Reborn as King of South America

Chapter 380 Parade
Taking concubines and reproducing more offspring for the royal family has very practical significance in this era. Li Mingyuan is not a conservative person. Faced with the youthful vitality of the girls around him and those selected from all over the country to enter the palace, the reason why he has not taken any substantial action is not because he is a saint, but because the country is in a stage of development and pioneering. Military industry, heavy industry, light industry, agriculture, education and other aspects are in urgent need of development. From himself to ordinary people and soldiers, everyone in the country still needs to work hard to maintain the hard-won good situation. If he had just proclaimed himself emperor and reformed the system, and then collected beauties and treasures and indulged himself, the officials and officers below would follow suit, and the country would soon be in chaos!

It is very difficult to establish a new regime. However, if there is no ambition and only indulges in pleasure, the entire ruling class can become corrupt and degenerate in just ten or twenty years, to the point where the national vitality accumulated at the time of the founding of the country is completely consumed.

Li Mingyuan abolished the prostitution system and required active-duty officers, soldiers and officials to pay attention to the image of the government and the army and not to have casual relationships between men and women. At the same time, he gave wives and concubines equal status in law and restricted the number of wives and concubines that officers and government officials could marry. The implementation of all these measures has caused misunderstanding among some officials and officers, but because these people accounted for a small proportion and were intimidated by the prestige Li Mingyuan had accumulated over more than a decade, they did not dare to express their dissatisfaction.

It will take time to gradually change the Chinese people's mindset. During his years in power, Li Mingyuan also learned from experience and lessons. In some unimportant aspects, he gave officials and military officers appropriate opportunities to relax and allowed them to have moderate entertainment with their families and children, instead of interfering and prohibiting them.

After dealing with several government resolutions sent by telegram by the officials who stayed behind in Chang'an City, the accompanying personnel packed up their belongings, carriages and other items the next morning and prepared to go to the next location for inspection.

"Your Majesty, when the people in the surrounding areas heard that the imperial carriage would stop in Jinjiang Town, they all came to watch and welcome the emperor, and gave the two ladies many strange and exotic small animals as gifts.

The Empress and the Imperial Concubine did not know how to deal with the small animals, so they sent their servants to ask for instructions from Your Majesty.

"Forget about gold, silver and treasures, but if it's small animals like parrots, guanacos, ponies, cuckoos, etc., let them take them."

After leaving Chang'an City, he kept encountering common people and merchants along the way who offered him cattle, sheep, livestock, grain and even rare and exotic animals unique to the local area as gifts. Cattle, sheep, grain and other agricultural products were cheap in the local area, and the ordinary people who immigrated here did not have much wealth accumulated. Although cattle, sheep, livestock, grain and other items were not valuable, as the people's gifts to the emperor, Li Mingyuan ordered the guards to accept a small part of them, while some relatively precious gifts offered by small landlords and merchants who had worked hard in the local area for a long time were not accepted.

In ancient times, kings traveled around the world, consuming a large amount of material wealth. Li Mingyuan was unwilling to waste the country's financial funds, so the number of soldiers, officials and other escorts accompanying the tour was compressed to a relatively small range. In addition, apart from the necessary emperor's support, carriages and a small amount of daily necessities, the entire team only carried two weeks of food and material supplies. General daily necessities were purchased directly from the people along the way, without occupying the local government's financial expenditure.

"If the Queen, Imperial Concubine, Ying'er, and Xiaolan have any pets they like, ask them to find someone to send them back to the palace. Jinjiang Town is not far from Chang'an City, so it's convenient to take them back now."

Li Mingyuan added that he was worried that it would be inconvenient to travel with some small animals.

"Yes, Your Majesty." The maid bowed, turned around and left. …………The parade team went farther and farther. Li Mingyuan's tour of various places in the mainland had just begun. On the other side of the mainland, the Far East Continent, the South American Han Kingdom's superior natural environment and fertile and vast plains were like a magnet, which had great attraction to the poor people at the bottom of the mainland.

With the sharp increase in the number of immigrants year after year, the types of operations undertaken by the Far East-South America local immigrant transportation operations have gradually changed. Initially, the ocean shipping companies under the jurisdiction of the South American government were the main force in undertaking immigrant transportation operations. Later, as the three major shipyards, Xinjing Shipyard, Xinghe Shipyard, and Royal Shipyard, built civilian docks and took into account the construction of private transport ships, local private shipping companies began to get involved in ocean-going immigrant transportation business. They were either small ordinary businessmen with insufficient personal funds, who used the funds raised in partnerships to order medium-sized transport ships from the three major local shipyards, or they were overseas Chinese business groups with strong financial resources, who directly ordered large ocean-going cargo ships from European countries. After years of development, the market share of immigrant transportation undertaken by local private shipping companies has gradually increased to 60% of the market share of official ocean shipping companies.

Local official and private shipping companies account for about 70% of the long-distance immigration transportation missions from Southeast Asia to South America, and the remaining 30% of the market share is occupied by Western shipping companies such as Germany, the Netherlands, and France, as well as mainland business groups jointly funded by merchants from the southeast coast.

Ocean-going immigration transportation is profitable. Although the market share of Western shipping companies in the Chinese immigrant transportation business has been declining year by year, thanks to the expansion of immigration activities, the number of Chinese immigrants carried by Western shipping companies has increased instead of decreased. July, August and September every year are the busy periods for ocean-going shipping affairs. Western shipping companies either accept commissions from local governments or directly sign agreements with mainland Chinese immigrants. Western shipping companies transport Chinese to South America, and then the Chinese pay the total cost of the immigration transportation process.

The Chinese immigration transportation operation has been developing for more than ten years. Compared with the time when Western white people sold Chinese people like pigs, the immigration transportation market has become much more standardized. The most obvious change is the rapid decline in the mortality rate of immigrants. At the same time, because the Han government intervenes and provides guarantees, even penniless young and middle-aged Chinese can use credit to obtain basic supplies and medical care on the transport ships of Western shipping companies.

Foreigners enjoyed privileges in the coastal areas of the mainland. They could transport ships full of Chinese immigrants without being checked by the Qing customs.

The Southeastern Merchants Group entered the Chinese immigrant transportation business later than Western shipping companies, but as local bosses in coastal areas, they had advantages that foreigners did not have, namely, their complex connections with local government and gangs, and the advantage of being Chinese, making it easier for them to gain the trust of Chinese immigrants.

Out of open fear of the Qing government and psychological conservatism, more than 90 percent of mainland business groups chose to engage in short-distance transportation business from the mainland coast to Southeast Asia. After transporting immigrants to Songkhla, Natuna Islands and Lan Fang in Southeast Asia, they received immigration fees from the Han country's institutions stationed in Southeast Asia, and then purchased a batch of industrial processed products such as cloth, matches, cameras, cement, etc. produced in Han country from Southeast Asia, or purchased some cheap rice and other food supplies from various islands in Southeast Asia, and then set off back to their hometown on the mainland with a full ship of goods and the profits in their pockets.

Although additional short-distance immigration fees were paid to the Southeast Merchants, since there was no need to personally transport the ships to the coastal areas, the risk of immigration ships being seized by the Qing government was eliminated. Overall, this method was more beneficial to the local government of the Han Kingdom.

(End of this chapter)