1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 2164
Having a stable living environment and stable income is the most intuitive feeling for most immigrants from Daming after they settled in Haihan.For refugees like Ren Song who came to Haihan because of the war, stability is the top priority. Even though Haihan has many rules and regulations for the people, at least living in this country does not have to worry about their livelihood and safety all the time. Security issues again.

Although Xiu Nian came to Haihan because he was affected by the flames of war, he has only been in Zhoushan for a short time, so he still can't fully empathize with Ren Song's words.But Xiu Nian also got an important message from Ren Song's words, that is, the living environment of Haihan Country is safer than that of other countries, and it may even be higher than that of Ming Dynasty.

Xiu Nian is not aware of the internal and external troubles that Daming is facing at this time, nor does it know how many areas of Daming have been in war in recent years. Almost every year, hundreds of thousands of people leave their homes due to wars and become refugees.Ren Song claimed that Haihan was safer than Ming Dynasty. This argument still surprised him a bit. After all, in his impression, Daming had a vast territory and strong national power. It had always been the most powerful country in East Asia. Not as good as Haihan.

However, Xiu Nian also knew that she didn't know much about Da Ming and Hai Han, and if she asked too much, Ren Song would see through her own strength, so she didn't continue to entangle with this issue, and instead asked the other party about the sideline business experience in Fuqiang Village .

Ren Songdao: "The craftsmanship of making pottery and burning bricks and tiles is passed down from the ancestors. Now that it can be carried forward in Fuqiang Village, I have no regrets in this life. As for how large-scale this business can be in the future, it depends on the people in the village. The skills of these young people, I'm afraid I won't be able to see them!"

Xiu Nian said: "Village Chief Ren will grow old and strong, too modest!"

Ren Song waved his hand and said: "It's not that I'm modest. In terms of craftsmanship, at least I won't fall behind in the nearby ten miles and eight towns, but in terms of business skills, I still need to be able to read and write. Young people with flexible brains are amazing. Monk, do you know that there is an academy opened by the Yamen in Dinghai Port, and there are courses dedicated to teaching people how to do business. If the old man is 30 or [-] years younger, he must also go to learn."

Xiu Nian replied: "It's not long since I came down to Zhoushan, this is the first time I've heard of it."

The government-run academy mentioned by Ren Songkou is actually a training course organized by the commercial department of Zhoushan Management Committee. Local young people with a certain cultural foundation are selected as training objects, so that they can learn how to use Zhoushan's unique trading environment to develop local All kinds of resources and special commodities, simply put, it is necessary to know how to do business.

Products such as pottery and bricks and tiles are hard to say have any characteristics, and their value does not seem to be high, but because of the huge amount of daily use, it is indeed an industry that can be operated for a long time.However, Zhoushan's population is still in the stage of continuous growth, and the demand for these products is also rising.The continuous expansion of production scale has also created a demand for professional operators. Craftsmen like Ren Song do not have sufficient management capabilities, so they also recommend candidates to Dinghai Port for training in order to operate the current characteristic industries in Fuqiang Village. .

Neither Ren Song nor Xiu Nian have a clear understanding of the door-to-door approach, but this does not prevent them from realizing the necessity of entrusting professional work to professionals.However, the Zhoushan authorities have never seen such an approach in the past. Whether it is the Ming Dynasty or the Hirado Domain, the government will only be responsible for collecting taxes and taxes, and it is absolutely impossible to train professionals in business for the people.

As for whether such an operation method works, Fuqiang Village has obviously tasted the sweetness from it.Xiu Nian noticed that the roads outside the village, the houses of the villagers, and the number of carriages traveling to and from the kiln factory were obviously stronger than those of Gaoxie Village that he had been to before. It seems that Wang Dagui said that the wealth of Fuqiang Village is higher than that of Gaoxie Village. It is true.

Xiu Nian looked at the Japanese immigrants who were working hard to make adobe, and thought that this group of people had good luck. The skills they learned in Fuqiang Village could benefit them for life, and they would no longer have to worry about livelihood issues.

In contrast, Xiu Nian also realized that she should be the one with the best luck. At least she doesn't need to do heavy physical labor when they are assigned to settlements like these ordinary immigrants.The task of visiting various villages in Baiquan Town did not seem to be as difficult as imagined. To be precise, it went smoothly beyond expectations. Both the village chief and the villagers gave extremely high cooperation, and there was no Xiu Nian. Concerned non-cooperative status.

Xiu Nian was not quite sure whether it was her status as an official post that played a role, or whether these people had enough trust in the mayor to allow her errands to go smoothly.However, he knew that his so-called status as an official post was actually just a misunderstanding of these people. He was indeed a person who came to handle the post with a letter of introduction from the town office, but he was still not an official post, because he hadn't even obtained the status that Hai Han people and immigrants valued very much. Nationality, in essence, is still a foreign immigrant.

From a certain point of view, Xiu Nian's experience in Gaoxie Village and Fuqiang Village can be regarded as super-standard treatment.And this also made him have more expectations for his own development prospects. After all, he can enjoy such a superior treatment just after joining the job. Then when he becomes a regular naturalized in the future, he can walk in Baiquan Town with his head held high.

"Monk, you must have had a very unusual experience to be an official on Zhoushan Island, right?"

Ren Song's question brought Xiu Nian back from contemplation, and he responded with a smile: "Yeah, looking back now, this experience was really unusual, luckily I chose the right way every time. If I start all over again, I might not be able to get to this place.”

When Xiu Nian was in Hirado, she had no intention of joining Haihan, and she stood up to help Haihan's army maintain order at the beginning, purely for the purpose of self-protection.But what he thought was right was rejected by his former partners, so he had to completely break away from his past identity in Seogwipo and seek refuge in Haihan to obtain better living conditions.

Xiu Nian thinks that he has not actively hurt anyone during this process. On the contrary, he knows that he has helped many Hirado people who were taken away by the Haihan army to save their lives, even those fellow monks who regarded him as a traitor. .Xiu Nian thought that what he did was right, so he never felt ashamed of his choice, and at this time, when he looked back at the choices he made before, it naturally seemed extremely correct.

However, Xiu Nian did not intend to brag about his experience to Ren Song when they met for the first time. This was because he was unclear about Hai Han’s purpose of attacking Hirado, and he did not want Ren Song to have some kind of hostility because of his background; Determine whether Ren Song will spread what he said, if Jiang Zian hears some rumors, he may not be able to keep his job.He knew that his status as an official post was questionable, but the other party was a genuine village chief who was paid monthly by the town office. The consequences of saying the wrong thing in front of the other party could be very serious.

To be on the safe side, Xiu Nian still kept her mouth shut and did not have an in-depth discussion with Ren Song on this topic.He asked Ren Song to lead the way to the place where these new immigrants were resettled. Ren Song did not refuse, and Dang even took him to the village.

Fuqiang Village temporarily placed these immigrants in the village school.That’s right, in order to enable more than 20 dolls in the village to be able to read and write, Fuqiang Village specially invited a teacher to set up a school in the village so that the dolls can study nearby instead of going to the school in the town to live and study.

"The dolls read and write here during the day, and they make room for the new immigrants to sleep at night. The 20 people in the town have a total of eight households. If they want to build houses for eight households at one go, it will take 200 people, and the construction period will take six. It will take seven days to complete. So they have to stay in the school for a while, and if it is fast, they will be able to move into the new house next month."

While listening to Ren Song's introduction, Xiu Nian looked at the school's environment.This kind of brick and tile house seems to be a standard configuration in Fuqiang Village, and in order to make it easier for schoolchildren to read and write, there are some bright tiles on the roof, so the lighting in the house is also very good, it can be said that the windows are bright and clean.The fact that new immigrants can temporarily live in this book-rich environment seems to be slightly better than Gaoxie Village’s arrangement in the ancestral hall.Of course, there was no village school in Gaoxie Village, and all the students went to the public school in the town, so there was no way to make a fair comparison.

Xiu Nian asked casually, "Is the house built for new immigrants also this kind of brick house?"

After asking, Xiu Nian felt that this question was a little redundant. The cost of a brick house is at least several times that of a thatched house with mud walls. Why does Fuqiang Village provide such good treatment to new immigrants.

However, Ren Song nodded with a face of course: "Of course we have to build brick houses, otherwise these newcomers will feel that they are inferior in the village? Our Fuqiang Village accepts several batches of immigrants every year. If we treat them differently each time , the atmosphere has formed in the local area, after a few more years, how many levels will be divided in this village?"

At first, Xiu Nian thought that Ren Song's approach was because Fuqiang Village was relatively rich, and he could do whatever he wanted with his wealth, but after thinking about it, apart from Fuqiang Village's financial resources and its own advantages of being able to build bricks and tiles, Ren Song's concept also had its own reasons. To a certain extent, if there is a difference in treatment between the existing villagers and the new immigrants, which leads to a estrangement between the groups, it will indeed be detrimental to the villagers' getting along and the unity of the village in the long run.

But he also remembered the practice of Gaoxie Village, which only provided thatched houses for new immigrants. As for renovating and building better houses in the future, he had to make his own efforts.Wang Dagui believes that this approach can better stimulate the new immigrants to work hard and let them adapt to the social rules of using labor to improve their quality of life.

Which of these two approaches is better, Xiu Nian felt that it was difficult to judge based on his own knowledge, but he felt that the two village chiefs' actions had relatively good reasons. Maybe this issue needs to be waited after returning to the town office to see if it can be resolved. Can't get an answer from the mayor.

After visiting the school, Ren Song politely invited Xiu Nian to stay for dinner, but Xiu Nian wanted to go back to the town hall earlier.Compared to enjoying a dinner in Fuqiang Village, he would rather go back earlier to sort out the harvest of the day.

Before leaving, Ren Song also gave him a souvenir, a pottery pot produced in Fuqiang Village, it was not small, and it was a bit heavy in his hand.

"I made it myself. You can put pickled vegetables, rice, and water. It's not something valuable. Monk, don't dislike it... If the town hall is not so far away that you can't carry it, I would like to send you a clay pot... ..."

Xiu Nian could only smile wryly and thank Ren Song for his kindness. After seeing the crock pot with a diameter of two and a half feet, he still wisely chose a clay pot that was easier to handle.He understands that Wang Dagui and Ren Song may give him things for the purpose of getting closer, but this is not to say that there is much interest in them, and it is not to bribe him. After all, the gifts are all local products in the village, and they are not worth much. money.

This sense of simplicity reminded Xiu Nian of the time when she was in Guangming Temple, when believers would often come to the temple to offer various fruits and vegetables harvested from their own fields.Although the property they worship is far less than the incense money sent to the temple by those dignitaries and nobles, it has a more simple piety.

Xiu Nian thinks that from a certain point of view, these village chiefs are also believers, but what they believe in is not the invisible gods and Buddhas, but the government that can bring them a stable life.And myself, a fake official who has water, symbolizes the authority of the government in the eyes of these village chiefs.The gift given to themselves is actually a kind of offering to express awe to the object of their belief, not for themselves to help them achieve certain goals.

Xiu Nian knew that the two villages she visited today were only two randomly selected villages. There are dozens of other villages like this on Zhoushan Island. At least it was very different from the farmers he had come into contact with in Hirado in the past.

These people are no longer just farming for a living, they have other sidelines, although these sidelines are not uncommon, but these villages are able to run impressively.Their vision has long been no longer limited to the one-acre three-point land in front of them, but has seen a larger scope through the industries they operate, the entire Baiquan Town, the entire Zhoushan colonial area, and even Haihan thousands of miles away. the capital.

They are still farmers, but they are no longer traditional farmers in Xiu Nian's mind.With Xiu Nian's knowledge, he doesn't know how to define the state of these people, he just feels intuitively that the lifestyle of these ordinary people is also a manifestation of the national strength of Hai Han.

Is this just a special case in Zhoushan, or does the entire Haihan Kingdom have such an atmosphere, and other villages have special industries? How does the Zhoushan Management Committee manage and coordinate the affairs of so many villages? Xiu Nian suddenly wondered about this. interest.

He knew that maybe the people in the town hall could answer some of his questions, so he wanted to go back to the town as soon as possible.But it was much more difficult than visiting the village itself, because the clay pot in my hand was really heavy.

(End of this chapter)