The Imperial Age with the Resurgence of Han Style

Chapter 218 Tianweng Island

"Turn, fifteen degrees east by south!"

"Lower the sidesail!"

"Notify the engine room, light the fire, start the engine!"

"..."

On the vast Pacific Ocean, more than twenty ships lined up in two rows, sailing meanderingly at 42 degrees north latitude, like two tiny bunches of dead leaves, meandering eastward along the strong North Pacific warm current.

As the leading ship sent a turning signal, all the ships began to adjust their sails, changed direction, and headed southeast.

Obviously, if you leave the wind direction at this time, you must approach an island and prepare to stop temporarily to replenish some water.

"It is estimated that we will arrive at Tianweng Island (today's Midway Island) in one day, and we can take a rest. Otherwise, a few more women on the ship will die." Shi Baoshan, the captain of the Shengyuan, looked at the two The sailor dragged the dead woman's body to the deck, then lifted it with all his strength and threw it into the sea, sighing slightly.

"There is no one who will die while sailing on the sea." Boatswain Liao Fuyuan just glanced at it indifferently and didn't take it seriously. "What's more, these women who have never been to sea have been bumpy at sea for more than 20 days. It’s understandable that we didn’t survive, and it’s normal to die a few times. I heard that when we immigrated to the country in the early days, almost 20 to 30% of the people would die on one trip. Haha, it’s lucky to say that, that is, our ancestors The old man has a hard life, and only you and I can gallop on the sea like this."

However, it is helpless to think about it. The "Shengyuan" is just an ordinary merchant ship. It is not equipped with medical care and various assisted living facilities like a special immigration ship. It just mixes the women it transports with cargo and ships them. So much stuffed in at once.

"That's natural. How can the entire Yinzhou's pitifully small population digest hundreds of thousands of furs every year? Well, even if the Spanish's American territory is added, it won't be enough. In this case, the only option is They rely on our merchant ships plying the Pacific to bring them back to Japan, Qin, or sell them locally. If so, plus the daily necessities, weapons and ammunition, and even population they need, it will be enough to attract more merchants and transport ships to join the American trade. And, I think, compared to the prosperous Southeast Asian and Indian trade, the American trade is definitely not that competitive.”

"Don't worry, no matter how many people we bring here, King Yi will accept them." Shi Baoshan said firmly: "King Yi wants to follow the example of the Qing Kingdom and establish a vassal system to become an influential kingdom throughout the Yin Dynasty. It is no secret that the continent is a continent. Oh, if you want to establish a vassal state, in addition to expanding your territory, you must not accumulate more people? How to accumulate population? In addition to spending money on immigration, you can only encourage more people in the vassal state. Give birth to a child. But if there is no woman, how can you give birth?"

On November 11, the fleet arrived at Tianweng Island and planned to stop here for three days so that the sailors and passengers on the ship could take turns to go to the island to rest and relieve the pain and suffering of the journey.

Although, during the journey, the crew arranged for the women to take turns on the deck for ventilation, and also provided them with some carrots, bean sprout soup, fresh wort, and distributed lemon slices every day to prevent the occurrence of scurvy.

Tianweng Island was once an uninhabited island and was discovered by a Qi captain in the eighth year of the Han Dynasty (1678). Later, as Qi State began to colonize Yinzhou, the Immigration Department and the Navy at that time built the island into a temporary supply point for ships traveling to and from the Americas to temporarily dock and rest.

Less than five days after leaving Qingyuan Port, the crew began throwing women's bodies into the sea. Almost every day, one or two bodies were pulled out from the bottom of the tank, which was shocking to watch.

There will be a certain degree of "loss" along the way, which is within everyone's expectations.

The island was named Tianweng Island because it is home to tens of thousands of albatross. Especially in July and August, countless albatross gather over the island, and their white figures almost cover most of the blue sky.

"If King Yi establishes a vassal and a country and gradually expands his sphere of influence, he will be extremely dependent on Eastern trade for a long time. That will be an excellent opportunity for us, right?"

Well, it would be best if the entire Yinzhou region, including Yizhou, develops like the American territories of Spain or England, with a prosperous population and strong demand, thus further promoting the long-term prosperity of Pacific trade.

"Will the emperor and the cabinet allow King Yi to establish a vassal and expand his power?"

"We transported more than a hundred women this time. What will happen if King Yi doesn't accept them?" Liao Fuyuan hesitated for a long time, and finally raised the question in his heart.

"Maybe." Shi Baoshan thought for a while and said with some uncertainty: "Anyway, our Qi State government cannot directly control such a large territory. It is better to support a vassal state and achieve indirect rule to increase our Qi State's influence. Power. If you think about it, the Nanyang region can allow the existence of vassal states such as Shunguo, Sulu, Weiguo, and Luzon. Not to mention that King Yi is still the royal family of Daqi, and there is no reason to refuse his request to establish a vassal state. Don't I forgot that the Yizhou fiefdom (today's Oregon area in the United States) where King Yi was located was sandwiched between the Pengzhou Governor-General and the Xuanzhou Governor-General, which restricted King Yi to a certain extent. He would not dare to do anything that would offend the emperor and the emperor. Cabinet matter.”

The "Shengyuan" successively carried more than 520 women in Shangzong (today's Kobe), Sendai, and Qingyuan (today's Hakodate). In addition to Japanese descent, there were also some women from Korea and Qin. Almost This motor-sailboat with a displacement of 1,300 tons was so packed that many people were even placed in the coal bunker.

"Well, who says it isn't?" Shi Baoshan said with a smile: "Those who can survive in the era of frequent wars in the mainland and insist on coming to Hanzhou are definitely lucky people. Alas, I was just thinking about it. , if this woman died too much on the way, I'm afraid she would have to exchange a lot of furs and gold and silver when she gets to Yinzhou."

However, the cramped and narrow space, the turbid and dirty air, the fluffy dry food, the dry and hard bacon, and the green drinking water still inevitably caused the passengers on the ship to contract various diseases, including seasickness, diarrhea, fever, syncope... ..., plunging the crowded cabin into a terrible disaster.

As a captain, Shi Baoshan obtained some shares from the shipowner. If the trading company he belonged to could make a lot of profits from the American trade, he would naturally get a lot of dividends.

So far, there are only about 170 immigrants on the island, whose main business is growing fruits and vegetables, while food and daily necessities are shipped from the Hawaiian Islands.

In addition, this small island with an area of ​​only six square kilometers is also covered with a thick layer of guano mines. However, due to the distance and the consideration of mining and transportation costs, large-scale development has not been carried out. It continues to sleep on the island.

It is well known that most of the world's cultivated land is not very fertile, except for land covered with volcanic ash or black soil that is inherently fertile. With the planting technology at this time, only by applying sufficient fertilizer can the yield be greatly increased. In this regard, Europe is extremely unsatisfactory because they do not know how to "play with shit". Sometimes, this "greatly increases" "Even up to several times. However, the source of fertilizer is a big problem. Relying on animal excrement obviously has limited effect - at this time, there are only a limited number of animals to raise, and a large number of animals also need feed, and growing good feed also requires fertilizer. Planting legume crops to "fix nitrogen" is not a good way out - growing legumes themselves also requires land and energy, and the yield of legumes themselves is not high, and their contribution to "eating well and eating well" is not as good as other cereals crop.

In the vast ocean, there are many small islands with many seabirds and bats on them. Over thousands of years, these islands have been deposited with thick layers of guano, even tens of meters deep in some places. It was found that these bird droppings are rich in fertility (ammonium nitrate), and the fertilizer effect is dozens of times that of ordinary manure.

As a result, bird droppings became the main "farm manure" material. Decades ago, the State of Qi discovered a small island with extremely rich guano deposits in the northeast of Weiyuan Island - Fei Island (today's Nauru), and then sent a large number of transport ships to dig and collect it every year, and continuously transported it back Hanzhou was used to improve the extremely poor cultivated land in the local area. It is reported that the maximum amount of guano pulled back reached 70,000 to 80,000 tons per year, which greatly improved domestic agricultural production conditions.

However, the amount of guano on this island has accumulated over thousands of years. If they are mined frantically regardless of cost, they will be exhausted sooner or later, because they are essentially "non-renewable resources."

In order to ensure the continuous supply of guano, the State of Qi promulgated a "Fat Island Decree". According to this decree, any Qi people can occupy and exploit guano islands found anywhere, regardless of whether the island is inhabited or not, and regardless of whether the island has indigenous authority, and will receive half of the proceeds. The government will provide necessary support and protection for this occupation and exploitation.

Therefore, for a long time, "looking for shit" became the "entrepreneurial hot spot" in Qi at that time. Countless captains and investors were frantically looking for desert islands with bird droppings in the Pacific and Indian Oceans.

According to records, during this wave of "shit hunting", nearly a hundred "shit islands" have become private territories in accordance with this bill - and of course, they have naturally become one of Qi's many overseas territories.

The discoverer of Tianweng Island once sought investment partners in China to jointly develop the guano on the island, hoping to get a chance to get rich. But after several years of hard work, because it was too far away from the mainland, the transportation cost was relatively high, so that it cost a lot of money to transport it back. Japan, Beiming, and the Qin State on the mainland are either too poor to buy "shit", or because the territory is vast and sparsely populated, they can adopt the method of cultivated land rotation to slowly restore the soil fertility. Everyone is right. Bird droppings are not very interesting, which makes people very depressed.

Therefore, this small island that contains the guano mine can only be temporarily reduced to a temporary supply point halfway in the Pacific Ocean.

However, the discoverer of Tianweng Island did not completely lose confidence. He firmly believes that with the development of the times and the continuous expansion of agricultural demand, this guano resource located deep in the ocean will sooner or later attract huge market demand.

But for the more than one hundred immigrants on the island, they don't care about the ambitions of the "island owner" at all. They are only full of infinite yearning and expectations for the waves of ships stationed here.

This is an isolated island. Looking around, apart from the endless sea water, there is only the blue sky. There are no inhabited islands within more than a thousand kilometers around, making people feel an inexplicable loneliness and... panic.

Today, a fleet of more than twenty ships arrived, which immediately made all the immigrants on the island extremely excited.

Regardless of whether they are from Qin, Japan or Korea, the residents on the island are extremely enthusiastic. If they catch someone, they will chatter non-stop for a long time, regardless of whether they understand what they are saying. Even the hens at home will tell you how many eggs they laid yesterday.

At the end of the day, he will trade the vegetables he grows, the chickens and ducks he raises, the fruits he picks, and the eggs in the chicken coop with you at a staggering exchange rate for cloth, needlework, tea, spices, and farm tools. , hardware, kitchen utensils, and all the daily necessities they need.

Yes, although the residents on the island also collect money, they mostly have to exchange it for usable items.

In terms of administrative management, Tianweng Island belongs to the Governor-General of Hawaii and is also the westernmost boundary patrolled by the Hawaiian Squadron. Several naval officers and soldiers are stationed there, so they assume the responsibility of managing the island. It can also be regarded as a military-controlled area.

However, the navy officers and soldiers did not interfere too much in the lives and work of the island residents. They basically let them go their own way, occasionally giving "patriotic" lectures to let them know that they were nationals of Qi's overseas territories and not to admit their mistakes. Owner".

Generally speaking, although the life of the more than 100 immigrants on the island is a little hard and lonely, their living standards are not bad. The Hawaiian Squadron would bring them food, cane sugar, salt, and even luxury goods such as canned fish and canned fruit every few months. Basically, they could eat and clothe themselves. It's much better to live a precarious life.

If there are more merchant ships (fleets) stationed here, the residents of the island will have an opportunity to rapidly increase their wealth. A handful of green vegetables can be exchanged for tea or spices worth several cents, an egg can be exchanged for a foot of cloth, and even a few fruits can be exchanged for a dozen iron nails.

This phenomenon makes sailors who are used to running boats very angry.

Weng Island is simply a "black island" today!
In the past, I could exchange a nail for several fine sea otter skins from the natives on the Black Rock Islands (today's Aleutian Islands).

What, the natives of the Black Rock Islands?

Are you mistaken? The people on Tianweng Island are all citizens of our Qi Kingdom’s overseas territories. They are not savages who don’t understand anything!

If you think it’s expensive, you don’t have to exchange it with us!

The worst case scenario is that if you endure it for more than ten days, when the ship sails to the Hawaiian Islands, you will be able to obtain fresh vegetables and fruits in sufficient quantity and cheap enough.

Look, there are more than 20 ships and thousands of people docked at Tianweng Island, which is as small as ours. Naturally, the supplies that can be provided are limited.

Rare things are more valuable!
(End of this chapter)