(Today, I am in a hurry and still fail to update normally.,I can only update it normally.,I hope you can understand.,Try to resume normal updates in the past two days.,Next month must make up for it!) ）

Steel!

Steel is both a country!

Even after returning to Wuchang, this word still kept churning in Zhu Yifeng's mind, and even when he thought of the graphite crucible being installed, all kinds of steel-related things continued to appear in his mind. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info

First of all, cheap steel can make steel used in various aspects, such as rails, which have a longer life than wrought rails. This can effectively reduce the operating costs of the railway.

Of course, this is not the most important thing, the most important thing is that the advent of steel will allow the navy to make warships from harder steel in the future, such as the ironclad ship that is now being built by Shi Si at the shipyard in Guangzhou, and it may be possible to replace iron armor with steel armor......

Thinking of the scene of steel warships sailing on the sea in the future, Zhu Yifeng couldn't help but feel a little yearning, this is exactly what he was looking forward to, when those steel warships will be able to raise the country's prestige outside the territory.

With hundreds of steel warships, China will build a vast colonial empire on the tail end of this imperial carve-up frenzy.

Of course, the colonial empire may not have the most perfect colonial environment, but at least the land there can provide a variety of resources that are difficult to find in other regions.

"It seems that the research of high-speed steel should be accelerated!"

Although he knew that tool steels such as high-speed steel were the root cause of the restriction on the use of steel, Zhu Yifeng decided to have the arsenal rebuild four alkaline steelmaking converters, and two of them would be used in the Guangdong ironworks, which were invested and built by the gentry in Guangdong to provide rails for the railway, and of course steel plates for shipyards in the future.

"It's not bad for him to do this Guangdong......"

Thinking of the iron works and railways in Guangdong, Zhu Yifeng sighed approvingly, the reason why he was used as the governor of Guangdong was because there was no suitable candidate, but he really did not let himself down.

"In a few years, you can consider adding a burden to him......"

However, now Li Ziyuan's burden is not light, although the power of the governor under the current governor's office is far from being comparable with the Manchu Qing Dynasty, but Li Ziyuan is directly under the governor, directly in control of the immigrants in North Borneo, the reason why he is in charge is because Guangdong has the habit of going to the South Seas tradition, and now it is just a matter of changing to the government's leading promotion, this is only a few months, and there are as many as 10,000 immigrants in North Borneo, although most of them are "exiled" beggars, but at least this is a good start.

"In a few years, when the people get used to North Borneo, it will almost become the new province of China!"

Just when Zhu Yifeng was thinking like this in his heart, there was a sound outside the door, and then Lin Zhiping walked in,

"The minister has seen the lord!"

Inside, he held a file box in his hand, and Zhu Yifeng nodded.

"Excuse me,"

Lin Zhiping presented the document box, and the box was full of secret telegrams sent directly from the locality, and these telegrams were all bypassing the military office, which was equivalent to the "secret play" of the Manchu magistrate. I looked at a few of the telegrams, and most of them were local. When looking through these telegrams, there was one telegram that made Zhu Yifeng stunned for a moment, and then a smile appeared on his face.

"This Li Ziyuan!"

Putting down the telegram in his hand, Zhu Yifeng said with a smile.

"What did you say in the telegram? The seeds of the cinchona trees were given half of the Governor's shares, as if they were meant to be cheap. ”

As a close confidant of Han Du, Lin Zhiping could not know that this would be when the lord was in a good mood, otherwise he would not have said such a joke.

"My lord, that is, you can tolerate his temper. If it was someone else, it is estimated that Ziyi would not dare! ”

After presenting a fluttering sycophant, Lin Zhiping smiled again.

"When the time comes, in the lord's plantation, if this cinchona tree grows seedlings, the minister will have to ask for dozens of trees, and the minister will also have a piece of land in North Borneo."

If there is anyone in the Governor's Mansion who does not have a plantation there, you must know that North Borneo has divided half of it on the map by block, and distributed it to hundreds of high-ranking civil and military officials up and down the prefecture, and almost overnight the big guys have become "big landlords" with as little as tens of thousands of acres and as many as 100,000 acres.

Although many people don't know what the use of this overseas acre is, and they don't even know how to cultivate it, they don't know where the land is? But all of them are grateful to the lord, compared to others, this land is the most real. Although most of this land is woodland, if it is cultivated, it may become a fertile crop.

"Cinchona ......"

Zhu Yifeng smiled and said,

"This is a good thing, it can be said that with it, we can conquer Borneo and conquer the South Seas!"

Even in the process of colonizing Africa in the future, it is also inseparable from the cinchona tree, to be precise, the quinine extracted from the bark of the cinchona tree. More than 20 years later, the Europeans began to divide Africa, partly because the world had already been divided by them, but partly because the Dutch had established plantations on the island of Java and elsewhere. The success of colonizing Africa was achieved only after the thriving cultivation of cinchona trees and the fact that sufficient quantities of cinchona bark could be provided to the world for quinine extraction, and malaria epidemics were more widespread in Africa than in the South Seas.

It can be said that the acquisition of cinchona tree species will be the most advantageous weapon for China to open up colonies, although Zhu Yifeng knows that there is artemisinin invented in China in later generations, which is also extremely effective in treating malaria, and even profited from the Nobel Prize, but he does not know the extraction method, in contrast, quinine is undoubtedly the best choice.

"Oh? Is this tree so important? ”

Lin Zhiping asked in surprise.

"It's not the tree that matters, it's the bark that matters."

Hu Linyi, who was sitting on the side, explained with a smile.

"More than 100 years ago, Kangxi of the Manchu Qing Dynasty cured malaria with this bark and survived, my lord, this malaria is not only in Nanyang, Huguang also has this disease, and Lingnan is also a flooded place, if this tree can be planted, the living people will be more than millions, and in the opinion of the ministers, the reward of 10,000 taels of silver may be a little less!"

"It's a little less, Runzhi, you prepare a telegram to go over and tell him that a special institution has been set up for the cultivation of this cinchona tree, and some Western plant experts can be hired from Nanyang, so that this Deng Mingzhao can go with him, and he knows where the environment is...... Well, also, 5,000 acres of land was allocated to him from the Nanyang Company, and as for the distribution, it was better to wait until the saplings were raised, and tell him that this matter was kept in mind. ”

Luck!

When leaving the lord's study, Lin Zhiping secretly sighed in his heart, since this Li Ziyuan went to Guangdong, it was really like a dragon entering the sea, it was only a year of hard work, and he had done so many things, if it was a long time......

"Yuda, what are you thinking? So distracted? ”

Hu Linyi saw that Lin Zhiping's pace slowed down, so he tried to ask.

"I didn't think about anything, I just ......"

After a moment of silence, Lin Zhiping looked at Hu Linyi and said.

"Runzhi, how do I think that now this Li Ziyuan has done things without the slightest scruples since he became the governor of Guangdong, and it seems to be a little ......"

Before he finished speaking, he looked at Hu Linyi, waiting for him to pick up his words.

"Speaking of which, I envy you."

is as shrewd as Hu Linyi, but now he is playing haha.

"Throughout the ages, there are a few people who are as benevolent as the lord, and the lord doesn't say it, but in his heart, he not only trusts the old minister who shared the hardships with him at the beginning, but even seems to be arrogant, and the benevolence of the lord is far beyond the reach of others."

seems to be playing haha, but in fact, Hu Linyi is reminding Lin Zhiping.

Li Ziyuan is a real "old minister from the dragon", with the way of the lord, he will never blame him for his "arrogance", not to mention, as a close minister of the lord, Hu Linyi also knows that for more than a year, Li Ziyuan has done everything that the lord needs someone to do, it can be said that this Li Ziyuan is indeed an old minister who went out from the lord's side, he knows what the lord wants! What to ask him to do.

"But no, it is really a blessing for us to be able to get the knowledge of the lord today!"

Hu Linyi's euphemistic reminder made Lin Zhiping's back cold, thinking that the person in front of him could be said to have been famous for a long time. Where do you dare to show the slightest thought in front of it.

"That's why we have to do a good job to repay the Lord for knowing whether it was or not."

Hu Linyi still had a smile on his face, he didn't appreciate Lin Yeping much all along, because his selfishness was too heavy. But the lord ...... Sighing in his heart, Hu Linyi knew that sometimes some things were not what he, as a courtier, should say.

Zhu Yifeng didn't know what his subordinates were thinking, but he was standing in the study looking at the large world map.

"Cinchona tree!"

Zhu Yifeng did not know whether the cinchona tree brought by Deng Mingzhao was a tree species with high quinine content, but the arrival of the tree species made him realize that there is a more important cash crop in South America - rubber.

Compared with the medicinal value of the cinchona tree, rubber will undoubtedly be one of the most important cash crops to usher in a new era of tropical economy, and even when the rubber tree and its origin Brazil are almost extinct, Southeast Asia has become the world's most important natural rubber producer.

In contrast, if the cinchona tree is to make it safer for the people to live in the South Seas, then the rubber tree will undoubtedly be the foundation of the prosperity of the new immigrants, and more importantly, for themselves and other officials in the Governorate, the future attraction of the overseas colonies lies in the large plantations such as rubber plantations, which can bring the wealth they need compared to farming.

The market for rubber is just beginning compared to the already saturated markets such as spices, and the price of wild rubber in Brazil is extremely expensive, and now the British have not brought the seeds of rubber trees to Southeast Asia, and the rubber cultivation industry is still blank, which is the time to develop this business.

"It seems that this matter should be done as soon as possible, and the future planting plan of North Borneo will be mainly based on pineapple and rice for the time being, and will be dominated by cash crops such as rubber in the future!"

The reason why pineapples are chosen for growing crops in North Borneo is that pineapples can be used to produce canned food, which has the shortest production cycle and is extremely high compared to other fruits suitable for canned production, and more importantly, Europeans are now relatively familiar with this fruit, and it is also unfamiliar.

They had seen pineapples in books, but only a very few of them had eaten them due to transportation conditions. It is easier to market than other canned fruits, and it can be used in cheaper glass bottles as containers. Almost half a century later, the Chinese billionaires who rose to prominence in Southeast Asia either relied on rubber or canned fruit.

While thinking of those Chinese tycoons, Zhu Yifeng's eyes stared at Borneo on the map and naturally turned to its south, and Li Xude's report made his brows furrow, with a little dissatisfaction on his face.

"In the southwest of Borneo, since the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, tens of thousands of overseas Chinese have gathered to cultivate and pan for gold here, and they have established autonomous companies such as Dagang, Lanfang and Sangou, among which Dagang is the strongest, and Sangougou is the weakest...... Dagang can mobilize 10,000 people, Lanfang is 6,000 and Sangou is 5,000...... Due to the long-term feud between the mining companies due to factors such as mines and water sources, they even did not hesitate to cooperate with the Dutch to weaken each other...... Six years earlier, Dutch Borneo had been reorganized into three sub-districts, and the Dutch had begun to force the Talaolu Gold Mine area under their direct administration. The Dagang Company tried to drive the Dutch out of the Sanfa area. During the war, Sanjogou categorically supported the Dutch in order to seize the mines, and cooperated with the Dutch to attack Dagang, and the war ended with the surrender of Dagang last year. Another large company, Lanfang, under the leadership of its leader Liu Asheng, maintained nominal neutrality during the war in order to maintain its independence, but in fact during the war, Lanfang provided logistical support such as rice and meat to the Dutch army......"

Once upon a time, he was full of good feelings for the so-called Chinese regimes such as Lan Fang, but the reality hit him a loud ear, and the actions of those Chinese companies based on the hometowns of immigrants such as Cantonese and Teochew people happened to respond to the tragedy of "a Chinese is a dragon, and a group of Chinese are worms", the Chinese company was not destroyed by the Dutch, but precisely by the hands of the Chinese themselves, and the behavior of the famous "Lanfang Company" during the war was even more a "traitor" move.

It is their disunity that has ruined the foundation of hundreds of thousands of overseas Chinese for more than 100 years, and in order to eliminate their opponents, they even do not hesitate to cooperate with outsiders, fantasizing about monopolizing the market by eliminating their compatriots, but what is the result? They didn't get anything.

This is called a Chinese company...... A plate of loose sand!

"Don't let such people fend for themselves."

After talking to himself dissatisfied, Zhu Yifeng, who felt that he seemed to be holding back a ball of fire in his heart, left the study, he did not go back to the back house directly as before, but walked in the garden, so as to release the dissatisfaction and anger in his heart...... (To be continued.) )