Forty-eight years of Qianlong

Chapter 72 - Sorenji - Qingdao
Solenji Island, also called Qingdao, is shaped like an ox's yoke, with an area of ​​just over 20 square kilometers.Zhao Xin looked through the binoculars and saw that the island was covered with dense forests, and it was impossible to tell whether there were people living there.

"What are you looking at?" Liu Sheng asked casually.

"Gold." Zhao Xin didn't answer, he just thought silently in his heart. "Who would have thought now that this inconspicuous island is buried with an incredible amount of gold?"

Historically, since the Second Opium War, the Qing court had no choice but to open the Northeast to immigration, hoping to solve the problem of refugees in various places, and fill the frontier strength to resist the invasion of Russia.

Since the middle of the [-]th century, with the discovery of gold on Solenji Island, the number of people who came here to pan for gold has reached tens of thousands.

After the "Beijing Treaty" was signed, Tsarist Russia invaded and occupied a large area of ​​the outer northeast that belonged to China, and then set its sights on the gold mines of Solenji Island.In order to monopolize the gold mines, the particularly jealous Tsarist Russia, in disregard of the "Beijing Treaty", "Russia shall not occupy the fishing and hunting land occupied by the Chinese, and still allow the Chinese to fish and hunt as usual", and decided to expel the gold diggers on the island by force.

After being looted by Tsarist Russia for the first time, hundreds of gold diggers were forced to return to the island with swords and muskets, vowing to fight the invaders to the death.As the uprising miners lost to the artillery fire of the Tsarist Russian warships, they finally withdrew from Solenji Island and began to fight in the vast area of ​​South Ussuri. Within a few months, they developed to a scale of 3000 to [-] people.

The rebel army was dominated by Han miners, but also included many local Manchu, Hezhe, Xibo and other ethnic minorities.They fought in various places, attacked and killed the invaders, and swept the area between South Ussuri, Xingkai Lake and Suifen River.

At that time, the Manchu Qing court devoted all its energy to deal with the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom in the south, and the troops stationed in the outer northeast were almost non-existent.They were worried that the insurgent army would move into Guannei and shake the rule, and they regarded it as an enemy, so they sent troops to cooperate with Tsarist Russia to carry out encirclement and suppression.

In the end, under the double suppression of the Qing court and Tsarist Russia, in July 1868, this massive resistance finally failed.The four leaders of the insurgent army were slaughtered and displayed on a pole in Changlingzi, on the border between China and Russia.

This vast South Ussuri area meant only ginseng, sea cucumber, mink, and Dongzhu to the emperors and dignitaries of the Qing Dynasty; but they didn't know that under this vast land, there were amazing reserves of gold, Copper, tin, iron and steel, coal, petroleum and other mineral deposits.Endless primeval forests, rich animal and plant resources, vast and fertile black land, and thousands of kilometers of coastline.It was not until more than 100 years after it was lost that it aroused endless sighs from many Chinese people.

Right now, Zhao Xin doesn't care about what will happen in 100 years. All he thinks about now is gold and black land.

Thor sailed through the sea off Solenji Island, and the journey of this voyage has gone through two-thirds. After a while, you can see the mouth of the Sila River.

An hour later, with a long whistle, the Thor stopped and anchored off the sea at the mouth of the Sila.

"Zhao Xin, what are you going to name our new city?" Liu Siting in the cockpit suddenly asked curiously.

"Beihai." Zhao Xin muttered. "This is the real North Sea."

"That's right, what shit is the Sea of ​​Japan! This is our Beihai." Liu Sheng agreed after hearing Zhao Xin's words.

Zhao Xin put down the binoculars, smiled and said to the people around him: "It's only 300 nautical miles from here to Ezodi, do you think Ezodi can still be regarded as the Tokugawa shogunate?"

"Haha! Boss Zhao's remarks are very agreeable to me!" Deng Fei pushed open the door of the captain's room and walked in.

"My lord, the land of Ezo is currently owned by the Matsumae family of the Fuqian clan, and the current owner is Matsumae Shimo Shoudaoguang." Sheng Haizhou stood behind Zhao Xin and reminded him.

"It won't be any more soon." A sneer appeared on Zhao Xin's face.

According to the [-]th-century "Ezo Land and Surrounding Map" (Ezo Land No. [-] 辺図), although the Matsumae Domain was recognized by the shogunate and possessed the right to dominate the "Ezo Land", it was a territory that could be controlled with certainty. Never beyond the Toshima Peninsula, the southernmost tip of Hokkaido.Not to mention the four northern islands, even the vast land of Hokkaido is completely out of its control.

But we will talk about it in the future. The most important thing right now is to start the preparations before disembarking and boarding the island.

Zhao Xin called Deng Fei and Wang Yuanfang. After the three went down to the deck, they called Pan Xiucheng and Seldan.The five people came down to the water gate at the stern, checked the equipment they were carrying, and then boarded the assault boat.

With the opening of the two water gates at the stern, Deng Fei started the assault boat, and in the eyes of everyone on the boat, he rushed towards the beachhead of Beihai Port.

More than 20 minutes later, the assault boat stopped at the beach.After Zhao Xin waited for the boat to stop, he got off the boat and raised his gun and fired several shots into the sky.

A large group of foraging seabirds flew from the beach and landed not far away after a while; in the bushes tens of meters away, there seemed to be frightened animals running fast, and a hoof sounded.

"It's a deer." Seldan said lightly.

Zhao Xin asked the four of them to go 200 meters to the shore to check the situation, while he stayed on the beach, saying that he would notify the refugees on the boat to prepare to land.

Wang Yuanfang knew that Zhao Xin was unwilling to use jade pendants in front of others.So I didn't say more, and then I greeted everyone to enter the forest to investigate.

After a few 10 minutes, when the four returned to the beach, they saw a large number of red buoys piled up on the beach.The temporary pier on Bear Island was assembled and spliced ​​with these red buoys one by one.

Deng Fei drove the assault boat away, and he will pick up more refugees to join the simple dock together.

A few hours later, with the completion of a simple dock, the women and children aboard the Thor began disembarking and ashore.

In the next few days, the pier needs to be gradually expanded to extend to the sea, so that two patrol boats, Zhao Xin's large yacht, and Thor can be docked, so that more than 200 war horses can disembark.

Chen Qingsong and others were the third group to land. Immediately after landing, he took a few people to start the site selection and survey work for the new camp.This guy was carrying a Leica level that Zhao Xin gave him. After two or three hours of measurement, referring to the map data provided by Zhao Xin, he finally selected an area two kilometers northwest of the mouth of the Sila River.

The terrain of this place is very flat, and the visual altitude is several meters higher than the water level of the Sila River.As long as the river banks are reinforced in the later stage, the flood caused by the rising water level of the Sila River can be prevented.

As usual, Liu Sheng held a red flag sewed in advance by refugee women and planted it in the center of the camp selected by Chen Qingsong.On the red banner that is hunting for display, the seven characters of "The Eighth Project Engineering Department", which make the modern public feel vulgar, are eye-catching.

"I said, why did Mr. Zhao choose such a lousy name?" After landing on the island, Dr. Hong Taohong saw the striking yellow characters on the red flag, and suddenly felt a sense of weakness and a chill in his heart.He quickly asked Wang Yuanfang, who was carrying a chainsaw to prepare for logging.

Wang Yuanfang also felt that Zhao Xin's name was too awkward.But when he was too busy, he couldn't care about it. When Dr. Hong asked, he could only say: "Mr. Zhao said he had a plan. We asked him, but he didn't say anything."

"Bah, he really treats himself as a contractor!" Liu Siting, who followed Doctor Hong closely, expressed serious contempt.

"It's not urgent, we will tell him that we can't change it after we have established a firm foothold." Wang Yuanfang didn't say more, and he joined the logging "army" of only a dozen people with a chainsaw on his back.

The more than 300 people who landed were divided into two groups, some of them were responsible for logging and clearing the selected campsite area; Wu Siyu with a gun and Pan Xiucheng with a Shun knife are in charge of surveillance.

"Hey, this machine you bought is really easy to use." Chen Qingsong held a control panel and operated the wasteland reclamation equipment that Zhao Xin bought from Europe, and couldn't help but exclaim.

"It's not sold at all in China, so I went to Europe to buy the spot for the New Year." Zhao Xin beside him was operating another wasteland machine, just like playing a racing game, driving through the bushes go.

A group of island loggers and Elu beside Zhao Xin stared at the monster in front of them with their mouths open.The six-meter-wide weeding saw was like a gluttonous gluttonous gluttonous gluttonous gluttonous gluttonous gluttonous gluttonous gluttonous gluttonous gluttonous gluttonous gluttonous glutton. Wherever it passed, patches of bushes and weeds as high as one person fell to the ground.

In other words, is this a fairy method?Zhao Xin glanced at the stupid Elu beside him, and couldn't help but feel proud.

"Can this machine be able to open up wasteland and sow seeds?" Chen Qingsong asked suddenly.

"Yeah, it's just a pendant. It can be used for land reclamation, sowing, and harvesting. But the efficiency is definitely not as high as that of large machines."

"It's good, I wish I had this when I went to the grassroots level."

"Don't think about it, the countryside can't afford this at all. There are hundreds of thousands of units. I bought this to deal with the swamps on the black soil. If you use people to open up wasteland, if you are not careful, people and animals will be trapped in the swamp. inside."

Chen Qingsong looked at the four huge toothed wide wheels like a mace under the wasteland fuselage, and nodded deeply in agreement.

After the logging team felled more than a dozen large trees, the crowd dug out the roots of the trees and backfilled them with soil and rocks.Zhao Liang drove a small two-wheel road roller to compact the ground back and forth in the cleaned area.

After night came, most people returned to Thor for the night.Only two tents were set up in the campsite area that was initially cleaned up for people on duty at night.

Zhao Xin originally asked everyone to return to the Thor, but Seldan proposed to stay on duty at night with Yalha to prevent the loss of the felled wood and equipment.Therefore, Zhao Xin asked Elu, Lu Shoushan, Pan Xiucheng and Hengji to accompany Seldan and Yalha to watch the night on the shore.

In order to provide support as soon as possible in case of an accident, he himself, Liu Sheng, Wang Yuanfang, and Ding Guofeng stayed on the yacht docked at the pier that night.

That night, when Zhao Xin, who had been busy all day, was about to go to sleep after washing his face, a loud arrow shot out of the forest, and the shrill voice suddenly alarmed the four people on the yacht.

Zhao Xin said nothing, put on the body armor, picked up the gun, and rushed out of the cabin.

(End of this chapter)