Li Xiao's huge fleet sailed around the tip of the Shandong Peninsula in the north wind and headed south. Twenty-one days later, in the early morning of November 29th of the lunar calendar, he arrived in the Dadu area where the Ding You Group was located in central Taiwan.

The entire voyage was quite smooth, with only about 2,000 old and weak, who died of illness on the road because they could not stand the bumpy waves and had a long-term seasickness. The remaining 360,000 immigrants all arrived in Taiwan in good health.

This time, the reason why not docking in Penghu like Ding You and others last time was that they had to take a small boat to Taiwan is that a simple port has been built from the Dadu River to the entrance of the Taiwan Strait. Therefore, Li Xiao's team can successfully sail directly to the Dadu area and moor and disembark here.

Because the port was just developed, there were many wild deer appearing, so Ding You, the head of the Taiwan Tuoxian Group, named Lugang because of the object. He probably wouldn't have thought that this name happened to be the same as the largest port in Changhua County, Taiwan, which was later in history.

When the ship approached the coast of Dadu area, Li Xiao could clearly see in the brighter and brighter morning light that the entire Dadu area showed a gentle terrain that was high and low in the east. This place called the Jianan Plain in modern Taiwan, the waves on the seaside were calm, and on the beach on the shore, the tall coconut trees were densely formed into forests and swaying shadows. At the end of the gaze, there was a dark green, majestic and continuous Taichung Mountains.

Li Xiao was delighted to see that on both sides of the Dadu River, a land full of weeds and shrubs, were already scattered with spots of villages and houses, and connected newly built rice fields, winding into the sky.

At this time, the late rice in the fields had already been harvested, and only a bare and neat rice was left. The chopped rice poles piled up tall towers, like silent sentries, standing quietly in the ocean of rice fields. From time to time, children can be seen laughing and chasing on the ridges. These villages composed of immigrants are full of a leisurely and distant southern rural style.

At this time, Ding You, the commander of the Tuojian regiment, led the deputy commander Ma Huaxing, the commander-in-chief of the Taiwan Expedition Army, Li Dingguo, deputy commander Luo Zheng and others to welcome Li Xiao off the ship at the Lugang Wharf.

At this time, Zheng Cai and Zheng Lian brothers saw that the transportation task had been successfully completed, and their faces were full of relaxation. They were thinking about it, and quickly unloaded the supplies brought by the passengers and Li Xiao, and took the commercial goods containing more than 150 large ships to return to Penghu to seek credit from Zheng Zhilong.

Afterwards, after Li Xiao and Zheng Cai and Zheng Lian said goodbye, they led a group of guards and cavalry out of the ship.

After getting off the boat, he greeted everyone warmly for a few words, and praised Ding You and others' governance achievements, which made Ding You and Li Dingguo and others very happy. Then, under the leadership of Ding You, he walked towards the government office, where Ding You had prepared a welcome banquet for Li Xiao.

Although Li Xiao and others left first, the loading and unloading work on the dock was orderly.

In order to avoid chaos, ships took turns to unload passengers and supplies on the docks. More than 360,000 refugees who got off the ship were registered on the spot under the leadership of the dispatched troops, and then went to the built tents in various places to settle down, and began to bathe, eat and rest. All kinds of grain, silver, and commercial goods on the ship were also registered in batches according to the type.

Soon, after eating, Li Xiao had a banquet, he discussed matters with a group of officials.

First of all, it is naturally to discuss the next resettlement work of refugees.

According to Li Xiao's requirements, these more than 360,000 immigrants should not be concentrated in Dadu, but should be placed separately in Erlin and Nanshe, so that each place can be developed evenly.

Everyone agreed with Li Xiao's suggestion. Afterwards, Ding You and others proposed another suggestion that townships should be set up in Dadu, Erlin and Nanshe respectively in order to better manage them.

Li Xiao agreed with his point of view, and then on a roughly drawn topographic map of the three places, Li Xiao finally planned to make Dadu 5 townships, Erlin 3 townships, and Nanshe 4 townships, and named each township separately.

Because many places have not yet been developed, in order to save management costs, the area and scale of these townships planned by Li Xiao are relatively large, and the area of ​​a newly planned township can reach more than three times the area of ​​townships in Zhaoyuan County or Huang County, Shandong.

Due to the establishment of townships in various places, the government office originally located in Dadu was in a corner and there was much inconvenience in doing things. To solve this problem, Li Xiao proposed his own solution. That is, in the middle of the three places, that is, between Dadu Stream and Zhuoshui Stream, choose a convenient transportation place, build a new city, and set up the government, military camps, schools, warehouses, etc. in the new city.

As soon as Li Xiao's opinion was put forward, Li Dingguo first expressed his approval.

"Mr. Li's suggestion is good! With this city, it can better prevent indigenous people from coming to attack. In the future, if the Dutch or Spanish attacks, our army will defend itself by relying on the city, which will also increase the chance of victory."

Ding You and others also agreed. At this time, Ma Huaxing, deputy head of the Tuojian Group, asked: "But I don't know how big a city you want to build?"

Li Xiao pondered for a moment, and then replied: "Because the land of Taiwan is still remote, and there are only twelve townships to manage and there are no industrial projects. This city does not need to be built too large. In my opinion, it is enough to build it into a city with a circumference of eight miles."

"Mr. Li. Then is our army going to buy bricks, mud and so on from Penghu and other places?" Ma Huaxing asked again.

Li Xiao shook his head and said, "No need. Our army has come to this Taiwan, so we should focus on self-reliance. This time, when we came to Taiwan, our officer also brought a large number of construction craftsmen. From then on, in Taiwan, our army will build brick factories, quarries, cement factories, lime yards, and all basic construction projects must be solved by themselves."

Ding You interrupted from the side: "Mr. Li said it very well, it is better to ask for help than to ask for others. If our army has more territory in Taiwan in the future, we must be able to produce and build raw materials on its own so that we can ensure the construction of cities, houses, camps, roads and other needs."

Li Xiao nodded to Ding You for approval and continued, "What Commander Ding said is that you can take people to build various construction factories on site to test the construction. See if the factory can be completed and production can be started in one month. After the factory produces raw materials normally, the construction of the new city will begin."

Ding You said suddenly, "Don't worry, Lord Li, please make sure to do a good job in the construction of these factories. After all, our army already has experience in the construction of various factories of Chifengwei, and the craftsmen are ready-made. If these factories are to be completed and put into production, they will only be faster than Chifengwei."

Luo Zheng, deputy commander of the Taiwan Expeditionary Army, who had not spoken at this time, asked with a smile: "Have you ever thought about what name should be given to this new city?"

Li Xiao smiled and said, "I have already thought that this city can be named Changhua City. I think that in this wilderness, the meaning of education is to be expressed."

As soon as Li Xiao said this, everyone agreed. Li Xiao laughed in his heart. In fact, he was just copying the names of later generations. However, this place name that appeared in 1901 did indeed have a very good reputation, so Li Xiao was unceremonious to use it.

At this time, Li Dingguo hesitated and asked Li Xiao: "Mr. Li, since he was in charge of Taiwan, he has fought with local indigenous people many times. He found that although these indigenous people have fierce combat power, they lack organization and poor equipment after all, and are not opponents of our army. General. He was thinking, would it be better if Lord Li ordered us to lead our Taiwan-send troops to the deep mountains of Taichung to plow the large and small villages of the indigenous people who have never been reborn, and to completely eliminate future troubles. How about that?"

Li Xiao looked at Li Dingguo's eagerness to fight and smiled and said, "Ning Yu, everything should not be taken seriously. Such evil natives are mostly guarding dangerous mountains and ridges, and there are many smoke and fog, and it is not easy to attack. Our Taiwan dispatched troops are only able to gain a foothold in Taiwan, and supply is not easy. If there is a large loss, it will not be worth the loss. The number of immigrants in our army is still not large, and the existing wasteland has not yet been completed. Therefore, the primary task of our Taiwan dispatched troops is to first defend their own territory. Moreover, there are nearly 200,000 natives in Taiwan, and the number of soldiers in Taiwan dispatched troops is only 3,000, so how can we kill them all indiscriminately?"

Li Xiao paused and said in a deep tone: "For the indigenous people in Taiwan, in the opinion of this official, it is not advisable to just kill and suppress the threat, but should focus on the integration of education. From now on, we must deliberately guide such indigenous people to admire our Chinese culture with various preferential conditions, so that their children can learn Chinese poetry and books, and gradually get used to the life and thinking of the Han people, so as to completely integrate into our Han people and become a branch of the blood of our Han people. This work may take a long time, but in the long run, it is quite worth it."

Li Dingguo nodded thoughtfully and agreed with Li Xiao's statement. Seeing that he didn't say anything, Li Xiao continued to say: "Ning Yu, you need to know that in Taiwan, the real enemy of our army is not these Taiwanese natives, but the Spaniards occupying Taipei and the Dutch occupying Tainan. These guys who shamelessly occupy our treasure island in China are the mortal enemies of our army!"

Li Dingguo's eyes lit up and he asked hurriedly, "Does he ever have any plans to eliminate the Spaniards and the Dutch?"

A cold light flashed in Li Xiao's eyes. He said in a low but clear manner: "I have a plan. After our army's artillery is mature and we can attack the city, we will declare war on them in a way that will completely eradicate the Spaniards and the Dutch, firmly occupy Taiwan, and make it an inherent territory that our Han people will never abandon."

Li Dingguo stood up, and he said to Li Xiao with an excited look: "If Lord Li wants to attack the Spanish and the Dutch in the future, he will be willing to be the vanguard of our army!"

"Okay! Since Ning Yu has this ambition, I will definitely fulfill you!" Li Xiao laughed, his face full of relief.

Since the next plan for Taiwan's expansion has been formulated, the officials have begun to implement it separately.

More than 360,000 immigrants, after a day of rest in Dadu coast, were sent by Taiwan soldiers to lead them to settle in various newly established townships, and then received the identity cards issued by the civil affairs branches of the local townships, and officially became ordinary civilians of the Tiger Army.

Wang Dagou, an immigrant from Shaanxi, was settled in a subordinate township in Nanshe area. This is still a wild area and has a brand new name called Yongjing Township, Changhua County.

After getting the identity card issued by the local civil affairs department and the household registration book of the family, the head of the household Wang Dagou felt a lot of emotion.

Wang Dagou's family is from Chengcheng County, Xi'an Prefecture, Shaanxi Province. In his hometown, at the beginning of this year, Huntianwang and a large number of bandits such as Guo Tianxing had a huge uproar. The village where Wang Dagou's family was located was burned, killed, and looted.

Wang Dagou's family hid in the mountains by chance and avoided the death of death. However, the whole family has since become refugees who have no food and clothing, begging all the way east and fleeing to Henan.

Because Henan was in ruins and depression, the family still had nowhere to stay, so they had to travel east along the Yellow River and finally reach the boundary of Yanzhou, Shandong.

Half a year has passed since the journey. Wang Dagou's father died of illness on the road. His youngest brother Wang Sigou and his younger sister Wang Wuni both died of tuberculosis due to long-term hunger.

When they arrived in Shandong, only my mother, daughter-in-law Xu, younger brother Wang Ergou, and younger sister Wang Sanni were still struggling to live in hunger and cold.

No one knows whether this family can survive this winter.

Thinking of this, Wang Dagou secretly lamented that he was lucky.

It turned out that after he arrived in Yanzhou, he happened to meet Li Xiao who sent officials to recruit refugees from all over Shandong to Taiwan to expand colonials. Wang Dagou's family, who were originally struggling on the brink of death, finally gained precious vitality.

Wang Dagou and his family were then taken to Chifengwei by recruiting officials. Together with more than 360,000 other refugees, they took Zheng Cai's ship and headed south to Taiwan.

Afterwards, Wang Dagou and his family were arranged by the Civil Affairs Department to this subordinate township that was originally a district in Nanshe area. The family wandered thousands of miles and finally settled down in this place called Dawantou Village, Yongjing Township, Changhua County.

Wang Dagou was illiterate. He asked the official who awarded the waist card with curiosity, what was written on the waist card?

The official smiled and read the words on the waist sign to him. It turned out that the front of the waist sign was written with three rows of big characters: Wang Dagou, a villager in Dawantou, Yongjing Township, Changhua County, Taiwan. No.: No. xxxxxx.

On the back are several lines of small characters: The waist card is a personal certificate and must be carried with you for cross-examination. If there is any loss, you must report it to the local Civil Affairs Branch immediately and ask for a detailed examination.

Since the five acres of wasteland are not too large, and there are plowing oxen and farm tools provided by the government for tax grain exchange, Wang Dagou's family has cleared and opened up ten days later and planned to come out the wasteland they had for their own.

Wang Dagou, who thought it would not be until February next year, was surprised to find that officials of the Agricultural Department sent strange seeds called potatoes to towns and towns, allowing them to plant them into newly opened rice fields.

This kind of seed was specially purchased by Li Xiao from the Dutch in Tainan. It is said that the Maqin potato is native to the Andes in South America and was later taken to all parts of the world by Europeans. After the Dutch conquered southern Taiwan, they began to plant potatoes locally.

The reason why Li Xiao chose Maqin potato first was that it was not the sweet potato that was popular in the vast time travel novels. As a winter crop in Taiwan, it actually had its own unique considerations.

This is because although the yield of sweet potatoes is similar to that of potatoes, the planting environment is similar to that of potatoes, and they all like high temperature and humid environments. However, the biggest disadvantage of sweet potatoes is that their maturity period is much longer than that of Maqin potatoes, with a growth period of 4 to 5 months, which is almost close to rice, while the growth period of potatoes is only 2 to 3 months, which can greatly save planting time and consume land fertility.

With this gap, that is, in Taiwan, from the harvesting of late rice in the middle and late October of the lunar calendar to the resurgence of early rice in early spring next year, it will take nearly three and a half months to harvest the first phase of potatoes that have fully grown. If winter sweet potatoes are planted, although there can be harvested, under the premise of normal sowing of rice the following year, winter sweet potatoes will have a slightly lower temperature and will have a growth period of 5 months, and there will be no time to fully grow. Only smaller sweet potatoes can be harvested, and the yield will be much lower than fully mature potatoes.

Therefore, this is the main reason why all European countries choose potatoes as the main food crop rather than sweet potatoes. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is a potato expert. She once said that if there are no potatoes to eat one day, it will be a nightmare disaster for her.

Wang Dagou originally thought that if these agricultural department officials who were distributed to the door might have to charge fees for getting such potato seeds, they did not expect that these seeds were provided for free, just like rice seeds, but at that time, each acre of potatoes would need to pay a land tax of 2 shi.

This field tax sounds like a lot, but it is still very small compared to potato production. Because according to the Dutch's species value data in Taiwan, the yield of a fully mature maqin potato can reach a yield of 6 to 8 stones per mu! It is far beyond the yield of traditional crops such as rice, wheat, and sorghum.

Wang Dagou, who received the seeds, thought of Li Xiao's good deeds ten thousand times in his mind, and then took his family to sow the potato seeds into the plowed land according to the method taught by the officials of the Agricultural Department.
Chapter completed!