After the three-day birthday banquet, the officials from all over the country who returned to Beijing were not in a hurry to go back, and they were able to take this opportunity to stay in Beijing for a few more days to relax and relax, or to be summoned to the palace by the emperor to consolidate the relationship between them.

For example, Zhu Chenggong, the king of Yanping County, who returned from Luzon, Li Dingguo, the king of Xining, who returned from Jiaozhi, and Liu Wenxiu, the prince of Shu, who returned from the Ayutthaya Dynasty.

As the uncle of the country, the king of Yanping County should have been summoned into the palace as soon as he returned to Beijing, and was pulled by the emperor to have a long talk, shouting and asking for warmth, but because he had some delays on the way, the emperor could only call the king of Xining and the Duke of Shu into the palace first, and asked about the situation between the two and Dacheng.

Under the personal leadership of Li Dingguo and the careful governance of local officials, Jiaozhi has been completely stabilized, and it is not surprising that all parts of the country have returned to the heart, coupled with the influx of a large number of Han people, more land has been reclaimed, and the western countries do not dare to offend, and the people live and work in peace and contentment, and it is not surprising that it can become one of the granaries of the imperial court.

In contrast, the situation on the side of the Duke of Shu is a little difficult to say, the three mansions under his control are like enclaves that cannot communicate directly with the imperial court on land, so they can only take the sea route, but the local people have accepted the reality and coexist peacefully with the Xia army, and even some Xia soldiers married local women and took root in the local area.

Of course, there are very few people in this part, and more Xia Jun still took advantage of the rest time to have a super friendship exchange with local women who only entered the body and did not enter life, and the local people did not attach as much importance to chastity as Han women, so they quickly went to bed under the coaxing and abduction of Xia Jun soldiers, which also made a lot of mixed-race babies in the local area for a while......

But there is no harm in this, after making sure that there is no bad news, Su Yan relieved the two to leave the palace, and Zhu Chenggong did not finally arrive in Jiangning until the third day of the first month, as soon as he arrived in Beijing, Su Yan directly summoned him to the palace to meet him, and took this opportunity to learn more about the current situation of the Luzon political envoy.

Under the rule of the Zheng family, the Luzon envoys were already thriving and full of vitality, and most of the natives on the island were able to coexist peacefully with the Han Chinese after receiving the education of Han culture, and they also walked out of the land on which they depended to live and settled in the towns.

However, because of the lack of education, the natives basically accepted the employment of the Han people as cheap labor and worked for the Han people, which was not much different from before the Spanish colonists were driven away, the only difference was that the flag fluttering above their heads changed from the Spanish Burgundian tenth flag to the soaring dragon flag of the Xia Dynasty.

Most of the land on Luzon Island was owned by Han Chinese, but the Han population on the island was insufficient, and almost everyone was a landlord.

The slave trade was first brought to Luzon by Westerners, who seized the opportunity to sell large quantities of slaves from Southeast Asia, South Seas, India, and even Africa to Han Chinese landlords who lacked labor, thus making a lot of money.

This suddenly made many Han people red-eyed, they thought that Luzon was the world of the Han people, and the fat water did not flow into the fields of outsiders, and this very profitable trade should be controlled by the Han people themselves, so many Han slave traders suddenly appeared, and some of them chose to abduct Han people from the mainland to transport them to Luzon, and Han merchants began to compete with Westerners for the market, for which conflicts often broke out.

In order to completely drive Westerners out of the Luzon market, some merchants even directly bribed Zheng's sailors and asked Zheng's sailors to help expel Westerners.

After listening to Zhu Chenggong's story, Su Yan suddenly couldn't laugh or cry, he was not against the slave trade, or rather, he was not against the slave trade against foreign races, in his opinion, as long as the object of trade was not Han Chinese, it could be acquiesced.

For this reason, he immediately ordered the southeastern provinces to strictly investigate the ships that went to sea, and all those who organized the abduction of Han people to go to sea must be arrested and sentenced to death.

In addition to the situation in Luzon, Su Yan was most concerned about the news that he was awarded the Nanyang Naval Division to sail southward to explore, but he was disappointed

Yes, although the Nanyang Naval Division would send messages to Luzon every once in a while to report on the recent situation of exploration, so far, the Nanyang Naval Division has not discovered the unfamiliar continent that the emperor personally ordered.

The good news is that, according to Zhu Chenggong, the latest report was two months ago, when the Nanyang Navy Division had sailed to a strange sea, north of which was a huge island full of dense forests, Shi Lang tried to send soldiers ashore to explore, but was attacked by the natives of the island, who were dark-skinned, ugly-looking, aggressive and extremely backward in technology.

The natives of the island were frightened and fled after hearing the shooting of the landing sailors, they even used stone tools, did not know how to use metal, and the customs were extremely barbaric, after Shi Lang found an indigenous tribe and commanded the soldiers to attack it, the Xia army invaded the tribe and found human bones scattered all over the place, and the human skulls were neatly placed, which was extremely infiltrating.

If Su Yan's guess was correct, a huge island in unfamiliar waters, full of dense forests, inhabited by savage and bloodthirsty dark-skinned natives, this is most likely the island of New Guinea in northern Australia.

After the discovery of the island of New Guinea, it is not far from the discovery of Australia, and optimistically, the last report was two months ago, and now Shi Lang's sailors are likely to have landed in Australia.

And that's exactly what happened.

At the same time, thousands of miles away on the Australian continent, the Nanyang sailors led by Shi Lang finally discovered the distant and unfamiliar continent that the emperor personally ordered, they thought that this was a huge island like the island of New Guinea, but after sailing along the coast for more than half a month and did not reach the border, they were finally able to confirm that this was indeed that continent.

After discovering the continent, the Nanyang sailors were overjoyed, they stood on the deck and cheered loudly, throwing all the things in their hands into the sky to vent the ecstasy in their hearts.

Shi Lang also laughed loudly, he laughed so much that even the snot bubbles were about to come out, after the ecstasy, he remembered something, and crawled back to his room, turned out the map that he had looked at hundreds of times, and then took the map back to the deck, and ordered someone to take the coastline map drawn in the past half a month, and compare it on it.

After some comparison, Shi Lang's face suddenly changed greatly, and he shouted and shouted, "Your Majesty is really a god! It must be the heavenly immortals who descended to earth themselves, if it weren't for this, how could they know what was going on thousands of miles away?!"

The surrounding sailors and generals also looked solemn when they heard this, since the discovery of the island of New Guinea, they were full of awe of the emperor, because the location and outline of the island of New Guinea were almost not much different from the map, after Shi Lang found this, he took the risk and ordered the sailors to go straight south, and finally discovered the continent.

"God-man! Men of God!"

Shi Lang has never admired a person so much, even when facing Zhu Chenggong, he has a feeling of arrogance, but now, he only has a strong sense of awe and admiration for the emperor.

Recalling the hardships and dangers of the road since the departure from Luzon, Shi Lang couldn't help but burst into tears, with him leaving Dongning Mansion with nearly 300 large and small warships, more than 20,000 sailors, but after a series of bad weather and native attacks, only more than 120 warships and more than 10,000 sailors were left to reach this side, and half of them were lost.

The most dangerous was when a typhoon hit the place known to the locals as the Bazhan Islands, and even Shi Lang's ship was severely damaged, and he himself was nearly crushed to death by a barrel falling from a high altitude.

All this bitterness and suffering has finally come to an end now, and their efforts have been reported.

Shi Lang knew that if this was indeed that strange continent, then as the first general of the imperial court to set foot in this place, he would definitely be famous in history, even more famous than the Three Treasure Eunuchs of the former Ming Dynasty.

For Shi Lang, what he pursued was fame and fortune, and all of this was satisfied after discovering this big island.

With tears in his eyes, Shi Lang waved his hand and shouted loudly to the sailors who were waiting for him to give orders: "Dock, land on the island!"

"Whew!"

With Shi Lang's order, the more than 100 warships began to slowly approach the mainland, and Shi Lang's ship was the first to land

On the shore, the long pedal was lowered, Shi Lang, who was holding a sword, was the first to get off the boat and land on the island, his feet stepped on the soft sand, looking at the endless desolate land, his heart did not dislike this place, he planned to stay here for at least three months, set up camp on the shore, and explore inland, to see if there were other forces on this continent.

Just when Shi Lang was thinking about the future plan in his heart, the sailors who had landed on the island behind him all let out excited shouts, and some even knelt directly on the ground, picked up the sand on the ground, raised it high, and let the sand drift away with the sea breeze, and said: "Mazu bless, let me land on the island alive, and when I return to my hometown, I must pay Mazu all kinds of delicious food."

While the sailors were making a noise, the deputy general Huang An walked up to Shi Lang and said to Shi Lang, "Lord Admiral, this land has no name yet, what do you think we want to name this place?"

Shi Lang fell into thought, he really wanted to take his own name, but in the end he rejected the idea, just as he was about to speak, a sailor with a Quanzhou dialect shouted: "Lord Admiral, this place is the extreme south, if you look at the map of Your Majesty, there are no islands to the south, why not call it a desperate island?"

"Jedojima, yes!" The others chimed in, "The last island at the southern end, the island lives up to its name!"

Listening to the shouts of the sailors, Shi Lang smiled, he nodded, and said, "Then it will be called the Absolute Island, wait for me to report to the imperial court, please make a decision with Your Majesty."