Chapter 187: Travel to Nansha (Part 2)
Although Xu Xiake, the famous first donkey in the late Ming Dynasty, was indeed fearless of hardships, perseverance, and hard-working, he was not a successful leader. Instead, he was a very self-centered and stingy. Xu Xiake also had all the problems that the gentleman-doctors had in Jin Dynasty in the late Ming Dynasty. What is particularly criticized is that he treats his servants very harshly and likes to take advantage of all kinds of things.
If Xu Xiake were allowed to lead an expedition like Columbus or Pizarro, there would probably be a rebellion on the way.
For example, Xu Xiake was not an official and had no right to use the public e-mail system. But one time, he still got a horse card through connections, even with a letter of certification from Ekiden. So Xu Xiake used this horse card to pretend to be a tiger along the way, and recruited villagers to carry his sedan chair for free on his way. If you add the burden of luggage, it will take seven or eight coolies. Because there were not enough manpower, "two women were used to represent the father", that is, women were asked to carry the sedan for him.
Xu Xiake just sat on a sedan chair carried by two women and went out without any payment. The unbearable coolie began to run away. In the blink of an eye, only one person was left. Xu Xiake took out the rope, tied up the last coolie and led him away, just like treating a slave.
Next, Xu Xiake's team entered a small village. Unexpectedly, the men in the village had already fled in fear (this shows that Xu Xiake was probably a bandit or a Japanese in their eyes). Xu Xiake led his servants to search from house to house, and finally found two women and ordered them to boil water for cooking. He also whipped the lame son of the postman and drove the postman out of hiding, demanding food, wine and food. After dinner, he got on the bed that the old postman and the woman had made for him. Xu Xiake ordered them to quickly find coolies to carry his sedan and luggage (the original coolies escaped), and then he lay down to rest.
——Although the officials and gentlemen in the late Ming Dynasty basically behaved like oxen and horses in this shameless manner, and generally regarded the common people as nothing but grass, Xu Xiake's public image is that he is a very good geographer, traveler, and writer, but he did not It's a bit regretful to be exempted from vulgarity.
In addition to liking to take advantage of the public and lacking compassion for the common people, Xu Xiake was also very stingy and selfish. In his later years, Xu Xiake once took monk Jingwen on a trip to the southwest. As a result, monk Jingwen fell ill halfway and stayed in a temple, but Xu Xiake continued to travel. Monk Jingwen understood this, but hoped that Xu Xiake would leave some money to the young monk in the temple so that he could buy some food. It should be noted that friends have a common financial relationship. Xu Xiake has been friends with Monk Jingwen and his master for decades. However, he shied away from Monk Jingwen's request in every possible way, making Monk Jingwen cursed in anger. When Xu Xiake returned from his trip and was about to take away monk Jingwen, monk Jingwen had already died of illness in the temple.
Of course, compared with all the bad people in the late Ming Dynasty, although Xu Xiake was stingy and selfish, he still had some integrity. Seeing the death of Monk Jingwen, Xu Xiake also felt very guilty. Not only did he help Monk Jingwen handle his funeral, but he also fulfilled his last wish and buried his ashes thousands of miles away in Jizu Mountain.
In short, there is no doubt about the greatness of Xu Xiake, the founder of Lvke, but his own character cannot be overestimated either.
Closer to home, Xu Xiake's "official business" for this trip. Although Hua Meng arranged transportation and food, the six servants Xu Xiake took with him when he went out ran away because the promised reward was not fulfilled. personal. After seeing Xu Xiake's stingy and miserly behavior, the travelers suddenly realized why the last time Xu Xiake came to Hainan Island, there were only two of him and his brother, and there was not even a servant around him. I didn't bring it with me - it turned out that on the one hand it was to save money, and on the other hand it was because he had learned lessons from his previous travels: Xu Xiake had several times in the past that all his accompanying servants had already escaped before he even left Zhejiang Province...
——Being Xu Xiake’s servant is really not an easy task. They, ordinary people, do not have Xu Xiake's hobby and in-depth understanding of travel, nor do they have the sentiment of a landscape poet, nor do they regard travel as their self-proclaimed mission. Of course, they cannot ride a sedan or horse like Xu Xiake did. Being Xu Xiake's servant may be just to feed his family with three buckets of rice, but the cost is to be far away from his relatives and may lose his life at any time.
What's even more terrible is that Xu Xiake not only failed to appreciate the hard work of the servants, but also did not even correctly understand the value of his title of "Member of the Writers' Association". Instead, he really regarded it as another form of "Hanlin Bachelor": Although Xu Xiake understood the Song Dynasty court very well He does not value literature over martial arts, but rather values martial arts and literature as cheap. Not only is he a scholar, he is also a "lucky" person. He has no achievements other than a little "holy family" and has no backing. He has no arrogant capital at all. So I consider myself to be very "a man with my tail between my legs". But most of the sailors on the Bailu comprehensive supply ship are still very tired of this old man who often shouts at them and refuses to pay them rewards - who do you think you are?
In addition, because two servants ran away on the way, there were not enough people to carry the luggage. Xu Xiake even shamelessly approached Captain Rong Shiqi, hoping that he could make up for two servants for him. He choked on the spot. Captain Rong Shiqi rolled his eyes and almost cursed on the spot: What do you, old man, think of honorable naval officers and soldiers? Those poor military households in the Ming Dynasty who were like slaves and cattle and horses?
Although he choked and rolled his eyes, Captain Rong Shiqi pinched his nose and solved the problem for him: It was obviously impossible to let the glorious navy officers and soldiers serve Xu Xiake as servants, but there happened to be a group of military followers on the ship. Among the reform-through-labor prisoners, it is not a big deal to allocate two of them to Xu Xiake. It's a big deal. Criminals have no human rights anyway... So, Agui and Wang Hu, who were severely beaten and arrested for committing "hooliganism" in Weizhuang, Shaoxing, were taken out of the stuffy and dirty bottom of the Bailu and changed into clean clothes. clothes, and then stuffed them into Xu Xiake’s hands to make cows and horses...
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The warm wind is blowing slowly, the sun is shining brightly, and the emerald green woods are swaying in the wind. The edges of the leaves reflect the faint golden light, and thousands of them are swaying, like a string of dancing gold threads. The white clouds in the sky flow slowly, and from time to time a few seabirds pass by together, passing through the mottled shade of the trees and casting into the distant distance.
At the end of the shade of the trees, there is a snow-white beach and the boundless blue sea. The snow-white clouds hanging from the sky extend to the sea. The scenery is really refreshing and refreshing. Looking back from the beach, you can see various high and low buildings, hidden in a lush tropical jungle, which look particularly delicate and lovely, like a bonsai standing on the sea.
——This beautiful tropical island is a gift from coral polyps.
Coral polyps, a kind of lower coelenterate, have a body like a pocket with many petal-like tentacles on the sides. At high tide or at night, it changes into bright colors and hunts plankton with its tentacles. Humans once collected branch-like staghorn corals, beautiful rose corals or lotus corals as treasures. But in nature, the most abundant ones are the inconspicuous gray reef-building corals. They grow and reproduce in warm shallow seas, secreting limestone to form their own armor. Generations of coral skeletons are stacked to form a huge pyramid. Over time, over thousands of years, the reefs gradually emerged from the water, forming reefs. The waves broke the fragile coral reefs, gradually grinding them into gray-white coral sand.
Most of the Nansha Islands are composed of coral reefs, and most of them are atolls surrounding lagoons under the water. The part above the water is very small. Even Taiping Island, the main island of the Nansha Islands, is only one kilometer long and half a kilometer wide in its natural state, with an area of about half a square kilometer and an altitude of no more than three meters. Trying to find it in the vast South China Sea where sky and water are connected is like "looking for a needle in the sea."
However, although Taiping Island is small, it is by no means desolate. The entire island is densely covered with extremely lush tropical plants. Banana trees and coconut trees can be seen everywhere, and many papayas are planted along the gravel paths. Strong morning glory vines spread everywhere and bloom with lavender flowers, which are extremely beautiful.
Although it looks lush and green, there is not much real soil on the island. It is all gray-white fine sand and guano soil turned into by weathering of coral reefs, which is completely unsuitable for growing crops such as rice, wheat and vegetables. Fortunately, the officers and soldiers of the Chinese Alliance Navy who defended the island in this time and space had the unscientific and excellent weapon "Random Gate". They transported thousands of tons of fertile soil directly from Guangdong to the island, and opened up dozens of acres of land in the middle of the island. , planting eggplants, peppers, tomatoes, water spinach, cabbage, potatoes and other vegetables, which not only effectively improved the food for officers and soldiers, but also supplied fishermen and the navy.
In addition to fruits and vegetables, fresh water supply is also necessary to maintain life on the island. Although there are wells on Taiping Island, the water quality is still salty, so the garrison built a large number of cement reservoirs to collect rainwater. In addition, a fresh water manufacturing plant was built to supply clean fresh water for drinking.
Originally, Taiping Island was surrounded by coral reefs. To reach the island, one had to risk sailing through the coral surface and explore the deep-water channel. Whether this channel can be found is also unknown. Even if this channel is found, larger ships cannot enter and can only be transferred by small boats. To this end, the garrison built a large-scale cement pier on the island, which stretched from the height of the beach to the edge of the reef, forming an artificial deep-water port to facilitate the berthing and unloading of large ships. There was even a pier on the pier. A light narrow-gauge railway has been laid on it, allowing human-powered rail vehicles to directly load and unload cargo to berthed seagoing ships. The comprehensive supply ship Bailu is currently docked at this pier, unloading various daily necessities.
Around the pier, Huameng built lighthouses, weather stations, warehouses, radio stations, reservoirs, fortresses, dormitories, office buildings, playgrounds, cement fish drying terraces, etc. In order to protect against typhoons and storm surges, these buildings are all cement structures, but they are painted with various bright colors such as yellow, green, red, blue, white, etc., plus paths paved with fine sand and shells, and between the houses The flower beds form a unique color combination.
At present, the total population of Taiping Island has reached more than 500 people, forming a prosperous town. For a coral island with an area of only half a square kilometer, this number is staggering. The reason why Huameng is willing to make such a large-scale investment in a small Taiping Island is of course not only because of its geographical location, but more importantly, the only valuable mineral on the island: struvite.
Without the struvite provided by the Nansha and Xisha Islands, the Chinese League’s agricultural development of the Borneo rainforest would have become even more difficult.
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——The tropical rainforest in Borneo in Southeast Asia may appear to be lush and vibrant, but in fact it is full of dangers for local residents. Putting aside troubles such as poisonous insects, poisonous snakes and tropical diseases, the extremely different soil composition in that place is enough to make any farmer scratch his head: because of the amazing rainfall brought by the tropical rainforest climate, the entire Borneo The soil is constantly being overwashed by rain year after year, taking away all the dissolved nutrients, so that all calcium, magnesium, potassium, sodium, sulfur and other components are lost. In some places, there is almost no silicon. Unfortunately, only iron and aluminum are left. Although the sunshine and temperature of the tropics are suitable for plant growth, in such extremely poor tropical rainforest soil, beans that require potassium often cannot even be planted, while grains that do not require potassium are basically afraid of soil aluminum. Excessive content...
Therefore, primitive agriculture in most tropical areas can only adopt nomadic slash-and-burn farming. If you want to run a stable farm in a tropical rainforest area, you need to make great efforts to solve the problem of poor soil. In Southeast Asia, the land of Java Island has a large amount of natural volcanic ash that can supplement nutrients. Therefore, agriculture has been developed since ancient times, ranking first among the Southeast Asian islands. The main agricultural areas in Vietnam, Thailand and Myanmar are all flood plains of large rivers, which can obtain nutrients washed down from the upper reaches. However, Borneo does not have both conditions, so it is extremely difficult to develop.
Therefore, when establishing farms and plantations in the new colonial stronghold of the Chinese League on Borneo, they must dig more ditches and ponds to allow precipitation to drain away quickly and avoid soaking the soil to reduce nutrient loss. On the other hand, a large amount of fertilizer must be applied to ensure the nutritional conditions of crops.
It just so happens that the only way from China to Borneo is scattered on many coral islands in the South China Sea. It is covered with white guano, with an average height of about half a meter. Over time, it hardens into a layer rich in phosphorus and potassium. The ore, struvite, which is abundant in the South China Sea Islands, not only effectively helped the development of tropical agriculture in the colonial stronghold of Borneo, but also quickly brought amazing prosperity and prosperity to these small coral islands.
However, for the prisoners in the labor camp who were forced to mine struvite on the coral island, all this only meant an increase in workload.
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At this moment, the brothers Agui and Wang Hu, who were wearing straw sandals and shirtless, were sweating under the scorching sun of the tropical ocean, carrying a sliding pole and carrying Xu Xiake, who was wearing a big straw hat, around Taiping Island. Wandering around, we finally came to the mine where the labor reform team mined struvite.
Many reform-through-labor prisoners brought from various places were busy on the rocks exposed to the scorching sun. They all looked so silent, tired, with dull expressions, naked except for their underpants, like a group of squirming animals, using simple pickaxes and hammers to dig out the struvite. After a simple selection, the ore was loaded into a handcart, dumped into the carriages of human-powered trucks on the narrow-gauge railway, and finally pulled to a warehouse near the dock.
Under the scorching tropical sun, the sweat of the labor prisoners condensed into salt frost on their skin. Due to the limited fresh water on the island, the prisoners can only take a fresh water bath once a week, so they are all covered with dirt and layer upon layer of salt and frost. Seeing Xu Xiake and his group, some labor reform prisoners raised their heads, as if they wanted to take the opportunity to rest for a while, but several guards with rude faces immediately came over and shouted loudly, supervising them to continue working without stopping. One of the gang leaders even threatened fiercely that if anyone failed to complete the prescribed workload before the sun went down, the entire team of reform-through-labor prisoners would go hungry...
Next to the slider that Xu Xiake was riding, there was a group of new labor reform prisoners who had just unloaded from the Bailu and were about to be assigned to the struvite mining site on Taiping Island. They were the original traveling companions of Agui and Wang Hu. These ragged men were tied into two strings by iron chains and staggered on the path paved with fine sand. On both sides, there were fierce security soldiers shouting and cursing, and from time to time they were driven forward with sticks and gun butts. .
Looking at this scene, Agui and Wang Hu, who were sweating while carrying the sliding pole, could not help but feel a chill down their spines and their legs trembled.
"...See, if my master hadn't taken a fancy to you, you two sinners would have been like them!"
Xu Xiake's personal servant fanned the owner diligently and handed over a bunch of cut, peeled and soaked pineapple slices in salt water, while arrogantly scolding Agui and Wang Hu who were carrying the sliding pole. Said, "...Don't be ungrateful!"
"...Yes, Master Xu's great kindness, I will never forget it!" Agui suddenly got excited and responded hurriedly. Even the slide rod on his shoulders seemed not to be too heavy anymore. Wang Hu, on the other hand, looked back at the empty dock in the distance and asked hesitantly, "...Tell me, sir, you said before that you would set off again today, but the big iron ship that took us to the island is no longer there. Now, how can we cross the sea next?”
"...It doesn't matter!" Xu Xiake replied while eating pineapple in a good mood, "...let's not take a boat this time, but walk from the sky!"
"...from the sky?" Regarding this incredible answer, the two country bumpkins, Agui and Wang Hu, looked at each other for a while, but they were worried that their master would be angry and did not dare to ask any more questions. However, after a moment, both of them understood what Xu Xiake meant:
——At dusk, under the colorful sunset, a cigar-shaped giant rigid airship suddenly passed through the clouds on the horizon, slowly descended from the north to the sky above Taiping Island, and dropped a cloud of light onto the island and the sea. Huge shadow. Next, the stunned Agui, Wang Hu and others carried Xu Xiake and his luggage, climbed the rope ladder and boarded the huge airship. From then on, they left the land of Asia and rushed to the more wonderful and unknown distance... …