Chapter 74 Fiscal Deficit

After Yu Xiaotian returned to Nanri Island, he kept running around and looking around, urging production to speed up significantly. In addition to various workshops, he was also very concerned about the pioneering on the island.

After trying to immigrate on the island last year, the population has increased a lot, and the number of residents on the island has increased to nearly 3,000, of whom more than 2,000 have been resettled in several immigrant villages to be responsible for the expansion of the island's wasteland.

These immigrants are very energetic, like a group of hard-working ants working in the fields day and night. They first cut down or burn wild grass or shrubs, then use manpower or animal power to reclaim the land, dry the land, and level it so that they can grow crops.

By the end of the year, thousands of mu of land and 1,500 mu of land have been reclaimed on the island. In this way, these immigrants have developed about three square kilometers of land on Nanri Island.

The area of Nanri Island is about 50 square kilometers, but many of them are hilly and mountainous, which are not suitable for use as farmland. Therefore, by this time, the land available for land on the island has been expanded by about 30%. If it continues at this rate, there will be another year for the island to be reclamation. The land is basically gone.

After Yu Xiaotian calculated, he shook his head secretly. Nanri Island is still a little small and can't support his future plans. If the food problem can't be solved by himself, it is a big problem. Once there is a great famine on land, their food supply will be in big trouble, so he chose to run to the Taiwanese to occupy The territory can be said to be a very wise decision, which strengthens his idea of increasing the development of Taiwan Island.

However, in addition to cultivating farmland, the hilly mountains on Nanri Island are also more suitable for raising some goats or ploughing cattle for grazing, which can also somewhat make up for his food needs.

And in order to reclaim Taiwan Island next, he must prepare a lot of cultivated cattle in advance, so he has to ask people to go to land and try his best to buy some cultivated cattle. Even if Nanri Island is temporarily unusable, he will temporarily send people to raise these cultivated cattle on Nanri Island to prepare in advance.

In addition, the seafood around Nanri Island is very rich. Fishing technology and storage technology limit fishermen from fishing in large numbers at sea for a long time. Therefore, the richness of coastal seafood in this era can be said to be uninable to future fishermen.

In order to solve the problem of catch storage, Yu Xiaotian made up his mind last year. After ending the battle of Dongqi Island and the problem of Nangantang, he returned the mixed river dragon to Funing.

After winter, he asked the council to send several ships all the way north to the coast of Shandong, collect sea ice, load it into the cabin, and transport them back to Nanri Island.

This era is in the era of small glaciers, and the climate is much colder than that of later generations. There is no need to cross the Bohai Bay. After winter, a large amount of sea ice will appear on the sea along the coast of Shandong.

So they don't have to run too much north to get ice. Even in the area around the Yangtze River, they can get some floating ice, but the transportation cost is relatively high.

Originally, Yu Xiaotian thought of how to make ice with saltpeter, but at present, he doesn't even have enough gunpowder. How can he be willing to use saltpeter to make ice? So this stupid method can only be used to store ice.

For this reason, Yu Xiaotian chose a cave on Nanri Island, in which four walls were covered with thick thatched mats as an ice cellar for storing ice. The hole was sealed by several layers of thick grass walls to store the returned ice in the ice cellar, saving labor and trouble in digging the ice cellar.

Now that it is hot, he transformed a small ice chamber on the ship and put the ice stored in the ice cellar on the ship in advance, so that he can eat some fresh meat and vegetables when the ship goes to sea.

He also gave this method to the fishermen on the island, asking the fishermen to transform the cabin to keep the ice warm. When fishing at sea, the fish caught will be thrown directly into the iced cabin. In this way, the fishermen will not have to worry that the fish caught will stink and rotten if they are not transported back to the island for treatment.

In this way, fishermen can go out to sea for a longer time and have more catches. At the same time, fishermen can also obtain more catch reserves in the wolf caves of Nanri Island.

However, this method is still a little stupid and can't solve too many problems, but so far, it is also the best method that Yu Xiaotian can think of. In short, he has to find ways to reserve more food in case of emergency, so as not being able to catch up with it.

In short, his efforts began to harvest four years after the apocalypse, and everything was progressing smoothly. In addition, the government is still busy dealing with the Dutch in Penghu and has no time to trouble them at all, so their current small life is quite good.

In addition to these things, Yu Xiaotian has another place that belongs to his focus on, that is, the boat house on Nanri Island.

The boat has now been expanded and has already begun to undertake the repair of the ship. The sea wolf's ships have basically been given a chance to maintain and repair, making the sea wolf's fleet more refined.

However, this repair is not all that Yu Xiaotian wanted. He did not hesitate to invest a lot of money to repair the dilapidated boathouse on Nanri Island. In addition to maintaining his own ships, there was only one purpose, that is, to build his own shipbuilding.

Now the craftsman power in the boat is very sufficient. In addition to Guo Fu, there are also two boatmen who have been captured from the land. One of them should still be above Guo Fu. According to himself, at least hundreds of boats have been built by him.

Among them, he knows how to build a lucky boat, Haicang, a bird boat, a sand boat and even a wide boat, and has also brought it himself. According to him, the cost of a medium-sized lucky boat is about 3,000 taels of silver. If it is not equipped with anchors, sails, sails and cannons on the ship, the cost is almost 4,000 taels. If everything is ready, the construction period will take about four months, and sometimes it will take up to half a year to make it.

But for bird boats, the cost of more than 1,000 taels is enough. If you use good wood, add another 30%, and the cost will not exceed 2,000 taels of silver. The construction period is about two and a half months to three months, and it can be put into the water early.

Therefore, at present, the ship house on Nanri Island builds its own brand-new ship. There is no technical problem. The main problem is that the source of wood, especially the wood for making the keel and mast of the ship, must use a whole large material.

These materials can only be released along the river from Yunnan and Sichuan. After the arrival of the goods, they will be dry for more than half a year before they can be used. Otherwise, even if they are forced to use, the ship will not be durable, and it is easy to crack, causing the ship to enter the water.

But if you want to be faster, there is no way to solve it. At present, some boat houses in the coastal area have materials. These materials are dry materials and can be put into use immediately, but the price is much higher. If all these wood are used, the cost of a ship will be increased by at least 30%. Even more than half of the cost is not too much.

Of course, Yu Xiaotian, a veteran ship model, knows these things, but he also has a solution to it.

If the wood is wet when the wood is purchased, it can be used to shorten the drying time of the wood, but this requires the construction of a special workshop for drying wood. The shed alone needs to be made very large, otherwise it will be difficult to put the wood in.

In the drying room, the wood should be set up, make a fire around the drying room, and force the moisture contained in the wood out with heat, so that there will be no deformation after the material is used on the ship.

Yu Xiaotian believes that this matter is not a big problem. Nowadays, the human and material resources on the island can basically meet his needs.

The main problem is the feeding problem. Yu Xiaotian originally planned to ask the council to collect a large amount of wood from the land through the relationship between all parties, but when he raised this matter, the faces of Li Gouzi and Zhao Mazi changed color.

Because with Yu Xiaotian's crazy tossing around on Nanri Island, the money they saved before has basically bottomed out now.

Yu Xiaotian didn't care much about financial matters during this period. He thought that he began to collect tolls last year, and he had money every day. In addition, when his men went out to hunt from time to time, he could often grab back a lot of money. In addition, he received Zhang Hu's legacy at the beginning, so they should not have too many financial problems.

But when he heard Li Gouzi and Zhao Mazi say that their treasury had bottomed out, Yu Xiaotian was shocked and quickly greeted them to their residence to ask about the income and expenditure during this period.

So Li Gouzi brought a pile of account books and put them in front of Yu Xiaotian. He said to Xiaotian:

"Big head, take a look at it yourself! Although our harvest has been good for more than half a year, a large part of the reward and punishment system established by the big head has been divided among the brothers below!

Of course, there are a lot left, as much as 30,000 taels of silver, but the big head himself may have forgotten that this money is entered with the left hand and out with the right hand! I can't keep it at all!"

Yu Xiaotian scratched his head and said, "Oh? Did I spend so much money? Where has it been spent?

Li Gouzi immediately began to spit out: "Isn't this money spent by the big master? Look at it! From last year to now, we have been recruiting exiles to the island and recruiting all kinds of craftsmen. This is a big piece!

In addition to being tied up, we have recruited a lot through various channels and spent money to buy a lot of domestic slaves! This piece cost more than 10,000 taels of silver!

In addition, the big head buys copper and iron on land, buys ploughing cattle, buys grain, as well as medicinal materials and cloth. The cost is very large. I remember that each piece has an account. If the big head does not believe it, you can check it by yourself!

Some time ago, we spent more than 8,000 taels of silver to make some land-related relationships. No one in our council dares to make money from here, and we remember every account clearly!"