Soulengji Island, also called Qingdao, is shaped like an oxbow and covers an area of only more than 20 square kilometers. Zhao Xin looked through the telescope and saw that the island was covered with dense forests, and it was impossible to tell whether there was anyone living there.
"What are you looking at?" Liu Sheng asked casually from the side.
"Gold." Zhao Xin didn't answer, he just thought silently in his heart. "Who would have thought that this inconspicuous island has an amazing amount of gold buried in it?"
Historically, after the Second Opium War, the Qing government had no choice but to open up immigration from the Northeast, hoping to solve the refugee problem in various places and strengthen its border areas to resist the invasion of Tsarist Russia.
Since the mid-19th century, with the discovery of gold on Solenji Island, tens of thousands of people have come here to pan for gold.
After the signing of the "Beijing Treaty", Tsarist Russia invaded and occupied a large area of territory in the outer northeast that belonged to China, and then set its sights on the gold mines in Solengi Island. In order to monopolize the gold mines, Tsarist Russia ignored the "Chinese" in the "Beijing Treaty" Russia is not allowed to occupy any of the occupied fishing and hunting land, and the Chinese are still allowed to fish and hunt as usual." It was decided to use force to expel the gold miners on the island.
After suffering the first looting by Tsarist Russia, hundreds of helpless gold miners returned to the island carrying swords and muskets, vowing to fight the invaders to the death. As the revolting miners were defeated by the artillery fire of Tsarist Russian warships, they finally withdrew from the search. Lenji Island began to move to the vast area of South Ussuri, and within a few months it actually grew to a scale of two to three thousand people.
The rebel army was dominated by Han miners, and also included many local Manchu, Hezhe, Xibo and other ethnic minorities. They fought in various places, attacked and killed the invaders, and swept away several areas between the southern Ussuri area, Xingkai Lake and Suifen River. At the end of the war, the anti-Russian war raged across the southern Ussuri River Basin.
At that time, the Manchu Qing court devoted all its energy to dealing with the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom in the south, and the garrison troops in the northeast were almost non-existent. They were worried that the rebels would move into the pass and shake their rule, and actually regarded them as enemies, so they sent troops to cooperate with Tsarist Russia to carry out encirclement and suppression.
In the end, under the double suppression of the Qing court and Tsarist Russia, this massive resistance finally failed in July 1868. The four leaders of the rebel army killed their corpses and carried their heads to the public in Changlingzi, the border between China and Russia.
To the emperors and dignitaries of the Qing Dynasty, this vast South Ussuri region only meant ginseng, sea cucumber, mink skin, and dongzhu; but they had no idea that beneath this vast land, there were astonishing reserves of gold. Copper, tin, steel, coal, oil and other mineral deposits. Endless virgin forests, rich animal and plant resources, vast fertile black land, thousands of kilometers of coastline. It was not until it was lost for more than a hundred years that it aroused the concern of many Chinese people. Endless sighs.
At the moment, Zhao Xin can't care about what will happen a hundred years from now. All he can think about now is gold and black earth.
The Thor sailed past the sea off Solenji Island, and only two-thirds of the voyage had been completed. After a while, the mouth of the Xila River could be seen.
An hour later, with a long whistle blowing, the Thor stopped and anchored off the sea at the mouth of the Xila River.
"Zhao Xin, what do you plan to name our new city?" Liu Siting in the cockpit suddenly asked curiously.
"Beihai." Zhao Xin murmured. "This is the real North Sea."
"That's right, what a bullshit Sea of Japan! This is our North Sea." Liu Sheng agreed after hearing what Zhao Xin said.
Zhao Xin put down the telescope and said to the people around him with a smile: "It's only more than three hundred nautical miles from here to Ezo Land. Do you think Ezo Land can still be regarded as belonging to the Tokugawa Shogunate?"
"Haha! Mr. Zhao's words are very suitable for me!" Deng Fei opened the door of the captain's room and walked in.
"Lord, the Ezo Land is currently owned by the Matsumae family of the Fukuzen Domain. The current head of the family is Matsumae Shima Morichihiro." Katsu Kaishu stood behind Zhao Xin and reminded him.
"It won't be anymore soon." A sneer appeared on Zhao Xin's face.
According to the "Ezo Territory and Surrounding Map" (Ezo Territory and Surrounding Map) of the 18th century, although the Matsumae clan was recognized by the shogunate and had the right to dominate the "Ezo Territory", it could definitely control it. Its territory has never exceeded the Toshima Peninsula at the southernmost tip of Hokkaido. Not to mention the four northern islands, even the vast land of Hokkaido is completely outside its control.
But that will be discussed in the future, the most important thing now is to start preparations before disembarking and landing on the island.
Zhao Xin called Deng Fei and Wang Yuanfang. After the three of them went down to the deck, they called Pan Xiucheng and Serdan. The five people came down to the water gate at the stern, each checked the equipment they carried, and boarded. Assault boat.
As the two water gates at the stern of the ship opened one after another, Deng Fei started the assault boat and rushed towards the beach of Beihai Port under the eyes of everyone on the ship.
More than twenty minutes later, the assault boat stopped at the beach. After Zhao Xin waited for the boat to stop, he got off the boat, raised his gun and fired several shots into the sky.
A large group of foraging seabirds flew up from the beach and landed not far away after a while; in the bushes dozens of meters away, there seemed to be frightened animals running quickly, and there was a sound of hoofbeats.
"It's a deer." Seldan said calmly.
Zhao Xin asked the four people to go 200 meters to the shore to check the situation, while he stayed on the beach, saying that he would notify the refugees on the boat to prepare to land.
Wang Yuanfang knew that Zhao Xin was unwilling to use the jade pendant in front of others, so he said no more and immediately invited everyone to go into the forest to investigate.
After a few dozen minutes, when the four of them returned to the beach, they saw a large number of red pontoons stacked on the beach. The temporary dock on Bear Island was assembled and spliced together using these red pontoons.
Deng Fei left in the assault boat. He would pick up more refugees and work together to build a simple dock.
A few hours later, as a simple dock was completed, the women and children on board the Thor began to disembark and disembark.
In the next few days, the pier will need to be gradually expanded and extended to the sea, so that it can dock the two patrol boats, Zhao Xin's large yacht, and the Thor, so that more than 200 war horses can disembark.
Chen Qingsong and others were the third group to land. After landing, he immediately led a few people to start the site selection and survey work for the new camp. This guy was carrying a Leica level given to him by Zhao Xin. After two or three hours, Based on the survey and referring to the map information provided by Zhao Xin, an area two kilometers northwest of the mouth of the Xila River was finally selected.
The terrain of this area is very flat, and the visual altitude is several meters higher than the water level of the Xila River. As long as the river banks are reinforced later, flooding caused by the rising water level of the Xila River can be prevented.
As usual, Liu Sheng held up a large red flag sewn in advance by refugee women and placed it in the center of the camp chosen by Chen Qingsong. The red flag fluttering in the air was the "Eighth Project Project" that made many modern people feel vulgar. The seven characters "Ministry" are eye-catching.
"I said, why did Mr. Zhao choose such a bad name?" After landing on the island, Dr. Hong Taohong saw the eye-catching yellow characters on the red flag. He suddenly felt uncomfortable and felt a chill in his heart. He hurriedly
I found Wang Yuanfang who was carrying a chainsaw preparing to cut down trees and asked.
Wang Yuanfang also felt that the name Zhao Xin was too awkward. But when things got busy, he couldn't take care of it. When Doctor Hong asked, he could only say: "Mr. Zhao said he had a clever plan.
We asked him, but he didn’t say anything.”
"Bah, he really thinks of himself as a contractor!" Liu Siting, who followed Doctor Hong closely, expressed her serious contempt.
"This is not an urgent matter. We will tell him whether we will change or not after we have established a firm foothold." Wang Yuanfang said no more, and joined the logging "army" of only a dozen people in total with a chainsaw.
The more than 300 people who landed were divided into two groups. Some were responsible for logging and clearing the selected camping area; the other group continued to assemble simple docks on the beach. Among them were the dozen or so prisoners of the Qing soldiers.
Wu Siyu, who was holding a gun, and Pan Xiucheng, who was holding a sword, were responsible for surveillance.
"Hey, this machine you bought is so easy to use." Chen Qingsong couldn't help but admired while holding a control panel and operating the land reclamation equipment Zhao Xin bought from Europe.
"There's nothing sold in China, so I went to Europe to buy it in stock during the Chinese New Year." Next to him, Zhao Xin operated another land reclamation machine, driving through the bushes like a racing game.
Drive away.
A group of loggers from the island country and Elu next to Zhao Xin looked at the monster in front of them with their mouths wide open. The six-meter-wide weeding saw was like a glutton. Wherever it passed, there were patches of bushes and trees as tall as a person.
The weeds fell to the ground.
By the way, does this count as an immortal trick? Zhao Xin glanced at the stupid Elu next to him and couldn't help but feel proud.
"Can this machine also open up wasteland and sow seeds?" Chen Qingsong suddenly asked.
"Yes, it's just a pendant. It can be used for clearing land, sowing, and harvesting. But the efficiency is definitely not as high as that of large machinery."
"It's great. I wish I had this when I was working at the grassroots level."
"Don't think about it, rural areas can't afford this. It costs hundreds of thousands. I bought this to deal with the swamps in the black land. If we use people to open up wasteland, if we are not careful, both people and animals will get stuck in the swamps.
inside."
Chen Qingsong looked at the four huge, toothed wheels under the fuselage of the land reclamation fuselage, and nodded deeply in agreement.
After the logging team felled more than a dozen large trees, they dug the tree roots out of the soil and backfilled them with earth and rocks. Zhao Liang drove a small two-wheel roller to compact the ground back and forth in the cleared area.
When night came, most people returned to the Thor to spend the night. In the initially cleared camping area, only two tents were erected for the use of those on night duty.
Zhao Xin originally asked everyone to return to the Thor, but Serdan proposed to stay on duty at night with Yalha to prevent the loss of the felled wood and equipment. So Zhao Xin asked Elu, Lu Shoushan,
Pan Xiucheng and Hengji accompanied Serdan and Yalha to watch the night on the shore.
In order to provide support as soon as possible in case of an accident, he, Liu Sheng, Wang Yuanfang, and Ding Guofeng stayed on a yacht docked at the dock that night.
It was night, when Zhao Xin, who had been busy all day, was about to go to bed after washing his face, a loud arrow shot out from the forest, and the shrill sound immediately alarmed the four people on the yacht.
Without saying a word, Zhao Xin put on his body armor, picked up his gun and rushed out of the cabin.