The Wanli Emperor of the Ming Dynasty was extremely rebellious

Chapter 628 The Land of Exile
The names of Fangzhang Island and Penglai Island are generally derived from legendary overseas fairy mountains.

It is said that Li Zhizao named these two islands Penglai and Fangzhang with a certain symbolic meaning.

Because Penglai Island is a long and narrow shape with pointed ends, it looks a bit like a shed, while Fangzhang Island, except for the pointed corner on the northeast side, looks a bit like a square.

This square is no ordinary size; its four sides are seven or eight thousand miles apart!

In other words, even if the Weiyuan warship and the shuttle could travel thousands of miles a day, it would still take seven or eight days to get from the north side of Fangzhang Island to the south side.

On the tenth day of the first lunar month, around noon, under the bright sun, the fleet finally arrived at the port located southeast of Fangzhang Island.

The soldiers near the port were ecstatic, and the soldiers in the city rushed out joyfully upon hearing the news.

It's been almost a year, and they've finally seen ships coming from the Ming Dynasty's mainland.

Emperor Wanli raised his telescope and swept it across the shore, a hint of satisfaction appearing on his face.

The city within a radius of several miles has been built, and rows of stables have been constructed outside the city using logs.

The entire port and dock area was surrounded by rows and rows of stables, too many to count.

This proves that the border troops who stayed behind did not slack off at all; they did everything they could.

Soon, the flagship docked at the pier.

The hatch opened, the ladder was lowered, and several border generals rushed over with joyful faces.

They thought it was Li Zhizao leading a fleet.

To everyone's surprise, the people descending the suspended ladder were squads of Imperial Guards clad in golden armor!

After the Imperial Guards spread out on the dock, Wanli, dressed in imperial robes, descended from the hanging ladder.

Upon seeing this, several border generals quickly cupped their hands and bowed, saying, "Your humble servants pay their respects to Your Majesty."

Wanli nodded slightly, and upon closer inspection, he realized that the leading general was someone he knew.

He couldn't help but ask in surprise, "You're Cai You, right?"

Oh dear, Your Majesty still remembers me.

Cai You nodded excitedly and said, "Yes, Your Majesty, it is indeed this humble general."

This guy is pretty good. In just over ten years, he has accumulated military merits and risen to the rank of deputy commander-in-chief.

Emperor Wanli nodded with satisfaction, then asked, "How is the weather here? Are you all settling in well?"

How can you say you're not used to being stationed away from home? You have to get used to it.

Cai You nodded repeatedly and said, "Your Majesty, the weather here is quite nice. It's not too cold in winter and not too hot in summer. Plus, the place is very big. We're all doing quite well."

Are you doing quite well?
Wanli thought for a moment and then asked, "There doesn't seem to be much food here. How was your meal?"

How do you say this?

That's naturally something to say in a positive light.

Cai You nodded repeatedly and said, "Your Majesty, we are eating very well. The naval officers and soldiers left us over a hundred centipede-shaped ships and fishing nets, so we can eat seafood every day."

Furthermore, the grasslands and forests here are seemingly endless, and there is prey everywhere. We often hunt for food.

There are plenty of wild vegetables and fruits here; we can often find them to eat if we look for them.

Yes, this enormous Fangzhang Island is truly a source of inexhaustible resources for tens of thousands of border troops.

It's worth noting that the entire Japanese mainland only covers a little over 300,000 square kilometers, while Fangzhang Island spans over 7 million square kilometers.

Japan, a relatively small country, has a population of over ten million. This place, which is more than twenty times larger than Japan, could easily support two or three hundred million people.

The problem is that this place is too far from the main continent, making travel inconvenient and transporting supplies even more difficult.

In later generations, this place seemed to have only twenty or thirty million people, far from reaching two or three hundred million.

This is because the distance is too far; it's more than 20,000 li from the Ming Dynasty.

However, this place would be quite suitable as a place of exile.

Wanli thought about it carefully, and then asked, "This area seems to be a large plain. Have you investigated how big this plain is?"

How do you say this?

Cai You thought for a moment before cautiously saying, "Your Majesty, I have indeed sent people to investigate."

However, due to the water source issue, we also explored the river next to the port and dock.

The river forks about a thousand miles to the north, splitting into two major rivers. One flows eastward for about four or five thousand miles, and the other flows northward for about five or six thousand miles.

As for the exact size of this plain, I'm not entirely sure. In any case, most of the river, including the areas where it branches off, is flat; it only enters the mountains near its source.

Four or five thousand miles?

Five or six thousand miles!

Does that mean the total distance is tens of thousands of miles?
Ten thousand miles is five thousand kilometers.

In other words, even if there is only about 100 miles of plain on both sides of the river, the plain will be 500,000 square kilometers. If there is about 200 miles of plain on both sides of the river, the plain will be over 1 million square kilometers!
If this were turned into farmland, how many acres would that be?
500,000 square kilometers is 750 million mu, and 1 million square kilometers is 1.5 billion mu!
Unfortunately, there simply aren't that many people in the Ming Dynasty to farm now.

It seems we can only treat this place as a place of exile for now.

If we want to develop this area, we'll have to wait for the population of the Ming Dynasty to expand rapidly.

As Wanli was pondering this, little Zhu Changxun, who was in Li Xuancheng's arms, couldn't help but rub his stomach and say, "Father, I'm so hungry. How about we finish lunch first?"

Oh, right, time to eat.

Emperor Wanli nodded repeatedly and said, "It's almost lunchtime, General Cai. I have brought you over a hundred boatloads of New Year's goods."
This New Year's goods include live pigs, cattle, sheep, and a lot of dried goods. Order the soldiers to carry them down and cook some good meals. It's the New Year festival now, and the soldiers stationed outside should also have a good celebration.

"Don't bother with that. I have many things to ask you. Come aboard the boat with me for a meal."

His Majesty even brought us over a hundred boatloads of New Year's goods!
Upon hearing this, Cai You repeatedly bowed and thanked him before ordering the five adjutants behind him to quickly summon people to unload the New Year's goods.

When Wanli saw that he had finished making arrangements, he immediately invited him, Li Zhizao, Wang Zheng, Peng Zungu, and others to board the ship together.

At this moment, a large table of delicacies was prepared on the second floor of the flagship store.

Emperor Wanli invited everyone to sit down, toasted everyone, and then served them some food before continuing, "General Cai, I've heard there are many poisonous snakes here. How's the cleanup going?"

This stuff has been mostly cleaned up a long time ago.

Cai You explained carefully, "Your Majesty, snake meat is delicious. The soldiers hunt it as a delicacy."

They even designed a special mechanism: placing large stones on tree branches at the entrance of the cave. Once they found the snake cave, they would set up the mechanism.

Then drive the snakes outside into the hole, or smoke the snakes inside out; this way, you can catch the venomous snakes without much effort.

They used to go hunting when they had free time, and now it's very rare to see venomous snakes around here.

Well, nothing can stop a foodie from indulging in a binge.

Now that the venomous snakes have been mostly eliminated, we can consider exiling all the princes and royal family members here.

The problem now is that there's nothing here except land.

This land won't grow food on its own; if no one cultivates it, there won't be any food to eat.

He did not intend to exile all the princes and members of the royal family here to starve to death.

If he wanted to starve all the princes and members of the imperial family to death, there would be no need to waste ships to bring them over; it would have been much easier to just let them starve to death in the Ming Dynasty.

If he didn't want all the princes and royal family members to be exiled here and starve to death, then he had to consider what they would eat.

If there's no food available here, perhaps we could consider giving them some cattle and sheep.

In later generations, this place was also known as the country on the sheep's back.

This proves that developing animal husbandry here is a good choice.

The problem is, it's too far to bring the cattle and sheep over.

Wanli thought about it carefully, and then asked, "General Cai, are there any wild cattle, wild sheep, or wild horses around here?"

This is very strange.

Cai You slowly shook his head and said, "Your Majesty, this place seems completely different from our Great Ming. There are no wild cattle, wild sheep, or wild horses here, and not even the wild animals that are common in our land, such as jackals, tigers, leopards, rabbits, and deer."

The wild animals here are all strangely shaped; many of them we don't recognize.

No?

This is really troublesome.

Cattle, sheep, and horses are the only animals suitable for grazing. Other animals like kangaroos and koalas are not suitable for grazing. In later generations, the animals used for grazing were cattle, sheep, and horses.

There's nothing here right now, so we have to bring everything over.

Right now, they're using up almost all their steamships just to supply the garrison troops on Penglai Island and Fangzhang Island. Where are they going to get ships to transport cattle, sheep, and horses?
Besides, the princes and their families don't just number in the hundreds.

The number of princes and their relatives that he dismissed was over five thousand, and if you add their wives, concubines, and in-laws, the total number would be tens of thousands.

The Chu royal family alone numbered over a thousand, and when you add in the wives, concubines, and in-laws of these princes and their families, the total number reached tens of thousands.

The Ming Dynasty still has twenty-four vassal kings. Even if we calculate an average of 20,000, that's still 480,000.

Including the relatives and friends of the Zhejiang Party members, as well as those corrupt officials and their families, the total amount is more than 500,000.

In other words, if all those who should be exiled were actually exiled here, at least five million shi of grain would have to be brought here every year.

How many ships would that require?

There must be tens of thousands of flying shuttles!

It seems we need to find a way to relocate some people to grow crops first.

It's a waste of transportation capacity to haul grain from so much land here, especially since he doesn't have that much transportation capacity right now.

After thinking it over carefully, Wanli asked, "General Cai, what do you think of me bringing your families over to farm?"

That would be great.

Who doesn't want to be with their family?

If they were to stay here for several years without seeing their families, they probably wouldn't be able to bear it.

Upon hearing this, Cai You nodded repeatedly and said, "Your Majesty is wise. We all want to be with our families."

Fifty thousand households don't seem enough. Even if each household cultivates fifty mu of land, that would only amount to two and a half million mu of land. If the yield per mu is two shi, that would be five million shi.

They themselves consumed almost half of it, and the remaining 2.5 million shi (a unit of dry measure) was still not enough.

Perhaps we could consider relocating all 100,000 border cavalry and their families to this area.

Because Penglai Island is only about one-tenth the size of Fangzhang Island, and it's very hot there; even the horses can't stand the heat.

In fact, it would be enough to build a few garrison cities there and station tens of thousands of garrison soldiers there. There is no need for the border cavalry to be stationed there.

Emperor Wanli thought about it carefully, then slowly shook his head and said, "Alright, I will make arrangements for you when we get back."

(End of this chapter)