Chapter 411

However, what Cheng Shijie didn't know was that Australia had actually been discovered, as early as 1606, the Spanish navigator Torres discovered Australia. The word Australia, which originally means "southern continent", comes from the Latin terraaustralis (land of the south) until January 26, 1788, when the first British exiled prisoners arrived in Sydney Bay, and the British began to establish a colony in Australia, which was later designated as Australia National Day.

However, Australia has not been taken seriously until now, in fact, the Spanish have discovered too many continents, but their most important thing is the silver, gold and spice trade, which in their opinion, Australia has no development value.

The Dutch discovered Australia's neighbour New Zealand in 1642 and then forgot about him, and in 1769 Captain Cook discovered it again. I don't know how the British found Australia in the Spanish charts, it's not important, the important thing is that Cheng Shijie actually proposed their charts as early as when he traded with the Republic of Venice.

After all, in the Age of Discovery, the nautical chart means the lifeblood of the country, although the Venetians are from the Ming Dynasty, they also need to sell their goods to the Ming Dynasty, but they have selfish intentions and are ready to lead the way.

Between countries, there are only interests, there are no permanent friends, and it can even be said that the friendship between Catherine and Cheng Shijie, at the national level, their personal friendship is no longer important, and the Republic of Venice is not Catherine's final say.

In the case of insecurity, the Venetians used the old nautical charts purchased by fifteen gold carters, that is, the Australian nautical charts discovered by the descendants of Torres, and put them in the world charts.

However, knowing that some things must be verified, Spain did not pay attention to the Australia they discovered, because their territory was too large, and the indigenous population of Australia was too small, in this case, colonial rule of Australia, in fact, had no economic value for the Spanish Empire.

Although there is no economic value for the Spanish Empire, but for Daming, for Cheng Shijie, the economic value is too great, especially because the Xiaoice climate is a hurdle that cannot be bypassed, as early as the seventh year of Chongzhen, the Liaodong ocean expedition was formally established, the main direction of exploration and verification, is the trade route in the era of discovery,

There are three expeditions, which are from Luzon, directly to New Spain, that is, Mexico, this is an expedition composed of pirates, the purpose is to steal the cold to rob the Spanish silver ships, anyway, the British have been doing this, but the British are more secretive, the Spaniards can not find evidence, in this era, the probability of being robbed by pirates and annihilated, as great as the probability of encountering a storm at sea.

What Cheng Shijie needs to do is to escort the Spaniards, let the Spaniards leave a few living mouths, as witnesses, and give Spain a piece of evidence, as for whether Spain will fight with the British, this is not something that Cheng Shijie can decide, after all, the Spanish Empire, like the Ming Empire, is also sunset, and the national situation is getting worse day by day.

The two escort fleets to the Americas were led by Zheng Zhibao and Shi Daxuan respectively, and the Zheng generals were activated, which was also a matter of no way, mainly because the navy was developing too fast, besides, the families of Zheng Zhibao and Shi Daxuan were in the hands of Cheng Shijie, not to mention that their sons and nephews followed Cheng Jialong and belonged to the backbone members of the second generation of the Ning Navy, so there was no reason to betray Cheng Shijie.

In fact, even if they betray Cheng Shijie, it doesn't matter.

The third route was led by Hong Xu, and this expedition consisted of thirteen junk ships, which belonged to small and medium-sized warships in Europa, and belonged to chicken ribs in the main warfleet of the Nanjing Navy.

Throw it away, it's a pity, after all, many of them are ships within ten years, and there is no problem with using them for more than ten or twenty years, don't throw it away, this kind of battleship can't keep up with the speed of the main battleship of the Ning Navy. So, in this case, it can only be regarded as waste utilization.

Hong Xu led these thirteen warships, with the cooperation of five armed merchant ships, went around and finally arrived in Australia, but they did not land immediately, but walked along the Australian coastline, and after three months of sailing, they finally walked along Australia for a circle and a half.

It wasn't until Hong Xu and the others saw kangaroos on the shore that they were sure that they had arrived in Australia.

It's a vast continent, and the coastal plain rises silently from the intoxicating blue at the junction of the sea and the sky, winding and undulating in the stormy waves, all the way to the end of the sky.

Day after day, year after year, the sea pounds the shore, and when it overflows the white sand, it looks gentle, but when it hits the overhang, it becomes extremely violent, with thunderous noises, foam splashes, and some cliffs made of the sulfur of volcanic ash are disintegrated and deformed by its impact, and after each wave passes, a large piece is missing, as if it will disappear if there is only one more wave to cover it.

Beyond the coastline, there is a vast land, the grassland is boundless, the wild grass grows more than a meter high, extremely luxuriant, if the nomads see such a scene, it is estimated that they will cheer loudly, this is simply the pasture given to them by God! But if they did, they would soon find themselves cheering a little early, and the weeds were so tough that no one but termites wanted to eat them, not even kangaroos.

At the edge of the prairie are endless stretches of sand and annoying bushes, and it is very difficult to survive in a dry and hot place where it does not rain for several years. However, there are always those who have withstood the test and survived, and the desert can often be seen with thick smoke billowing as the aborigines set fire to the dry and dense weeds and shrubs, burning them off in one fell swoop, and then sprinkling seeds on a thick layer of grass ash to grow their favorite grains and fruits.

These indigenous people have lived on this land for 40,000 years, and because of their isolation, they have no opportunity to communicate with other civilizations, and they still live a life of slash-and-burn farming, gathering for a living, making all kinds of tools from animal bones and smashed rocks, and those rudimentary tools are what they rely on to survive on this land. This land seems to have stayed in the era of flood famine, tens of thousands of years, and they have not passed the level of the chain trench settlement.

The natives, who were searching for food on the seaside plains, were surprised to see the shadows of a few sharp sails emerging from the junction of the sea and the sky. Surprised, they stopped what they were doing, stood on tiptoe and looked that way, only to see a huge sailing ship cut through the waves and sail towards this direction, and then another, and another...... Thirteen in total!

The poor natives were terrified, they had never seen such a large ship in their lives, and the only kind of boat they had ever seen was a pitifully small canoe, which was put in front of these galleons, it was like a dwarf in front of Gulliver!

The tribal leader exclaimed, everyone stopped foraging, and all of them hid in the woods, staring nervously at the shore, for the first time in thousands of years, they saw outsiders, both frightened and curious.

Soon, the sailing ships were approaching, but since there was no natural deep-water port in this area, the big ships did not dare to dock, and the sailors on board were busy putting down a few small boats.

The sailors of the boat shouted the trumpet and rowed the boat as fast as they could, flying from wave to wave, around the reef, through the broken waves, and finally onto the beach. The natives were amazed to see that these people were unkempt, and when they came ashore, they fell to their knees on the beach with a thud, and put their hands in the sand and cried and screamed, and from their hoarse voices burst out strange voices: "Australia! Australia! We've found Australia! ”

Hong Xu cried excitedly, Cheng Shijie promised them that if they found Australia, they would reward a capital division, Hong Xu knew that the capital division of the Ning Navy was already a senior general, until now, the generals of the Ning Navy at the level of the capital division, the army and navy together, less than twenty people, definitely entered the core of the Ning Navy, Hong Xu's This is an expedition team, they traveled to Zhoushun, crossed the Strait of Malacca, first went to visit India, stayed in Tianzhu Buddha for a period of time, and learned about the local customs and products, And after replenishing some food and fresh water, he set sail again, and according to several unreliable charts and some descriptions of Cheng Shijie, he sailed to a mysterious continent that had been isolated from the civilized world for tens of thousands of years.

Along the way, they experienced terrible storms, terrifying tsunamis, insidious reefs, and saw with their own eyes the living islands and many unheard of creatures that lived on those islands, such as seals and sea lions, endured the pain of lack of fresh water and food, and finally saw the continent that made them gamble everything when they were about to collapse, of course, they had no way of determining whether this was a continent or an island, until it took a few months to turn around and then they were sure that it was Australia.

Of course, whoever found it and named it was named Hongzhou, and in later generations it was named Melbourne.

……

Cheng Shijie's first policy that needs to be abolished is actually the dynasty system, in Cheng Shijie's view, there is actually no need for the Ming Dynasty to go to court every day, although in the film and television drama, the emperor will have eunuchs shouting in the early dynasty, "There is something to play, there is no capital to retreat from the dynasty", and then a group of ministers You say a word, I express their opinions or ideas, after the emperor decides, a sentence of "retreat from the dynasty", and the "work" of the day is completed.

The TV series is just a condensation of historical events, and there are more performance elements in it, the emperor's procedures for going to court are not so complicated, and I didn't see any assessors "pointing" to these officials, just a sentence of "so-and-so is sick and didn't come" Even if he asked for leave on the spot, the emperor was also very easy to speak, and a sentence of "Lian knew" was a leave.

In fact, in Cheng Shijie's view, this is not necessary at all, everyone is in a different position, vision and thinking are different, if it is an employee, he must want to not work and get more money. If it is the boss's thinking, it must be that he wants the employee to work more, get less money, or even work overtime for free.

Just like many people who read a few military books, they will point out the country, excite the words, and think that they are masters of the art of war, in fact, they don't even count the skin, and such people's opinions are actually not referenced.

Only when it comes to specific affairs, grassroots personnel do have a specific right to speak, for example, a farmer has a deep study of farming, after all, it is a professional, relying on this to eat, the business can crush the professional, that only the protagonist of the network can do it.

After all, the protagonist is omnipotent, just like in some entertainment, the protagonist can compose lyrics, compose, act, write scripts, be a director, make movies, change lines, and do everything.

Not really.

The cabinet system of the Ming Dynasty is actually quite good, there is no need to pull two or three thousand people to participate in the court meeting every day, this is a waste of personnel, a waste of energy, especially in the Ming Dynasty's large number of low-level imperial history, speech officials and six departments to give things, they do not need to participate in the court meeting.

The key problem is that Cheng Shijie is not a workaholic, he does not have the enthusiasm of Emperor Chongzhen, he prefers to sleep lazily, eat and drink well, as the deputy director of the office of Hangang Group, he also did not see the chairman of the board of directors pulling the head of the department to hold a meeting every day, the meeting needs to be held, but not everything needs to be solved at the meeting, and it is unnecessary to waste time on the court meeting.

In Cheng Shijie's view, it is very good, there are problems to solve, there are things, there are things, and things are discussed, which is very simple and efficient.

Cheng Shijie abolished the Ming Dynasty's court meeting system, and some of the two or three thousand Beijing Dynasty officials were moved to tears, and some felt that the sky had fallen.

However, fate is issued, no one can say anything, this is politically correct after all, Cheng Shijie is only the regent supervising the country, not the emperor, he has this power.

In participating in the new cabinet meeting, the most emotional are Chen Zilong and Fang Yizhi, their purpose to go to Liaodong is not simple, the result is a mistake, become a member of the Liaodong Management Committee, and unexpectedly become a cabinet member, whether this position is placed in the Qin and Han dynasties, or the Ming Dynasty, he has directly entered the center of power.

Especially Chen Zilong, a proper big Si Nong.

Fang Yizhi is very grateful to Chen Zilong, and it has been proved that talent is the most important thing, more important than hard work.

Cheng Shijie looked at the internal members in place, and said lightly: "This commander is preparing for military reform!" ”

Zhou Ning took the lead and said: "The king is wise! The Ming military system has long been rotten, and the millions of guards not only can't fight, but also become a huge burden, and it should have been laid off a long time ago! ”

Sun Zhilan frowned and said: "Of course, the guards should be cut, but there are so many people, where can they be laid off?" ”

Cheng Shijie said lightly: "It's easy to do, move all the guards to Dayuan or Luzon!" ”

What surprised Cheng Shijie was that now with the deepening of the reform, the Ming Dynasty abolished forced labor and various miscellaneous taxes, and the common people were reluctant to leave their hometowns, but the problem was that the north was no longer suitable for agricultural production.

"Your Majesty, I'm afraid this will cause dissatisfaction among the guards!"

"This General Staff is responsible for how to move, how to move, how to move, all departments of the Ning Navy will cooperate unconditionally!"

Cheng Shijie said lightly: "If you are willing to move, you can't help them!" ”

This matter is Cheng Shijie's words, but no one is unhappy in the military.

"The next topic is the ...... of the feudal kings"

(End of chapter)