Chapter 771: stream seeking

Chapter 771: stream seeking

  Chapter 771 Liuqiu

  North of the Yangtze River Estuary, under the jurisdiction of Cheng Chumo's Beihai Navy Fleet. The south of the Yangtze Estuary to the Ryukyu Strait is under the jurisdiction of Yuchi Baolin's East China Sea Navy Fleet. The south of the strait is under the jurisdiction of Niu Jianhu's South China Sea Navy Fleet.

  The division of land is good, but everyone is satisfied, but Niu Jianhu is a little dissatisfied, thinking that he should be the admiral of the East China Sea Navy, and Pauline came later, and he should be allowed to lead the South China Sea Navy.

  Qin Lang ignored him.

  The fleet of 6,000 people has therefore been changed from 3,000 people per fleet to 2,000 people, and the ships and so on must also be shared equally with the new fleet.

   "Tell me where is the target?"

   "Qin Lang's finger is righted by him, and it has been enlarged many times. A finger on the treasure island, this!"

"This is?"

   "Liuqiu!"

  This Liuqiu is not the Ryukyu. The descendant of the Ryukyu was originally a vassal of the Central Plains. It was later invaded by the Wa Kingdom and changed to Okinawa. And this Liuqiu has been the name of Baodao since the Sui Dynasty.

   During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, Taiwan was called Daoyi in the Central Plains, Yingzhou in the Qin Dynasty, Yizhou in the Three Kingdoms period, and Liuqiu in the Sui Dynasty.

  Although it is very close to the mainland, since the Qin and Han Dynasties and the Sui and Tang Dynasties, Fujian has been mountainous and closed, so it has not been truly included in the real jurisdiction of the Central Plains court for thousands of years, and it is even more backward and wild than Lingnan.

It is precisely because of this that Taiwan Island, which is not far from the opposite bank of Fujian, has become more and more distant from the Central Plains. Although people from the Central Plains have landed on Taiwan Island from Fujian very early on, compared with Hainan Island, Taiwan Island has always been the same as the Central Plains court. could not be together.

During the period of the Three Kingdoms, the Eastern Wu was in the southeast corner of An’an, and urgently needed population, land and food, so they conquered the mountains and crossed the mountains and entered Fujian all the way. Later, they sent generals Wei Wen and Zhuge Zhi to lead thousands of troops to Taiwan Island and attack the islands on the island. , captured thousands of people, and cultivated food on the island.

  But then the reclamation plan failed, and only a few thousand island captives were brought back.

  However, during the Jin and Southern and Northern Dynasties, the exchanges between the Central Plains and Taiwan Island increased.

   After the Sui Dynasty ended the split between the North and the South and unified the world, Yang Guang was very interested in this rumored giant island in the sea. He sent envoys to Liuqiu Island three times.

  In the first year, Zhu Kuan was sent to Liuqiu Island to appease the islanders with He Man, the sea master, but he couldn't speak the language, and only one person was arrested and returned.

  The second time Zhu Kuan took the Kunlun slaves who could understand the island language to appease the island barbarian king, but they refused to surrender, so they only captured a few people and went back.

  Daye three years later, Chen Leng and Zhang Zhenzhou sent ten thousand Dongyang soldiers from Haiyang (Chaozhou) in Yi'an County to attack Liuqiu.

When the Sui army arrived on the island, the islanders thought it was a merchant ship from the Central Plains coming to trade, and happily brought souvenirs to trade, but Zhang Zhenzhou and Chen Leng killed them all the way to their king's capital, captured their big and small kings, and captured them. Thousands of people returned.

  Because of Liuqiu's resistance, Yang Guang did not allow Liuqiu to be included in the territory of the Great Sui Dynasty, which failed to become a stroke of his great cause. However, these actions also gave the Central Plains a deeper understanding of this Yidao.

They know that there are many tribes on the island, there are many tribal alliances, and there are kings of all sizes. They know the names and surnames of some tribes, and even know some of their political organizations, residence buildings, weapons, and clothing for men and women. , customs, etc.

  In general, although there are many tribal alliances on the island, they are not a group of savages. They like tattoos, live in stilted houses, farm and hunt, and even have their own beliefs and so on.

  The Sui people left written records of thousands of words.

If the Sui Dynasty hadn't collapsed and perished during the conquest of Goguryeo, Qin Lang believed that Yang Guang would definitely conscript Liuqiu again, and definitely bring Taiwan Island and the entire Liuqiu Islands into the territory of the Tang Dynasty, and place counties on it Set up a county.

   It’s just that he collapsed before he could do these things in time. In the end, Yu Jiangdu was murdered, and his great career will never be continued.

  The Tang Dynasty raised troops in Taiyuan, founded Chang'an, and the unification war did not end until the second year of Zhenguan. It was not until the third year of Zhenguan that the Eastern Turks and Tuyuhun were defeated, and they truly stood up.

  From the beginning to the end, Datang didn't have the energy to take care of other things, let alone this island on the sea.

  During the Sui Dynasty, there was only one Jian'an County in the whole of Fujian, with four counties under its jurisdiction, and the total population was only 12,000 households.

By the time of the Tang Dynasty, the country had been established for fifteen years, and there were only three prefectures, Fujian, Jian, and Quanzhou, with only ten counties under its jurisdiction. This is also the origin of Fujian Dao. Dao is not strong, it is far worse than Lingnan.

  After all, Lingnan has always had Guilin, Guangzhou, and Jiaozhou, which have been firmly controlled by the Central Plains Dynasty, but Fujian is nothing.

Fujian really developed, in fact, in the late Tang and Five Dynasties, the brothers of the Wang family entered Fujian and ruled the roost here. Cultivate wasteland and farmland, and work hard.

At that time, the Central Plains was chaotic, and under the management of the Wang family, southern Fujian actually became a rare place outside the world. A large number of gentry, common people, and craftsmen went south to enter this relatively closed place, which brought great impetus to the development of southern Fujian. .

  Afterwards, in the Song Dynasty, one prefecture, five prefectures and two armies were established in Fujian, all of which were prefecture-level units, so it was first called Bamin. With the rise of maritime trade in the Song Dynasty, although Fujian was divided into mountains, rivers and land, it had a large number of excellent seaports. Taking advantage of this wave of maritime trade, Fujianese developed rapidly in the fields of shipbuilding, navigation, trade and business, and made amazing achievements. Fujian is also becoming more and more developed.

At the end of the Ming Dynasty, due to the invasion of the Qing army and other reasons, many maritime merchants in Fujian turned into pirates. The largest maritime merchant and pirate group at that time was the Zheng Zhilong Group. Organized the Han immigrants on the island and established a powerful force that ruled the roost for decades.

   Until later, Zheng's generals surrendered to the Qing Dynasty and led the Qing army to seize Taiwan Island. From then on, Taiwan Island was directly under the jurisdiction of the Central Plains Dynasty.

   "This island is half the size of Fujian Province, rich in gold, copper, sulfur, buckskin, camphor, betel nut, wood, and rice."

"According to a businessman who traveled to and from the island, there was a King Fan on the island. Their tribe was very powerful. In their king's castle, there were eight golden men offering sacrifices, each weighing a thousand catties. gold."

   "In addition, 90% of the camphor incense used in my Tang Dynasty today is actually purchased by merchants from the locals on Liuqiu Island. Last year alone, the camphor purchased reached as much as 150,000 guan."

  Camphor can be used to lavender clothes to prevent insects, can also be used as medicine, and can also be used to make incense. It is widely used in Tang Dynasty. Among the camphor incense, the camphor incense on Liuqiu Island is the best.

  This kind of commodity that is in short supply is controlled by several major fan kings on Taiwan Island. Merchants can only purchase camphor from them, and the pricing power is completely in their hands.

Hundreds of thousands of camphors a year make the kings earn a lot of money, but they don’t know that those sea merchants transfer the Taiwan island camphor back to Guangzhou or Quanzhou, and then process or pack it. You can resell and earn several times the huge profits.

  Qin Lang knew that in history, in the late Qing Dynasty, a camphor war broke out because of Taiwanese camphor. At that time, the British used opium to trade camphor with Taiwanese, which affected the government’s profit, and finally a camphor war broke out.

   "How does Saburo know so much?"

Qin Lang chuckled, "Chu Mo, you gave me the money earlier, didn't you earn a lot of interest and the principal rolled into Wanguan? Let me tell you, a large amount of income here comes from selling camphor incense on Liuqiu Island. We A load of sixteen strings of money is bought from the Fan Wangs, and the Fan Kings buy camphor from the top households on the island, but at most they only give the Ba Guans.”

   To make the difference in the middle, you will earn 70,000 to 80,000 yuan a year.

   "So that's the case, if we kill them now, wouldn't it be impossible to do this business in the future?" Cheng Chumo asked.

"No need in the future, it can't be done now. At the end of last year, the fan kings reached a unified attitude and refused to sell our camphor at the price of sixteen strings a load. They made some excessive demands and kept increasing the price significantly The purchase price of the camphor, and also asked us to buy the camphor.”

Camphor is extracted from camphor wood. Old camphor trees more than 50 years old are cut down, and their roots, trunks, branches, and saws are chopped into pieces. The leaves are also used, and then distilled to extract the camphor and The volatile oil is evaporated with water vapor, collected after cooling, and is crude camphor.

   What the Kings of Fan sold to the Qin family was this kind of roughly processed camphor, which sold for 16 bucks a load, and they bought eight guns a load from the mountain people.

  And Qin Lang bought and transported the crude camphor back to the processing plants in Quanzhou, Guangzhou, etc., sublimated and refined the crude camphor to make camphor powder, and then pressed it into molds to make transparent camphor blocks, which were packaged and shipped to various places.

In recent years, the demand of the Qin family has been increasing, and more and more camphor trees are being cut on the island. The camphor is mainly made of roots, branches, leaves, etc. The trunk of the camphor wood is generally not used, but people on the island also There is no need to use so much camphor wood, and now it is piling up.

  So they didn't want to waste it as firewood, so they wanted the Qin family to buy these camphor logs. If they want to buy camphor in the future, they must buy camphor logs as a set.

   But there is no one to buy camphor wood. It is not easy to transport camphor wood back from Liuqiu Island on the other side of the strait. In the past, it took a few boats to transport 10,000 tans of camphor back a year, but now the transportation costs are expensive.

  Some fan kings went too far and asked the Qin family to transport the camphor wood from the deep mountains to the port wharf. In fact, it was tantamount to asking the Qin family to bear the cost and hire their people to transport the camphor wood.

  Who wants to do things that don’t make money?

   But the Qin family disagreed, and the Fan Wangs refused to sell camphor anymore, knowing that only they had this product.

   It was a pleasant cooperation at first, but now it has reached an impasse because of this matter. Naturally, the timber business can make money if it does well, but the Qin family came to Taiwan to earn spice money, which is a high-profit business, so they are not willing to resell wood.

   In previous years, the tens of thousands of tons of camphor, purchased, processed and sold, could bring more than 100,000 yuan of profit to the Qin family a year. Who would give up such a large income easily?

  The Kings of Fan thought they had the Qin family under control, but they didn't know they were playing with fire.

  A profit of 100,000 guan a year is completely worth starting a war.

   What's more, there are eight gold men in the rumors, weighing 8,000 catties, which is a full four tons of gold.

  Niu Jianhu wriggled his fingers, but couldn't figure it out.

   "Sanlang, tell me how much is eight thousand catties of gold worth?"

  Yuchi Baolin looked at him contemptuously, "Every ten-year-old child knows that a catty of sixteen taels of gold is worth 8,000 yuan, and this 8,000 catties of gold is worth 10.24 million guan."

   "Fart, it's obviously one million and twenty-four thousand."

  A group of young admirals and envoys of the navy counted their fingers together for a long time, and finally determined that it was 1,024,000 pieces.

   One million pennies, everyone's eyes were red like blood.

   "Grab him!"

   They punched and shouted together!

  (end of this chapter)