Chapter 502 Danzhou Investigation
April 15, 1630, the fourth day of March in 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 appearance of these ships is obviously different from traditional Chinese sailing ships. Not only are the hulls longer and narrower, but also the masts are higher. The sails are also made of soft canvas. One of the ships has a row of movable sails with a diameter of one foot and four inches on the side of the ship. Small window. 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. They had often entered Danzhou Port in the past two years, and they had long been accustomed to this. .
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 board, and they are accompanied by There was an entire reinforced platoon of militia soldiers, disguised as crew members, servants, etc., as their escort.
The purpose of their trip was 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 solution together, it is not completely impossible to seize the city peacefully.
"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 city 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 went all the way from Chengmai and Lingao to Danzhou." He Xi couldn't help but sigh a little when she thought about the situation at that time: "At that time, I traveled so far alone. Thinking about it now, I think I was quite brave. ”
"You're not very brave, how dare the executive committee entrust you with such a heavy responsibility?" Wang Tom responded with a smile. After spending several years in the system, he is no longer as straightforward and ignorant as when he first came here, and now he knows how to compliment others at the right time.
"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 us 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 main ports in Sanya. When Tao Donglai and others planned the crossing operation, Danzhou was actually one of the alternative destinations. It has a natural harbor and the nearby population density is higher than that of Yazhou. It can save the crossing group a lot of money in the initial development. Strength. However, considering that the terrain here has no commanding heights to defend the bay, and there are no mineral and timber resources for continuous mining. The most important thing is that it is only a few miles away from Danzhou City and there are many settled people along the bay. Crossing Group wants to Taking root here is not something that can be accomplished in a short time. After careful consideration, the organizing committee gave up here and chose 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 those of Victory Port and Sanya Port, but also to Wanshan Port outside the Pearl River Estuary. When Haihan's ships approached the dock, 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 already 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 are not as good as us. When they were still using stone troughs to dry salt, we directly used cement salt drying tanks, and also had various seawater lifting and irrigation devices, and the production capacity was much stronger than theirs. 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.
"The official salt fields of Ming Dynasty are also said to be 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 could no longer make a living by selling salt. In the end, many people simply fled to our side. More than 80 households of the naturalized residents of the Yinggehai Salt Field were 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-price anthracite coal shipped from Heitu Port forced the work to stop. I remember that the militia was recruiting soldiers. But they 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 people moved to Sanya on their own voluntarily, not just salt farmers and miners. About two-thirds of the scholars we recruited now came from Danzhou! ”
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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. If there are too many of these same things, they are worthless. There will always be some poor scholars who have to find other ways to support themselves. Even if the proportion of scholars who are willing to join us is very low, there are still too many people! "That's it!" Wang Tom responded with a sudden realization: "When we occupy this place, this scholar can be regarded as a big gain!"
Danzhou's education 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, the cultural atmosphere of Danzhou has flourished. Later, dozens of academies such as Lingchun Academy, Zhende Academy, Tunan Academy, and Yizhai Academy were built locally. From the Northern Song Dynasty to the present, there have been dozens of people who have passed the imperial examination and obtained the title of Juren. This number is not suitable for a remote place like Qiongzhou Island. It's a miracle for the region.
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 a large number of weak scholars who cannot lift their hands or shoulders and need to find a job that can support themselves and their families when they reach adulthood. At most, these scholars who have not obtained any honors can only do cheap jobs such as copying. Just barely able 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, the salary can be further increased on this basis. At first, the scholars were a little distrustful of 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. Only then did everyone realize 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 also offered very attractive conditions when recruiting these people - in addition to the salary they received from their work, Haihan would give paid holidays to all those who wanted to take the imperial examination and go to the provincial capital Guangzhou. Haihan will also dispatch boats to escort scholars who take part in the provincial examination, and they will also be responsible for arranging food and lodging during the examination. If someone wins the imperial examination and needs to go to the capital to take the examination, 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 earn from part-time jobs, most of them can only save up for three years to pay for a trip to Guangzhou to take the exam. But now that the Haihan people have taken the initiative to promise to bear this part of the cost for them, this kind of benefit is difficult to find even with a lantern. As for the more advanced examination, although it sounds very tempting, 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.
And 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 needed to take were actually not very expensive. The Tongsheng examination was taken locally in Danzhou. At most, these scholars would be sent back to Danzhou by ship to take the examination during the examination period, which would delay the examination for seven to ten days. The rural examination is in Guangzhou, and the shipping, board and lodging expenses that need to be paid are completely the lowest cost price for Haihan, who is engaged in the shipping industry. Moreover, the more people go, the lower the unit cost will be. Moreover, this kind of examination only happens once every three years, and the time required can be deducted from their rest days. I believe these scholars will not raise any objections to this approach.
But after becoming naturalized citizens in Haihan, will these people 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. After entering Haihan's social system, these scholars will soon realize that the benefits they can get here are far better than their previous humble window. Study hard. There may still be a few people who insist on their dreams, hoping to gain the honor of being a civil servant and honor their ancestors and serve the imperial court, but there will definitely be more people who realize the benefits they can gain under Haihan's rule and give up on the imperial examination. This is a single-plank bridge road with a very low probability of return.
Ning Qi's inference was quickly proven in the later 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 stayed. Before the provincial examination held last fall, the relevant departments had received less than 20 applications for the imperial examination. This shows that the vast majority of scholars have changed their values and given up after entering the system for two years. Obtained 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. . Today, scholars from Danzhou have indeed become a force that cannot be ignored in the naturalized system. In the entire Haihan cultural and educational system, especially in the most basic units such as literacy and school-age children's education, most of the teachers came from various academies in Danzhou.
And Haihan also gained another additional effect, that is, his reputation in Danzhou is quite good. Paying attention to culture and education and setting up schools are measures that will be appreciated by the cultural circles in any dynasty. However, the Haihan people spent so much on culture and education that anyone who is not blind can see it. Even those Danzhou students who did not accept Haihan's employment know that there are a large number of free schools in Sanya. School-age children under Haihan's rule can attend school for free, and adults are also trained in special literacy classes. Although there are still a very small number of people who think that it is a bad idea to enter the school with mud-legged people, most people will still give a very positive evaluation of these measures of the Haihan people.
In addition, under the leadership of Ning Qi, Haihan also moved some methods implemented in Guangzhou directly to Danzhou. For example, it funded poetry contests, cultural forums, art exhibitions and other activities, and provided a large number of extremely low-cost but highly sought-after Haihan glass stationery as prizes to attract literati to participate. When 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 to participate. It was regarded as a grand event in the local cultural circle.
At that time, Ning Qi even came to the scene in person to discuss the past and present with the deans of various academies in Danzhou, enjoying the pleasure of being a literati scholar. In Ning Qi's words, just seeing the handwritings of Su Dongpo and other famous people collected in the academy made this trip worth a thousand dollars.
(End of chapter)