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Chapter 831 Spontaneity

During the same period, ships from many ports along the Fujian coast kept sailing to the other side of the strait. In addition to a small amount of food, the ships were full of people. Moreover, they were organized in villages, more than half of them were wearing helmets and armor, and the rest were at least holding bows and crossbows. A large-scale civil fight to seize land began.

The most profitable commodity on the market is called rubber, which is the sap that flows out of the trunk of the rubber tree. The Navy has set up purchasing stations in Da Nang and Manila Port to purchase rubber that has undergone a simple acid-washing process.

It’s not clear what it’s used for, but it’s certain that you’ll buy it with real money, and the price is even higher than cocoa beans.

Now the people who have worked hard to run rubber plantations for the past few years are now in a state of panic. They don't have to do anything, just hire people to learn how to tap rubber from the purchasing station, and then they can sit at home and count their money. As long as the tree is alive and can produce rubber all year round, it is not a rubber tree at all, but a money tree.

It's no use for others to be jealous. It takes at least five years for a rubber tree to produce rubber. It's too late to learn from it. Only those who run the plantations first can reap the first dividends.

At this time, the plantation owners would quietly add the tablets of Li Zhi and Yuan Yingtai to the shrine. If they had not fanned themselves desperately back then, who would have planted these useless things that were neither good for food nor drink?

No, we have to add a tablet for Yuan Keli. Annan and Luzon Special Zone were conquered by the navy. If there were not so many unowned lands and extremely cheap indigenous labor, the cost of operating a plantation in Ming Dynasty would be many times higher.

Should we also include the Sun Moon Bank tablet? Without a loan from others, and relying entirely on our own frugality, who can sustain it for five or six years?

But there is no place to put so many tablets, so why not replace them all with those of Emperor Jingyang? These people are all subordinates of the emperor, and their work must be assigned by the emperor. It is both reasonable and logical for the emperor to enjoy the incense and offerings.

Since ancient times, no one can feel at ease watching people around them get rich. Most of the plantation owners are from Guangdong and Fujian, and then people from these two places began to think about whether they could also get a piece of land to plant rubber trees.

As the saying goes, different trades are like different mountains. It seems that being a plantation owner is not difficult. You just need to get enough money for a loan, find a suitable piece of land, hire some natives, dig holes and plant trees. Planting trees is much easier than planting rice. If you grit your teeth and wait for five or six years, you can sit at home and wait for the money.

But after careful inquiry, it turned out that it was not the case at all. The land that Annan and Luzon allowed the Ming people to buy was basically owned by someone, including rubber plantations, sugarcane plantations and rice fields. The remaining land was either not suitable for cultivation due to the basic conditions or its safety could not be guaranteed.

However, the government in Guangdong and Fujian does not allow large-scale planting of rubber trees in their local areas, which seriously hinders many people's plans to make money.

Since ancient times, there has always been a countermeasure for every policy. At this time, the people along the coast of Fujian, who were more flexible in their thinking and more experienced, quietly turned their eyes to the other side of the sea.

Xiaoliuqiu Island has a low sense of existence for the people along the coast of Fujian, but it is not completely unknown. The low sense of existence is because there is no value to it. If you don’t intend to be a pirate, who would pay attention to that broken island with nothing to offer?

However, as rubber plantations became popular, Xiaoliuqiu seemed to be of some use. The government only prohibited large-scale planting of rubber trees in Fujian and Guangdong, but did not say that rubber trees were not allowed to be planted anywhere. There was nothing else on Xiaoliuqiu Island, but there were a lot of wastelands, and they were all quite fertile. If they were reclaimed, they could not immediately grow rice, but they could grow trees. Moreover, someone had already done this two years ago. Some Fujianese planted cinchona trees on the island, and the prospects seemed quite good.

Fujianese have been very bold since ancient times. A few of them dared to sail to the South Seas in a small sailboat. The nearby Little Ryukyu was nothing to them. They just did it!
The Fujianese who first landed in Xiaoliuqiu easily established themselves in the coastal areas and selected ideal plots of land for cultivation. Then more and more family members, neighbors, and fellow villagers followed suit, and everyone enjoyed themselves.

As time went on and the number of people increased, it inevitably attracted the attention of the indigenous residents. If it was just a small village in the coastal area with a few ships docked, people would not care. But as they went deeper and deeper into the mountains and brought so many people, and it seemed that they had no intention of leaving, they could not be ignored.

Due to language barriers and huge interests involved, the two sides naturally developed from verbal negotiations to armed confrontation. At the beginning, the Fujianese took advantage, but when the indigenous leaders came with a large army, they could not withstand it and had to abandon the plantations and escape on the boats.

The people left, but Ke Xin still stayed on the other side of the strait. After discussing it, they decided that they couldn't give up the opportunity to make a fortune so easily, so they had to try again. However, they couldn't carry the farm tools anymore, so they had to arm themselves.

But they couldn't get too many weapons and armor from the public, and the fighting was uneven. At the critical moment, someone with the inside information suddenly reported that the Sun and Moon Bank had obtained a large number of armor and weapons that were laid off by the navy, and was trying to cash them in.

Isn't it just like someone handed me a pillow when I was sleepy? Facing the natives of Xiaoliuqiu, these rags became magic weapons. Nothing more to say, buy them! If the money is not enough, the village will make up for it. As long as we take over the plantation, we can pay it back sooner or later.

The fighting capacity of the Ming Dynasty's guards was indeed not strong, and their equipment was also very poor, but it depends on who they were compared with. Compared with the indigenous people who were still living on slash-and-burn agriculture, even the most broken armor could block bone arrows, and even the most fragile crossbows could shoot through coarse linen. Moreover, this batch of armor and weapons also contained a lot of equipment of the frontier troops, including matchlock guns and Portuguese cannons.

With money in their pockets, they are strong, and with weapons in their hands, they are brave. So more and more Fujianese joined the armed fighting army, landing from different places in villages or even counties, and not reclaiming the land, but directly looking for the indigenous people to fight, it's either you or me!
In the summer, the news that cinchona and rubber trees could be grown on Xiaoliuqiu Island spread to Guangdong. Compared with the Fujianese, the Guangdong people were not much less courageous, and they responded immediately. They first sent people to discuss with the Fujianese and divide several areas that would not interfere with each other, and then set off on the sea in large ships.

The indigenous people of Xiaoliuqiu were already almost unable to withstand the attack from the Fujianese alone. Now a large number of Cantonese people landed on the island. The indigenous leader was killed directly, and the rest all retreated into the mountains.

But now the question arises: with so many people coming to the island to plant rubber and cinchona trees, there must be enough space, but how to sell them in the future? Anyone with a little business sense knows that scarcity makes things valuable.

Moreover, the production cycle is so long. By the time the purchase price of rubber is cheaper, wouldn’t that mean at least five years of time and money have been wasted in vain?

What should they do? Several leaders from Fujian and Guangdong came together to think of a solution. First, they tried to find out what the Navy was using the rubber and cinchona bark for, so as to determine the market situation five years from now.

At the same time, we should also think about whether, in addition to planting rubber trees and cinchona trees, we can also reclaim some rice and sugarcane fields. Regardless of whether the land is ripe or not, we can recover the losses in the short term and reduce the pressure on everyone.

(End of this chapter)