Throughout the thirteenth year of the Apocalypse, the internal construction of the Ming Dynasty was very large, and a lot of infrastructure was built in the northern provinces, and the railways were almost repaired to Huguang and Jiangnan.

The construction of a large number of railway lines has made the scale of the commodity economy in the north even larger. In the past, the north was dominated by the rural natural economy, but by this time the commodity economy had become the mainstream, and the rural natural economy had basically been replaced.

More people moved into the towns and became industrial-era workers.

Industry and commerce in the Jiangnan region were further weakened, and with the construction of railways in the Western Regions, the Yumenguan oil field also happened to refine kerosene, which added another commodity to the state-owned capital, and the emergence of kerosene replaced the oil-fired lighting market of vegetable oil and animal oil.

Kerosene lamps also appeared and became a best-selling commodity.

Kerosene lamps spread rapidly in the New Deal provinces, after all, workers in towns earned enough to afford kerosene lamps, and kerosene prices were much lower than vegetable oil.

The whaling industry in the Ming Dynasty has developed rapidly in recent years, but the emergence of kerosene has frustrated the growth of the whaling industry, and the market demand for whale oil has begun to decline.

However, after all, whale oil does not have any unpleasant smell, and the brightness is relatively high, and Daming is a big country with a relatively large luxury consumer market, so there is still a market for whale oil, and the whaling industry has not been devastated. Moreover, the application of various parts of the whale has also been discovered one after another, and it has become a good industrial raw material.

So there is still a lot of profit from killing whales, and the state-owned whaling fleet still hunts whales in Japanese waters. In other words, it is no longer the waters of Japan, but the extension of the territorial waters of the eastern province of Daming Town.

With the arrival of autumn, whaling enters its peak.

Today, Daming can catch more than 500 baleen whales a year from Hokkaido fishing grounds. Such a number of kills does not make the species endangered. There are a lot of whales in the ocean these years.

But in the thirteenth year of the Apocalypse. After kerosene began to enter the market. Soon after Zhu Youxiao returned to the capital, he asked the cabinet to formulate a policy of killing whales, limiting the catch of 1,500 whales a year, and the fishing grounds in Hokkaido, limiting the catch of 500 whales a year.

This is a pitiful fraction compared to the more than 60,000 whales that humans have caught in a year in later history.

At the same time, the whaling industry is still only accessible to state-owned enterprises, and private capital cannot catch whales at sea. In addition, various fishing restrictions have also been imposed in areas such as fishing.

However, the fishing efficiency of this year is not so exaggerated. Trawlers have also not appeared, and although the upper limit of the catch of those fisheries has been formulated, the current catch of the Ming Dynasty is far from that large. However, the fishing industry has developed rapidly in recent years, and fishing has flourished in coastal and Hokkaido fisheries, with large quantities of dried fish, pickled fish and canned fish being shipped back to the mainland.

In the thirteenth year of the Apocalypse, a large number of people were detached from agricultural production and invested in construction, and these fishery products became an important part of the food.

In the thirteenth year of the Apocalypse, the commercial grain in the northeast region was directly transported to the northern provinces of Guannai through the railway, and at the same time, the railway was also repaired to the coastal ports in the northeast, and some grain was directly transported from the ports to the southern provinces and the Yangtze River basin area.

Wheat and soybeans in the north. There is also a great demand in the South. The output of soybeans in the Northeast region has increased a lot in the thirteenth year of the Apocalypse. Mainly because of the railway, many areas that were previously impassable and could not be covered by the commodity economy can carry out commercial agricultural production.

With the popularization of steam engines, the soybean oil extraction industry in Northeast China has also developed extremely prosperously. Commercial edible vegetable oils began to appear in large quantities on store shelves in the provinces of the New Deal. However, in those days, commercial cooking oil was sold in large barrels and then retailed in stores in the market.

With the advent of railways, the Northeast region began to enter the second stage of development climax. The resources of the Northeast region are too rich, but the population has just reached 10 million people, which can also be said to be vast and sparsely populated, in addition to the relatively large population in Liaodong, Jilin and Heilongjiang and the Outer Northeast, the population is less and less the further north it goes.

Now, as long as the railway is built, the resources can be developed. In addition to the scale of commercial grain production, the scale of logging and mining production can also be expanded, and suddenly there is a great demand for population in the northeast region.

Grain, timber and minerals in the Northeast have become the largest commodities.

With the continuous import of timber from Northeast China, the price of timber has dropped by nearly half, and commercial grain has also ensured the development of industrial construction.

In addition, the scale of coal and iron ore mining has also increased a lot, and the railway can be repaired to North Korea next year, and the mineral resources of North Korea can also be transported back to Daming at that time.

"In the Tohoku region, the current population gap is relatively large, and only by continuing to migrate 5 million people from the Kannai can the resources be largely developed. And to develop Mongolia next year, a certain population will also be needed. The commercial cotton-producing areas in the Western Regions are also increasing, and the population is also needed. Shen Yu reported the population needs of each region to Zhu Youxiao, and Zhu Youxiao said: "Then continue to immigrate from Guannai." ”

"At present, there are still a lot of people in the northern provinces who can immigrate, but on the whole they cannot fill this gap. In addition, construction is taking place in various parts of the Kannai area, and there is also a demand for the population. "Unless you are immigrants from Huguang, Sichuan and other places, where the population is relatively sufficient. ”

"When will the railway be built to Huguang and Sichuan?" Zhu Youxiao asked.

"The railway will be built to Huguang next year, and it will take at least two to three years to build it to Sichuan. Construction of the railway in Sichuan has not yet begun, and the terrain is relatively complex. ”

"In that case, let's recruit immigrants from Huguang first! When the railway is built to Huguang next year, it will be much more convenient for immigrants. Zhu Youxiao said.

Migration to the Northeast, Mongolia, and the Western Regions was definitely going to take place.

After all, the Ming Dynasty has conquered these places, and they must be occupied. At the same time, the resources of these places are also needed by the Ming Dynasty, and there are commercial grains, timber and minerals in the northeast. Mongolia has a steppe economy and can also exploit a lot of minerals. The Western Regions have now become an important commercial cotton producing area of the Ming Dynasty, and in the thirteenth year of the Apocalypse, with the construction of the railway to the Western Regions, a large amount of cotton began to be transported back to the customs from the railway.

After years of development in the Western Regions, many water conservancy facilities have been built, and the planting area of commercial cotton has rapidly exceeded tens of millions of mu, and the scale is still expanding.

Today, the Western Regions of the Ming Dynasty are not only as big as Xinjiang in later generations, but also include Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Lu Xiangsheng also expanded his control area westward to Lake Balkhash, where the climate is not much different from that of Xinjiang and is a well-suited area for growing cotton.

Tens of millions of acres of cotton production area are still too little for Daming, and it is also necessary to increase the population to the Western Regions to continue to expand cotton production.

Growing cotton requires labor, and migration to the Western Regions is an urgent issue.

After some discussion with the cabinet, Zhu Youxiao immediately decided on a resettlement plan, saying that it is still necessary to continue large-scale resettlement to areas outside the border next year, and the number of immigrants should reach at least about 5 million.

After the reform of the northern provinces in recent years, as well as the continuous migration before, there is not so much population that can immigrate in large numbers.

The Huguang area must have enough population, after all, Huguang is a commercial grain producing area, there has basically been no famine or anything there, and as a province in the Yangtze River basin, it itself is the traditional activity area of the Han people, and the population is very dense. (To be continued.) )