In March of the 22nd year of Zhenguan, preparations for the fleet heading south to Australia were finally completed. On a day with good sea conditions, this fleet composed entirely of steamships quietly left Keelung and passed through Luzon and the Spice Islands.

After half a month of sailing from various ports, they finally arrived at the northern tip of Australia in early April, which is where Lu Wan and others first landed in Australia.

However, compared to the desolation when Lu Wan and the others landed, a city has been built in this area now. The entire city still follows the traditional Central Plains city style. However, because this place already belongs to the southern hemisphere, the original Central Plains city faces north and south.

The layout is just reversed, with the south facing north, which may seem a bit strange to those who are new here.

The name of this city is Moli City. This is mainly to commemorate the Moli tribe living on Sunset Island that provided great help to Lu Wan and the others when Lu Wan and the others landed. Later, after the gold diggers arrived,

The Moli people on the island are also very friendly to these gold diggers. When the Han people were panning for gold here, many people from the Moli tribe acted as guides and taught the Han people to adapt to the environment here. It can be said that they are the city of Moli.

made a huge contribution to its development.

It was Mo Libu's outstanding performance, and Li Min wanted to promote in Australia that the Han people came for peace and could coexist peacefully with the local natives, so he finally decided to put this Han people in Australia's first place.

A city was named Moli City to commemorate the friendship between the Han people and the Australian Aboriginals.

The news of Li Min's arrival had already been notified to the city lord of Moli City. The current city lord's name is Lu Li, who is from the Lu family of Fan Yang. When Li Min cut off the financial resources of the Fan Yang Lu family, they had to ask Li Min for help.

They were stunned, and finally Li Min gave them a way out. He lured the Lu family

After arriving in newly developed Taiwan, with the prosperity of Taiwan, the Lu family shifted their focus from the Tang Dynasty to Taiwan. Many of the Lu family members entered the Qi Palace as officials. This Lu Li was the best among them. He was only 2 years old.

Having become the lord of a city at the age of forty, his future prospects are limitless.

Lu Li knew that Li Min and Li Ke didn't want to make any noise this time, and Moli City was only their first stop. They would leave immediately after the ship's supplies were completed. Therefore, Lu Li did not welcome them with any fanfare, but just prepared their accommodation.

, and then he took a few people to take Li Min and his party to the city to rest.

Li Min was sitting on the carriage driving to his residence, but he was observing the situation outside through the window. He saw that there were many pedestrians on the streets of Moli City. Most of them were Han Chinese, and occasionally some local natives could be seen.

All the Moli tribe have now moved to Moli City and have begun to receive Chinese education. Especially the children of the Moli tribe have been learning Chinese since childhood. Apart from their skin color and appearance, they are almost the same as Han children.

It is also worth mentioning that not all the locals Li Min saw in the city were from the Moli tribe, but quite a few natives from other tribes also expressed their respect after seeing the strength of the Han people.

, so these people, like the Moli people, became the first foreign ethnic group ruled by Li Zhi in Australia, and as long as they passed a certain Chinese language test, they could gain the right to enter Han cities.

Although Moli City is the first city established by Li Min in Australia, it is actually not large in scale. The number of Han people is only more than 7,000, and the local natives are only just over 10,000. If it were placed in Taiwan or Da

Tang, I'm afraid even the county town is bigger than it, but

Because there are gold mines here, the city is very wealthy, and the buildings in the city are also very neat and elegant. Police patrols pass by from time to time on the streets, making the streets orderly. From this, we can see Lu Li's governance ability

Still quite good.

Li Min poked his head and observed the situation in Moli City for a while, then turned back and smiled at Lu Li who was sitting next to him: "Lu Li, how is the gold mining in Moli City going now? And follow me this time.

The workers who came together will also build a steel factory in Moli City, are you all ready?"

Lu Li, who was in the prime of his life, immediately replied: "Your Highness, there are a total of seventy-eight gold mines being mined in Moli City. Among them, eleven large gold mines are in the hands of the government, and the rest are some.

Among the privately mined gold mines, there are fewer large-scale gold mines and most of them are small and medium-sized gold mines. Most of these gold mines use slaves transported from Southeast Asia and eastern Australia for mining. Last year, the annual output reached two tons.

, and there is still considerable room for growth.”

At this point, Lu Li paused for a moment, and then continued: "As for building a steel plant, we have already made preparations. Not far from the gold mine south of Moli City, a gold mine with astonishing reserves was discovered there.

rich iron ore, but because of the government’s manpower problem, we decided to transfer the iron

The mining of the mine is contracted to private individuals. Agreements have been signed with several major mine owners, and the other parties have organized slaves to mine. In addition, the steel plant is also under construction, but there is still a shortage of manpower. These workers can just supplement it.

It is estimated that it will be put into production by the end of this year at the latest.”

Hearing Lu Li's words, Li Min nodded with satisfaction. As the application of steam engines becomes more and more widespread, especially the promotion of steam ships, Taiwan's demand for steel has skyrocketed. Although several steel plants in South Korea have increased production several times,

, but it still cannot meet the demand,

Therefore, Li Min built several steel bases in Luzon and Linyi in the past few years, but in the end he still had to import some steel from Datang to meet the demand. But after the Australian steel plant officially produces it, it should be able to

Get rid of the need for Datang Steel.

Next, Li Min asked about Moli City's agriculture, fishing industry and food processing industry. These three industries are the most important economic pillars of Moli City besides mining, so they are also very popular with Li Min.

importance, Lu Li also answered this one by one.

That night, Li Min rested at the residence arranged for them by Lu Li, and during dinner, Li Min and Li Ke finally ate the Australian lobster that they had been admiring for a long time. This kind of lobster is huge and usually

About two kilograms, clean and steam directly, then cut open the carapace to take out the crystal clear shrimp meat inside, and eat it with the prepared sauce. It tastes extremely delicious.

All these lobsters are transported from the east coast of Australia by steamships. In the past, if you wanted to eat lobsters in Moli City, you would usually transport them by sailing boats. As a result, most of them would die on the way. Now it is much faster to use steamships.

The fact that it can be transported here alive also makes the price much cheaper. I even heard that some people are planning to transport this kind of lobster alive to Taiwan, but unfortunately no one has succeeded yet.

Li Min originally planned to leave Moli City the next day. After all, this is not the core area of ​​Australia. Most of the Han people who migrated to Australia live in the southeastern coastal areas, where the climate is warm and pleasant, and precipitation is relatively abundant.

A large amount of arable land can be reclaimed, which is the essence of Australia.

However, Li Ke proposed to visit the gold mine south of Moli City, and Gao Yang and Qinghe were also very curious about this, because although they had seen a lot of gold, they never knew how gold was mined?

If Li Ke went alone, Li Min would not object, but the female family members like Qinghe could not, because as far as he knew, slaves in gold mines were usually naked when mining gold, so in the end Li Min only

They were arranged to go to a gold smelting plant and visit the process of smelting gold into gold nuggets.

However, when Li Min and the others returned to the city, a very interesting thing happened. Because it was still early for them to return to the city, Gao Yang and Qinghe went to Moli City to play together. Unexpectedly, they met

Someone is selling nugget gold, and it only costs one thousand guan.

Qinghe and Gao Yang had long heard that someone had discovered nugget gold in Australia. In addition, they saw that the nugget gold sold by the other party had a strange shape and looked muddy and earthy. There were even a few barbarians dressed as businessmen around to snatch it.

He wanted to pay for it, which made Gao Yang's mind go crazy, so he directly bought it at double the price, and even took it back to his residence to show off to Li Min and Li Ke.

However, Li Min soon discovered that the gold nugget should be a fake made by humans. At first, Gao Yang didn't believe it, but later he asked someone to take a look, and the other person was very sure that this thing was definitely fake.

This made Gao Yang extremely angry. Lu Li was also alarmed, but his expression was even worse than Gao Yang's. After all, he was in charge of this place. Now there was a liar, and he even deceived the princess. This was simply...

Slap him in the face.

So that afternoon, all the official forces of the entire Moli City were mobilized to search the entire Moli City. As a result, they quickly found this group of scammers. Among them, the one who sold gold nuggets was a Han Chinese and was also the leader of this group of scammers.

The barbarians who raised the price were his accomplices. Not only did they help with the sales, they were also responsible for making fake gold nuggets. They had even deceived three or four people before.

Needless to say, the fate of this group of scammers was that they were all sent to work in the gold mines by Lu Li. Gao Yang also got back the money he had defrauded, which finally made her feel relieved. In addition, this incident also gave Li Min

This has sounded a wake-up call. In newly occupied overseas territories like Australia, the security aspect still needs to be strengthened.

After experiencing the counterfeit incident, Li Min's fleet left Moli City as scheduled on the third day. When they arrived at the Cape York Peninsula in later generations, now known as the Zhanjiao Peninsula by the Han people, they found a building called Jianjiao Peninsula there.

They stopped in the city of Cape Port for a while, added coal and water, and then walked around the Angle Point Peninsula. At this time, what appeared in front of them was one of the most beautiful scenery in Australia, and it is also a unique scenic spot in the world! (Unfinished)
Chapter completed!