February 20, 1643, Luzon, Pingan Island (now Catanduanes Island, southeast of the Philippines).

The "Yongjin" and other four Qi immigration ships slowly docked at Ping'an Fort Pier. A group of local soldiers and officials immediately rushed in. According to the established procedures, they began to organize the immigrants to disembark, clean themselves, receive meals, and allocate temporary

residence.

"Why did you run to the southwest side of Ping An Island? And you also bumped into the Spaniards." Cao He, the commander of Ping An Island, asked: "Did you encounter a storm on the road?"

"That's not the case!" Captain She Mingguang said: "Let the storm blow to the edge of the Luzon mainland. We have circled around Ping An Island. The two Spanish armed merchant ships we encountered probably didn't want to follow us.

After fighting for a while, everyone dispersed.

.Hey, don’t mention it. When our fleet was circling Ping An Island, we found a bay in the south of the island and a large flat plain. Your Ping An Fort can send people over to take a look and occupy it.

It’s enough to open up a lot of good farmland.”

"Really?" Cao He heard this and couldn't help but asked curiously: "Are there any natives there? What's the quality of the river and water source?"

"I don't know if there are any natives. There seems to be a river." She Mingguang said, "However, the location there is very advantageous. It faces a wide bay and is a very good anchorage, even better than Ping'an Fort.

The conditions are much better.”

Cao He nodded and said that he had taken note of it. He would send a small boat to the south to have a look in the future and choose an opportunity to establish a stronghold. Ping'an Fort was first built when an immigrant ship encountered a huge storm and drifted here. Although it was at the mouth of a river,

However, typhoons occur frequently from June to October every year, so once the storm rises, it will profoundly affect this place, so it is not a suitable place for ships to dock.

However, the Ping'an Fort area has flat terrain, fertile soil, several rivers running through the plains, and abundant rainfall, making it very suitable for growing rice. After more than two years of development, there have been more than 600 settled immigrants here, all due to various reasons over the years.

Being unwell and not suitable for a long voyage, he was left here.

Moreover, with a large number of immigrants transiting here every year, Ping'an Fort has successively reclaimed more than 15,000 acres of arable land along both sides of the river, which can not only feed the immigrants in the past, but also supply a large amount of supplies to Midway Island (today's Palau Koro).

Erdao), which strongly supports the immigration transportation on the eastern route.

In addition to growing food, Ping'an Fort also organized local captured natives and passing immigrants to harvest a large amount of nearby abaca. After rough processing, it was packaged and transported to immigrant ships and brought back to the mainland for production of fishing nets and cables.

There are countless wild abaca trees growing in the jungles of Ping An Island. Because the stems and leaves are similar to banana trees, the immigrants initially thought they were wild banana trees and did not pay much attention to them.

But in October of the year before last, when Ping'an Fort dispatched rural soldiers to capture more local natives to increase their labor force, they attacked the native tribes on a coast and found that the fishing nets they used for fishing were actually made of this

Made from abaca, Cao He was greatly surprised.

You must know that in Hanzhou itself, because fiber crops such as sisal and jute were introduced for a short time, the output is very limited. Therefore, Hanzhou’s local linen production has not developed due to raw material problems. Most fishing nets and ships

The cables are all purchased from the Batavia market, and occasionally from Daming.

Nowadays, abaca, which can be seen everywhere on Ping An Island, can be used as a material for making fishing nets. So can it also be processed into various hemp materials and cables?

With an attitude of giving it a try, Cao He ordered people to collect some abaca and bring it back to the mainland through the immigration fleet to try out the production of hemp materials.

Sure enough, in June last year, news came back from Hanzhou mainland that this kind of abaca can be used as raw material for fishing nets, ropes, and linen cloth, and Ping An Island was asked to harvest a large amount and do preliminary processing to supply Hanzhou.

Local linen production.

Abaca is an annual herbaceous plant. Because the stems and leaves are similar to banana trees, it is named abaca. There are fibers in the petioles. The fibers are slender, tough, light, and not easy to rot when soaked in sea water. It is used for fishing nets and ship cables.

Made of high-quality raw materials, it can also be used to weave mats and carpets and high-quality linen clothing.

Abaca is mainly produced in tropical and subtropical areas. Later, Luzon and Mindanao in the Philippines were the main producing areas. It was exported at the Port of Manila, so it is also called Manila hemp. If the leaves are cut after one year of planting, the leaves can be cut for 10 years. From

Take fiber from the leaf sheath,

Hard fiber, soft, buoyant and resistant to seawater erosion, with great strength. It can be used to weave fish nets, ropes, crane ropes, power transmission cables, linen or packaging bags, etc. The inner fiber can be made into a durable material without spinning.

Fine cloth worn for clothing, shoes and hats.

In view of the fact that the wild abaca on Pingan Island grows in mountainous areas and the environment is relatively harsh, Cao He not only ordered people to capture a large number of natives and drive them to cut abaca stems and leaves, but also asked the immigrants who settled here to transplant some of the abaca.

in plain areas so that they can be harvested nearby in the future.

On the other hand, Pingan Island also has extremely abundant hardwood resources such as camphor, catalpa, nanmu, and teak. Moreover, in terms of distance, it is closer to the Ming Dynasty than Weiyuan Island (today's New Guinea Island). There are obviously substitutes for its wood.

The trend of exports to Ming Dynasty.

It can be said that Ping An Island far exceeds the role of Midway Island in terms of location and economic value. Sometimes, the immigration fleet will sail directly to Weiyuan Island when the wind direction is extremely favorable.

Tongzhou Fort (today's Manokwari City, northwest of Papua Island, Indonesia), without the need to transit through Midway Island for supplies. As a result, the status of Midway Island, which is isolated in the ocean, seems a bit embarrassing.

In addition, the Weiyuan Fleet plans to obtain a supply point in southern Mindanao to serve as the southern support point for its Luzon plot. If this is realized, the positioning of Midway Island will be in a relatively marginalized position for a long time.

.

Cao He naturally did not care about the future of Midway Island. He only knew that Ping'an Island was very suitable for growing rice, and could achieve two or even three crops a year, providing enough food supply for immigrants sailing eastward.

In the future, due to the large supply of abaca and timber, it will attract more attention and material investment from the local area. In a few years of development, Pingan Island will definitely become one of the most important overseas territories of the Daqi Kingdom, just like Xinsheng Island.

.

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On Xinsheng Island at this time, Zhang Wenqi welcomed an important guest, the envoy of the Dayue Kingdom (Annan Houli Dynasty), Zheng Mingqing, the Minister of Rites, who served as Lord Zheng (Zheng Jie, the fourth generation leader of the Zheng family, titled King of Qingdu).

) ordered to come to Xinsheng Island.

The southern expedition launched by Zheng Zheng of Annan last year (1642), due to the sudden intervention of the Qi people on Xinsheng Island, caused the great situation achieved in the early stage to collapse. Tens of thousands of troops were lost, and more than half of the naval power was lost.

Let the Ruan rebels in the south push the battle line back to the Yangtze River (now Vietnam fights for the Yangtze River). This also shows that the southern expedition planned by Lord Zheng ended in failure.

In February 1643, some people used the name of the King of Dai Viet to attack Zheng Zheng on the grounds that the Southern Expedition failed. Some ministers of the court even connected with local military towns in an attempt to overthrow Zheng Zheng's power in the court. For this reason, Zheng Zheng

First, Zhe led troops to surround the palace and forced the reigning Li Shen Zong to abdicate the throne to his son Li Zhen Zong. Then, he ordered his younger brother Zheng Ji to send out a large army to suppress local resistance forces and temporarily stabilized the Zheng family's regime.

The failure of the southern expedition that had been planned for many years made Zheng Zhi particularly angry and regretful. After hearing the report from the naval commander, the Ruan rebels in the south mainly relied on the powerful naval force of the Hanzhou people to defeat the warships of the Dai Viet Navy many times and assisted

The Ruan rebels landed in the rear of the Zheng army many times, causing the Zheng army to lose ground and fail.

As news of Han people continued to come in, Zheng Zhi became more and more interested in them. It turned out that this new force living in the far south, the main people in the country came from the Ming Dynasty, and a few years ago, they occupied an area along the coast of the Kingdom of Cambodia.

A small island. They defeated the attacks of the Ruan family rebels from the south twice, and attacked the Ruan family's coastal towns for several consecutive years. It can be said that they beat the southern rebels into disgrace, but there was nothing they could do about it.

to cope with.

At the same time, someone also reported to Zheng Jie that a few years ago, this Hanzhou force had requested the local government in Hong Kei (now Halong City, Vietnam) to meet with the Emperor of Dai Viet and request to join forces with Zheng’s army to defeat the Nguyen clan.

A traitor. However, he was rejected by the local officials at the time, who also denounced him as "a bandit force on the sea. How dare you cling to our country, Da Viet, to plot the Nguyen family's rebellion? It's really ridiculous."

"It's ridiculous to be honest." The failure of the Southern Expedition was precisely because of the intervention of this Hanzhou force, which ruined a good situation. A few years ago, I heard that the Ruan family in the south was rebellious and was attacked by sea several times and destroyed most of its naval force.

It was precisely because of this that Zheng Zhen decided to assemble an army for the southern expedition.

Who would have thought that the "pirates" who had attacked the Ruan family several times in the past would shake hands with them and make peace with them. Instead, they would join forces to defeat half of the Zheng army's navy, and frequently launch flanking and rear landing operations, defeating the Zheng family's southern expeditionary army and re-advance the front line.

to the pre-war position.

Zheng Jie immediately ordered the beheading of Hanzhou envoys and officials, and at the same time sent envoys to Xinsheng Island to try to stop the war and conspire with the Ruan family.

Zhang Wenqi couldn't help laughing after hearing the request of Zheng Mingqing, the Minister of Rites of Dai Viet Kingdom.

Sure enough, as the king said, in this world, as long as your fist is hard enough, you will win the respect and awe of more people, and you will naturally have more "friends" and "allies" around you. After beating up the Annan Ruan family,

Beating the Zheng family in Annan will also make the two parties compete to win over each other and get help. Aren't they interested in the sharp firearms of our Daqi Kingdom and the superior navy ships?

"We, the Kingdom of Da Qi, have made peace with the Quang Nam Kingdom and are committed to maintaining the long-term peace and stability of the local environment. We are not capricious." Zhang Wenqi said solemnly: "As for the dispute between your Dai Viet Kingdom and Quang Nan Kingdom, I

Da Qi will not intervene again in the short term, let alone conspire with you in Guangnan."

If we want to intervene, we have to wait until our Great Qi North Sea Fleet returns to Xinsheng Island before we can make any difference.

"My great king has heard that your country has a close relationship with the Ming Dynasty, and our country, Da Yue, was enshrined and established by the Ming Dynasty. Logically speaking, we should both belong to the civilization of the Celestial Dynasty. And the Ruan family is a traitor to our country, the country of Dayue, and our two countries should be responsible for it."

Honesty

We, the King of Dayue, will attack the Ruan family together." Zheng Mingqing said sternly: "Our country of Dayue is very friendly to our cousins. The King of Qingdu (Zheng Jie) asked me, King of Dayue, to make peace with the king of your country as a princess. What do you think, sir?
Chapter completed!