Lu Ming

Chapter 635: Zheng He Island

For a long time, with the thriving development of a self-contained small society, today's Great Yan Kingdom basically has a fixed development process for every place where its tentacles extend.

According to local conditions, the core procedures remain unchanged.

Saigon City, which is far away from Ming Dynasty, is no exception.

The narrow and narrow traditional city lacks various municipal facilities, not only cannot adapt to the urban development planning pattern of the "new era", but also often breaks out various infectious diseases, which can be said to be harmful but not beneficial.

Facing Saigon, which is not a big traditional city, the Nanyang Governor Xingyuan who settled in had a deeper consideration: in a place where everyone is an enemy, at least in the beginning, it is best to only live in the city.

After thinking it over clearly, the boss entered the city on the first day, and issued a decree on the second foot, and began to rectify according to the standard routine.

The first step, of course, is emigration.

A blank sheet of paper is good for drawing.Only by moving out the residents can the city be transformed.In the end, only the functional buildings of military barracks + official houses + storage will be left in the city.

It can be understood as a concession in the seventeenth century.

The order of relocation is very clear, first the slums in Saigon, then the middle class, and finally the rich.Within a month, they were "moved" one after another by soldiers with knives and guns, and they went out of the city to live elsewhere.

To do this in Daming, those in power must consider the proposition of "the people's grievances are boiling".Travelers would rather build a new area from scratch than develop Guangzhou City, because of this concern that large-scale relocation would easily cause accidents.

However, in Saigon, the lawless Governor Shao had no intention of discussing with the aborigines at all. Everything was efficiency-oriented, and if he refused to accept it, he would speak according to my knife! ?
Needless to say, the Cambodian natives who had no choice but to be driven out of the city must have resentment.Surprisingly, within a few days, the resentment first dissipated among the poor.
Some people's methods will always be the same old, but it will always work.

First of all, the poor who were driven out of the city immediately got a job: demolition of "messy" buildings in and outside the city, cleaning up garbage, and collecting construction materials.

All hands are divided into three parts.Part of it is responsible for leveling the foundation in the city, excavating the drainage system, and constructing new functional building areas.

Another group of people is responsible for the construction of new residential areas and affordable housing outside the city.

In rainy and hot areas, the so-called affordable housing is actually the most common stilted building.It's just that the stilted building built this time is a standardized product, and the construction speed is very fast.

The last group of people is responsible for going to the surrounding area to collect building materials.

While the poor get jobs, they also get the opportunity to live in affordable housing communities outside the city.Most of all, the generous outsiders paid their wages with shiny coins and various daily necessities.

The wages are paid in the rice-rich plains of the Mekong River. The common food in the north is not easy to use, and the hard currency is daily necessities shipped thousands of miles away.

In fact, in the vast Southeast Asia region, many ancient countries that existed in the past and present were all built by Chinese businessmen.As early as the Han Dynasty, the Chinese promoted the civilization process in the barren areas, and also made the aborigines aware of various Chinese daily necessities.

The poor who usually do the same hard work and receive meager pay, after having a shelter and receiving exquisite cast iron soup pots and porcelain bowls, they soon forgot all the unpleasantness before and happily served outsiders .

It cannot be blamed for the rapid change in the minds of the poor.

No matter which era or regime, the impoverished poor class is the easiest group to change.

What's more, it is the seventeenth century, the era of the family, the earth king, the tribe, the nobles and the vassals.The ideology of the nation in modern times is far from being formed among the people, and the first object of human allegiance is one's own family.

Therefore, when the poor find that their lives are better than before, they soon feel at ease to work for outsiders, without any of the ideological burdens that future generations have.

After the largest group settled down, the remaining middle class and rich people, the Governor's Mansion did not confiscate their property, but generously allowed these people to choose freely: return to the northern plateau with their floating wealth, or stay as obedient citizens.

Of course, the private land owned by the former in the plains will be confiscated.

The so-called good fortune is hard to give up, and some people finally took the risk to stay.Most of these people were former businessmen with an adventurous spirit.They gambled this time, hoping that the so-called governor's mansion that popped up suddenly would not rob their family wealth afterwards.

Most of the people who returned to Phnom Penh with their families and gold and silver were Cambodian dignitaries.These people were masters in Saigon before, relying on the authority of the kingdom.This time, the Cambodian forces withdrew from the lowlands, and the so-called dignitaries before had nothing to rely on, so they naturally had to run away.

Shao Qiang let all these dignitaries go.In his eyes, the private farms left by the rich and powerful are the most precious.As for the floating money, it is not a problem at all for industrialized countries.After the Chinese New Year, I will do business with the Cambodian guys, and I will be done with groceries in exchange.

Time: At the end of October 1634, two months after the allied forces occupied Saigon.

Location: Outside Saigon city.

The former city, except for the unique stone city wall, has changed its appearance inside and out.

Things like the poles used to defend the city on the top of the city have disappeared, replaced by defenders with muskets and gleaming blue cannons.

Under the city, the messy and scattered vegetable market, rice market, fish market, etc., including the residents of Chengguan, have been rearranged.The neat and bright functional bamboo and wood greenhouses are being built according to the plan.

Among them, the wharf area, which is located in the south of the city and extends along the banks of the Mekong River, is currently a key infrastructure project.

In the future, a series of piers and warehouses will appear along the banks of the river.A large rice trading market will appear here.

Whether it is locally produced rice, or rice from Siam, India, or even the Dutch territory in Indonesia, it will be traded in this market in the future.

Today's topic, however, is not the rice market.

In the dock area just outside the city, warships gathered and soldiers watched.All the bigwigs in the Nanyang Governor's Mansion are gathered at the pier at the moment, and are seeing off an expedition fleet.

The fleet consists of three advanced shallow-draft steam carriers and a Whampoa-class cruiser, and the commander is Sha Zhengming, commander of the Nanyang Fleet himself.

The cargo warehouse of the fleet was not only filled with various supplies and building materials, but also carried 200 pioneer soldiers.It can be seen from the pier that the waterline of the fleet is very deep and belongs to the heavy-duty fleet.

This expedition fleet is of great significance.

For the first time, it was the first substantive effort to reach out to several strategic resources produced in Southeast Asia: rubber, nickel-chromium ore, and oil.

Seven years have passed since the first batch of traversers came to the original plane in 1627.

7 years of financing and 7 years of preparation.Today, the traversers really can't wait.The thirst for rickshaw tires and stainless steel was overwhelming.

Therefore, the newly released Great Yan State did not hesitate to adopt the risky "leapfrog" strategy, and did not hesitate to leave Vietnam as a huge unstable factor behind it, but also established a base in Saigon, which is far away from the mainland.

Everything is for today. Only 2 months after the occupation of Saigon, even the land has not been familiarized, the expedition fleet is desperate to set off.

"Lao Sha, the situation in Shanghai is complicated, so be careful."

Holding Sha Zhengming's hands tightly, Governor Shao Qiang, who came to see him off, urged him repeatedly.

"Hehe, it's all right." Sha Zhengming is tall and broad, with a reassuring look on his face: "What are you afraid of with radar and sonar? Speaking of which, these equipments also caused those few people to bleed. imported."

Sha Zhengming's joke seemed to relax the serious farewell scene, and everyone laughed in agreement.

However, the laughter could not conceal the worry in the eyes of those in the know: the destination of the expedition fleet had strange sea conditions and complex terrain, surrounded by thousands of scattered islands and reefs.In the primitive environment of the [-]th century, there are still countless hidden reefs standing under the sea surface, which is extremely dangerous.

So where is the destination of the expedition that hastily set sail?

The answer is "Zheng He Island".

In later generations, Zheng He Island was called Palawan Island.

This is a long island located in the southwest of the Philippines, opposite Saigon across the sea, with a sea distance of more than 1000 kilometers between the two places.

The sea area between Saigon and Zheng He Island is the South China Sea, which is familiar to the people of later generations.There is another familiar place name in the sea: the Nansha Islands.

As mentioned above, all the islands in the Philippines including Zheng He Island, many ancient countries that existed in the past were built by Chinese businessmen and have always been Chinese vassal states.The Philippines did not exist in history. This colony begged for independence from the United States after World War II. It cannot represent "Zhengshuo".

China has enjoyed suzerainty over many ancient countries around the South China Sea since ancient times.And in later generations, since the Philippines changed the South China Sea to the "West Philippine Sea" without authorization, the voice of calling Palawan Island "Zheng He Island" among the Chinese people has become increasingly strong.

This is also the reason why the cabinet sent a special telegram to the Nanyang Governor's Mansion to confirm the place name "Zheng He Island" before the expedition fleet set off.

In fact, in the previous joint meeting of the cabinet, the industrial sector, and the agricultural sector, there was a grand strategy for the development of Nanyang. The first stop was not Zheng He Island, but Luzon Island, which is located north of Manila.

But plans are worse than changes.

No one expected that the Southward Team's operation skills were superb, and a series of slapstick operations, finally engulfed a group of Vietnamese aborigines and opened the gate of the Mekong River Plain.

As a result, the high-level executives of Dayan Kingdom in Guangdong suddenly discovered that the nickel-chromium mining area located at the westernmost tip of Zhenghe Island and the local tropical geographical environment have become the most suitable comprehensive development pilot site at the moment.

Of course, the root cause of all this is that the traversers once occupied the Mekong Plain.

Rice is the basic driving force behind various large-scale actions going south.

For the increasingly tense situation in Ming Dynasty, there is no need for another blood transfusion from Guangdong, and it can support a large number of immigrants by itself. The Mekong River Plain, which transports rice to the north by the way, can fully assume the role of a strategic support point.

This is also the fundamental reason why Zhenghe Island eventually replaced Luzon as the first test and development base in Nanyang.

(End of this chapter)