New Han Dynasty 1834

Chapter 120 Ryukyu and Japan

At the end of the second year of the Hanchang era, Liu Yulong received a report from Zhang Zongyu from the Americas.

It is hoped that the imperial court can arrange for more immigrants to go to the Americas as soon as possible and take control of the vast and desolate land of the Americas.

Liu Yulong accepted Zhang Zongyu's suggestion and assigned the task to the navy to send 20,000 Imperial Guards and 40,000 militiamen to the Americas over the next two years.

Liu Yulong felt that this scale was still too small.

Considering the efficiency of transporting immigrants to the Americas in the future, and taking into account the current state of development of steam-powered sailing ships, preparations began to be made to build a steam-powered shipping route between the Han Dynasty mainland and the Americas.

Therefore, orders were given to the military headquarters and the navy to prepare to seize key islands in the Pacific and build sea supply stations to provide steamships with supplies such as coal and fresh water.

The initial targets for occupation included the Ryukyu Islands, Iwo Jima and the Ogasawara Islands, Midway and the Hawaiian Islands, and some islands at the southernmost tip of the central Aleutian Islands.

In the third year of the Hanchang era, after the start of the year, the Military Advisor's Office reviewed and organized various intelligence reports from the relevant areas in order to formulate a detailed battle plan, and submitted a report and request for instructions in early February.

On February 3, Liu Yulong saw this report in the cabinet.

Liu Yulong specifically requested to occupy the Ryukyu Islands, and the military headquarters discovered that the situation in Ryukyu was somewhat troublesome.

According to reports from Fujian merchants who traveled to and from Ryukyu, the situation of overpopulation and limited land in Ryukyu was extremely serious.

It was much more serious than the situation in the Han Dynasty mainland at that time, and even more serious than in Japan.

The total registered arable land area in Ryukyu is only 150,000 mu.

According to the merchants' estimates, the total area of ​​actually usable arable land should be between 300,000 and 400,000 mu.

The total registered population of Ryukyu is 160,000.

However, the Ryukyu Kingdom mainly levied a poll tax, and these 160,000 were only the tax-paying population between the ages of 15 and 50.

In ancient times, when administrative capacity was low, levying poll taxes inevitably led to a decrease in the registered population.

The registered population of the Ming Dynasty did not increase for more than 270 years.

According to merchants traveling to and from Ryukyu, the number of people in Ryukyu who do not pay taxes, plus the number of people who are concealed, is definitely more than the actual number of people who pay taxes.

The total population of Ryukyu is estimated to be between 300,000 and 400,000, which means that each person has only about one acre of land.

The most obvious manifestation of this is that ordinary people in Ryukyu have started using crops such as potatoes and sweet potatoes as their staple food, instead of supplementing their diet with traditional staple foods such as rice and noodles.

In Ryukyu, only nobles can afford to eat rice.

Throughout Chinese history, even during periods of peak population growth, ordinary people have never relied entirely on potatoes and sweet potatoes as their staple food.

Even in Japan, a country with a large population and limited land, potatoes and sweet potatoes are not the only staple foods.

Only in Ireland during this era, when the country was exploited to the extreme by Britain, did ordinary people resort to potatoes as their staple food.

This data was so outrageous that it greatly surprised Liu Yulong.

Liu Yulong originally thought that the Han Dynasty had a large population and limited land, resulting in enormous population pressure, and that it was necessary to export people as soon as possible.

In comparison, it turns out that, apart from Vietnam and other Southeast Asian regions, the population pressure in the Han Dynasty itself is relatively low among the surrounding areas.

At the end of the Qianlong era, the registered cultivated land area was less than 800 million mu, and the per capita cultivated land area was only about two mu.

However, the Qing Dynasty levied taxes based on land area, and all landlords and farmers would try to underreport their land holdings as much as possible, so the concealment of farmland among the people was very serious.

After the founding of the Han Dynasty, a comprehensive militia system was established, enabling the court to exert control over the grassroots level.

While achieving the goal of equal land distribution, a comprehensive survey and statistics of cultivated land was also completed, uncovering most of the cultivated land that had been hidden by the people during the Qing Dynasty.

At that time, the total registered cultivated land area reached 1.2 billion mu.

Considering the total population of less than 400 million at the end of the Qianlong era, the per capita arable land area was still more than three mu.

With the establishment of the militia system, the Han Dynasty was able to concentrate its efforts on reclaiming land that was previously difficult to cultivate, thereby acquiring more marginal land.

The imperial court also continued to send immigrants to Mongolia, the Western Regions, Liaodong and other places to reclaim wasteland, which greatly increased the total registered cultivated land area.

By the time Liu Desheng passed away, the total area of ​​cultivated land recorded by the Han Dynasty had more than doubled compared to the end of the Qianlong era, reaching 1.6 billion mu.

At this time, the total population of the Han Dynasty was about 500 million, which means that the per capita arable land area was still more than three mu.

Moreover, the Han Dynasty's homeland is vast, with undeveloped wastelands in the hilly areas of the south and the northeast, meaning there is still much untapped agricultural potential, and hidden land in remote areas.

China's total potential arable land area in modern times is at least 2.4 billion mu (approximately 166 million hectares).

Most ordinary people in the Han Dynasty usually ate a mixture of rice, noodles, and other grains, using potatoes and sweet potatoes as supplementary and emergency foods.

At that time, the Korean Peninsula, which also had a large population and limited land, actually had a population of about 14 million and a total cultivated land area of ​​about 45 million mu.

The average arable land per person is more than three mu, which is roughly equivalent to that of the Han Dynasty.

However, most parts of the Korean Peninsula lack sufficient heat, and their agricultural production capacity is comparable to that of Northeast China, rather than North China.

North Korea faces greater population pressure than the Han Dynasty, and ordinary people mainly eat coarse grains and bran.

At that time, Japan's total population was just over 30 million, and the total registered cultivated land area was 45 million mu.

After the Meiji Restoration, a survey of the hidden lands was conducted, and the actual total cultivated land area should be 60 million mu, which is two mu per person.

At that time, ordinary Japanese people could still eat coarse grains and did not use potatoes and sweet potatoes as their staple food.

Only Ryukyu, with its population of only one acre per person, representing the limit of population pressure in the East, would use potatoes and sweet potatoes as staple foods. Liu Desheng and Liu Yulong had always genuinely felt that the population pressure on the Han mainland was about to explode.

At the same time, I feel that Japan is under the most pressure and has probably reached its limit.

I never imagined there would be such an extreme situation in Ryukyu; Ryukyu was truly on the verge of collapse.

The military council discovered that the population pressure in Ryukyu had reached its limit, and concluded that the local area was completely unable to support the Han army.

If the Han Dynasty were to station troops directly in Ryukyu, then everything the army needed would have to be supplied from the mainland, including the most basic rations.

The Military Council recommended that the Han Dynasty take complete control of Ryukyu and simultaneously conduct a large-scale population cleanup of Ryukyu.

The military headquarters suggested sending them to the Americas or Southeast Asia.

If they were to be sent to the Americas, a quarter of the Ryukyuans could be loaded onto each ship bound for North America.

If they were sent to Southeast Asia, most of the coastal transport ships could be concentrated to quickly transport the vast majority of the residents to work on the newly developed lands in Southeast Asia.

At the same time, one or two militiamen were transported from the mainland to undertake local construction and defense work in Ryukyu.

The Military Council further explained that the Ryukyu royal family had long been secretly controlled by the Satsuma Domain of Japan, serving as a tool for indirect trade between the Satsuma Domain and the Han Dynasty.

The Han dynasty's occupation of Ryukyu effectively started a war with Japan.

Since war has already broken out in effect, why not conquer Tsushima Island, Oki Island, the Noto Peninsula, Sado Island, Ezo Island (Hokkaido) and other places at the same time?

It's more convenient to travel to the Americas from Ezo Island than from Sakhalin Island.

Given the current state of the Edo Shogunate in Japan, it should not be able to launch a war against other countries.

As long as the Han Dynasty doesn't directly vie for territory on the Japanese mainland, it should avoid getting bogged down in a protracted war.

The islands and peninsulas such as Tsushima and Sado were all on the route from the Great Han Dynasty to Ezo Island.

If Japan were to use these islands and peninsulas as bases to deploy a significant naval force or pirates, it could influence the Han Dynasty.

Safety of the northern air route.

The military government also believes that Jeju Island, which is controlled by North Korea, is also a bottleneck on the shipping route from the mainland to Ezo Island.

We should ask North Korea for it to use as a transit base for our navy.

After carefully reading through the document, Liu Yulong began to write his reply.

Regarding the proposed solutions for dealing with Ryukyu, Liu Yulong chose the second option.

They concentrated their ships to quickly send most of the population away, merging them into the massive influx of local immigrants to Southeast Asia.

At the same time, tens of thousands of local immigrants were transported to the Ryukyu Islands for production and construction, thus realizing the transformation and upgrading of Ryukyu.

The Ryukyu Kingdom has a total population of over 300,000, which can be transported away in one go by the Han Dynasty navy.

When the Han Dynasty organized the migration to the Americas, its organizational methods were actually very conservative.

A ship with a displacement of 1,280 tons typically carries only 300 to 500 immigrants, and usually has enough food for them to last a whole year.

Therefore, even if a hundred large ships with a capacity of a thousand tons were organized, they could only transport 30,000 to 50,000 immigrants at a time.

However, if passenger comfort is not a major concern and the destination is Southeast Asia, which is relatively close to the mainland, and the amount of food carried is not excessive, the number of passengers can be increased significantly.

At that time, European slave ships were able to carry more than 600 slaves at a time with a carrying capacity of less than 300 tons.

Even if these thousand-ton ships of the Han Dynasty carried thousands of people at a time, the conditions were still much better than those of slave trading ships.

At that time, the common people of Ryukyu were no different from slaves, and might even have lived worse lives than black slaves.

Therefore, Liu Yulong decided to concentrate the fleet, pack it up and send it away quickly, and take over Ryukyu as soon as possible to start construction.

Sailing transport around the Han Dynasty depends on the season; one extra trip means waiting another year.

Liu Yulong approved the Military Advisory Office's subsequent operational plans and suggestions, including plans to seize islands surrounding Japan and Korea, after a brief period of deliberation.

As the military council analyzed, Japan is currently incapable of fighting wars outside of Japan; instead, it has to worry about ronin (masterless samurai) from the Japanese mainland going out to sea to become pirates.

The Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan was established in 1603, and more than 230 years have passed since then. According to the experience of the Han Dynasty and Japan, it has reached the end of its dynasty.

The Tokugawa Shogunate's primary goal now is to maintain its rule. As long as the Han Dynasty does not intend to overthrow the Tokugawa Shogunate directly, other issues are easy to resolve.

The Han dynasty only occupied a few small islands around it, and the Tokugawa shogunate will most likely pretend that nothing happened.

Liu Yulong will definitely resolve the issues with Korea and Japan thoroughly in the future, transforming both places into Han Chinese homelands, just as he did with the Ryukyu issue.

Since the Sui and Tang dynasties, over a thousand years of history, Japan has tried to land whenever it had the opportunity, and the Korean Peninsula was a natural springboard for Japan.

Especially after entering the industrial age, if the Han Dynasty still wanted to control the eastern seas, then the Korean Peninsula and the Japanese archipelago would become even more important.

The Korean Peninsula and the Japanese archipelago, with their unique geographical locations, were either the maritime gateway and coastal defense bulwark of the Han Dynasty, or a major threat to the Han Dynasty's very existence.

If Japan had maintained its independence, it would certainly have received support from European countries such as Britain due to its unique geographical location, which would have been used to contain the power of the Han Dynasty.

The time is not yet ripe for a full occupation of both areas, but we can control the surrounding land, build outposts for combat, and prepare for a future full-scale clearing operation.

Moreover, in Liu Yulong's memory, there should be a Yubari coal mine in Ezochi, which is in the southern part of Hokkaido, and the coal mine should be only a few dozen kilometers away from the coastline.

Southeastern Ezo is where warm and cold currents meet, and the coastline and surrounding waters here do not freeze over at all in winter.

A port could be built in a suitable location to serve as a key supply depot on the North Pacific shipping route.

After Liu Yulong's report was sent back to the Military Advisor's Office, the office immediately drafted a more detailed battle plan in accordance with the emperor's instructions.

At the same time, the Eastern Fleet, the Southern Fleet, and transport ships worked together with the army to complete the takeover of Sumatra and its surrounding islands.

The Western fleet and transport ships then sent troops stationed in India to northeastern India to search and destroy all opium plantations and to survey the local situation.

After completing their respective missions, the three fleets returned to the Han Dynasty's homeland one after another in the summer of the third year of the Han Dynasty.

At this time, the Military Advisory Office had also prepared a plan and submitted it to Liu Yulong for review again.

After reviewing the documents, Liu Yulong approved the operation, combining the three fleets and transport ships to transport 20,000 second-generation immigrants to Ryukyu and begin taking over the Ryukyu Islands.

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