On June 5, 1729, with the waves undulating and the sails hoisting, a supply ship belonging to the Korean detachment of the Ryukyu Fleet of the Qi Navy split through the raging waters and sailed quickly to the southeast with the help of strong steam thrust.

The battleship soared between the blue sea and the blue sky, and the sound of the howling sea breeze continued to sound. White waves rippled on the water, and the crew nervously and busily adjusted the sails in the hope of getting more help for the battleship.

The sun shines through the clouds and shines on the ship, and everything is like a magnificent picture. In this vast sea, the warship is like a shining flag, bravely facing the waves and starting another journey.

Li Yanliang, who was dressed in army uniform, looked very eye-catching on the battleship, and frequently attracted the sideways glances of the officers and men on the ship.

The "Gan Yuan" is a steam-sail supply transport ship with a displacement of 1,300 tons, which is inconspicuous in the sequence of ships of the Qi Navy, whose tonnage is increasing day by day, but in the waters of Northeast Asia, it is an out-and-out "big guy", and even in the Beiming Navy, which is of good strength, the ship is only equipped with 12 guns, and it can be comparable to its main battleship.

In addition to carrying more than 800 tons of coal and a large amount of fresh water, the ship was also stuffed with more than 600 migrants, and was ready to sail to Penglai Port first, where it would join more than a dozen merchant ships and migrant ships stationed there, and then pass through Gengna Island (present-day Jeju Island) and arrive in the Ryukyus, where the transshipment of migrants would be handed over to the management personnel stationed there by the Ministry of Immigration.

Eventually, the more than 20,000 migrants who have gathered here will be sent to the mainland and various overseas territories according to the arrangement of the immigration department officials to enrich the local population.

Last year's drought in the north affected several provinces and caused more than one million victims. Qi, Weiguo, Luzon, Shun, Lang, Hexian and other overseas Xia seemed to be like a group of vultures that smelled fishy, and they organized ships to go to coastal ports in Shandong, Denglai, Hebei, Jianghuai and other places, wantonly soliciting and collecting refugees, and transferring them back to their respective territories.

Initially, the coastal prefectures and counties of Daqin also complied with the ban issued by the imperial court, vigorously punished these migrant ships from overseas Zhuxia, and organized local town troops and government officials to try their best to prevent refugees from boarding ships.

However, as the disaster worsened, the number of people fleeing the famine increased day by day, and they fled one after another to eat in the south, which had not yet suffered from drought. When I heard that there were migrant ships in the coastal ports that brought a large amount of grain to recruit Hermes-Epitek to go to sea. Driven by hunger, countless victims have turned around and flocked to the sea.

In a very short period of time, hundreds of thousands of victims gathered in more than 10 coastal ports, including Haizhou (now Lianyungang), Jiaozhou (now Qingdao), Wendeng (now Weihai), Fushan, Penglai, and Tianjin. Even some coastal flats, which are not suitable for large boats, are crowded with refugees hoping to find a chance to survive.

Seeing the continuous gathering of refugees, ranging from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands, the coastal local government suddenly became a little embarrassed.

With so many mouths to eat, so many victims to give relief, the pressure is not ordinary!

The stock of grain in the government treasury was empty after only a few days, which immediately caused countless refugees to make an uproar, and began to seriously affect local people's livelihood affairs.

In desperation, the coastal towns and ports adopted a tacit attitude towards the migrant ships of the foreign feudal Zhuxia, and chose to turn a blind eye and let the refugees board the ships and go to sea.

Beginning in September last year -- after the autumn harvest, due to drought reasons, which led to a large-scale failure or reduction in crop yields, the disaster reached a peak and prompted more people to flee -- until June this year, more than 180,000 refugees left Qin on migrant ships from overseas Zhuxia. Among them, nearly half of the victims were transported by the Qi State, and they were successively transferred to the two governorates of Ryukyu and Annam, and after a period of time, they were distributed to the mainland and many overseas territories.

At the end of the Qi-British War, the Qi State ceded many new territories in the Americas and the Caribbean, such as Newfoundland, Arcadia, Belize, and the Bahamas, from the Kingdom of England, and urgently needed a large number of people to fill it.

In addition, the regions of Mozambique and Angola seized from Portugal also needed a lot of immigrants as the basis of the local governorate to suppress the local Portuguese and local natives.

In order to better navigate Europe and the North Atlantic Ocean and build a stable maritime communication chain, Qi decided to increase the colonization of the Qishan Islands (now the Canary Islands), the Shaohua Islands (now the Cape Verde Islands), and the Xiling Islands (now the Azores), and relocate more Han Chinese, so as to achieve the goal of gradually replacing the local race.

Therefore, the cabinet government of Qi specially allocated a special fund for immigration, taking advantage of the great drought in the north of Qin, planning to "make a fortune" fiercely.

If you want to fill up those overseas territories by relying on the spontaneous immigration of your own country, you don't know if you have to wait until the Year of the Monkey.

People always yearn for a better life, Hanzhou has a developed local economy, convenient transportation and life, and you can easily support yourself if you find a job, so why take a big risk and go to those distant overseas territories to live?

It is true that overseas territories have untold amounts of wealth, and as long as you are bold and flexible, you will definitely have many more opportunities to make a fortune than at home.

But the amount of wealth is often directly proportional to the potential risk.

I stayed in the local area, found any factory to work in, could eat and clothe me no matter what, and enjoyed a relatively developed modern life, and then married and had children, and spent my life in peace. Why bother to risk all kinds of dangers to go to remote overseas territories to live and die, to find an illusory dream of making a fortune?

As a result, the desire of the native nationals to emigrate is not particularly strong, and those who really can't get along, or those who want to get ahead, will at most move to the surrounding territories such as Weiyuan, Dongzhou, Kaihua (present-day Java), and Jinzhou (Sumatra). A little further afield, it will not exceed Qianzhou (present-day South Africa), Bangladesh and India.

If you cross the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean and go to the distant Yinzhou or West and North African regions, it will be difficult to return to Han soil even in this life, which is really unacceptable.

As for the victims who were transported back from the Qin State, they couldn't even eat enough and couldn't save their lives, so they couldn't just send them as they wanted, and they could be transferred to the overseas territories that were most needed by the arrangement of the Ministry of Immigration, so as to precursor the king and open up more living space.

"Look, the battleship of the Ming Kingdom is coming!"

When the supply transport ship "Ganyuan" marched to the waters of the Changshan Islands, two warships flying the flag of the sun and the moon of the Great Ming Dynasty came from the northeast, and they had no scruples about entering the traditional sea area of Daqin, and they were extremely arrogant.

When approaching the ships of the Qi State, the two Beiming warships with a displacement of about 800 tons very kindly waved a string of flags to pay tribute.

The "Gan Yuan" sounded the whistle in response.

"Beiming should be very depressed." Li Yanliang smiled and said to a naval captain officer lying on the side: "This wave of immigration, as the opponent of the Qin State, they have not caught up at all, and can only watch us pull away boatloads of Qin victims with their eyes. ”

"I can't say how depressing it is." Luo Zhengju, the first mate of the Gan Yuan and the captain (captain) of the Navy, shook his head and said: "Last year, the Northern Ming Dynasty united with Dongdan and Bohai to invade the hinterland of Liaodong for hundreds of kilometers, smashed dozens of large and small walled fortresses, plundered nearly eighty or ninety thousand people of the Qin State, and countless materials of all kinds, and almost uprooted all the colonization points near the two rivers basin of the Qin State. With their size, it is estimated that it will take several years to digest and absorb such a large number of people at once. ”

"It's because they are too small, so I'm afraid they hope to get more people back from the Qin State in order to quickly expand their population base." Li Yanliang said: "If the Qin State solves the trouble in the northwest, it will definitely not let them go." Even if the three countries such as the Northern Ming Dynasty had ceased war, for a long time after that, most of them would have to sabotage Qin's immigration operations from time to time to prevent Qin from gaining a firm foothold in the Liangjiang region. If they don't want to be destroyed by the Qin State, they can only continue to expand the depth of their respective defenses. In this way, even if they have fished 80,000 or 90,000 people, they will not be too satisfied. ”

"Captain Li has far-sightedness, and he is so prepared for the three kingdoms such as Beiming." Luo Zhengju said with a smile: "With the size and strength of their Three Kingdoms, they really can't deal with the threat of the Qin State. However, as long as our Qi State makes a move, we will definitely not let the Qin State easily succeed. Don't you know, in order to prevent the Qin State, the Northern Ming Dynasty built a large number of fortresses and fortifications in Zhenzhou, the northwest and southeast regions of Korea, and in this war, the Qin army suffered enough and suffered a lot of losses. After the armistice peace agreement was reached, the Beiming Navy, in the name of Li Linzuo, occupied many islands near the mouth of the Yalu River, such as Phi Dao (now Chundao in North Korea) and Yuncong Island (i.e., Shenmi Island), just in the hope that it could monitor the military movements in the Liaodong region of the Qin State at any time, and at the same time, when the war resumes in the future, it can cut off the Yalu River channel from the side and back. In my opinion, if Qin had not built a strong navy, it would have been difficult to completely overwhelm the Northern Ming militarily. ”

"You say, at some point in the future, will the Qin State and the Northern Ming Dynasty achieve reconciliation so as to establish a normal diplomatic and economic relationship between the two countries?" Li Yanliang looked sideways as the two Beiming battleships gradually moved away, and an idea suddenly popped into his mind.

"Will there be reconciliation between Qin and Ming?" Luo Zhengju was stunned, "The monarchs and ministers of the Northern Ming Dynasty have always 'liberated' Shenzhou and restored the Ming Dynasty as the primary purpose of the founding of the country. If this is reconciled, won't they lose the legal system and the inheritance? ”

"If the time is too long and it is impossible to return to the mainland, the monarchs and ministers of the Northern Ming Dynasty still have the heart to mention that slogan again? In addition, as the political, economic, and cultural differences between the Qin and Ming dynasties gradually widened, how many people still considered themselves mainlanders in the end? ”

"Not really." Luo Zhengju said hesitantly: "In the past, during the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, the north and the south stood side by side for 170 years, and when the Sui ruled the world and returned to China, there was no idea of centrifugation. Moreover, in the pre-Song Dynasty, the north and the south were also separated for hundreds of years, and when the Northern Expedition of Emperor Hongwu of the former Ming Dynasty was successful, expelling the Meng Yuan, the estrangement between the north and the south was not still eliminated, and they were all the people of the Ming Dynasty. ”

"Captain Luo, who do you think you are?"

“…… Of course, I am from the Qi country. ”

"In the future, the people of the Northern Ming Dynasty will admit themselves to be from the Ming Dynasty, and the people of the mainland will also say that they are from the Qin Kingdom." Li Yanliang said: "And we will proudly claim to be Qi people." So, you see, even though we are all ethnic Chinese, we belong to our own countries. In the same way, we all have our own interests and a sense of belonging. …… Everything seems to be a little different now than it was a hundred years ago. ”

"What do you mean......" Luo Zhengju couldn't help but fall into deep thought when he heard this, "In the future, everyone's national consciousness will far exceed national consciousness?" ”。

Yes, why do I subconsciously think that I am from Qi and not a Han Chinese? ——

In the early morning of June 6, the "Gan Yuan" sailed away from Changshan Island and soon entered Penglai Port.

Li Yanliang took advantage of the fact that the ship was replenishing water and water supplies, found the representative office of the Qi government in Penglai, and hurriedly wrote a letter to his wife, who was still in Nanjing, informing her that he would go to Hengguan to take up his post.

In the letter, he also instructed his wife to raise the baby with peace of mind, and after the child was born, he would arrange for someone to take her and the two children to him.

Regarding his position as deputy commander of the Hengguan garrison and commander of the first battalion of the Fifth Regiment, Li Yanliang guessed that it was mostly because of the care of His Majesty the new emperor.

Of course, in addition to allowing him to accumulate experience in the management of overseas colonial territories and the resume of the commander of the army, His Majesty also wanted him to explore the current situation in Japan on the spot, so as to provide first-hand information for the "Oriental Raiders" of Qi in the future.

With Li Yanliang's understanding of this little emperor, at some point in the future, he would inevitably make a move against the Qin State, so as to completely establish the leadership of the Qi State in the entire Eastern World.

Then, the distribution of forces around Qin, except for the inability to exert force in the northwest direction, then only the Japanese chain may have some variables at the time of the Qi-Qin dispute.

You must know that the Qi-Japanese War more than 50 years ago only dealt a limited blow to the Tokugawa shogunate in Japan, and did not subdue the country.

Although such a long time has passed, all the vassal powers, including the Tokugawa shogunate, still do not dare to offend the Qi country easily, and the scale of trade between the two countries is also expanding day by day, and the entire market is also penetrated by Qi goods, but the contradictions between them are also becoming more and more acute.

At present, the trade volume between Qi and Japan has reached more than 18 million yuan (Qi Guojin Yuan), of which imports are more than 10 million yuan and exports are more than 8 million yuan, and the trade deficit is more than 2 million yuan. As a result, the outflow of gold and silver from Japan has become increasingly large, which has not only caused a large-scale "money shortage" in the country, but also dealt a heavy blow to the weak handicraft and weaving industries in the country.

In the face of the surging flow of foreign goods and the drastic changes taking place in Japan, many Japanese literati, scholars, ministers, daimyos, and other officials have many debates and opinions on how to handle foreign relations.

The long-standing theory of "discharging China" has once again risen in the dust. Many Japanese scholars believe that the shogunate was incompetent and allowed "the Chinese to run rampant", and called on the loyal people from all over the world to take the emperor as the banner to shake up the armed forces and call on the people of the country to rise up and defend the kingdom of God.

Seeing the influx of countless Qi goods, some "people of insight" angrily pointed out that "approaching and trading with Huakou and Yidi will certainly make the frivolous and shallow-minded Chinese people infected with the customs of Huakou and Yidi, and will make people's hearts scattered, and it will be difficult for us to become strong in military force." ”

However, fearing the strong maritime deterrence of Qi and the Ming Kingdom in the north, the "cautious" Tokugawa shogunate still tried its best to suppress many "untimely" behaviors, words and deeds at home, and continued to maintain friendly and close economic and trade relations with Qi.

If people's hearts are too "impetuous" and their behavior is too "radical", there will be big problems in the whole of Japan!

(End of chapter)