Lu Ming

Chapter 573 Team from the North

In the endless, never-ending rain, a large number of construction workers are desperately building on the coast of a foreign country.

There are two types of construction workers, which can be seen at a glance from their attire: one is short and thin locals in coir raincoats or tattered homespun clothes; the other is outsiders in canvas raincoats.

After going through the most difficult two days at the beginning, the traversers who had gained a foothold in Hongji Port couldn't wait to order the troops to attack in all directions and "recruit" the local aborigines to participate in the construction.

So the mobile team like Wu Sanye received the mission, set off in the continuous rain, and ventured to search inland.

Soon, some coastal fishermen and indigenous people from scattered inland villages were "invited" to the Hongjibao construction site by the development team.

Under normal circumstances, the indigenous villages are not so easy to submit.However, in the rainy season, the harsh natural environment greatly limited the reaction speed and mobility of the aborigines, so Wu Sanye and the others easily blocked the aborigines in their nests.

At this time, the aborigines can only honestly "respond to government corvee".Yes, in a copycat country like Annan, its political system is learned from China from top to bottom, including corvee.

As for the government. The translator with a local accent told the aborigines that this key project was an order from the government. Didn’t the well-equipped “Forest Army” come to the door?

The natives who were invited by the gun and bayonet, although they were muttering about the legitimacy of the visitor, they had to obey the visitor's order in action.

However, things quickly reversed.After the panicked people were escorted to the construction site to work for a day, they not only ate enough high-calorie meals, but also received wages when they left work in the evening: they could choose daily necessities such as copper coins or cloth, candles, salt, rice, etc., and paid daily.

For poor Annan farmers in the seventeenth century, finding such well-paid work during the rainy season was not too cost-effective.This time, there are no fake government offices anymore, and the officials who hang the banner of "Cao" are the real government offices. Whoever says it is fake, I am in a hurry!
Soon, the aborigines called for friends, braved the rain, and brought their fellow countrymen and relatives to support the country's construction.

Compared with outsiders, the natives are more adaptable to the local rainy season and terrain, so they undertake almost all non-technical tasks, such as clearing the surrounding vegetation and bringing back enough building materials to the construction site.

The so-called building materials are mainly some wooden poles and large plant leaves.These two things are for carrying out Zheng Yangyang's previous instructions: digging ditches and building sheds.

The circle that Zheng Yangyang drew on the map before is actually a square.The reason is simple: Compared with the odd-shaped bastions and round castles, the construction of square buildings saves the most man-hours and costs, and it is the most convenient to plan and expand afterwards.

With advantages, there are naturally disadvantages: a square city will leave a wide attack surface for the besiegers, and the defense ability is low.

The army, however, has faith in Square.So far, what the crossing army has completed are siege operations that require more resources and technical content. At least in the territory of Daming, the situation of defending the city has never happened.

It can be inferred from this that a stronghold that can be defended with only a small amount of troops will have a very high bonus to the party with a technological advantage.Annan's army may be able to put pressure on our side in field battles, but the military is dismissive of this in defensive battles, even in the rainy season.

Even though it has become a consensus that Annan's regular army is not low in combat effectiveness, it is also a military consensus that no one can capture a city with rapid-fire guns and breech-loading guns.

So after comprehensive consideration, trenches appeared on the coast of Halong Bay.

A trench is two lines in a parallel state.

The inner trench is square, not only deep but also wide, which is the foundation for the city wall.The ditch used as the outer protection is much shallower. Here, only a low wall needs to be built, and there is no need for a neat square shape. It can be repaired facing the inland direction.

The next step is to build a grass shed.

If you want to use bricks and cement to build walls during the continuous rainy season, you must do a good job in waterproofing.After the rain-proof thatched shed above the trench is set up, the next step is for the builders to level the foundation, mix cement, and build walls.

In this process, it is also necessary to dig some drainage ditches on the side of the trench to discharge groundwater at any time.

There is no doubt that the brick walls built in the current environment will not be as strong as the northern standard. After all, the cement will slowly solidify after the rainy season.However, this is a small problem for the traversers: under the cover of the awning, the fire rate of the firearms is greatly increased, which is enough to wipe out the enemy on the charge road. If there is a large force to charge.

The above tasks involve the most engineering personnel.Another key point of employment is the wharf, where a stone wharf deep into the bay is being built. Even the stones are transported from the sea, and there are no stone processing enterprises on the remote Annan coast.

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While the pioneers were desperately racing against time on the coast of Annan, a large passenger ship departing from Taijiang Port stopped at the official wharf of Guangzhou New District.

What got off the boat was a team from the north.

At the end of May, the imperial court received a memorial from the south.In addition to reporting the cause and effect of the Macau war, it also attached a stack of land deeds-it is said that after the city of Macau was broken, the Franchi businessman "happily lost" to the government.

Le loses this kind of trick, everyone in the court is clear about it.But that wasn't the focus of everyone's attention at the time: the booty and title deeds from the south were the main thing.There is no one who doesn't like making money from wars, but the emperors and ministers of the Ming Dynasty have always lost money in wars, and they have never enjoyed this kind of feeling.

After that, a round of offensive and defensive battles took place between the monarch and his ministers around the spoils.Of course, the young emperor was finally defeated by the civil servants as expected/duoduo, and was deprived of most of the spoils.

Today, the team that disembarked at the pier in the new area was the team sent by the imperial court to receive the land deed farm.

The receiving group is composed of several people with different identities.Among them, there are two most important ones: Ma Min, the head of the household department, and Du Shangbao, the eunuch who is the deputy envoy of the inner treasury.

Ma Min and Du Shangbao, one representing the household department and the other representing the inner palace, are standard receiving officials.

And the rest of the receiving group were sent by various bigwigs to see the direction of the wind.

As early as the Manchu Qing Dynasty first entered the customs, after Cao Zongbing went to Jingqin King, the interest of the capital tycoons in buying properties in the south has been increasing day by day.

At the beginning, people took a tentative attitude and sent slaves to Yizhou to buy some legendary Datian to test the water.

After that, aside from the generous industrial returns, there is another very important concept that has been slowly changed among high-level people: miasma.

That's right, the phenomenon of "land of miasma", which has killed countless people since ancient times and the ancients avoided, no longer exists in Yizhou, and even extended to all Cao's territories.

Now, with the passage of time, the elites of the Ming Dynasty in the far north have undeniably verified this point.Although there are all kinds of weird legends, the facts cannot be changed: in places like Yizhou, there are very few people suffering from miasma (malaria) and various fevers.

This phenomenon undoubtedly added a dazzling aura of mysticism to Cao.

In this way, the simple investment behavior of "buying a property in the south" becomes complicated: since the miasma can be broken, then "when the rush is inconvenient", can the clansmen go to the place that is like spring all the year round to "spread branches and leaves" "What about "resting and recuperating"?

After having this idea, since this year, people from the family of officials from all over the Ming Dynasty have come to various places in the south to buy properties, and the price of land including Yizhou has actually attracted a small increase.You must know that as of today, the level of development of the Tainan Plain is far from that of later generations. In theory, there are still many, many fields that can be sold.

And this time, the imperial court formed an official reception team because of the land deed presented by Uncle Zhongyong. It was an excellent opportunity to go to the south for inspection.The reason is that Zhezifang in Zhongyongbo’s Mansion in the capital city has already released the word that the miasma in Nagada in Annan has been eradicated, and the people in Annan are also hospitable and hospitable. Zongbing Cao has also collected a lot of land deeds there, waiting for everyone to invest up.

Now the Ming people have seen a truth from the Tartars who rolled back outside the customs and the Yizhou natives who sold fried chicken: since the soldiers are strong and the horses are strong, the fierce and domineering Zhongyong Bo said so, then those Nanyi who eat grass must be enthusiastic. Hospitable, and Annan must have a lot of land deeds waiting for everyone to pay for it.

Ever since, the reception/investigation team of the big bosses in the capital was formed in this way.

The group members included not only official principals and eunuchs, but also confidants sent by wealthy families in the capital.By the way, when the boat arrived at Zhangsutan Port in Shanghai, there was a large wave of gentry and slaves from the south of the Yangtze River. Among them, there were quite a few current heads or second generations of the big gentry families.

Therefore, the number of guests disembarking at the official wharf in the new district today is quite a lot. Counting the servants who followed each family, there were a total of 300 people who were zero.

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After the delegation disembarked, they undoubtedly stayed at the Baietan Hotel.And that night, under the luxurious large crystal chandelier, Dr. Rong Lu, Zhu Guoyu, Feng Zhongyong, the Minister of the Ministry of War, the left governor of the military governor's mansion, Mr. Cao Chuancao stood in the lobby of the hotel, holding a glass of bright red wine in person, and gave each other one by one. The distinguished guests of the delegation toasted and greeted the wind, and the lively banquet lasted until the early morning.

In the next two days, members of the delegation seized the opportunity to visit relatives and friends in the city of Guangzhou first, and then wandered around in the new district, thoroughly feeling and comparing the difference between the "modern" city and the old city.

Afterwards, the delegation hurriedly boarded the passenger ship: the Nth transport fleet organized by the New District was just about to unload in Halong Bay, so the delegation would naturally have to move with the large fleet escorted by warships to be safe.

So one morning in late July, in a bay not far south of Fangchenggang outside the country, members of the delegation inadvertently saw someone's violent and domineering behavior.

(End of this chapter)