Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 1284 Order Rectification ([-])

And if you thought white shirts were all about that, then you'd be wrong!Do not believe?please look below.

If there is an endorsement from the Executive Committee, the people from the Ministry of Finance can still allocate large tracts of land in South Africa, New China, Australia, and even the Blackwater region, allowing Indians (and possibly a small number of Portuguese) with military tickets to come and register for purchase. .This method of recycling military tickets can not only greatly reduce cash expenditures, but also send out these Indians. While enriching the population of the colony, it also makes room for the local Ming immigrants. Thanks, these extremely stingy white shirts can definitely do it.

"Damn, they're still ruthless! It's equivalent to sending a large number of Indians out without a dime, and it is very likely that they did it without causing any resentment. This method is absolutely perfect!" Mo Ming thought with some admiration, "But I'm letting them go. I don't have the energy to take care of too many things. It's best to leave it to professional people to play with money. The white shirts in the Ministry of Finance deal with money every day, and people don't care about money." It’s shameless enough, so it’s probably the best choice for the army to hand over all the messy things like rectifying military tickets to the aftermath. Anyway, they’ve already spent 450 million yuan (mostly in the form of land and manors) ), the biggest piece of cake is in your hands, isn't it?"

Thinking of this, Mo Ming immediately said: "Okay, Lao Zhou, since you came here following the will of the Executive Committee, then our Joint Staff Headquarters has no objection, so I leave it to you. The headquarters of the Brazilian Rural Financial Cooperative is located In the port of San Vicente—by the way, the port has been renamed Changshun Port, which means prosperity and smoothness—you can send someone to take it over. you."

"It's still the Chief of Staff Mo who is refreshing." Seeing that the biggest task has been completed (that is, to obtain the control of the Brazilian Rural Financial Cooperative, the white shirt is very vigilant about the people in the military's infiltration of power into the financial field), he immediately smiled. Said: "Please rest assured, we will arrange professionals to take over the Brazilian Rural Financial Cooperative in Changshun Port as soon as possible, and at the same time put up a sign to recycle military tickets conditionally as soon as possible to help you curb the depreciation trend of military tickets and let you keep your money. The last bit of money is also spent, haha. By the way, what is the population of the occupied area now, I mean all the population including Indians, mixed-race whites, whites, and our immigrants."

"It's not easy to say." Mo Ming leaned back comfortably on the chair, held a pipe in his hand, squinted his eyes and thought, "There are not many white people left, and most of them may have left. There may be a third person left." Four thousand is incredible, these are all poorer classes, or speculators. There are more mixed-race whites, because they are also a class that is discriminated against. Although the St. Yes, there are about 1 people in this group, which is more than [-]. The rest are Indians. This number is quite a lot, but it must be a lot. The number that is in our hands and has been registered is It has already exceeded [-], and the remaining unregistered, hiding, and running away are even more uncountable. They will definitely not be less than [-], and even far exceed this number. After all, they are willing to follow the original owner of the manor. There should not be many in northern Brazil, and they are all their Indian thugs."

"That is to say, there are nearly [-] residents in our occupied area, and all of them have been registered and clearly controlled?" Zhou Shenwo's eyes lit up when he heard this. This is not a small number. In terms of operation—unfortunately, most of the people (Indians and mixed-race whites) are going to be sent to overseas colonies, otherwise they will definitely be the main force in the development of occupied areas. Now they have to make way for Ming immigrants, which is a pity.

"By the way, your Joint Chiefs of Staff has no deduction or prediction. How long do you think this war will go on? So many people are wasted outside, and the military pay alone exceeds 200 million yuan a year. This is not counted as disability. Pensions, otherwise there will be more. In addition, the consumption of war materials is also a big one. We will spend 400 million in war expenses for one year, which is really unbearable." Zhou Shenwo suddenly threw Out of this problem that caused headaches for everyone, he asked.He is also really worried. Although the army and navy are reporting frequent successes, the war expenses will always exist, so he, the top financial official, is not worried.

"It's hard to say." Mo Ming directly gave this "irresponsible" answer. After thinking about it, maybe he himself felt that such an answer was inappropriate, so he persuaded him: "I said, Lao Zhou, you are so worried. A few days ago, news came from Xinhua Island that the navy led by Minister Li Yi achieved a great victory there, almost completely annihilating the Portuguese squadron, but its own losses were extremely slight. Well, more importantly, They seized a total of nearly 300 million yuan in cash and goods. Although many of the goods in it will inevitably be discounted when they are realized, they are still quite a large amount, which is of great help to us in continuing the war.

"In addition, here in the native Brazil, the spoils of more than 100 million yuan (mostly in cash) have been seized in the previous statistics, and the land bidding, auction and listing are also going smoothly. The local old citizens donate generously and snap up a lot , some investors also tentatively invest in the 30-year and 50-year leasehold rights of Portuguese manors. This is also an income, and the superposition of the two has already exceeded 100 million yuan. Well, the total sum has exceeded 500 million yuan Even if the goods need to be sold at a discount, there will still be an income close to 400 million yuan. After deducting the war expenses for a year, there will be a few hundred thousand yuan left. Moreover, this number may continue to increase. Macau, India, East Africa , Brazil’s potential is far from exhausted, and it can continue to support us to continue the war, what are you afraid of?" Mo Ming continued to smoke and said, "Besides, in the second half of this year, we will be in Bahia or Puerto Rico except once. Apart from the large-scale landing operations in the Nambuco General District, there may be no other land military operations. Generally speaking, the main focus is consolidation, digestion, and harassment, so there is no need to maintain an overly large army. Many conscripts The county militia security regiment can be disbanded and go home, and then gradually hand over some tasks to non-national cannon fodder, which can save a lot of money. In other words, from now on, our war expenses may actually be less There will be as much as three or four million yuan, maybe it will be less than three million yuan, what are you afraid of?"

What Mo Ming said actually meant something.Because after half a year of fighting, the situation in the newly occupied area in southern Brazil has basically settled down. Except for the small-scale raids by the Sao Paulo flag team who are still unwilling to fail, most of the area has been occupied by the east bank army. .

Among them, among the troops led by Commander-in-Chief Zhu of the South Route Army, a part (i.e., the West Route Detachment) with thousands of people had advanced to the Rio Grande Basin in early February 1661, and Zhu Liang's headquarters also moved from Igua Su Gang moved all the way north to the south bank of the Tiet River so that he could command nearby.However, the limit of their troops is probably here. After all, the further north, the longer the supply line, the more places need to be divided into guards, and the soldiers will be more tired. Not to mention the battle, this disease is enough to reduce the number of personnel. The road detachment team drank a pot up and down.Therefore, after contacting them, the Ministry of the Army asked the Ministry to suspend its advance to the north and turn to the east along the Tiete River and the Rio Grande River, and search and advance all the way if supplies can be obtained.Mo Ming especially emphasized that the pace of marching can be slowed down appropriately, but the safety of the entire army must be ensured, and the enemy should not let the enemy take advantage of it. The Ministry has indeed implemented this order seriously, and its actions are extremely careful—even it can be said that Slowness—it has not yet joined forces with Xiao Xi's troops who marched westward from St. Paul, which can be seen.

In addition, its other unit (the East Road Detachment), with thousands of people, joined forces with Yang Liang's unit, who had trekked inland from the Paranagua Bay area in mid-October last year.Then the two hard-pressed troops merged into one, and it took almost ten days to wait for the supplies from Baode County to be delivered.After receiving supplies, the two departments spent more than three months sweeping the entire inland hinterland after boarding some of the wounded and sick through Paranagua Bay, and made a lot of money at the same time. , and also suppressed most of the other potential anti-East Bank elements-fortunately, this place is not as strong as the resistance of the St. Paul Diocese in the north. After laying a solid foundation), the two ministries left some militiamen to guard the various key points, and the rest were concentrated in Paranagua Bay, waiting for the navy's ships to be shipped to the general area of ​​​​Rio de Janeiro.

At the end of February 1661, Captain Yang Liang led this group of troops to the outside of Rio de Janeiro. At that time, the troops commanded by Lieutenant Zhou Yafu had captured the Sugarloaf Mountain fortress in a bloody battle.In this battle, the second brigade of the Volunteer Army composed of Indians suffered heavy casualties in the storm. Even the security regiment of Yong'an County, which was originally planned to supervise the battle, was later thrown into battle at a critical moment. More than 2 people were killed and injured in the whole regiment. If you look at the battle losses in previous battles, more than half of the regiment was killed and injured, and finally had to be disbanded and returned home by the Ministry of War—it is said that a quarter of the families in Yong’an County wear filial piety. The tough Lieutenant Zhou Yafu's accusations were also rampant, and the young Lieutenant Zhou was also quite embarrassed for a while.

However, the smooth capture of the Sugarloaf Mountain fortress allowed the people on the east coast to mount long-barreled heavy artillery and bombard the Fortress of the Conception of Our Lady within range, the last Portuguese stronghold within the city limits of Rio de Janeiro.It is said that the Ministry of the Army urgently transferred eight 24-pound long-barrel heavy guns from the Navy, and then organized a large number of manpower to waste their milk. It took a long time to transport these heavy guns to Sugarloaf Mountain, and then erected them. After that, bombard the Fortress of the Conception of the Virgin, which was once at odds with it.

There were no more than 700 Portuguese defenders in the Fortress of the Conception of Our Lady, and there were some artillery, but due to the angle, caliber, barrel and even insufficient ammunition, they were completely unable to compete with the 24-pound heavy artillery of the East Coasters, and they were quickly defeated. It's coming.Since then, throughout March, the Fortress of Our Lady's Conception has been bombarded by the people on the east coast regardless of the cost. Finally, at the end of the month, the Portuguese defenders finally couldn't hold on and raised a white flag to Captain Yang Liang, who was in charge of commanding the battle, saying that Surrendered, and Captain Yang also accepted their surrender and sent troops to the Fortress of the Conception of the Virgin. So far, the entire General District of Rio de Janeiro has completely fallen under the control of the East Coast people, and there is no trace of the enemy anymore.

As for some other scattered battles, they are not too important. Among them, the relatively important ones are probably the local recruitment of about [-] Transylvanian prisoners of war with combat experience from labor workers, and then promised them (that is, after the end of the war, nationality will be granted regardless of the reason) to cheer up and form the fourth battalion of the Volunteer Army.

The Fourth Battalion boarded a naval transport ship in Dongfang Port in early February, and then landed in General Espiritu Santo in a mighty manner to replace a county security regiment that had disbanded and returned home. The enemy wiped it out thoroughly, and the fighting was completely over at the beginning of this month (April).In this battle, the Ministry went deep into the hot and humid forest area for more than a month. The number of casualties in the battle was only a mere 4 people, but the number of staff lost due to illness was as high as [-], which was extremely scary. Difficulty of combat——Fortunately, these prisoners of war are completely consumables in the eyes of some people in the Ministry of War, and they don't feel distressed at all. That's why they took action to sweep up the Portuguese stronghold in the forest area.

In fact, the people on the east coast can no longer fight the war on land, and the Portuguese lost their control of the sea, so they dare not draw a large army to go south to compete with the people on the east coast. At last, except for the landing operation plan (which is only likely to be implemented) that the Ministry of War is formulating.

And it is precisely because of this that Chief of General Staff Mo just said that "war expenses may drop on a large scale". After all, it is no longer necessary to maintain a large number of county militia security groups outside, so that domestic industrial and agricultural production ——especially the crucial agricultural production—has been affected, and it is entirely possible to let the newly formed cheap cannon fodder (that is, four volunteer army brigades, which can almost reach five county militia security groups) to undertake various combat tasks , Instead, withdraw some of their own people, so as not to cause some serious social problems. After all, the scene of a quarter of the families in Yong'an County wearing sackcloth and filial piety is too terrifying, and no one wants such a thing to happen again.

"Okay, your words are enough. The next thing to watch in this war should be how to conduct diplomatic negotiations and make it safe." Zhou Shenwo said with a smile after hearing the words.

(End of this chapter)