I am Emperor Wanli

Chapter 548: Ming's First City in the New World
Li Chao led the Qinglong Navy and set out from Dagu during the southwest monsoon. He stayed in Weihai for two days, bypassed the Korean Peninsula, replenished his forces at the Ming Navy naval port on Tsushima Island, and continued to head southeast.

After passing the deserted island (Sado Island), we arrived at Kitagumo Port (Hakodate Port) in the southern part of Hokkaido Island (Hokkaido Island).

This is a Class C port of the Ming Dynasty Beihai Navy.

The Ming Navy had over a thousand main warships, and the North Sea Navy had three to four hundred ships. Two-thirds of the main warships were accompanied by auxiliary ships, which patrolled back and forth along fixed routes every year.

One third of the capital ships are assigned to carry out specific tasks, such as covering a landing or eliminating rampant pirates.
One of the most important tasks is to allocate some warships to form a survey team to explore in the designated direction every year.

Since the destination was unclear, they just walked along the coastline, going wherever they went, strolling casually like a street urchin.

The survey teams brought professional surveying personnel from the Surveying and Mapping Bureau to new waters and islands to draw maps and erect stone tablets.

Make a note of the suitable location and send people over next year to build it into a port and station some personnel there.

After several years of wandering, the entire island of Sakhalin was clearly mapped and named Beihai Beidao. It was included in the map of the Ming Dynasty together with Hokkaido Island named Beihai Nandao and Kamchatka Peninsula named Brown Bear Island.

At this time, the Kamchatka Peninsula was mistakenly believed by surveyors of the Surveying and Mapping Bureau to be a huge island, but the island had never been fully explored.

The first time the surveying team went ashore, more than a dozen people were chased by a pair of brown bears, mother and cubs, and almost jumped into the sea.

The impressed surveyors named it Brown Bear Island.

The North Sea Navy's patrols extended all the way to the Bering Strait.

The first person to discover it was a lookout named Zhang Li. The captain and surveyor made a note that Zhang Li had discovered a new strait and temporarily named it Zhang Li Strait. Then the new map of the Surveying and Mapping Bureau also marked it as Zhang Li Strait.

At that time, no one knew the importance of this strait. Later, when the great geographical discoveries came, people realized the importance of this strait and started calling it the Zhangli Strait. It then became a name recognized by the world.

This group of street urchins crossed the Zhangli Strait and traveled along the northwest coast of Alaska. When they saw the desolate and barren land, they felt very disappointed.

Zhu Yijun promulgated the "New Territory Survey Law" very early on, but this law was not understood by the scholars and ordinary people, and few people knew about it.

The new law stipulates that the discoverer of a territory has the right to appoint and can share part of the tax revenue after the new territory is developed in the future.

Among them, the mining share accounts for the largest proportion. If a rich mine of gold, silver and copper is discovered here, it can be said that even three generations of prodigals may not be able to squander the family business.

The unwilling street floater found a few places to park the boat and went ashore for a walk.

It’s cold and desolate, I can’t even see a brown bear. It’s a waste of time!
Disappointed, they named this land the Desolate State, and then strolled back along the Aleutian Islands, which were named the Ice and Fire Islands.

Because when Jie Liuzi was walking back along this string of islands, he saw a volcanic eruption on an ice-covered island, creating a world of ice and fire, so he gave it this name.

Decades later, a huge amount of gold was discovered in Huangzhou, which triggered a gold rush. Then there were rumors that the bastards from the Naval Survey Bureau were too cunning. In order to cover up their tracks, they said that any place named Huang must have gold and silver.

If you don’t believe it, just look at Deserted Island and Deserted State. Although their names contain the word “deserted”, they are actually Treasure Island and Golden State!
Due to the obstruction of the Ice and Fire Island, the Beihai Street sailors did not enter the Gulf of Alaska for the time being. Unfortunately, they gave the opportunity to discover Genzhou and Xunzhou and become famous to the Qinglong Navy led by Li Chao.

Although Huangzhou belongs to the northwest corner of Genzhou, people did not realize this in the early period of the great geographical discoveries and always classified it as an extension of the Zhendui Continent.

It was not until most of the area of ​​Genzhou was surveyed that people discovered that Huangzhou was part of Genzhou. But after several decades, the geographical community of the Ming Dynasty generally believed that Genzhou was discovered by Li Chao and the Qinglong Navy.

It’s just like how for a long time Europeans believed that America was discovered by Amerigo rather than Columbus.

Li Chao's Qinglong Navy rested in Beiyun Port for two days, replenished fresh water and some wood and food, and then continued to head east.

With the help of Urdaneta, a missionary who had surrendered to the Ming Dynasty, Li Chao led his navy quickly into the waters between 42° and 45° north latitude and found the Kuroshio Current.

The Kuroshio Current is divided into two parts. The first part is the Japan Current, the northward branch of the North Equatorial Current in the Pacific Ocean.

It originates in the waters east of Luzon Island, flows through the eastern waters of Dongfan Island (Taiwan), and to the east of Japan, encounters the North Sea Island Cold Current (Kuril Current), turns eastward, and forms the second part, the North Pacific Warm Current.

The North Pacific Current extends eastward to the western coast of the northern New World (i.e., the coast of Ohio, USA), then splits into two, heading northward into the Gulf of Alaska, becoming the Alaska Current.

It goes all the way south along the west coast, that is, the California coast, enters the warm water area, and transforms into the California cold current.

Following the Kuroshio Current eastward, they had a safe journey. On the 19th day of the first lunar month of the first year of the Wanli reign, five months and seven days after Li Chao led his team on their journey, an endless coastline appeared in the sight of the lookout and Li Chao's telescope.

After turning south and sailing for two days, there was still no end to the coastline.

It is undoubtedly the New World.

Now it is Genzhou of the Ming Dynasty.

Finally, the Ming Dynasty also began to join the Age of Discovery and took part in this massive global land enclosure movement. The Ming Dynasty was the most muscular among all the land enclosure powers.

But at this moment, no one can see that far.

Except for the one swimming in Xiyuan Swimming Pool.

On this day, the Qinglong Navy sailed into a bay.

This place was formed by the alluvial deposits of a river flowing into the sea. It is two hundred miles long and ten to forty miles wide, with a long and narrow strait at its outlet.

This is a good harbor given by God. Li Chao immediately decided to stop here for a while and build a forward outpost.

Missionary Urdaneta glanced at the bay in the distance, turned around, and asked with mixed feelings: "General Lee, according to custom, you should give it a name."

"Old Wu, you are familiar with this area. Is this your Spanish territory?"

Urdaneta replied: “According to records, in the year 1542, the year of Jesus’ birth in the Julian calendar, which was the st year of Jiajing in your country, the Spaniards traveled north along this coastline, and whenever they arrived at a place, they declared it to be the paradise given to the Spaniards by God.

But they did not stay long and soon returned to Mexico. Later, in the documents and maps of the New Mexico Governor's Office, this unexplored land was generally classified as California.

Li Chao said with a chuckle: "Old U, you Spaniards are also mapping and expanding territory! California, this name sounds awkward."

Urdaneta smiled and said, "In 1542, the explorer Hernando de Alvarado Saavedra discovered the Gulf of California and thought it was an island. He hoped it was a place full of gold and gems, so he named it California after the most popular chivalric novel in Spain at the time, The Glory of California."

"The glory of California?" "Yes, in that novel, California is a fictitious island in the Indus River in Asia, full of gold and gems."

"You guys are really crazy about money." Li Chao thought for a while, "The Classic of Mountains and Seas. The Great Wilderness East Classic says that in the east of the Great Wilderness, there is the country of Xiazhou. And the Ming Dynasty is the country of Huaxia. Now that this Genzhou belongs to the Ming Dynasty, it should be listed as one of the various Xias, so it is named Xiazhou."

The deputy general next to him echoed, "Xia means big. Old Wu said this continent is boundless. The Spaniards have been exploring it for nearly a hundred years, but they have only explored a part of it. Commander-in-chief, this place deserves the name Xia!"

Everyone readily agreed and called this land Xiazhou.

As for this bay, Li Chao named it Songmen Bay without hesitation, and the city he was planning to build was called Taiping City.

He inherited the title of Qianhu of Songmenwei in Taizhou. There was a county town called Taiping (Wenling County) near Songmenwei.

The Qinglong Navy anchored in Songmen Bay and selected a place to build a city on the southern peninsula of the Songmen Strait connecting to the sea.

Thousands of people divided the work and cooperated with each other. Some explored and hunted everywhere, while most of them cut wood and mined stones. In less than a month, a simple outpost was built. It was the first city of the Ming Dynasty in Genzhou and the entire New World, Taiping City.

There are lighthouses, lookouts and rammed earth walls. Six nine-jin cannons were transported from the ship and installed in dangerous positions to guard the Songmen Strait and the road leading to it, giving it a certain defensive capability.

On this day, Captain Huang from the exploration team was running to report to Li Chao.

"General, we encountered a group of natives!"

The Qinglong Navy brought 120 horses this time. More than 30 horses died on the way, and the rest were all transferred to Taiping City for raising. They are currently in good condition and have adapted well to the climate and environment here.

The exploration team rode out on fifteen horses as scouts.

Li Chao glanced at Captain Huang.

He was in a panic, just like he had broken into someone else's house and saw a woman taking a bath. Just as he was enjoying the sight, her husband came back.

"You look like a thief who's been caught."

"Captain, the presence of indigenous people means this land has an owner." Captain Huang is very kind and has a high moral bottom line. "We are not afraid of the Spaniards. We are all guests. Each of us occupies the land based on our own ability.

But now there is an owner here, and we really feel like thieves when we break in."

Li Chao shook his head: "We still have to learn from the Westerners.

Look at them, they occupied the indigenous people's land, enslaved them to mine, and yet they kept claiming that they brought them the gospel of God and the light of civilization, all for the good of the indigenous people.

What about you? You're feeling guilty before anything has happened. No way.

What do these natives look like? Do they ride horses? Do they have firearms?

"General, you don't ride a horse, you don't have any firearms, you wear simple clothes, and your weapons are also very simple, just like the savages."

"No horses, no firearms!" Li Chao's eyes lit up, "Without these two things, it's hard to say who is the owner of this land.

"Old Huang, take some people to capture some prisoners. Don't capture them randomly. Find out the situation first. Capture their leader, a smart one. If they are stupid, how can we communicate?"

"General, you are wise! I will take a few night guards from the Marine Battalion with me."

A day later, Team Huang brought back three prisoners.

Two are the son and daughter of the chief of the indigenous tribe, and the other should be the shaman of the tribe.

In Taiping City, the three captives were terrified as thousands of people took turns running to watch them.

"This is the native of Xiazhou."

"Why are you wearing tree bark and animal skins? You look like a savage."

"Hey, look, they look a lot like us."

"Resemblance? I don't think so."

"There has to be a comparison. John, John, where have you been, you idiot?"

Someone shouted the name of the Portuguese naturalized officer, John Bai.

Most of the Ming Dynasty navy were Westerners, and they were generally divided into two types. One was mercenaries, who were in a purely employment relationship, did things for money, and had professional ethics.

One type is the naturalized military officer, who married and had children in the Ming Dynasty and was willing to be a citizen of the Ming Dynasty. Everyone also regarded him as a comrade.

The two are treated differently, and the punishments they receive after betrayal are also different.

The Qinglong Navy is carrying out confidential imperial orders and will definitely not bring mercenaries, but they can bring naturalized officers.

Bai John ran over and asked in confusion, "Dude, what's the matter?"

"John, stand next to them and let them use you as a supporting role."

Green leaves?

Bai John muttered as he squatted next to the three native captives, and the crowd watching immediately exclaimed.

"Damn, you won't know until you compare. It's really shocking. With John as a comparison, these three people look exactly like us. They look just like the people from the neighboring village."

"Yeah, they look so similar, maybe they are related."

Everyone was talking about it, and they were still talking about it when they had dinner. Suddenly, a clever guy said, "Do you think the natives of Xiazhou are the descendants of the Xia and Shang dynasties?"

(End of this chapter)