grass.

Chen Zhouquan also tried his best to go farther, because he was farther away from Zhu Li, that is, farther away from Zhou Lang, he was always full of deep distrust of his brother-in-law, knowing that the other party might be using him, but he still had to seize this opportunity to be used.

But Chen Zhouquan didn't dare to go too far, just like the relationship between him and Zhou Lang, guarding against each other, but he couldn't do without each other, so he camped in a place a hundred miles away, this is an open grassland terrain, the terrain is higher, suitable for camping, the river not far away brings them here, and can also bring them a steady stream of materials, Zhou Lang promised to raise him for three years, and within three years he will open up a pastoral house here, and pick up their other brothers and family members to raise troops here.

On the other side, Zhu Lian camped at the confluence of the two rivers, which was the best location imaginable, which greatly widened the hinterland of the port, and it seems that the basic principles of Chinese and Western city building are roughly the same, because the Americans also valued this place in history and built Portland.

As a generation of maritime merchants, and developed into the first pirate group in Fujian in his own hands, Zhu Lian is very good at management, and he knows better than others what a port needs. Even he knew how to collect customs duties better than the Manchu officials, who delegated the complicated process of collecting customs duties to the merchants of the Thirteen Lines, but Zhu Qi, a pirate, would send his men to the port to collect sea taxes.

All this experience is the reason why Zhou Lang urged Zhu Li to serve as a pioneer in the development of the Americas.

In order to support Zhu Li, not only did he help Zhu Hao open up the Spanish galleon trade through various channels, but Zhou Lang also handed over to Zhu Li the lettercards he got from the Japanese shogunate, which was a trade right of two million taels of profit per year, which was used to support Zhu Li's cost of exploring the Americas.

With these guarantees, Zhu Quan is not lacking in the issue of funds. In terms of manpower, he is a pirate king with tens of thousands of pirate members, including talents from all walks of life. There are those who know how to train troops, those who know how to build ships, those who know how to farm, those who know how to dry salt, those who are literate and hyphenated to make suggestions, and those who are good at calculating in managing ledgers, which are basically a military trade complex, which is essentially no different from the East India Company in the West, and the only difference is that legally, the East India Company is a legal organization authorized and licensed by the country, while Zhu Lian is a pirate group wanted by the government of the country.

Now that Zhu Dian has also been chartered, his organization has naturally become an organization similar to the East India Company, called the China America Company, and Zhu Biao is the governor of the Americas, he has the right to appoint officials at all levels, so to speak, in the Americas, he is the emperor of the soil.

It is not difficult to build a port, Zhu Lian has relevant experience, he used to build a secret nest on the island, which one did not build a safe harbor that could dock his huge sea ships. The isolated islands off the coast of Fujian Province have a much harsher environment than those on the American mainland. So Zhu Min didn't find it difficult, and soon everything was straightened out.

Before he came, Zhou Lang told him everything he could know about the western United States, told him that he had to deal with the harsh natural environment, the problem of wounded soldiers was the top priority, he asked him to bring some doctors, and told him that he must build enough warm housing, they are likely to encounter a snowstorm.

Chen Zhouquan also understands these truths, he walks the rivers and lakes all the year round, and later leads the troops to fight all the year round, isn't this what the field march needs. There is no shortage of You Fanglang in the Heaven and Earth Society, regardless of whether the medical skills are really good or not, many people have the name of divine doctors, and they take these brothers with them. Building a house, this is not a problem, the heaven and earth will be all lower-class people, and there are many craftsmen of all kinds.

Isn't it just opening up wasteland, Taiwan's wasteland has not yet been developed, and Chen Zhouquan has not seen it. Anyway, there is Zhou Lang, who is the big man who is wronged, Chen Zhouquan asked for a lot of seeds and farm tools, and he also took the opportunity to ask for thousands of cattle and horses.

Facts have proved that despite Zhou Lang's warning, Chen Zhouquan was careless.