On May 9, 1728, a fleet of more than a dozen large and small ships arrived at the northwest port of Suide (present-day Yamaguchiyang, a city northwest of Kalimantan, Indonesia) in the northwest of the Dashun Kingdom, and prepared to stay there for a day to replenish the necessary water, coal and other corresponding supplies.

As early as more than 30 years ago, the population size once exceeded 30,000 people, accounting for nearly 20% of the domestic population at that time, and the economy was thriving, and it was a rare big city in Borneo after Brunei.

However, in 1682, Shun Guo took advantage of the outbreak of a fierce armed conflict between the central government of the Kingdom of Brunei Sultan and the Huang clan, a local Chinese indigenous force in Sarawak, and invited troops to invade the area.

After more than eight months of tug-of-war, Shun, with the covert support of Qi, defeated Brunei several times, and finally forced the other side to have to cease the war and beg for peace.

In this battle, Shunguo ceded a large area of territory west of the Lupa River in the Kingdom of Brunei Sultan, and seized the most elite northwest region of Sarawak in one fell swoop.

Within a few years, Shunguo named the newly occupied area Yanzhou, and also mobilized a large number of troops in turn, swept the local indigenous tribes several times, cleared most of the resistance forces, and then set up a prefecture and county, dispatched officials, and implemented direct rule.

In order to consolidate the newly occupied land, but also to deter the Brunei Sutan Kingdom in the east, in 1700, Shun Guo moved the capital to Sara Cheng (now Kuching City, Malaysia) in the lower reaches of the Yan River (now Sarawak River), and renamed it Shuntian, known as Shunfeng Tiande, and stopped when it was good.

With the construction of Shunguo focusing on Yanzhou, the once prosperous and noisy Suide City suddenly fell silent and became an ordinary coastal port city. Not only did a large number of people move to Suncheon with the central government, but they also took with them the small number of industrial and commercial enterprises, causing the city to fall into uncontrollable decline.

Ten years ago, however, Suide's situation suddenly took a turn for the worse.

A joint expedition of Qi and Shun discovered several placer gold deposits in the Meridian River (now Kapuas River) basin, which caused a sensation in the entire Shun country.

Subsequently, a large number of gold prospectors poured into the jungle-covered inland to establish mines and collect placer gold, which not only brought a large amount of gold income to Shunguo, but also indirectly prospered the economy of Suide.

People from Qin, Annam, Siam, Malay Peninsula and other countries and regions came to Shun by boat, making people who dream of realizing their dream of gold rush endlessly. The port of Suide was the first stop for many gold diggers, as sailboats were everywhere and the population of the city skyrocketed overnight.

According to the local government of Suide, the number of urban residents almost doubled from more than 20,000 to 45,000 between 1715 and 1725. At that time, in addition to the speculative adventurers who came from all over the country to realize their gold mining dreams, many people set up shops and workshops in Suide, providing the necessary supplies for many gold prospectors who went to the inland gold mines, which led to a deformed prosperity in Suide.

There are two main placer gold mines in the Meridian River Basin, one is located on the bank of the Hulu River (now Lanla River), a tributary of the lower reaches of the Meridian River, and 100 kilometers northeast of Qingjian City (now Pontianak City, on the west bank of Kalimantan Island, Indonesia).

The other placer gold mine was located in the upper reaches of the Meridian River, about 23 kilometers southeast of Yichuan Fort (present-day Xindang City, Kalimantan, Indonesia).

However, these two placer gold mines, because of the large number of stones and dead wood in the river, cannot use large-scale professional gold mining ships for large-scale mining, and are only suitable for small-scale manual mining, mainly using modified simple gold mining boats, chutes, sand pumps and other tools, which more or less affect the efficiency of gold mining.

According to rough estimates, the two placer gold mines can mine 30,000 to 50,000 taels of gold per year, which is not very much compared to the output of several gold mines on the Hanzhou continent, which is more than 100,000 taels, but the government of the Dashun Kingdom is extremely satisfied with this.

His grandmother's, the country of Qi is vast, the population is large, and all kinds of mineral deposits are extremely rich, and my Dashun Kingdom cannot be compared. But looking around, Luzon (Zheng's), Weiguo, Sulu, and Langguo, none of them have any mines at home, either gold mines, silver mines, or rich copper mines, all of them are rich and oily.

Even the country that had not been founded for a long time could sell the coal mines of Xinzheng (now Hongji Port, Vietnam) to the people of Qi by boat, and made a lot of money, and it was not too comfortable to live that small life.

There is also the kingdom of the river immortals, although there are no mineral deposits at home, but they can't stand up to occupy a good land, fertile plains, humid and hot environment, rich water, relying on three crops of rice a year, not only can feed more people, but also can exchange a large amount of gold and silver, so that they can achieve food and clothing in the situation, there is still room to continue to expand and encroach on the territory of Cambodia.

What do we have in the Kingdom of Dashun?

Endless dense forests, rugged mountains, swamps everywhere, and countless poisonous insects, snakes and ants, if you want to open up a wasteland, plant a land, you have to face dense forests, not to mention how hard it is.

It is true that the abundant primeval forest resources are also a kind of wealth, which can drive the natives to cut down a large number of them, and then load them on ships and sell them, and they can also be exchanged for a lot of silver.

However, in the Nanyang region, can you make a fortune by selling some wood?

In the surrounding countries and regions, who doesn't have a bunch of rich timber resources at home?

In order to sell their own wood, everyone competed for the price, and cheapened the Qin people on the mainland in vain.

It can be said that since the establishment of the Dashun Kingdom in Borneo, because of the harsh geographical environment and the lack of valuable minerals, this life has not been good. For decades, it has relied on the economic support of Qi State.

The ...... of immigration, reclamation, war, and financial stability have left Qi in debt, which will not be able to be repaid for decades to come.

Perhaps, it is precisely because of the harsh environment that it needs to compete with the surrounding Turen kingdoms for limited living space, and the army of Shun has also inherited the brave characteristics of the Great Shun in the past, and compared with other feudal domains in Nanyang, it is more brave and good at fighting.

Well, it's probably the so-called impoverishment!

In order to earn valuable "foreign exchange", strive for economic assistance from Qi State, and more importantly, to feed his own army, Shun State actively participated in a series of wars initiated by Qi State like German mercenaries in Europe.

During the Qi-Japanese War, the expedition to Egypt, the Mughal War, the Annam War, the Siam War, the Aceh War, the Gulf War (against Oman), the Persian War, and the ongoing Qi-Ying War, Shun spared no effort to send its elite troops to participate in the war.

Anyway, fighting with the Qi State, it seems that he has not lost yet, which makes the battle losses of the troops very low. In addition, the sons and daughters of Shunguo can obtain a large number of captures on the battlefield, and after returning to the mainland, they can more or less stimulate a wave of domestic economy.

It's tragic and inexplicable to think about it, in order to get a bite to eat, my Dashun Kingdom can only rely on selling my life in the end.

That is, after seizing the anointed land of Yanzhou, the life of Shunguo was a little better.

It has been developed for a long time, there is a large amount of cooked land, the plains are vast, the cultivated land is numerous, and the population is relatively dense.

What's more, there are tens of thousands of Chinese descendants living here, and there are many merchants, scholars, craftsmen, and craftsmen. After swallowing the land, this is tantamount to letting the sparsely populated Shun Kingdom eat a big tonic pill, which is much more cost-effective than seizing those inland hinterlands with high mountains and dense forests.

What's even better is that there is still a large amount of pepper cultivation in the Yanzhou area, which is second only to India and Aceh in terms of scale and output, which makes Shunguo suddenly feel that his family finally has a "mine".

In recent years, with the boom of cash crops such as oil palm and rubber, the demand market is also extremely strong, which has also driven the development of the plantation economy in Shunguo.

In order to win the favor of investors, Shunguo not only offered large tracts of land to plantation owners at very favorable prices, but also sent troops to capture natives and sell them to plantations as slave labor.

That's right, in Shunguo, unlike the Qi State, which is established and needed to be concealed, it is directly stipulated that slavery is legal, and the personal safety of slave laborers is not guaranteed by law, and they are all freely disposed of by plantation owners and mine owners.

All for development, all for the growth of its own strength, Shunguo can be said to do everything.

Shun is located in the northwest of Borneo, in the south there is the hostile Banjar Sudan Kingdom, and in the east there is the Brunei Sudan Kingdom, although there is a Qi State behind him, but he is always an outsider, in this world of natives, always feel that the danger is lurking, the slightest carelessness, will be annihilated by the surging natives.

Therefore, at the beginning of the founding of the country, Shunguo thought of constantly attacking and weakening the two native kingdoms around him, and frequently used troops against them.

Today they will capture a few villages, tomorrow they will capture a few more hills, and the day after tomorrow they will expel and destroy two or three tribes, and always maintain the intensity of military strikes against the natives.

In September last year (1727), the army of the Dashun Kingdom attacked the Banjar Sudan Kingdom with the strategy of attacking the east and the west, first attacking the Banjar Sudan Kingdom, and successively uprooting more than 10 tribes and villages in the southern border area.

In October, Shun gathered more than 2,000 troops under the cover of four second-hand warships purchased from Qi and captured Mintulu, an important town on the north bank of the Gemena River, and also cut off the back route of the Brunei Kingdom on the front line of the Rajang River, causing the Brunei army to be routed, and more than 5,000 were killed, wounded and captured by the Shun army.

By February of this year, Shunguo had dispatched more than 10 large and small ships to the royal city of Brunei, shelled the port wharf, and plundered Brunei's merchant ships and fishing boats.

At this point in the war, Brunei Sudan had already broken his courage and had to find the people of Qi and ask for mediation to end the war.

After more than a month of negotiations, Shunguo, Qi and Brunei signed an armistice agreement, in which Brunei ceded the territory west of the Monna River to Shun and paid 300,000 taels of silver to Shun. In addition, the northeast of Borneo was cut to Kuda, Kota Kinabalu (Kota Kinabalu, the capital of Sabah, Malaysia) and other areas to reward the mediation of the country.

After this war, Brunei's land area plummeted by more than 40%, and the population lost 30%, which no longer poses a threat to Shun in terms of strength.

But all discerning people can see that it is a matter of time before Brunei, which is sandwiched between the three kingdoms of Shun, Qi and Sulu, will finally be encroached upon and swallowed up.

In time, when the Shun and Qi kingdoms have completely consumed and absorbed the occupied territories, and the number of immigrants has gradually increased, the fate of Brunei will disappear into the long river of history silently, just like the Sanfa Sudan Kingdom that was destroyed by the Shun Kingdom decades ago.

Of course, the remnants of the Banjar Sudan Kingdom and the Kutai Sudan Kingdom will also end up in this way, and in the end, this huge Borneo continent, except for the Sulu Kingdom occupying the southwest corner, is very likely to be completely ruled by the Han people.

As Qi and Shun newly occupied large territories, capital from all walks of life in Hanzhou also quickly poured in, and they began to stake land, invest money, establish plantations, and develop mines.

Now it may seem like a poor place in these areas, but there are plenty of opportunities. Some speculative capital likes to intervene early when you are very poor and have a large funding gap, invest in some projects with a long payback period and seem to be thankless, and finally get a good profit.

Of course, businessmen with stable investment generally prefer to invest in mature places, and the initial investment can be much less, and the uncertainty risk is small, but there is no opportunity to "pick up leaks", so as to obtain excess returns.

In Borneo, with the exception of a few fertile volcanic areas, much of the land is very barren due to leaching. This is also the case in most of the territories occupied by Shunguo, which is full of dense forests and mountains, full of greenery, but when arable land is opened up and various crops are planted, the yield per unit is very impressive.

If it weren't for the generosity of the Shunguo government, which allocated 50 or 60 mu of cultivated land to each peasant household, as well as 20 or 30 mu of forest land, it was barely able to ensure the people's grain self-sufficiency by relying on hard work and extensive planting and small harvests.

The main food of residents is rice, but there are also agricultural and sideline products such as corn, cassava, cucumbers, and pumpkins. The coastal areas produce large quantities of sago, dried coconut, kage dye (extracted from the bark of mangrove trees) and aquatic products. In the highlands and mountainous areas of the interior, tobacco is grown in small quantities.

As for industry, except for a few primary industries such as agricultural product processing, seafood processing, and wood processing, most of the industrial products came from the Qi State, and of course, a few handicrafts came from the Qin State, a proper traditional agricultural country.

As a result, passengers arriving in Sui Duc will find that the prices are slightly higher than in Annam when they come ashore while the ship is docked.

What is even more outrageous is that the most prosperous industries are prostitution and gambling.

Merchants and travelers from the north and south, adventurers who made their fortunes by digging for gold from the Meridian River valley in the interior, plantations in the surrounding area, and retired soldiers who had gained a large number of captures through the war, would all spend a lot of money in this city full of money and lust, and vent their endless desires.

Gambling has a long history, and although the process can satisfy people's thrill-seeking purposes, it is also extremely risky. Some people can get rich overnight, but many more will lose all their wealth and even their lives at the gambling table.

According to the system of Shunguo, officials and soldiers were not allowed to open gambling houses, and if they were discovered, they were sent to exile inland and forced labor for five years; In case of recidivism, the sentence is directly hanged. If an official gambles, he shall be punished with one degree of imprisonment and shall be dismissed from his post and sentenced to three months' hard labor.

It is strictly forbidden for the people to open gambling houses, and they cannot gather people to gamble without permission.

In other words, many gambling houses in Suide City are government-run, and their meaning is obvious and self-evident. It is hoped that the wealthy people in the Nanyang area, as well as the high-rollers who have found gold in Shunguo, as well as the passing tourists, will keep the money in their pockets as much as possible in Suide City, so as to increase government revenue.

Even the docks have opened several gambling houses to make it easier for stop-stopping passengers to disembark and have a few games and seek a short thrill.

Fan Xingbao's luck was surprisingly good, and in less than half an hour after entering the gambling house, he won more than a dozen dice in a row and won more than 100 yuan, causing a sensation in the entire gambling house.

Even the owner of the gambling house rushed to hear the news, and stared at Fan Xingbao with several powerful guards to see if he dared to come to the gambling house to make trouble.

Looking at Fan Xingbao's appearance and the golden yuan coupon he exchanged, he should be a Qi countryman, which made the owner of the gambling house a little hesitant.

When it comes to the people of Qi, it is not easy to deal with.

In case, if he really cheated things, he could only seize his belongings and get out of the matter.

Because, the people of Qi are not easy to mess with!

Moreover, Qi Guo is also extremely protective, if there is any turmoil, it is not something he can bear the consequences.

After observing for a long time, the head of the gambling house and several guards couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief.

Grandma's, it's really a gambler who has taken shit luck!

He played the dice one by one, there were losses and wins, but luck really didn't say, the probability of winning was quite large, an hour, almost won more than 130 yuan.

Hey, let you win, as long as you don't want to stop, I'll lose it sooner or later.

(End of chapter)