The next day, after attending the brief but warm opening ceremony of Whale County, Fan Ning went to Kunzhou with Zhao Qin, the prefect of Kunzhou.

Before leaving, Fan Ning said to Luo Ning, the first magistrate: "For Whale County, the significance of existence is far greater than its contribution to the imperial court, of course, Whale Prefecture is rich in resources, red pine, amber wood and even gold sand are very rich, the honey here is also good, you can even brew pine nut mead, it will be sold at a good price in the capital, in a word, Whale Prefecture has a long winter, the climate is cold, if you can make the people live and work in peace and contentment, then you are a very effective county order, I said to the Ministry before, Whale State and Kunzhou, If the people can live and work in peace and contentment, that is the best evaluation of the county order, do you understand? ”

Luo Ning bowed down and said: "Thank you for Your Highness's teachings, you know how to make a qualified county order, and you will definitely live up to Your Highness's expectations and let the people live and work in peace and contentment!" ”

Fan Ning waved goodbye to Meng Wu and other send-off personnel one by one, and then boarded the big ship, the big ship started the steam engine, let out a long roar, and followed the official ship of the Kunzhou prefect to Kunzhou, this time there were two Kun people and Fan Ning together, they really went to the distant Chu country, to experience the foreign climate and environment.

The steamer soon arrived in Han County a day later, and now it is the capital of Kunzhou, with a population of 15,000 households, and it is a thriving city.

At present, the total population of Kunzhou is 55,000 households, about 300,000 people, and the garrison is 3,000 people.

An additional 30,000 Japanese laborers are responsible for mining, logging and gold mining all year round.

"At present, Kunzhou is still mainly based on agriculture, animal husbandry, breeding and mining, agriculture is Han County, Wei County and Tang County, Jin County in the north is animal husbandry, raising more than 5 million sheep, Qi County on the Kunnan Peninsula in the south is mainly logging and pearl farming, and Whale County, which is also mainly logging."

The prefect Zhao Qin and Fan Ning took the same boat and introduced him to the situation in Kunzhou along the way.

"Now Kunzhou produces 4.2 million stone of wheat and 1 million stone of rice every year, in addition to keeping it for its own use, the other 2 million stone grain are exported to the capital, and 500,000 sheep, 100,000 head of cattle, 7 million taels of silver, 500,000 taels of gold, 2 million catties of copper, 700,000 catties of sulfur, and the raising of horses is directly managed by the imperial court, we don't know the specifics, but the pony is ours, and 30,000 horses are transported from Akita to the capital every year."

"How's it going over there?"

"It should be pretty stable! We and the Fujiwara family jointly mined several large silver mountains on the Akita side, and distributed them according to five-three-two, we took five, the Fujiwara family took three, and the Japanese imperial family took two, and the 150,000 miners were provided by them, but we were responsible for the food, housing and wages of the hundreds of thousands of miners, and the rice produced by the Akita side was basically consumed by the miners, but we were able to get back five million taels of silver from Akita every year. ”

Fanning nodded, "This agreement is fairly fair. ”

"It is precisely because everyone is beneficial, so the cooperation is very stable, and there will be no change in one or two hundred years, but then the silver mines should also be exhausted, and we can return Akita to Japan."

Fan Ning smiled again and asked, "I heard you talk about Qi County just now, how does Qi County cultivate pearls?" ”

"Your Highness doesn't know that the Kunnan Peninsula is all covered by forests, and there is only a small amount of flat land along the coast, so the population of Qi County is only a little more than that of Jin County, but the waters of the Kunnan Peninsula are rich in high-quality pearls, and we are afraid of fishing with all our might, so on the one hand, we collect pearls, and on the other hand, we artificially cultivate pearls."

"How to pick, do you want to dive to the bottom of the sea?"

"That's right! There are pearl divers in Japan, so we recruit them to pick them. ”

"Since pearl diving is to recruit pearl divers, what do the people of Qi County do?"

"They are in charge of artificially cultivating pearls, first cultivating small shellfish, and then putting them into the shallow sea, after a few years they can harvest pearls, and then polish the pearls with a grinding wheel, and then punch and inlay, the pearl jewelry of Qi County is very popular in the capital, called Kunzhu, even the queen and the queen mother have to wear, of course, the queen mother and the queen wear the best natural pearls, we call it the best Kunzhu, one is worth thousands of times."

Fan Ning was quite interested, and he asked, "Is there a dock over there in Qi County?" ”

"Of course there is, does Your Highness want to go and see?"

Fanning nodded, "Let's go to Qi County first!" ”

.........

The weather was clear, and the fleet sailed through the waves on the sea, and there was a black line in the distance, which was the Kunnan Peninsula.

At this time, there were several small boats of 500 stones on the sea, with a black flag planted on them, Zhao Qin pointed to the boat and said: "That is the pearl diving boat, and there are more than a dozen pearl diving girls in each boat." ”

"Let's lean in and take a look."

Zhao Qin's face suddenly showed embarrassment, and he said, "Your Highness, let's go ashore and take a look!" It's a bit inconvenient now. ”

"What's inconvenient?" Fanning was puzzled for a moment.

Zhao Qin said with embarrassment: "Now the pearl divers are all naked, and there are no men on the ship, so we didn't have a good past." ”

Fanning smiled, "This is their custom?" ”

Zhao Qin nodded, "When I heard about it at first, I thought they were immoral, but the Japanese officials who sent them over said that this is their custom, they can't wear clothes when they go pearl diving, but they will wear clothes after they come back from pearl diving, so I specially ordered that when pearl divers go to sea, fishing boats are not allowed to harass them." ”

"Then don't bother them."

The fleet sailed far past the pearl diving boats, and there happened to be several pearl divers coming on board from the sea, all of them were dark and fit, but they were really undressed, and Fanning's entourage heard that there were women without clothes, and they ran out of the cabin to see the strangeness, but unfortunately the pearl divers hid in the cabin, and they saw nothing.

"How do they earn?" Fanning asked again.

"Their income is related to the number of pearl diving, sea pearls are not worth much to them, they want food and cloth, now they want copper money, when they are in Japan, they can get a pound of rice when they pick a sea pearl, we give five pounds, so they are willing to dive pearls for us, strong pearl divers, can earn ten dollars a day, but unfortunately they generally do not live to be thirty-five years old, so most of them are unmarried, and the money they earn are adoptive parents and brothers, very pitiful."

Fanning nodded, they dive like this, there will be big problems in their lungs, in the end, they are using their lives to earn money, and many daughters of poor families on the coast of Japan will walk on this road.

He sighed and said: "If they don't want to go back, they can stay, and then we must limit the number of years of pearl diving, not more than ten years, and let them go to cultivate sea pearls after ten years, and we can be regarded as doing our best." ”

"Humble duty understands!"

The fleet soon arrived at the wharf of Qi County, and a group of officials such as the county commander and the county Cheng who had received the news in advance were already waiting on the wharf, and everyone saluted and walked towards the interior of the county town with Fan Ning in their arms.

Qi County is located in the southernmost part of the Kunnan Peninsula, and if you come to Kunzhou from the north of Japan, the first county seat is Qi County.

Qi County is a small county, but the county seat is not small, the circumference of the city is about 20 li, there are 2,000 families, most of them live in the city, and outside the city mainly live by farming and fishing.

The streets and houses in the county are very neat, basically it is a brick and wood structure house, every house is very large, the business is mainly concentrated in the south of the city, there is a tile covering an area of about 100 acres, there are restaurants, inns, shops, brothels, teahouses, snack shops, basically there are, but the scale is not large.

"There are actually tiles in Kunzhou?" Fan Ning looked at the gate of the tile and asked with a smile, with the four big characters 'Kunnan Wazi' written on it.

"Now there are them in every county, and there are still two tiles in Han County, and the business is very prosperous."

After walking around the tiles, Fan Ning went deep into the county seat, but he found that every household came from the sound of 'buzzing', Jiang Xianling explained: "Your Royal Highness, every household here has a workshop for processing sea pearls, some are rounded and polished, and some are inlaid to make jewelry, half of the people in the county make a living from this, and the rest are commerce, breeding, logging, farming, fishing, and there are so many industries in Qi County." ”

At this time, Fanning saw a pearl processing shop on the street, and a man was polishing pearls, and he stepped forward curiously to carefully observe the man's operation.

The grinder is a foot pedal type, and like the spinning machine, the foot pedal is used to drive the wheels to fly, and the wheels are equipped with fine sandstones, which is a very delicate work, and it is necessary to concentrate on it without a little distraction.