Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 1807 Central Valley ([-])

On November 1679, 11, it was the season when farm work was increasing in a year.

The gate of Tu'erling Prison was opened, and mules full of grain walked out of the gate made of thick planks.On the other side of them, carts loaded with sulfur were heading for the warehouse in the prison.Some reservist militiamen with bayonet rifles watched these hard-working exiled prisoners with vigilant eyes, in case they suddenly couldn't think of something to do, although this possibility was very small.

Tuerling prison is a newly established prison for exiled prisoners in the first half of this year. Naturally, it also crosses the border.This prison is located near the small town of Nertume in later generations of Chile. It earns a living economically by mining sulfur and planting cold-resistant crops. Currently, there are about a thousand exiled prisoners from all over the country serving their sentences here.

It can be seen from the map that Tuerling Prison is located in the mountains to the northeast of Crate House Prison, and it happens to be in the middle of a traffic tunnel leading to Shuofang County in the Patagonia region. The geographical location is quite critical.Moreover, sulfur and limestone are abundant nearby, and many aquatic organisms including trout are also stocked in the nearby lakes (the harvest is not small when fishing in winter, and it is an important source of protein supplement for exiled prisoners and their families), and there are also some mountain flats It can be reclaimed and planted, so the Ministry of Justice and the Regional Administration of Southern Chile jointly decided to set up a prison here with the main purpose of cross-border reclamation, namely Tuerling Prison.

Due to the constraints of the terrain, the exiled prisoners in Tuerling Prison were not as scattered as in the slatted house, but more concentrated.Some of them cut wood to build roads, some mined ore, and some worked as laborers by the lake, loading and unloading goods for small boats coming from the east. The rest of them planted food, Vegetables, and grazing goats, in short, it looks like an ordinary farming town.

In the summer and autumn of this year, Shuofang County on the other side of the mountain organized a team of mules and horses to go to the Central Valley via Tuerling Prison, and the result was a great success.Not only did they send a considerable amount of living materials and labor tools to the prison, but they also traded with the Spaniards in the Central Valley, selling their surplus cloth, leather, and cheese, and imported a lot of butter there. , dried fruit, and silver bars are very profitable.

With the opening of this trade route, the status of Tuerling Prison became more and more important.No, even Zhao Ke, the commissioner of the Southern Chile Regional Administration, quietly crossed the border river this year, and came to inspect this piece of land that is still nominally part of the territory of the Kingdom of Spain. in the eyes.

The exiles who colonized outside the prison walls lived in the prison on weekdays. Single men shared a room with each other, and married prisoners shared a room with their families.Accompanied by the warden of the prison, Zhao Ke entered the prison cell with a pleasant smell, and started a quick inspection.

The cells were not locked, and there were two bachelors living in the first cell after entering the door. According to the yellowed note pasted on the door, one of them was a non-national of Poland who had become a regular worker, and the other was an immigrant from the Ming Dynasty.The crime of the former is to believe in a cult, and the crime of the latter is to steal the public’s cattle and sheep. The crimes committed by the two are not serious crimes. Under the general environment of prison terms), these people were sent to the border areas by the judges of the county and township courts and regional circuit courts in order to enrich the population of the border areas.

The clothes on the two prisoners were torn, their bodies were covered with hair like spiders, their eyelids were drooping, and they were lifeless.Looking around, Zhao Ke saw that there was nothing in the 20-square-meter cell except for a few simple pieces of wooden furniture. Not even a single nail could be seen, and it was extremely shabby.

Opposite this prison house lived an old man full of vicissitudes, but according to the information, he was only about 40 years old and came from Huating County, Songjiang Prefecture, Ming Dynasty.Originally a businessman in the incense candle business, he had no special talents and only relied on the shop handed down from his ancestors to support his family.After coming to the east bank, he originally went to cultivate in the Brazilian plateau, but his family members died of an epidemic, and he himself committed another crime—giving grain seeds and livestock loaned from the Northwest Reclamation Bank to I ate it, and more than once, in the end, I owed tens of yuan in principal and interest to the bank, and the result was directly sent to Chile after being judged by the court-finally ended up in exile, which was also miserable.

Zhao Ke was a little skeptical that the reclamation work could really be done well by relying on these lack of energy and energy.However, he was relieved when he thought that the Slat House Prison had been operating normally all these years, and had even developed a large settlement around it.People's desire to survive is really strong. Even the "bad people" he saw in front of him shouldn't be the kind of lifeless people who live every day, right?Perhaps, as some prison cadres said, their dying, powerless, numb and decadent, to some extent, is indeed a kind of protection for themselves, protecting themselves from long, dangerous and cruel sentences. During the period, he was devastated too much.Once they have served their sentences and are granted their own land by the prison, their enthusiasm and desire for life are immediately mobilized, and many of them even take over their wives and children from their hometowns. , and settled together in the original prison area, becoming a new local population.

After inspecting all the more than 200 prison cells, Zhao Ke returned to the prison square and let out a long breath, as if he had just returned to the world from hell.Although the Crate House and Tuerling prisons have made great contributions to the cross-border reclamation work, there is no doubt that the environment is also extremely poor. To put it bluntly, this is exchanging the health and lives of the exiled prisoners for the east. The occupation and development of these wild lands by the shore people.

After checking the prison cells, everyone went to the grain depot, weapon depot, ore field, stables, canteen, bathroom, woodshed and other places to check—it was said to be a prison, but in fact it was similar to a fortress, with all kinds of facilities corresponding Everything is complete - especially focus on checking the grain depot.Zhao Ke had supervised agricultural work in Baoyi County for many years, and he knew a lot about farming, so he focused on asking about the composition and source of grain in the grain depot, and learned that nearly one-third of the grain depot was locally produced black Wheat and potatoes, one third is wheat, potatoes, corn and bacon from the south, and the remaining third is transported by mules and horses from Shuofang County in the east of Shandong in summer, usually wheat and beans, sometimes There are also some oilseeds and other advanced foods.

"The food supply is not bad, basically in line with the food subsidy standards for exiled prisoners stipulated by the state. Our accounts are also very clear. We have well-documented accounts of all kinds of food purchased from Nanfang or Shuofang County. The remaining funds for food subsidies, We also distributed them to every exiled prisoner on the list by head to ensure that no property belonging to the prisoners would be embezzled." The warden with a beautiful mustache assured Zhao Ke sternly.His attitude is very respectful, because starting this year, the Slat House Prison and the Rabbit Ridge Prison are under the joint jurisdiction of the Ministry of Justice and the Regional Administration of Southern Chile.

"The mood of the prisoners is also very good. So far, only a handful of them have escaped, and most of them have been arrested. In the final analysis, this is because the work arranged by our prison is actually not very heavy, nothing more than logging, road construction, and mining , fishing, farming and transportation. Oh, yes, there are also taking turns to guard the lake (later Lake Pirihuek) and serve as postmen and wharf laborers. In fact, they are all within the tolerance of the prisoners work, so it did not provoke a large-scale escape." The warden continued.Moreover, when it comes to this, he is also very proud. For example, in the nearby Spanish colonial cities, there are often Indians who were forced to come to labor under the "Mita" system. The proportion of these aborigines who fled is very high. (Of course the death rate is also very high), it can be seen that the Spaniards squeezed these people very cruelly, but it is obvious that even so, the labor efficiency of these Indian hard labor is far from that of the people on the east coast. In addition to differences in culture and civilization, I am afraid that more gaps are in the art of management.

"That's good, that's good. The location of Tu'erling Prison is a key link between east and west. In addition, the vicinity is rich in sulfur, which is urgently needed by domestic industry and military, and its economic value is not small. Of course, excluding The role of these two aspects, the two prisons of Slat House and Rabbit Ridge, are also the bridgeheads for our country to further encroach on the fertile Central Valley to the north, and they also play a huge role. Everyone knows that the Kingdom of Spain is no longer as grand as it was a hundred years ago , the situation of the country is declining, the people are in dire straits, and the army has lost consecutive battles. How can such a "prodigal son" be able to keep the family business handed down by his ancestors well? No way, this great mountain and river in Chile should be from the east coast. Take it." At this time, everyone had turned to the prison gate, looking at the exiled prisoners who were still busy transporting supplies, Zhao Kelang said in a loud voice: "So don't be afraid of the Spaniards, they are just toothless tigers now , It’s just a bluff. I heard that the Spaniards from the north came over to negotiate last month, don’t be afraid, they dare not do anything.”

The warden nodded and said: "The Spaniards are indeed bluffing, and they may even be afraid of us. This time they came here to negotiate, but because the establishment of our Tuerling Prison has already bypassed theirs." In the rear, they threatened the safety of some small silver mines they opened inland, so they sent a hundred or eighty cavalry to threaten them, but we didn't hesitate at all, and directly copied the guys to confront them. In the end, they didn't dare to shoot , slipped away in desperation."

It is said that after the people on the east bank set up Tuerling Prison, although it was close to the mountain, it was indeed geographically very close to the scattered small silver mining areas of the Spaniards, and only in terms of latitude It has also gone to a place further north than Valdivia, the silver mine export port, which made the local Spanish colonial government feel a little uncomfortable and had to come forward to negotiate.

But this kind of negotiation, just as the warden said just now, it is impossible to achieve any good results when the Spaniards are wary.In the end, I am afraid that it will end without a problem just like the countless negotiations in history. The people on the east coast continued to erode, and the Spaniards retreated step by step, and finally lost the land under their feet.

"The Spaniards are killers, their black eyes can't see the white money. You see, they didn't care at all when the slatted houses were set up. After the Tuerling was set up, they were in a hurry. They were afraid that we would attack from here and copy their inland villages and towns. Silver mines. Haha, forget it, ignore them. They continue to mine their silver mines, and we do our own thing, so we have nothing to do with each other. Now the Spaniards can’t figure out our way, just subconsciously nervous, After knowing that we have no interest in their silver mines, they will probably calm down a bit. After all, they don't have the courage to shoot at us. The consequences are too serious for them to bear." Zhao Ke responded: "But You still have to be prepared to some extent. Prisoners are not to be relied upon, but the reserve militia must be well trained. The regional administrative office has decided that after the Chinese New Year, there will be [-] additional reserve militia for you and the Slat House Prison, from six counties in the south. They are dispatched in rotation, and the term of detention is at least two years."

"So many soldiers have been added all of a sudden, is there something wrong?" The warden was a little nervous, smelling something bad, so he hurriedly asked.

"Actually, it's not a big deal. It's okay to tell you. That is, the Ministry of Justice and the Regional Administration have decided to add two prison colonies in the nearby area next year, pushing the control area northward step by step. This may naturally cause the Spaniards to I was a little panicked, but it doesn't matter, we have made all the preparations, and there will be no big trouble." Zhao Ke said.

The two new reclamation areas mentioned by Zhao Ke just now are the Luyuan Prison near the later town of Paiaco and the Shihezi Prison near the later town of Los Lagos.Among them, the former is okay, there are only some small Spanish villages nearby, and the population density is not high, but there are Spanish silver mines near the latter, which is more troublesome. Once they advance here, the Spaniards can no longer pretend to be deaf. To react strongly.

The warden doesn't know what will happen at that time, but since Zhao Ke, the commissioner of the district administrative office, looks determined now, there must be a way to deal with it, so that he doesn't have to worry about it, and he should take care of himself and bow his head Things are important, so as not to be caught off guard if something happens.

On November 1679, 11, Zhao Ke, who had secretly patrolled the north, finally returned to Maolin Port.As soon as he sat in the office, the county magistrate of Guanhai County, who had been waiting for a long time, hurried over and told him that the Southern Railway Company had just announced that it had split up the last part of the county's freight wharf and timber processing factory. Sold or closed, fully divested from the county by this point.Zhao Ke was somewhat surprised by this news, but at the same time understood. It seems that the Southern Railway Company is indeed short of money!

(End of this chapter)