Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 1252 St. Paul

Just when Major Xiao Xi led his troops to walk through the high mountains of the Mar Mountains—for this reason, he even gave up most of his technical weapons, because the mountain roads were difficult and difficult to transport—several transport ships quietly sailed to the sea off San Vicente Island , and then under the cover of several escort gunboats that had been waiting for a long time, headed northward towards the port of Rio de Janeiro.

These are thousands of soldiers from the Melo County Security Regiment and the Lower Ihe County Security Regiment recruited in the hinterland of the militia. They will land in a large number far away from the port forts, and then look for opportunities to break through the city of Rio de Janeiro and its hinterland.Of course, the Navy also asked to focus on capturing the Portuguese General Espiritu Santo area, because there is a large amount of high-quality timber produced there, many of which can be used to build ships, so it is the goal that the Navy must obtain as soon as possible-but these are not related to Xiao. It doesn't matter that Xi is gone, his goal at this time is to capture St. Paul Town and its surrounding countryside as soon as possible in order to obtain a large amount of supplies, money and people.

Perhaps the Sao Paulo flag team was recruited to the north to participate in the war with the Dutch, or perhaps these people went out to "work". At this time, the population of Sao Paulo town was sparsely populated—according to the captured Brazilian prisoners, there were generally only one to two thousand people ——This can be seen from their inability to set up a blocking position on the Tiet River.However, Major Xiao Xi did not dare to take it lightly. They were attacked by unknown persons on the way here. He suspected that they were members of a certain flag team, so he kept an infantry company as a reserve team to prevent possible sudden attacks. attack.

The Tete River originates in the Mar Mountains and flows to the famous Paraná River. Some sections of the river are navigable, and some sections are not. The town of Sao Paulo was originally established here.It was just a religious school at that time, but now it has developed into a commercial town with a population of nearly 2000—a large number of slaves, weapons and ammunition, food, and leather were traded here—the famous St. Paul’s flag team went out from here .

But there will be no Sao Paulo flag team to block the way!The Army's Second Mixed Battalion under the command of Major Xiao Xi did not encounter any decent resistance, and even crossed the Tiete River, which was expected to have a hard fight, and arrived at the north bank smoothly.Even the boats for crossing the river were collected from nearby. The Brazilians were completely unaware of hiding or burning these crossing tools. Poor people who grow cassava in the outskirts—mostly mixed Mamelucos or free Indians. In Brazil, the best land is always used to grow cash crops, and only the most "humble" people will grow in the infertile areas. Food is grown on the land, and their economic situation is naturally very bad.

The battle to attack St. Paul Town ended before it even started, which made everyone a little surprised, but also a little happy.Originally, due to the winding and rugged mountain roads, the Second Mixed Battalion did not bring any technical weapons (mainly artillery) at all, and even supplies and ammunition were extremely limited. With a resolute posture to block the army on the east bank, Major Xiao Xi may not dare to spend it here for a long time.

But things in the world are often so nonsense!Just when the Second Mixed Battalion had finished crossing the river, and a group of grenadiers were pale-faced, wearing armor and hanging bombs, preparing to attack the vanguard, the Brazilians in the city actually sent an envoy.There were five envoys in total, one of them was an aristocrat (but he was not well dressed, perhaps an "emerging aristocrat"), and the other four were all businessmen. The Brazilian envoy told Major Xiao that there were thousands of loyalists in Sao Paulo Town. Believers of the Lord are ready to fight for their faith and property at any time. If the people on the east coast want to attack as hard as they attacked San Vicente Island, then they will have to pay a bloody price.

But correspondingly, if the Second Mixed Battalion is willing to let the town of St. Paul go, then they are willing to pay a large amount of "redemption fee" to the people on the east coast.After discussing for a while, Major Xiao Xi and others agreed to the Brazilian's request, and agreed that the redemption fee was 20 pesos (about 16.67 yuan), which is suitable for a population of no more than [-] (mostly Portuguese whites and their mixed descendants) , mostly missionaries, merchants and slave catchers) seems a bit high, but it is not unacceptable, because the business here is actually quite prosperous, and a considerable part of the money may be transferred from the It's in the government coffers.

After talking about the redemption fee, the Brazilians went back with a sigh of relief and announced the "good news" - according to their observations, the people on the east coast are actually civilized people, and their observance of treaties and agreements is generally acceptable, which is enough ——The Second Mixed Battalion of the Army did not retreat to the other side of the Tiet River, but began to collect food and collect taxes on the spot.

The objects of taxation are naturally the plantations distributed outside the town.To be honest, these manors are not as rich as imagined, at least not as rich as Bahia and Pernambuco, where the sugar industry is extremely developed, where the sugar tycoons are really rich.But in the area under the jurisdiction of General San Vicente, the extremely inconvenient transportation to the coast makes the population here relatively sparse. The density of manors can never be compared with that of the northeast coastal area, and even the neighboring Rio de Janeiro is much stronger than this.

This situation was quickly discovered by the people on the east coast during the "taxation" operation. The owners of the manors had very few gold and silver coins in their homes, and they also suffered from the lack of precious metals in their daily lives. This led to the barter trade. prevalent.Therefore, after spending several days expropriating a dozen or so manors, the Second Mixed Battalion only got less than [-] pesos. Major Xi was so angry that he yelled at these manor owners as turkeys.

However, although there are not many precious metals collected, the amount of materials is extremely rich, especially wheat, wine, vegetables, cattle and sheep, melons and fruits, etc., which can be used as military supplies.In addition, there are small-scale sugar cane, cotton and tobacco plantations in the local area. These plantations have received the attention of the officers and soldiers of the Second Mixed Battalion. They had the urge to pick up matchlock guns to fight with them for a moment, but under the watchful eyes of a large group of east bank soldiers in dark blue military uniforms, they finally retreated powerlessly. Sugar, tobacco, and leather were "bought" away, leaving a large pile of poorly printed waste paper.

"The entire Diocese of Sao Paulo is actually the granary of Bahia, Pernambuco and other places. There are very few sugarcane plantations here, and the number of cotton plantations is not bad, probably because of the stimulation of demand in our country. There are fewer tobacco plantations. , but has developed rapidly in recent years, but most of them are located in the inland west, I heard that the Brazilians have organically combined tobacco plantations and pastures, using livestock manure to manure the fields, and the tobacco leaves grown have a better taste.” June 6 On the 25st, when he met Captain Yang Liang who led the army to reinforce him, Major Xiao Xi said: "The crops here are growing well. Wine, wheat, fruits, vegetables, beef cattle, and cheese are all exported to other generals' jurisdictions, and even There is also a flour mill and jam processing workshop in St. Paul Town, which looks similar to the agricultural area around Duck Lake in China, at most, the sown area of ​​cash crops is larger."

"That's the best way!" Captain Yang Liang marched for days, his trouser legs and body were covered with mud, but he seemed to be in good spirits. At this time, he only heard him say: "Such a good land should be taken by yourself. It is located at a high altitude. On the 800-meter plateau, there is plenty of sunlight and a mild climate, which is many times better than hot and humid places like Bahia and Pernambuco. It is not uncommon for Brazilians to see sugar production there as a treasure. Ah, let me tell you, this kind of high-quality wheat-growing area is worth three Pernambucos, and this time I will take it no matter what. Anyone who opposes it will be **** and everyone will be punished !"

"Let's not talk about this. Our military strength is not very sufficient. The Jingjiang County Security Corps has to defend San Vicente Island. Now we have less than 3000 people at hand. This number, several large manors of the Portuguese We made it together, so we can't control too many areas now, and we can't even go too far to collect taxes from various manors. A food requisition team sent out was attacked by the enemy hiding in the woods, and only 40 of the more than 30 people came back, probably it was done by the St. A bag of Congo shredded tobacco, after lighting it up, he said while smoking.

"How easy it is to be an occupying army." Captain Yang Liang also felt the same way when he said this, "On the third day after you left, there was a riot in the port of San Vicente, ahem, because a militiaman raped a Portuguese aristocratic women. Although the riot was quickly suppressed, we also lost 18 soldiers, and the volunteers (captives of the Qing army) who went to the suburbs to collect taxes also died 9 people in an anti-tax action. This time I brought the volunteers More than 1000 people crossed the mountains to the St. Paul Diocese. They encountered four attacks along the way, and lost more than 50 people in total, but left less than [-] enemy troops, and they were Indians. , The battle loss ratio is so bad, it's really annoying."

"As long as we stay here for a long time, such attacks will emerge one after another. The Diocese of St. Paul is famous for its flag team. These people are out all the year round, sometimes staying for several months or more than a year. When the news comes back, our pressure will be even greater, and there may be even more casualties." Xiao Xi swallowed smoke rings, squinted and said: "Actually, a head-on confrontation is not terrible at all. I am a second mixed battalion. They can completely defeat them. The fear is that we are afraid of this kind of piecemeal attack. How many people do we have to fight with them? Today we will knock you ten or eight, and tomorrow we will kill you fifteen or six, plus the long-term epidemic disease factor , It is simply unimaginable. The second mixed battalion is the main force of the country, and every soldier is an elite trained at a high price. It is too worthless to waste here..."

Captain Yang Liang understood what Xiao Xi meant, if he really wanted to occupy this place for a long time instead of just grabbing it and leaving, he still had to increase his troops.However, is this really feasible locally?

(End of this chapter)