Soulengji Island, also called Qingdao, is shaped like an oxbow and covers an area of only more than 20 square kilometers. Zhao Xin looked through the telescope and saw that the island was covered with dense forests, and it was impossible to tell whether there was anyone living there.
"What are you looking at?" Liu Sheng asked casually from the side.
"Gold." Zhao Xin didn't answer, he just thought silently in his heart. "Who would have thought now that this humble island contains an incredible amount of gold?"
Historically, after the Second Opium War, the Qing government had no choice but to open up immigration from the Northeast, hoping to solve the refugee problem in various places and strengthen its border areas to resist the invasion of Tsarist Russia.
Since the mid-19th century, with the discovery of gold on Solenji Island, tens of thousands of people have come here to pan for gold.
After the signing of the "Beijing Treaty", Tsarist Russia invaded and occupied a large area of territory in the outer northeast that belonged to China, and then set its sights on the gold mines in Solenji Island. In order to monopolize the gold mines, Tsarist Russia, which was extremely jealous, decided to use force to expel the gold miners on the island, despite the provisions of the Beijing Treaty that "Russia is not allowed to occupy any fishing and hunting land occupied by the Chinese, and the Chinese are still allowed to fish and hunt as usual."
After suffering the first looting by Tsarist Russia, hundreds of helpless gold miners returned to the island carrying swords and muskets, vowing to fight the invaders to the death. As the revolting miners lost to the artillery fire of Tsarist Russian warships, they finally withdrew from Solengi Island and began to fight in the vast area of South Ussuri. Within a few months, the number actually grew to two to three thousand people.
The rebel army was dominated by Han miners, and also included many local Manchu, Hezhe, Xibo and other ethnic minorities. They fought in various places, attacked and killed the invaders, and wiped out the South Ussuri area, Xingkai Lake and Suifen River. The anti-Russian war burned throughout the South Ussuri River Basin.
At that time, the Manchu Qing court devoted all its energy to dealing with the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom in the south, and there were almost no garrison troops in the northeast. They were worried that the rebels would move into the pass and shake their rule, and actually regarded them as enemies, so they sent troops to cooperate with Tsarist Russia to carry out encirclement and suppression.
In the end, under the double suppression of the Qing court and Tsarist Russia, this massive resistance finally failed in July 1868. The four leaders of the rebel army slaughtered their bodies and passed down their heads, hanging poles in front of the public at Changlingzi on the border between China and Russia.
To the emperors and dignitaries of the Qing Dynasty, this vast South Ussuri region only meant ginseng, sea cucumber, mink skin, and dongzhu. However, they had no idea that beneath this vast land, there were astonishing reserves of gold, Copper, tin, steel, coal, oil and other mineral deposits. Endless primeval forests, rich animal and plant resources, vast fertile black land, and thousands of kilometers of coastline. It was not until more than a hundred years after it was lost that it aroused endless sighs from many Chinese people.
At the moment, Zhao Xin can't care about what will happen a hundred years from now. All he can think about now is gold and black land.
The Thor sailed past the sea off Solenji Island, and only two-thirds of the voyage had been completed. After a while, the mouth of the Xila River could be seen.
An hour later, with a long whistle, the Thor stopped and anchored off the sea at the mouth of the Xila River.
"Zhao Xin, what do you plan to name our new city?" Liu Siting in the cockpit suddenly asked curiously.
"Beihai." Zhao Xin murmured. "This is the real North Sea."
"That's right, what a bullshit Sea of Japan! This is our North Sea." Liu Sheng agreed after hearing Zhao Xin's words.
Zhao Xin put down the telescope and said to the people around him with a smile: "It's only more than three hundred nautical miles from here to Ezo Land. Do you think Ezo Land can still be regarded as belonging to the Tokugawa Shogunate?"
"Haha! Mr. Zhao's words are very suitable for me!" Deng Fei opened the door of the captain's room and walked in.
"Lord, Ezo Land is currently owned by the Matsumae family of the Fukuzen Domain, and the current head of the family is Matsumae Shima Morimichihiro." Katsu Kaishu stood behind Zhao Xin and reminded him.
"It won't be anymore soon." A sneer appeared on Zhao Xin's face.
According to the "Ezo Territory and Surrounding Map" (Ezo Territory and Surrounding Map) of the 18th century, although the Matsumae clan was recognized by the shogunate and had the right to dominate the "Ezo Territory", it could definitely control it. The territory has never exceeded the Toshima Peninsula at the southernmost tip of Hokkaido. Not to mention the four northern islands, even the vast land of Hokkaido is completely beyond its control.
But that will be discussed in the future, the most important thing now is to start the preparations before disembarking and landing on the island.
Zhao Xin called Deng Fei and Wang Yuanfang. After the three of them went down to the deck, they called Pan Xiucheng and Serdan. The five people came down to the water gate at the stern of the ship, each checked the equipment they carried, and then boarded the assault boat.
As the two water gates at the stern of the ship opened one after another, Deng Fei started the assault boat and rushed towards the beach of Beihai Port under the eyes of everyone on the ship.
More than twenty minutes later, the assault boat stopped at the beach. After Zhao Xin waited for the boat to stop, he got off the boat, raised his gun and fired several shots into the sky.
A large group of foraging seabirds flew up from the beach and landed not far away. In the bushes dozens of meters away, there seemed to be frightened animals running quickly, and there was a sound of hoofbeats.
"It's a deer." Seldan said calmly.
Zhao Xin asked the four people to go 200 meters to the shore to check the situation, while he stayed on the beach, saying that he would notify the refugees on the boat to prepare to land.
Wang Yuanfang knew that Zhao Xin was unwilling to use the jade pendant in front of others. So I didn’t say much more, and immediately invited everyone to go into the forest to investigate.
After a few dozen minutes, when the four of them returned to the beach, they saw a large number of red pontoons piled on the beach. The temporary pier on Bear Island was assembled and spliced with these red pontoons one by one.
Deng Fei left in the assault boat. He would pick up more refugees and work together to build a simple dock.
A few hours later, with a simple pier completed, the women and children aboard the Thor began disembarking.
In the next few days, the pier will need to be gradually expanded and extended to the sea, so that the two patrol boats, Zhao Xin's large yacht, and the Thor can be docked, so that more than 200 war horses can be disembarked.
Chen Qingsong and others were the third group to land. After landing, he immediately led a few people to start site selection and survey work for the new camp. This guy was carrying a Leica level given to him by Zhao Xin. After two or three hours of measurement and referring to the map information provided by Zhao Xin, he finally selected an area two kilometers northwest of the mouth of the Xila River.
The terrain of this place is very flat, and the visual altitude is several meters higher than the water level of the Sira River. As long as the river banks are reinforced later, flooding caused by rising water levels in the Sila River can be prevented.
As usual, Liu Sheng held up a large red flag sewn in advance by refugee women and placed it in the center of the camp chosen by Chen Qingsong. On the red flag fluttering, the seven characters "Eighth Project Engineering Department" that made many modern people feel vulgar are eye-catching.
"I said, why did Mr. Zhao choose such a bad name?" After landing on the island, Dr. Hong Taohong saw the eye-catching yellow characters on the red flag, and suddenly felt uncomfortable and felt a chill in his heart. He quickly found Wang Yuanfang, who was carrying a chainsaw preparing to cut down trees, and asked.
Wang Yuanfang also felt that the name Zhao Xin was too awkward. But when things got too busy, he couldn't take care of it. When Doctor Hong asked, he could only say: "Mr. Zhao said he had a clever plan. We asked him, but he didn't say anything."
"Bah, he really thinks of himself as a contractor!" Liu Siting, who followed Doctor Hong, expressed serious contempt.
"It's not urgent. We will tell him whether we will change or not after we have established a firm foothold." Wang Yuanfang said no more, and joined the logging "army" of only a dozen people in total with a chainsaw.
The more than 300 people who landed were divided into two groups. Some were responsible for logging and clearing the selected camping area; the other group continued to assemble simple docks on the beach. Among them were the dozen or so prisoners of the Qing soldiers. Wu Siyu, who was holding a gun, and Pan Xiucheng, who was holding a sword, were responsible for surveillance.
"Hey, this machine you bought is so easy to use." Chen Qingsong couldn't help but admired while holding a control panel and operating the land reclamation equipment Zhao Xin bought from Europe.
"There's nothing sold in China, so I went to Europe to buy it in stock during the Chinese New Year." Next to him, Zhao Xin operated another land reclamation machine, driving through the bushes like a racing game. Drive away.
A group of loggers from the island country and Elu next to Zhao Xin looked at the monster in front of them with their mouths wide open. The six-meter-wide weeding saw was like a glutton. Wherever it passed, patches of bushes and grass as tall as a person fell to the ground.
By the way, does this count as an immortal trick? Zhao Xin glanced at the stupid Elu beside him and couldn't help but feel proud.
"Can this machine also open up wasteland and sow seeds?" Chen Qingsong asked suddenly.
"Yes, it's just a pendant. It can be used for clearing land, sowing, and harvesting. But the efficiency is definitely not as high as that of large machinery."
"It's great. I wish I had this when I was working at the grassroots level."
"Don't think about it, rural areas can't afford this. It costs hundreds of thousands. I bought this to deal with the swamps in the black land. If people are used to open up wasteland, if you are not careful, both people and animals will get stuck in the swamps. inside."
Chen Qingsong looked at the four huge, toothed, mace-like wheels under the land reclamation fuselage and nodded deeply in agreement.
After the logging team felled more than a dozen large trees, they dug out the tree roots from the soil and backfilled them with earth and rocks. Zhao Liang drove a small two-wheeled roller to compact the ground back and forth in the cleared area.
When night fell, most people returned to the Thor for the night. In the initially cleared camping area, only two tents were set up for night watchers.
Zhao Xin originally asked everyone to return to the Thor, but Seldan proposed to stay on duty at night with Yalha to prevent the loss of felled wood and equipment. Therefore, Zhao Xin asked Elu, Lu Shoushan, Pan Xiucheng and Hengji to accompany Serdan and Yalha to watch the night on the shore.
In order to provide support as soon as possible in case of an accident, he, Liu Sheng, Wang Yuanfang, and Ding Guofeng stayed on a yacht docked at the dock that night.
That night, when Zhao Xin was about to go to sleep after washing his face after a busy day, a loud arrow shot out from the forest, and the shrill sound suddenly alarmed the four people on the yacht.
Without saying a word, Zhao Xin put on his body armor, picked up his gun and rushed out of the cabin.
(End of chapter)
