With the help of the Yitata tribe, development efforts around Keelung Port have rapidly increased. In fact, there are only a few hundred people in this Shengfan tribe, and there are less than 200 to 300 young and strong men. This small amount of labor is not very helpful for large-scale construction. The reason why it is so effective is that without the harassment of poisonous arrows, workers who are reclaiming land, logging, and building houses are no longer in panic, and a large number of manpower is freed up for security. Balai, the leader and wizard of the Yitata tribe, also sent experienced hunters as guides to lead the technicians of the newly established Liuqiu Mining Company to search for minerals.
According to Balai, there are more tribes on the island than there are fingers and toes on all the tribe's elders put together. The Shengfan tribe, including the Yitata, did not have writing, and their fingers and toes were their counting tools. Due to the lack of food, various tribes often kill each other for prey. In addition to being a custom, cannibalism is more to make up for the lack of food. Of course, they do not eat the meat of members of their own tribe, nor of members of other tribes who are related by blood. The wild living environment and uncivilized state have resulted in a sparse population on Liuqiu Island. According to Xia Dagen's estimate, the population of this island, which is several times the size of the western Sichuan Plain, will not exceed 50,000. Moreover, these people who make a living by fishing and hunting are not civilized, and it is impossible for them to be used as a labor force for construction.
Therefore, recruiting a large-scale population to the island is a top priority. Before the arrival of Yu Zhu's army, Li Kaipeng recruited thousands of refugees from Shandong, Lin'an and other coastal areas, including Huang Hu'er, Li Ya'er and others. However, this population is far from enough for the development of Liuqiu, so Yu Zhu decided to increase the recruitment efforts. In the coastal states and counties of the Southern Song Dynasty, land annexation was very serious because of the large number of people and the small amount of land. The refugees who lost their land often gathered in the mountains and forests, or gathered in crowds to cause trouble, which caused great headaches for the local officials. In the name of recruiting refugees to farm in western Sichuan, and giving some benefits to local officials, it is not difficult to recruit people.
It is somewhat difficult to recruit refugees along the coasts of Shandong, Hebei and other places. In the early years, these places were the battlefields of fierce back-and-forth battles between Mongolia and Jin. Some places were still frequently contested by Song and Mongolia. They have long lost the prosperity of the Northern Song Dynasty, and their population has also decreased significantly. Although there is a lot of land that can be cultivated, the living conditions of the Han people here are very miserable because they are double oppressed by the Mongolian nobles and the Han military princes. In the eyes of the Mongolian nobles and the Han army princes, the common people were serfs and their property, so of course they had to do their best to prevent escape. The top brass of the Perak Army were deeply influenced by Ouyang Xuan's thought of "saving all people from fire and water". In addition, Yu Zhu, Li Kaipeng and others were also from the north, and they felt deeply about the loss of their homeland. Therefore, Liuqiu Company decided to overcome the difficulties and use smuggling to save as many northern Han people as possible from suffering.
In addition to population, money and food are also the focus of development strategies. As refugees continue to arrive, food problems will gradually become apparent. Liuqiu Island is rich in light, heat and water, making it very suitable for growing rice and other food crops. The next step will also be to carry out large-scale reclamation. It just needs to reclaim the wild jungle into cultivated land, and then sowing seeds to harvesting food, at least Half a year or even a year. Where did the food come from during this time? Boss Qian planned to buy in the coastal states and counties of the mainland first. However, due to the dense population in the southeast region and the frequent wars between Song and Mongolia, food consumption was high and the price was not cheap. When the conditions are mature, he plans to buy rice in Guangzhou, Jiaozhi, Champa and other places farther south, where the light and heat conditions are better and can even produce three crops a year, so the price of grain will naturally be cheaper.
Purchasing food requires a lot of money. Although Li Kaipeng accumulated a certain amount of funds in the early stage, Boss Qian and Yu Zhu also brought a lot of money. Coupled with the captured pirate treasures, there was a lot of start-up capital for the development of Liuqiu. But according to Ouyang Xuan's requirements, Liuqiu must not only be built into an industrial base, but also a powerful navy must be established, and it must also become a starting base for overseas development. Each of these three projects is a money-consuming undertaking, and the amount of funds required for each of them individually is huge. Compared with that little money, it is simply a drop in the bucket.
The main way for downstream companies to raise funds was through maritime trade. The company has trading warehouses in Zhoushan and Lin'an, and also has trade relations with merchants in Xiaoliuqiu and Quanzhou. Boss Qian plans to open up routes from Keelung to Japan, Korea, and even Shandong and Liaodong while continuing to operate the routes from Lin'an to Quanzhou and Xiaoliuqiu to carry out triangular trade. The sea conditions of these routes are complex and there are many pirates. Except for the Japanese, they are all under the control of the Mongols. The Southern Song Dynasty officials prohibited travel, so the trade risks are extremely high. But high risk means high profits and high returns, which will provide a large amount of funds for the development of Liuqiu, making it worth the risk.
Boss Qian is a businessman with active thinking, and his thinking is very active in the strong business atmosphere on the southeast coast. The pressure to raise funds reminded him of a conversation he had with Ouyang Xuan and Yang Xiucai while in western Sichuan. In that conversation, Yang Xiucai pointed out that it was inconvenient to carry out finance, taxation, and commerce in physical form. However, government-issued banknotes such as Jiaozi, Huizi, and Chibi were also issued indiscriminately and lacked credit, making them like waste paper. Iron money is heavy and heavy, and it lacks copper, silver, gold and other precious metals as currency, which is really difficult to handle. Ouyang Xuan talked about this and proposed to set up a bank when the conditions are right and issue the Pili Army's own banknotes for internal settlement. After sufficient gold and silver are obtained from the Japanese country, the Bison Continent, and the Alpaca Continent, external settlements can be made based on gold and silver to obtain seigniorage.
Boss Qian only half understood these financial terms such as banking, gold and silver standards, and settlement, and he was even more confused about seigniorage. But he understood what Ouyang Xuan said about shares and bonds. At that moment, he borrowed Ouyang Xuan's ideas and came up with the idea of raising funds by issuing shares and coupons. Liuqiu Overseas Adventure Company was established and one-fifth of its shares were sold to external parties. Established Liuqiu Agricultural Development Company, issued bonds with Liuqiu Company as guarantee, and raised start-up funds for agricultural planting such as rice and cane sugar. Boss Qian's proposal made Li Kaipeng applauded. This method could not only solve the funding gap, but also establish interests with dignitaries along the coast, especially in Lin'an.
According to Ouyang Xuan's description, the Bison Continent and the Alpaca Continent are both unclaimed lands. They are extremely rich in gold and silver and other mineral resources, and there are also large areas of excellent fertilized land. Exploring the routes to these two continents requires massive investment in the early stage, but once the routes to these two continents are opened, it will be difficult to become rich. There are an extremely large number of wealthy families in Lin'an. A few hundred taels of silver is just a small amount of money to them. If they use it for gambling, the return will be hundreds or even thousands of times. Why not? As for the annual interest on the bonds, the annual interest rate is set at 20%. With Li Kaipeng's good reputation and extensive contacts in Lin'an, he will definitely be able to sell a lot of bonds even if he comes up with sucrose samples. In fact, dignitaries and big businessmen such as Pu Shougeng all know about the huge profits of cane sugar, but they can only look forward to it because it is impossible to plant it on a large scale in the small farmer economy and lacks the production technology.
