1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 784 New Colonial Port
When Dong Yanyun saw this place, he had some impressions in his mind. He often traveled between Zhangzhou and Dayuan Port in his early years, and he also passed by here by boat. He knew that there was a rather large harbor in the narrow mouth of the bay.However, he has never had the experience of going ashore at this place, because it is said that the natives here are very ferocious, not only eat human flesh, but also have a very strong taste, and they must wait for the corpse to rot before eating it.Of course, this is just a rumour. Although the Maka Taoists do have a bit of a strong taste, they haven't reached the point of cannibalism.No matter what the purpose of the person spreading such rumors is, the sensational rumors are enough to stop people like Dong Yanyun who don't know the truth.

Dong Yanyun was still somewhat interested in this place at the time, and planned to ask Xu Xinsu to send more people to him, and then explore whether this place has value for immigration development.But then the relationship between Xu Xinsu and Zheng Zhilong took a turn for the worse, and he had to spend money to buy an official in exchange for a protective umbrella. Then Shibazhi occupied Penghu and took over the waterway between the mainland and Dayuan Port. Xu Xinsu also cut off the trade relationship with the Dutch. , so far the opportunity to occupy this place has been lost.

Shibazhi has a large-scale colonization area in Bengang, north of Dayuan Port. With their strength, it is difficult to open up another colonial area in a short period of time. Moreover, most of Shibazhi's seagoing ships are concentrated in the Penghu Magong Port does not have high requirements for the port conditions on the Taiwan Island side.And the Dutch who are close at hand can't even fix their own nests. It took almost eight years for a city of Zeelandia to be completed and about half of it was completed. Naturally, they have no time to come here to open a sub-mine.As a result, they turned around, but the Haihan people who arrived at the end took advantage of this place, and sent people to occupy it without making a sound.

Throughout the history of Haihan's family fortune, as long as it was eaten into the mouth of the site, it has never been spit out again, and this place must be no exception. In the end, it is just to see if it will be as devoted as Haihan's propaganda With a lot of resources, it will be built into a large seaport city in the region.

Dong Yanyun also admired the decisiveness of the Haihan people in opening up colonies. As long as they saw the target, they would strike very quickly, and the scale of resources mobilized in a short period of time was hardly comparable to that of the Ming government. Prevent.Similar to the development of Kaohsiung Port this time, the Haihan people suppressed the neighboring Dutch with their military strength, and deliberately concealed the preliminary preparations from the Fujian government to exclude possible obstacles. Obviously, they have already had a comprehensive plan. .Whether it is the Dutch or the Fujian government, it may be difficult to influence Haihan's development plan.

As the sailboat slowly sailed into the strait, Dong Yanyun also noticed that there were many brazier cursors on the coasts on both sides, in order to prevent ships entering the port in the dark from being stranded on the shore due to unknown directions.Although there were no people on the shore because of the dark sky, Dong Yanyun could imagine that there must be more than one pair of eyes watching the boat he was on the shore in the darkness.

After the sailboat sailed through the narrow channel, the water surface in front of it suddenly opened up, and the lights on the pier in the distance could already be seen.A strange idea suddenly came to Dong Yanyun's mind, since the lighthouses built by the Haihan people at the mouth of the harbor are still temporary facilities, there must be no time to build a fort here.If we launch an offensive here, we might be able to snatch this place from the Haihan people.

However, this idea only existed in his mind for a short while and then disappeared, because he had already seen a row of Haihan warships docked on the coast, not only had the "exploration ship" of the same level as the sailing ship he was on. "class" warship, and even an "expedition-class" warship that is one size larger. Regardless of whether the Haihan people have had time to build coastal fortifications on the coast, the deployment of the militia navy alone is enough to guard this harbor. .

"The people of Haihan have always been shrewd, how could they leave obvious loopholes for others to take advantage of?" Dong Yanyun not only felt a little ridiculous for his previous thoughts, but Haihan had always been the only one who plotted against others, but he had never heard of anyone plotting against Haihan. .

The sailboat slowly docked, and after the gangway was set up, Yang Yun came to invite Dong Yanyun to go ashore.Dong Yanyun went down to the pier and immediately saw Anxi.He knew that after he set off from Penghu, Qian Tiandun must have contacted here by telegram, and immediately took the initiative to greet him and said, "How dare you have Mr. Lao An!"

Sure enough, Anxi bowed back with a smile and said, "It's Mr. Dong's hard work. In order to come to this wild place, he took a boat from Penghu for a whole day. It must not be easy."

The two stood and exchanged greetings, and Anxi invited Dong Yanyun to have dinner in the cafeteria of the Port Affairs Center.Dong Yanyun hadn't had dinner on the boat yet, and she was indeed a little hungry at this time, so she readily responded immediately.

The base of Kaohsiung Port has just been established, and it is not even open to the outside world. Of course, there are no restaurants or other places to entertain guests. Only the Port Affairs Center has set up a canteen for naturalized cadres and heads of Haihan. The environmental conditions are natural. It is also not as good as other ports that have become climates under the Han rule in Shanghai, just a bamboo shed with ventilation on all sides.However, the dishes are the same. Almost everything that can be eaten in Shengli Fort in Sanya can be served here, that is, the dining conditions are a little bit shabby.

Dong Yanyun didn't mind such details, he came to Kaohsiung Port to see the progress of the development here, and by the way, to get close to the local supervisor of Haihan, the food and accommodation conditions were not the focus of his attention.But after arriving at the cafeteria, he was very happy to meet another acquaintance, Chen Yixin, a young officer of the Haihan Militia.

The three of them didn't talk too much about the development status of Kaohsiung Port at the dinner table. Dong Yanyun tried to bring the topic to the development progress a few times, but Anxi changed the topic very tactfully, and only said that he would meet in person tomorrow. Show him around.Hearing is believing, seeing is believing, since the Haihan people didn't intend to talk about it at the wine table, Dong Yanyun didn't ask any further questions.

Early the next morning, a staff member brought breakfast to Dong Yanyun and his two followers.Not long after breakfast, Anxi took the initiative to visit and invited Dong Yanyun to visit the local development.

The first stop of the investigation was the immigrant camp not far from the shore, which was next to the place where Dong Yanyun lived.It was too dark last night, and the immigrant camp was still under curfew, so Dong Yanyun didn't see how big the camp was.When it was daytime, Dong Yanyun also took a deep breath of air-conditioning. Just looking at the rows of large tents and the simple prefabricated houses being built in the distance, he could roughly calculate that the immigrants sent here by Haihan were probably It's already over a thousand.

Calculating from the time alone, after the Penghu garrison landed on Taiwan Island for the second time, Haihan began to implement the immigration plan. It has only been about ten days until now, and so many immigrants have been resettled here.Based on Haihan's way of developing the colony in the past, what he saw was probably only the first batch of advance teams who arrived here to engage in infrastructure construction, and there must be many batches to follow.

The Dutch have been operating in Dayuan Port for eight years, and now including their servants and natives, the local population is only 3000 to [-].Shibazhi’s operating time in Bengang is almost the same as that of the Dutch, and the population in the control area is a little more than that of the Dutch. However, because the local port does not have good port conditions, it is only an inland port connected to the outside world, so The degree of commercial development is extremely low, and the vast majority of the local population relies on farming and fishing for a living, and their ability to create wealth is extremely limited.

The Haihan people's routines in this regard are obviously much smarter and stronger than their competitors. From the very beginning, they have chosen the location according to the operational needs of the trading port. In the early stage, they introduced a large number of immigrants and provided strong military protection.The immigrants who came here dare not say anything else, but at least they should feel at ease in terms of safety. If the place where the Haihan militia is stationed is not safe, then there is no safe place in the entire southeast sea area.

Anxi took Dong Yanyun into the camp and walked around. Just like the Haihan colonies that Dong Yanyun had visited before, the camp here also has all kinds of public facilities.There are shallow drainage ditches outside each simple prefabricated house and temporary tent. Each camp has its own public toilets, bathhouses and garbage stations. There is even an artesian well built in one corner of the camp, and a small two-foot-square one is built next to it. Cistern.

After the previous theft in the camp, the management agency has also increased the corresponding efforts to maintain public security. From time to time, there will be police and militia squads alternately patrolling the camp.In this way, if there are still people who dare to commit crimes against the wind, they probably really want to stay in the hard labor camp until they die.

"Excuse me, Mr. An, what is the current local population? Is there any plan to introduce immigrants in the future? Can you tell me something." Dong Yanyun asked about this at the dinner table last night, but Anxi did not give a positive answer at that time. With the situation here, he still couldn't help asking the question in his heart again.

This time, Anxi was very straightforward, and he didn't avoid the important things: "The current immigrant population is about 2000. Counting the militia troops and some craftsmen temporarily stationed here, there should be 800 people. As for the follow-up... probably every Yue Ye will send [-] people here, and after the local permanent residents reach [-], it may take a while."

Dong Yanyun thought to himself that when the Haihan people first landed in Shengli Port, it is said that their number was no more than 5000, but now they can easily settle [-] people in the new colony.Except for the port infrastructure, there probably won't be any local industry that needs so much labor in a short period of time. It is conceivable that Haihan wants to build a large port here is not bragging.

"Mr. Dong, if you are interested, we can go and see the planned port area." Anxi offered the invitation.

Naturally, Dong Yanyun would not refuse such an invitation, and immediately nodded in response: "Then there will be Mr. Lao An!"

An Xidang even ordered: "Come on, bring two horses!"

Dong Yanyun wondered: "This port is not only a hundred feet away, it's only a short walk away, why do you need to go there on horseback?"

Anxi smiled and said, "What Mr. Dong saw when he came last night was only a small section of our planned port area. I want to take you to see how big the scope of our planned Kaohsiung Port Phase I project is."

Then someone brought in two pack horses. Although their appearance was not majestic enough, there was nothing special about riding them for transportation in this wilderness.Dong Yanyun got on the horse with doubts, and walked parallel with Anxi holding the rein.

When entering the port last night, it was too dark, and Dong Yanyun couldn't see clearly what was going on in the harbor. Today, when he went to the coast again, he found that the harbor was much bigger than he had imagined before.

At present, Haihan's temporary pier for berthing ships is just a small bay surrounded by a U-shaped coastline surrounded by a large harbor, but just at the end of this small harbor, the coastline is about ten miles long.According to Anxi's introduction, the area of ​​this small harbor in the entire Kaohsiung Port is only about one-fifth.This section of the coast alone is enough to build dozens of piers.When Dong Yanyun heard this, he was convinced that what he heard from Qian Tiandun before was not bragging. The seaport of this place can indeed accommodate the coexistence of maritime merchants from Fuzhou and Guangzhou, and it is more than enough.

"Mr. An, is that the construction site of Guangzhou Furuifeng over there?" Dong Yanyun suddenly saw a familiar face among the people working on the shore, and asked Anxi immediately.

Anxi nodded and said: "This land has indeed been allocated to Fu Ruifeng, it seems that you know their foreman!"

Dong Yanyun replied: "It's not even acquaintance. I met him a few times when I was in Guangzhou, and I know he is from the Li family. Mr. An, can you tell me how much land the Li family has allocated here?"

"A 150-foot coastline has been designated for them at the wharf, and an adjacent [-] mu of land has been designated for them to build warehouses and commercial warehouses." Anxi didn't mean to help the Li family hide it, and said it outright. .As the local chief executive, in addition to managing administrative affairs, investment promotion is also part of his work.In terms of the state of competition between maritime merchants in Fujian and Guangzhou, even if it is only in the stage of enclosing land and infrastructure, Fujian will probably not allow Guangdong's counterparts to gain the upper hand.

Sure enough, Dong Yanyun immediately continued: "Then please allow me to apply for a piece of dock land here on behalf of Mr. Xu. If the rules allow, the land will be twice as large as the land allocated by Fu Ruifeng. As for the cost, Mr. An doesn't need to worry about it." .”

Anxi smiled and said, "I'm not worried about whether you can get the money, but how many people are you going to bring to construct such a large piece of land?"

Dong Yanyun replied without hesitation: "It's okay, at least it's much closer than coming from Guangdong."

Now that it was a foregone conclusion for the Cantonese to settle here, Dong Yanyun decided to change the way, at least to suppress the competitors in terms of the scale of operation.

(End of this chapter)