Great Song Super Scholar

Chapter 584
In the morning of the next day, Fan Ning and the imperial court signed an agreement on the sale of overseas islands. The two parties decided to sell Ganjiang Island, three thousand miles east of the South Continent, at a price of 8 taels of gold. North Island and South Island are just popular names. In the map submitted to the imperial court by overseas strategic envoys, the official names of the North Island and the South Island are Ganjiang Island and Moxie Island.

This is the name of the two divine weapons of the Han nationality. The imperial court approved this name in the hope of deterring overseas with the divine weapons.

Prior to this, the Overseas Economic Bureau bought ten paddle boats of 3 shi from Fan's firm at a price of 3 taels of gold, with an average of [-] taels of silver per boat. Return it to Jingkou Zhu's Shipyard, where it will be transformed into a steamship and put on overseas voyages.

The imperial court also accepted the deal and converted it into the money for the purchase of the island. In fact, the Fan family only needed to pay 5 taels of gold to purchase this large island, which is similar in size to Luzon Island.

The news quickly spread among the land purchase circles. Although it was unexpected that Fan Ning would also purchase an island, it was normal when one thought about it. Fan Ning represented the Fan family, and it was not surprising that the family also wanted to purchase an island overseas.

It's just that the distance of Fanning's purchase of the island is jaw-dropping, and the distance of the southern mainland is already unbearable. The island they bought is three thousand miles away from the east of the mainland. Optimistic about the purchase island of the Fan family.

In the morning, Fan Ning signed the agreement, and in the afternoon, Mingren and Mingli will go to Taifu Temple to deliver the goods. Taifu Temple is in charge of Dasong Zuo Zangku, and needs to hand over Taifu Temple's money collection receipt and other property certificates offset to the Department of Household Affairs. After the accounting is correct, the department will issue a payment certificate for the purchase of islands, and finally take the payment certificate for the purchase of islands to the Yantie Division to obtain the land deed for overseas islands, and this is considered to be the official completion of the purchase of islands.

These procedures alone would take a long time to run, and Fan Ning sat alone in Zhuji restaurant in the south of the city having a drink, waiting for news from Brother Mingren and Mingli.

At noon, Fan Ning paid a visit to Cao Yi, and at the same time met Cao Cong from the Cao family. Cao Cong told him clearly that the Cao family and the Gao family would formally sign a contract with the imperial court tomorrow to take down Moxie Island.

Fan Ning visited the Cao family, hoping that the Cao family could exert influence on the military and send troops to the South Island and North Island temporarily. It would be best to deploy [-] troops on each of the two islands. On the one hand, they continued to search for the aborigines on the island. Last time, they just searched carelessly and did not search carefully.

In the island purchase agreement drafted by the imperial court, the imperial court also promised to ensure the safety of the sold land. If there are aboriginal or alien invasions, the imperial court will send troops to assist the owner to drive them away.

It was this condition that gave Fan Ning a reason to apply to the imperial court for the garrison of troops, and the troops withdrew from the island only after the island owner had the ability to protect himself.

Cao Cong also agreed to push the military to garrison troops on the North and South Islands.

In the elegant room, Fan Ning was drinking tea while thinking about his plans for the next year. His focus for the next year will undoubtedly be on the South Continent, and at the same time assisting the North Island. Mingren will be in charge of the preliminary construction of the North Island, and Zhu Lin will be in charge of assisting him.

But his main focus is still on the Southern Continent. The Southern Continent is too important to the Great Song Dynasty. Only when the Southern Continent is successfully developed will the people of the Song Dynasty migrate continuously and completely occupy this resource-rich continent.

But for the success of the development of the Southern Continent, the first step is particularly critical. I'm afraid it is really like what Han Qi said, and I have to personally hold the battle in the Southern Continent.

While thinking about it, there was a rush of footsteps outside the door, and then the door was pushed open, Ming Ren and Ming Li rushed in, the two were extremely excited.

"A-Ning, we got it!"

Ming Ren waved a thick land deed, Fan Ning was overjoyed, quickly took the land deed in his hand, took away the tea on the table, and then carefully put the land deed on the table.

The title deed is a booklet, similar in size to a book, with black lacquered gold letters on the cover, and a line of "Land Purchase Contract for Overseas Islands in the Song Dynasty" printed in gold letters in block letters.

Open it, and there is a detailed description of Fan Ning's purchase of the Great Song Qianjiang Island. The buyer is Fan Ning, and the amount is 8 taels of gold. The island is an uninhabited island, [-] miles long from north to south, and [-] miles wide from east to west. , purchased for title, and the island is owned by Fanning from the effective date of this deed.

The purchase contract was attached to the title deed, followed by a map of the island. This map was hand-painted by Fan Ning as an overseas strategist, and the north-south length and east-west length of the island were marked on it.

Regarding the real area of ​​the island, this is very important. If the imperial court sends people to measure it in the future and finds that it is completely inconsistent with the actual area, the imperial court is likely to revoke the title deed, making it no longer legal for the two families of Fan Zhu to own the island.

This point is clearly written in the island purchase contract. The land purchaser shall purchase the land with the real area. The imperial court reserves the right to retest the land. The local people make up the money and the interest generated by it, and there is a note below. The huge difference means that the area of ​​the purchased land is more than [-]% different from the actual area.

This made Ming Ren and Ming Li very emotional. Before, they complained that Fan Ning reported the area truthfully. If they followed their personalities, they would definitely report the island area reduced by ten times.

Now it seems that the imperial court is not stupid at all. It has retained the clause of post-mortem inspection, and the clause is permanently valid. It is not afraid of their investigation now, but it is afraid that the imperial court will investigate again in a hundred years and find sufficient reasons to directly abolish the ownership of the Fan family's island. Time is too late to regret.

"A-Ning, what should we do next?" Ming Li asked excitedly.

Fan Ning said with a smile: "The next step is to bring together the Fan family and the Zhu family to discuss how to develop this big island, and everyone will work together."

As soon as Fan Ning finished speaking, he suddenly heard a loud horn sound from outside the city, "Woo—" the sound echoed outside the city, not quite like the sound of a horn, but more like the sound of a trumpet.

Fanning suddenly realized that it was the whistle, the sound made by the steam of the ship.

Zhu Yuanfeng's steamboat came.

He hastily put away the title deed, and rushed out of the city with Ming Ren and Ming Li.

At this time, the steamboat flying the Zhu family's banner caused a sensation in the capital, and countless people rushed to the Bianhe River from all directions. On the Bianhe River, a fleet of three thousand shi had no sculls to shake, no sails, and no one to pull the slack. , the part of the middle mast turned into a tall black chimney with black smoke rising from it.

Behind it is a huge paddle wheel, which rotates rapidly to push the boat forward. Many people thought it was a pedal boat, but soon they saw clearly that the inner panels of the boat had been removed, and inside was a large machine , in front of it is a stove, a strong man is adding coal to the stove, and a tall chimney is erected above the stove.

And behind the stove is another machine, three huge iron cylinders are juxtaposed, connected by pipes in the middle, three iron rods twitch back and forth in the iron cylinders, driving a circular wheel, and the rotation of the circular wheel finally drives the paddle wheel to roll.

This big ship cruised back and forth on the Bian River, walked for fifteen or six miles, and then turned back, as if to show off, all other ships were moored, only it was walking chugly on the river, not slow.

At this time, the two sides of the strait were crowded with people watching the excitement. There were crowds of people covering the river bank more than ten miles long. There were at least 10,000+ people. Fan Ning stood on a bridge and looked at this bare steam boat. The boat stripped naked for all to see.

However, Fan Ning is more concerned about the speed of this ship. Visually, it is about ten kilometers per hour, which is almost twice as fast as the previous paddle boat. However, if the propeller is used, the speed can be increased by 400%, and it is estimated to reach ten knots. They can walk more than [-] kilometers in one day and night, reach Luzon Island in four days, and reach the southern mainland in more than [-] days.

At this moment, the officials of the imperial court rushed over after hearing the news. Standing on the bow of the boat, Zhu Yuanfeng saw several ministers, and he waved his hands proudly to them.

Looking at this large ship that was fast and capable of navigating automatically, several prime ministers looked at each other in blank dismay. They suddenly understood Fan Ning's confidence in insisting on conquering the southern continent, and also understood why Fan Ning bought such a distant island.

(End of this chapter)