Chapter 218: Black Soil

Primitive tribes actually viewed land differently from colonizers. Colonizers believed that acquiring land meant gaining ownership. But tribal people who had fished, hunted, practiced shifting cultivation, and gathered fruit on a piece of land for generations — what they cared about was the right to use the land, not ownership.

This created the superficial impression that indigenous people were easy to deal with: Manhattan is the classic example.

Of course, outsiders never cared what the natives thought — once they got a foothold, the natives would soon lose even the right to stay alive, so who would still worry about things like ownership?

What Pan Mingzhong and his group faced today was exactly the same situation the Dutch had been in: industrial goods in exchange for land.

This problem was a bit tricky.

First, the transmigrators were latecomers, so they wouldn't dig a pit for themselves. They knew that in later generations, the story of the greedy, cunning Dutch trading a box of glass balls for Manhattan had been told by teachers to friends all over the world for centuries — and would keep being told, as long as Manhattan remained the most expensive real estate on earth.

That was the crux of the problem.

People in later generations wouldn't care that Manhattan Island was a desolate wasteland at the time, nor that the Dutch had actually engaged in fair trade: the Indians voluntarily exchanged the use rights of Manhattan for glass balls, without any coercion. Yet later newspapers and textbooks would only scream: Look, these villains traded glass balls for land worth over ten thousand dollars per square meter, with a total value exceeding a trillion dollars...

This problem had no solution. No matter what commodity the Red Hair had used to trade for Manhattan back then, later generations would launch the same kind of public opinion attack... The Dutch couldn't do anything about it either.

So the transmigrators couldn't dig a pit for themselves. That was why, before Pan Mingzhong set out, someone from the Great Office had privately warned him: in future exploration and development, don't follow the Manhattan model. As for the specifics — ahem — Old Pan, you figure that out yourself.

So now Old Pan was scratching his head a bit.

He had to obtain land from the raw barbarians, yet couldn't use a commodity exchange model that would put them in a passive position later: that would be tantamount to acknowledging the natives' land ownership.

— The Crossing Over Empire about to be established would certainly recognize private land ownership, but that applied to the civilized world, like the Ming People... The bottom line was that the other party had to have writing, institutions, and contracts.

As for these populations who ran around with their birds hanging out and didn't even have writing, the mainstream voice on the Forum was still the "all land under Heaven belongs to the king" line: relocation and forced urban labor were the only way out for these natives. As for the land... please present your title deed or contract. You don't have one? Then you've got nothing, you Cai Guoqing.

Everyone knew who the real targets of this policy were: the vast indigenous peoples of Southeast Asia, the vast Pacific islanders, the vast North American Indians... The raw barbarians here in Miaoli were just collateral damage.

This was the transmigrators' approach to different civilizations. Though hard to speak of openly, that was the reality.

In the end, when negotiating with the natives, Pan Mingzhong blurred the line between trade and land, adopting a stalling tactic: although during the after-meal talks anyone could see the old chief using his arm to draw circles over the nearby land and then pointing at the iron pot, Pan Mingzhong still used the language barrier as an excuse to temporarily reject the old man's land-trade proposal.

After both sides agreed to continue trading the next day, Pan Mingzhong conveniently sent the translator from Xingang Society to scout the native village, under the fine-sounding name of: 24-hour intensive language training.

When the translator returned the next day, Pan Mingzhong had more or less figured out the scale of this group of natives.

The main ethnic group historically in Miaoli County was the Taokas people, whose subordinate communities were the Pengshan Society and the Houlong Society. Based on the scattered information the translator brought back today, Pan Mingzhong judged that the ones who had come to trade with him yesterday were likely a branch of the Houlong Society.

This branch community was roughly the same size as Xingang Society. According to the translator, this village alliance called "Touyuan" Society had three or four villages nearby. That was also why the natives had been able to muster 200 warriors yesterday: only a village population base of over a thousand could produce 200 warriors.

When both sides met again today, the atmosphere was somewhat more relaxed. From the guide, they learned that last night in the native village, the Witch had even held a large-scale deity-worshipping ceremony to thank the gods for bringing salt to the village.

Hearing this, Pan Mingzhong nodded. These people, it seemed, were no different from the mountain folk in Fujian and Guangxi — all populations suffering from an extreme shortage of salt.

The transmigrators' side also had more confidence now: the enclosing wall was about to be finished. So Pan Mingzhong followed established policy and told the translator to inform the old chief called "Mona": he needed the old man to send guides to take him hunting, so they could prepare lunch.

Hunting rights were very important rights, but Village Chief Mona didn't think long before agreeing: last night, the several villages under Touyuan Society had in fact uniformly held deity-worshipping ceremonies. In the old man's long life of forty years, he could no longer remember the last time a boat carrying salt and cloth had come this deep into the Houlong River.

Therefore, these outsiders were guests who needed to be looked after.

Soon, Pan Mingzhong was fully armed and ready to set out with four members of the Exploration Team, while seven or eight native warriors served as their guides.

Seeing Old Pan meticulously strapping M9 pistols to the outside of both thighs, the oilman Ning Wei was puzzled: "Can you hunt with pistols? Why are you bringing so many?"

"The pistols are for shooting natives." Lei Jian beside him explained with a grin: "Old Pan's target is people. If the native guides try anything, Old Pan will kill them."

"Got it. A show of force."

"Right. You have to flex your muscles first — that's how you get peace."

The gunfire from the hunting party soon echoed through the silent river valley. The people in camp could actually tell where they were without using the walkie-talkie: large flocks of birds kept bursting from the dense forest.

Pan Mingzhong and his group had set out at 9 in the morning, and by 11 o'clock, the hunting party had returned fully loaded.

"Damn, the wildlife here is just too abundant — they're everywhere." Someone, panting from exhaustion, said as he tossed the black bear he was carrying onto his shoulder down at the camp gate.

Every person in the hunting party was carrying more than one prey animal.

Sambar deer, Formosan black bear, Reeves's muntjac, wild boar, plus over ten Mikado pheasants and Swinhoe's pheasants — these were for making beggar's chicken.

Unlike the jubilant Exploration Team members, the native guides' eyes were generally filled with fear, and they were rather silent. This state lasted until they began describing those terrifying iron tubes to the village chief: the outsiders would raise a hand, and with a huge roar and smoke, prey hundreds of meters away — including pheasants that had already flown up to the treetops — would just die...

After hearing the guides' descriptions of the firearms, the other natives finally gained a basic concept of these outsiders' military strength... And so, relations between the two sides grew even more amicable: the native warriors quickly reined in their arrogance.

Military force was useful after all.

The natives, now much more docile, next watched the outsiders' performance of skinning animals with metal knives, and afterward they were given the hides.

After the outsiders gave the natives the spoils that theoretically belonged to them, they also treated them to a feast of boiled meat.

After the meal, the real show began.

Pan Mingzhong sat grinning across from a group of natives, holding an iPad, and began slowly moving the screen back and forth before their eyes.

Displayed on the LCD screen at that moment were image after image of natural oil wells. There were sticky oil pits with bubbles constantly rising; there were also patches of black-sand ground starkly contrasting in color, utterly incongruous with the surrounding environment.

In fact, without waiting for Pan Mingzhong to replay the video, several people — including the Tagan siblings — reacted on the spot the moment they saw one particular image: cries of surprise burst from their mouths as their fingers pointed toward the distant mountain ridges.

A comprehensive agreement between the Exploration Team and Touyuan Society was formally reached later that evening.

After being made the scapegoat, the old Village Chief of Touyuan Society happily agreed to the request to take the outsiders to that "black-sand ground" for exploration the next day.

At the same time, the old Village Chief also agreed to an agreement transferring the use rights of the riverbank land to the outsiders. Of course, this agreement was verbal, and it was mixed in with the labor employment condition of "hiring natives with iron pots to guide the exploration."

... In the end, Pan Mingzhong still reached an agreement with the natives about land ownership in a manner akin to covering one's ears while stealing a bell. As for how future textbooks would frame this matter, that was beyond what an old man like him could control.

Another day later, the stockade wall was completely finished, and at the same time, the Exploration Team had also completed all preparations for entering the mountains. After agreeing that Pan Mingzhong would lead the team, Ning Wei would be responsible for exploration, and Lei Jian would guard the home base, a ten-man Exploration Team took their tools and headed into the mountains with the large native party.

In the Miaosu Mountain Area of later generations, the vast majority of vegetation would be secondary forest: new trees replanted after later people had cut down the primeval forest. In fact, starting from the Japanese colonial period, Taiwan had launched a massive campaign of forest clearing, and in later generations, aside from a few forest parks, most vegetation would be secondary forest.

But now, following behind the swift-footed natives, threading through the dim primeval woods, Pan Mingzhong's team — to be honest — if not for the radio sets on their backs and the positioning instruments in their hands, they would have long since lost their way in the endless forest.

The only good news was that the location of that "black-sand ground," in terms of straight-line distance, was actually not far: it lay directly ahead of the camp, in the mountain col between two peaks.

"Well, is this the place we're looking for?"

Having finally reached the site, huffing and puffing for breath while looking at this patch of black-sand ground — about fifty square meters, utterly barren all around — Pan Mingzhong asked nervously.

Ning Wei didn't answer. He crouched down first, grabbed a handful of sand, and examined it carefully: "It looks promising. Start digging."

Those four simple words marked the beginning of the labor: the team members began taking turns using shovels to dig at the center of the black-sand ground.

Fortunately, there were natives nearby.

When someone noticed that the natives were very interested in the shiny iron shovels, the subsequent digging work was taken over by the eager natives.