unclear

Chapter 828 Little Ryukyu

"A few days ago, we received a routine report from the Navy General Staff, saying that since the beginning of the year, Fujianese have purchased a large number of armor and weapons from the disbanded garrisons, as well as small-caliber deck guns, and shipped them all to Xiaoliuqiu Island.

At first, the Navy General Staff thought it was pirates and sent a letter to the Patrol Commander to clear them out. However, the Patrol Commander replied that there were no pirates on Xiaoliuqiu Island, but that there was a conflict between the Fujian people and the local natives, and they were fighting privately.

After investigating, the Navy General Staff found that it was indeed the case. The scale of the incident was getting bigger and bigger, from dozens of people at the beginning to hundreds of people, with casualties on both sides. However, they did not know what to do about it, so they reported it to the General Staff for a solution.

These days, the army is heading north, and Your Majesty is busy day and night. I didn't intend to bother you with such a trivial matter. But after thinking about it, I couldn't figure it out, so I had to come to Your Majesty for advice."

Judging from Yuan Keli's behavior, what he was going to say was not a big deal, because there was no report submitted, just a verbal statement, which was very informal. But judging from his expression, he seemed to be quite troubled.

"Xiaoliuqiu? Why would the people of Fujian go to Xiaoliuqiu to fight with the natives?" Upon hearing the name of Xiaoliuqiu, Hong Tao involuntarily sat up straight and raised his head from the piles of battle reports.

The big island in the southeast was officially called Xiaoliuqiu in the Ming Dynasty, but it has many different names among the people, including Dongfan, Jilong, and Dayuan. Different places have different names.

But no matter what it was called, that place was omitted by the Han regime for a long time in history. The earliest record of contact was during the Three Kingdoms period, when Sun Quan sent Wei Wen and Zhuge Zhi to lead 10,000 naval forces to Yizhou to look for the fairy mountain. But for some reason, Wei Wen and Zhuge Zhi suffered heavy casualties and were killed by Sun Quan when they returned.

Later, Emperor Yang of Sui heard from someone that there was an island called Liuqiu in the East China Sea, so he wanted to send people to see if there were any treasures and whether the natives were willing to submit to the Sui Dynasty. However, the envoys he sent to the island failed to reach an agreement with the natives and fought with them. The envoys of the Sui Dynasty lost because they were outnumbered, so they ran back and cried to Emperor Yang of Sui.

Emperor Yang of Sui Dynasty could not tolerate this, so he sent General Chen Leng to lead troops to attack. It is said that they fought to Zhang Yusheng's hometown, killed the leader of the indigenous people, and took many prisoners back. In later generations, there was a temple dedicated to Chen Leng in that place to commemorate his expansion of territory for the Han people.

The Song Dynasty and the Yuan Dynasty both established the Penghu Inspection Office, but it only managed the Penghu Islands and had nothing to do with Xiaoliuqiu. The Yuan Dynasty did send people to the islands to recruit people many times, but all ended in failure. It is estimated that they did not find anything useful, otherwise it would have been occupied long ago.

There was also a Penghu Inspection Office in the early Ming Dynasty, but later on, in order to cooperate with the maritime ban policy, not only was the Inspection Office abolished, but the people on the coastal islands were also relocated to the mainland. They were not allowed to go to sea at will, so naturally no one paid attention to Xiaoliuqiu.

However, there is a small group of people who have always had close ties with Xiaoliuqiu. Sometimes they are called smugglers, sometimes pirates, and sometimes Japanese pirates.

No matter what they were called, they were all criminals, most of whom were wanted by the government and could not return to the mainland at will, so they simply stayed temporarily on Xiaoliuqiu. Over time, several pirate dens were formed.

This situation was not alleviated until Yuan Keli's navy was established. Under the continuous attacks of naval warships, smugglers and pirates on the southeast coast either quit, fled far away, fed turtles in the sea, or surrendered.

The several pirate dens on Xiaoliuqiu were naturally no exception and were all eliminated by the navy. Even the villages and simple docks were burned to ashes to prevent any more criminals from gathering.

But it was only destroyed. From Yuan Keli to the sailors, no one mentioned building a port on Xiaoliuqiu, including Hong Tao. Why? The reason is simple. In one word, it is poor! Xiaoliuqiu has no special products. It is in the tropics, with swamps and forests everywhere. After building a port, even supplies have to be transported across the sea, which is like taking off pants to fart. It is a waste of effort.

"Uh... this may have something to do with His Majesty." Seeing the emperor's confused look, Yuan Keli gritted his teeth and did not back down.

"...I don't remember issuing any decree regarding Xiaoliuqiu...right?" This made Hong Tao even more confused. After thinking about it, he couldn't come to a conclusion, but he couldn't be sure that he had never said it, so he had to turn to Wang Chengen for help.

"Your Majesty, do you still remember the cinchona tree?" Without waiting for Wang Chengen to come forward to testify for the emperor, Yuan Keli spoke first and pointed out the origin.

"…What happened to the tree?"

"This tree likes heat, humidity and height. It has been planted in Fujian and Guangdong for many years but has never shown any improvement. According to farmers, it grows slowly and has not become a good material for many years.

But the plantation loan still had to be repaid, so some Fujianese took a different approach and secretly went to Xiaoliuqiu to plant trees. It turned out to be successful. The saplings grew well on the island, and after one year they were taller than those planted in Fujian and other places for two years.

"Wait... stop talking. I roughly understand. Did the farmers from Fujian go to Xiaoliuqiu to plant trees and have a conflict with the local indigenous people? That's why they had to purchase weapons and weapons, raise more manpower, and cross the sea to seize the land?"

At this point, Hong Tao finally understood what was going on. He was not entirely wrong to say that it was related to him. Cinchona trees arrived in Ming Dynasty at the same time as South American crops such as cocoa trees, rubber trees, tobacco, peppers, wheat, and sweet potatoes, and were cultivated together.

But over the past decade, other crops have achieved more or less success, but the yield of cinchona trees has always been very low. It's because the climate and soil are not suitable for them. Hong Tao knows the reason, but he has never taken the time to make adjustments.

How should I put it? He himself was not afraid of disease, not even poison, so naturally he had no motivation to make a special medicine. If he still got sick like in a certain life, cinchona trees would have been widely planted in Luzon and Annan by now.

But he could neglect it, but the Fujian farmers who had chosen to plant cinchona trees on a large scale could not ignore it. They still had loans from the Sun Moon Bank, and if they could not repay their debts, they would have to do hard labor.

So they started to think of crooked ways, and someone remembered Xiaoliuqiu Island on the other side of the sea, and they went there to try and it worked. Fujianese have a habit of doing things in groups, and this time was obviously no exception.

As soon as a Fujianese found something good, Fujianese from a whole village came to the scene, then a county, a state, and then the whole Fujian!
So many people came to Xiaoliuqiu to plant cinchona trees, and they had to choose hillsides to plant them, which would inevitably bring them into contact with the local mountain tribes. One can easily imagine the consequences of such contact, which is that no one can understand what anyone is saying, and then they start to fight.

At the beginning, it was definitely the Fujianese who suffered losses. They were unwilling to accept this, but they were not afraid either. They went back to gather more people, purchase weapons, and began to fight for survival space.

(End of this chapter)