Back to Ming Dynasty with Industrial Revolution System

Chapter 971 Establishing a world-class zoo and botanical garden?
"Why did you come back a year later than planned?" Chu Yun thought of this when they were about to leave.

The two looked at each other, and then one of them said: "Originally we were going to return as planned at the end of the first year. At the end of the year, the captain Cheng Hong took people out to sea to find the New Zealand island group on the other side of the sea. Lost contact after the storm. After we lost the command, we couldn’t confirm the list of returning personnel, and there were still many things in the stronghold that hadn’t been built, so we stayed for a while.”

"Is something wrong with the captain?" Chu Yun asked.

"We also thought that something happened to them at one time, and then they returned in the summer of the following year, and almost half of the crew who went to sea with Cheng Hong died." The expedition team replied.

"Sacrifice half of it..." Chu Yun understood what this loss meant. As the most vast ocean, the Pacific Ocean was full of dangers.

"Did they find the New Zealand Islands?" Chu Yun asked.

"According to the captain, the mast of their ship was broken during the heavy rain and they were stranded on a small island in the Pacific Ocean. Based on the longitude and latitude, the captain suspected that they were in the waters southwest of New Zealand, so he planned to turn to the northeast after repairing the ship. However, nearly half of the crew died in the heavy rain, and the rest of the crew refused to go to the unknown sea, so the captain had to take them back the same way." Said the expedition team member.

That is to say, New Zealand has not been discovered yet... If there is no storm, Cheng Hong and the others who have a brief map may have landed on New Zealand land, but it is not at fault that nearly half of the crew lost and asked to retreat. The situation at that time was already very urgent.

"New Zealand is not in a hurry to discover or emigrate immediately. It is estimated that there is not much difference from the continent of Oceania." Chu Yun is also quite interested in New Zealand, a land that has not been touched by anyone, but has no idea of ​​​​occupying it immediately. The Western Pacific is the sphere of influence of the Kyushu Army, and it will be a matter of time before they land on the New Zealand Islands.

"There were 447 members of our team that went to Oceania this time. When we returned, only 384 were still alive. Some died in shipwrecks, and others died of diseases, wild animals, and local tribal conflicts." Said the expedition team member.

"63 people died in the past two years, and the death rate was as high as 14%, which is a bit higher." Chu Yun calculated a little, but 14% of the people stayed in the South Pacific forever in two years.

"We went to Oceania with a mission, and we are ready to sacrifice at any time. It is our duty to take risks overseas for the future of China!" The two expedition members were former soldiers or employees of the Ministry of the Navy, and also Only they can have great courage to challenge the ocean.

"After you return to the team after your vacation, we will count the list of the sacrificed members and give their families pensions. The Admiralty will soon send a second batch of soldiers and civilians to the newly established stronghold. Yu Cheng, take the two of them down." Chu Yun said.

After Yu Cheng sent away the two expedition members who had returned to the mainland, Chu Yun looked at the quokka in the wooden cage and thought about how to develop the Oceania base next.

Tianji City, established in the Melbourne area, is the first local colony, with a vast land and sparse population, so it is not too much pressure to support millions of people.If only relying on the government to organize immigration, the settlement fee and pension fee will be very high.In order to support the first batch of 447 pioneers to explore Oceania, the Ministry of the Navy paid nearly 10 taels of silver, including these people's settlement expenses, pensions, several galleons and their supplies, two artillery pieces, etc. .

If you want to develop the resources of Oceania, you must mobilize the enthusiasm of the people, and how to mobilize the enthusiasm of the people can only rely on the "gold mine" in the Melbourne area.

The second batch of people sent to the Oceanian colonies needed geologists, preferably able to discover gold mines, to make up for the losses caused by organizing immigration.If the project of colonizing Oceania only puts money into it and does not make money, the already tight finances will only get worse.

In addition to geologists, lecturers will also be sent to Oceania. We must firmly grasp the patriotic education there, so that the Oceanian colonies cannot be separated from China.

When Chu Yun was thinking about the manpower and composition of the second batch of immigrants sent to the Oceania colony, the quokka in the wooden cage cried out and stared at Chu Yun eagerly.

I almost forgot about this thing, probably because I was hungry.Chu Yun opened the wooden cage and reached out to touch its chin.The dwarf kangaroo is like a cat, and it's a vegetarian that bites only when it provokes it.

The members of the expedition team who returned from Oceania probably caught sight of this dwarf kangaroo because of its small size and good temper, so they caught it and gave it to Chu Yun. If they brought back a big kangaroo that was as tall as a person, they would become grumpy Maybe even the owner was seriously injured.

The quokka was an endangered animal in Chu Yun's time, and its number was greatly reduced because the colonists domesticated foxes, hounds, cats and other hunters.

In this era, there are still a lot of them in Oceania.

Do you want to build a world-class botanical garden and zoo, collect all the animals and plants in the world in this "museum", and leave a special legacy for future generations?Chu Yun saw the later endangered animals and came up with the idea of ​​building a biological gene bank.After the industrial age, many species began to become extinct, such as the dodo, sea cow, Antarctic wolf, Chinese rhinoceros, Taiwan clouded leopard, Ryukyu kingfisher, and thylacine.Some even think that the industrial revolution is the beginning of the sixth extinction, when the rate of species extinction is 1000 times faster than the natural rate of extinction.

If there is no deliberate protection, this kind of mass extinction will also happen in this world.

"My lord, I've never seen such a strange animal. It looks like a mouse, but it's bigger than a mouse." After Yu Cheng turned back, he looked curiously at the quokka whose hair was stroked by Chu Yun.

"This is not a mouse. Although it is very similar, its relationship with mice is as distant as our relationship with humans. Mice are extremely capable of survival and can spread plague, but this kind of kangaroo is just like humans. Generally, only one child can be conceived a year, and it is much more fragile than a mouse." Chu Yun once saw this kind of animal in the zoo.

"How do you plan to place this gadget?" Yu Cheng asked.

"It traveled across the ocean and traveled thousands of miles to Huaxia. It was probably trapped in a cage along the way. Let it move around in the yard first. Grass, leaves, seeds and rhizomes may be its food. After two days, it will be in the yard. Build a wooden house for it, and if a zoo is established in the future, we can consider moving it to the zoo.”

(End of this chapter)