The rain was pouring down, and lightning and thunder were thundering outside the window. Ｘ

The consul's residence, standing in front of the window in order, the rain took away the hot weather of the past few days, and the air was filled with a hint of earthy smell.

Construction sites all over the city were suspended, the city was washed fresh by the pouring rain, and the dusty scene of the dry season was gone. During the year of the orderly expedition, Jincheng has undergone great changes. With the completion of the naval base and the fort line on the north-south border, the cabinet has recently put volcanic cement into the city.

This was the unanimous demand of the Senate.

In Southeast Asia, except by order of the kings, only a few corridors and squares near the royal palace would be paved with masonry, and the rest of the streets would be muddy roads. Although the city's greenery is generally good, unpaved roads become muddy and smelly during the rainy season, dusty during the dry season, and the streets are full of sewage and sewage as men and women wash everything.

The conquerors had endured this situation for more than a year, and now they could no longer bear it.

There were no ordinary inhabitants within the city walls, and the residences in the core belonged to the new nobles of the Golden City. Former Caribbean pirates, wealthy Chinese merchants, and several leaders of the Mon and Tai tribes all built their own mansions in the city. Except for the conquerors, who were given a free share of the land, everyone who wanted to get land to build a house had to buy it from the Jincheng City Hall with real money. The supply of land is limited, and there has been a clear trend in the market recently, with land prices in the city getting higher and higher day by day. Even the land in the commercial street outside the city walls is getting more and more expensive. The city hall plans to use the proceeds from the sale of land to build a sewer line that will cover the entire city, and the line is being planned, and construction will begin at the end of the rainy season.

It's been a week since the order came back. Because of his exploits in conquering Taipei, the Senate arranged a small triumphal ceremony for him on the day of his return. At the end of the triumphal ceremony, Shou ordered to submit a report of the expedition to the Senate. In three days' time, he had one more question meeting to attend.

Use this time to familiarize yourself with the progress of the work during the year of his absence.

Secretary Lynch asked Shouxu: "Your Excellency, shall we continue?" ”

Shou Xuan didn't turn around, just gave a soft sigh.

Lynch opened the briefing and continued to read the summary report of Jincheng's work for more than a year. If Lynch reads something he's interested in, he'll stop for some detailed inquiries or have the secretary mark it for review.

However, that was not much, and after the Battle of Sukkadana, the Golden City itself recuperated for a year.

Lin Tongwen continued his immigration career during the year. News of gold in the Kelantan River has been in the thick in China, Siam and Quang Nam, setting off a gold rush that has spontaneously flooded into the city of gold by tens of thousands of immigrants, driving the development of all walks of life. For example, the industrial department of Jincheng has never been in charge of the paper industry, and the Chinese immigrants smelled the business opportunities in the middle, and the paper mill was quickly established.

Theoretically, Jincheng has a land area of about 20,000 square kilometers, which is slightly equivalent to a large province in Chinese mainland. The Senate readjusted its administrative divisions, and in order to commemorate the victory, the Tao Mansion was renamed Eleutella, and the Chinese generally called it Yizhou or Yishi; Yala Province was renamed Tortuga and the Chinese generally referred to it as California. In addition to the core cities of Jincheng, Eleutera and Tortuga, two border states were set up on each side of the south, the southern half of Kelantan, which was renamed Keeju, and the northern part of Thailand was later divided from Pattani Province to Songkhla Province to form Songzhou. Both the northern and southern states had large numbers of armed Mon and Quang Nam people, and their colonized villages became the forefront of resistance to the expansion of a particular religion. The five state capitals provided ample administrative positions for the new aristocracy, satisfying the majority of people's thirst for power.

If further developed, the land of Jincheng is enough to carry nearly one million people, and now this number can only exceed 150,000. The ethnic structure is very scattered, the Tai people, the Mon people, the Chinese, the Chenla people, the population gap between each other is not large, and the smaller ethnic groups are the Quang Nam, the old people of Medan, the Japanese, in addition to some of the original prisoners of war slaves.

Shou Xuan found an interesting thing in Songzhou, probably because the Mon tribe and the old people of Medan were fighting for territory, and a disadvantaged group of highlanders in Mindanao was forced to advance into the mountains and inadvertently occupy the mountain pass in Sila County.

Since the Portuguese occupied Malacca and monopolized the trade between the East and the West, in order to get rid of the heavy taxes drawn by the Portuguese on merchant ships passing through the strait, the merchants opened up several land passages across the peninsula across the South China Sea and the Andaman Sea, connecting the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean. The main commodity that opened up these roads was Indian cotton cloth, and whether it was in the deep mountains and forests or on the coastal islands, the people's demand for cotton cloth was rigid. If the Indian cotton cloth can be successfully transported to Nanzhang (Laos), the profit that can be obtained will be a huge profit.

On the Irrawaddy River, the Burmese would use lancharas and trumpet boats to transport sandalwood and pepper upstream to trade directly with Chinese traders from Yunnan, but the rugged mountains and rainforests of Yunnan and Burma meant that this direct trade was modest.

Although the Irrawaddy and Mekong rivers have a long stretch of river that can be navigated by boats, due to the exploitation of feudal lords, political interference from all sides, and numerous checkpoints, the cost of trade routes is not low.

The cost of inland transportation is even more staggering, 20 times that of the sea route. Far more fearsome than pirates, the robbers who were active on these land trade routes were all powerful merchants with deep backgrounds. A typical overland caravan would consist of 60,100 ox-carts, so that a large caravan would be able to defend itself against robbers, and if the number was smaller, the ubiquitous tigers along the way would pose a serious threat to them.

After going through the traffic geography in his mind, he said to Lynch: "You report the situation of several trade routes on the peninsula again." ”

"Yes, Your Excellency," Lynch, knowing that he was concerned about the route and the road, put down the briefing in his hand and picked up the traffic report that he had prepared separately.

There are four roads across the Malay Peninsula, from north to south from Mabanda, Icheng and Dawei to the Chao Phraya Valley in Myanmar; Port Tanah Salin to Merge; Trang to Nakhon Thang; Kedah to Pattani.

The main road is currently the road from Tanah Salin to Mekg, which is the southern route of the three main routes for the Burmese invasion of Siam. During the counterattack on Burma, the Siamese king Na Li Xuan recaptured this important port and reopened the trade routes between the two oceans. Only a powerful nation like Ayutthaya could afford to maintain an important overland trade route.

Kings generally did not attach importance to cross-border land routes, as the maintenance of these roads was likely to facilitate enemy invasions.

It is actually easy to open up an overland trade route in Southeast Asia, only three conditions need to be met: preliminary exploratory survey, and cutting down forests if the forest is too dense; There is clean water every 12 to 20 kilometers along the way; There is security. With the exception of the Siamese-controlled Tanah sarin, the rest of the land routes did not rely on the government to provide security, and the caravans had to rely on their own escorts.

"Interesting," said Order, lighting his pipe and pouring himself a glass of cider, "Lynch, what do you think will happen to Asia if we occupy the glass harbor in the Andaman Sea and Langkawi Island, build a gravel road between the glass and the golden city, and use our force to secure the trade routes?" ”

Lynch folded up the report and replied respectfully: "Your Excellency, the Dutch will certainly protest against us, while the Portuguese, English, and French missionaries will welcome it. ”

Shou Xuan understood Lynch's euphemistic hint that at least for now, the British and Dutch were not equal in the scales, and he smiled and shook his head, "I didn't say to build roads now. Even if we don't care about the Dutch, we don't have that financial resources. But maybe we can restore the original cow lane. ”

The cost of land transport is too high, and with the current Dutch blockade of the Strait of Malacca, there may be some profit on the overland trade route for commodities. But when the Treaty of Westphalia was signed, giving European powers unhindered access to the South China Sea, the trade prospects of this overland trade route were questionable. However, this land route is a strategic passage for Jincheng, and in the future Anglo-Dutch wars and Franco-Dutch wars, an unrestricted two-ocean passage may put Jincheng in a relatively free position.

The road is definitely going to be built, but not now. Cattle Lane will not bring much trade, but as long as the Indian Ocean is opened, the orderly will have access to arms imports that are not controlled by the Dutch.

Orderly knocked off the ashes, "Lynch, you go and arrange it." Convene a joint meeting of the Cabinet and the Army and Navy. ”

Joint meetings of the Cabinet and the Army and Navy, also known as base camp meetings, are rarely held and usually only discuss war-related deployments. Jincheng is now developing rapidly, the affairs of the country are complicated, the cabinet ministers and the chief officers of the army and navy have their own daily work arrangements, and some people are not even in the capital. Lynch informed the chiefs through the office that the meeting was scheduled for two days later.

First Cabinet Minister, Lieutenant Consul Marmont, Treasury Secretary Drape, Secretary of Defense Cocklin, Minister of Trade and Shipping Lin Tongwen, Chief Justice Arambi Roberts, Navy Admiral Sterling, and Army Commander Holren gathered in the conference room of the Order Residence. The Acting Mayor of the capital, Italian urban construction engineer Gucci, also attended. Mr. Gucci is a little less qualified and does not formally join the cabinet, but he does not have to do much of his work without the support of the capital, so he often attends such meetings.

All departments have submitted a summary of their work for more than a year to the order, so there will be no further in-depth discussion at the meeting. Only Drape suggested that it was difficult for him to juggle the work of the Ministry of Finance and the Nanyang Bank at the same time, and requested that the order consider recommending a candidate to replace him in one of his positions.

The Ministry of Finance and the bank's long-term overlap will have a lot of negative effects on the economic order, and Nanyang Bank is still a private bank, so there will be more problems. As the country gradually gets on the right track, the contradictions will become more and more prominent. Keeping the order led Lynch to take note of the problem, and he preferred to keep Drypp on as Treasury Secretary and then look for a suitable bank governor again. It takes time for the right person to be the right person, and the company attaches great importance to the work of the bank, and Nanyang Bank is to a certain extent the foundation of the country.

As the moderator of the meeting, Shou Shun was the first to speak. "Gentlemen, the past two years have been remarkable success. We built a country from scratch, and this country is getting stronger. Each of us can feel the sense of accomplishment and substantial benefits from it. ”

Everyone was smiling, and it was a life they only dreamed of when they were pirates.

"But gentlemen, we can't be satisfied with what we have accomplished. Our country remains fragile in the face of those powerful countries. Now is not the time to sleep peacefully. We need to make the country stronger faster, and to do that, we need more people. ”

There are only two ways to get a population, peaceful immigration and warlike plunder. The former is advancing in an orderly manner, while the latter, Jincheng has never stopped expanding.

Orderly opened the issue briefing, which began with a striking red letter, "Top Secret, 1643 Direction of Attack." ”

The officers also opened the briefing in front of them.

"Excluding immigrants and Taiwan, this year we will get more than 150,000 people and enough livestock on the mainland. "The most shocking thing about his orderly trip to North China was the success of Jianzhou's plundering in the territory of the Ming Dynasty. In the Battle of Renwu, Jianzhou swept through the two provinces of northern China, plundering 390,000 people, 320,000 livestock, 12,000 taels of gold, 2,200,000 taels of silver, 50,000 horses of silk, and other pearl treasures in the Ming Dynasty. With so much wealth and population, it is even possible to re-establish a country.

If it is to develop rapidly, order can only be achieved through war. The goal was obvious, the three great powers of Siam, Burma and Quang Nam were not advisable, and the small countries of the Malay Peninsula were protected by the Dutch, and they did not have much population. With a large population and wealth, the only country with a messy diplomatic environment is Zhenla.

If there is one object that can be compared with the degree of diplomatic death of Zhenla, it is Poland in later generations. Like Poland, Chenla was once strong, conquering the town of Siam in the east and west. But now, Chenla is a mat for a powerful country, and both Siam and Quang Nam will step on it before going out. Even the landlocked countries in the north, Nanzhang, often raised troops to the south.

In order to deal with the powerful enemy around him, Chenla introduced the Spaniards at the end of the last century and staged a Spanish episode. Like other countries in Southeast Asia, Chenla is also a country with strong Chinese businessmen. The Spaniards sent expeditions three times, mainly divided into two groups, one group of Philippine folk adventurers, and the other group of expeditionary forces officially sent by the Philippine governor. Seven Spanish warships were sent to Chenla, two were wrecked in a storm on the way, and five ships were routed up the Mekong River to reach the four forks.

Manila was originally not interested in the conquest of Chenla, and it was mainly the son of the governor of Dasmanaris who was killed by the Chinese sailors who revolted, and the son of the governor acted as his father for a while, but with the new vice-governor of New Spain sending a new governor, Dasmanalis Jr. was unwilling to lose his position in Manila, so he promoted the conquest. Taking advantage of folk adventurers and the Catholic Church of the Philippines with a zeal for missions**, Dasmanalis Jr. sought to become the governor of the new Chenla colony.

The Spanish folk adventurers, who regarded themselves as conquerors in Chenla, killed the king, plundered Chinese merchants, and killed more than 100 Chinese merchants. This caused the anger of the Chenla villagers, and the Malay and Champa mercenaries, Chinese and Japanese merchants joined forces to attack the Spaniards, and the Spanish army saw that the situation was not good, and the civilian adventurers were dumped. After a failed conquest, the Spanish hand reaching for Indochina was cut off, and they retreated to the Philippines to lick their wounds.

Beat away the Spaniards, but the Zhenla people gave the Asian folks a long face. But they also lost their last potential ally to provide military assistance in Siam and Quang Nam.