Guide to Traveling through the Northern Song Dynasty.

Chapter 1121 [Going to Southeast Asia in a Hurry]

A group of officials crossed Dayu Mountain and sailed down to Nanxiong.

The leader is called Zhang Zongyuan, who was previously a councilor of Jiangxi Province. Now he goes to Zhanbi to take over the post of governor. The Coconut City, which was recently captured by the court, is also under his jurisdiction.

From the Strait of Malacca to West Java, all belong to the jurisdiction of the Jambi Governorate.

The South China Sea Navy will also be split this time, with the Jambi Governorate waters separated and a Malacca Navy added. In fact, the number of navies has not changed much, only two warships have been added.

The total number of Ming Dynasty Navy ships was not large. If we exclude those small offshore ships, the medium and large warships only added up to 73.

For example, the branch of the East China Sea Navy in Taiwan has only one medium-sized warship, and the rest are all small near-shore ships.

Passing by Yingzhou (Yingde) via Shaozhou (Shaoguan) by boat, Zhang Zongyuan was very surprised: "The last time I came here, I was still a teenager. At that time, the countryside of Yingzhou was in decline, but now there is smoke from cooking fires along the coast."

The official who was transferred to the Governor's Office of Zhanbi as the third in command was named Zong Wu. He was a Jinshi in the second session of the Ming Dynasty and had previously served as the prefect of Hubei.

Zong Wu smiled and said, "My hometown is in Sihui. I have been back twice in recent years. Every time I passed through Yingzhou, there were more villages along the coast. Not only the counties along the river, but also the population in the mountainous areas of Guangdong is increasing."

"This is a prosperous era!" Zhang Zongyuan was quite happy.

Historically, Yue Fei was so angry at Zhao Gou that he resigned, and Zhang Zongyuan was sent to temporarily take charge of Yue's army and investigate Yue Fei's various illegal behaviors.

Zhang Zongyuan had heard many rumors and had a deep prejudice against Yue Fei. But when he actually arrived at the army, he found that Yue's army was in a panic, so he personally conducted an investigation and immediately spoke well of Yue Fei, slightly easing the conflict between Yue Fei and Zhao Gou.

While resting at Yingzhou Post Station, Zhang Zongyuan said to Zong Wu: "During the early Song Dynasty, Yingzhou was becoming increasingly desolate. At that time, I got off the boat halfway and visited a village by the river, and found that many houses were abandoned."

Zong Wu said: "The government imposed heavy taxes and levies, and the peasants had a hard time making ends meet. They simply fled to Guangzhou with their families to seek a living. How could the countryside not decline?"

According to official statistics, at the end of the Northern Song Dynasty, Guangdong had less than 45 households and less than 70 people.

More than 30% of the province’s registered households are concentrated in Guangzhou Prefecture!

In comparison, Fujian's official household registration data is more than three times that of Guangdong, which shows how serious the contradiction between population and land was in Fujian during the Song Dynasty.

No one can tell exactly how many people are alive, whether in Guangdong or Fujian.

After the Ming Dynasty implemented the land tax system, the common people found that they no longer had to pay the head tax, and most of the various taxes and levies were also cancelled. Moreover, as long as they had a household registration, they could obtain a land deed for the mountain land they reclaimed, so they took the initiative to go to the government to register their household registration.

In just a few years, the official population reached 308 million, and the population of Guangzhou Prefecture accounted for about 20% of the province.

Moreover, this data does not include minors under the age of 15, nor does it include ethnic minorities living in the mountains, such as some Yao people in Guangdong, who are still in the era of slash-and-burn agriculture.

More than ten years have passed. Although more and more Guangdong people have been recruited overseas, the population of Guangdong province has still increased to more than 380 million.

Some ethnic minorities in the mountains were also lured to the foot of the mountains. After they were officially settled down, the agricultural promotion officials taught them more advanced farming techniques.

There are still a large number of undeveloped mountainous areas in the province. The promotion of sweet potatoes and corn has greatly accelerated the development of Guangdong's mountainous areas.

Especially in the Dongjiang River Basin and the Hanjiang River Basin, there was less than one household per square kilometer in the Tang Dynasty, and it was not until the Northern Song Dynasty that it slowly developed. Today, due to the popularity of sweet potatoes and corn, and the government's policy of encouraging land reclamation, the annual population growth rate is extremely high, and even landless farmers from Guangzhou Prefecture have moved there.

Zhang Zongyuan was walking from the pier to the city. He saw an old man who looked like a farmer walking to the suburbs. He immediately approached him and asked, "Why are you leaving the city so late? Do you live in the suburbs?"

The farmer didn't quite understand the official language, and seeing that Zhang Zongyuan had an extraordinary demeanor and was followed by several followers, he immediately stood there uncomfortably.

Zong Wu was from Guangdong, so he had to work as a translator.

The farmer replied, "Sir, my home is several dozen miles away. I will travel in the dark at night and will be home tomorrow morning."

"Is your home far from the river?" Zhang Zongyuan asked.

The farmer said, "It's not far. We can take a boat back. We can save the boat fare by walking."

Zhang Zongyuan asked again: "Come into the city to sell things?"

The farmer said, "We have a town over there, but we can't sell our produce at a good price. We can earn more in the city. I come to the city to sell some dried sweet potatoes, herbs from the mountains, and a few wild rabbit skins."

"How many people are there in the family?"

"There are seven of us, including the children."

"How many acres?"

"More than 80 acres, all of which are mountain lands that I have reclaimed myself. More than 30 acres have not been reclaimed yet, and I can't harvest much food. It will be better in a few years when it is reclaimed and matured."

"There are only seven of us, considering the children. It must be hard to cultivate so much land."

"It's no big deal to be a little tired. As long as we cultivate the land, the government will issue us a land deed. When my son is a few years older, things will be much easier."

"How old are you this year...how old are you?"

"thirty-one."

"It looks like he's been working really hard. He looks like he's fifty years old."

"I can't compare with you gentlemen."

"Is there a school or a teacher in the village?" "Everyone in our village moved there to reclaim wasteland in the past ten years or so. There are only a few villagers, so where would we get teachers?"

"It will be available in a few years."

"Hehehe."

After some casual chat, the farmer left with his empty basket.

It wasn't completely empty. There were two feet of flowered cloth, ten feet of blue cloth, and some salt in the basket.

This old young farmer walked briskly and even hummed an unknown folk song. He was not depressed by the hardship of life at all, but was very happy because of selling agricultural and sideline products.

Zhang Zongyuan looked at the farmer's back for a long time without saying a word, and no one knew what he was thinking.

When you arrive in Guangzhou, the scene is completely different.

Most of the prefectures and counties in Guangdong were very poor, except Guangzhou, which was incredibly prosperous.

When Zhang Zongyuan visited the officials of Guangdong Sansi, he learned that the first batch of Fujian immigrants had arrived, a total of 3,000 people, waiting to take a ship to fill the newly occupied West Java.

There will be two more batches to come, with a total of 8,000 Fujian immigrants to be sent there.

Fujian's population exploded during the Northern Song Dynasty, and after the founding of the Ming Dynasty, people continued to migrate. But as long as life was good, the birth rate remained high, and Fujian's population did not decrease much due to migration.

In fact, the situation in Huainan and Zhejiang was similar. With the end of the war, the population increased. The imperial court organized a migration every five years, but it was not enforced. Instead, the people were allowed to sign up and migrate to Youyan, Liaodong, and the Ming overseas territories in Japan.

The Central Plains moved to the northwest, and Sichuan moved to western and southern Sichuan.

……

“So many immigrants!”

Wang Chongdu looked across the river at the Fujian immigrants who were temporarily settled on the island, and wished he could take them all to Australia to pan for gold.

The semi-official personnel privately supported by the royal family are ultimately no match for the real government.

Before the news of whether Sunda Kingdom was destroyed came, the first batch of immigrants who moved there had already been transported to Guangzhou. In comparison, Wang Chongdu's actions were purely minor.

Li Bin muttered, "The officials in Huizhou refused to allow me to take away too many gold diggers. They even arranged for officials to set up checkpoints on the river to intercept them."

"It's good enough that you can take the person away. You made too much trouble in Huizhou this time." Gao Wenbao said with a smile.

Huizhou, where Heyuan County is located, has a larger population than northern Guangdong due to its early development, but it is certainly not comparable to Fujian, where the contradiction between population and land is fierce.

Li Bin led people to escort Zhang Guan, who had picked up the gold nugget, back home. They beat drums and gongs at the post stations along the way to publicize the news. Before they returned to Heyuan County, the news had already spread.

Li Bin was afraid that the sensation might not be enough, so he directly announced that Zhang Guan’s gold nugget was sold for 5000 strings!
As a result, people from various counties of Huizhou Prefecture kept coming to inquire about the situation, all wanting to go to Australia to make some money.

In an era when the imperial court encouraged immigration, population growth in the jurisdiction did not highlight political achievements. The tax rate was already calculated based on the land area, so how much more tax could be collected from a larger population? Now, what was more important was the increase in cultivated land area and the increase in industrial and commercial tax revenue.

Only in those counties and cities where the number of ethnic minorities is too large and they need to accept Han immigrants, does population growth weigh heavily in the evaluation of political performance.

Specific issues should be analyzed specifically. In counties and cities that are already densely populated and need to return farmland to lakes, even the increase in cultivated land area is not included in the political achievements.

The assessment standards for local officials in the Ming Dynasty were very flexible.

But this time it was too sensational.

An honest and poor farmer went to Australia and got "five thousand strings of cash". Others would naturally think, I can also get rich if I go there!

The prefect of Huizhou was alarmed and dispatched officers to set up checkpoints to intercept them.

After much persuasion, Li Bin was finally allowed to take 300 people away from Huizhou, and the rest were all sent back to their respective villages by officials.

At this time, a doctor was giving a speech to 3,000 Fujian immigrants on the island.

"When you go to West Java, remember to drink more hot water. Especially when it rains all the time, drink more hot water, preferably sugar water and salt water, or you can make porridge with it. Don't be too tired when farming, don't work as hard as you did in Fujian. Again, drink more hot water when you sweat. Salt is cheap there, and you can grow sugarcane yourself, and add salt and sugar to water to drink."

"Don't take my words lightly. This is a lesson that those immigrants learned at the cost of their lives. Some people were given a lot of land, and even though they had native tenants to help them farm, they still insisted on working hard in the fields. Some even died inexplicably while working!"

"With the Ming soldiers opening up new territories, how much land is waiting for immigrants to share? Once you adapt to the climate and farm normally, you will be able to enjoy a good life. Your life will definitely get better and better in the future. Don't be impatient, and don't be careless!"

"Fuck it, if too many of you die, I, as a doctor, will also suffer!"

The next day, the fleet carrying the first batch of immigrants left the port together with other merchant ships and sailed towards the South Seas in a mighty manner.

Wang Chongdu’s fleet was also among them.

He stood on the deck, looking at the spectacular scenery on the sea all around him, and a feeling of heroism and magnanimity arose spontaneously.

Wang Chongdu had read history books. He had a vague awareness of what era he was living in, and he actively participated in major historical events.

He really wanted to draw his sword and sing, but he only had a dagger on him.

(End of this chapter)