The Ming Dynasty began from Sarhu

Chapter 549 Since ancient times
"······The Emperor Retired and His Majesty, and your minister, Lü Demin, the Governor of the South, led over 380 soldiers on a southern expedition in the first year of the Taichu era. We arrived at Xiao Penglai, Dameisha, and Jiugang on the east coast of Australia. We organized personnel to survey the terrain and occupied tens of thousands of acres of fertile farmland. However, the local natives often attacked us. The men and women are different in appearance, do not weave or wear clothes, and use bird feathers to cover their bodies. They eat nothing but raw meat and drink blood, and live in caves. They wear short, colorful gauze shirts tied with a skirt made of embroidered cloth. The soldiers were not acclimatized to the climate and were often attacked. Of the over 300 soldiers, only 180 remain today..."

Emperor Wu Ding slammed the table and stood up, furious:
"I have good intentions in spreading the Kingly Way throughout the world, saving the barbarians from disaster. I never expected that they would not appreciate my kindness. Not only that, they attacked my soldiers, causing them to suffer from diarrhea and die from the climate and water! Where is their conscience? Where is justice? Where is the quinine and cinchona?"

In May of the fourth year of Taichu, at the Qi army camp on the west coast of Sakhalin Island, Emperor Wuding was holding a report just brought back from Nagasaki, Japan, and reading it carefully. When he heard that Lü Demin and his men had lost more than half of their troops in Australia, he couldn't help but shed tears.

The high priest said cautiously, "Your Majesty, I don't know about quinine, but cinchona seems to be in Peru. When I was in Macau, I heard a Dutchman say it was a good medicine for treating malaria."

"Every time he asks me for help or money, Fatty Lu really takes advantage of me. I'll ignore him and let him fend for himself in Australia!"

Liu Zhaosun shook his hand impatiently, signaling the high priest to stop talking nonsense. South America was too far away from the empire. Conquering Peru had to be at least ranked after occupying Yinzhou (North America).

The Emperor returned to reality and shook his head dejectedly.

"Things are much more difficult than I imagined. It seems that the conditions for colonizing Australia are not yet mature."

The casualties of the Qi army in Australia were mainly due to diarrhea and snake and insect bites. With Qi's current medical means, it was simply unable to solve these two problems. Most importantly, Southeast Asia was not in the hands of Qi, and the navy could not deploy large numbers of personnel to Australia.

Ultimately, Australia is simply too far from the mainland of Da Qi. It's 1,500 miles from Timor, 4,000 miles from Timor to Java, and 7,000 miles from Java to Guangzhou. In other words, it's at least 12,000 miles from Guangzhou to Australia, and you have to cross the doldrums in between. Just thinking about it is daunting.

The Tangbao that Fatty Lu sent back from the east coast of Australia was written on waterproof parchment paper and was placed in a thickened wine bottle with the bottle mouth blocked with a wooden cork.

When the messengers returned to Da Qi after many hardships with this letter, they were probably prepared to be eaten by fish.

After all, this journey is too dangerous.

The reason why Lu Demin and his team were able to arrive in Australia smoothly was certainly not because they rowed or swam directly from Southeast Asia and crossed the equatorial doldrums - although this was theoretically feasible - they followed the Japan Current and the Pacific Current, first drifting to the west coast of North America, then turning south, using the California Current to go south, and finally, following the North Equatorial Current to go west.

To prevent the fleet from drifting back to the Philippines, according to Emperor Wu Ding's instructions, they entered the equatorial countercurrent and then drifted eastward, constantly changing direction along the way. Finally, relying on the southerly sea breeze, they finally reached the east coast of Australia.

Lü Demin's route was too circuitous and completely dependent on luck. It was said that the success rate was less than 30%.

However, as the saying goes, fat people who love to laugh usually don't have too bad luck. Although Lu Demin did a lot of bad things, he was a fat man weighing two or three hundred pounds after all. In addition, he was also influenced by the aura of the protagonist, the emperor. After several months of drifting on the sea, he finally successfully arrived at the east coast of Australia.

More than 300 people were in Australia, sharing the tasks of shipbuilding, recruiting soldiers, and military supplies. One person was doing the work of three people. It was obviously nonsense to colonize Australia and establish an overseas enclave of Da Qi. It was an impossible task. Lu Demin didn't know the emperor's intention, and he continued to build ships and cultivate land step by step. As a result, he was attacked by local indigenous people as soon as he started farming.

Due to the terrain, the humid monsoon winds from the South Pacific cannot reach the interior of the continent. Most of the rain brought by the sea falls on the east side of Australia, and most of Australia's cities and population are concentrated in the east.

Australia lacks rivers, with river systems only existing in the east. While there are no mountains to the west of the continent, the southern hemisphere monsoon belt prevents moist sea breezes from reaching the Australian interior. Australia's annual rainfall is concentrated in a single month—in other words, one month of rain and 11 months of drought. This leads to severe soil salinization. In the northern equatorial monsoon belt, the landscape is primarily covered in tropical rainforest.

In short, for the Da Qi colonists who lived in the pre-industrial age and came from thousands of miles away, they were suddenly tricked by Emperor Wu Ding into this godforsaken place. The end result would be either death from thirst or death from mosquito bites. Of course, it was more likely that they would die from a poisonous snake or be knocked out by a punch from an angry mother kangaroo.

Liu Zhaosun frowned. The situation was much more serious than he had imagined. He had thought that as long as he did what the Europeans did - such as Captain Cook - he could land on this wild continent by ship and put up a sign to declare the occupation of this continent.

Now it seems that I thought too simply.

Large-scale colonization is currently unattainable, both in terms of navigation technology and national strength. Small-scale expeditions landing is basically like the gourd baby saving his grandfather, one person will be spared, which is meaningless. As Emperor Wu Ding was frowning, the high priest Francisco consoled him:
"Your Majesty, I remember that Mr. Lu and his team went to Australia this time, and they were accompanied by some clergy. Since the True Martial God has witnessed the Imperial Expedition's arrival in this wild land, then this land should belong to Da Qi. At least, that's what we Europeans do around the world."

The Emperor nodded and smiled, "Then follow the path of the Europeans and leave them with nowhere to go!"

"But now, compared to Australia, I think it is more reliable to manage Yinzhou."

~~~~~~
Liu Zhaosun believes that it was probably the people of the Shang Dynasty who first discovered the American continent.

After the Battle of Muye, the whereabouts of over 25 elite troops under King Zhou of Shang, who had been sent on expeditions abroad, were unknown. Later, according to the book "Chinese Ancestors Pioneer America," published by Heilongjiang Publishing House, these troops, along with their families and slaves, totaling over people, braved many dangers to cross the ocean to reach America...

The claim that American Indians are descendants of the Chinese has long been around in academia, and many traces of this can be found in ancient historical documents.

The Zuo Zhuan, Duke Xi 2136, records that "six swans retreated and flew past the capital of Song." These retreating swans were neither a specialty of the Central Plains nor a fantasy of the ancients. The only possibility is that years before Columbus discovered America, descendants of the Yin people brought back American hummingbirds worthy of showing off in the Central Plains.

Many scholars have discovered the amazing consistency between the Shan Hai Jing and modern world geography.

"I think that the New World you are talking about is not new at all, because it was discovered by China a long time ago."

"Your Majesty, the navigation technology of the Shang Dynasty you mentioned simply couldn't have crossed the ocean and reached Yinzhou. What you said is just conjecture and has no persuasiveness."

Although the high priest was a clergyman, he retained the truth-seeking and steadfastness that were unique to the missionary era. As far as he knew, when the emperor was discussing the legend of the Shang Dynasty with him, several major European powers had already planned to colonize the New World...
The retired emperor summoned the Grand Secretary Hou Xun and quoted from the classics.

Hou Xun smiled coldly and said in a rhythmic manner:
"The Bamboo Annals records that during the Xia Dynasty, the Nine Yi people were ordered to hunt in the sea and catch large fish."

"This shows that the Celestial Empire's navigation skills had reached a high level by then!"

"The Book of Songs, Ode to Shang, records, 'Xiang Tu is fierce, and there is a Jie overseas.' 'Xiang Tu' refers to the eleventh monarch of the Shang Dynasty, and the 'Jie' in 'there is a Jie overseas' refers to the west of Yinzhou!"

"Classic of Mountains and Seas..."

"Alright, stop talking! Let the Hanlin Academy compile the evidence proving Yinzhou is the homeland of our Celestial Empire into a book, publish it in the court bulletin, and announce it to the world!"

The retired emperor waved his hand, and the Grand Secretary Hou retreated triumphantly.

All the empire needed for foreign colonization was an excuse, not academic persuasiveness.

If there must be any persuasiveness, the tonnage of the warships and the caliber of the cannons are the persuasiveness of Da Qi.

However, Emperor Wu Ding was kind-hearted and pragmatic, so this time he decided to announce to the world legally that Yinzhou, which is what Europeans called the New World, has been an inseparable part of China since ancient times.

(End of this chapter)