The Rise of the European Emperor

The work of introducing disaster victims was relatively smooth. Marin gave enough money, so how could the smugglers in Ningde and Lianjiang not want it? Therefore, the local snakes in the two places acted immediately and went to find the victims.

Last year, Ningde and Lianjiang were hit by typhoons and frost disasters, and there were many victims, about seven to eight thousand people in total. However, some victims later took refuge in relatives who were in good condition, and they were able to get by for the time being. And those who have no relatives who can help can only gather outside the county town to wait for relief from the government.

The relief system of the Ming Dynasty was relatively complete. The imperial court had four major warehouse systems (reserve warehouse, regular warehouse, righteous warehouse and social warehouse). Among them, righteous warehouses are located in prefectures and counties, which are specially used for disaster relief. Under normal circumstances, the two counties of Ningde and Lianjiang (Ningde here refers to Ningde County, which belongs to Funing Prefecture) can solve the problem of the victims only by releasing grain from the free warehouse.

However, right now is not the normal situation...

why? Because Liu Jin monopolizes power and wantonly extorts local officials, local officials have to amass a lot of money and "respect" Liu Jin. Otherwise, you will definitely be wearing small shoes.

It just so happens that the county magistrates of Ningde County and Lianjiang County went to the capital to report on their duties before, and Liu Jin extorted a large amount of "filial piety" money. In order to make up for the shortfall, the magistrates of the two counties unanimously chose to advance the rice from the warehouse to fill the hole.

But unfortunately, natural disasters occurred in both places last year, and the two magistrates were a little dumbfounded...

Lianjiang County is better, because it is close to Fuzhou, the provincial capital, and Tao Yongwen, the magistrate of Lianjiang County, has a good relationship with the boss of the provincial capital. He borrowed some rice from Changping warehouse in Fuzhou, and finally stabilized the situation. However, because the deficit was a bit large before, there were still hundreds of people who could not get enough food. The porridge in some porridge sheds is so thin that the rice is no longer visible.

But Ningde County is even more miserable. Wang Feng, the magistrate of Ningde County, has no connections and cannot borrow food, so he can only hold on. Due to the shortage of rice, there is almost no rice in the Yicang in Ningde County. The porridge in the porridge shed is basically like clear water. In order to raise rice grain, Wang Feng used all his salary to buy rice subsidies, but it was still not enough.

In addition, seeing that the magistrate is about to end his term, Wang Feng absolutely does not want any twists and turns. Therefore, he decided to conceal the facts and falsely report the disaster, so as to avoid stains on his political performance and affect his new job after the end of his term. For this reason, he used strong means to order the relatives of those victims to help rescue those victims. However, there are still 2,000 hundreds of victims who have no relatives who can accept them, and live in the shantytowns of the victims outside the county.

Therefore, the smugglers in Ningde and Lianjiang can just send people to the shantytowns outside the city to mobilize at night.

When they heard that immigrants from Dongfan Island could have a full meal, and they could eat some fish and venison if they had nothing to do, many victims couldn't stop drooling just hearing this. Then, without any trouble, these disaster victims obediently boarded the boat and went out to sea...

And Marin's fleet also came to the sea near Ningde and Lianjiang, waiting for the arrival of the smuggler's fishing boat...

The transaction between the two parties was on the sea. After Marin's people counted the number of people (mainly the young men), they paid according to the number of people, and the money and the goods were cleared. And when these disaster victims were transported to the sea, many of them were too hungry to climb onto the big ship. It was Marin who arranged for his soldiers to help them before bringing the victims onto the boat.

But after boarding the boat, when Huoguang saw that there were all blond and blue-eyed "fan ghosts" on board, the victims were shocked. Some people were so scared that they peed out when they saw the strange-looking Marin and others. After all, in the middle of the night, everyone was afraid to see a group of foreign devils with strange looks.

However, this is not a problem, Marin directly asked someone to take out the roasted sweet potatoes that had been prepared a long time ago,

Their wariness was quickly dispelled. The sweetness of roasted sweet potatoes quickly made the victims forget their fear and began to eat. But roasted sweet potatoes are easy to choke when eaten in a hurry. Therefore, many of the disaster victims on the boat rolled their eyes because they were anxious to eat. Fortunately, Marin also expected this. He prepared a large bucket of cold boiled water and fed it to the victims, but no one choked to death.

...

Marin's warships are very large. Ten 500-ton warships loaded more than 3,000 victims in one trip. Then, at dawn, the fleet returned to Danshui Port.

In the daytime of the next day, when the officials of Ningde and Lianjiang counties opened the city gates and came to the shantytowns of the victims, they were surprised to find that the victims were gone...

The yamen servants turned pale with fright, and hurriedly reported to the two county magistrates. The two magistrates were also taken aback, and quickly sent people to investigate. Soon, there was news that these victims may have gone to Dongfan Island by boat to make a living...

This news was released by Marin on purpose by those smugglers. After all, Marin will deal with the Ming Dynasty in the future. Taking away these disaster victims this time will definitely be known in the future. Therefore, instead of hiding it, it is better to release some news first.

The moods of the two magistrates were very complicated. As the magistrate of Lianjiang, Tao Yongwen still felt a little uncomfortable about the loss of hundreds of people. Because the decrease in population means that he is incompetent as a county magistrate. But at the same time, he was also a little happy in his heart - he finally got rid of these burdens...

But Wang Feng, the magistrate of Ningde County, was pleasantly surprised. He will leave his post at the end of the year. At this time, he is most afraid of the exposure of the victims' problems, especially the death of the victims or causing trouble. Therefore, when I heard that these victims left Ningde for Dongfan Island, I was greatly relieved.

Although two thousand and hundreds of ordinary people were lost, they were all disaster victims and an unstable factor. In this change of office... Ah is not a critical moment for promotion, he can only wish for someone to get rid of the disaster victims without causing trouble...

In this way, with the acquiescence of the two magistrates, the matter passed. And Marin also got the coveted population...

...

After returning to Taiwan Island, Marin divided the population - he divided a thousand people to Keelung to reclaim the land near Keelung Bay. In this way, Kong Tai and his soldiers and craftsmen can be freed from heavy agricultural production labor. Before, due to the shortage of labor force, Kong Tai and his soldiers also wanted to plant sweet potatoes together.

As for the other 2,000 victims, they were all resettled by the Danshui River near Danshui Fort. In order to ensure their safety, Marin organized these strong men to build ten large walls with defensive functions to house the victims inside. The walls are all made of rammed earth, which is not very strong, but it is enough to resist the possible attacks of the local aborigines.

Then, Marin naturally organized these victims to also use mud to ram adobe houses. This kind of house is low in cost, quick to build, and most importantly, low in cost...

Then, Marin paid a high price and bought a large number of farm tools and some farming cattle from the smugglers. After the farm tools and cattle are in place, it is natural to grow sweet potatoes...

Taiwan Island has a warm climate and is not cold in winter. What's more, now is the end of spring, which is a great time to plant sweet potatoes. The strong men and young women among the victims started planting sweet potatoes under the guidance of farmers sent by Jilong Village. However, when planting, Marin especially emphasized that when planting sweet potatoes this year, when weeding, be sure to pinch off all the flowers of sweet potatoes...

The farmers were stunned—could it still bear fruit if you pluck off the flowers? But Marin emphasized that this is not a crop that needs to be planted, and it does not need seeds, but tubers, so there is no need for flowering and fruiting...

...

While organizing immigrants to grow sweet potatoes, Marin also ordered 200 strong and brave young people to be selected from the victims to serve as militiamen and assist Van der Beek in guarding Freshwater Fort.

However, Marin had some difficulties in how to train these big Ming youths. The young and strong among these victims, due to long-term malnutrition, are relatively thin and short, similar to those of the indigenous people. It stands to reason that they should be allowed to practice musketry. Because, musketeers don't need to be too strong.

But Marin is not very worried about these people. After all, don’t think that these people are victims of disasters, but they are victims of disasters in Ming Dynasty, so they may not think highly of Marin, the "fan ghosts" of Beihai Kingdom. Therefore, Marin did not want them to master powerful muskets, so as not to be backlashed by them.

In addition, the northern coast of Taiwan Island is rainy, and muskets may not be of much use. Because most of the defenders on Taiwan Island use matchlock guns, and matchlock guns are most afraid of rain...

If you are guarding the city wall, you only need to add a roof to ignore the problem of rain. But the army can't hide in the city, it has to go out. Especially, in the case of the need to conquer the Taipei Basin.

And these militiamen, Marin's plan, are to use them to deal with the rebellious aborigines. So they just need to be able to maintain a military advantage over the natives. As for the pirates? Don't think about it, just hide in the castle and resist...

Marin began to plan to train the militiamen selected from these Hu Jian victims into European-style pikemen. However, thinking of the javelins of the aborigines on Taiwan Island, it seems that the pikemen are at a disadvantage... because the aborigines can throw the javelins. run. And relying on their familiarity with the local forests, the spearmen could not catch up with them...

Since it is necessary to guard against the javelins of the aborigines, sword and shield soldiers are the best choice... But the quality of the wooden shield is not good, and it is too heavy... It seems that rattan cards are the best... Marin thought of the rattan players in Qi Jiguang's mandarin duck formation ...

So, he found Liu Laogen again and ordered:

"Send someone to the inland area to find out who can make rattan tokens, and who is good at using rattan tokens... Then, hire them with a lot of money to be an instructor..."

"My lord, this is..."

"I want to form rattan soldiers!"