New Shun 1730

Boxes of guns were unloaded from the ship. The first batch of reserve officers and the first batch of good family soldiers who were familiar with the use of flintlock rifles were responsible for 200 guns each, and they checked whether they could be fired and whether they could be equipped with bayonets.

Heavy cannons and gun carriages were also transported down.

Each gun looked very gorgeous, with embossed patterns on it, and different animal heads were cast at the rear of the gun according to different pounds.

It can be seen that the French also wanted to show goodwill this time.

But these cannons did not make Liu Yu very satisfied.

12-pound cannon, 3,000 catties, three meters long; the smallest four-pound cannon, also 1,200 catties.

Slightly stronger than the cannons of Dashun, it seems that it is not much stronger from the weight alone. Perhaps the clearance value can be smaller, so it can shoot farther and more accurately.

There is a saying that buying a box returns a pearl. These cannons sent together for sale are not satisfactory for the cannons, but the gun carriages are quite satisfactory.

It was just as he expected, except for a tiny height adjuster that was controlled by rotating a screw, which he could add himself.

The main thing was that the structure of the artillery carriage was very reasonable, and many messy push rods, buckets, etc. could be hung on it.

There were also several four-wheeled carriages, which were exactly what Liu Yu needed.

A four-wheeled carriage with a bogie...may be really useless in the southwestern mountainous areas, but it would be very useful if he went to fight Junggar through the northern grasslands.

He had no interest in recruiting some skilled craftsmen to replicate these things now. Since there were masters who could do it, it would certainly save time to learn from them. Why should he reverse engineer them himself?

Besides, his plan was to go directly to the camp schools in various places and recruit some 13 or 14-year-old children who could not inherit the status of a good family, who had been admitted to the inner quarters of the camp school but could not enter the upper quarters as apprentices.

It was just that the recruitment of craftsmen was still a long way off, and if he went to recruit apprentices at this time, he would have to provide food and accommodation and spend money. Anyway, the camp school could not be closed for a while, so there was no need to rush.

It took two days to complete the inventory. During this period, the people on the ship did not disembark. Liu Yu sent people to deliver some supplies and drinking water to the ship.

Six thousand flintlock rifles, the quality is good, basically all can be used. Bayonets are also complete.

Five 12-pound field guns, 14 8-pound field guns, 25 4-pound field guns, and some French cavalry swords and other things.

Liu Yu did not bargain for all these goods, but when they were accepted, he paid a part of the gold. According to the exchange rate of 1:12, he actually paid less.

The Argonaut also had to rush to Guangdong to load goods back to India, and did not stay for too long, and left soon.

Before leaving, Liu Yu placed another set of orders, and the arms were half of this one. Another set of guns must be 1728 style. If they cannot be delivered next year, that is, in 1731, they can be postponed to 1732.

Liu Yu was not at all nervous about his request to hire craftsmen.

As long as the French were not all a bunch of people with brain problems, if there were a few people who could still use their brains, they would know that his proposal was very tempting. Why not have an additional ally who could contain Britain, the Netherlands, and Russia?

Dupleix was also a famous figure in history, so he was not so blind as to not see through this. Unless he was so confident that he could dominate India and defeat the British Royal Navy and the Dutch fleet by himself. Although this man was confident and good at planning, he was not arrogant.

After sending the French away, the days that followed were training, lecturing, testing guns, and compiling angle parameter tables for artillery.

After the typhoon passed, Liu Yu stockpiled another wave of food.

He asked the two training ships to go around the Korean Peninsula and visit Vladivostok.

He sent a few people who knew surveying and drawing to survey the arable land near Vladivostok, the route from Vladivostok to Mudanjiang and Ussuri River, and the river valley areas that could be cultivated along the way.

At the same time, we will purchase a wave of grain along the way. We don’t need to buy granaries, but just pay first and deposit it in each household.

He chose a confidant and wrote a personal letter to the soldiers of some villages and communities where he had fought side by side. He did not take the water route, but rode a fast horse to the Songhua River after crossing the Bohai Sea to ask a question.

"If I transport people there for you, and let them work as long-term workers for you for ten years, you will provide food and accommodation, and give him ten acres of cultivated land and one year's grain and farm tools after ten years, how much can you pay for each person?"

"I know it is not easy to sell grain there, and the grain price is the lowest in Kyushu. This silver money can be converted into grain. If there is a demand, you can take advantage of the winter ice to transport a batch of grain along the Mudanjiang line and store it in stacks, and send people to guard it. Each stack should be enough for a thousand people."

"Each village community will contact each other, and there can be a stack every thirty miles along the way. The first batch can send a thousand people first. This is not a national affair, but your private family affair, please be sure to contribute. When the settlement is made, the grain will be transported, The grain and guarding are calculated separately. The grain price is one tael per stone. "

"Give me a price. What is the price for women, men, and half-grown children? Not only the price you can accept, but also the price that the nearby villages can accept. Please ask for me. "

"In addition: the last time we went to war with the Russians, we divided a sum of silver captured. When we fought with the Russians, the court also bought grain directly from you. I have told you before that I will help you make a fortune in the future if you save up the money. Now is the time. Send a reliable person to accompany the messenger to discuss in detail. "

"Greetings. "

He had wanted to write this letter for a long time, but today was the time.

Human trafficking is a taboo.

But Liu Yu had to do it. The official immigration court could not afford that money.

Not buying and selling people is morally comfortable, but once Shandong and Henan have a disaster, hundreds of thousands of victims can't just ignore it and think their deaths have nothing to do with them.

There is no courage to treat the root cause.

Then treat the symptoms.

Use the lowest possible cost to move the most people.

The stored food is for emergency relief, not poverty relief.

Especially in places like Zhaoyuan, which produces gold, once there is a major disaster, land annexation is visible to the naked eye.

Those who really do big business and dig for gold can easily buy a few ships of sorghum rice from Liaodong. At that time, whether to sell land to survive or to starve to death is not a big deal.

Official immigration is too expensive, not to mention that there are too many deductions in the middle, and the mortality rate is about 50% when it comes to immigration to such a cold place.

Waiting time to slowly immigrate, not to mention how long it will take to build the railway, given that Liaodong is not filled and Inner Mongolia can also be cultivated, no one will take the initiative to cross the Songliao watershed.

In recent years, the weather has warmed up, and the grain production in places like the Songhua River has gradually stabilized.

However, although there is a lot of food, it cannot be transported out. At this time, the lowest grain price in the country is in the village of the Songhua River.

After pacifying Junggar, there is no need to consider the settlement and immigration. The lowest grain price must be in the cities in the Western Regions.

In previous years, these frontier soldiers were looking forward to fighting. On the one hand, they could have military merits. On the other hand, if they fought in the north, the court would choose to buy food directly there, which was much cheaper than transporting food from the rear.

Last time we went to war with Russia, a lot of food was sold along the Songhua River and a lot of silver was stored. In the past few years, some of it was exchanged back by those merchants, but there was still a lot left.

There is surplus food, livestock, and large tracts of land there, but there is a lack of population.

That is the place where the population demand is most urgent. With a large population, you don’t have to farm yourself, and you can be a local landlord.

Rather than letting the victims starve to death in Shandong and Henan, or die in an impossible resistance, it is better to find a way to get them to the Songhua River and Heilongjiang River.

The swamp area and the fertile land of the Sanjiang Plain cannot be developed now, but the warm land in the river valley along the river can be cultivated.

There are no soldiers in the world who can be used for a hundred years. The soldiers in Songhua River should be transferred to civilian status and open counties.

It just so happens that those soldiers have accumulated a lot of wealth over the years. The land there is fertile, there are many wastelands, and every family has large livestock such as cattle and horses.

In this case, it is better to let them transform.

On the one hand, they can provide food, and on the other hand, they can domesticate horses. The small peasant economy in the interior of the pass can neither become a food base nor raise good horses.

As long as the population of Songhua River reaches 300,000 or 500,000, it will multiply in the future, and the entire north will be stable.

The more grain is produced, the lower the cost of fleeing famine and emigrating, and the faster the population growth.

In this way, what Liu Yu has to do is to store a wave of grain in the harvest year.

When the disaster year comes, those who are more likely to survive will be picked up on the ship and signed a contract for ten years of long-term labor.

The British have engaged in contract slavery in America, and it has been proved that this is a good means of immigration.

Dashun opened up trade, resulting in the Dutch no longer using Batavia as a transit port, but directly choosing to trade in Guangdong. This made it impossible for Chinese merchants to make profits by selling goods in Batavia, and many merchants turned to human trafficking, that is, the trafficking of "contract coolies".

Dashun merchants loaded the poor and disaster victims from Fujian, Guangdong and other places on ships and sold them to Batavia. Although the mortality rate was higher, it is true that there are more and more Chinese in Batavia and other places in recent years.

If Dashun has the ability to go down to the village, it would be most appropriate for the government to do such things as immigration. Since it has no ability to go down to the village, and even the county can only barely co-govern with the gentry, it is better to go with the flow.

Liu Yu did not choose the normal Penglai-Liaonan-Liaohe-Kaiyuan-Jilin-Songhua River line.

Instead, he chose Weihai-Vladivostok-Mudanjiang, Ussuri River, and Heilongjiang River estuary to squeeze inward and occupy the estuary-finally enrich the Songhua River and Jingqi River line.

His influence in the first line is limited, and in the second line he still has a legitimate position as the deputy envoy of Nurgan Xuanfu, and it is also conducive to occupying Hokkaido in the future. Occupation requires population, not just running up and planting a flag.

Since the emperor has recognized the idea of ​​strengthening control over Korea, Zuo Pingzhang has always been tough. Once Korea is forced to open up trade, the location of Vladivostok is very critical.

Daily necessities such as cloth from Korea and Japan can be purchased and directly transported to Vladivostok, the mouth of the Heilongjiang River and other places on the east coast of Korea.

Jiaolaobutu is now in charge of the trading city of Jingqili River. If the Russians want fur, they still have to go there to buy it. It’s useless for the local tribes to ask for money. He and Jiaolaobutu can make a profit: use cloth, ironware and other handicrafts to exchange for fur from local tribes, and then resell them to the Russians.

If Russia wants to trade, it can only exchange in this way. But the cloth they pulled from faraway Europe to the Greater Khingan Range by boat and sled was definitely not as cheap as the cloth Liu Yu imported from Korea and Japan and directly transported to the mouth of the Heilongjiang River and the Jingqi River.

In this way, the economy was activated and the population was enriched.

The river from Vladivostok to Mudanjiang is not far away. There were some post stations and village communities before, and Koreans who escaped have settled there in recent years.

Along Vladivostok to Mudanjiang, Ussuri River, and then to Songhua River, it is only necessary to arrange a few immigrant villages and communities along the way to cultivate the land and form a migration line where people will not starve to death and can buy food.

Then there is the line of immigration along the trade route, along Vladivostok to the mouth of the Heilongjiang River and then to the mouth of the Jingqili River. Relying on this special fur trade line, many villages can be settled.

As long as the first step of immigration is completed, subsequent immigration will be much easier, faster and more economical.

…………

Before the winter ice, two training expedition ships returned safely from Vladivostok, sent off a group of surveyors, and also brought news of Vladivostok.

Vladivostok is now a small port with a population of about 2,000. There are many fishermen and farmers, half of whom are Koreans who have fled from North Korea and grow rice there.

Life in North Korea has always been hard. Since the Ming Dynasty, a large number of people have fled, but at that time the Jurchens were not easy to deal with, and the weather in the north was also cold.

In recent years, it has gradually warmed up, Liaodong has changed, and places like Vladivostok have seen more and more people fleeing from North Korea, and now they have gathered into a small town.

There is basically no conscription for labor there. It is a state of nominal jurisdiction but basically no control. There is a team of soldiers in the local military settlement, but they basically have no combat effectiveness.

There are indeed villages along the way to the Mudanjiang River. The villages are far apart, but the villages are self-sufficient in food. Almost every family feeds pigs with uneaten food. In winter, the pigs are slaughtered and eaten for the whole winter. There is no fear of corruption and deterioration with natural refrigerators.

It used to be a special smuggling channel, so the food needed to transport one or two thousand immigrants every year can be fully supported along the way. Some wealthy local self-employed farmers can also accommodate some people and are happy to accommodate them.

It’s just that most of the people accommodated before were fleeing Koreans, so many villages actually speak Korean.

Although it is bitterly cold, wild beasts are frequent, and mosquitoes are everywhere, as the saying goes, harsh government is more ferocious than tigers, and the number of people fleeing every year is dozens or hundreds.

The news from Vladivostok has been received, but the news from the villages on the Songhua River has not been responded to yet.

In a blink of an eye, it was November, and the weather was gradually not right.

The news Kang Budai brought back from his trip was very distressing.

This year's winter wheat was planted according to the season, but when the frost and temperature dropped in previous years, it was delayed this year. It was an unusually warm winter.

The wheat grew wildly, tillering, core pulling and jointing, and then the temperature began to drop. However, although the temperature dropped, there was no snow.

Winter wheat cannot tiller, core pulling and jointing before winter. It needs to reserve more energy to survive the winter, rather than starting to joint before winter.

After winter, the weather was weird again. It was warm before, but cold after winter, and it was dry and cold. Not a single snowflake fell.

The Jiaodong area has known since ancient times that Jiaodong is mountainous and the sea breeze comes from the southeast, so there is more rain in the south and less rain in the north. But this year, there is little rain everywhere.

Not only Wendeng, but also Zhaoyuan, Longkou, Pingdu, and Juzhou, all have such strange weather.

Some people have already realized that there may be disasters next year, and the rich families have begun to hoard grain, which has increased grain prices. However, those who can sell grain have seen the problem and do not sell, so grain prices are even higher.

Poor families can do nothing but pray to God for a heavy rain tomorrow when the spring begins and the grain filling season comes, and no dry hot winds.

If so, the disaster brought by this warm winter may be smaller. The wheat yield of 120 kilograms per mu may be able to harvest 60 kilograms, and they can still survive. But if it doesn't rain again and there is a dry hot wind... I'm afraid the only way is to sell the land and escape to Guandong.