In March, the Liao State brazenly announced that the Tanyuan Covenant was nullified, and the general Yelu Yanshou led 20,000 cavalry to break through the Song army's Bazhou defense line, went deep into the hinterland of Hebei East Road, sacked the city of Qingzhou, and retreated from Xiongzhou to Liao.

20,000 Liao cavalry ran to no man's land, killed nearly 1,000 border people, plundered countless wealthy children, the Song army panicked, but failed to kill the Liao soldiers, this news made the Great Song Dynasty in an uproar, shocked the government and the opposition inside and outside, Empress Dowager Cao immediately issued an order, dismissed the Xiongzhou and Bazhou defense envoys, increased the number of troops by 30,000, and strengthened the border defense.

But the Liao State then fell silent again, and for several months, the border was uneventful.

In July, 30,000 Western Xia troops used the raft to cross the Yellow River at night to raid Huizhou, Huizhou defense made Zhang Lian lead 5,000 to defend the city of Huizhou, the Western Xia army failed to capture the city, at this time the general stationed in Lanzhou has received the news of asking for help, he immediately led 20,000 troops to reinforce Huizhou, the Western Xia army went south hopelessly, plundered away thousands of herdsmen and tens of thousands of cattle and sheep and then withdrew to the north bank of the Yellow River.

The linkage of Liaodong and the Western Xia army made the Great Song Dynasty court deeply vigilant, and the Empress Dowager Cao immediately appointed the governor Han Jiang as the Shaanxi Road Xuanfu envoy, and once again used Di Qing, who was recuperating at home, as the privy deputy envoy, and promoted Qin Fenglu, Han Jiang and Di Qing were fully responsible for the defense of the Western Xia.

In September, Han Qi resigned from the post of Xiangguo due to the lack of defense in Hebei, and was sentenced to Zhizhen Dingfu, and at the same time was responsible for the construction of Hebei fortifications.

After more than nine months of work, Nanding County, the first county seat of the southern continent, has been completely completed, 5,000 households of immigrants are distributed in the county seat and around the county, forming more than a dozen villages, tens of thousands of hectares of land have been plowed out, and farmers have begun to sow wheat.

Compared with Kunzhou and other overseas state capitals, although the southern continent is far away, the treatment given by the imperial court is extremely generous, each family has five hectares of fertile land and ten acres of residential land, and is permanently exempt from taxes and forced labor, unlike other places that are only exempt from taxes for 50 years.

The first batch of immigrants from the southern continent mainly came from the border area of Hebei, because the border area was unstable, there were signs of war, so a large number of people applied for immigration overseas, the first batch of 5,000 immigrants almost all came from Dingzhou, so the name of the state was also changed from Dingnan Prefecture to Nandingzhou, and the name of the county was also changed to Dingxian.

30,000 Japanese laborers continued to work on the southern continent, and under the supervision of 2,000 Song troops, they felled trees, burned bricks, built roads, mined, and planted cotton in Nandingzhou, and the area of Nandingzhou had also penetrated 300 miles inland, and gold mines and open-pit coal fields were discovered, and 10,000 laborers were responsible for mining gold and coal fields, and refining gold and coke.

In addition, the government of Nanding Prefecture also introduced 3,000 Japanese girls and opened a textile workshop and a shoe-making workshop in Dingxian County, mainly weaving cotton cloth and making shoes.

Fanning led the first group of immigrants to sail last November, and after a two-month voyage, on the eighth day of January, the mighty fleet of immigrants arrived in Dingxian, where Brisbane would later be located, where 300 soldiers were stationed and a temporary camp was built.

In late January, more than 34,000 Japanese laborers and girls arrived on the southern continent to begin their three-year contracts.

Many of the laborers went overseas for the second time to make money, and they had more experience, and the sunshine in Nandingzhou was abundant, and the climate was not hot, so the laborers quickly devoted themselves to development.

After the arduous efforts of 5,000 households and tens of thousands of laborers, a tall and sturdy county town and tens of thousands of hectares of fertile land to nourish it have begun to take shape.

In the early morning, Fanning took a few officials to inspect outside the city, along the south bank of the Dinghe River are endless wheat fields and corn fields, the wheat fields are full of green wheat seedlings, corn seedlings have also been quietly unearthed, and countless people are working in the fields.

Li Hong, the magistrate of the county, pointed to the wheat field in the distance and said to Fanning: "So far, Dingxian County has opened up a total of 40,000 hectares of land, all of which are used to grow wheat and corn, winter wheat has already been sown, corn seedlings have also come out, there is plenty of sunshine here, precipitation is abundant, it is estimated that this summer will be a good harvest." ”

Fanning nodded, "Vegetables and fisheries also have to keep up, in addition, the inland kangaroo is rampant, the army has hunted thousands of heads, kangaroo meat can be eaten, leather can be tanned, I think the army eats kangaroo meat very well, you have to convince the people, there is nothing to fear." ”

Li Hong smiled bitterly: "After all, everyone has never seen this kind of thing before, so you have to get used to it slowly." ”

Qu Wenyi, the county lieutenant next to him, was a little worried: "I heard that the northern frontier of the Great Song Dynasty is unstable, and the attention of the Great Song Dynasty has shifted to the north, will it affect the operation of the southern continent?" ”

Fan Ning smiled slightly: "After all, the instability in the north is short-lived, once the Great Song Dynasty returns stability, it will definitely double its operation in the southern continent, maybe it will be two years later, but the trend will never change, you must calm down and run Dingxian well, early next year, the imperial court will send people to evaluate Dingxian, the focus is whether the people live and work in peace and contentment, and everyone must be more dedicated in this regard." ”

Several county officials bowed together, "We will never let down the great trust of the envoy!" ”

Fan Ning was also a little melancholy in his heart, at the end of September, his term of office as an overseas economic envoy expired, and there were still more than ten days left, and it was time for him to go back to hand over and report to Beijing.

..........

At noon, Fanning boarded a 30,000-stone steam oar, bid farewell to the people and officials of the southern continent, and went to Ganjiang Island, and then returned directly to the Great Song Dynasty from Ganjiang Island, and when he came back, I don't know how many years later.

Looking at the Dingxian wharf farther and farther away, Fan Ning felt an indescribable sadness in his heart, but also a heartfelt pride that the rule of the Central Plains Dynasty in the southern continent had finally been established in his hands, and he believed that hundreds of years later, this would definitely be a prosperous and powerful overseas country of the Han people.

The steam paddle ship sailed to the southern mainland in July this year, and it took a month on the way, and this was the second steamship to sail to the sea, before a steamship of 5,000 stone began in March, going back and forth between Quanzhou and Luzon, for this purpose, Luzon Province specially built three coke warehouses for replenishment, one of which is located in the southernmost part of Mindanao, specifically for the supply of steam ships to and from the southern mainland.

The 30,000-stone steamship that Fanning rode was driven by two steam engines and two metal paddle wheelers, which could reach a speed of 22 kilometers per hour, sailing day and night, which can be described as a thousand miles a day, and it took less than 20 days from Quanzhou to the New World, this record made the people of the New World extremely excited, which meant that they were not far from the Great Song Dynasty.

The steamer was replenished with coke and fresh water on the Rhino Point Peninsula at the southernmost tip of Luzon Province, and in addition to carrying sufficient coke, it also carried two spare steam engines and a spare boiler, accompanied by two craftsmen.

If you want to find a problem for this steamship, the biggest problem is that the coke consumption is too large, and it consumes 2,000 catties of coke for a voyage, and it is for this reason that Fanning mined coal fields in the southern continent and established coke farms, which were mainly supplied to the southern continent and the new islands in the north and south.

Although the propeller has not yet been developed, Fanning also has to admit that the paddle wheel with the steam engine played very perfectly, the waves were turbulent, the white waves were rolling, and the two big paddle wheels pushed the big ship forward rapidly, and the southern continent gradually disappeared.

Five days later, the ships arrived at Wucheng, at the southwestern tip of Ganjiang Island, which was not located on the northern shore of the strait as originally contemplated, where there were too many mountains, the plains were too small to be suitable for farming, and the mouth of the canyon was too windy to blow all year round.

At first, I thought about it mainly to facilitate contact with the Cao Gao family in the South Island.

However, Cao and Gao also gave up building a city on the south bank of the canyon, where there were too many fjords that were not conducive to navigation, and as a result, they also placed the first city in the northwest corner, which is now Jinwan.

Although the two cities are separated by bays of several hundred miles, there will be steamboats in the future, which will be a day's journey.

Zhu Fan and his family recruited 10,000 Japanese laborers to build a small county town with a circumference of 16 li by the sea, which is equivalent to two kilometers from north to south and east to west.

The Fan Zhu family and the Cao Gao family went south with Fan Ning, and Fan Ning arrived on the southern mainland with 5,000 families, while the two islands in the north and south each welcomed 500 new immigrants, most of whom were old tenants and stewards who had followed their respective families for many years.

After the completion of the first batch of 300 private households purchasing land and islands last year, all major families began to recruit immigrants or mobilize their own tenants and villagers, who were not affected by the war in the north.

The Fan family was no exception, Fan Tieniu brought his wife and children and nearly 100 families who were willing to emigrate overseas to the North Island, while the Zhu family brought more than 400 tenant farmers and old family members, the first batch of immigrants from the North Island.

Amid the low sound of harbor bells, Fanning's large ship slowly sailed into the harbor.