Chastity Layman

  Chapter 1105 Luzon

  Zhang Chao lowered his head to look carefully, with a disbelief on his face, "Impossible, why is this location so close to Liuqiu Island, it seems to be just south of Liuqiu Island, closer than Liuqiu Island to Guangzhou?"

   "Isn't it going south all the way? Why did you go around and it's next to us? It's almost to the East China Sea!"

"Haha, that's right, that's how it is. In fact, as early as the time of the Three Kingdoms, Lu Dai, the governor of Jiaozhou in Eastern Wu, sent Zhu Ying and Kang Tainan to promote the country's transformation. They sailed to the sea, traded with Southeast Asian countries, and promoted the state of Wu at the same time. They set off from Guangzhou, and the route they took was to bypass Qiongzhou Island, and because of an unexpected storm, they deviated from the original route and arrived at this big island."

"At that time, this big island was very desolate. It was no different from Liuqiu big island. It was full of barbarian tribes. Zhu Ying and Kangtai repaired the boat on the island and visited some tribes, but they couldn't speak the language, and the locals There is no special product, that is, some things like coconuts and bananas. These things go down the coast, and there are a lot of them in Champa, Chenla, etc., so after the two repaired the boat, they left. They just left a note in their notes. It's just a pen."

  The two of Zhu Ying returned to the route and continued southward to Champa, Funan and so on.

   Later, that big island was forgotten again.

  The place Qin Lang and Zhang Chao mentioned is Luzon, which is the Luzon Island of the Philippines in later generations. It is indeed very close to Liuqiu, and not far from Hainan Island, but in this era, many people don't know it.

  Some merchants know this place, but they think it is in the south of the South China Sea, and they have to travel thousands of miles south to the south of Funan, and then sail east to the deepest part of the sea to reach it.

In fact, the reason why there is such a saying is that some merchants in the South China Sea trade during the Northern and Southern Dynasties, limited by technology and other reasons, mostly sailed along the coast. They sailed along the Indochina Peninsula to the Malay Peninsula, and then along the The archipelago goes east to Kalimantan, and usually sails to Brunei. Some people will continue to go north along the coast, then reach the Sulu Islands, and finally arrive at Mindanao. This is actually a huge circle.

   But very few people continue to go north to Luzon, let alone go directly from Liuqiu or Hainan or Guangzhou to Luzon.

   This is mainly limited by ocean currents, wind direction, and navigational technical reasons.

   Just like Liuqiu Island was so close to the mainland in the past, but for thousands of years, the Central Plains rarely went to the island, and it was also because of the isolation of the strait. Although the sea is not wide, it is a natural moat.

  It is also since Zhenguan that the continuous upgrading of shipbuilding technology, especially the development of large-scale navigation trade, has led to more and more ships going to sea, and more and more people exploring the sea. They are constantly looking for new routes.

After the Qin family's expedition fleet obtained Qin Lang's vague sea chart, they followed the instructions to search for Luzon Island and open up a new route. After ten years of hard work, they finally found Luzon and found a new route. Stable route, directly across the deep sea, no need to make a big circle.

  In Luzon, they did find that this place is like a foreign land, full of uncivilized tribal islands, and the social, economic, technological and cultural aspects are astonishingly backward.

  They not only found an excellent bay port, but also found a plain suitable for reclamation and farming, as well as several good gold seedling veins.

   Then the Qin family regarded this route and this island as top family secrets, and began to develop it secretly. They sent people to establish a landing point there, set up a small colonial point, and started mining gold.

  Now it can produce three hundred taels of gold a day, and three gold seedlings have been discovered.

  Those gold deposits were very shallow, and gold placer was even found in a river.

  The opinion there is of course to continue to keep the secrets, and then quietly mobilize more people to mine in the past, but now Qin Lang has decided to spread the secret of this gold mine and go to various places to recruit people who are willing to mine gold to pan for gold.

And it's not the mode of hiring gold mining, but after transporting people there, let them join the Qin family's gold mine to mine gold, or go to the gold panning by themselves. Anyway, the Qin family finally bought the gold from them at the market price, and, Qin The family provides them with boats, tools for gold panning, and daily necessities such as food and clothing.

  Of course, if you are panning for gold yourself, all of this will have to be paid for.

  But Zhang Chao still thinks that the Qin family mines by themselves, and slowly mines millions of gold a year.

  But Qin Lang wants to build a real gold rush city in Luzon, where he wants to attract more people to go there by means of gold rush.

"You simply do the math. If we can spread the news, maybe there are not many people in the first few batches, but given the situation of the gold mine over there, after the first two batches pass, there will definitely be a lot of people I picked. Gold, then you will get rich overnight. When the publicity is announced, how many people do you think will rush to go there to pan for gold?"

"I dare say that in just a few years, tens of thousands of people will definitely be able to attract them. And tens of thousands of gold diggers are panning for gold there. They need food, housing, and even tools for panning for gold. We Doing business with these people, will it be possible to build a town there immediately?"

"At that time, we can still reclaim wasteland and farm land there, and even directly build some workshops to produce some simple supplies, and we will be able to maintain it slowly. Of course, we will not lose money if we send these people to pan for gold. If we buy gold, even at the market price, we can still make a fortune."

In the final analysis, what Qin Lang needs now is not just money. He is sitting on the fiefdom of Wu'an Mansion and receives one-third of the taxes. One of the richest families, it is not inferior financially to those top aristocrats with five surnames and seven surnames, and Guanlong six surnames.

  But it is not enough to have money alone, you have to be able to keep it.

Qin Lang used to plan to manage the Wu'an fiefdom, but now he feels that the fiefdom is not reliable anymore. After all, the current fiefdom, after several revisions, they, the world-appointed governors and governors, do not have much power. The greatest power is economic benefits. one-third of the tax revenue.

   In addition, it is the right to supervise the fiefdom.

  The rest of the powers of governing the people and leading the army are absent, and with the addition of a Tweet enfeoffment system, the secular power is actually equivalent to an optimized version of the real feudal fiefdom system, which is rich but has no real power.

  Now Qin Lang always feels that Cheng Qian is unreliable, and he is even more worried about a hundred years in the future, so he thinks about planning another territory overseas.

  He chose a place in Luzon, which is far away from the Central Plains, but still easy to communicate with. It doesn't seem like a place like Lijiapo is too far away.

  However, Luzon wants to develop, which is different from Linqing, Wu'an and other places. After all, this is overseas, and population is a big problem.

  After much deliberation, he planned to use the gold mine over there to attract the first group of people first. It doesn't matter if you just go to pan for gold. After someone gets rich overnight, there will definitely be a bigger gold rush, and more people will come to pan for gold.

He never thought that all these gold diggers would stay, but with the flow of people, everything will be there. First build a gold rush town, rely on this flow of people to build a colonial town, and then develop step by step, rely on gold panning, and then gradually develop From planting, processing, etc., when there is a stable population in the future, everything will be on the right track.

  Think about the history of colonization in the era of great European voyages. They dared to cross the Atlantic Ocean to colonize the new world with only a broken ship and three to five hundred people. Everything started from scratch, and the conditions were even more difficult.

  Compared to this, Qin Lang's plan to colonize Luzon is much stronger. After all, with sufficient financial resources and technical support from the Qin family, plus the gold mine he found, this is a golden beginning.

"Are you really planning to start the business from scratch on that island? It's too cost-effective, why not Liuqiu Island and Hainan Island? Our Qin family's operations on Liuqiu Island and Hainan Island have also developed well. No matter how bad it is, there are already a few good beginnings in Linyi, anyway, is this deserted island in the sea convenient?"

   "All I want is the location of this island!"

  Zhang Chao was puzzled.

  Qin Lang didn't explain too much, the so-called three caves of the cunning rabbit, Qin Lang didn't intend to give up everything in the Central Plains, but just wanted to leave an extra way out. This retreat is safe enough, even if the development potential seems to be weaker than other places, it doesn't matter.

   "I plan to go there to plan something in the next year."

   "You let the prime minister of the Luoyang court quit, and you insist on going to the deep sea wilderness to open up wasteland and pan for gold. You really have it!" Zhang Chao shook his head and smiled wryly.

   "No way, who told me that I am now the head of the Qin family. People have no long-term concerns, but they must have near-term worries. Since I have become the head of the family, I must plan for future generations."

   "But you are planning too far, right?"

  "Not talking about planning for a thousand years, but planning for a hundred or two hundred years."

  Zhang Chao looked at Qin Lang, "I always feel that you have been a little suspicious these past few years, and you are a bit paranoid about being persecuted!"

  Qin Lang had nothing to hide from Zhang Chao.

"If it was you who beat the prince, or if you were promised by the prince to make you king in the future, I believe you would have made some plans as early as I did, and you can't wait until the sword is on your neck On that day, will you come to regret it?"

  Zhang Chao was stunned.

   "The prince really promised to make you king?"

   "I beat him, but he still promised to make me king. If it were you, wouldn't you panic?"

"Too."

  Zhang Chao sighed, "I can't see through that His Royal Highness now. It is said that he is very close to Fang Xuanling now. Didn't he hate Fang Xuanling for supporting the King of Wei?"

   "Grow up." Qin Lang said.

   "Then I'll go with you, by the way, what name do you plan to name that place?"

  Since the gold mine was discovered there, the Qin family has been calling it by the code name Jinshan.

   "Let's call it Jinshan. The name must be very attractive. When you hear the name of Jinshan, doesn't it mean that there is a lot of gold?"

   "Jinshan Island? It's better to call it Golden Island."

   "It's too ostentatious, let's call it Treasure Island. When the city is built, it will be called Jinshan City."

  Zhang Chao looked disgusted, "Why don't you say it's the Crystal Palace of the Dragon King of the East China Sea!"

  (end of this chapter)