Dominate the Country

Qianqing Palace.

On one wall of Chen Ming's bedroom, a large map is hung. This is a very fine and detailed map with longitude and latitude, but it is not based on the Purple Mountain Observatory as the coordinates, but on the Mausoleum of the Yellow Emperor in Yan'an, Shaanxi as the midpoint.

Chen Ming originally didn't want to do this. China's current determination, division and theoretical construction of longitude and latitude rely largely on the "achievement construction" that has been completed in similar Western research. Taking the results of others' hard work, changing a guise, and turning it into his own thing, this makes him feel a little ashamed.

But Westerners themselves are not up to the task. Countries such as Britain, France, and Spain have their own rules. The British have made great efforts in this matter, and the French are not much behind them. The Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, and Danes all have their own research. Why should China follow the British now?

This is unfair to France, the Netherlands, Spain, and Portugal.

The original time and space plane, the final conclusion was placed in the British Greenwich, that is entirely because the British were the strongest at that time.

Now Europeans themselves have not yet reached a conclusion, so according to the "international practice" of this era, China also needs to come up with its own rules first. After all, this is convenient to use and more helpful for China's current navigation.

The big map marks many islands that have been explored. The Pacific Ocean is in the middle, and New Zealand, Honolulu and the surrounding small islands are all the way to the south. The Dongshan Strait at the north end is the Bering Strait in the original time and space plane. There are red dots representing the meaning of ports, and red and blue arrows symbolizing the direction of ocean currents. The value of this map is more valuable than a thousand gold.

It can be said to be a microcosm of Chen Han's current navigation history.

Chen Ming, holding a small red flag in his hand, carefully observed the east coast of Nanmingzhou. The Overseas Exploration Bureau No. 3, combined with the European navigation chart, has discovered the ocean current in the south of Nanmingzhou. The latter runs from Nanmingzhou to the southernmost tip of America. If you continue to go east along the ocean current, you can pass through the Strait of Magellan to the Atlantic Ocean; if you turn north, you can follow the ocean current all the way to the equator, turn west there, and go directly back to the east coast of Nanmingzhou.

This is simply a closed large loop route, just like the Pacific Ocean north of the equator, the Pacific Ocean south of the equator is also a big "circle".

This red and blue route map also evoked a fragment of Chen Ming's deep memory. The ocean current next to South America to the north seems to be called Peru something, Peru cold current?

It's almost the name. Does this ocean current flow from high latitudes to low latitudes?

But none of this is important. What is important is that the "connection" of this route allows Chen Han's warships to depart from the southern end of Nanmingzhou and directly attack the southern end of South America. They can even go to the east coast of America to make a cameo appearance. If the warships go west, they will still be in the westerly drift belt and can also go to the Cape of Good Hope to make a cameo appearance.

With this "route" opened, the strategic significance of Antarctic Island at the southern end of Nanmingzhou has rapidly increased. This island, which was crowned "Antarctica" by the Overseas Exploration Bureau with an extremely irresponsible "spirit", has a very high-sounding interpretation in China's official definition - the end of the south of the world. Going south from here, there is no land until the ice age of ice and snow.

They should not have been to Antarctica, but just saw icebergs one after another, and were forced to return home by the severe cold.

Anyway, the previous Antarctic Island was meaningless, just like the "End of the World" in the original time and space plane, it was just a tourist gimmick.

Chen Han is building a fairly large gathering place in Antarctic Port on Antarctic Island. This is a port that Chen Han will focus on operating in the next few years. Although the development of Dajinshan is in full swing now, it is probably difficult to recruit immigrants willing to go to Antarctic Port on Antarctic Island by normal means. But this is not a problem for the court.

The court is determined to send people there. Can ordinary people choose not to go?

Antarctic Port is a good sheltered port. It is surrounded by mountains on the south, northwest and east sides, and only faces the sea on the east. The climate is similar to that of the coastal areas of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and the four seasons are distinct and have their own characteristics. Spring and autumn are warmer, but cooler in the evening. In midsummer, there are more than 15 hours of sunshine during the day.

Perhaps by the time the entire Antarctic Port is built, Chen Han’s war with Spain will have ended long ago. However, as an emperor, you must look further ahead and not just look at the small piece of land in front of you. In the future East-West American War, there will definitely be a place for Antarctic Port.

Qin Youzi climbed down from the deck of the Kangaroo with a dizzy head. He was not a landlubber, but the water towns in the south of the Yangtze River were incomparable to the rough seas.

He felt dizzy all the way from the mainland to Nanmingzhou. He had worked in Hexian Town before, but that didn't mean he would go into the water often. This time, he returned to Guangzhou from Hexian Town, and then came to Antarctic Island from Guangzhou. He was still good at transporting ships, and there was no change in all these years. During this long voyage, he spent most of his time lying on the wooden bed in the cabin of the Kangaroo to recuperate. Now that he was at the dock of Antarctic Port, with his feet on solid land, he felt like he was reborn for the second time.

The soldiers who came here lined up on the dock at the command of the officers. Most of them looked pretty good, much more energetic than Qin Youzi, the soon-to-be-appointed leader of Xinanji Town. Qin Youzi couldn't help but smile bitterly. With the help of his loyal followers, he was sent to the office in Nanji Town to rest. As for the people and materials on the Kangaroo, they had to be entrusted to the National Defense Army officers who came with him.

After the initial construction, Nanji Town has the basic appearance of a city. Thanks to the completion and commissioning of the brick kiln factory and the cement factory, the construction of Nanji Town has entered a period of rapid development in the past half month.

Although it is now winter in the southern hemisphere.

But the weather is not too cold. The latitude of Nanji Town is similar to that of North China, but the climate in winter is like that of Jiangnan, and the temperature has hardly ever dropped below zero. The coldest temperature is still four or five degrees, and this climate can continue to rush the work.

First of all, the construction of the urban area of ​​Nanji Town.

There is a lack of limestone around Nanji Port, otherwise a lime kiln would not be built here. Although Antarctic Town does not need to build old city walls, the port and the fort require a lot of cement. Especially the latter, all that needs to be excavated is marble.

The biggest task for the labor camps and laborers transported here in the near future is to install gunpowder in the quarry, blast the mountain with blasting, and while mining limestone to burn lime cement, they also process large blocks of stone into large stone strips, and then transport them to the port piece by piece.

This kind of large stone is very suitable for building foundations or walls. Not only the port lighthouse and the fort need it, but also the government office, barracks, warehouses, schools, hospitals, etc. need this kind of stone.

For this reason, the government office spared no effort in the development of the two quarries. So much so that the labor camps and laborers had to bite the bullet and go into the mountains to mine carts and pieces of limestone and large stone strips, and then use cattle and horses to pull carts and carts along the paved path to the port.

The large-scale use of these stone strips has made a qualitative improvement in the defense of Antarctic Town, which has no city walls. Many public facilities can be used as replacements when danger really comes. So much so that local immigrants want to use this kind of stone to build houses for themselves.

It's better to be safe than sorry.

It's possible that when the battle started that day, Antarctic Town suffered a devastating battle.

Brick and wood houses can't withstand the tossing, let alone the close contact of rockets, even an iron bullet can easily penetrate it. Thinking carefully, it is still reliable to use solid stone.

The local garrison, the battalion officer of the coastal defense battalion once told the Governor's Office of Mo Hu that the construction policy of the local government was a waste.

Antarctic Port is surrounded by mountains on three sides, and only faces the sea in the east. There are also many small islands at the mouth of the sea. As long as it is properly used, the mouth of the sea is sealed, and the narrow waterway is locked, the enemy will not be able to attack Antarctic Town deep inside the bay, unless they give up landing on the bay land and attack from other places. But that would be a bigger problem, because it meant that they would have to cross at least 50 kilometers of mountain roads—mountain roads densely covered with high mountains and lush forests, which was simply courting death.

Therefore, in the eyes of the garrison, it was a sheer waste to use precious stone blocks to build government offices, hospitals, schools, etc., not to mention the construction of houses for ordinary people.

If the enemy had entered the port, and the outer fortresses were removed or surrounded one by one, what would the government office be used for even if it was cast with iron juice? The situation was over.

The continuous mountains and dense primeval forests surrounding Nanji Town were its best barriers, and it was difficult for the army to launch a large-scale sneak attack. As the defenders, they only needed to consider the defense of the sea route to the east. There was really no need to spend huge manpower to build stone buildings in Nanji Town. Those were secondary buildings, and bricks produced by brick kilns were enough. It was a pity that the military's voice was very small in port and urban construction.

However, the chief officer of the government office was not a person who did not understand the situation. The forts at the entrance of Antarctic Harbor are extremely important. They are the key to controlling the bay and keeping the enemy out of the gate. Therefore, the government also allocated a labor camp to him, and later stuffed him with more than 300 slaves from Mindanao. Under the command of the supervisor, the total number of prisoners and slaves, numbering less than 1,000, cut down trees and cleared the site at the selected fort locations, while starting to build forts.

So far, several forts have not been seen. With the current manpower, don't expect the forts outside the port to be erected without wasting a year or two.

Now there are only more than 40 gun positions built at the various fort locations. Similarly, more than 40 large guns, the smallest of which is 15 pounds, have been properly placed. The entire Antarctic Town has a certain degree of defense capability.

In the future, the Antarctic Town will certainly continue to add manpower and materials. The final evolution of more than 40 heavy artillery pieces is also a fully enclosed artillery platform. The number of artillery pieces for overall defense will be even greater. At the same time, land defense fortresses, garrison barracks, warehouses and navigation lighthouses will also be built one after another. In short, this is a long-term project.

It is impossible to use stone blocks to build houses in the city. Including the civilian warehouses, hospitals, schools and other facilities that are about to be built, they are all made of bricks, at most bamboo reinforced concrete.

Several rows of neat residential houses have also been built. Except for a few houses that are "specially handled", there are about a hundred sets in total, which are divided into four residential areas by a cross-intersecting gravel road. The latter is a by-product when mining stone ore.

To be honest, these houses are far from enough to meet the needs of the residents in Antarctic Town. There are already more than a thousand immigrants in Antarctic Town, nearly two hundred households. And are these one hundred houses all for immigrants?

Didn't you see that the fence has been built in the northwest area?

That area is for government agencies and personnel to live in. There are only 75 houses that can be given to immigrants, and there is one commune house in each area. There are only 72 houses in fact, which is only 40% of the total number of immigrants. After the winter in the southern hemisphere is over, immigrants will come back again.

So most people can only squeeze into small wooden houses now, and the living conditions may not be much better than those in labor camps and slave labor!

As for who can get a house, it's very simple, just look at the scorebook. This is the fairest, almost whoever has the highest score is the most active, and whoever has the highest score will have a house. Clear and clear.

The immigrants work very hard every day. These days, they are either cultivating fields, digging ditches, or laying underground drainage pipes.

In addition, they also have to cut wood, build drinking water channels, dig wells... In short, there is no moment of leisure.

The only motivation to support them is the land that Chen Han announced to be allocated to them.

There is fertile land and a climate suitable for the growth of crops here. According to the regulations, each person has five mu of land, so each family can get at least 20 mu, and at most 30 or 40 mu. All the income is divided with the government according to the repayment period, and the loan is repaid in three, five or more years. After that, only 20% of the land harvest needs to be paid each year. This will continue for three years. After three years, all taxes will refer to domestic standards.

Although the government exploited the immigrants who were allocated land more in the first few years, even the first ten years, everything must be compared. They are all landless farmers in China, and they attach great importance to the ownership of land. The ownership of a piece of land can deeply stimulate their nerves. Why doesn't Chen Ming take this opportunity to collect more money?

He is not a real rich man, so he doesn't have to worry about expenses? He doesn't have money now. Then, taking advantage of the immigrants' excitement to collect a little more taxes, and then returning to normal taxes after the excitement fades, is it obviously beneficial to fiscal revenue?

Moreover, as long as these immigrants work hard, at least they will not have to worry about food, which is much better than their life in their native land.

Moreover, these immigrants can rent land from the government, and they can continue to buy five acres of land at a low price. In this way, each person has ten acres of land, which means that each family can have up to fifty acres of arable land, which is absolutely unimaginable for immigrants in their native land. Therefore, their support for the government at this time is absolutely from the heart.

The high exploitation and high pressure in the early stage did not fundamentally make the immigrants dissatisfied with the court, so there is almost no need to consider the sequelae of Chen Han's doing so.

Chen Ming agreed to the measure of the Ministry of Finance after detailed consideration, which is the biggest profit without hurting the people's hearts.