Nanyang Storm 1864

Chapter 22 Hainan Island Transit Port

Guangming Town is a large town with a population of more than 600. It is also the core of the entire Chongming Island Reclamation Group. There are more than 1500 Tongzhou militiamen stationed here, plus their families and children, the total number exceeds .

Guangming Town is the distribution center of groceries for the entire Chongming Island, and has a grain storage area mainly based on Tucheng, which stores more than 70% of the grain reserves of the entire Chongming Island.

It was just after the summer harvest season, when the Du Biaoying army was suppressing bandits in the south of the Yangtze River, and launched a dragnet-style military operation to accommodate and identify refugees.

A large number of settlers poured in one after another, and a lot of stored grain was used up, resulting in the current stored summer grain dropping from a peak of more than 17,000 dan to less than 5,000 dan.

If we distribute relief food sparingly, it can last until the winter rice harvest in March or April next year, provided that the population of the settlers does not increase.

Today, there are more than 3 settlers on Chongming Island, most of whom are strong young men. This is also the population that Zheng Guohui plans to bring to Southeast Asia.

If these Taiping remnants and refugees were to escape to the outside world, they would most likely die.

The world is so big, there is almost no place for us to live.

After experiencing major events such as the Tianjing Massacre and Li Hongzhang's massacre of tens of thousands of surrendered soldiers in Suzhou City, the remnants of the Taiping rebels who fled to Chongming Island were more or less aware that their current situation was not optimistic.

Among the new settlers on Chongming Island, eight or nine thousand had escaped from Gusu City. Almost all of them were frightened to death and lived in constant fear.

Being able to hide here and survive, and to have enough food and clothing, is already a great favor to General Zheng Guohui.

Therefore, in each village, a simple ancestral hall for the general was built, which received incense and worship from the villagers every day, praying that the general would become more prosperous and prominent and have a bright future.

The higher General Zheng Guohui's rank, the greater the chances for these settlers hiding on Chongming Island to survive safely.

If you lose the protection, you will almost certainly die.

Go up to Chongming Island
Zheng Guohui gained a more intuitive understanding of the situation on the island. The overall situation was still stable, and the vast majority of the residents knew how to be grateful. Generally speaking, everything was good.

In the immigrant village
Generally, they are organized into groups of 12 people, with six groups forming a team, and are housed in adobe and thatched houses.

Teams six to eight form a village, and each village accommodates a population of about 450 to 600 people, which is equivalent to a village-level resettlement site. There will be some small businesses running tofu shops, breakfast shops, and uniformly set up grocery stores.

The grocery store also buys fish and wild game, which are considered local specialties. They are shipped out of the island and sold, which can at least provide some additional money.

In each village
There are eight larger villages, which are central villages. They generally have larger populations, with a permanent population ranging from 1000 to 2000. The businesses such as needle and thread shops and blacksmith shops are relatively complete, and they are more lively than other villages.

The most important one is Guangming Town.

Zheng Guohui inspected the earthen city in Guangming Town. The earthen city was built with adobe bricks and thatch. It was about 3.8 to 4.2 meters high and had a circle of more than 2200 meters.

Backed by Guangming Lake, there is a 4-meter-wide canal in front of the earthen city. No buildings are allowed within 150 meters in front of the canal. Usually, there are more than Tongzhou militiamen stationed there to guard it.

There are wooden watchtowers more than ten meters high around the earthen city. Each watchtower can be used for a team of twenty to thirty people to guard, equipped with ten foreign rifles, bows and arrows, and several swords and guns.

The main gate of Tucheng is a road more than 5 meters wide. The gate is made of hard logs as thick as legs, reinforced with iron bars in a cross shape, which looks rough and strong.

In front of the wooden door is a stone moon arch bridge, but there are no facilities such as a suspension bridge.

However, on both sides of the earthen city gate, there are city platforms over a hundred meters long, which can accommodate up to five hundred people to fight on the city walls and block the road crossings with dense stray arrows and foreign rifles.

Without powerful weapons and guns, it is impossible to break through the earthen city gate.

The earthen city is divided into two layers, inner and outer layers.

The inner city is full of tall round granaries, also built with adobe bricks. These adobe bricks with thatch added are beaten and dried, and each one is harder than stone bricks.

After the granary was built into a circular shape, it was painted with lime water on the outside. The base of the granary was made of long bluestone strips, one foot above the ground to prevent water accumulation and bites by rats and insects.

When Zheng Guohui was inspecting, there were still more than 450 laborers in the inner city building grain storage granaries, and 13 granaries were being built at the same time, with to people at each construction site.

The rest were busy making adobe bricks, which were then piled up layer by layer with space around them, and placed on the river bank to be blown by the strong cold wind.

It only takes more than ten days for these bricks to dry completely.

According to the introduction of my fifth uncle Zheng Shoucheng
Today, there are 57 granaries in Tucheng, each of which can store more than 800 dan of grain, with a total storage capacity of about 5 dan.

More than 90 granaries are currently under construction. By the time the winter rice is harvested in March or April next year, the number of granaries will reach more than 7, with a capacity to store more than shi of grain.

Today, more than 2 mu of wasteland have been reclaimed on Chongming Island, and there are to chickens and ducks raised as poultry, and nearly pigs on hand, and the number is still expanding rapidly.

The construction of granaries in Tucheng must not stop. In addition, some small granaries have also been started in each central village. Each granary can store more than 200 stones of grain, and the number of granaries built ranges from more than ten to more than twenty.

The storage capacity of each central tun is about 3000 to 4000 dan, in case of emergency.

Zheng Guohui stayed overnight in Guangming Town, enthusiastically enjoying seasonal game dishes like iron-pot stewed fish with pancakes, pheasant braised with wild vegetables, musk deer meat stewed with radish, and crocodile leg stewed with wild ginseng. He ate with such gusto that he exclaimed, "It's so delicious!" Chongming Island is vast, with layers of forests and reeds teeming with wildlife: geese, swans, pheasants, ducks, musk deer, elk, even wolves, as well as finless porpoises and crocodiles. And there were countless large, fat fish, two or three feet long.

over the past year

As Zheng Guohui's power expanded rapidly, the construction of Chongming Island also entered the fast lane.

During the slack season, roads were rapidly extended and developed, and various paddy fields and ditches were also excavated with great concentration, achieving considerable development results.

This fertile land is particularly suitable for growing water-loving rice, and the yield is quite good.

The biggest problem now is the lack of oxen. After hearing this, Zheng Guohui made a decisive decision to allocate 4 taels of silver specifically for the purchase of large livestock such as oxen, mules, donkeys and horses, totaling about a thousand heads.

These large livestock purchased can not only be used for farming, but also for breeding and raising, and selling them can also bring good profits.

Anyway, there are lush wild grasses and trees on Chongming Island, and they can live well if left alone. You don't have to take care of them at all, and you don't have to worry about them running away. It really saves you effort and worry.

During this period, Zheng Guohui accumulated a private fortune of 4 taels of silver. He took out 3 taels of silver to purchase large livestock and reserved taels of silver to purchase weapons and equipment.

The remaining money will be used to purchase large Western ships, which will have important uses.

6 taels of silver, according to the current price
The cost of purchasing a 1500-stone ship capable of sailing to Southeast Asia, including materials, industrial silver, etc., would be approximately between 1800 and taels, with not much difference.

The difference lies in the wood used. Using some dismantled ship materials can save costs, and the best ironwood is naturally more expensive.

If you buy a second-hand Western sailing ship with a carrying capacity of about 4000 dan, the cost will be much higher, about 6000 to taels of silver.

The difference lies in the condition and configuration of the ship. Many large sailing ships of Frankish merchants are equipped with Western cannons, generally ranging from 3 to 8 guns. Each bronze cannon is worth hundreds of taels, so the price difference comes out.

The Fujian ship is a flat-bottomed ship, while the Western sailboat is a pointed-bottomed ship. Naturally, it uses more materials and can withstand stronger winds and waves and harsh weather. Its sails can better withstand the wind and sail faster.

In comparison, it is worth spending more money.

Since this time
The Zheng family sought to purchase large, thousand-stone ships, and the fleet size had grown to 67 ships, including 14 large, thousand-stone ships, and more than 20 thousand-stone ships had been ordered.

Such a thousand-stone Fu ship is about thirty meters long and ten meters wide. While carrying a large amount of food and weapons and ammunition, it can carry between 220 and 280 soldiers.

If you pack fewer soldiers, you'll have more room to move around.

If the distance is short or transfers are possible in the middle, more soldiers can be loaded. However, the environment will be much harsher, which will cause unnecessary casualties.

Therefore, Zheng Guohui planned to send people to Hainan Island, first transport a part of the population to Hainan Island, purchase large tracts of land, cultivate and live locally, and store grain.

When large-scale voyages to Southeast Asia begin in the future, Hainan Island will be used as a transit port.

This matter should be handed over to someone who is steady and experienced. After the beginning of next spring, people should be sent to Hainan Island immediately to purchase land and property and build port and terminal facilities.

The best candidate, of course, is my fifth uncle Zheng Shoucheng. It was he who built the Chongming Island foundation with great effort, and he can be said to have made great contributions.

Considering that we cannot do without people here, my fifth uncle Zheng Shoucheng must be here in person.

Zheng Guohui could only focus on his fifth uncle's assistants. After discussing with his fifth uncle Zheng Shoucheng, he finally decided that his younger uncle Zheng Shouxin would lead the team to Hainan Island for development.

My uncle Zheng Shouxin was a bastard. Like several other bastards of his uncles, he was not able to share the Zheng family's property and had no chance to start his own family.

Basically, they all work within the clan, serving as managers of the workshop, accountants or shop owners, receiving a salary, and at the end of the year they receive dividends, fruits and meat as rewards, which is much better than being ordered around by outsiders.

Working within the family gives me a strong sense of belonging.

These uncles who were born out of wedlock all came from small families. With limited wealth, they could not afford concubines and had to rely on the huge Zheng clan for survival.

The same is probably true for Zheng Guohui's younger brothers and sisters. After the old man passed away, the family property of the eldest branch would undoubtedly belong to Zheng Guohui, and those illegitimate brothers and sisters would basically not even have the leftovers.

Those who are capable will make a name for themselves, while those who are not will return to the clan to see if they can please Zheng Guohui and be assigned to a workshop as a manager or something, and live on the monthly salary.

The same is generally true for other families.

The only thing that makes them better than ordinary people is that some concubines will hide some private money and secretly provide for their children so that they can live as comfortably as possible.

Zheng Guohui handed over the important task of opening up a transit port on Hainan Island to his half-uncle Zheng Shouxin, which moved him to tears.

Vow to complete the assigned task no matter how difficult it is.

(End of this chapter)