Daming Guangdong Province, Qiongzhou Prefecture.

Hainan Island, under the monsoon climate of the tropical island, has a short spring that flies by, when the temperature climbs to nearly 30 degrees. On the green field, the first season of rice has entered the critical period of heading and filling, and under the nourishment of abundant water and fertilizer, each rice plant has heavy green ears.

According to preliminary estimates, the rice output of the intensive farms in the hands of the squires in Qiongzhou will exceed 1.5 million stone in the first season of this year, and the export of rice to the outside world in the current season is expected to exceed 500,000 stone with other rice growers. For Qiongzhou, which has a population of just over 600,000 including Shengli, this explosive agricultural recovery is staggering. The continuous upward trend in rice prices in Liangguang and Fujian has also made all the migrants who have settled in Qiongzhou feel that their lives are very promising.

But in fact, the squires of Qiongzhou have been torn apart in the past month. Because of the new policy in Qiongzhou for more than ten years, there has never been such an unfavorable opening as this year.

As the biggest talisman of Qiongzhou, Shen Tingyang, the former soldier and Zhao Youheng, the governor of Guangdong, ended gloomily, and Qiongzhou, who temporarily took over the power and responsibility of Qiongzhou, never dared to disobey Ding Chukui, the governor of Liangguang, at this stall. The Huamei Oriental Union Group was ordered to withdraw all representatives from Qiongzhou Prefecture and County, and the maritime merchants of Guangzhou and Qiongzhou, whose strength had soared in recent years, were also forced to act as turtles with shrunken heads to watch the direction of the wind, and the largest rice procurement channel to the outside world was forced to shut down.

It will take a few months before the first rice harvest takes months, but after losing the ability to circulate in large quantities, the price of rice in Qiongzhou has plummeted ahead of schedule, falling to less than five silver per stone. More critically. If there is no external replenishment at this time, the planting of crops including the second season of rice, cotton, flax and sugarcane will be greatly affected in the second half of the year.

In addition, the quantity of various Nanyang commodities flowing into Liangguang through the Nanhai firms has been greatly reduced, and the shops of Nanhai firms dealing in Nanyang commodities in the main prefectures and counties of Liangguang have also been seized, which is a fatal blow to the Nanhai firms that once monopolized most of the import and export trade of the Nanhai and Guangzhous.

In the ports of Danzhou and Qiongshan, the goods that should have been exported to the Oriental Union have been backlogged, and the workshops or mines purchased by the squires in various parts of Qiongzhou have to be temporarily closed, and the employees are forced to go home, and people are panicked and rumored everywhere. On the books of the South China Sea firm. This condition lasts every day. It's all a loss of thousands of taels of silver.

……

In the inland hinterland of Changhua County, Danzhou, next to a hill slope of a mountain forest, a village named Changpo with only about 300 households ushered in another morning.

Thirteen years ago, it was a barren and uninhabited primeval forest. Pass along a small road that leads into the hinterland of the southeast mountain forest. The first to move to Changpo Village were dozens of families who lost their land in Qiongzhou and settled down. Later, another group of displaced households from Lianzhou moved in. By the sixteenth year of Chongzhen, Changpo Village suddenly poured in more outsiders, including Huguang. There are more than 1,000 people in Jiangxi.

Because of its location on the edge of the hills, the farmland outside the village is extremely scarce, with only a few hundred acres of melons, fruits and vegetables cultivated by the village names, in addition to coconut groves that cannot be seen at a glance, and strange tree species that were planted on a smaller scale and once distributed in the deep mountains of the hinterland of Qiongya.

The tree, which is called "oil-footed tree" by local mature Li farmers, is the product of artificial seedling cultivation after forestry technicians from Huamei Wood Group transplanted it from the Shengli Mountains of Qiongzhou 10 years ago and spent six years in the Pearl Island Tropical Forestry Experimental Zone. In later generations, this kind of tree is the famous "oil nan tree".

The oil tree was later known as the oil tree, and its trunk wood produces a natural oil with properties similar to diesel. With little to no processing, the oil can be simply filtered as a direct replacement for diesel fuel. An adult oil tree can drill at least 20 kg of tree oil per year, and it is also a high-quality construction wood with natural corrosion and moisture resistance.

Thousands of acres of cash crops are planted on a large scale, and even many varieties will take many years to see the benefits. The representative of the Nanyang business of Huamei Wood Group promised to the squire of Qiongzhou that in the future, the purchase price of one or two silver per load of tree oil will be given, which is equivalent to about 25 US dollars per ton of tree oil, and the overall income is twice as high as that of spending a lot of young and strong labor to grow rice, and it is also a long-term and stable business every year!

The Qiongzhou squires didn't believe in their ears at first, but after eating the sweetness of coconut trees and rubber trees, this long-term return industry had already reached a consensus among the Qiongzhou squires. What's more, in the process of planting and maintaining Phoebe oil, Huamei Wood Group promised to give the Qiongzhou squires who operate the oil nan tree farm a sum of "silvicultural money" that is better than nothing, so as to strengthen the investment confidence of the Qiongzhou squires.

Although the promises are very good, because the tree species provided by Huamei Wood Group are not free, so for the sake of conservatism, the Nanhai firm and the squire of Qiongzhou only occupy 6,000 acres of hilly wasteland that is not suitable for rice cultivation to try their hands, and calculate that they can harvest at least 3,500 tons of tree oil every year in the future.

The largest planting area is in Danzhou, of which there are about 500 acres of oil nan distributed in Changpo Village. These trees have been planted for four years, and according to the Huamei forestry technicians, it will take about two years before the oil is actually extracted. Once the benefits are realized, it makes sense to continue to expand the planting area.

How much can the squire of Qiongzhou make in this process, and how much of the difference in price profits can be made by Huamei Wood Group, which sells oil to North America and Europe, is basically a black matter for the people of Changpo Village. They only know that they have been planting trees and raising trees for all these years, and this large area of trees that can neither be eaten nor drunk is not owned by local villagers, but a large family surnamed Zhang in Danzhou bought and opened a forest farm here.

In the past few years, the oil nan trees outside Changpo Village have grown into forests, and some old farmers are still carefully maintaining them. Without the usual hard work of one acre and three points of land, and without worrying about the harvest of the fields, the job of the old farmers and workers is to take care of the two forest farms here, pick coconut fruits or maintain oil trees all year round, and then send the coconuts to the special collection and storage point in the village. Although the income is a little lower, it can be regarded as a drought and flood to ensure income. Relying on the income of two cents of silver per month, I can also make up for my family a year.

……

The genius was slightly bright, and Liu Heizi finished eating the rice porridge and wotou made by his daughter-in-law, put on a simple undershirt full of patches, and went out with his seventeen-year-old eldest son.

Liu Heizi's family of five was the first Lianzhou refugee to settle here. Liu Heizi's real name, basically the people in the village have long forgotten it cleanly, this tall and big strong man has an upright personality, works quickly, and has a leader temperament. He was a small foreman at the open-pit coal mine outside the village.

Because most of the Changpo villages are immigrants who have moved in for more than ten years. At first, they basically had nothing, so the villagers who settled here lived like tenants and non-tenants, relying on farming for Zhangjia's reclamation farm or digging coal in a coal mine not far from the village.

Walk through a coconut grove. Liu Heizi greeted the elderly farmers of several reclamation forest farms as usual. Those were originally local tenants in Changhua. Because I'm old. I don't have the strength to do heavy work like Liu Heizi. So he became an agricultural worker in Zhangjia Reclamation Farm to maintain the coconut grove.

Most of the young people mine coal in the coal mines outside the village. The mining area is the land that Nanhai Mining, a subsidiary of Nanhai Trading, bought from the government, and is also operated by the Danzhou Zhang family. Liu Heizi was one of the first coal workers to participate in the mining process.

Liu Heizi still remembers that ten years ago, a few strangely dressed Nanyang merchants were pointing in a depression outside the village, and then Liu Heizi and others mixed in with a large group of recruited Li people, picked up various tools and began to dig the soil. After pushing aside the one-zhang deep layer of soil, Liu Heizi and others finally saw the thick coal.

In the days that followed, Liu Heizi and other coal workers relied on coal digging work. For every load of coal dug up, he can get eight cents of wages from Zhang's family. A man like Liu Heizi with a good body can earn up to one penny a day. Take a break for a day or two to recuperate, and you can get at least two taels of silver for a month of hard work, which is an income that has never been imagined for Qiongzhou, where the market price of rice per stone is only one tael of silver.

Over time, Liu Heizi, who has the highest coal digging efficiency, has a standard image of being black from top to bottom. Coupled with his flexible brain, he was one of the few people who learned to use the Nanyang pit pumper, and Liu Heizi was promoted to the head of the coal mining industry, and his fame spread.

Not long ago, Liu Heizi brought his eldest son to the mine, and his daughter-in-law and second daughter also helped out in the coal preparation yard in the village, responsible for picking out the coarse coal and stone that were said to be able to "boil out oil", and they could earn one or two taels of broken silver a year.

Liu Heizi's family of five has a comfortable life, not only far away from famine, but also able to buy a lot of household groceries such as chicken, duck and fish, flower cloth, refined salt and so on all year round, and even the dowry of the second daughter has been prepared early.

Speaking of which, the people of Changpo Village have had a good life in the past ten years, and most of the villagers have abandoned the farming skills inherited from their ancestors, and the days of relying on the sky for food seem to be gone forever.

But in the past month, Liu Heizi has felt a little strange, picking coconuts outside the village has been much slower, and the pallet trucks carrying refined coal to and from Changpo Village have also become sparse. The most obvious change is that Zhangjia in Danzhou, who is in charge of the mining area, began to announce production cuts. Coal workers have changed from working every day to alternate work every other day, and their natural income has been halved. Only a veteran of the mine like Liu Heizi can still maintain the opportunity to work every day.

When Liu Heizi and his eldest son walked outside the familiar shearer's shed, they found hundreds of shearers from Changpo Village and nearby Shuli Village standing outside, and there seemed to be noise in the crowd.

"Uncle Kuroko is here!"

A young coal worker in the crowd saw Liu Heizi and his son, and quickly shouted. The coal workers seemed to see hope and quickly separated from each other.

More than a dozen well-dressed men appeared in the shed, including the familiar manager of the Zhangjia mining area and the sturdy men dressed as the nurses.

"Steward Zhang, could it be that there is water in the pit again, and the pumping truck is broken, so you can't go to work?"

Liu Heizi's first reaction was to look at the erected steam pump in the depths of the mining area, only to see that the usual water vapor was gone, and he could not hear the rhythmic and familiar sound of steam.

"Liu Heizi, my lord said, this coal and stone can't be transported, and you will lose a day of silver if you mine for a day, and the mine will be closed today, and the big guy will do whatever he wants. You are the foreman selected by my Zhang family, why don't you disperse these people soon? The big chair directly blocked everyone's way into the coal mining area, and the steward of the Zhang family was sitting on it casually drinking tea with an impatient look on his face.

"Didn't you say that you would work every other day......" looked back at the coal workers who were dumbfounded. Liu Heizi's heart sank, and he quickly lowered his voice.

"It's useless even after ten days." The housekeeper of the Zhang family pointed to the coal pile area in the distance a little angrily, "See, there are still 8,000 quintals there, and now the government has blocked the way for the South China Sea business to go to sea, and my lord is also in a hurry, so don't make trouble!" ”

"If you don't let us go to work, we won't be paid! Steward Zhang, do well, don't seal the mine. Even once in three days! ”

The voice of the Zhang family steward fell. A group of coal workers shouted, and many even knelt down and begged each other.

"Steward Zhang, this coal is not allowed to be dug. Let's give you a way to live...... This folks in the village. But they have all worked for the Zhang family for more than ten years. Or maybe you tell me the exact number. When will I be able to resume work? ”

Liu Heizi had already worn out the blood and qi of his youth, and he was still smiling at this time. Although he cares very much about these workers who have worked together for many years, he does not dare to offend the Zhang family steward who is a man of his word in the mine.

"You asked about me? Why don't you go to the county office and ask? Let's wait a month, let's be honest! The housekeeper of the Zhang family rolled his eyes. No longer paying attention to Liu Heizi, who was respectful in front of him, he directly gave instructions to the nursing home behind him to seal the mine.

More than a dozen sturdy nursing homes rushed up at this time, directly locking the gate of the mining area with iron chains, as if they felt that it was not enough, and nailed a circle of thick wooden planks to the fence.

"It's just a month, if you can't work for a year and a half, how can you be a good ......?"

A slightly older coal worker was muttering in the crowd at this time, and the people around him were silently hanging their heads. Seeing that Liu Heizi had touched his ashes, the coal workers present were even more depressed.

Liu Heizi took his son on the way home, looking at the workers in front of him and behind him sighing or panicking, Liu Heizi's heart suddenly felt a strong uneasiness, as if his good life for many years would be gone with the shutdown of the coal mine.

……

Liu Heizi and other Danzhou coal workers were heavy in their hearts, and the Qiongzhou squire was as anxious as ants on a hot pot.

In a large mansion in Ding'an County, the old man of the Wang family is closing his eyes in the courtyard to recuperate, and a few little maids are gently shaking a feather fan. The silver-white hair and flowing robe made the old man look like a fairy wind and bones.

Liu Yaoyu, whose chin had grown a beard, was also standing silently behind the old man at this time, and his eyes fell on Huang Yuanwai, who was pacing back and forth anxiously not far away, and several Qiongzhou squires.

"Wang Weng, this matter must not be delayed any longer!" Huang Yuanwai, who was holding an account book, turned around, left his companion and walked in front of the old man of the Wang family, and bowed deeply, "The imperial court is like this, the commercial goods in Qiongzhou can't go out, and the Nanyang seafood can't come in. There's a lot of silver, so when will you be able to let go...... If Zhaoqing doesn't give a letter, it won't be able to go on in the second half of the year! ”

"Haven't you been an old man......" The old man of the Wang family opened his eyes slightly, and coldly glanced at the Qiongzhou squire whispering in the courtyard, his tone was still calm, "At the Governor of Liangguang, the old man also went to the letter to ask, but Ding Chukui didn't see it, what can he do." Since the beginning of spring, the DPRK and China have had a lot of concerns about the Nanyang incident, and some people have asked the criminals to go to sea by going to sea through Qiongzhou and roasting the Nanhai merchants on the fire. Now that Shen Tingyang has gone and Zhao Youheng is at home, we have to think about it in the long run. ”

"Hey, speaking of which, it's still Namiyi's lack of success and more than failure! It's good that he hit the doorpost of the imperial court and went against Nanjing's thoughts. ”

"I heard that the two places in Guangzhou are watching our jokes, and in the end, all the benefits are circled by those people in Guangzhou!"

"The old man is even worse here, the 200,000 stone new rice that was pre-collected is all smashed in his hands, and it is just a matter of losing some money, in case the imperial court wants to investigate the matter of my Qiongzhou squire's outward transportation of displaced people, then it will really be useless!"

Several Qiongzhou squires, old and young, also gathered around, some complained, some were frightened, and some were heartbroken.

"Master, Lord Zhang Jianye of Qiongzhou Camp asks to see! It is said that a messenger from Hong Kong has come to Qiongzhou. ”

When everyone was at a loss, the housekeeper of the Wang family walked into the courtyard with a prayer post, and respectfully held his hands in front of the old man of the Wang family.

"The old man will go to meet Master Zhang first, you should be a little calm, and go back to stabilize people's hearts for the time being."

Hearing that Zhang Jianye, the commander of the Qiongzhou battalion, came to visit and brought news from Nanyang, the eyes of the old man of the Wang family suddenly flashed with a trace of essence, and then he got up quietly and walked towards the study. And Liu Yaoyu followed closely after thinking for a few seconds. (To be continued......)