1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 2492
In August 1649, Li Hao, who had been away from his hometown for many years, finally returned to the Korean peninsula.Accompanied by Haihan officials, he went back to Seoul first, but Li Yan did not allow him to enter the city to have an audience, but summoned him in the palace outside the city.

The two brothers have been away for many years, and now they meet again, but they have no sense of intimacy at all. On the contrary, they both hold obvious guards.Li Yan was worried that Hai Han sent this brother back with the purpose of seizing power, and Li Hao was also afraid that his brother would regard him as a threat and attack him.

Fortunately, there was Haihan mediating, and the two brothers did not have any conflicts. They had a fake talk, and then Li Yan announced that he would reward Li Hao as the King of Zhenbei, enfeoff the city of Pyongyang, and lead Ping'an Road and Hamgyong in the north. road area.

Of course, this is not Li Yi's own intention, but Hai Han's request to him.Although he was not reconciled to being decentralized, it was better than being directly replaced by Li Hao. Sending him to Pyongyang would also prevent him from staying in Seoul to make friends with court ministers.Moreover, Ping'an and Xianjing are adjacent to Manqing, and the pressure on the frontier defense is not small. If something goes wrong in the future, it will be easier to deal with Li Hao at that time.

And such an arrangement is also a good thing for Li Hao. If he stays in Seoul, he will be watched by Li Hao all the time, and sooner or later he will find a reason to put him under house arrest so as not to threaten the stability of the throne.Leaving Seoul for Pyongyang means that he finally has room for him to play. What he has seen and learned in Hai Han country these years finally has a chance to come in handy.

Li Hao's jurisdiction is dominated by mountainous terrain, and the area of ​​plain arable land suitable for agricultural development is limited, mainly concentrated in the coastal areas near Pyongyang.But this will not affect the future development of the area under his rule, because most of the natural resources on the Korean Peninsula are distributed in this area, especially the coal and iron deposits, which are almost all concentrated in the northern part of the peninsula.As long as Haihan gives support in the future, the development prospects in the north will not be worse than those in the south.

Of course, the Li brothers did not realize at this time that the purpose of Haihan's move was to create a situation of dividing the north and the south in Korea, and this situation would exist for a long time until two relatively independent countries gradually formed in later generations. s country.

In the next two years, the executive committee devoted its main energy to digesting and governing the Guangdong, Guangxi and Fujian regions. It did not initiate any foreign military operations, and the large-scale colonial expansion activities also temporarily came to an end.

However, the immigration activities in the Haihan Kingdom's ruled area are still frequent, especially the scale of immigrants sent from the more populous new ruled area to various overseas colonial areas. The peak once reached the level of nearly [-] people per month.

These populations quickly filled the Haihan colonial areas including Taiwan, Jeju Island, Sasebo, Japan, and various places in the South China Sea. According to official statistics, at least 1649 people moved out of the mainland from 1651 to 20. To the area under the rule of Haihan.

These immigrant populations not only greatly eased the demand for labor in the overseas colonial areas, but also solved the livelihood problems of some poor people in the former Ming Dynasty ruled area, greatly reducing the social pressure in these areas.

Not all of these immigrant populations who moved overseas came from areas that had been annexed by Haihan, and there were also a large number of people from neighboring Yunnan, Guizhou, Hunan, Jiangxi and other places.

During the same period, the Liaolu colonial region located in the Yellow and Bohai Sea regions also ushered in a wave of population growth.Due to natural disasters and the widening gap between the rich and the poor, a large number of poor people began to migrate to the relatively affluent Haihan ruled area.

Of course, the Ming court also noticed this bad trend, but there were not many measures they could take to deal with it. Once they acted more aggressively, it might become an excuse for Haihan to annex their own territory.But seeing his opponent digging into his own wall, and really unwilling to reconcile, Chongzhen ordered all localities to strengthen the control of floating population, trying to prevent the flow of population to the Haihan ruled area through such restrictions.

However, the effect of this kind of measure is obviously very limited, and Haihan has long been prepared for it. The decree issued by Chongzhen is still not as effective as the money given by Haihan. Turning a blind eye and closing one's eyes did not play the role Chongzhen expected.

During this period, the war between the Ming Dynasty and the Manchu Qing Dynasty was still not completely over, and small-scale sporadic wars still occurred frequently. However, both sides were afraid of Haihan, the eye-catching bystander, and tacitly controlled the scale of the battle, and no longer easily Put in a lot of troops, so as not to be robbed by Haihan in case the battle is unfavorable for your own side.

Haihan has basically stopped further offensives against the Manchus during this period, and will not take the initiative to cooperate with Ming Dynasty to initiate military operations against the Manchus.Maintaining the current situation is the most reasonable choice for both Haihan and the Liaolu region in the north.

In this way, Ming's military focus can continue to be placed on the northern frontier, and there is no time to fight against Haihan. It can also leave a thought for the Manchus, allowing them to continue to fight against Ming. At the same time, it also allows Haihan to retain a large-scale garrison in the north. Provide good reasons.

When the time entered 1652, Wang Tom voluntarily resigned from his position as admiral of the navy and began to concentrate on preparing for his transoceanic journey.Returning to North America has always been Tom Wang's long-cherished wish, but the Executive Committee does not support Tom Wang's idea, even if the existing navigation technology can support him to establish ocean routes across the Pacific Ocean and establish colonies in North America, It will also quickly lose the sense of belonging to Haihan because of the distance.Perhaps in a generation or two, the North American colony without restraint will establish an independent country, and this is not a development prospect that the Executive Committee is happy to see.

The development route expected by the executive committee is still to center on the East Asian continent, expand the territory southward and westward along the coastline, and at the same time gradually annex the ruling area of ​​Ming Dynasty.But Wang Tom's goal is too far away, and to establish a colony in North America, the funds and materials required are astronomical. The Executive Committee believes that the cost performance is too low, and it is not suitable to implement such a plan in this era.

Wang Tom is already over 50 years old at this time, and he knows that he may not wait for the day when Haihan will expand the direction of expansion to the other side of the ocean, and Haihan's navy is already invincible in East Asia at this time. The position of the naval commander is no longer challenging, so he became the first senior general of the Haihan Army to resign voluntarily after the founding of Haihan.

(End of this chapter)