At the end of Qin, I became a son of the plane

Chapter 477: The Emerging Country of Luzon

On October 25th, the 19th year of the Han calendar, Luzon City.

Luzon is the fastest-growing country among all the Nanyang vassal states. It has a native population of several hundred thousand, and the population of Luzon's capital is the first large city in the entire Nanyang to exceed 50,000, which is more than the total population of many Nanyang vassal states.

The primary reason why Luzon was able to develop its talents so quickly was the excess profits brought by Luzon's copper smelting industry, which ensured that Luzon had no shortage of funds for development. The price of spices would decrease these days, but the price of copper that could be used to make coins had never decreased.

You must know that with the prosperity of the Han Dynasty's industry, especially since the outbreak of the First Industrial Revolution, the wealth of the entire Han Dynasty has increased exponentially, which requires the amount of currency in circulation to increase exponentially. Although Xu Fan has created a credit currency such as paper money, at the current stage, the nobles of the world still trust gold and silver more, and ordinary people trust copper coins more. Even if the Han Dynasty wants to issue paper money, it still needs the three precious metals of gold, silver and copper as collateral.

Therefore, the more the Han Dynasty's economy developed, the more it wanted precious metals. Now the importance of Luzon's copper mines has surpassed that of the Spice Islands to the Han Dynasty. Other vassal states could not even recruit a few Han people, but the Luzon Kingdom was led by the imperial court to help them build blast furnaces, copper smelters, small steel mills and other factories, as well as a series of five small industries such as cement plants and brick kilns. The vassal states in Southeast Asia were all based on agriculture based on the planting economy, while Luzon already had a certain industrial foundation.

The Han Dynasty court also sent engineering teams to Luzon to help them build docks, highways, and even the only wooden track in the entire South China Sea. Although it was only 100 miles long, because horses had difficulty adapting to Luzon's climate, the court built ten locomotives to transport copper ingots and stationed a steam engine repair team. It can be said that this was a milestone in progress, representing Luzon's entry into the steam age.

October is the rainy season in Luzon. A large number of engineering teams in Luzon have suspended construction projects. There are three half-finished plank roads at Luzon Wharf, which is the largest project in Luzon. After the completion of the new wharf, Luzon Wharf can accommodate 10 -ton sea-going ships at the same time. There are also new gantry cranes that can lift kilograms of cargo at a time, greatly improving the cargo carrying capacity and loading time of the wharf.

There are several temporary craftsmen's houses next to the dock. Because of the rain, the craftsmen and dock workers were bragging and joking with each other. These workers and dock workers include both Han Chinese and local indigenous people. Labor is the best way to bring people together.

One of the natives said happily: "Our leader has returned from Chang'an City. I said that our leader is not the person you said he was. He will not abandon us and will definitely come back. Now he has not only returned, but also sacrificed to our ancestors and brought back the bloodline genealogy."

In order to reduce the cost of ruling Nanyang, under the instruction of Xu Fan, the major princes of Nanyang launched a massive ancestral recognition movement for the indigenous people under their rule. Combined with the Confucian propaganda that came to Nanyang, the indigenous people of Nanyang have already acknowledged that they migrated from the mainland and that the mainland is their roots.

After that, every year when the princes of the Han Dynasty came, the princes of the Han Dynasty would bring some of the natives of their vassal states to Chang'an to participate in the conference. Xu Fan's purpose was naturally to strengthen the ties between the two sides and let these indigenous leaders submit to the civilization of the Han Dynasty after seeing Chang'an City.

The natives who have been to Chang'an City are all impressed by its prosperity. The gap between the two civilizations is too big. One is still in the primitive tribal period, barely able to make do with slash-and-burn agriculture, while the other has already entered the industrialized society. The gap is even greater than that of a dimensionality reduction attack. The civilization alone is three levels apart. Chang'an City is thousands of times more magnificent than what these indigenous leaders imagined.

But something happened that even Xu Fan had not expected. After these indigenous leaders came to Chang'an City, they were unwilling to return to Nanyang. Many of them knelt in front of Xu Fan and said in the Chinese language they had just learned: "I would rather be a commoner in Chang'an than a local king in Nanyang."

This incident caused a sensation throughout Chang'an, and made the people of Chang'an extremely proud. Look, this is the grandeur of Chang'an, this is the beacon of civilization, the power of the capital of all nations. These local kings did not want the throne, just to become ordinary citizens of Chang'an. Of course, if they only had a few hundred or even a few thousand people, whether they could be considered a king was automatically omitted by the people of Chang'an.

Although this kind of thing can arouse the pride of the people in Chang'an City, for the natives who stayed in Southeast Asia, when they learned that their leader went to Chang'an City and abandoned them, how do you think they felt? They felt abandoned.

This happened so often that even the Han people in Southeast Asia knew about it. However, when they chatted with the natives, after learning that their leader had gone to Chang'an City, they would say to the natives in a teasing tone, "Your leader has gone to Chang'an City and will never come back."

Of course, these natives would retort, "Our leader said he would definitely come back."

But because there were so many people who never came back, they were not very confident when they refuted it, especially after their leader stayed in the Han Dynasty for a year, even the most confident people were disappointed. But they did not expect that their leader would come back.

"Why did you come back after a year away?" asked the Han craftsman.

The local aboriginal youth said proudly: "Our leader not only went to Chang'an City, but also went to our ancestral land, Kuaiji County to pay homage to our ancestor Dayu, so it took a little longer. Our leader said that we are descendants of Dayu, one of the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors. According to legend, Dayu was buried in Kuaiji after his death, and his son Qi built a ancestral temple on the mountain to worship him. Shaokang later appointed our ancestor Wu Yu to Kuaiji to preside over the sacrifices to Dayu, and established the Yue Kingdom and Kuaiji. It seems that the descendants of our ancestor, the King of Yue, were later defeated by a powerful country called the Wu Kingdom, and fled all the way to the Luzon Kingdom from the sea."

"And the leader also found our surname. Our ancestors were granted a fiefdom in the south of Ouyu Mountain in Wucheng and were called Ouyang Tinghou. From now on, I will be called Ouyang Shi."

Chen Sheng and Zhao Gao walked slowly on the dock. Two officials followed them holding umbrellas to protect them from the rain. Chen Sheng heard the native youth's words and asked, "Is Feng Lie back?"

Zhao Gao said: "Feng Lie is quite determined. He saw Chang'an City but was not fascinated by it. Instead, he went to Kuaiji County again, paid homage to Dayu and Gou Jian, and then returned."

Zhao Gao naturally knew that there was something wrong with this bloodline genealogy. Gou Jian, the King of Yue, was at least a hegemon. The princes who knew how to refine iron tools, no matter how poor the civilization of Yue State was, it would never be reduced to the level of slash-and-burn farming.

However, sending these indigenous leaders to Chang'an City would be beneficial to these Nanyang princes, as it would allow the major vassal states to better integrate with the local indigenous peoples. Naturally, they would not stop such behavior, so they would not expose such lies that could be easily exposed, but would instead acknowledge them and add fuel to the flames.

Chen Sheng said: "There are also outstanding people among the natives. It seems that I will make use of him in the future."

Zhao Gao said calmly: "He is just the leader of a tribe of a thousand people. It is a blessing for him that the Duke values ​​him."

Chen Sheng looked at the sky which was still covered with dark clouds and frowned, "If the rain doesn't stop, not only will the progress of the project be delayed, but the degree of decay of the wooden tracks will also be aggravated. Is there no way to solve this problem?"

What Chen Sheng was most dissatisfied with was the climate here. There was a dry season for half a year and a rainy season for half a year. During the rainy season, there would be heavy rains at any time, which directly flooded the city. Various infrastructures were also quickly damaged by the rain, making the infrastructure cost of Luzon extremely high.

The biggest drawback of laying wooden tracks in Southeast Asia is that there is too much moisture, which accelerates the decay of the tracks. According to reports from the master craftsmen who repaired the wooden tracks, the decay rate of the wooden tracks in Luzon is three times that of the Central Plains. This is when they were coated with waterproof oil. This not only makes the track maintenance cost in Luzon higher, but also makes it more prone to train derailment accidents.

Zhao Gao thought for a moment and said, "Master Craftsman Zhao Ping has suggested a method that is extremely costly."

Chen Sheng said proudly: "My Luzon Kingdom is afraid of spending money." Chen Sheng's annual income from copper ingots alone exceeded 5 million coins. Together with other specialties such as coconuts, palm oil, spices, and taxes from Luzon, although Luzon's annual fiscal revenue was as high as 10 billion coins, the wealth of Luzon could rank among the top five among the princes of the Han Dynasty.

Zhao Gao said, "Zhao Ping said that the Han steel mills have begun laying rails to increase the track's carrying capacity and reduce maintenance costs."

Chen Sheng was pleasantly surprised and said, "Railway tracks, this is a good idea."

Zhao Gao smiled bitterly and said, "But the cost of one li is 500 million coins, and this is the price of pure iron."

"Five million coins!" Even though Chen Sheng was a wealthy man, he was shocked to hear this number. But then he thought, he only needed to build 500 miles of railway tracks, and this price was equivalent to the annual income of a copper smelter. It seemed that it was not beyond his reach if he gritted his teeth.

Just when Chen Sheng was about to bite his tongue and agree, Zhao Gao stopped him and said, "Duke, our Luzon Kingdom doesn't have much fiscal surplus each year. Now we have to expand the port, and build an asphalt road connecting the port to the city. The cost is no less than the railway. We also have to rebuild the capital's drainage system. We don't have the money to start another huge project in Luzon."

Luzon has a lot of rainfall, and the annual investment in infrastructure is very high. But even so, once the roads are built, they are often ruined by the rain, and even horse-drawn carriages cannot move. In the past two years, the technology of asphalt roads has been introduced from the Han Dynasty, which finally gives Luzon hope of repairing the roads. Although it is expensive to build roads with asphalt, asphalt is waterproof. After it is laid once, there is almost no need to worry about it being damaged by water. The maintenance cost is also extremely low, even lower than that of dirt roads.

Therefore, the most important port road in Luzon began to be paved with waterproof asphalt roads. The Han Dynasty had several years of experience in building roads with asphalt. Chen Sheng spent a lot of money to hire an experienced construction team to come to Luzon to help Luzon build its first asphalt road.

It's not the same for professional teams. Such a huge amount of rainwater has accumulated on the dirt road. As long as there are a few loaded carriages running, the road will be muddy and difficult to walk. But now this asphalt road, even if it rains for half a day, there is still not much water. The asphalt road has an arc, and the rainwater flows into the drainage ditches on both sides. The drainage pipes are connected by cement drainage pipes, and all rainwater is discharged into the sea through the pipes. Chen Sheng nodded when he saw this scene. Although this asphalt road costs a lot, it is really worth every penny.

Chen Sheng followed Xu Fan for ten years and learned Xu Fan's habit of lavishly building infrastructure. Asphalt roads had to be built and a sewer network for the capital city had to be constructed. It would be a shame if his own capital city was often soaked in water due to heavy rain. The tracks had to be maintained as they were the lifeline of the copper smelter.

But with so many things to do, there is naturally not enough money. However, he has not learned Xu Fan's ability to create wealth. Luzon's fiscal revenue is only a little over 10 billion, but there are already several huge projects, which have squeezed out Luzon's meager fiscal surplus. It can only rely on Zhao Gao to move money east and west to barely maintain stability.

Chen Sheng said regretfully: "If I had known this method earlier, I should have gone to Chang'an City to attend the meeting of princes."

Now, because there were too many vassal states in the Han Dynasty and they were too far away, the Han Dynasty court would not force them to come to Chang'an City. It was generally OK to send envoys. Even vassal states like the Xiongnu and Kushan could come once every two or three years. The court would not force them to participate unless they were explicitly asked to attend the vassal meeting. So Chen Sheng only sent his own envoys to Chang'an City to attend the vassal meeting.

"Sure enough, my brother-in-law was right. Any power or country will encounter the problem of not having enough money. I didn't expect that my country, Luzon, which is so rich, would encounter such a problem."

Zhao Gao said: "If you want the Duke to survive, you can only increase revenue and reduce expenditure. Reduce the handicrafts imported by the court and try to manufacture them ourselves. For example, we can also build textile factories and machinery factories in Luzon. This is a way to save money. The way to increase revenue is to plant more spices, textiles, cotton cloth and other cash crops."

Chen Sheng said disappointedly: "This cannot be effective in a short period of time, and the industrial chain of the textile industry is too long. We have to reclaim land to plant cotton first, then spin the cotton into cotton cloth. In the middle, we need to buy steam looms, hire maintenance personnel, and train workers. This takes too long for our Luzon country. It will be difficult to complete the layout of the textile industry without three or four years."

There is one thing Chen Sheng did not mention. The people of Luzon did not even know how to farm, so how could they have the ability to operate a textile machine?

Zhao Gao thought for a moment and said, "There is also a quick and effective method. We can increase the number of miners, dig more copper ore, and sell it to sea merchants. The court is short of copper, and the price of copper has increased by 50% in the past two years. As long as we increase the number of miners, we can earn a lot of money just by selling copper ore."

Copper mining is the pillar industry of Luzon. Although there are copper smelters in Luzon, the production capacity is far less than the efficiency of Luzon copper mining, so Luzon will also sell some concentrated copper ore that has been simply separated. Compared with the smelting industry, which is difficult to expand production capacity, mining is much simpler. Just open a mine hole and let the craftsmen dig. This is a personal job that does not require too advanced technology. All citizens of Luzon can do it.

Chen Sheng hesitated and said, "The casualties among the people of Luzon would be too heavy."

Mining is an industry that requires people to risk their lives for money, even in later times, let alone this era. The premise for the development of Luzon's mining industry is that tens of thousands of miners risk their lives to mine. Nearly hundreds of people die in mining accidents in Luzon every year. No matter how many safety standards are set, water seepage accidents will happen when they are supposed to happen, and mining accidents will happen when they are supposed to happen. Not to mention that Luzon does not have the ability to set too high safety standards.

Zhao Gao's statement of expanding the copper mine's production capacity was a clear statement that he wanted to exchange the miners' lives for money. Luzon State only had a few hundred thousand people, and Chen Sheng could not bear too many deaths.

Seeing Chen Sheng's hesitation, Zhao Gao said, "This is the price that must be paid for the development of Luzon. Your Majesty, in every industry in Luzon today, people are exchanging lives for money. This is the price that must be paid for development."

Chen Sheng was really speechless. Because Zhao Guo was right, mining is exchanging lives for money, and developing industry is also exchanging lives for money.

Accidents often occurred in copper smelters. Workers were either crushed to death by material delivery vehicles or craftsmen were scalded to death by blast furnaces. Even in relatively safe kiln factories, craftsmen were burned to death.

Industrial development has never been warm and affectionate, but has been built on countless corpses. Farmers in the agricultural era are far from meeting the functional standards of the industrial era. If you want to turn farmers into qualified workers, you have to sacrifice blood. Even in the Han Dynasty, there are more than a dozen major safety accidents every year. What the Han Dynasty can do is to publicize to workers in major factories every time a major accident occurs to enhance their safety awareness, but the price that must be paid is inevitable.

Most of the people in Luzon were unruly savages who found it difficult to even reach the standards of the agricultural era, let alone industrialization. Even with Han craftsmen supervising them, accidents often occurred in Luzon's industry, causing heavy casualties.

Many of the ways of death were so shocking that even Chen Sheng himself was stunned. He hid in the cave and refused to come out, and as a result, his body was burned to death when the kiln was burning. He swallowed clay when burning cement and was choked to death. These are things that normal people would never do, but these craftsmen did it. They were courting their own death, no matter how strict the safety standards were.

Even the agriculture in Luzon would cause casualties. The land reclamation encountered various accidents such as acclimatization, poisonous insects, venomous snakes and wild beasts. Every year, more than 3,000 people died in Luzon due to these incidents, of which almost one-tenth were Han people. This was still a relatively normal situation. If the plague caused the death toll to increase several times, it could directly cause serious damage to the vitality of a vassal state of Nanyang, and even the people and merchants of the Han Dynasty would dare not come again.

It can be said that even if Xu Fan continued to give external plug-ins to the Nanyang vassal states, with so much preparation, every step in the development of Nanyang came at the cost of lives.

(End of this chapter)