Bringing the Railway to Daming

"In 1587, John White established a colony on Roanoke Island with a population of over . The island, nestled among a series of barrier islands in North Carolina, was a beautiful place for the colonists to settle down."

"However, when White returned to England to lobby for more supplies and returned to the island in 1590, he discovered that everyone had vanished, and even the buildings and fortifications on the island had been demolished without a trace."

"White had agreed with those who remained on the island that if they were captured by force, they would leave a cross carved on a nearby tree as a signal."

"But White searched the entire camp and found only the word 'Croatoan' carved on a post—the name of a local Indian tribe..."

The video uses some very gloomy pictures and photos as editing images, and is accompanied by speculations from some people on the Internet.

Some say that the colonists on the island were killed and taken away by the natives; others say that they moved to a native tribe and integrated with the natives.

Others said that there was a plague or civil unrest on the island, and everyone died. The bodies were dragged away by wild beasts, and the remaining items were taken away by the natives.

Seeing this, both Old Zhu and Zhu Biao shook their heads.

For a colony with more than one hundred people, food has to be obtained from the locals. The managers haven't contacted or supplied supplies for three years. Isn't it normal for something to go wrong?
After seeing this example, Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Biao had a premonition: the colonization of the New World by the Western European barbarians must be extensive, and their court must have paid little and intervened little.

The following content of the video just proves the two people's speculation.

Take Britain as an example. The first people brought to the New World to settle and colonize were criminals; while Spain and Portugal simply used Kunlun slaves purchased at low prices from Africa or captured Indians as the main labor force for colonizing the New World, and the Westerners were only responsible for supervision.

It was not until more than a hundred years later, when Western European countries had established sufficiently stable and even self-sufficient colonies in the New World, that some landless refugees, poor people, or adventurers who dreamed of getting rich took the initiative to buy tickets to the New World.

This also marked the beginning of a great wave of European colonization of the New World.

In addition to Portugal, Spain and Britain, the three countries that went to the New World earlier, countries such as France, Sweden and the Netherlands also sent people to the New World to establish colonies.

When the video tells this part, the picture shows a map of America, on which colors representing Western European countries keep appearing, and these colors are either expanding or being swallowed up by other colors.

It was a "feast" of Western European countries dividing up the New World.

However, the video mainly tells the story of the evolution of North American colonial power, that is, how Britain defeated colonial countries such as Spain, France, and the Netherlands one after another, and gradually took control of the rich areas in the eastern and southern parts of the North American continent.

The video, which lasted more than ten minutes, had unknowingly reached the end, and talked about a special case among the North American colonists.

"In the second half of the 17th century, there was a very noteworthy wave of immigrants to North America. Among this wave of immigrants was a man who had a profound influence on the future history of North America: William Penn."

"Penn was the pioneer of Pennsylvania, the state of Bald Eagle. 'Pennia' means woodland."

"Payne was born into an aristocratic family. His father was a prominent admiral of the British Royal Navy and a member of Parliament."

"Like many pampered young men from wealthy families, Payne was exposed to the cruel side of reality by chance. Shocked, he had the idea to change the world."

"The Quakers were a Protestant sect that championed pacifism and religious freedom..."

The last part of the video tells about the "social experiment" conducted by Payne in the former Pennsylvania State.

He brought a group of immigrants and was committed to creating a small society where they could live in harmony with the local Indians, or in other words, where everyone could live in harmony, where there was no oppression in theory, and it was quite democratic and free.

However, this "social experiment" ultimately failed with Payne's death.

The video fades into black at William Penn's Cross Cemetery in a gloomy wilderness, signaling the end of the video and seeming to foreshadow the future of the bald eagle.

Zhu Yuanzhang, Zhu Biao and others naturally did not understand the hint in the video, but they all had their own thoughts on the content of the video.

Zhu Biao was the first to speak, sighing, "I never thought that among the British there would be people who harbored ideals similar to the Great Peace of the World, and even put them into practice. This is truly admirable."

Zhu Yuanzhang snorted, "What Paine advocates is very different from the idea of ​​universal peace. The democracy he advocates clearly prioritizes individual freedom over the interests of the group."

"We have an old saying that goes, 'Only by concentrating our efforts can we accomplish great things.' If everyone only thinks about their own little piece of work and ignores the overall situation, I'm afraid we won't even have a country. How can we accomplish great things?"

Zhu Tan then added, "Your Majesty is right, the way that the British barbarian Pain follows is clearly to make the people unruly. How can that be conducive to governance?"

Perhaps worried that Zhu Biao and Zhu Yuanzhang would continue arguing, Zhu Xiongying looked at Liu Kuan and asked, "Teacher, I saw in the video that the British used to grow tobacco in the New World. Is tobacco the raw material for cigarettes in later generations?"

Liu Kuan actually doesn't like smoking, so he deliberately didn't mention it in the past few years. Now that Zhu Xiongying asked him about it, he had to tell her.

In fact, even if he didn't say it, as the Ming Dynasty deepened its exploration of the Americas, sooner or later someone would realize the economic value of tobacco leaves.

Unless the Ming Dynasty uses its power to curb the spread of tobacco, tobacco will sooner or later gain an economic status similar to that of later generations.

Thinking of this, Liu Kuan said: "Tobacco leaves are indeed the raw material of cigarettes. They can help people stay alert, but they have a slight side effect. Smoking for a long time can also cause certain harm to the body."

Zhu Xiongying was puzzled. "If tobacco is so harmful, why does it seem so popular in later videos and movies?"

As a non-smoker, Liu Kuan actually doesn't know much about this and can only speak according to what he knows.

"The harmfulness of tobacco leaves is very mild and can be controlled by oneself. The harm to the human body is also very minor."

"But it can help people refresh themselves and relieve stress. People in modern times live a fast-paced and stressful life, so many people like to smoke to relieve stress."

Zhu Xiongying nodded thoughtfully, "So that's how it is." Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Biao also diverted their attention. Then they discussed some other issues involved in the video, and then asked Liu Kuan to play the next video.

Zhu Tan was thinking in his heart: Since tobacco leaves will be liked by many people in later generations, after I establish a vassal state in North America, perhaps I can promote their cultivation as an important economic crop, so as to increase the wealth of Lu in the future.

However, at the beginning, the main focus must be on growing food - after all, only with food can we feed more people, and with people can we do more things, even big things.

Seeing Liu Kuan call up the third video and put the tablet away, Zhu Tan came back to his senses and looked at the video title on the screen.

"We're all farmers, so why is there such a huge gap between the rich and the poor?"

Seeing this title, Zhu Tan was delighted again, thinking to himself: It's really like there's a pillow when I'm sleepy. I was just thinking about reclaiming wasteland and farming after establishing a vassal state, and I actually saw a related video. It seems that the teacher still cares about me, a smart student.

The video begins with pictures of people from all over the world farming or eating. Some look numb with poverty, while others have faces filled with the joy of a good harvest.

"The ever-expanding cities, the shrinking forests, the orderly farms, the jagged edges of the private plots."

"Today's thriving human civilization appears on the surface as a city of steel and concrete, bright lights and feasting, but behind it lies the abyss of countless people working hard to make ends meet and the food crisis."

"In the second decade of the 21st century, global cereal production alone reached 28 billion tons per year, yet 7 million people still don't have enough to eat."

"With the expansion of cultivated land and the North-South divide, people living in different parts of the world have different food concerns. And the vast majority of human food comes from cultivated land."

"As the global population continues to expand, it is very meaningful to observe farmland around the world and understand the natural conditions and social differences behind them."

This video was produced by a host familiar to Zhu Yuanzhang and others, the Earth Knowledge Bureau. After explaining the purpose and significance of making the video at the beginning, it began to give examples of typical countries.

The first example was a bit beyond the expectations of Zhu Yuanzhang and others.

The video camera zoomed to a high altitude and then turned to the sea northwest of Europe, where there were several ice-covered islands.

The largest island is probably the size of several provinces, and the smallest may be only as big as a county in the Ming Dynasty.

Finally, the camera descends, making an island marked "Iceland" the protagonist of the shot.

Now Zhu Yuanzhang also knew the meaning of longitude and latitude on maps of later generations. This island was obviously located in the high latitudes in the north, almost parallel to Luohuangdusi, or even further north.

"It must be very cold this far north, right? Judging from the video, could farming be possible here?"

Zhu Yuanzhang was confused.

Although the Ming Dynasty has established the Luohuangdusi, it has only built a small number of garrisons so far, and the local population is still mainly nomadic herdsmen.

It was only two years ago that the Luohuang garrison began to look for a suitable place to reclaim land and grow potatoes.

Although the potato harvest in Luohuangdusi has been good in the past two years, the harsh and cold conditions there are still daunting, and the court can only replenish the population there by exiling criminals.

In order to avoid the phenomenon of the garrison troops deserting, Luo Huang’s garrison troops implemented a rotation system.

The soldiers who went to the Luohuangdusi garrison only stayed there for one year, and they still had fields in their original garrison, which were cultivated by their families, and the local garrison would also send people to help.

As for the fields reclaimed and planted by the soldiers in Luohuang, they belonged to the military fields of the garrison (public fields). After the harvest, part of it was handed over to the court, and the soldiers could also get part of it.

In addition, the imperial court would also provide some subsidies so that the soldiers who went to Luohuangdusi for rotation could earn a little more than if they stayed in their original garrisons.

Coupled with some other supporting policies, the imperial court invested a certain amount of financial support every year, which allowed the Ming Dynasty to increase its garrisons in Luohuang year by year and expand the area it actually controlled year by year.

But Zhu Yuanzhang understood that many of the policies here could only be maintained if the court was sufficiently clean. Once the officials began to become corrupt, Luohuangdusi, with its harsh natural conditions, would most likely quickly decay and become abandoned.

So, how did people in later generations farm in places further north than Luohuangdusi?

Can we rely solely on technology?

With this doubt, he watched the next video more attentively.

"Iceland is isolated in the North Atlantic Ocean, with the Arctic Circle passing through the island. The extremely high latitude means that Iceland's 10.3 square kilometers of land is covered with tundra, wasteland and glaciers."

"However, unlike Greenland, which is at the same latitude and is experiencing a white terror, there are also farmlands and pastures in the fjords and canyons of southwestern Iceland."

"In fact, Iceland's potential agricultural and pastoral land accounts for 18.76% of its total area, and it has even become a supplier of lamb to Europe."

"Every year, the North Atlantic Current flows from south to north, bringing warm water to southern Iceland, creating a temperate maritime climate."

"At the same time, cyclones formed by Icelandic low pressure bring abundant rainfall to Iceland, making the southwest and western regions receive more than 1000 mm of rainfall annually."

"The climate is relatively warm and there is abundant rainfall. Furthermore, the government has built greenhouses and subsidized electricity, giving this high-altitude area a unique agricultural landscape..."

Seeing this, Zhu Yuanzhang couldn't help but blink.

I thought: What does that mean? Iceland is clearly further north than Roheljuk, yet it has such favorable climate conditions that it can be used for farming? (End of this chapter)