Chapter 8: Taiwan or Hainan

Where should they cross over? This was no mere question of geography—it would determine the very foundation upon which their new world would be built.

A good start was half the battle. The transmigrators, all seasoned strategy-game veterans, understood instinctively that securing the right starting position could make the difference between triumph and disaster. Their ideal base needed to satisfy an exacting set of criteria: a solid agricultural foundation to guarantee food supply; a substantial population to power post-crossing industrialization; rich natural resources for industry; a coastal location with viable ports, since maritime trade offered the era's surest path to wealth; a position outside the Ming's core territories to avoid concentrated suppression; distance from contested regions where the Later Jin or the Chuang and Xian rebel forces might pose threats they couldn't handle while still gaining a foothold; and defensible terrain, with natural barriers of mountains, rivers, and sea.

Clearly, locations satisfying all these conditions were rare indeed.

The question went to the forum for collective brainstorming. Proposals quickly clustered around three candidates: Taiwan, Hainan, and Australia.

Australia drew tremendous initial support but was eliminated first. Setting aside whether the continent itself was suitable, there was simply no feasible way to transport several hundred transmigrators across such a vast ocean.

Taiwan sparked fierce debate. Geographically and in terms of development potential, it seemed excellent. The Ming government maintained no apparatus on the island; though the Dutch and Spanish had built forts, each controlled only a small corner—the rest remained an effective vacuum. Yet Taiwan suffered from severe tropical diseases, malaria chief among them, which had long hindered migration. By the late Ming, development remained minimal and the population sparse—hardly the foundation for large-scale ambitions.

Hainan, by comparison, offered far more. Development there stretched back to the Six Dynasties era, and by the late Ming it had become a proper southern frontier prefecture with hundreds of thousands of registered households. In the tenth year of Yongle alone, the Han population numbered ninety thousand households totaling four hundred thousand people—ample human resources for any enterprise. As for agriculture, by the forty-third year of Wanli, official and private fields combined to total 4.1 million mu.

More valuable still were the island's natural resources—abundant and comprehensive, ideal for industrialization. Eighty-eight mineral types had been identified, sixty-seven of proven industrial value. Gold, rich iron ore, titaniferous iron ore, and zircon ranked among its most advantageous deposits.

The keys to pre-industrial development were coal and iron, and here Hainan possessed a treasure: the Shilu Iron Mine, one of China's rare large-scale rich iron deposits. The ore averaged fifty-one percent iron content with reserves of four hundred million tons. Most valuably, Shilu was virtually open-pit—strip away the topsoil and mine directly, without the expense of elaborate tunnel systems.

Coal presented the one weakness—Hainan possessed only low-quality lignite. But just across the Beibu Gulf lay Vietnam's Quang Ninh Hong Gai coalfield, with open-pit reserves alone totaling two hundred million tons and tens of billions of tons of high-quality anthracite underground. Better yet, the coalfield sat right at the shoreline, making maritime transport extraordinarily convenient.

Coal and iron meant mass-produced steel. Steel meant mechanized industry and bulk manufacturing. An ancient society might produce breathtaking art, might achieve heights of craftsmanship no machine could match—but it could never compete with the tidal wave of mass-produced industrial goods.

Yet Hainan had its drawbacks. Its proximity to the mainland meant Ming rule was relatively tight. Except for the inland Li aboriginal region, most of the island was "civilized territory" under imperial administration.

Such a long-registered prefecture was something the Ming government would not easily relinquish. They would spare no effort to crush these ambitious outsiders—whether the newcomers claimed to hail from New Borneo, Australia, or another timespace entirely.

From the very start, the transmigrators would face punitive expeditions from local forces and Guangdong garrisons. They would have to repel these attacks just to gain a foothold.

Hainan also harbored long-standing Li-Han tensions. Since the Yuan dynasty, a Li uprising had erupted somewhere on the island roughly every three years. Less than thirty years before their 1627 crossing point—in the twenty-seventh year of Wanli, 1599—the Li leader Ma Shi of Ding'an had risen in rebellion, with Li people in Dan, Ya, and Lin responding to his call. The Ming had mobilized a hundred thousand troops to suppress it. Achieving peaceful coexistence with the Li would be yet another challenge.

And then there were the pirates. Raids on Hainan had been so rampant that many county towns lacked north-facing gates entirely. In the late Ming, the South China Sea was an arena where Chinese and foreign maritime traders and pirates alike displayed their abilities freely. Whether they called themselves traders or pirates, when plunder beckoned, none would pass up the opportunity. Hainan, sitting astride major sea routes, had long suffered. The transmigrators, carrying countless modern tools and goods, would be a fat sheep that every party coveted.

Viewed this way, although Hainan's foundation exceeded Taiwan's, the pressures would be correspondingly greater.

"Looking at it this way, let's choose Taiwan," someone proposed during the online meeting. "Taiwan has malaria, but we can bring quinine. We can also bring cinchona trees to plant there. As for population—there were so many refugees in the late Ming. Using food and land as bait, transporting a few hundred thousand people shouldn't be a problem."

"Transport a few hundred thousand—you make it sound easy," someone challenged. "With what?"

"Ships. We could cross over with a ten-thousand-ton freighter, loaded with supplies and people. Complete maritime hegemon—no need for cannons. Whoever displeases us, we just ram them."

"Are you planning to fuel it with alcohol or charcoal?"

"We can build our own ships. Taiwan has plenty of quality timber."

"Fine, then tell me where you'll get sailors."

"We can train sailors ourselves. Recruit foreign sailors from Macau as instructors."

"Ridiculous—were Zheng Chenggong's ships all crewed by foreigners? I can't stand you foreign-worshipping types."

"Can cinchona trees even grow in Taiwan?"

"By that logic, the Leizhou Peninsula can't grow rubber either—but they tried anyway."

"I'm talking about Taiwan—is the Leizhou Peninsula on the same latitude?!"

The argument spiraled. When the topic drifted to whether treasure ships were wooden ten-thousand-tonners, whether qinghao could prevent malaria, and thence to whether traditional Chinese medicine was pseudoscience, Wen Desi finally curbed the enthusiasm. Xiao Zishan asked to speak.

"I think Hainan is still more suitable." He had remained silent throughout the debate—not because he lacked conviction, but because he supported Hainan and saw no need to rush his declaration. He had waited for the argument to clarify the pros and cons, mentally prioritized the issues, and now knew precisely where to focus.

"Why is Hainan more suitable? Compare them against our criteria, and on several key points, Taiwan falls short.

"First, agriculture. Taiwan's true agricultural development began when Zheng Chenggong recovered it—around the mid-to-late seventeenth century. Our target year is 1628. At that time, Taiwan had virtually no agriculture—just small plots cleared by migrant villages. Hainan has at least 3.8 million mu of cultivated land and dozens of water-conservancy projects. Note that this acreage is only what's registered; land concealment in the Ming was considerable.

"On population: in 1628, Taiwan had very few Han migrants. The large-scale industrial and agricultural construction we're planning requires substantial labor. Taiwan's population simply cannot meet that need, so from day one we'd have to import migrants. Recruiting refugees, organizing them to bring their families thousands of li across prefectures and counties to reach the Fujian-Zhejiang coast before arranging sea transport—this is a complex, arduous undertaking involving manpower, resources, and dealing with Ming officials at every level." He paused. "Who among us has such experience?

"Even if we managed to get enough refugees onto the island, the follow-up work would be overwhelming. These refugees are destitute—they need epidemic prevention, relief, resettlement, housing, seeds, farm tools... Where does all that come from? With our early-stage capabilities, handling this would be beyond us. Hainan already has a population base of four hundred thousand—sufficient for our initial development."

The earlier debate had exhausted most of the room's enthusiasm, and some of the more irrational remarks had left a sour taste. Xiao Zishan's measured, well-reasoned statement won over the majority. A vote was called, and Hainan was confirmed.

In the late-Ming timespace, Hainan comprised Qiongzhou Prefecture, governing three subprefectures and ten counties: Qiongshan, Chengmai, Lingao, Ding'an, Wenchang, Lehui, Huitong, Changhua, Lingshui, and Gan'en; the subprefectures of Dan, Wan, and Ya.

A glance at the Historical Atlas of China revealed that Hainan's subprefectures and counties traced a complete circuit around the island's coast. Historically, the pattern had been Li in the south and Han in the north; from the Song dynasty onward, it became Han on the outside, Li within.

Among these jurisdictions, Qiongshan, Chengmai, and Lingao boasted the longest development histories—they were the island's primary Han settlement and agricultural zones, with half the Han population concentrated there.

Of the three, Qiongshan—seat of the prefectural government—had the best foundational conditions: nearly a quarter of the island's 3.83 million registered mu, with close to ninety thousand people registered for taxation.

But this was also the Ming's political and economic center, ordinarily garrisoned by substantial troops. It held immense symbolic significance; the fall of a frontier prefectural capital would send shockwaves through the Ming court and inevitably trigger military expeditions.

Chengmai was promising, but it bordered Qiongshan directly—too close to the administrative center for comfort.

Lingao emerged as the best choice.

In the present timespace, Lingao was an obscure little county—far less famous than Haikou or Sanya. Economically backward, with virtually no tourism to speak of. Unless one was an avid backpacker, most people had never heard Hainan had such a place. Search online for "Lingao," and most entries contained a single phrase from the PLA's Hainan Liberation Campaign sixty years earlier: The PLA first landed at Lingao Point. That was the extent of its fame—Lingao Point lay in Lingao County, less than twelve kilometers from the county seat.

Though obscure, Lingao possessed a thousand years of history, traceable to the fifth year of Wude in the Tang dynasty. It was one of the earliest Han-settled areas, with centuries of development behind it. Though not as populous as Qiongshan, in the forty-fifth year of Wanli it still claimed twenty-five thousand registered people. The alluvial plains along the Wenlan River had been developed early, forming a solid agricultural foundation. With proper water-conservancy development, its potential was considerable. In the present dimension, Lingao had become Hainan's land of fish and rice.

Finally, it was separated from Qiongzhou Prefecture by Chengmai—any disturbance wouldn't bring immediate direct pressure. Given ancient communication speeds and administrative efficiency, matters crossing subprefectures typically couldn't be resolved in less than a month—in Hainan, probably longer still.

After this topic concluded, various other questions arose, but Lingao as the initial base was no longer disputed. In Wen Desi's concluding remarks, everyone agreed this had been "a successful conference, a unifying conference, a victorious conference." In future New World history textbooks, it would be called the "First Traversal Congress." Because there were so many delegates—and quite a few ultimately chose to remain in the Old World—the complete list of names could only be viewed at the "Old World Cathedral." And theoretically, viewing was prohibited.

(End of Chapter)