Southern Seas Bastion

In the early years of the Chongzhen era, the maritime ban was as rigid as iron, and the southeastern coast was littered with the bodies of the starved. Huo Guihai, a graduate student in both modern marine engineering and history, opens his eyes to find himself a piglet—a kidnapped coolie—sold to a Dutch rubber mine in the South Seas: shackles, whips, plague, and countrymen waiting to die. The mine is a living hell. There is no law in the South Seas, only the sea wind, blades, guns, and human hearts. Huo Guihai relies on neither a system nor bloodline, only the early modern knowledge in his head—basic industry, navigation, fortification, and epidemic prevention. With three hundred displaced people who likewise have nowhere to turn, he storms the mine, seizes a ship, and drifts to an unclaimed harbor. Starting from an earthen fort, a boatload of fresh water, and half a hold of coarse grain, he forcibly builds a homeland in a foreign land. He builds sailing ships, smelts iron and makes saltpeter, opens paddy fields, and establishes workshops; he maneuvers among the Dutch East India Company, the Spanish and Portuguese colonizers, native kings, and Qiongzhou pirates; he takes in refugee Han people and also learns to coexist with local ethnic groups. From a trading port to a fleet, from a stockade to a state, Huo Guihai wants to prove one thing: the sky of the Great Ming has fallen, but the Han people's road has not been cut off—in the South Seas, they have built themselves a home anew. — Description from novelcodex.orgFull novel: Southern Seas Bastion — read the rest free on N​o⁠v​e⁠l​C⁠o​d⁠e​x⁠.​o⁠r​g⁠