The Imperial Age with the Resurgence of Han Style

Chapter 229 Chen Zhou’s Thoughts
In the afternoon of April 4, on the humid and hot Post Road of the Isthmus of Panama, a team of about 20 people lined up in a long line and marched with difficulty.

There were only eight carriages and more than ten horses and mules in the entire team, carrying a large amount of water, canned food and other supplies. Some passengers who were sick or attacked by poisonous insects, snakes, and ants were allowed to lie down on the carriages so that they could keep up with the speed of the procession.

This ancient post road has been opened for nearly two hundred years. It is the only way for Spain to transport Peruvian gold and silver mines by land. It is also a transportation hub between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.

This post road extends from the Caribbean Sea to the Pacific Ocean, with a total length of about 70 kilometers. Spanning tropical rainforests and swamps, it is an area with a hot and humid climate and unusually rich vegetation.

Standing on the west side of the Isthmus of Panama post road, overlooking the vast Pacific Ocean, white waves are hitting the coral reefs, and seagulls are circling in the sky, seemingly calling you to explore the endless ocean.

On the other side is the emerald green tropical rain forest. The dense vegetation and towering canopy make people feel as if they have walked into a green ocean. The air is filled with a strong smell of plants, and you can even hear the chirping of insects and birds. .

Traveling on the Isthmus of Panama Post Road, you will see many abandoned carriage ruins and white bones along the way, as if you have witnessed the dust of two hundred years of history. Vehicles and people walked along the rugged post road from the Pacific side to the Atlantic side, like tiny ants walking through the dense mountains and forests.

The canyon is narrow and steep, and the rising hills in the distance are bathed in dense woods. A giant python with colorful stripes was sitting on a branch of a tree, spitting out letters, staring ahead, as if looking for something. Several monkeys were jumping on the high branches, chasing each other and playing playfully.

There was faint thunder in the distance, dull and oppressive, and became louder and louder as time went by, frightening the people on the dense forest post road. Everyone knew that heavy rain was coming. In order to avoid getting soaked by the rain, they could only speed up their march in the hope of finding a sheltered station.

"Haha haha..." A gentle sound of horse hooves sounded. The knight exploring the road in front carefully controlled the reins and ran slowly to the middle of the team.

You must know that when King Chen became a vassal, the royal family and the cabinet allocated a total of 500,000 yuan in one time as his "capital" to establish a vassal state. Even if King Chen's own accumulation over the years and his acquaintances and nobles were added, Sponsored by businessmen, the development funds it possesses do not exceed one million yuan.

Two years ago (1728), King Jia was suspected of fighting for the throne during the death of the prince, so he was named King Chen by Emperor Taiping. He was ordered to leave Hanzhou within a time limit and vassal Chenzhou.

Their group of more than a hundred people were the royal officials of the former King Qi Weijun of Chenzhou (that is, the Newfoundland Island and Acadia region ceded by the Kingdom of England), as well as scholars and craftsmen recruited from the local area.

There are two normal routes from Hanzhou mainland to Chenzhou.

In his hurry, the newly promoted His Highness Prince Chen only had time to pack up some of his belongings and purchase some daily necessities. Then he hired a motorboat and left Chang'an sadly with dozens of close people.

When the people around him heard this, they all looked bitter, shook their heads and sighed.

Considering the remoteness of Chenzhou and the lack of supplies, life in the future must be extremely difficult. Therefore, before King Chen left, he ordered the royal officials to continue to purchase various materials and mechanical equipment in the country and send them to Chenzhou. He also recruited more scholars, craftsmen, and armed guards as the basis for Chenzhou's future sustainable development.

"I have been walking on this broken road for three or four days, and apart from the airtight valleys and dense forests, there is not even a decent town or village." Sun Dongchen, the manager of Prince Chen's Mansion, stretched out his hand to wipe the sweat from his forehead, and then asked: "What's the situation in the indigenous villages? Don't encounter a den of thieves!"

"..."

"It's about thirty kilometers away. If we travel faster, we should be able to arrive in two to three days."

"Did the Spanish guide say how far away the port of Colon is?"

Well, I heard that apart from the rich fishery resources, Chenzhou doesn't seem to have anything valuable. For the long term, Prince Chen's Mansion naturally needs to plan carefully.

Another route started from the southwest of Hanzhou, crossed the Indian Ocean, and arrived at Qianzhou (now South Africa). After carefully sailing through the rough Cape of Good Hope, it followed the west coast of Africa all the way north to the Gulf of Guinea, and then took advantage of the southern equatorial warm current. , crossed the Atlantic Ocean, entered Brazil, and finally turned north, passing through the Caribbean Sea, and sailed to Chenzhou.

Generally speaking, the eastern route has a slight advantage in comparison. Although the Pacific route is longer, from Dongzhou to Suining Strait and all the way to Qingguo, they are all within Qi's sphere of influence, and they can get sufficient supplies of water. and safety and security. What's even more rare is that the ship can also carry a large number of local industrial products, which can be sold to Qingguo and Portuguese Brazil, and then cheaper grain, livestock, cane sugar and other materials can be purchased from the above two countries and brought to the Chenzhou territory. .

One is to start from the southeast of Hanzhou, go all the way east, pass through Dongzhou (now New Zealand), sail to the southern tip of America, pass through the Suining Strait (i.e., the Strait of Magellan), enter the Atlantic Ocean, and then drive north along the east coast of South America. Crossing the Caribbean Sea, we finally drove straight to Chenzhou.

The distance between the two routes is similar. Even if they take a plane or sailing boat, it will take at least five months. It is definitely the farthest overseas territory from the mainland of Hanzhou.

"Experience Sun, there is an indigenous village ahead. You can take a rest and take shelter from the rain." The knight took off the veil on his face, revealing a face dripping with sweat.

Calculating this way, we can share most of the transportation costs to Chenzhou.

In order to better communicate with the local people in the future, the two batches of personnel and materials sent to Chenzhou by Prince Chen's Mansion took two routes respectively to determine the best route.

"Well, although taking this post road saves more than two months than taking a boat to circumnavigate half of the American continent, this broken road is really difficult to walk, and two craftsmen were lost on the way, which is not worth the gain! "Sun Dongchen sighed.

"There are about one hundred and eighty residents in the indigenous village. The Spanish guide named Recto said that it was originally a village established as a post station. Judging from their appearance, they should all be familiar vassals domesticated by the Spanish. There are also some Western monks who are not as vicious as the fleeing natives near Panama City."

For those who want to start from scratch and build a vassal state that can barely stand on its own, it is too stretched to be used.

More than two months ago, Sun Dongchen, the manager of the royal palace, took more than a hundred recruited scholars and craftsmen and arrived in Panama on two merchant ships transporting railway equipment. He was about to try to explore a third route to Chenzhou. That is to pass through the Isthmus of Panama Station to the Port of Colon on the Atlantic side, and then hire a merchant ship passing here to go to Chenzhou.

According to calculations by navigation professionals, if you travel from Hanzhou via the Isthmus of Panama and then take a boat to Chenzhou, it will save at least two months compared to taking a boat to circumnavigate the American continent.

Therefore, before Sun Dongchen set off, he decided to try this route with the people he recruited. If the journey goes smoothly, the immigrants recruited by Chenzhou will be able to get a convenient channel to reach the boundary of Chenzhou faster.

"With the current progress of railway construction, it will probably take two or three years before the entire line is completed." Sun Dongchen stood in front of the church window. Through the mist and rain, he could see the scattered Spanish-style wooden houses in the village. Many years ago, when the Spaniards were opening up post roads, they built residences one after another either to provide shelter from the wind or rain, or because they did not want to move on and stay here.

Nowadays, this place has become people’s yearning and stopover on their way. There is no shortage of delicious fruits and game in the village, which can provide sufficient material security for tired travelers.

The village is surrounded by mountains and rivers, and a small river meanders in front of the village. The alternating green mountains and green waters form a beautiful picture. The village's streets are narrow and winding, and the facades of the houses on both sides are built with local stone and wood. The streets are lined with a variety of grocery stores, all of which are small shops for residents to buy daily necessities. The vast majority of the residents in the village are Indians, with a few Spaniards, and they mainly grow rice, corn, bananas, and cassava.

Of course, their biggest source of wealth is to provide food and accommodation for travelers passing through the post roads and earn rare gold and silver coins.

The lifestyle of residents here is very simple. Sometimes, the residents of the village will gather on the empty dam at the entrance of the village, singing songs and dancing traditional Indian dances, which makes people feel very lively. There are often some travelers passing through the village, and some of them will stay in the village for a while and exchange stories and experiences with each other.

In the center of the village is an ancient church built of stone and wood. The interior of the church is very simple, with only a table and some benches. Despite this, the church is still the center of spiritual belief and culture for the villagers. Every Sunday, residents come to the church dressed in neat clothes and attend mass under the auspices of a Spanish priest.

After chatting with the priest in the church through an interpreter, Sun Dongchen learned that although the Atlantic side of the Panama Isthmus Railway was also under construction, the progress was very slow due to the same complex terrain and the inactivity of the Indian laborers. After more than a month, the length of the track was laid. Less than two kilometers away, construction can be described as slow.

Sun Dongchen couldn't help but shake his head and sigh. It seems that in the short term, it is unrealistic to use the Isthmus of Panama to transport large quantities of materials to the Atlantic side.
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On April 4, Sun Dongchen and his party finally arrived at the Port of Cologne. After staying here for six days to rest, they arrived at a three-masted sailing ship "Fuyun" owned by an American trading company. They paid the freight and asked to transport them to Chen. state.

Perhaps because he was wondering whether he could find business opportunities in Chenzhou, and because he didn't want to offend the royal family, a trading shop owner on board the ship did not refuse their request, and for only a friendly price, he sent more than a hundred people to the ship. The passengers loaded onto the boat, replenished some water, and set sail into the Caribbean Sea.

On May 5, the "Fortune" arrived at the Spanish island of Santo Domingo (today's Haiti) and sailed into the Port of Ryan in the Gulf of Nevado (today's Port of Barahona, Dominica).

Ruian Port was a port rented by the Kingdom of Spain from the Kingdom of Spain for docking and supply purposes during the Qi-British War four years ago in order to combat the commercial power of the Kingdom of England in the Caribbean.

After the war, the Spanish continued to lease the port to the Qi people in order to check and balance the French in the western part of Santo Domingo Island, trying to place it between the forces of Spain and France to prevent the French from continuing to encroach on the eastern part of the island. area.

The people of Qi naturally smiled and accepted this, but were disrespectful.

Although the Bahamas was declared a colonial territory of the Kingdom by England in 1717, it had been a haven for pirates for more than a hundred years before that, with a mixed bag of fish and dragons. Except for Nassau, which had some normal order, the other islands were all lawless. The land is home to a large number of scum and villains, and it would be impossible to bring it under the rule of the colonial government without a thorough cleansing.

In addition, there were no valuable properties in the entire archipelago. Therefore, when negotiating the armistice conditions with Qi, they directly rejected Qi's request for the island of Jamaica and instead "generously" ceded the Bahamas to Qi.

After Qi State acquired the Bahamas Islands, it had not yet had time to immigrate and develop them. It only sent a governor and a dozen officials to take over the islands, and everything remained as before.

As a result, the Port of Ryan is extremely important in the Caribbean.

After all, during the war, the Qi Navy built a large number of storage facilities and a small ship repair station here, and moved more than 200 immigrants from Qianzhou and the Tuoshan Islands (today's Canary Islands), forming a We found a sea supply port with fairly good conditions.

However, Ruian Port has not yet achieved basic self-sufficiency so far. Daily supplies including grain, cloth, sugar, etc. need to be imported from the Viceroyalty of Santo Domingo and New Granada.

The Atlantic Fleet, which was established only last year, deployed two sail warships in the Caribbean, based at the ports of Ryan and Nassau, and cruised in the Caribbean to declare the presence of Qi's navy.

The "Fuyun" stayed at Ruian Port for two days, and after unloading some food and other supplies, it continued its journey, sailing along the Gulf Stream toward Newfoundland.

When passing through the waters of the east coast of North America, you will encounter English merchant ships from time to time. When they saw the "Fuyun" flying the flag of Qi, they showed strong hostility.

Although these English merchant ships did not commit any offensive behavior, when the two ships passed by each other, through binoculars they could observe that their sailors were making various provocative and insulting actions on the side of the ship. Some even took off their pants and put their clothes on. The white buttocks were facing the "Fuyun" and twisting back and forth to show humiliation.

In this regard, the people of Qi on the "Fuyun" found it both ridiculous and boring.

Isn't it just to beat you English people up?

Why be so petty!

So tasteless.

In response, the Qi sailors, regardless of whether the other party could hear or not, lay on the side of the ship, facing the English merchant ship, and kept greeting their female relatives with various insulting words.

Seeing this situation, Sun Dongchen smiled, but he couldn't help but feel a little worried in his heart.

England occupies almost half of the east coast of North America, has been operating for more than a hundred years, and has a population of more than one million. It can be said that it has a deep foundation and has an overwhelming advantage over the Chenzhou territory.

If Qi Ying becomes enemies again at some time in the future and a war breaks out, wouldn't they be able to use their strong strength in North America to destroy our Chenzhou in one fell swoop?
When the French took possession of the land, they had already colonized it for nearly a hundred years. However, when faced with the attack of the English, they were still defeated and chose to surrender voluntarily and became obedient subjects of the English.

So how will Chenzhou respond to the threat from England?

(End of this chapter)