Chapter 1109 Colonies
Night falls.
The people who had eaten and drank enough and even went down to the river to take a bath found it difficult to fall asleep.
So everyone simply lit a bonfire.
Some people are singing, some people are dancing.
The gold diggers are looking forward to a bright future for gold mining, while Qin Lang and the Qin family are imagining how to build a new Wu'an Prefecture here.
The sea breeze is blowing, although the sound of the waves cannot be heard, but the sound of the river waves beating against Jiangzhou is also so beautiful.
The bad thing is that there is not even a single woman in this place.
More than 3,000 people, not a single woman.
Originally Zhang Chao proposed to bring some maids to Qin Lang when he came, but Qin Lang refused. There is no woman in this ghost place, but he brought a few beautiful maids who are as beautiful as flowers. This is not a good idea. After all, he His identity is just the mercenary captain on a ship.
After arriving here, Qin Lang's identity was only known to a few important stewards of the Qin family. Others still thought that this was a steward sent by the family to be in charge of the guards and armed forces of this new stronghold.
"Without a woman, I always feel that something is missing!" Zhang Chao said.
"Aren't there any women in the islands here?"
The manager of the stronghold is a middle-aged man named Qin Lu, who is very dark and thin, even obscene. After hearing this, he said with a wry smile, "Of course, you should have seen Kunlun slaves when you were in the Central Plains. The female Kunlun slaves inside are all black."
Zhang Chao squeezed his chin, "The Kunlun slave in my house thinks he is quite handsome and has a tall figure."
Qin Lang rolled his eyes at him.
"That's because the Kunlun slaves you bought were all young and beautiful among them, and the price was also expensive. Even the ones sold to your house were carefully selected and carefully trained by those slave traders. Datang etiquette, you can understand Chinese, you can even speak it, and when you choose, you also choose those that meet the aesthetics of our Tang people."
The islanders here are, firstly, more backward and primitive, and secondly, those who can meet the aesthetics of the Tang Dynasty are still young, of course, there are very few.
Qin Lu told Zhang Chao that they still had two plantation manors on the north bank, where rice was grown, and there were many captive islanders, some of whom were women.
But when it comes to young people, there are really not many, and as for young and good-looking people, there are not many.
"Next time we must bring a boatload of women, at least two boatloads of prostitutes first. When these gold diggers find gold and make money, they will definitely be willing to pay for brothels. This is a good business that makes money, and it is also It can reconcile yin and yang, it saves a long time and causes problems." Zhang Chao said with a smile.
Qin Lang knew that what Zhang Chao said was also reasonable. In this era, many mines and other places employ a large number of young and strong laborers, and they usually recruit some brothel women to make a living. Although they are generally poor, they are very popular. welcome.
Even many businessmen will build casinos in those places.
Anyway, most coolies exchange their blood and sweat for some money, and in the end they can’t resist the temptation, and spend more there. The merchants pay their wages, and then collect them back through brothels and casinos in a blink of an eye, even a little bit bad-hearted. , and deliberately tempted people to borrow money, etc., and finally lost all of themselves as slaves, and could only work in it for the rest of their lives.
Qin Lang is not the kind of black-hearted businessman, but he also believes that this kind of new colony needs to be reconciled with yin and yang.
"Well, write this down, the next batch of ships will come, and in addition to some necessary supplies, they will also bring some women."
Qin Lu sighed to Qin Lang, saying that this place is really a land of abundance, a place like a fairy, a big granary bestowed by heaven.
Along the bay, there is a huge plain.
In the west and east of this plain, there are two mountain ranges running through the north and south respectively, forming natural barriers on the west and east sides. The two mountain ranges successfully block the airflow from the west ocean of the South China Sea, even in the summer storm season. , Typhoons passing through here are often blocked by mountains.
The end of the typhoon turned into a moderate amount of rainfall, moistening the plains and greatly reducing the threat to crops.
The suitable climate and fertile soil make this plain a huge granary.
"It's bigger and more fertile than the Guanzhong Plain, and safer than Huainan!"
"It's much bigger than the Red River Delta in Jiaozhou. This place is indescribable. In the past few years, we have only had such a small amount of manpower, and we have driven some captives from the islands to cultivate them extensively. The results are excellent and the harvest is amazing. It is completely heavenly." Give me food."
According to Qin Lu, 90% of the land in this place can be planted with rice, and there is plenty of rain and sunshine. It is true that you can germinate just by inserting a chopstick, and you can harvest three seasons a year.
In the past few years, they have opened up two planting manors, not only are they self-sufficient, they have even hoarded a lot of food.
The islanders here don’t know how to farm at all. They also grow rice, but it’s very simple. They just sprinkle some seeds and then ignore it. It’s enough to cut off the ears of rice when it’s harvest time.
Even the slash-and-burn farming techniques of Nanzhong and the barbarians are not as good as they are completely left to fend for themselves. In addition to eating rice, they also eat bananas and coconuts. Anyway, they pick them casually.
But maybe it is this kind of comfort that makes these islanders very backward, living in simple shacks, wearing leaves, and doing nothing in the sun every day.
Zhang Chao used to think that the islanders on Liuqiu Island were weak, but now he compares them and thinks that the islanders on Liuqiu Island are still very strong. After all, they fought against the Sui Empire Army. Although they were defeated in the end, Even if you lose, you are still brave.
But looking at these islanders now, they are really just savages with human appearance. They have no language, no country, primitive and backward tribal system, and they eat and wait to die every day.
Zhang Chao now has no choice but to start admiring Qin Lang, how could he be so lucky to find such a paradise?
It was a lively night, and many people stayed up all night until dawn.
Early morning.
Kelp soup, white rice porridge, with some dried salted fish, a breakfast will satisfy everyone.
After the meal, Qin Lu, as the No. 1 leader on Treasure Island, announced what Qin Lang had arranged yesterday. Several boats and a group of guards took the gold diggers to the upstream stream where gold sand was produced, and built a Gold digger camp, ready to pan for gold.
The remaining people will build a new fortress on the south bank opposite Jiangxinzhou.
The other part of the people will be divided into two farms, and the livestock and poultry brought this time will also be sent there to feed, and then the remaining empty boats will temporarily rest for a few days.
Qin Lang asked the crew to help build the gold digger camp first, intentionally waiting for the luckiest of those gold diggers to mine the first bucket of gold, and then return to Taiping Port with a group of lucky people and gold.
At that time, use those people to advertise live, and then attract and recruit more people.
Sure enough, as soon as Qin Lu announced it, the gold diggers immediately became a sensation. Everyone was eager to go to the gold panning. .
Now that they heard that they could go panning for gold right away, everyone was praising the Qin family for their credibility.
Simply arrange the gold diggers into several teams, and after announcing some camp rules, etc., they start to board the boat.
Qin Lang did not follow.
He stood in the tower of the Jiangxinzhou stronghold, waved goodbye to everyone, and a group of gold diggers boarded the boat singing excitedly, and then headed for the upstream tributary.
The following days were actually quite peaceful.
After the gold diggers left, the stronghold was much quieter. Those who went to the farm went to the farm, those who went fishing went fishing, those who felled the wood, and those who dug the foundation. Fortunately, the weather was very good during this period, and there was no rain.
There are not many people here now, so the initial planning of the Gold and Silver Fort on the south bank is just a temporary fortress, try to be as simple as possible, cut wood for fences, dig soil for trenches, build some arrow towers, erect suspension bridges, even if it has basic defense capabilities .
Although the island is primitive, this is their territory after all, so be careful not to capsize in the gutter.
Qin Lang's personal guards brought horses. They rode a hundred light horses and divided them into two teams. One team went on patrol, and the other team guarded the village. They combed the surrounding hundreds of miles and found some tribes.
But mostly small tribes, no threat.
And some nearby tribal villages also seemed to know that there were many outsiders coming here, so they began to relocate.
Qin Lang only let the patrol monitor these natives, and didn't let them attack.
There is no rush now.
He even asked his soldiers to try to contact the aboriginals in some villages, who seemed unable to communicate, and even did some simple trade. Right now, the aboriginals didn't have what Qin Lang wanted, but he was willing to try it out.
But the effect is not good. The natives looked at the strangers on the big horses from a distance, and they were terrified and hid everywhere. How dare they approach them? Communication, and finally had to let it go.
Not long after the gold panning group went east, they successfully established a camp in the upper tributary, and then devoted themselves to the gold panning. I have to say that the Qin family did not lie. There is indeed a lot of gold sand in that stream. Although it did not say that there will be soybean-sized gold sand in the water with a shovel of sand, but with better luck, after a day, there will be gold sand. You can get a lot of small gold dust.
There were a few lucky guys who found gold dust the size of soybeans, and another guy dug up a gold nugget the size of an egg.
This stimulates the hearts of gold diggers even more.
Everyone is shopping harder.
A shovel, a pickaxe, and a basin, just scouring in streams and rivers.
When someone came from the fortress and announced that the fleet would return to Taiping Port, and asked if anyone would like to go back, there were really a few lucky guys who planned to go back with the ship.
It’s not that they don’t want to get rich anymore, but that they want to take home the money they got for the first bucket of gold, and then bring their family, relatives and friends to make a fortune together.
Someone even planned to bring the whole family to pan for gold.
Opportunities like this to search for gold everywhere are not always there. Now that you have encountered it, you have to seize it.
Of course, some people were reluctant to leave, but wrote a letter and handed it to the ship, asking them to help send the letter home, send the money and the letter to their family members, and let them hurry up to pan for gold and make a fortune together.
In less than half a month, the most unlucky people all found about a tael of gold. Even if it's just one tael, it can be exchanged for five or six pennies at the Qin family's place. This is because the gold sand is of low quality and needs to be refined and processed, so the purchase price is the same. But even if it costs five or six pennies, there will be at least ten pennies in a month, and at least three hundred yuan a day.
And this is just the guy with the worst luck. The luckier ones all got two or three taels, and even those who were lucky enough to pick up the dog's head gold really got rich overnight.
"Come on, gold is everywhere here!"
·······
(end of this chapter)