At the annual session of the House of Councillors in eight years, the General Staff unexpectedly proposed the establishment of 100 state farms in the northeast, almost making Wang Jingyu, the cabinet minister of agriculture, think that he had gone to the wrong conference room. But after Chen Fan brought back the land survey reports of Bohai and Songjiang provinces, everyone began to shift their attention to this black land.

"Chen Fan, do you mean that there is still a fertile land in the north of Songjiang Province that is not inferior to Fengtian and Bohai?" Cen Tianshi asked in surprise. In addition to the fact that the population density of Fengtian has increased greatly due to the development of industry and commerce, and the predecessor of Bohai Province is the Bohai State, the northernmost Songjiang Province has been developing very slowly in recent years, and the population is sparsely populated. For Songjiang Province, which is even larger than Bohai Province in size and is growing in size as the army continues to expand, the population scarcity has reached outrageous proportions.

"Mr. Cen, you are wrong, the land area over there is at least 8 million hectares, and the temperature in some places near the sea in the north is even milder and wetter than that of Bohai Province, which is completely suitable for the establishment of large-scale farms." Chen Fan's words made Wang Jingyu's vision change suddenly, if it wasn't for the Imperial Conference, I was afraid that this guy would immediately organize people to go to the scene to investigate.

Li Xuanqing, the place Chen Fan said, naturally knew that although that land was still in a wilderness, it was indeed a treasure land in terms of land quality and climate, and the mineral resources there were not inferior to those in the Northeast. In this life, Li Xuanqing had no reason to give this land to others, so he asked Chen Fan to secretly arrange people to conduct field investigations a year ago, but the people sent by Chen Fan took the wrong road at first and almost ran to Sakhalin Island in the later generations, but fortunately, they later turned around and ran this land around Vladivostok in the later generations, so they would definitely say the approximate area as soon as they opened their mouths. Eight million hectares of land, even half of which can be cultivated for the grain produced in that year, is a huge amount. What's more, Wang Jingyu has personally been to the Northeast to guide the local agricultural development, and he knows the fertility of the black soil very well, and the eight million hectares of land there can only feed the people of the entire empire in one season, right? So thinking of this, Wang Jingyu couldn't sit still, stood up and said: "Your Majesty, Chen Shuai, I strongly recommend that someone be sent to investigate on the spot immediately after the meeting, if there are really 8 million hectares of land as Chen Shuai said, then everything must be in the hands of the empire, which must be the foundation of the empire's rise, and it must not be given up." ”

"It's true that we can't give up, but if we want to really develop there, our current resettlement methods are not mature, and we can't survive in that vast land." Li Xuanqing waved his hand and motioned for Wang Jingyu to sit down, and then said, "Therefore, only by establishing a large farm with state and military camps can we quickly convert that land into our own." ”

"What the emperor said is very true, that piece of land will not be able to be immigrated to the border for hundreds of years according to the current method of dividing the land into households, so it must be state-run." Zuo Tiancheng stood up happily and said with a smile: "I think it's good to hand over this matter to the logistics department, after the meeting, the logistics department and the ministry of agriculture jointly set up a state-owned company, responsible for reclaiming the land over there, and the general staff will arrange for the army stationed in Songjiang to cross Songjiang in the early stage to sweep away those scattered Tatar people and a few other small tribes, some of them will go to Songjiang Province for resettlement, and some of them will be handed over to the logistics department to be responsible for opening up a large passage from Songjiang to the seaside as soon as possible." Then take the road as the basic line, expand to both sides, and divide up all the land step by step. ”

Zuo Tiancheng's words made everyone present nod for a while, but although this method is fast, it is not the fastest way to go in the northeast, especially in the land north of the Outer Khingan Mountains to Vladivostok. Therefore, Li Xuanqing interrupted everyone's thoughts and said: "After the general meeting, I ordered the Beiyang Fleet to send a warship to bypass the Korean Peninsula with the commissioners of your logistics department and the Ministry of agriculture, and then go north along the coastline, establish a port in a suitable place, and then use the port as a base, extend inland, and finally connect with Songjiang Province." As for the army, Chen Yushi, who was stationed in Songjiang, led the army to enter the north of Songjiang after March, and wiped out a small number of local tribes such as the Yan Ya, and returned to Wanghua as soon as possible. ”

"In addition, I have asked the BMW factory to stock up on about hundreds of large farming machines in Tianjin Port, and when the time comes, you will go to the person in charge of the BMW factory to pick them up, where large machinery is more suitable than manpower and animal power." Li Xuanqing's words made Cen Tianshi couldn't help but laugh and said: "Your Majesty, you have been prepared for a long time, why do I think that Chen Fan's report is only as detailed as the emperor thought, right?" ”

Li Xuanqing shook his head and did not answer this, but he told Zuo Tiancheng and Wang Jingyu to stay after the meeting, and he still had a lot to tell about the development of the Outer Xing'an Mountains. However, with Chen Fan's bombshell, there is nothing surprising about the rest of this year's annual meeting, and even most of the people attending the meeting flew to the northeast. Anyone who has been in the Central Plains knows that once that vast territory comparable to the land area of the entire Central Plains is taken and converted into arable land, it means that even if the population of the empire doubles, it will not be able to survive. And now, once the abundant food flows into the hands of the people, then the people of the empire are afraid that they will really go to the point of worrying about food and clothing. Therefore, after the end of the Senate meeting, not only Zuo Tiancheng and Wang Jingyu followed Li Xuanqing back to Changqing Palace, but even Cen Tianshi, Xu Tianxiang and others all slipped over.

"Y-well, now that you're here, let's all sit down, there's something I want to talk to you about." Li Xuanqing couldn't laugh or cry, and sent someone to call Qiaoxi over and said with a smile: "Actually, I was just guessing about that piece of land, but I have been thinking about this matter since Chen Fan's report was sent, so I brought you here on the one hand to talk about development, and on the other hand, it is about us to continue to explore unknown land in the future." ”

Li Xuanqing and Qiaoxi drew out the rough sea map they had just drawn about the sea area from the Outer Khing'an Mountains to the Sea of Okhotsk and said: "This is a rough sketch drawn according to Chen Fan's report, let's take a look, the sea is warm in this sea area, so you should let the navy choose the most suitable place to build a permanent port, as the port of sea for that land in the future, and the most important thing is that this port city is our administrative center in that place." Therefore, once the navy began to determine the location, the cabinet needed to send a strong manpower to assist the army in building the port, and on the other hand, to relocate part of the population and some of the captured Tatars, etc., and to consider the resettlement of the families of the workers who built the farms. You have to coordinate these things. Li Xuanqing's tone also made the faces of everyone present froze, this is the plan to establish a permanent city. However, when thinking of the area and value of that land, everyone didn't think that Li Xuanqing was making a fuss.

"The state-owned farms over there should popularize mechanized farming, so in addition to the farming machines that have been stockpiled by the BMW factory in Tianjin Port, the BMW factory will produce other machinery and equipment in the future, which will be shipped over when the time comes. Only mechanization can reclaim the largest area of land in the shortest possible time. Qiaoxi took Li Xuanqing's words and said. For mechanized farming, the two of them have more experience than all of them, and they naturally know that in later generations, whether it is the North Okura of the Republic or the large farms around the Trans-Khingan Mountains in Russia, it is a complete set of machinery and equipment to replace labor, so that a large-scale commercial grain base can be established. It is precisely because of this that the Republic was able to stabilize the domestic situation in the shortest possible time by relying on the agricultural output of Northeast China, and began to start the era of industrialization while carrying out rural reform.

"The Ministry of Agriculture should have a plan in advance, and you can choose the crops in the alpine zone by yourself." Li Xuanqing thought about it and still admonished. Soybeans, sugar beets and rice are abundant in the northeast, but Li Xuanqing can't remember what was grown in Russia at that time, but soybeans can be grown. When a large amount of soybeans are produced, oil mills can be established on the spot, and then a variety of agricultural processing industries can be established, and Vladivostok can also be developed.

"This matter is so decided, you go back and arrange it yourself, and you can take the lead in organizing the specific things Chen Fan." Li Xuanqing waved his hand and said: "But this time Chen Fan and they ran the wrong way and found two big islands, which is not bad, one of them has a lot of indigenous populations on it. Speaking of which, Chen Fan found Sakhalin Island in later generations and Hokkaido, which belongs to Japan in the south, which was beyond Li Xuanqing's expectations. However, since Li Xuanqing has been found, he has no intention of giving up. Sakhalin Island can not be developed for the time being, and only needs to send troops to conquer the Taya Cave above, and the tribe is almost the same. In Hokkaido, the Ezo people above are also a good labor force, and they can incorporate the entire island into the overseas territory of the empire, and even directly connect with the Trans-Khingan Mountains region at the right time.

"The emperor means to requisition some of those Ezo people to help with development?" Cen Tianshi asked with some surprise. But then he was vetoed by Li Xuanqing with his head, he finally found a piece of land that was large enough to implement mechanization and couldn't let the Ezo people disturb him, and in fact, when it came to reclamation and farming, no ethnic group was the opponent of the Han people in the Central Plains, and neither could the Japanese, let alone the Ezo people who were eliminated in later generations? In order to mechanize farming, he brought artifacts such as thick tractors to this life, so Li Xuanqing's idea at this time was to promote large machinery such as tractors and combine harvesters on a large scale. After all, after the miniaturization of the steam engine, these machines were already able to move with the help of the steam engine.

"And the last thing, that is, about the expedition, the army must make arrangements, the army and navy must set up a special agency to be responsible for foreign expeditions, all the expeditions need to be spent by the army, the proceeds of exploration are handed over to the state treasury, and there must be a clear reward mechanism for all personnel to record meritorious service and award when necessary." After Vladivostok was discovered, Li Xuanqing thought of the plan to go north along Vladivostok and then go to North America, but this matter could not be raised by himself, but should be discovered and explored by the people below. That's why at this time, he proposed such a mechanism, if you want the people to find out that it is too slow, it is better to send the army to be in charge of this matter.

After this meeting in Chang'an, the military and political sides of the Tang Empire quickly cooperated, and the navy dispatched a Fuxing-class warship, plus a huge fleet composed of a dozen cargo ships and five passenger ships from the logistics department, and set off from Tianjin Port to bypass the Korean Peninsula and then go to the Outer Khing'an Mountains. He landed near Temple Street in later generations, and then followed the coastline north again to find the port of Vladivostok. And under the leadership of Chen Fan, it was determined to establish two strongholds in Vladivostok and Miaojie, and when the Tiance army on the Songjiang side had not yet hit this side, the entourage of the Flying Eagle Brigade was responsible for guarding the strongholds. After the opening of the shipping route, Zuo Tiancheng quickly formed a large number of fleets and began to carry a large number of materials and manpower, and took all the agricultural machines in Tianjin Port at one time and set off towards the new strongholds named Temple Street and Vladivostok by Li Xuanqing.

At the same time, the Inland Sea Fleet, which had initially completed the readjustment, began to land in the Hakodate area of Hokkaido with the transfer of warships and marines, and then quickly occupied all of Hokkaido. In this way, the four islands of Japan have been occupied by the Tang Dynasty so far, and only the two islands of Kyushu and Honshu are left. And in the case that Korea has become a province of the empire, the real Japan is surrounded by the territory of the empire. Moreover, today's Japan, under the intervention of the Tence Army Marines stationed on Shikoku Island, has stopped internal strife, and has begun to honestly mine gold and silver mines in its territory according to the requirements of the empire, and then continuously import it into the Tang Dynasty in exchange for grain and other industrial products from the Tang Dynasty.

At the beginning of March of the eighth year of the Apocalypse, the Temple Street stronghold was established first, and large machines began to roar in this land, and the Tiance Army from the north of Songjiang Province also began to officially dispatch to sweep away all the remaining minority tribes, and began to officially open up the land passage between Songjiang Province and the new territory. And Li Xuanqing also drew a circle directly on the new map at this time, and the largest new province of the empire in the northeast was born, but the newborn Vladivostok Province could not appear in front of ordinary people in a short time. But in today's era, no one can compete with Datang for this land, as long as there is enough investment, this land can be easily pocketed by Datang. However, at this time, Qiaoxi ordered a total of 2,000 various farming machines to the BMW factory, which were then quickly produced and shipped to Vladivostok.

In order to take this land faster, Chen Fan, who was sitting in Vladivostok, even directly transferred the other three corps in the northeast together, and after most of the Hujia people moved westward, and a few tribes such as the Yan Ya were successively collected by the Tiance army, no one in this land could threaten the Tang Dynasty. Therefore, a large number of troops can be temporarily transferred to the agricultural reclamation to assist the Ministry of Agriculture to open up the situation as soon as possible. It is precisely because of Chen Fan's actions that the two strongholds of Temple Street and Vladivostok quickly became two cities in just half a year, and with the gradual completion of the port terminal on the side of Vladivostok, it has become the northernmost port of the Tang Dynasty, and it will also undertake the trade hub produced in this land in the future.