Daming pirates

In addition, potatoes and corn are also crops introduced by Westerners from the Americas. They were first introduced to the Americas, and then introduced to Asia via sea routes, and were widely planted. However, during the late Ming Dynasty, they were not cultivated in the mainland of the Ming Dynasty.

Not extensive.

Although Nanyue Island has fresh water resources, it is not rich. It is only enough for the people on the island, but it is not suitable for large-scale planting of rice, which consumes a lot of fresh water. So Yu Xiaotian thought twice about planting

In terms of crop selection, we finally settled on upland rice, potatoes, corn, and sweet potatoes, and only planted a small amount of rice.

Crops such as potatoes, corn, and sweet potatoes are all suitable for dry field cultivation, and the yields are relatively high. The important thing is that these crops are relatively durable and can be stored for a long time without going bad if the conditions are right.

So he asked people to think of ways to purchase a batch of potato and corn seeds and seed cubes, and even accidentally got a few pepper seeds from a merchant in Dechuan.

This made Yu Xiaotian extremely happy. Before Yu Xiaotian came to this era, he liked spicy food, especially Sichuan hot pot, but after he came here, he never had the chance to eat it again.

Other seasonings are easy to deal with. Sichuan peppercorns, cinnamon, star anise and other seasonings can be purchased, and even peppers can be purchased. However, he has never been able to find peppers. This time he accidentally got so many pepper seeds. For Xiaotian,

Speaking of men, but

This was great news, so he specially selected two families and asked them to sow these pepper seeds, propagate them and save them, and plan to plant them on a large area in the future. As one of their special agriculture, it can at least satisfy his appetite.

Desire.

He didn't come to this world just to endure hardships. If he had the chance, he would find a way to satisfy his appetite. Now he would find a way to taste things he had never eaten before, and the food of this era

Basically, it can be said that they are all natural green foods, with no pesticide residues, no chemical fertilizers, and no pollution. If you don’t take the opportunity to fully enjoy your food, you might as well become an ascetic.

Therefore, on Nanyue Island, agriculture has developed very rapidly in the past year or so. Thanks to the hard work of the immigrants, pieces of farmland have been gradually reclaimed and crops have been quickly planted.

The newly reclaimed land was a raw farmland with poor fertility and low crop yields. This gave Yu Xiaotian a headache, but the matter was quickly resolved.

Because they live on the sea, there are many birds in many surrounding desert islands. Over the years, many desert islands have accumulated a lot of guano resources, and guano itself is rich in nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium fertilizers. It is a kind of

An excellent all-natural fertilizer.

So Yu Xiaotian organized human ships to mine guano on these islands rich in guano resources, brought it back to Nanyue Island, and applied it to cultivated fields to improve the fertility of the soil.

In addition, after he took charge of Nanyue Island, the sanitary conditions in the areas where people gathered and lived on the island were strictly controlled. A large number of dry toilets were built in all places where people lived, and the feces excreted by people undoubtedly became

A popular commodity among farmers on the island.

Decomposed human excrement has become the object of their struggle. There have even been fights between farmers in some places on the island to snatch the excrement from certain toilets.

In short, by the autumn of the fourth year of Tianqi, the agricultural development of Nanyue Island was already quite good. Although the food crops produced that year could not fully meet the needs of everyone on Nanyue Island for a year, it at least satisfied them.

About 70% of the food demand has caused them to reduce a large amount of expenditure on purchasing food.

The land tax implemented by Yu Xiaotian on Nanyue Island is 30% of the land tax. Anyone who cultivates farmland on Nanyue Island must pay 30% of the land tax to Hailang after harvesting.

This tax rate may not be too high in later generations, but in this era, it is not too high, because the land tax collected by the Ming Dynasty government on land is not high on the surface, but after layers of exploitation by officials at all levels,

The burden on farmers is very heavy.

The salaries of officials in the Ming Dynasty were low, so they had to find ways to solve the problem, so the unscrupulous officials came up with various methods such as burning fire, kicking the stems of stems, etc. to exploit the people, which made the burden on the people very heavy.

What's more important is that local governments often impose corvees on the people because of various things, and the people still have to do corvees. As a result, the people are even more miserable. By the end of the Ming Dynasty, land annexation in the Ming Dynasty also reached its extreme.

, a large number of ordinary people have lost the land on which they depend for their livelihood, and a large amount of land is concentrated in the hands of landlords and powerful people, so that ordinary people can only rent farmland from them for farming, which further aggravates their poverty.

So by the end of the Ming Dynasty, things were better in the south. After all, the weather was relatively smooth. Although the people were extremely poor, they were not starving to death in large numbers. However, in the Central Plains and the north, due to the influence of the climate of the Little Ice Age, there were

Successive years of droughts, locust plagues and other natural disasters made the people miserable, triggering large-scale peasant riots, which ultimately became the root cause of the collapse of the Ming Dynasty.

Therefore, although Yu Xiaotian collected 30% of the land tax on Nanyue Island, it was not too heavy for the immigrants who came here. They still had 70% of the food left to deal with, which was enough to satisfy their needs for a year.

They even had enough money to buy other things.

At the same time, Hailang also implemented corvee work on Nanyue Island, but their corvée work was mostly concentrated during the off-farm period, and they worked in shifts as much as possible according to the different farming conditions of each household. In this way, their agricultural production would not be affected much.

.

Sea Wolf even proposed that once the close relatives of immigrants join the Sea Wolf to work, their family's corvee service and half of the land tax can be waived to stimulate these immigrants to send their children to the Sea Wolf.

Do things in the middle, so that it gradually becomes one with the sea wolf.

In addition to these food crops, Yu Xiaotian also promotes the planting of crops such as fruits and vegetables in some places on Nanyue Island that are not suitable for farmland farming. These crops should be managed more extensively to reduce labor consumption and at the same time can

Get a lot of by-products.

For these fruit and vegetable agricultural and sideline products, Yu Xiaotian also ordered to spend money to purchase them directly instead of forcibly expropriating them, so that the farmers could get another income to supplement their families. Therefore, after the immigrants from Nanyue Island arrived here, they

Under the support of Hailang, life can be said to be getting better and better, and I feel a bit happy and unwilling to miss Shu.

In this way, the agricultural development on Nanyue Island not only provides the Sea Wolf with a relatively stable food supply, but also allows the Sea Wolf tribe to obtain a stable supply channel of fruits and vegetables.

In the past, when working on a ship, we basically ate staple food plus pickles. The lives of the Sea Wolf tribe members were a little better. They could get some salted fish and meat every day on the ship to supplement their nutrition, but few people could eat fresh vegetables or fruits.

But in the autumn of the fourth year of Tianqi, when the Sea Wolf tribe went out to sea to work on the ship, the food became abundant. During short-term voyages, they could almost all eat fresh vegetables, among which potatoes were undoubtedly one

Very popular, and green vegetables are no longer scarce.

The sailors on the ship can even eat an orange or a piece of grapefruit every day, and even occasionally eat something like lychee. This was something that sailors would not have dared to think about before.

In addition to agriculture, the fishery industry on Nanyue Island has also developed very rapidly. Originally, there were only two small fishing villages on Nanyue Island. The two small fishing villages had a total population of only one to two hundred people and only a dozen or so small fishing boats.

Moreover, in addition to being exploited and oppressed by the shark gangs, these fishermen also have to be careful of the intrusion of small groups of pirates when they go to sea.

Some small groups of pirates do not have the strength to rob big ships, so they can only choose small fishing boats at sea to attack. The fishermen around Nanyue Island used to be frequently attacked by these small groups of pirates. In addition to being robbed of their catch,

In addition to fishing gear, sometimes even people and boats are forcibly taken away.

In addition, fishermen are still being exploited by land-based fishing tyrants, and they have to find ways to purchase fishing boats and fishing gear. Their income is bleak all year round, and their lives are precarious.

After Sea Wolf took over Nanyue Island, he reorganized everything, eliminated some small boats, repaired them and gave them to fishermen to use as fishing boats, so that they could have usable vehicles and also used loans.

, help them buy fishing gear for them to go fishing at sea.

In addition, Sea Wolf vigorously raided small groups of pirates in the surrounding areas and the sea around Fuzhou, annexed or expelled them, accepted reports from fishermen, and acted as a maritime policeman. Once a small group of pirates was found somewhere, they immediately rushed to deal with it.

, allowing fishermen operating on the sea to obtain a relatively safe environment.

Fishermen are no longer afraid of being robbed when they go fishing every day, and their catches have also been greatly improved with the improvement of boats and fishing gear. Although some of the catches have to be handed over to sea wolves as fishermen.

Although there is a tax, the catch is still much higher than before.

In addition, Sea Wolf began to reserve a large amount of ice, providing fishermen with some fish to store at sea, allowing them to go to sea much longer, and their catches naturally increased significantly.

In addition, some famous fishing tyrants along the coast were also warned or mercilessly attacked by sea wolves. Several fishing tyrants who relied on their backing were killed inexplicably, which greatly frightened some coastal fishing tyrants and made them reluctant to go ashore.

The fishermen who sell fish no longer dare to bully and exploit them as they did before, and the income of the fishermen has naturally increased a lot.

After more than a year, it turned out that there were only two small fishing villages on Nanyue Island. In the autumn of the fourth year of Tianqi, three more fishing villages appeared on Nanyue Island. Some fishermen from nearby came here and moved here on their own initiative.

Accept the management and protection of Sea Wolf.

The number of fishermen on the island has grown by leaps and bounds to six to seven hundred. Every day, Sea Wolf can obtain a large amount of fresh fish. In addition to being available for the day, there is also a large surplus. These catches are basically pickled.

Prepare it, make it into dried fish and store it, so that it can be taken by the Sea Wolf tribe at any time when they go to sea.

This also provides a pretty good nutritional supply for the Sea Wolf tribe, which greatly improves the physical fitness of the Sea Wolf tribe, and naturally also greatly improves their combat effectiveness.

What's more important is that while accepting the blessing of the sea wolf, these fishermen were also tied to the sea wolf's warship. For their own benefit, they were also willing to help the sea wolf do things, and voluntarily helped the sea wolf when fishing at sea.

The sea wolves monitor the situation on the sea surface. Once they find any disturbance, they would rather give up fishing and run back to Nanyue Island to report the news. They would even light their sails to report the news to the sea wolves.

And Sea Wolf also gave them great rewards for their actions. Every time they encountered such a situation, in addition to giving them high rewards, if the ship was damaged, they could also be sent to the boathouse for repairs for free.

repair.

Therefore, in addition to providing large amounts of meat products to sea wolves, fishermen have also become indispensable eyeliners on the sea for sea wolves.

Recently, a group of fishermen, under the persuasion of Sea Wolf, have set off to the Jilong Bay area to settle down and fish for a living. Gradually, these fishermen will reduce the long-term fishing of the Sea Wolf tribe stationed there.

Maritime patrol activities.

(Today, special thanks go to brothers Han Jiang Xueyi and Qing Yuzhiyi for their generous rewards!)