In this era, Tangshan is really just a mountain, not an administrative division.
It got its name because Emperor Taizong of Tang, Li Shimin, stayed there during his eastern expedition to Goguryeo. In later generations, the territory is still divided into Shuntian Prefecture, Yongping Prefecture and Zunhua Prefecture.
In fact, several years ago, Xishan Group began to purchase land in this area in accordance with the "Tangshan Strategy" formulated by Zhao Hao.
It was not limited to the boundaries of Tangshan City in later generations. The entire plain in front of Yanshan Mountain was within the scope of the acquisition, so it also included some counties of Qinhuangdao City in later generations and Sanhe, Xianghe and Dachang counties of Langfang City, about 12 million acres of land.
This plain in front of the mountains is actually formed by alluvial deposits from the Yongding River, Chaobai River, Jiyun River, Luan River and other rivers. Therefore, most of the water and soil conditions are excellent. Only the coastal saline-alkali land and low-lying grasslands are not suitable for farming.
Moreover, it is not too far from the capital. The land here is supposed to be very popular, but it is located at the southern foot of Yanshan Mountain, and two hundred miles to the north of the mountain is the Uriankhai people's pasture.
The Ming Dynasty's "Emperor guards the country's gates" is not just a saying, of course whether it can be defended or not is another matter...
Anyway, since the Chenghua period, the Tartars have been invading every year and the capital has been under martial law at any time.
Although the Tartars could not do anything to strong cities like Beijing and Tongzhou, they could burn, kill and loot in the vast plains. Moreover, the location of this plain in front of the mountains was perfect for the Wuliangha people. They could start looting after crossing the Great Wall and return home after looting, which was no different from their own private plots.
But it's not a good thing to keep going like this. When people in the future open the history books and see that the capital was attacked every year and martial law was imposed in the capital, what will they think of the emperors and civil and military officials of the Ming Dynasty? It will seriously affect the credibility of our mutual promotion of business.
But it is impossible to drive the Tartars away so far that they dare not step out of line again.
Fortunately, the civil servants have plenty of solutions. If they think the annual martial law is too embarrassing, why not raise the standard of martial law in the capital?
So they privately stipulated that as long as the Uriankhai did not approach within a hundred miles of the capital, the capital would not be considered attacked.
The Uriankhai people soon discovered this pattern: as long as they did not cross the Chaobai River, the government troops' reaction would not be so intense.
Over time, a strange tacit understanding was formed in the capital area. The government troops almost did not set up defenses on the plain in front of the mountains east of Chaobai River. The Tartars never crossed the Chaobai River and only robbed and left on this plain.
As a result, neither side lost a single casualty, the Wuliangha could happily loot, and the civil officials of the Ming Dynasty no longer had to worry about how to face the emperor's ugly face when they petitioned for martial law in the capital every year. The emperor no longer had to worry about too many stains in the history books, which would affect his historical status.
It’s really a win-win example!
What? What about the people east of Chaobai River? Nothing in this world is perfect? We have to make some sacrifices for the sake of the overall situation.
But the common people were not fools, so how could they just sit there and wait for the Tartars to rob them? They fled one after another, or formed a village with the same tribe to protect themselves, both of which would lead to a large amount of land being abandoned.
By the end of the Jiajing period, nine out of ten houses in Tangshan were empty and overgrown with weeds.
Although the Tartars have not been allowed to cross the Great Wall since Tan Lun and Qi Jiguang took office in Ji and Liao, it is not easy to change the deeply rooted ideas of the common people in just a few years.
Yes, Marshal Qi was indeed very capable, but the Ming Dynasty only produced one Qi Jiguang in the past 100 years. If he were to be transferred to another place, the next wave of people would surely cause trouble. So no matter how much the government said, the population would not easily return.
Therefore, Xishan Group was able to buy the land here at a low price for a long time. Mergers are what the nobles are best at. They don't want to do anything else, but they are very enthusiastic about this. Moreover, Xishan Group earns so much money every year from selling coal, cement and glass, and has no idea how to spend it. Now it just happens to have a place to go.
So they started buying land during the Longqing period, and by the end of the third year of the Wanli period, they had basically bought all the 120,000 hectares of land east of the Chaobai River and south of the Yanshan Mountains.
In fact, Zhao Hao's original intention was to rent or buy. If buying was not an option, he could choose long-term rental. But these wealthy people who treated money as money bought all of them...
But it was not bad, the total cost was only 13 million taels of silver, an average of a little more than one tael of silver per mu of land. This was also the result of Zhao Hao's strict order not to take advantage of others and to trade fairly.
Otherwise, they could use 1.3 million taels to get this done...
~~
Zhao Hao named the land purchased by Xishan Group "Tangshan City".
It was totally worth spending the 13 million taels.
The entire "Tangshan City", in addition to having more than 10 million acres of arable land, is also one of the three largest iron ore-rich areas in the country; one of the three largest gold producing areas in the country; it has coal mines that are well-known to later generations, and rich porcelain clay resources.
This is truly a treasure trove!
When Zhao Hao founded Xishan Company, the general strategy he formulated was a three-step plan of "Beijing first, Tangshan later, and then going overseas".
Although these guys have been slacking off since he went south, Tangshan City's natural endowment is so good that they can make some progress with just a little effort. After realizing their shame, Xishan Group worked hard for another year, pouring money like water, and everyone from top to bottom got involved, and the results were immediate and remarkable.
The most important thing is that the common people are not blind. When they see Xishan Group pouring real money into Tangshan, they know that the dignitaries have confidence in the safety of this place. So they move back from the west of Chaobai River, which is more effective than the government shouting at the top of its throat.
With people, everything is possible. Now, Xishan Group has built the framework of three pillar industries, Kailuan Coal Mine, Tangshan Ceramics and Caofeidian Farm, in accordance with Zhao Hao's "Tangshan Strategy", and established Tangshan City in Caofeidian, vigorously expanding port terminal storage.
In the fourth year of the Wanli reign, the Luanhe Canal renovation project, which had been delayed for many years, was finally completed. Since then, goods from the south could be transported to Beijing by water when they arrived at Caofeidian Port, just like the Dagu Port in Tianjin.
As a result, the throughput of this port, which was originally used as a backup during the ice-breaking period of Tianjin Dagu Port, has been increasing rapidly every day. It seems that it will be on par with Tianjin in a short time.
There is no way, this is the advantage of a natural harbor.
~~
Although Tangshan’s three major industries are still just a shell at present, at least the docks are busy and densely populated, and it seems to be getting further and further away from the desolate scene of the past.
More importantly, Zhao Hao saw that Xishan Group had finally stepped out of its comfort zone and started to study hard and do some pioneering work.
This of course needed great encouragement, and Master Zhao praised them highly.
Who would have thought that these guys were all born in the year of the monkey, and they climbed up the pole.
Xu Wenbi, the Duke of Dingguo, who held the highest status, smiled and said to Zhao Hao, "We are here for no other reason than to prove to the young minister that we northerners are no worse than the southerners who drink lotus roots... and the younger generations."
He wanted to say southern monkey, but suddenly realized that Zhao Hao was from Xiuning, Huizhou, which also counted as southern China. He was so frightened that he quickly changed his words.
Zhao Hao naturally would not argue with a duke, so he pretended not to hear and smiled, "There's no need to argue, we're all family."
"It's good to be a family, but we still have to eat separately." Duke of England Zhang Rong suddenly interrupted and said, "If we don't behave well, the master will give all the gold and silver in America to the southerners!"
"That's right..." Everyone from Xishan Group nodded in agreement and looked at Zhao Hao eagerly.
"Hahaha!" Young Master Zhao couldn't help but burst into laughter. He pointed at the two lords and Zhu Shimao and others, and laughed so hard that tears came down.
"Haha, I knew you had bad intentions!"
"Hey, young master, there is a saying that new clothes are worse than old ones, and old friends are worse than old ones." Zhu Shimao tilted his head to the other side, looked at him with a smile and said, "We have been friends for ten years, you can't be too partial."
"Don't worry, how could I forget you?" Zhao Hao finished laughing, took the handkerchief from Secretary Ma and wiped his tears. Then he whispered, "Map."
Soon, a world map appeared before everyone.
The nobles immediately opened their eyes wide and looked carefully. Although they were shouting that the Southerners should not be allowed to have the food all to themselves, in fact many of them did not even know where America was.
I was simply jealous after hearing the news that the round-the-world fleet brought back gold and silver all over America.
Young Master Zhao pointed at the American continent and said, "Strictly speaking, the American continent is divided into two parts - North America and South America, and the two are connected by only a thin isthmus. If you are interested, why don't we use that isthmus as the boundary, and let North America be developed by you, and South America be developed by Jiangnan Group?"
"Is the gold and silver in South America or North America, or both?" The nobles were not stupid. After all, they were the founders of Xishan Group. They had seen pigs run even though they had not eaten pork for so many years. They were not easily fooled.
"All of them." Zhao Hao was naturally frank about such a big thing. He took the pencil handed to him by Secretary Ma, crossed out the locations of several famous silver mines in Peru and Mexico, and said, "These are the gold and silver mines that are already being mined."
Then he drew a big cross on a bay on the west coast of North America, which currently belongs to the Upper California Province of the Kingdom of New Spain, and said, "Here, there is still a lot of gold that has not been mined!"
"Why hasn't it been mined?" everyone asked, it turned out to be hard to fool.
"Because there are too few Spaniards." Fortunately, the devil is always stronger than the good, and Mr. Zhao's ability to deceive people is improving even faster. "They don't even have time to mine the gold and silver mines in Mexico to the south, so how can they care about San Francisco thousands of miles away? That is the territory of the Indians who hate them. So the expedition team can only mark it on the map and wait for the future."
"You should have read the report on the circumnavigation of the world. Lin Feng captured the ship of the Vice-King of Peru in Lima and found a map marking the location of the gold and silver mines on that ship." Zhao Hao paused and said in a serious tone:
"Of course, the specific location still needs us to explore it ourselves..."
"No problem, if the red-haired devil can find it, we can definitely find it!" A group of old foxes finally fell into the trap, and they rubbed their hands excitedly and said:
"We're determined to take over the North American continent!"