Once it is confirmed that the coconuts are produced in Pingtung, the rest of the inference is very simple -
When the sailors set out from Takao Harbor, they would pick a boatload of young coconuts that could only be stored for less than ten days. This showed that they had mastered a safe and fast waterway and used it to travel frequently between Xiawei and Takao.
This was indeed something Zhao Hao had not thought of before. He had always thought that there was no connection between the Ming Dynasty and Taiwan Island at the moment.
Although looking at the map, Taiwan Island is only 150 kilometers away from Fujian at its closest point.
Moreover, Taiwan has been an inseparable part of our country since ancient times.
During the Three Kingdoms period, Sun Quan sent 10,000 soldiers to land in Taiwan and declared that Taiwan was an integral part of the Wu Kingdom.
Later, Emperor Yang of Sui sent people to Taiwan three more times to "investigate the different customs" and "comfort" the residents, and declared that Taiwan was an inseparable part of the Sui Dynasty. From then on, from the Tang Dynasty to the Song Dynasty, coastal residents from the mainland began to migrate to Taiwan to settle down and cultivate land in order to escape the war.
In the Southern Song Dynasty, Penghu was placed under the jurisdiction of Jinjiang County, Quanzhou, Fujian. In the Yuan Dynasty, the Penghu Inspection Office was established to manage the civil affairs of Penghu and Taiwan. The central dynasty began to formally establish institutions in Taiwan to govern.
According to common sense, Taiwan should have long been developed by China into a kingdom with equal population.
Just like Qiongzhou, which is also a remote island, it has been included in the counties since the Western Han Dynasty and has been under the jurisdiction of Guangzhou until this dynasty. Now it has millions of acres of arable land and nearly one million registered citizens.
But the facts are contrary to common sense. At present, Taiwan Island is still the world of tribal people. There is no court institution and no large-scale Han immigrants... The latter was Zhao Hao's understanding before today, and now it has been shattered by a coconut.
The reason for this huge step backwards is of course closely related to the stupid maritime ban policy of Emperor Taizu of the Ming Dynasty. In the 17th year of Hongwu, due to the strict maritime ban, the Ming court abolished the Penghu Inspection Office and moved all the residents of Penghu and Taiwan back to the mainland. As a result, the development of Taiwan by the Han people since the Tang and Song dynasties was destroyed, and Taiwan Island once again became a paradise for the natives.
This kind of indigenous people are not the locals referred to in the conflicts between natives and Hakkas, but the real natural and original ones... So Taiwan regressed to primitive society during the Republic of China.
It was not until eight years ago that the imperial court re-established the Penghu Inspection Office in order to prepare for the Japanese invasion. However, five years ago, the sea lords joined forces to take it back...
The Great Prophecy told Zhao Hao that when Yu Dayou took office, he would soon seize Penghu again and re-establish the Inspection Office. However, the strange thing was that the Ming court, the sea lords, and the coastal residents turned a blind eye to the treasure island of Taiwan, which was just a stone's throw away from Penghu.
Is it because Fujian and Guangdong have ample land and the people are not interested? Obviously not. Isn't the fundamental reason for the fight between the natives and the Hakkas that the two provinces have little land and few people, so the locals and the Hakkas fought over land and water resources?
In order to survive, countless people from Fujian and Guangdong crossed the ocean with their families to seek a living in Southeast Asia, but they ignored Taiwan Island, which was right next to their home.
As a result, it was not until several decades later that the Dutch colonized Taiwan, and they still had to deal with the aborigines. In order to build Taiwan into a self-sufficient colony like Batavia, the Dutch began to attract Han people to settle in Tainan. Later, Zheng Zhilong and his sons opened the era of large-scale immigration of Han people. Then in the Qing Dynasty, Taiwan completely completed the countyization...
Why is this happening?
In fact, the reason is not complicated at all. Although Taiwan is close, crossing the sea from Fujian and Guangdong to Taiwan is much more dangerous than going to Ryukyu or Luzon.
First, the Taiwan Strait opens to the northeast and southwest, and on the east side there is the Taiwan Mountains with a main peak of nearly 4,000 meters, and on the west side there is the Fujian Mountains with an altitude of nearly 1,000 meters. Between the two mountains, the Strait becomes a narrow channel, and the flow of air on the sea surface is confined in this channel, thus producing a "narrow channel effect" - either the northeast wind or the southwest wind, and the flow speed increases, often forming strong winds. In layman's terms, it is the alley wind, which only blows in two opposite directions, and there will be no other wind direction.
For example, in winter and spring, cold air from the north moves south again and again. No matter whether it originally comes from the northwest region and blows northwest winds, or comes from North China and blows north winds, when they reach the Taiwan Strait, they all abide by the rules of the strait - turning into northeast winds, and the wind speed will directly increase by one or two levels.
Even if the cold air weakens and the wind subsides elsewhere, the Taiwan Strait will still be windy and dangerous due to the narrow channel effect. How can sailboats cross it?
The same is true in summer, except that the wind changes to the southeast, and the waves are still the same. And there are more typhoons, and the waves are simply up to the sky.
But wind is not the main difficulty. After all, Chinese sails can move with the help of right-angle wind, which is not a problem for experienced crew members.
The main difficulties come from the Penghu Trench and the so-called "Yunzhang Rise". The former is a deep and long trench between Taiwan Island and the Penghu Islands, with the deepest point exceeding 200 meters. The latter is a high and long sea shelf, only 30 to 40 meters from the sea surface.
The Penghu Trench gradually rises from south to north. At its end, it meets the Yunzhang Rise, and the end of the Yunzhang Rise sinks again, forcing the ocean current into an "S" shape. Therefore, on the more than 100-mile wide sea surface near Taiwan, the sea conditions are extremely bad. The turbulent and unpredictable currents, coupled with the raging winds, have swallowed up countless passing ships.
Even when there were large-scale immigration, there were proverbs such as "six out of ten people who left died, three stayed and one returned", "half of those who crossed the Taiwan Strait survived, and none survived Taiwan", which shows how dangerous it was to cross the Penghu waterway in the sailing era. Instead of taking such a big risk, why not go south to Luzon, which is a little farther but much safer, to make a living?
It was the Spanish colonists who carried out three anti-Chinese massacres in just sixty years starting from the 31st year of the Wanli reign that increased the risk of going to Luzon. The Dutch found a safe route to Taiwan, and Taiwan became the first choice for the native and Hakka people in Fujian and Guangdong to migrate.
~~
Back to the previous inference about coconuts, if those sailors had regarded the Penghu waterway as a natural barrier like others, they would never have been so arrogant - once they encountered wind and waves at sea, the coconuts on the boat would roll everywhere and even injure the crew, which was very dangerous. If the voyage was a life-or-death gamble, why would they bring a boat full of coconuts?
Even if you don't bring enough supplies and ship repair materials, you should bring more valuable things to make this adventure worthwhile! Instead of bringing a boat full of coconuts to give away!
This shows that, in the eyes of the crew, this voyage is just like visiting relatives in the neighboring village! It is safe, and the exchanges are frequent, so there is no need to consider those extra things...
The crew of the coconut boat were obviously very familiar with Lin Daoquan's men, and because Tang Baolu was Lin Daoquan's VIP guest, they gave him more than a dozen coconuts in one go.
Add to that the sentence 'originally they were here to entertain the general', it was obvious that they were either Lin Daoquan's subordinates, or they were subordinates of someone who had a very close relationship with him. In short, they were his own people!
Then we can infer that Lin Daoqian definitely knew about the existence of this route. Then the whereabouts of his people will be known.
In the end, Zhao Hao deduced from a coconut that Lin Daoquan was actually developing Taiwan!
This inference made Mr. Zhao very excited.
Although he also had plans to develop Taiwan, Luzon was obviously a higher priority. Taiwan Island was already in his grasp, and the Dutch were still decades away, so why rush?
So he planned to wait until the colonization of Luzon was on track before turning back to develop Taiwan. As the saying goes, everything is difficult at the beginning, especially colonization and reclamation. Now that he knew that someone had already done the most difficult thing, Mr. Zhao would of course follow the trend and advance the schedule for taking over Taiwan.
He originally planned to spend one or two years sending his most experienced crew members to explore a safe waterway out of Taiwan.
Unexpectedly, Lin Daoqian had already done it quietly. And judging from the situation, the Han people who beat dogs have already become quite large.
This is so precious! It can at least save five to ten years in the time it takes to open up Taiwan!
"You are worthy of being the man I chose!" Mr. Zhao was so happy. He had calculated the schedule over and over again, and it was so tight that there was still some margin. This meant that he could do more things, or have more room for error!
"Great!" He happily drank the last sip of coconut juice and then threw the coconut into the sea like a shot put.
Unfortunately, it didn't get thrown far before it fell into the water with a splash.
~~
In fact, Zhao Hao had speculated before, would the destination of those people recruited by Lin Daoquan be Taiwan?
But he quickly denied it. Crossing the Taiwan Strait was too dangerous, but the key point was that he remembered that when the Dutch arrived in Taiwan, they did not encounter Han Chinese communities, but had to deal with local aborigines. So he assumed that Lin Daoqian had never developed Taiwan.
Obviously, he was deceived by the Great Prophecy again - well, it can't be said to be deceived, because with his blind spots in knowledge, the Great Prophecy couldn't create something out of nothing.
"I should try to avoid preconceived judgments in the future." Zhao Hao secretly warned himself: "It's okay to make bold assumptions based on the Great Prophecy Technique, but you must be careful to verify them after making them. Otherwise, you will regret it forever!"
Thinking of this, he suppressed his excitement and told Tang Baolu in a deep voice: "Paoer, arrange personnel as soon as possible and keep a close eye on all the ships sailing from Xiawei..."
As he said this, he waved his hand and denied himself: "No, their main force did not start from Xiawei!"
"Uncle is right. We have been keeping an eye on Xiawei City for some time, and the wharf is of utmost importance. We have never seen any large-scale movement." Tang Baolu nodded hurriedly.
"Hmm..." Zhao Hao nodded, staring at the map and thinking. Suddenly, an idea flashed in his mind, and he pointed at Nan'ao Island, which had become a small dot, and said, "Focus on Nan'ao Island!"
"That's right!" Tang Baolu slapped his forehead and said suddenly, "There is no better place than that to gather so many people from all directions and then set off quietly!"
"That's right." Zhao Hao nodded. Nan'ao Island was the base for Zheng Chenggong to recover Taiwan. When the Sui Dynasty inspected Taiwan, they also set out from there.
The island is as big as a county, with fresh water, docks, and dense forests for hiding and cooling off. A thousand or so people can go to the island at a time after dark, and no one can detect them.
Maybe there were people hiding on the island when I picked up Lin Run.
However, I was on the west side of the island at that time, and they should be in the Qing'ao Bay area on the east side, about 40 miles away. It is normal that I didn't notice them.
p.s. Two updates are done, wish you a happy weekend.