With the advent of the scorching summer, Zhu Youxiao did not run to escape the heat, but studied the matter of continuing to expand outward in the capital.

The internal situation of the Ming Dynasty has been very good this year, the north is basically fully stabilized, and in the next few years, as long as there are no big accidents, there is basically no problem with the reform of the south.

The Ming Dynasty now also occupies Nanyang and Australia. To the north, it occupied the outer northeast and the Mongolian steppes, and to the west it advanced to the Lake Balkhash region of Central Asia.

Indochina is now more and more like the backyard of the Ming Dynasty.

However, there are still many problems, the first is that the development of the Nanyang region is not complete, many islands have not been included in the scope of development, and the Golden State Province (Sumatra), which has just been established for a few years, has only been partially developed, and the indigenous people on the islands have not been completely solved.

Some of the islands don't have much prospect of development, and the natives on them are largely indifferent.

At present, the most developed areas in the South Seas are Luzon, Java, and Malacca. At the same time, Borneo has also developed parts of the country, but the soil above it is not so fertile.

In addition, there are many islands that are still relatively rich in resources, but they have not yet been included in the scope of development.

"In the Nanyang region, it is still necessary to continue to educate the indigenous people." Zhu Youxiao instructed the ministers in the early days, "Let those natives embrace civilization as soon as possible." ”

"Your Majesty has a point." Shen Yun echoed.

However, the Ming Dynasty's education of these natives was based on first conquest and then education. To say that it is completely righteous is obviously not very good.

However, the emperor is determined to occupy those valuable islands in the South Seas, and if the natives on them are not cleaned up, it will not be easy to arrange for the people to go over to develop them.

"Also, what about immigrants in the Northeast?" Zhu Youxiao asked.

"Since the beginning of the year, more than 1.3 million people have migrated, and the number of immigrants to Northeast China is expected to reach about 3 million this year." An official from the Ministry of Civil Affairs replied.

"What about the railway? How is it being cultivated in the Northeast? Zhu Youxiao asked.

"The main railway line has been repaired to the outer northeast, and the railway branch lines in the northeast have also begun to be built one after another, and basically a rough railway branch line can be formed within three years." The General Directorate of Railways replied.

"What about the Ministry of Agriculture?"

"With the cooperation of the Civil Affairs Bureau and the General Administration of Railways, in terms of the development of commercial grain and arable land resources in Northeast China, a general development can basically be completed within five years."

"Your Majesty, there is no need to worry about the supply of commercial grain. At present, there are four major commercial grain producing areas in the northeast, namely the Hexi Corridor, the Guanzhong Plain, and the North China Plain, and the supply of commercial grain in the north is completely self-sufficient. In the south, there are Huguang commercial grain producing areas, as well as commodity grain imports from countries on the Indochina Peninsula, which are sufficient to maintain internal stability. The question now is how to reconcile the increase in market demand with the gradual increase in output in the commodity grain-producing regions. Jiang Dejing came out and said:

Therefore, the minister thought that the scale of railway construction should continue to be expanded, and more agricultural people would be released from the land. As the urban population increases, it will be able to absorb these growing commercial grain production capacity. As for coordination, food reserves are used as buffers. When the reserves are long, the urbanization of the rural population will be accelerated. When food reserves fall, the pace slows down. ”

"This method is feasible, and you can come up with a specific plan." Zhu Youxiao nodded.

At present, the biggest problem of Daming is to coordinate the market. If the market is not well coordinated, the economy will fall into chaos. After all, after the reform of the Ming Dynasty at this time, the commodity economy has occupied the mainstream of the market. In particular, the commercialization of agriculture is definitely the highest in the Northeast.

Since the beginning of migration to the Northeast, the construction of a rural natural economy has never been considered, and the agriculture of the Northeast is almost entirely of the commodity economy type.

After the grain is produced, it must be able to be sold, and if it cannot be sold, this pattern cannot be maintained. At this time, the scale of commercial grain production is still expanding, and the production efficiency is very high. Therefore, it is necessary to increase the urban population and continuously release those agricultural populations with low production efficiency from the land and put them into construction, so as to increase the demand for commercial grain.

To put it bluntly, it is to continue the enclosure movement and thus release the population from the land. And on the enclosed land, establish a commercial agriculture model.

The larger the scale of commercial grain production, the more people can be mobilized for construction. I completely disagree with the old model, if such a large-scale transfer of people to carry out engineering construction in the past would have caused chaos in the world.

Now the workers involved in the construction can get their wages, and the wages can buy food and all kinds of commodities, and the people can live a good life, and they can sustain themselves. And the wages are not low, and the standard of living has improved.

Zhu Youxiao attaches so much importance to the development of commercial grain producing areas mainly in order to ensure grain supply so as to obtain more people to invest in construction. Agriculture is the foundation of industry, and if people want to engage in industry, they must at least eat their stomachs first, right?

"How many people have migrated to Australia this year?" Zhu Youxiao continued to ask.

"Within six months, 150,000 people had migrated to Australia. It is mainly the agricultural and livestock population. Now that Australia's population has reached nearly 500,000, I think that the speed of immigration to Australia can be temporarily slowed down, and after the significant increase in China's Daming maritime capacity, large-scale immigration to Australia will be made. Jiang Dejing said, "At the same time, the number of immigrants in the Americas has reached 50,000, but it is slightly out of touch with the commodity economy of the Ming Dynasty, and immigration should also be suspended." ”

Zhu Youxiao thought for a moment, and felt that overseas immigrants were indeed a little out of touch at this time. After all, the overseas population is now mainly engaged in agricultural and animal husbandry production.

For the time being, the mining industry has not had much trouble because of the lack of ship capacity. The manufacturing industry is even less so, and not every place has sufficient resources for the mining of other raw materials.

The only way to achieve large-scale migration abroad is to increase the capacity of maritime transport so that some activities become commercially viable, so that it is possible to develop mining and other industries overseas.

After discussing and discussing, Zhu Youxiao finally decided to suspend the overseas immigration process and reduce the number of overseas immigrants. At the same time, however, the company has increased the construction of overseas bases.

It is planned to establish more bases on the west coast of North America to prepare for large-scale migration in the future. At the same time, in Australia, the scale of exploration will be increased, and the road construction plan will be planned first. When the conditions are ripe, a large number of migrants or workers can be transported over, and work can begin.

"Your Majesty, the gold army has discovered gold deposits in South Africa, but the exact reserves are still unknown." The official in charge of mining of the Ministry of Industry came out to report.

Originally, I only thought it was a very ordinary report, but it made Zhu Youxiao happy.

Gold has been discovered in South Africa!

This is definitely great news!

This means that the Ming Dynasty can mine a large amount of gold, and Zhu Youxiao immediately decided to increase troops to South Africa, and the troops sent in the past can be used as miners first.

On the one hand, it strengthened its control over South Africa, and on the other hand, it allowed the Ming to have enough manpower to mine gold in South Africa.

In South Africa, there are not so many blacks at this time, after all, blacks are not very productive, and most of South Africa is not black.

For black South Africans, Zhu Youxiao quickly thought of the apartheid policy of the Boers. It's the equivalent of gathering blacks in one place and letting them form a state to govern.

That's a good policy! Especially in this day and age, there is no human rights issue at all. And it's also a good thing that Daming gathered those blacks together to help them improve their civilization and productivity, and improve their living standards!

There is no problem in concentrating blacks in one province and administering them as subjects of the empire, except that their migration is restricted, as long as they are not administratively exorbitant.

As a result, a set of administrative models developed for the situation in South Africa came out.

Although the Manchu civil and military forces did not understand the emperor's decision to open up a province of South Africa again, it was not difficult to open up a province in a place like South Africa where there were no people.

So in July of the 14th year of the Apocalypse, the Ming Dynasty sent a large fleet to South Africa, and a large number of soldiers were transported on the fleet.

After continued exploration, the South African Gold Force finally discovered the gold deposits. And then more and more gold mines were discovered, and it was found that there are large gold reserves here, and it is relatively easy to mine.

The situation was reported, but two months later the local fleet arrived in South Africa.

At this time, the Dutch had not yet been contaminated, and of course, even if they were involved in South Africa, the Ming would kick the Dutch out of here.

After all, South Africa accounts for 60% of the world's gold reserves, and the deposit is very producing, and the cost of production is relatively low.

These gold will bring great wealth to the Ming Dynasty, but the essence of gold is just a commodity, and it can be used as a hard currency in the world, but the Ming Dynasty does not need to import too many goods from other countries, so gold is not so useful to the Ming for the time being.

But when this gold falls into the hands of other countries, then there is a problem, and other countries can use this gold to buy large quantities of goods.

However, this gold fell into the hands of Daming, and if Daming weakened one day, it would have enough capital to recover quickly.

At the same time, once the Ming Dynasty controls most of the world's gold production, it can use the gold standard instead of the silver standard.

After all, the origin of silver is in the hands of the plate duck at this time. The ducks can be exchanged for the goods of the Ming Dynasty by mining silver, but the Ming Dynasty is working for the ducks.

So at this time, the Central Bank of Daming was planning for the gold standard.

Over the years, the gold reserves of the central bank of Daming have continued to rise to thousands of tons, and Daming itself has a trade surplus, exports are more than imports, and precious metals will not flow out. At the same time, inside, precious metals are not exchanged in the banknote circulation area.

As long as there is no outflow of capital, it is unlikely to trigger a run.

Once South Africa's gold is mined, Daming will be able to get the gold standard. (To be continued.) )