The great steel-smelting movement of the Inca Empire was in full swing.
The first railway was built on the west coast of South America. Against this background, the indigenous people of the Inca Empire increasingly respected the "territory directly under the jurisdiction of the gods".
With SF City as the center, a prosperous area with a radius of about 100 kilometers has been formed, which has become a representative of South American civilization.
Zhu Hao signed a treaty with Emperor Wayina and the Inca Empire behind him, and this area was legally owned by Zhu Hao.
In the name of the gods, Zhu Hao included this area into his own territory...
In fact, signing this kind of agreement has no practical significance. It is more to appease people's hearts and make the people of the Inca Empire feel that the Ming army follows the rules no matter what they do, and they will reason with them even if they invade their territory.
This can also temporarily reassure them that Zhu Hao is not interested in their other territories.
Not long after, Luo Fei arrived at SF City again, this time as the crown prince of the Inca Empire.
As Zhu Hao knew, due to the arrival of the Ming army, great divisions arose within the Inca Empire. Luo Fei wandered among the powerful, seeking support everywhere, and finally became the regent of the Inca Empire as his daughter.
This move seemed to have the tacit approval of her father Wayina, and Luo Fei also had the support of many nobles from the Inca Empire. It may be that those nobles felt that Luo Fei and Zhu Hao had a good relationship and could get the protection of the gods while a woman was in power.
, they are easier to control.
"We have found a lot of mineral deposits, but they are all far away."
In order to show her identity as the crown prince of the Inca Empire, Luo Fei was quite attentive in working for Zhu Hao.
Zhu Hao said: "I have sent people to check some of the mines you introduced before, and found that most of them have very low reserves, and some are even far-fetched. They are not worth sending people to mine at all."
Zhu Hao has been working hard to find new mineral veins in South America, but the progress is not good. The iron mine currently discovered is about three hundred miles away from SF City. It is located in the middle of a mountain with an altitude of more than a thousand meters. The reserves are not ideal.
The best way at the moment is to let the people of the Inca Empire organize mining, but Zhu Hao doesn't want to give him the technology to take shape.
After all, he has not completely tamed the Inca Empire yet, and as a foreigner, if the Inca Empire masters the iron smelting technology, and millions of people use iron weapons to resist, that is definitely not what Zhu Hao wants to see.
scene.
Even if iron weapons were to be given to the Incas, they could only be given by him, rather than letting the Inca Empire master the smelting technology themselves.
Luo Fei's face tightened and he said: "We are willing to offer more Sanku. We only hope that the gods will bring us more technology. After all, we also want to obtain magical weapons."
Sanku is corn flour.
In South America, corn is mainly ground into flour and made into foods such as steamed buns. Now that the rice and flour brought from the Ming Dynasty have run out, people in the Ming Dynasty do not rely solely on the rice and wheat produced in the American continent every day.
If you can eat fine grains, most of the time you have to rely on steamed buns to satisfy your hunger.
Luo Fei did not hide her ambition to obtain iron smelting technology. Now everyone in the Inca Empire has seen that if they want to improve the strength of their own ethnic group, they must have technological innovation. It is obviously not feasible to ask for firearms from the Ming army.
Realistically, in the eyes of the Inca Empire, firearms were artifacts that only gods could possess, and mortals could not master this technology.
But the Incas themselves had the technology to smelt bronze. They knew that iron tools could be made by manpower. Just like the newly built railways were made of iron as the main material, they wanted to master this technology very much.
Zhu Hao said: "What you get depends entirely on the guidance of the gods. Now you still have to fulfill your responsibilities as loyal believers to the gods. I need more manpower to help mine. The manpower given to me before was far from enough. I need you to send more now."
Three hundred thousand people will come... Around Tucheng, I will build two smaller cities again to let the new arrivals live there."
Zhu Hao met Luo Fei this time mainly to ask for someone from Luo Fei.
Zhu Hao seems to have quite a lot of indigenous people under his control now. Shunfeng City alone has a population of nearly 200,000, but there are only so many people when they are needed. You must know that the mining working environment in Mining City, Coal City and other places is extremely harsh, so you can't count on it.
The same group of people have been working continuously inside, and the manpower needs to be replaced from time to time.
This is also for the sake of long-term development. People cannot be used up at once! According to Zhu Hao's idea, the best working time for each miner is four months a year, and the rest of the time is allowed for them to work in farming to restore their mental and physical strength.
, he can select some of the best from them to form an army.
Now Zhu Hao needs about 100,000 new miners, plus about 100,000 new workers, to ensure that the industrial scale continues to expand and meet all aspects of steel demand.
In this way, Zhu Hao needs to have 600,000 to 700,000 strong men at his disposal. Coupled with the young and old behind these strong men, the number of residents in his territory should be maintained at more than 1.5 million.
But now, the total population in his territory is only over 300,000, leaving a huge gap.
"We can no longer mobilize more people because we don't have enough people."
Luo Fei didn't get the iron-making technology she wanted, so she naturally didn't want to hand her over to Zhu Hao.
If all the people are sent here, Zhu Hao will not send troops to destroy them, they will destroy the country first. Now the top leaders of the Inca Empire are still strictly restricting the migration of the population to the coastline, trying every means to retain the people in the land under their jurisdiction.
Zhu Hao said with a dark face: "This is not a discussion with you, but an order. I heard that some of your lords have united a hundred thousand soldiers and horses to prepare to resist the rule of the gods.
"You go back and tell them that if they don't surrender to me, I will directly send troops to kill them! I can only have the final say on who will lead this country in the future, not you!"
Luo Fei looked at Zhu Hao with resentful eyes, but she really had no choice. After a while, she stamped her feet and left with a sad face.
…
…
After Luo Fei left, Lou Suzhen walked out from behind the screen.
She shook her head and said: "I didn't expect these aboriginal women to be so strong and strange in appearance. It seems that even if they are of the same race, they are still very different."
Zhu Hao did not expect that Lou Suzhen would be interested in Luo Fei's appearance.
"Is it different? I think they are pretty much the same." Zhu Hao said with a smile, "Looking at the military officers, they all regard the women here as ordinary Han women."
It is said that it is different, but it is just that nobles like Luo Fei are different from ordinary people. Even if ordinary women are different from the women of the Ming Dynasty in terms of living habits, their appearance and skin color are the closest. The Ming Dynasty women who followed Zhu Hao to go to sea
Men, whether married or not, are now accompanied by at least one woman from the Aztec or Inca empire.
These women mainly light fires and cook for them. Of course, they also provide some help with family atmosphere and communicate with each other.
But Zhu Hao knew that the lieutenants of the Ming Army looked down upon these foreign women. After all, language communication was somewhat difficult. There were many dialects in the Inca Empire alone. In terms of writing... most of the lieutenants of the Ming Army were illiterate.
Not the kind of man who takes care of women.
Rather than marrying a woman from a foreign land and returning home, it is better to say that they found a maid or mother-in-law to take care of their daily life.
"Before the end of this year, we will open the two mines we have explored on our own in the south. I will lead troops to raid the area. In the next three to five years, we will build ten mines on the west coast of the mainland, roughly equivalent to SF City.
It is a large city with more than three million people under its jurisdiction, and the Flemish people will be completely driven out of the New World."
Zhu Hao and Lou Suzhen roughly explained their plans.
He cannot stay in SF City all the time. For him, time is life. He needs to complete the climb of the technology tree in the shortest possible time. The colonization activities in South America cannot always be limited to such a small place.
As his territory expanded, he would have more areas for him to collect taxes, more people would depend on him, and more land for him to build cities, and use these cities as a basis to resist European colonists.
When everything is on track, his vision will no longer be limited to this corner of the American continent. At that time, he will conquer the entire world.
Lou Suzhen said: "The battle line is too long. I don't know how big the New World is, but to conquer it all, I'm afraid it will be difficult to do it in ten or eight years. In three to five years, will there be no time?"
Too much?"
Zhu Hao nodded: "There are some primitive places that can only be conquered later. The main thing now is to occupy the rich coastal areas. These places will serve as bridgeheads against the Folangji people.
"With the expansion of the Ming Dynasty in the New World, we cannot expect to build more railways to connect various places. The transportation of goods mainly depends on ships, so you see... both the south and the north are building ships. Now we have more than 300 large ships alone.
"In terms of weapons, although steel production has been successfully increased, I still need to produce more black powder and yellow powder to supply the needs of the army. Now everyone in the army has more than two firearms, and the number of artillery has increased.
There are about five thousand gates..."
Zhu Hao told Lou Suzhen about his family background.
Only then did Lou Suzhen realize how much Zhu Hao had done in the Inca Empire.
The New World is like a treasure that has never been discovered. No one has ever developed iron ore, and no one has used coal. Now hundreds of thousands of people are fighting for the same goal. This is more than what Zhu Hao accomplished when he was in the Ming Dynasty.
Industrial accumulation is much easier.
"Did Ming Dynasty really ignore it?"
Lou Suzhen asked another question.
After she came here, she helped Zhu Hao with administrative matters, and she was very aware of the persistence of the military personnel in returning home.
As time goes by, this obsession will gradually deepen.
Zhu Hao said: "If possible, I am going to transport two ships of silver back to exchange the family records of overseas people with His Majesty the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty."
"exchange?"
Lou Suzhen was surprised.
"Um."
Zhu Hao nodded, "On the grounds that silver mines are being mined overseas and there is a shortage of manpower. We cannot let the soldiers return home casually. After all, we brought out less than 40,000 people. You said that if we send back 10 million taels of silver at a time,
The ship is parked on the island and an envoy is sent to negotiate with His Majesty. Your Majesty will probably think more about it, right?"