Late Ming sea owl

Chapter 341: Stockpiling Food, Expanding Territory and Expanding the Army (Part )

"More than 1000 million people? President, you are kidding, right?" Everyone present gasped. Even the calmest Xu Xinlan couldn't help but ask in shock.

"Of course not." Lin Hai replied with a smile, "But to achieve this grain output in Ha Tien, at least 50 farmers are needed, which means we need to migrate at least 150 million people. This is still a long way off. We can't send troops to Cambodia until the end of the year, and the water conservancy has to be repaired bit by bit. So this year we will mainly migrate to the Jianan Plain, and the first choice is Wanggang."

At this time, Feng Yidao spoke up: "General Manager, Wanggang is right next to Dayuan. If we migrate on a large scale, will there be a conflict with the Red Hairs?"

"That's a good question." Lin Hai paused and asked, "How is the training of the new recruits of the Vanguard Division going?"

At the end of last year, during the Battle of Xiamen, the sentries of the Pioneer Bureau suffered heavy casualties when attacking the trenches, but they were also awarded the first-class collective merit, and all the soldiers were paid three salaries. After returning to Danshui, many people signed up. After selecting the best from the best, the Pioneer Bureau was already full before Lin Hai went to Guangdong to fight Li Kuiqi.

"Basic training has long been completed. Now Deputy Director Zhao is leading the new recruits to hunt down the Daukas in Hsinchu and Miaoli."

The Deputy Director Zhao that Feng Yidao mentioned is Jiuzhi. With the Security Department being upgraded to the Security General Administration, Feng Yidao, the Chief of Security, no longer serves as the chief of the Vanguard Department. The new chief is the former infantry sentry chief Waizui, and Jiuzhi is his deputy.

The requirements for selecting recruits in the Vanguard Division are relatively high, and the recruits all have a good foundation, so they have always been trained by fighting instead of training. When Lin Hai heard this, he nodded happily: "Very good, let Waizui lead the remaining personnel of the Vanguard Division to station in Wanggang, and I will ask the Navy Department to send some ships over. If the red-haired guy dares to explode, just kill him directly."

"Yes, sir!" Feng Yidao asked, "What should we do if there is a conflict with the native villages around Wanggang?"

Wanggang is located in Beimen Township, Tainan City in later times. It is still a peninsula protruding to the west. There is a lagoon surrounded by sandbars on the north and south sides of the peninsula. The one in the north is called Daofeng Inland Sea and the one in the south is called Taijiang Inland Sea. Both lagoons became land in later times, so the peninsula naturally disappeared.

There are also some sandbars on the west side of the peninsula, which are equivalent to natural breakwaters, making Wanggang a good anchorage for sailboats. There is a river called Jishui Creek running east-west on the peninsula, providing good irrigation conditions for this land.

This place was originally the old nest of the brothers Yang Lu and Yang Ce. Later, Li Dan sent Yan Siqi to colonize here. By the time Zheng Zhilong was defeated, there were a total of several thousand farmers here, and now they have all become captives of the company.

The fields reclaimed by these people are mainly on the coastal sandbanks and near the mouth of the Jishui River. At the current immigration rate, they will soon be divided up. If they continue to move deeper inland, they will encroach on the territories of the natives of Xiaolongshe, Mujialushe, and Madoushe.

Perhaps because of the fertile land, the indigenous villages in this area are much larger than those in Taipei. The three villages mentioned above have several thousand people and have had large-scale conflicts with the Dutch in their original history.

Lin Hai had already considered the policy issue regarding the treatment of the indigenous peoples of the Jianan Plain. He immediately replied to Feng Yidao: "Let's stick with the old method in Yilan. Either move away or be exterminated. Let them choose for themselves."

The reason why the Yilan policy was adopted in the Jianan Plain, instead of a thorough search like in the Taoyuan, Hsinchu and Miaoli areas, was mainly because this would be an agricultural area with large-scale immigration, and Lin Hai hoped to restore order there as soon as possible.

"Move to Tamsui? I'm afraid the Iron Country can't accommodate more people." At this time Fang Xiu'e spoke. She was the director of the Education Department not long ago. She didn't know that Lin Hai had already made plans for this.

"It's not Tamsui, it's Changhua. We need to relocate all the indigenous villages in the Jianan Plain to Changhua." Lin Hai pointed to the Changhua Plain to the north of the Jianan Plain on the map.

The Changhua Plain is roughly an equilateral triangle, with the coastline on the northwest, Bagua Mountain and Dadu River on the northeast, and the Zhuoshui River across from the Jianan Plain on the south. This is also a fertile plain, but its area is only one-fourth the size of the Jianan Plain.

"Changhua? Isn't that the territory of Dadu Fan?" Fang Xiu'e asked. The Dadu Fan she was talking about was an aboriginal kingdom in Taichung, which had a certain nature of a village community alliance. Its people included several aboriginal ethnic groups with different languages. This was probably the highest level of political organization developed by Taiwan's aboriginal society.

In the original history, this indigenous kingdom survived for more than a hundred years. It had repeated conflicts with the Dutch colonists and the Ming Zheng regime. Although it suffered repeated defeats, it always maintained semi-independence.

"Just barely. Dadu Clan's control over Changhua is not strong. Their core villages are in the Taichung Basin in the Dadu River Basin, and there is Bagua Mountain between them and the Changhua Plain." Lin Hai said, "We can help King Dadu control Changhua and turn Dadu Clan into a vassal of the Jinhe Kingdom, just like the Iron Kingdom."

The north of Taichung Basin is Miaoli County in later generations. The territory of Dadu Fan and Daokas people is separated by Dajia River, and there are also feuds between the two. As early as when the Vanguard Bureau first launched a military operation in Miaoli, Lin Hai asked Feng Yidao to lead a team to visit Dadu Fan, and Jinhe Kingdom had certain trade relations with it.

Last July, the Big-Duty King Gan Zai Xia Alamy was even invited to visit Keelung and watched the military parade of the Jinhe Kingdom with the Guangnan envoy Ruan Siqi.

"General, do you need me to go to Dadu Fan again?" Feng Yidao asked. Dadu Fan and Jinhe Kingdom currently have basically equal diplomatic relations, and it will take some work to get them to accept Lin Hai's plan. "Yes, I brought back ten war elephants from Guangnan this time. You can take a few to send to King Dadu." Lin Hai said, "Jiuzhi is in Miaoli, you go to meet him first, and take the army to see King Dadu. If soft tactics don't work, use hard tactics."

"Yes, Commander!" Feng Yidao responded and accepted the order. Expanding the territory on the island was the responsibility of the General Security Administration.

"After the mission to Dadu Fan, I ordered Jiuzhi to enter Beigang and subdue the local Han villages. Together with Waizui in Wanggang, I moved all the native villages in the Beigang River basin to Changhua."

The Beigang that Lin Hai mentioned is the place where Yuan Jin abducted immigrants to settle. Currently, there are still thousands of Han immigrants who do not care about the land and farm here.

Yuan Jin and his men surrendered to the Fujian guerrilla Shen Yourong, and those who stayed behind were basically kind peasants, so it would only take a few hundred troops to subdue them. Lin Hai planned to recognize their land ownership, and a household with less than 20 mu of land would be compensated as an immigrant, and they would also pay taxes to the Household Registration Department like other immigrants.

The so-called Beigang is the estuary of Beigang River. Its specific location is in Liujiao Township, Chiayi County in later generations. It will not be facing the sea four hundred years later, but there is a bay to its west now. Dongshi Township and Budai Town in later generations are still on the seabed.

The bay provides good shelter for Beigang, which is located more than 30 kilometers north of Wanggang, while Dayuan, where the Dutch are located, is more than 30 kilometers south of Wanggang. Beigang, like Wanggang, has rivers flowing into the sea, and large paddy fields can be developed upstream, so it naturally became one of the first choices for immigrants on the Jianan Plain.

There was also a large indigenous village north of Beigang River, which was the Huweilong Village that later had the most intense conflict with the Dutch. This village also had several thousand people, and all the surrounding small villages were under its control, including Erlin Village and Dongluo Village on the Changhua Plain north of Zhuoshui River.

This is why Lin Hai said that Changhua can only be barely regarded as the territory of Dadu Fan, because Huweilong Society also has considerable influence in the southern part of Changhua. There are more or less some frictions between the two. Feng Yidao may be able to use this to persuade King Dadu to accept Lin Hai's conditions.

"Please rest assured, Chief Commander. The Vanguard Division will ensure that the mission is accomplished!" Feng Yidao patted his chest. The Vanguard Division had fought tough battles before, and they could easily deal with the Han immigrant villages and indigenous communities.

"Very good, but your mission is not only to expand the territory, but also to expand the army. I plan to select 10,000 elite farmers and soldiers and take them to Cambodia at the end of this year. After the war, these 10,000 farmers do not need to return to Kim Ho, but can settle down directly in Ha Tien!"

Lin Hai had already made a promise to Nguyen Phuc Yuan that the Kingdom of Jinhe would send 20,000 troops to the Cambodian war. Not only did he not intend to break his promise, but he was also prepared to send as many troops as possible in order to gain absolute say in the future Cambodian court and lay a solid foundation for occupying more land in the Mekong Delta in the future.

This is bound to be a massive cross-sea expedition, involving at least hundreds of medium and large ships, and its scale will be comparable to Zheng He's voyages to the West.

In this case, why not just leave 10,000 troops in Ha Tien? In this way, some of the ships can be used to escort prisoners of war on the return journey, and more importantly, a continuous military presence can be maintained in Cambodia, which is something that Guangnan cannot do anyway.

In this way, Lin Hai could even ask Cambodia to send people to build water conservancy projects in Ha Tien after the war, laying the foundation for subsequent large-scale immigration.

At the same time, these 10,000 people were also the vanguard of the immigrants. Although the Mekong Delta was desolate, it was not uninhabited. There were some water Chenla tribes here. Early immigrants had to be armed, otherwise they would not be able to survive. Half a century later, Guangnan relied on the exiled army of the Southern Ming Dynasty to truly start the prelude to occupying the Mekong Delta.

In other words, the early immigrants were actually equivalent to a reclamation army. Isn't this just right for farmers who have experience in farming and fighting? Anyway, the training of farmers is relatively simple. The scale of Fujian immigration this year is definitely not small. As long as attractive policies are given, it should not be difficult to select 10,000 people to go to Ha Tien.

This small-scale briefing lasted until the evening. Lin Hai planned to leave for Keelung early tomorrow morning. One was to persuade the four military directors who were working in Keelung, and the other was to see the progress of Changping and Guanjun. The construction of these two cruisers started at the end of October last year, and it has been half a year since then.

After the meeting, Xu Xinlan hosted Lun Diyi at Wanhua's home. When the wine was in high spirits, he suddenly raised his glass to Lun Diyi and said, "My dear nephew, congratulations!"

Lun Diyi picked up the wine glass inexplicably and said, "May I ask Master Xu, why should I be so happy?"

Xu Xinlan smiled and said, "In today's meeting, the Immigration Department, the Household Registration Department, and the Finance Department are all related departments, but the Economic Development Department has nothing to do with it. Why do you think the General Manager called you, Director Lun, to join us?"

Lun Diyi could drink a lot, and his mind was still clear at this time. When he heard this, his hands trembled and the wine glass fell to the ground with a clang: "What does the master mean?"

"If what I predicted is correct, you will be the future leader of Hexian!" Xu Xinlan looked at Lun Diyi meaningfully, "1500 million acres of farmland, 1000 million people... even if you cut it in half, it's equivalent to several Golden River countries. I don't need to say more about this amount!"

(End of this chapter)