I

Whether it is Batavia or Jakarta, it is now a thing of the past. It is now the Governor-General of Coconut City in China.

The land around Yecheng was originally in the hands of large Han landowners. After the imperial court took over Yecheng, the governor encouraged the people to open up the land. The original tenants continued to farm the land while reclaiming the surrounding land.

In a few years, dozens of miles of land were expanded, and all the land ceded to Yecheng from the Wandan Kingdom was cleared. The local Javanese natives must either go to the city to work or work for the landlords, otherwise they can only be expelled.

The governor said that he would slowly civilize the indigenous people, but the Han peasants did not care about so many. They even armed themselves to fight.

They will unite to fight anyone who doesn't let them cultivate the land!

On New Year's Day in the 17th year of the Republic of China, Lu Baohua and his fellow villagers spent the rainy season.

Lu Baohua was a farmer from the mountainous area of ​​Guangdong. When the New Dynasty of Datong was established, his parents gave birth to eight sons and one daughter. Only two of the sons died in infancy. How can the land allocated by the government be enough? What's more, it's a mountainous area.

He successfully graduated from elementary school and finished middle school, but only received a certificate of graduation.

Lu Baohua could only go to the city to work and worked as an apprentice for several years. He really didn't like it, so he asked his classmates to go to Guangzhou to make a living. One day, he met some people who were returning to their hometown to worship their ancestors in Yecheng. He heard that there was plenty of land around Yecheng, and they could be cultivated as long as they went there. The prerequisite was that they could withstand the attack of the indigenous people.

At least, you have to carry it yourself until the governor sends troops to rescue him!

Lu Baohua thought about it and went back to the mountains to summon the young men to go to sea to farm. I recruited a few people in my own village, then went to the next village, going from village to village, and finally recruited hundreds of people to go to sea.

They are all poor people in the mountains, and each family scrapes together everything. In addition to the boat money, they still have a few taels of available funds.

They took a boat from Guangzhou Port with farm tools, seeds and dry food. After reporting to the Governor's Mansion in Yecheng, Datong Bank loaned them twenty taels of silver, and then they were taken to a forest dozens of miles away by officials.

In the first year, trees were cut down to plant sugar cane, but the seeds brought were not used.

Because I heard from local people that the harvest from growing grain was not high in the first two years, but growing sugar cane could be sold at a good price. Sugarcane seeds are purchased from local Han people, and the felled timber can be sold to merchants.

The sugarcane harvest turned out to be good, and they couldn't wait to plant it for another two or three years. In the second year, half of their land was converted to upland rice.

Upland rice has low yield, but good taste and high price.

The main reason is the lack of irrigation canals. So in the second year, they dug diversion canals and bought water from local farmers to irrigate their fields. The water fee was calculated based on the duration of irrigation.

In the third year, Lu Baohua presided over the field division and divided the cultivated land reclaimed by the collective.

This year, Lu Baohua asked his younger brother to go home by boat, bring back letters and silver to the young people, and hoped to recruit more fellow villagers to cultivate the land. They wrote home that the land in Coconut City is extremely fertile and rice can be harvested twice a year without much fertilizer. Agricultural taxes here are lower than back home, and the first five years of farming are tax-free. After reporting to the Governor, you can get a land reclamation loan.

After hearing the news, half of the county was shocked. More than 300 young people went to sea collectively.

In fact, overseas pioneering is very difficult, exposed to the sun and rain, and the climate is unaccustomed. Although sugarcane and rice have high yields, their prices are often lowered by merchants. Although they have enough food and clothing throughout the year, they can't save much money at all. The money I brought back to my hometown was all saved by tightening my belt.

There were two groups of young people, nearly 500 people in total. The governor allowed them to build a village, and Lu Baohua was elected as the village chief.

Among the young men, there were more than ten peasant soldiers.

The Datong court repeatedly reduced the number of peasant soldiers, and also stipulated that each peasant soldier only had to train for three years in his spare time before he had to "retire" and recruit new people. To put it bluntly, they are reserve soldiers who do not receive military pay, but while serving as peasant soldiers, each person is exempted from two acres of land tax.

Only those with land at home were eligible to be farmers and soldiers, while urban residents were not eligible.

Lu Baohua's village is called "Tangmi Village", named after the crops they grow. A peasant soldier named Ge Shun was appointed as the captain of the peasant soldiers because he had finished primary school. All the young men were organized into the team and took turns to practice during the slack season.

The governor does not encourage, prohibit, or manage this kind of peasant and soldier teams. Anyway, they develop in a free-range manner, and the main target of the battle is the surrounding indigenous people.

"Brother, I got the goods!"

Lu Baoliang brought his people back from Yecheng. He was going to buy arms this time. The governor only banned firearms and nothing else, so someone started making crossbows and selling them.

Lu Baohua opened the box and took a look, and said with great joy: "Good stuff!"

Thirty pairs of crossbows, this thing is very popular in the countryside of Yecheng, and it is a sharp weapon against the Javanese natives. Lu Baohua asked the villagers to raise funds and spent all their money to buy these, and even used up all the land development loans.

Every harvest season means war is coming.

At first, the indigenous people robbed the Han people, and the Han people were forced to fight back. Gradually, the Han people organized armies in each village and began to take the initiative to rob the natives.

The first year Lu Baohua came here, he was robbed by dozens of natives. They could only flee and find nearby Han people to move reinforcements. Now they have the ability to take the initiative to fight out.

After the rainy season, in January and February, it is the rice harvesting season.

There are dedicated people standing guard outside the village, and the villagers will help them harvest the rice in the homes of those sentries.

"Dang-dang-dang!"

While working in the golden rice fields, there was a sudden sound of gongs, and then warning smoke was lit. The Javanese natives were indeed coming to kill them.

The Han people were very fed up with this. They felt that the local indigenous people were so disgusting. They did not cultivate the land properly, but they came to rob the Han people of food.

Those indigenous people occupy fertile soil, but their ancestors have not thought about making progress for generations. The vast land does not know how to dig trenches or cultivate it intensively. It only knows how to set fire to the forest, plant it for two or three years, and then burn it in another forest. What a waste of land!

This behavior of burning forests for reclamation is called "shaoba", and it still exists even hundreds of years later. Every year when farmers in Indonesia burn fires, the smoke drifts to Singapore, and Singaporeans have to wear masks before they dare to go out.

"Farmers and soldiers gather, farmers and soldiers gather!"

The young men in the fields everywhere picked up their sickles and rushed to the fields.

Simple ordnance is placed on the ridge of the field, ready for battle at any time. There are spears, wooden shields, and leather armors, and they look good after being arrayed.

The leather armor was sewn by themselves and was made from pigskin.

The pigs are killed at the landlord's house or by the butcher, and the skins are quickly sold out. Farmers in the countryside buy armor made of pigskin and embellished with some bamboo pieces to give it a little bit of defense.

More than four hundred young men quickly gathered, and the command was handed over to Ge Shun, the leader of the peasants and soldiers.

Both sides moved towards the open area. The scale of the indigenous bandits surprised Lu Baohua and Ge Shun.

In previous years, there were only dozens of enemies, maybe a hundred at most, but this time there were more than three hundred.

The natives also seemed surprised. When they came to rob last year, there were only about a hundred Han people here. Why did it suddenly become four or five hundred?

All we can say is that the scale of the "war" is getting bigger and bigger!

Sultan Banten did not dare to provoke China and turned a blind eye to the Han people's land expansion. The Javanese natives continued to lose territory, and finally learned to unite, and two or three tribes gathered together to send troops.

The total number of men, women, old and young in these tribes is often only two to three hundred.

After one or two years of burning forest for cultivation, they will move to another forest. Occasionally, tribal conflicts break out. The main reason for the conflict is the competition for forest land. Now the Han people are forcing the indigenous tribes to join hands with the outside world.

"The crossbowman comes forward, the sword and shield hand raises the shield!"

The shield hand held the big pot lid and the sickle in his hand, standing nervously and firmly in front.

There are also wolf soldiers and spearmen, which are exactly the same as those of the early Datong army.

The Javanese natives on the opposite side did not have any formation and rushed forward with machetes in hand.

More than four hundred Han people were young and strong, divided into small groups and advancing slowly. Thirty crossbows were fired first, and the natives also shot bows and arrows, but they were homemade earthen bows with little power.

Although the crossbow was powerful, the crossbowman's accuracy was not good enough, and he only hit a few natives in one shot.

The two sides engaged in battle, but the natives were disturbed by the wolves, and the momentum of the charge slowed down. Most of the natives were blocked from the wolf bush. Some of them pushed the wolf away and advanced, only to be stabbed to death and wounded by spears.

Less than five minutes after the battle, the natives completely collapsed, and Ge Shun led the young men to pursue them.

In this battle, more than sixty enemies were killed and twenty-seven were captured alive.

They didn't chase too far, they had to come back to harvest rice, and fighting was a war, so they couldn't miss the farming season.

The captives could be taken to the city and sold, and the big landowners were willing to buy them.

Half a month later, the rice harvest was finished.

Lu Baohua convened a meeting of young and strong leaders: "We can't be beaten every year. We have to beat them out this year so that the natives don't dare to come back again!"

Ge Shun said: "There are indigenous tribes not far to the west. Last year they burned the forest, and the forest fire burned a large area. So much land was burned, but less than half was used to grow food. So much good work was really wasted. land!"

Lu Baohua said: "When the governor buys women every year, he gives priority to the Han people in the city, and then sells them to the Han people in the east. The new people we cultivate in the west don't even have women. The girls from my hometown don't want to go to sea to get married. We can only rely on ourselves to grab it!”

"What if we have money and the girl from my hometown is willing to come and get married?" Xue Fentian asked.

The name "fentian" is very common. It is probably because when he was born, he happened to meet the Datong Army to divide the fields, just like the founding of New China and the aid to Korea.

Wan Wenqing laughed at the side and said: "The indigenous women snatched can be wives. If you marry a girl from your hometown again, the indigenous women can be concubines."

"This is such a good relationship, I can also marry a concubine." Xue Fentian grinned.

The content of the meeting immediately turned to how to snatch and divide women. They don't have to worry about food and clothing here, but what they lack is a family. Hundreds of young people have long been exhausted.

These young and strong people have methods for treating night blindness, which they all learned from peasants and soldiers, but many of the indigenous people cannot see clearly at night.

The plan for dispatching troops was to attack at night. Hundreds of young men would go through the forest and reach the outskirts of the indigenous village at night.

The natives were defenseless. After several huts were set alight, they were frightened and ran around in the dark. The Han people, who were young and strong, placed torches everywhere and beat the gongs loudly, creating a formation in which thousands of troops came to kill.

The battle went without any suspense. After daybreak, the number of people was counted and more than 80 prisoners were captured, of which more than 60 were women and children.

"Burn this place clean and move everything that can be moved away!" Lu Baohua was cruel and evil. Catching women was the next best thing. He wanted to destroy this indigenous tribe.

The Datong government may still be embarrassed and think about educating the natives.

These civilian Han colonists came as they pleased. Destroy a few more surrounding tribes, and you will be able to sit back and relax in the future, without having to worry about harvesting food every year.

Lu Baohua took the captives back to the village. The men were all sold in the city, while the women were kept to marry young men.

Who can divide the women will be decided by drawing lots. If you don't get it, wait until next year to grab it.

Colonization is not a treat, it is always so bloody.

If things continue like this, Han Chinese farmers will be farming outside the city of Wandan in less than thirty years.

Sultan Wandan will definitely not be able to bear it. He will definitely raise troops within three to five years. Even if he cannot win, he will have to fight hard.