Chapter 502 Danzhou Investigation

April 15, 1630, the fourth day of the third month of the third year of Chongzhen in the Ming Dynasty, off the coast of Danzhou in the northwest corner of Hainan Island.

Three large ships rowed briskly across the sea and headed for Danzhou Bay. The shapes of these ships were obviously different from traditional Chinese sailing ships. Not only were the hulls longer and narrower, but the masts were higher, and the sails were also made of soft canvas. Among them,

There is also a row of small movable windows with a diameter of one foot and four inches on the side of one of the boats. However, the fishermen on the nearby fishing boats just looked up and continued to do their work. They recognized that these were the boats of the Haihan people in the south. Recently, they

They have often entered Danzhou Port in the past two years, and they have long been accustomed to it.

However, the passengers carried by this fleet are not just for business as usual. Two big bosses, He Xi, the director of the Haihan Security Department, and Wang Tom, the commander-in-chief of the Haihan Militia Navy, are on the ship, and they are accompanied by

There is an entire reinforced platoon of militia soldiers, disguised as crew members, servants, etc., as their escort.

The purpose of their trip is to investigate the situation of Danzhou Bay and Danzhou City on the spot, and prepare for the armed conflict that may break out in the capture of Danzhou within the year. Of course, if everyone thinks of a way together, it is not impossible to seize the city peacefully.

possibility.

"The first time I came to Danzhou was the year I traveled back in time. At that time, I followed the Li family's merchant ship to visit the capital of Qiongzhou immediately. Then I thought to myself that since I was already here, I might as well finish the places I needed to go, so I followed Li

The family's caravan traveled all the way from Chengmai and Lingao to Danzhou." He Xi couldn't help but sigh a little when thinking of the situation at that time: "At that time, I ran so far alone, but now that I think about it, I think I was quite courageous.

of!"

"You're not very courageous. How dare the executive committee entrust you with such a heavy responsibility?" Wang Tom responded with a smile. After several years in the system, he was no longer as straight-forward and ignorant as when he first came.

Now I know how to compliment others when appropriate.

"There was nothing we could do at that time!" Wang Tom shook his head and sighed: "There is no one available under my command, and your military group can't escape, so I have to go out on my own... In front of you is Baima Well.

After passing this gorge, you will find Danzhou Bay."

Danzhou Bay is located to the west of Danzhou. The strait at the entrance is only about six to seven hundred meters wide. The area of ​​the bay is larger than the two major ports in Sanya. When Tao Donglai and others planned the crossing operation, Danzhou was actually preparing

Choose one of the destinations. There is a natural harbor here, and the nearby population density is higher than that of Yazhou. It can save the crossing group a lot of energy in the initial development. However, considering the terrain here, there is no commanding heights to hold the bay, and there is no

The most important thing about the mineral and timber resources that can be continuously exploited is that it is only a few miles away from Danzhou City. There are many settled people along the bay. It is not something that the Chuanhuang Group can do in a short time if it wants to take root here. In the end,

After much deliberation, the organizing committee decided to abandon this place and choose Sanya, which is vast and sparsely populated.

Although Danzhou is one of the major commercial ports in the northern part of Qiongzhou Island, the development and prosperity here are much inferior not only to Victory Port and Sanya Port, but also to Wanshan Port outside the Pearl River Estuary. Sea

When Han's ships approached the pier, it could be seen that there were only six or seven ships docked on the shore, almost all of which were Cantonese-style sailing ships with a displacement of sixty or seventy tons.

"I heard An Xi say before that there is a salt farm in this bay?" Wang Tom looked at the dock that was very close and asked suddenly.

"There is a salt farm just to the north of the bay. It used to be the largest official salt farm in Qiongzhou Island. The method they use is actually very similar to our salt farm. They also use seawater to dry salt, but the scale of production is far smaller.

They can't compare to us. When they were still using stone troughs to dry salt, we directly used cement salt pools, and also had various seawater lifting and irrigation devices. The production capacity was much stronger than theirs. If I hadn't

If I remember wrongly, the salt farm here has been bankrupt for almost two years!" He Xi proudly introduced the situation he knew to Tom Wang.

"It is said that the official salt fields of Ming Dynasty also went bankrupt?" Wang Tom obviously does not have a special understanding of the current salt industry market conditions.

"Bankruptcy is not very accurate." He Xi nodded and admitted that she had used the wrong word: "It should be more appropriate to call it a work stoppage. Because our salt price is almost lower than their production cost, salt merchants have turned to us to buy.

Due to the low price of salt, the salt households here can no longer make a living by selling salt. In the end, many people simply fled to our place. More than 80 households of naturalized residents of the Yinggehai Salt Field came from Danzhou

The salt farm was moved directly there.”

"Speaking of this, I also remembered one thing. Didn't there be coal mines here in Danzhou before? Later, it was said that the low-priced anthracite coal shipped from Heitu Port forced the work to stop. I remember the militia conscription period,

But we have taken in a lot of Danzhou miners!" Wang Tom also recalled with emotion the impact of the rise of Haihan on Danzhou.

He Xi added: "Not only that, I looked through the report of the Ministry of Security yesterday. Starting from the second half of 1627, people from Danzhou began to migrate to Sanya in a steady stream. In the early days, most of them were recruited by Yaxing on our behalf.

More and more voluntary immigrants later moved to Sanya on their own, not just salt farmers and miners. About two-thirds of the scholars we have recruited now came from Danzhou!"

Wang Tom said in astonishment: "So many? I still remember recruiting scholars in Yacheng two years ago, but the results were not very good. How come it is so smooth in Danzhou?"

He Xi smiled and said: "Actually, the reason is not surprising at all. Although Danzhou is not the capital of Qiongzhou Island, it is the real cultural center of the island. There are more scholars here in Danzhou than in other states and counties on the island.

The total number is too much. The same thing is worthless if it is too much. There are always some scholars who are not doing well and have to find another way to support themselves. Even if the proportion of scholars who are willing to join us is very low, we still can't support the large number of people!

"

"That's it!" Wang Tom responded with sudden realization: "When we occupy this place, this scholar can be regarded as a big gain!"

Danzhou’s educational and cultural traditions have a long history. Since the fourth year of Qingli in the Northern Song Dynasty, nearly 600 years ago, Danzhou City established the earliest school in Qiongzhou Island. Half a century later,

The great writer Su Dongpo lived in Danzhou for three years. During this period, he established education and recruited many disciples. Since then, Danzhou's cultural atmosphere has flourished. Later, dozens of Lingchun Academy, Zhende Academy, Tunan Academy, and Yizhai Academy were built locally.

In the academy, from the Northern Song Dynasty to the present, there have been dozens of people who have passed the imperial examination and gained the title of civil servant. This number is simply a miracle for a remote area like Qiongzhou Island.

But as He Xi said, there are a large number of scholars both inside and outside Danzhou City, and among them, only a very small number of lucky ones will be able to pass the imperial examination and embark on an official career. There are many who cannot carry their hands or shoulders.

The weak scholars need to find a job that can support themselves and their families when they reach adulthood, and those scholars who have not obtained any honors can at most do cheap jobs such as copying, which is barely enough to make ends meet.

The emergence of the Haihan people undoubtedly gave them another choice. As long as they could read the Four Books and Five Classics thoroughly, they would start with a monthly salary of five taels of silver. For those with fame or other special abilities, their salary could be further increased on this basis.

At first, the scholars were a little untrustworthy about the employment of these foreign maritime merchants. Later, a teacher in a certain college was hired by the Haihan people for a "sky-high price" of thirty taels of silver a month. Everyone knew that these maritime merchants were not just ordinary people.

Just for fun. Of course, no one knew that the tutor who accepted the high-priced employment was actually the cousin of a fellow intellectual in Yacheng. The whole process was just a good show of buying horse bones for a thousand dollars.

However, this trick with an uncomplicated plot has achieved very good results. Many poor and hard-working scholars have chosen to accept the employment of Haihan people and go to Sanya to do some clerical and educational work within their capabilities. At that time, Ning Qi was recruiting these people.

At that time, the conditions were also very attractive - in addition to the salary they earned from their work, Haihan would give paid holidays to all those who wanted to take part in the imperial examinations. Scholars like Haihan who were going to the provincial capital Guangzhou to take the provincial examinations,

Haihan will also dispatch a ship to escort them, and they will also be responsible for arranging food and lodging during the exam. If someone is successful and needs to go to the capital to take the exam, Haihan will be fully responsible for all the expenses for the round trip.

This is great news for those scholars who come from poor backgrounds. If they only rely on the income they get from doing part-time jobs, most of them can save up for one trip in three years at most.

It’s just the cost of taking the exam in Guangzhou. Now the Haihan people have taken the initiative to promise to bear this part of the cost for them. This kind of benefit is hard to find even with a lantern. As for the more advanced exam, although it sounds very tempting, but after all

It is only a game that a very small number of people are qualified to participate in. It is more practical for ordinary scholars to think more about how to pass the examination.

The Haihan civil affairs department that issued these conditions was not taken advantage of. Ning Qi had already settled the accounts very clearly. The imperial examinations that these scholars need to take are actually not very expensive. The Tongsheng examination is held in Danzhou.

During the examination period, the students would at most be sent back to Danzhou by ship to take the examination, which would delay the examination for seven to ten days. The provincial examination was in Guangzhou, and the shipping, board and lodging expenses that had to be paid were very difficult for Haihan, who was engaged in the shipping industry.

It is absolutely the lowest cost price, and the more people go, the lower the unit cost will be. Moreover, this kind of exam only happens once every three years, and the time required can be deducted from their rest days. I believe these scholars

Nor will there be any objection to this approach.

But after these people become naturalized citizens, will they really continue to complete the task of rushing for the exam every three years as they did before? Ning Qi believes that this situation will not last long.

Over time, after entering the social system of Haihan, these scholars will soon realize that the benefits they can get here are far better than the hard study they had before. There may still be a few people who insist on their own

The dream is to be able to obtain the honor of being a civil servant, honor the ancestors, and serve the imperial court. However, there will definitely be more people who realize the benefits they can obtain under the rule of Haihan and give up the imperial examination, a single-plank bridge with extremely low probability of reward.

road.

Ning Qi's inference was quickly proven in the following period. Among the first batch of Danzhou scholars who joined the Haihan cultural and educational system, less than 3% chose to retreat because they could not adapt to the local lifestyle. The rest

Basically all of them have stayed. Before the provincial examination held last fall, the total number of applications for the imperial examination received by the relevant departments was less than 20. This shows that the vast majority of scholars will not be able to take the imperial examination after two years of entering the system.

He has changed his values ​​and given up on the imperial examination fame that he had been striving for before.

After these scholars achieved a stable and comfortable life in Sanya, their stories automatically spread in the cultural circle of Danzhou and even the entire Qiongzhou Island. More and more scholars who were unsatisfied in the imperial examination began to consider Haihan as a way out.

.To this day, scholars from Danzhou have indeed become a force that cannot be ignored in the system of naturalized citizens. The entire cultural and educational system of Haihan, especially the most basic units such as literacy and school-age children's education, has become a force that cannot be ignored.

The teachers are all from various academies in Danzhou.

As a result, Haihan also gained another additional effect, that is, it has a very good reputation in Danzhou. Paying attention to culture and education and setting up schools are measures that will be appreciated by the cultural circles in any dynasty, and Haihan people attach great importance to culture and education.

The cost is so high that anyone who is not blind can see it. Even those Danzhou students who have not accepted Haihan's employment know that there are a large number of free schools in Sanya, and school-age children under Haihan's rule can attend school for free.

Adults also have special literacy classes for training. Although there are still a few people who think it is a bad practice for mud-legged students to attend school, most people will still give very positive comments to these measures taken by the Haihan people.

In addition, under the leadership of Ning Qi, Haihan also directly moved some of the methods implemented in Guangzhou to Danzhou. For example, he funded poetry competitions, cultural forums, art exhibitions and other activities, and spent a lot of money to save money.

Haihan glass stationery, which is low-priced but highly sought after by scholars, was used as prizes to attract scholars to participate. By the time the third Danzhou Cultural Festival was held at the beginning of this year, in addition to local scholars in Danzhou, there were even people who made a special trip across the sea from Leizhou Peninsula

Participating in it can be regarded as a grand event in the local cultural circle.

At that time, Ning Qi came to the scene in person to talk about the past and the present with the deans of various academies in Danzhou, and had a good time as a literati scholar. In Ning Qi's words, just seeing the famous celebrities such as Su Dongpo collected in those academies

This trip is worth a thousand dollars.
Chapter completed!