Chapter 810 Yongcheng Can’t Run Away

In February of the fifteenth year of Chengtian, Ceylon had just passed the rainy season. This tropical country, which is always summery, began to usher in the first dry season of the new year.

Although the temperature in Ceylon has always remained between 25 and 30 degrees for 365 days a year, the dry season and rainy season here are unexpectedly accurate, alternating every three months.

In February, Ceylon had just bid farewell to the rainy season that began at the end of last year. The entire Ceylon once again launched a road construction project. Under the temptation of food and wages, countless Ceylonese people went to recruitment offices all over the island, and trade exchanges between various places became more and more frequent.

Most of the first batch of immigrants who migrated from China to Ceylon came from Southeast Asia. These people have long been accustomed to tropical weather and climate, whether it is dry season or rainy season. However, Chen Han’s "construction plan map" for Ceylon cannot be as adaptable as humans.

In Nanjing’s plan, Ceylon is a bridgehead for Chen Han to attack India. Trincomalee, Colombo and Jaffna Peninsula will be Chen Han's key business targets on Ceylon.

Chen Han has not been able to figure out whether there are one million people in this place, but he only knows that the population distribution here is very unbalanced. Perhaps it is affected by the terrain. About 70% of the population is concentrated in the southwest humid hills and plains, which account for a quarter of the island's area, while the large dry areas that account for three quarters of the country's area are inhabited by less than 30% of the total population. Half of the population in the dry areas (15% of the total population) is concentrated in the small Jaffna Peninsula.

Colombo and Trincomalee, with the highest population density, have an average population density of more than 200 people per square kilometer. The lowest density of Murayti Island is only 5 people per square kilometer on average, which is a huge difference.

Of course, the excessive concentration of Ceylon's population has brought a lot of benefits to Chen Han's rule, and Chen Han, who came to Ceylon with Chinese Buddhism, was generally welcomed by the Ceylonese, whether it was the main ethnic group Sinhalese here, or the two major ethnic minorities Tamil and Moor.

Buddhism was introduced back to Ceylon, and it developed rapidly in both the traditional upper and lower classes of Ceylon, much faster than Hinduism and monotheism. When the Dutch ruled Ceylon before, there were many Buddhists who were posing as monotheists.

Now, the big problem on their heads is gone, and the number of monotheists is like the waterfall of Mount Lushan, "flying down three thousand feet". All Ceylonese people can freely choose their own beliefs, which really makes the Ceylonese people very friendly to Chen Han, the new conqueror who is both familiar and unfamiliar.

What they are familiar with is the name Chen Han. Before this, many Chinese merchants have come to this place. Indian merchants who travel between Jinghai and India have spread Chen Han's name to all parts of Ceylon. And the strangeness is so strange that they are really unfamiliar with Chen Han.

They only have a very vague understanding of Chen Han's strength-strong. But why is he so strong? And how strong is he? What they say, what religion they believe in, what culture they spread, these are all unknown to them.

It can be said that China is a familiar stranger to the natives of Ceylon.

This land has just been handed over to Chen Han, but the Nanjing, which is famous for Ceylon's "black tea industry" in the world in the future, has been cut off by innate, and the gem industry here is stared at. Ceylon is a world-famous gem kingdom. As for the relatively backward agriculture and animal husbandry here, there is no intention to further develop it.

——China does not allow tea seeds to flow out, this is a national policy.

If the British dare to cultivate tea in India, China will immediately declare war on Britain. Therefore, it is really hard to say whether the Indian black tea and Sri Lankan black tea, which are popular in Europe in the future, will appear in this time and space, and how many years it will take to appear.

The arable land area on Ceylon Island is not small. There is no tea, and there is no rubber industry now. Can rice, coconut and coffee be grown here?

The former did not need to be transported to mainland China, as it was too far away and could not make much money.

After more than ten years of recuperation, China's agriculture had fully recovered, and it had also annexed the northern part of Annan, which was rich in rice. The tragic end of the three heroes of the remnant Qing Dynasty frightened the Northern Zheng on the south side of Hanoi. At that time, Zheng Sen, the ruler of Zheng, was not in good health. With the support of the Military Intelligence Bureau, Zheng Kai, the eldest son whom he had always disliked, launched a coup, which was naturally successful. However, Zheng Kai's half-brother Zheng Yu was still alive. Zheng Yu was very smart and good at writing, so he was very favored by his bedridden father Zheng Sen. In recent years, Zheng Sen has repeatedly revealed his intention to abolish the eldest son and establish the youngest son, so that many ministers in the Northern Zheng court attached themselves to Zheng Yu's mother Deng Shihui.

Zheng Kai seized the central government of Northern Zheng, but his position was very unstable. In addition, the end of Hanoi was really frightening, so Zheng Kai simply chose to offer land and surrender.

In this way, China's grain production was even more abundant.

Even in the past few years, neighboring Japan has suffered misfortune. Its northeast region has been hit by freezing rain and snow disasters for several consecutive years, and the northern crops have continued to decline, causing agricultural fatigue. There have also been large-scale eruptions of volcanoes such as Tsugaru Iwaki Mountain and Kanto Asama Mountain. Volcanic ash has generally affected various places, causing large-scale destruction of crops. This has caused large-scale agricultural failures throughout Japan and soaring rice prices. As for the shogunate, due to the influence of the mercantilist policy held by the ruling elder Tanuma Okitsugu, it failed to take effective action, resulting in famine and soaring food prices spreading across the country at the same time.

Even though China has imported a large amount of fine grains such as rice and flour, as well as coarse grains such as potatoes, sweet potatoes, and corn to Japan, Japan's food prices are still high. Because the Tokugawa shogunate did not make any major moves.

Mercantilism, what is mercantilism? That is commercial interests first. The shogunate did not limit the price of food at all, and grain merchants all over the country were in great demand, making the price of food change every day. As a result, even though Japan had enough food to stabilize the whole country, it still caused a large-scale uprising and rice riots.

Tens of thousands of people died of hunger, and the government of each domain was basically paralyzed, making it difficult to respond to the famine. At the same time, the statistics and rescue work of the disaster failed one after another, and a large number of farmers became refugees.

The ruling elder Tanuma Okitsugu stepped down in disgrace. In such an embarrassing situation, Tokugawa Ieharu could no longer protect him, but the 37,000 koku of "private land" owned by Tanuma Okitsugu was not stripped away, so it can be said that he retired in a worthy place.

From an ordinary lower-level samurai to the first lord of Sagara Domain today, Tanuma Okitsugu's achievements can inspire 99% of people in Japan.

After Tanuma Okitsugu stepped down, the mercantilism he advocated and the monopoly companies of iron, copper, lime, sulfur, ginseng, etc. that were established in the past ten years were abolished one after another. Matsudaira Sadanobu, who replaced Tanuma Okitsugu, implemented the "Kansei Reform", which was a policy of emphasizing agriculture and suppressing commerce. He set up town halls in Edo, adjusted prices, rewarded the planting of food crops, restricted the planting of cash crops, stored grain for famine prevention, afforestation, and water management. I believe that Japan will be very exciting in the future.

Chen Ming is happy to see Japan suffer from disasters. This small disaster cannot shake the foundation and rule of the Tokugawa shogunate. However, during this period, rumors of "the shogunate's immorality and the anger of the gods" suddenly spread in Japan. With the help of the Military Intelligence Bureau, the source of this gossip directly pointed to the father of the current emperor, Prince Kanin Norihito.

The army of the Tokugawa shogunate once entered Kyoto City. The final result was that Kanin Norihito's son came to pay for his father. Kanin Norihito completely retired, and the income of the emperor's line, which had finally increased to 100,000 stones, was severely cut off.

Japanese agriculture has caught up with natural disasters and man-made disasters. It will take three to five years to stabilize again. This is a good opportunity for grain merchants to make money. The one who is close to the water gets the moon first, but only China can eat this piece of fat meat.

If Ceylon's grain is really harvested, it can be transported to India in large quantities. Although India has a large area of ​​arable land, the population of Indians is also large, and there are constant battles between princes and nobles, and they are facing the threat of the British. There will always be people who need food.

Although it is not an easy thing for Chinese businessmen to go deep into India now. One by one, there are many checkpoints. It is not easy to go deep into the inland to do business. But everything is explored little by little. If you want to take advantage, you must suffer losses first.

Just like China's business in Kazakhstan, it was also "suffering losses" before, but now there is a reward. It is still a very valuable reward!

Most of the natives of Ceylon live in poverty, but the output of gems here is not small. In addition to sapphires, there are tourmalines, cat's eyes, spinels, topaz, garnets, amethysts, moonstones and other precious colored gems.

Ordinary people here have a great chance to pick up a gemstone in their lifetime. 90% of the land in Sri Lanka contains various kinds of gemstones and semi-precious stones. It is said that a ruby ​​as thick as a palm has been unearthed here. But gemstones do not shine as soon as they are unearthed. They need a little polishing. The value of gemstones after careful polishing is much higher than that of raw stones.

Therefore, even if ordinary people are lucky enough to pick up a gemstone, it can only be regarded as a windfall, and it is impossible to get rich overnight.

And there are really many gemstones here. When there are too many things, the price will become cheap.

For Nanjing, gemstones are the real "big gold mine" they need to dig. They don't care about some interests in agriculture and fisheries.

The "mining" of rotten gemstones is very "child's play". Most of the gemstone mining is very primitive and purely manual "trading" in small workshops. Usually, it is done by hand with a mattock and a shovel on the bank near the river. The small stones dug out are placed on a sieve or a winnowing basket and rinsed with water or washed in a nearby river. Then experienced people will sort out the small stones left on the sieve surface and select the unattractive and irregular raw gemstones. Sometimes you can find one or two raw gemstones in a handful of small stones. Of course, it is also very common to find no gemstones. Then the next round of digging, washing and screening will be repeated. The good raw gemstones, especially the large ones, are usually taken away by the superiors at a very cheap price.

The impact of this supreme decision made by Chen Han in ruling Ceylon is that the lives of the Ceylon people, who were previously oppressed by the Dutch, have improved visibly. This has laid a good foundation for the introduction of Buddhism in China.

Chen Ming, who was far away in the ice and snow of Yili, silently followed the changes in Ceylon. He did not admire the gratifying financial benefits of the newly established Ceylon Protectorate. Well, China's "colonies" will be named Protectorates in the future, and if there is no Protectorate, it will be Chen Han's direct territory, that is, China's "land".

There are still many rich people among the indigenous nobles of Ceylon. The production of gems in this place has not been in the past one or two hundred years, but has been like this since ancient times.

It is hard to say that those nobles do not have a batch of high-quality and large gems hidden in their homes, which are all money.

Chen Han introduced the concept of "auction house" in the gem acquisition industry in Ceylon, and the effect was obvious. More and more large and high-quality gems have been listed in the auction house. Although a considerable profit has to be cut from the revenue, compared with the price when the Dutch were in Ceylon, it has doubled many times!

These nobles had money in their hands, and their status was guaranteed by Chen Han's permission, so they naturally indulged in enjoyment. Some people even sold the arable land and mineral mining rights in their territory to Chinese companies that came to pan for gold.

They became rice bugs at home comfortably.

Therefore, many people in Ceylon "improved" their lives, almost at the speed of thunder. In the blink of an eye, the demand for high-end goods and luxury goods in the Ceylon market increased.

This change was almost unrecognizable to Europeans.

However, in the middle of April of the fifteenth year of Chengtian, Chen Ming, who was in Yili, focused all his attention on the Northeast.

Whether it was Japan, Ceylon, or India, none of them could distract him.

Starting from the beginning of March, after more than a month of efforts, the Aldan Mountains were swept away by Deng Yun's troops. The Russian-Qing coalition forces could not remain indifferent when they encountered "tragic" events in the rear, because the victims were the soldiers' relatives. If they were completely ignored, Repnin and Hailancha believed that the entire army would collapse.

So they had to get out of the fortresses and passes with dangerous terrain, and then there was a series of large and small battles on both sides. When the time entered mid-April, the winter in Siberia was about to pass, and the main force of the Qing-Russia coalition forces was completely surrounded in Yakutsk.

This place is the starting point of Russia's expansion into East and West Siberia, and it is a piece of permafrost. The buildings here are like the stilt houses in southern China, built on wooden piles one meter above the ground. Otherwise, the melting surface permafrost in summer will be a nightmare for any surface building.

This is the coldest city in the world.

Doors and windows should be set up with 3-4 layers to prevent cold air from invading in winter. In winter, you can hear the sound of people's breath turning into ice chips immediately. Fish caught from the river are as hard as stones, and small fish can be eaten as popsicles. Steel is as brittle and easy to break as ice. Leather will crack after being outdoors for an hour or so. Corpses buried under the permafrost will never rot. Corpses from a hundred years ago are as fresh as new when unearthed.

If the cold resistance attribute of the general Russians is 5, it is at least 8 here.

Fortunately, it was already April when the army caught up.

Repnin was not surrounded inside. This guy was still hiding in the Aldan Mountains and fighting guerrilla warfare. But Yongcheng and his men were all in Yakutsk.

"Catch them in one net. I want to see them alive or dead. You can't run away, Yongcheng."