The Ming Dynasty did not revolutionize

Chapter 41 The Second Batch of Australian Immigrants

The prince carefully left the Qianqing Palace, returned to his Chunhe Hall with mixed feelings, and walked into his study.

The prince slumped in his chair, exhausted.

The prince actually agreed with his father's decision. He believed that the Ming Dynasty should indeed develop westwards in the future.

At the same time, although India is a good place, the indigenous population is too large. The key point is that Shun State has already established a firm foothold in India.

Once the Ming Dynasty competed with the Shun Kingdom for land in India, it might fall into a prolonged full-scale war.

It was not cost-effective to go directly into an all-out war with Shun or Qing when there were other, more easily accessible lands in the world.

However, the enormous pressure that his father always put on him invisibly made him increasingly unbearable.

The prince felt very uncomfortable as the situation was completely out of his control.

The prince even sometimes fantasizes that it would be great if he were the king of Australia.

At my age, I could have been a vassal state long ago.

Go to a place where the sky is high and the emperor is far away, and live a free and easy life.

But deep in his heart, he could never let go of his yearning for the throne of the Ming Dynasty.

"Why aren't you interested in the throne, Brother Xuan?
“He had little interest even in building the institutions of the kingdom that could determine the fate of others.

“Just likes to tinker with his inventions and creations.

"Perhaps I should be thankful that this brother who is truly a top genius really seems to have no interest in my position at all."

These thoughts flashed through the prince's mind, and his spirits slowly perked up.

Adjust Australia's immigration plan again, and then begin to seriously consider the plan of seizing control of Ceylon and the Indian Ocean.

The second batch of immigrants from the Wu State, the second and third thousand households of the Australian Zhongwei, totaling about 30,000 soldiers and civilians, boarded the ships and set sail in the next two months.

This time, the prince mobilized all eight newly modified steam sailing ships, plus the original four, for a total of twelve steam sailing ships.

In addition, thirty large traditional sailing ships of more than 500 tons were mobilized, of which ten had a displacement of more than 1,000 tons.

It was approaching summer at this time, and there was no typical monsoon blowing smoothly from north to south, but the steam sailing ship still reached the capital of Wu in two months.

The fleet admiral already knew that there was coal in Australia, so there was no need to slow down to preserve coal for the return voyage.

The fleet disembarked the first thousand households of immigrants at the Wuwangdu camp, and the third thousand households continued south to the South Australian Bay to open up wasteland and mine.

This officer of a thousand households brought Liu Biao his reward.

First, his rank was upgraded by one level, and at the same time, he was directly rewarded with one thousand Ming Dynasty silver dollars.

After the gold mine is developed, he will be given another kilogram of gold, no later than the end of the 33rd year of Xianning.

The silver content of a Ming Dynasty silver dollar is about 25 grams, and its value in the Ming Dynasty is basically equivalent to one or two taels of silver before the use of silver dollars.

Converted by purchasing power, it is roughly equivalent to one hundred to two hundred yuan in Zhu Jianxuan's previous life.

At this time, the value of one kilogram of gold was about five hundred silver dollars.

Therefore, Liu Biao's reward is roughly equivalent to a one-level salary increase, with a direct reward of 160,000 to 170,000 yuan in cash, and another 80,000 to 90,000 yuan worth of gold after a year and a half.

This reward is not particularly large, but it is definitely not small either.

Liu Biao himself was quite satisfied.

But along with the reward came a transfer order. After Liu Biao completed the exploration of the rivers in the northern plains, he returned to the Cao Zhendong regiment headquarters in the royal capital.

I can't keep looking for gold in the forest by myself.

The 3000th Institute of Zhongwei, Australia will take over the exploration and mining of the Hui gold mine in the South Australia Bay.

Of the twelve steam ships that came to Australia this time, after unloading all the passengers and cargo, two were left for the Australian Central Guard to use.

Responsible for local cargo transportation, message delivery, and overseas exploration in Australia.

No coal mines have been found around the South Gulf of Australia. In the future, coal will be transported from the Wuwangdu Beihekou Coal Mine to the South Gulf.

Subsequently, we will look for suitable locations to build multiple coal storage and supply warehouses west of the southern Australian Gulf, near the river estuary in the northern plains, and north of the Wu capital.

To supply steam sailing ships for future travels to various places.

Next, we will go deeper into the ocean at the right time to explore possible islands east of Australia.

The main target is New Zealand in Zhu Jianxuan’s previous life.

The other ten steam sailing ships, after unloading their cargo, returned directly to northern Australia, towing ordinary sailing ships through the upstream belt.

Another half year later, by September of the 32nd year of Xianning, all 30,000 immigrants from the two thousand households in Zhongwei, Australia, had been transported to their destinations. All the livestock herds organized in various parts of Nanyang had also been transported.

At this time, the exploration of the northern river valley of King Wu's capital had been basically completed, and the exploration team successfully crossed the coastal mountains along the river valley.

It was determined that there were indeed vast plains to the west of the mountains, but they were all grasslands.

The area west of the mountains is far less humid than that east of the mountains, and it is difficult to cultivate the land into farmland unless there is particularly abundant groundwater.

But for the Ming Dynasty, the vast grasslands were equally valuable.

The Ming Dynasty lacked sufficient pastures, and there was no way to obtain enough horses, cattle, sheep and other livestock in a relatively low-cost manner.

Australia now has large areas of grassland, which is very suitable for developing animal husbandry.

In the exploration of the southern bay of Australia, the exploration team commanded by Liu Biao completed the basic survey of the plains in the north of the bay.

The direction of the larger river on the plain has been basically determined.

It originates from the foot of the mountains in the southeast of the continent and flows obliquely toward the northwest.

Finally, in the center of the Australian continent, a north-south southern vein turns south and flows into the sea at a bay at the southern headquarters of the continent.

The areas on both sides of the river become drier as they go downstream, and there is actually not much water in the lower reaches of the river.

The main river channels in the upper, middle and lower reaches are basically the same width.

There is a long sand bar and a lagoon swamp with shallows at the river mouth, and the specific location of the river channel at the mouth is difficult to distinguish.

Therefore, when the coast was explored, no one realized that the river's basin was quite wide and its main stream was quite long.

Liu Biao took the exploration results and headed north on the sailboat left in Australia, and returned to Wangdu to report to the team leader Cao Zhendong.

Cao Zhendong integrated the exploration results from the north and south and made a bold hypothesis:

The prairie behind the mountains west of the Wu capital and the great plain north of the southern bay may be connected to form a huge plain.

So Cao Zhendong assigned Liu Biao a new task and asked Liu Biao's exploration team to enter the Australian interior to confirm his guess.

After half a year of preparation by thousands of households in southern Australia, gold mine development in the western part of the Gulf officially began.

The early work of the exploration team is basically to patrol carefully around the mining area and collect gold ore directly exposed on the ground.

This process is like picking up gold on the ground.

Even with various means of supervision, it is impossible to completely avoid private possession.

The benefits of gold are too great.

You can only collect as much as you can, and then give them enough dividends, coupled with sufficiently terrifying punishments.

The people responsible for the gold mine in the 3,000th household in Zhongwei, Australia will definitely become rich.

But in the end, the biggest share will definitely belong to King Wu of the Ming Dynasty.

The Crown Prince of the Ming Dynasty in Yingtian Prefecture completed the organization of the third batch of immigrants from the State of Wu when the second batch of immigrants had all arrived.

The third batch of immigrants will still be divided into two parts.

One part is the last two thousand households of the Australian Central Guard, all of which are still organized from the core areas of the Ming Dynasty.

The other part is the five thousand households of the Australian vanguard, who will be recruited from immigrants from all over Indochina and the South Pacific Islands.

At this time, the number of steam sailing ships reached thirty, and the number of traditional sailing ships in use reached eighty.

After September when autumn comes, the main wind direction will turn from north to south, and the transportation speed will be faster than in summer.

In addition, most of the immigrants are from Southeast Asian organizations that are closer to Australia, so the next total of 90,000 immigrants are expected to be delivered in just four to five months.

After two years of intensive use, the reputation of steam sailing ships has now been fully established.

The transportation efficiency of steam sailing ships is far superior to that of traditional sailing ships.

A steam sailing ship can make the same trip twice in the time it takes an ordinary sailing ship to make one trip.

The key is that it can adapt to various complex wind conditions, and the routes and sailing schedules are more controllable than traditional sailboats.

Even though steam sailing ships are much more expensive than traditional sailing ships, they are still increasingly valued by the Ming Dynasty court and merchants.

Both the government and the private sector are accelerating the steam transformation of existing sailing ships, and are also specially designing and building new steam sailing ships.

It is estimated that by the end of next year, the Ming government and private merchants may have more than one hundred steam sailing ships of various sizes.

At this busy time, representatives of the Continental Congress of the United States, together with the special envoys of the King of France, came all the way to Ming Dynasty.

(End of this chapter)