The Ming Dynasty did not revolutionize

Chapter 127 America's Mission
February 1783th, the 3th year of Xianning, March 22nd, in the Western calendar.

Four steamships from the Ming Dynasty arrived in North America and docked at the New York County Pier in Meiping Prefecture.

The civil and military officials who came on the ship paid a visit to Zhu Jianxuan and reported to him that the second fleet of immigrants would arrive in New York in half a month.

Then he presented two documents from the Ming Dynasty central court.

One was drafted by the General Staff of the Central Military Governor's Office, which mainly explained the general situation of this immigration and the personal situation of the officers currently in charge of managing the immigration.

The total number of immigrants was just over 200,000, most of whom were disaster victims from Hubei and Sichuan.

Because there are very few elderly and weak people, there are nearly 50,000 households out of 200,000 people. Many families consist of a couple with two or three children, or several brothers and sisters living together in one household.

When the immigrants were organized this time, they were still all managed according to the garrison system and were integrated into five fully-staffed guard corps.

However, due to time constraints, there was no time for corresponding military training.

Although the officers in charge of them were drawn from the regular local army, most of the grassroots officers, who were in large numbers, were originally ordinary soldiers.

Officers who were originally soldiers were equipped with a percussion rifle, and ordinary immigrant families were equipped with a flintlock rifle and two traditional sabers.

Documents from the General Staff repeatedly reminded His Royal Highness the King of Wu that these 200,000 people were ordinary immigrants managed within the framework of the garrisons and were currently unable to fight on their own.

Please ask Your Highness the King of Wu to use the new and old firearms that have been distributed to organize and arrange military training according to actual needs.

Zhu Jianxuan sighed softly after reading it.

This situation will become more and more common in the next few years. Large numbers of disaster victims will be gathered together and the central court will have no energy for training.

Flintlock rifles can be converted into percussion rifles, but the conversion takes time, and the production of percussion caps also requires craftsmen and time, so the untrained disaster victims have no percussion rifles to use.

Zhu Jianxuan felt that this situation was good, as he might not even be able to afford guns in two years.

Then he turned over another document, which was drafted by the cabinet at the instruction of the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty.

Due to the large number of disaster victims in the local area, they need to be transported overseas as soon as possible, and it is no longer possible to train armed immigrants step by step.

This type of immigration will continue in the coming years.

Please ask the King of Wu to organize immigrants to concentrate on reclaiming wasteland and cultivating land, store as much food and grain seeds as possible, build enough simple houses, and be prepared to continue to receive them.

The Ming Emperor also arranged a group of young and middle-aged civil servants to come to North America to assist Zhu Jianxuan in managing new immigrants.

Finally, a table was attached, listing the basic personal information of these officials, including name, place of origin, and original official position.

Zhu Jianxuan took a rough look at their official positions, which were almost spread across all important government offices of the central court. They were obviously selectively transferred.

The highest position they originally held was assistant minister of various ministries, and the oldest was less than fifty years old.

When you come, you can be promoted to a higher level and do the work of your original department, and you can directly build a streamlined Ming Dynasty-style court.

After reading it, Zhu Jianxuan simply assigned work to these officials and directly assigned them official positions in their original departments.

Although America was independent in name, it had a special relationship with the Ming Dynasty and was considered a kingdom in the Ming Dynasty.

In order to avoid nominal usurpation and conflict, American officials should not use the highest official positions in the Ming Dynasty central court, such as Shangshu.

Zhu Jianxuan adopted the "affairs + minister" form to arrange positions, such as Minister of Foreign Affairs, Minister of Finance, Minister of Taxation, Minister of Personnel, etc.

For ordinary people in the Ming Dynasty, such a name is easy to understand. They know what the name is in charge of just by hearing it. It is also easy to translate for immigrants from Europe to understand.

Half a month later, it was March 1783, the 4th year of Xianning, April 6, in the Western calendar.

The second batch of Ming Dynasty local immigrant fleet officially arrived in Meiping Prefecture.

With a total of more than 500 ships, this unprecedentedly huge fleet turned the New York Bay into a sea of ​​sailing ships.

Zhu Jianxuan personally went to the dock and met with the officials in charge of immigration on the spot.

After accepting their collective worship, their official positions in the American Kingdom were read out on the spot and the next major tasks were arranged on the spot.

Cooperate with the garrison agencies to organize disaster victims to reclaim wasteland and cultivate land.

This is the most important thing in America right now. Even building factories is not as important as this.

The Ming mainland will continue to send disaster victims here.

Zhu Jianxuan knew even more that the huge monster Laki volcano would probably erupt this summer, and the winter would be particularly difficult to endure.

Although the main direct impact area is Europe, it is closely followed by North America.

This year's cold snap in North America could be particularly severe.

In addition to the obvious geological disaster of Laki volcano, the changes of the sun will also begin to erupt in these two years. In 1783 and 1784, the sunspot constant should have reached its peak, but it fell into a huge trough, only one-tenth of the normal data.

By 1788, the economy should have entered a trough, but it soared beyond its previous peak and exceeded the normal figure by ten times.

Zhu Jianxuan feels that the impact of this solar activity should be global and should not only occur in France and Shenzhou.

Elsewhere there may simply be a lack of historical records.

The United States may also face disasters in the next few years, so we must concentrate on reclaiming land and growing food as much as possible and stockpile as much food as possible.

We directly opened up new land in New York, Long Island and New Jersey.

I won’t be going to the Great Plains for the time being.

Not to mention whether the food grown on the Great Plains can be easily transported, it is hard to say whether the new immigrants can survive this winter.

At least the east coast of North America has the Appalachian Mountains, which can slightly block the cold waves, and the warm current in Mexico can add some temperature, so the climate will not be particularly harsh.

There is no shelter on the Great Plains, so the cold wave is more destructive.

It would be too tragic if we sent 200,000 immigrants from the Ming Dynasty all the way here and lost tens of thousands of them in just one winter.

There may be famine in Europe this winter, so there will be no large-scale transport of immigrants to Europe.

Zhu Jianxuan asked the newly joined civil servants and garrison officers to settle the immigrants.

At the same time, people were sent to various free states in North America to invite Hancock, Adams and other heads of free states and big businessmen to meetings.

In the only hall of the American Kingdom, Zhu Jianxuan explained the situation to them very seriously:
“As you all should know, a new group of Ming immigrants have arrived in North America, and they are larger than we expected.

“They brought very sad news.

"Last summer, two large provinces in the Ming dynasty suffered a massive flood, affecting more than 10 million residents.

“So a large number of disaster victims were sent to North America as a whole, and there may be more disaster victims coming in the next few years.

“We need more arable land and food to accommodate them.

"So I decided to buy food from the Dominions and the Free State, and also buy vacant land that could be easily developed to grow food.

“Those who are willing to trade can discuss it with royal officials after the meeting.

“So the next investment project that everyone is preparing for, in addition to continuing to trade Ming Dynasty goods in Europe, is to open up wasteland and grow crops in various states.

“Let’s postpone the development of the Mississippi River for a little while.

"Food is more important than anything else. It is the prerequisite for the stable development of our country."

After hearing this, the group of business representatives asked God to bless the people of the Ming Dynasty and expressed their willingness to cooperate with His Majesty the King if it was a purely commercial transaction.

You don't need to ask for money, just trade with the various specialties of the Ming Dynasty, and follow the previous transaction prices.

Zhu Jianxuan expressed his gratitude and then directly announced the adjournment of the meeting.

Zhu Jianxuan's newly appointed Finance Minister Dong Hao came forward and started negotiating grain purchases with these merchants with an interpreter.

It is highly likely that Ming Dynasty immigrants will not need to purchase food specifically.

The food that Zhu Jianxuan has stockpiled through continuous reclamation and farming over the past two years should be enough for the more than 200,000 new immigrants each year to get through their first year.

The public calls for purchasing grain were mainly to encourage these merchants to grow more grain.

There may be a continued famine in Europe in the future. If the United States grows more food, it will have the opportunity to sell it at a high price and save some ordinary people in Europe.

And no matter what you do, as a king I must continue to reclaim wasteland and cultivate the land.

So after meeting these merchant immigrants, Zhu Jianxuan continued to focus on the immigrants' resettlement and land reclamation matters.
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April 1783, the 5th year of Xianning, May 9, in the Western calendar.

Japan's Asama volcano has begun erupting, having erupted on and off for nearly three months.

The magma flow was accompanied by continuous earthquakes, which further triggered a variety of secondary disasters such as mudslides and landslides.

A large amount of volcanic ash flew out, covering half of Japan. Large areas of Japanese farmland suffered poor harvests and a large number of people died.

The Tianming famine, which had already begun last year, was further aggravated and spread due to the impact of the volcanic eruption.

The lower-class samurai in Japan, who were already extremely poor, had to find other ways to make a living.

(End of this chapter)