After a short break in the port of Sanya, the northbound fleet moved separately.

50 grain ships continued to sail to Guangzhou. The ships carrying another 250,000 stone of grain were unloaded in Sanya, Changhua and Haikou.

There were more than 10,000 soldiers, craftsmen and slaves in Sanya, and 50,000 stone of grain were needed every year. The remaining 200,000 stones were left for 100,000 in Qiongxi and 100,000 in Haikou.

Qiongxi nominally hangs the sign of the Qiongxi Hall of Qiongzhou Prefecture, and governs the two counties of Changhua and Thanksgiving. In fact, it was basically digested by the Union and became the jurisdiction of the Governor of Jonesy.

The father-in-law who kept the order, Hai Shuzu, with the position of Tongzhi of Qiongzhou and Haiphong and civil affairs, naturally became the federal chief executive of Qiongxi. Due to the early cooperation between them, Hai Shuzu entered the federal senate a few years ago. He himself was unable to go to the Senate to perform his duties, and the current representative in the Senate was the brother of the Order.

Jonesy receives little rainfall, is almost immune to typhoons, and has a dry climate. Grain is also good for preservation.

Hai Shuzu divided the Qiongxi Hall, built a city in Dongfang Port between Thanksgiving and Changhua, and sent federal officials to manage Dongfang City in the name of Thanksgiving County.

The city of Changjiang was built on the Shilu River, a tributary of the Changhua River, which was close to the Li district, and 200 troops were stationed in Qiongxi. The scale of Changjiang City is not large, and it is only a low military village with a side length of 100 steps. In addition to laying the foundation for colonization to the east, the construction of the castle was also for the development of Shiroku iron ore.

Shilu Iron Mine is located on the side of the Shilu River, and the locals have long had small-scale private mining. The confluence of the Shilu River and the Changhua River is located more than 30 kilometers upstream of the Haikou and can be navigated as a sampan.

The mine itself is inaccessible, and it is not a good idea to transport iron ore out. Hai Shuzu planned to smelt on the spot, and by the way, all the forests around Changjiang City were cut down, and the useful wood was put downstream along the Shilu River, and the useless wood was burned into charcoal for iron smelting.

Jonesy's plan was to supply the island with iron tools from the Shiroku Iron Mine, and Tian Du specialized in exporting. It's just that the local climate and transportation conditions are not good, and it will take many years of development to achieve the goal.

Accompanied by several local officials, Shou Orderly inspected the territory of Jonesy.

The old city of Changhua County is located in the north of the Yangtze River, and the new city of Qiongxi Hall built by the ancestors of Haishu is located in the south of the Yangtze River. The population of the new town is about 2,000 people, mostly craftsmen, soldiers, officials and their families.

Take a flat-bottomed boat and follow the Changhua River in an orderly manner. Summer is the period of high water, and the current water depth is nearly 50 kilometers. In later generations, due to the large number of forests in Hainan, the Changhua River was silted up, the downstream river was cut off, and the port was also abandoned. At this time, it has not yet reached that level, and the navigable conditions of the rivers are acceptable.

Embankments were built on both sides of the mouth of the Changhua River to restrain the rushing water. However, the dam project is apparently not complete, and it has only been extended for less than 10 kilometres.

Zeng Wensi, the supervisor of Qiongxi, explained: "Archon, we are now short of labor, and only the current project was completed in the autumn and winter of last year. Hai Tongzhi said that before large-scale farming, the water conservancy project on the Changhua River in Qiongxi must be repaired, otherwise there will be no way to talk about reclamation and grazing. ”

Shou Xiang nodded slightly, sharpening the knife and not cutting wood. With the current land situation in Jonesi, direct farming will only accelerate desertification, and the income is also limited, so it is better to build water conservancy first.

The boat continued onward, watching with amusement the newly erected windmills on the banks of a tributary.

"How many windmills have you built?"

"So far there are 30."

"Very good, I think if there are 500 windmills, your irrigation problem will be solved."

Shou ordered the soldiers who were with him, "Row the boat over." ”

The punt quickly came to a halt and walked under the windmill in an orderly manner.

In front of you is a behemoth with a wingspan of 30 meters and a wind turbine shaft 17 meters above the ground. This is the largest windmill in the Federation, modeled after the Dutch. Tests have been done in China, when the wind speed reaches 20 mph, the large windmill can output 15 horsepower, which is equivalent to the power of the largest waterwheel.

The 15 horsepower actually exceeded the output of the early steam engine, but whether it was a waterwheel or a windmill, the biggest problem was always that the output was very unstable. Windmills are more sensitive to weather than watermills.

Like this large first-class windmill in front of me, the wind speed is less than 6 mph is a decoration, and there is no power.

Even if the wind is strong, it won't work. Taiwan is completely unable to use windmills, and typhoons make landfall every year, not to mention the windmill wings, and even the base of the windmill can blow into the sky. Most of Hainan is also facing the same problem, and only Qiongxi is basically immune to typhoons because of the obstruction of Wuzhi Mountain. The current here is also gentle most of the season, and the use of water wheels is relatively limited, which is why windmills are used in large quantities like the mainland.

Sho opened the binoculars, and around the irrigation canal in the distance, there were some small windmills with a wingspan of about 10 meters.

Large and small windmills and aqueducts make up the Jonesy irrigation system, which is the basis for federal self-sufficiency canvas and breeding war horses.

The irrigated land was green and planted with cotton and alfalfa. Horses, cattle and sheep galloped happily on the wide pastures, and the rudiments of animal husbandry in Qiongxi unfolded on both sides of the Changhua River.

The distribution of Hainan cattle breeds is quite interesting, Qiongbei, Qiongdong, Qiongnan is a normal southern climate, raising buffalo. Jonesy, most of the people he saw in order were scalpers.

Zeng Wensi said: "Archon, Qiongzhou bought a large number of horses and ploughing cattle from the Tusi of Guangxi and Guangdong, and Qiongzhou retained stallions, and the mares and children were sent to us. There are now 1,700 horses in stock. ”

"How many stallions are there?"

"There are 80 horses that can be used for mating, and with the 20 horses you brought this time, we have 100 horses. Enough to breed all the remaining mares. ”

The mare gives birth to 1 litter a year, and at the current breeding level, it can produce about 5 or 6 litters in a lifetime. When the stallion grows up, it is sent to the army and various mines and construction sites, and the mare is left to breed. Ten years later, the number of horses can reach a respectable level.

Animal husbandry is also a major consumer of grain, and there is always a shortage of grain in Hainan.

With the help of the order, the Hainan Ming Army reorganized the food rationing system, which was not good, and was a grade worse than the Federal Army.

The basic ration of ordinary soldiers is 1 kg and 10 taels (16 kg) per day, and the number of tasks is increased to 2 catties. It needs about 650 to 720 catties of grain every year, 4 to 4 and a half stones.

In addition, there are still 1.5 catties of oil, 50 catties of vegetarian vegetables, 1.5 catties of salt, and 30 catties of firewood every month. The oil mainly comes from peanuts, and Hainan has many sandy soils formed by the weathering of rocks, which are more suitable for growing this crop.

Military rations are managed and distributed by the grain stations in a unified manner, and all armies have no right to supply.

The soldiers' families were supported by additional military salaries, and the soldiers received 7 taels of silver in cash per year. The overall treatment of each soldier is 4.5 stone grain, 7 taels of silver, and other materials equivalent to 8 taels. All the military salary expenses were converted into silver, which was calculated at the price of 1 stone and 1.5 taels of grain in Qiongxi, about 20 taels per person per year. This is the basic treatment of soldiers, and the food consumption of the logistics troops is about the same, and the non-staple food and silver are less. Officers, on the contrary, had about the same amount of rations, and more silver.

That's not enough. Jonesy did his best to allocate land to the families of the officers and soldiers, not asking for much production, but to ensure that they could support themselves. Some soldiers' family members have lost their ability to work, and in addition to the allocation of goods among family members, each unit deducts 1 tael from the military salary as a reserve fund to support the family members of the robe.

On the whole, there are nearly 20,000 troops in Qiongzhou, and the annual military expenditure is converted into 350,000 taels of silver and 100,000 stone grain.

This does not take into account the consumption of military horses, which need 20 catties of horse feed per day and eat 10 times more than a person. In addition to pasture and straw, concentrate is still needed. The number of officers and horses in the Hainan army and various departments has reached 11,000, which is the demand for nearly 100,000 stone grains.

The above is only a basic figure in non-wartime, and the actual consumption is much greater than this figure. If there is a war, military spending will increase by a factor of two.

The income of Qiongzhou is easy to calculate.

The Lianzhou government has actually given up.

After the addition of Qiongzhou Mansion, there are 120,000 stone grains in the true color every year, and there are nearly 80,000 in the Leizhou Mansion, but after the devastation of the war, only 40,000 can be collected now. Hainan's annual food shortage is about 100,000 stones, which is the origin of the number of blood replenishment in Haikou.

In front of the meeting with Zeng Ying, Shou Xuan decided to have a more comprehensive understanding of the situation in Hainan. He returned to Jonesy Hall and asked his father-in-law.

While drinking tea, Hai Shuzu said to Shou Xu: "Leizhou don't care about it first. There are more than 4 million mu of cultivated land in Qiongzhou, and the soil fertility is low and the yield per mu is not high. But as long as the manpower kept up, the officials persuaded the farmers to build water conservancy, supplemented by waterwheels and windmills to carry water. There is no problem in planting new grains such as sweet potatoes to feed 1.4 million people, but the problem now is that the farming skills of farmers in Qiongzhou need to be improved, and the population is insufficient. ”

There are now nearly 800,000 people in Qiongzhou, which is a federal estimate, and many of the island's population is not included in the Fucheng statistics.

Shou Xu said: "The population is not difficult to manage, Qiongzhou is so close to the mainland, and it can harvest many people by slowly moving every year." ”

From Guangdong to Hainan, especially from the counties west of Guangzhou, immigrants to Hainan do not need big ships, and larger sampans can be reached.

That's the truth, but Zeng Zhonghan doesn't seem to have made up his mind yet. In my opinion, we should take advantage of the current opportunity of Guangdong's liberation to fish out a large number of people from the coastal counties and counties as a deep-rooted and fundamental plan. ”

"I went to convince him. Father-in-law, in addition to the population, what are the top priorities? ”

"The rest is reclamation and mining. In order to find saltpeter, Zeng Zhonghan sent people to run all over Lizhai. Following the guidance of the Li people, he found a lot of mines. ”

Hai Shuzu handed over a newsletter and flipped through it page by page.

There are some small silver mines in Hainan, and the Li people have been mining sporadically on the island for thousands of years. After Zeng Ying sent someone to check, it was estimated that it could produce several thousand taels of silver every year. More practical significance is the discovery of a gold mine in the Baolun area between the state city and Le'an New Town, 40 miles north of Yazhou, and the mine is worth mining.

There are gem mines in Wenchang County, including sapphire and rubies. A natural crystal mine was discovered near the Sennohe House of the Suikai.

Crystal is a strategic material, the Federation is now unable to fire qualified optical glass, military telescopes rely on imports, and the price is expensive and the quantity is not enough. Bo Jue, a Chinese optical pioneer who immigrated from Jiangnan, suggested using natural crystals instead to artificially grind out telescopes. There is no barrier to entry for this technology, and it requires skilled craftsmen and natural crystal mines. The crystal mine of the Thousand Households of the Water Society will completely solve the problem of self-production of telescopes.

Hai Shuzu took a sip of tea, "There are some old farmers in northern Qiongbei who have experimented with a new farming method. They grow rice in areas where the valley can be irrigated, sweet potatoes or cotton on the hillsides, and corn on the hilltops. Corn is a good thing, and you don't need to level the ground to grow it. My Qiongzhou is equivalent to more than 100,000 acres of land. ”

Shou Orderly closed the briefing, and he understood.

Hai Shuzu means that he wants people first, but this one can't be rushed, and he has to take his time.

The second is to march into the mountains, where there are mines and countless fields.

"Logging and reclamation, marching to the interior of Qiongzhou."

"My lord, the mountainous area is the territory of Li Min."

Hai Shuzu's tone was very firm, "It is to take advantage of the temporary security of the mainland and we can free up our hands to develop the Li District." ”

Since the middle of the Ming Dynasty, the Li Rebellion in Hainan has never stopped. The last large-scale Li rebellion was in the seventeenth year of Chongzhen. Haishu was born in a military household on the main island of Haishu, and he has a personal feeling about this.

"In the early years of the founding of the People's Republic of China, the population of Hainan was not large. The contradiction between Huali and Li was not obvious, and then the number of household registrations gradually increased, and the chaos in Hainan never subsided. ”

It makes sense, and the order is persuaded.

Hai Shuzu: "Zeng Zhonghan is a native of Jiangxi, he has been in Qiongzhou for a short time, and he has not yet figured out the key points. He emigrated in Hainan and reclaimed the famine, and he would inevitably clash with Li Yuan. ”

"There are hundreds of Li Yuan, how do we start?"

Hai Shuzu took out a manuscript and lightly touched the cover, as if he was recalling something.

Then he sighed and handed the manuscript to Shou Xu.

Shou ordered to look at his appearance and solemnly took it.

"Zhi Li Ce", "Ping Li Shu", "Illustrated by the Ministry of Soldiers", bound edition.

Author – Hai Jui.