Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 1909 Hunting Country ([-])

On the right bank of the Paraná River, dark clouds hung over.

"Teacher Wang said to set off immediately!" A student wearing glasses walked up to a team of mules and horses who were resting, waved his hand, and said loudly: "The weather is a bit bad now, try to arrive at the ferry before nightfall, otherwise I'm afraid you will have to go to the ferry." Sleeping in the wind and rain."

The people who were resting their eyes closed their eyes and scolded for a while, then stood up quickly one by one, started to pack their luggage, and prepared to go on the road.This is still "enemy territory", it is the land under the rule of the Paraguayan General of the Prosecutor's Court District of Buenos Aires, Spain (Paraguay originally belonged to the Chalkas Prosecutor's Court District, and has now been assigned to Buenos Aires Liss), strictly speaking, this group of people from the East Coast entered the country without permission, and the Spaniards have the right to arrest or even kill them.

Of course, the Spaniards are determined not to dare to do this, and the East Coast people know this very well.Because they even did the more excessive thing of setting up a forward stronghold in Paraguay, let alone crossing the border?It's so insignificant.As long as the pioneer settlement of Monze (near the later town of Mayor José Martínez) remains, the weak nature of the Spaniards will never be changed. What is a few activists who cross the border?I really annoyed the people on the east coast. They sent naval gunboats up the river and blocked the external contact here. What can you do?

Perhaps it is also for this reason that after the Spaniards discovered the cross-border settlement point on the right bank of the Paraná River in Monze Township and reported it, Buenos Aires has been "slow to respond" and faltered. I, apart from a few mild protests through the ambassador to the east coast, I have nothing else to say.Maybe they were negligent, maybe they were afraid of people from the east coast, maybe it was because they had heard such news for many years that their ears were callused, in short, the Buenos Aires Prosecutor’s Court ignored this matter, it seemed to be tacit The privilege of cross-border reclamation of the people on the east coast here.

Compared with them, the reaction of the Paraguayan local government was even more drastic.Under the organization of the church and the Paraguayan generals, they used various means to harass, attack, blockade, and isolate this settlement of the people on the east coast.However, because it can be supplied by the big river, the Spaniards' various methods failed. Monze Township still stands tenaciously on the right bank of the Paraná River, becoming a symbol of the expansion of the East Bank like Paraguay.

Later, I didn't know what kind of avenues the theater troupe had gone through, and what price was paid in exchange for the superior's promise not to continue to expand in Paraguay, which is also strange.Many people have speculated that probably because of Paraguay's dense population, rich economy, and the barrier of the Chalkas Prosecutor's Court District (it is also the barrier of the Potosi silver mine), the Spaniards are really unwilling to use this land. Their rights and interests have been violated, so they exchanged interests with the East Bank in exchange for their promise not to continue any form of expansion in Paraguay-of course, this is also temporary, and no one can tell what will happen in the future.

However, although he promised not to continue to expand, the already established Mengze Township will not be withdrawn anyway.Not only that, after learning that the upper management had reached a provisional agreement with the Spaniards, the subordinates seized the gap before the order was delivered, and sent people to the vicinity of the later Umaita town to set up a new one. The settlement, named "Hequdu Township", is not only a pioneer settlement, but also a ferry leading to the Chaco Great Plains in the west.

The "ferry" that the student mentioned just now actually refers to the meandering of the river. People from the east bank settled about a thousand settlers here, and at the same time built a pier, and used small wooden boats to travel between the two sides of the Paraguay River to transfer some supplies and personnel.Now the group of them, whose ultimate goal is actually to cross the meander to the Chaco Plain on the west bank, is walking on the extremely bad muddy road between Mengze Township and Ximendu Township.

Because of poor drainage, there are swamps everywhere along the way, and it is winter and spring, and many swamps have dried up and disappeared.If there is abundant rainfall in summer and autumn, the number of swamps and ponds will be even more terrifying. Flooding is not a joke, but a real fact.At that time, it was not a question of muddy roads, but a question of whether there were roads.

From here, it can also be seen that the left bank of the Paraná River (the river zone under the east bank) that has spent huge sums of money to build water conservancy facilities, and the right bank that has not built any effective flood prevention and conservancy facilities. land difference.People from the East Bank formulated a grand plan of "50 million yuan water conservancy investment in 500 years" in the river zone, and it has been implemented for many years now, with remarkable results.In the counties in the south near the Wujiang River that were built earlier, long embankments have been built along the river to prevent the threat of floods during the wet season.At the same time, the river channels in the counties have also been widened and dredged. Now not only can boats be sailed, but water can also be released faster during high water seasons, so as not to flood farmland and other facilities.

But what about the Spaniards?I'm sorry, it's not that they don't invest at all, in fact they still have, but the problem is that it's not enough!And with such a pitiful amount, they have also invested more in important areas (such as the capital Asunción and other places), and it is impossible to spend money in such remote places. Isn't that enough to support them?Not many people lived there.

However, after these lands are occupied by the East Bank, they will continue to invest in renovations in the future, which is a blessing.But as far as it is concerned, the long-distance water cannot quench the near-thirst, and the people on the east bank still can only trek through the mule and horse team.Fortunately, this meeting is actually not far from Hequdu Township. After a lot of effort, they finally arrived in the village safely when the sky was just getting dark. It was pouring rain.

"It's really good luck." While waiting for the cadres of the township government to prepare dinner for everyone, Wang Zhijie spread out the documents in his collection, planning to go through the next work plan.

In the notebooks were records of the Chaco Plains by the young and enthusiastic staff officers of the Gendarmerie Command.These young people who have not graduated from the military academy or the Bingtuan Fort not long ago took risks and entered this strange and dangerous continent many times, observed, surveyed and recorded a lot of information, and then compiled it into a book and shared it with other departments.Wang Zhijie had a copy in hand, and saw that it read: "...Chaco is flat, stretches as far as the eye can see, and the altitude is extremely low, so some flood areas, swamps and lakes have been formed. However, the terrain of the Chaco Plain is still inclined, This has been revealed by the northwest-southeast flow of some rivers converging towards the Parana River, that is, the terrain is high in the west and low in the east. On the map, the slope of the Chaco land can also be seen through the change of the contour line, the 100-meter contour line This plain spreads obliquely from northeast to southwest. The distance between the Prison Chaco and the Atlantic Ocean is so long, so it is rare for the Chaco Plain to be so low. Its lowest part has been observed by us, and it should be in the city of Resistencia On the river bank to the east, the altitude there is even only 70 meters.”

“…the slightly sloping ground creates a floodplain, so drainage is a priority. Unfortunately, the Spaniards haven’t paid attention to hydraulic engineering for a century and a half, so the entire Chaco Plain remains largely intact. Primitive landscape, with unreliable drainage leading to frequent diversions of rivers, as evidenced by the fact that many rivers have abandoned wadi beds. Stagnant water bodies form swamps, micro-lakes, which are one of the elements that make up the Chaco landscape. Unfortunately What's more, due to poor drainage, these water bodies have been accumulated for thousands of years. These water bodies have high mineral content, and most of them are brackish water lakes. The Quechua people often take advantage of the dry winter and some small lakes dry up and disappear. Scrape the salt from the bottom of the lake."

“…a lot of the land near swamps and lakes is sandy, and dunes have formed in many places. The riverbeds of the rivers are deep, especially in the eastern Chaco. But there are also areas where the banks of the rivers are low-lying plains, and these Wetlands formed after the flooding of the plains seem to be usable in principle, but they require huge manpower, material resources and energy to be transformed in advance, just like many counties in the river region.”

Wang Zhijie quickly finished reading these documents, and then sighed softly, because there was no information on climate and hydrology.However, considering that this is the information collected by the army's intelligence officers during their staff trips, it is already quite good to be able to relate to the soil conditions when the terrain is written, what more bicycles are needed!For more information, I'm afraid I have to go there and investigate it myself.However, I heard that the State Development Administration has set up a weather station there, and it has been collecting weather stations for more than two years in a cross-border reclamation site called Hexi Township (located near the later town of La Leonesa). If you go to the climate data yourself, you should be able to gain something.

Thinking of this, Wang Zhijie took out his notebook and wrote it down.Climate, hydrology, topography and soil information are undoubtedly crucial to the development of an area, especially the lowland plains, which are often flooded.Without these relevant data references, are you going to learn from the British, Spanish and French on the North American continent, completely relying on God to determine how this year's harvest will be, and whether next year's winter will pass?That's too rough, not the East Coast style.

And speaking of that weather station, I have to mention its director, Wang Dazhuang.This gentleman is the eldest grandson of Wang Dali, one of the founders of East Coast exploration, botany, and geology. He graduated from Bingtuanbao and is currently a section-level cadre in the Meteorological Administration of the Ministry of Geology.It was Wang Dazhuang's initiative to work at the Hexi Township Meteorological Station, and he got the consent of his grandfather Wang Dali, who had just passed away from illness not long ago. Going to a more dangerous grassroots level to train and work is a highlight in his resume. Wang Dazhuang This is actually done in order to have enough political capital for promotion in the future, which is very popular among the second and third generations.

Wang Zhijie and others finally rested overnight in Hequdu Township.Early the next morning, after eating the delicious fish porridge, they brought a lot of flatbread and pickled crocodile meat as reserve food - because the swamps are everywhere, the number of crocodiles here is amazing, So much so that it has become a pest and had to be hunted and killed on a large scale-then they were carried by multiple wooden boats sent by the township government, crossed the river in multiple batches, and officially stood on the land of the Chaco Plain.

This place is still a certain distance from Hexi Township, and there are swamps and ponds everywhere, which made Wang Zhijie frown.You know, it is winter, the standard dry season, and many swamps and ponds are about to disappear, but there is still a standard wetland in front of you, so you can imagine what it looks like in summer and autumn.In this way, it is no wonder that the people of the State Development Bureau chose Hexi Township as the first (and only) official reclamation site on the Chaco Plain for the people on the east coast. Ah, the annoying floodplain!

"Water conservancy is the lifeblood of the development of the Chaco Plain." Wang Zhijie sighed softly and muttered to himself: "The burden of water conservancy construction in the Hejian area has been on the head of the central government for many years, and They also have the construction of water conservancy facilities along the Wujiang River and the Heihe River, and the construction of water conservancy facilities in the upper reaches of the Tiete River and the Parana River in the north. How can they still get money to build a river that is not within the territory of their own country? What about the 'wild land'. So, the future development in the Chaco region will probably focus on inland areas away from the Paraguay River and the Paraná River system, which may be inconvenient in terms of supplies. , I don’t know how it will be resolved in the future.”

With such doubts or worries, Wang Zhijie and his party did not delay, and immediately organized the team, and then walked towards Hexi Township, and finally arrived at this desolate place on August 1684, 8. , frontier settlements with almost nothing.

This settlement was established at the end of last year. There are currently more than 800 people, but more than half of them are non-productive soldiers, that is, officers and soldiers of the Hexi Garrison Command under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Military Affairs, and belong to the Army Reserve system.The reason why the ratio of people reclaiming wasteland and farming to armed combatants is close to 1:1 is actually related to the relatively poor security situation here.Of course, the more important factor is that the National Development Administration intends to secretly set up more settlements. The four hundred soldiers of the garrison will still be dispersed at that time, so that the pressure on individual settlements will be much smaller.

"The young people from the Development Bureau have a lot of appetite, but they don't know whether the actual situation supports their radical move." Wang Zhijie thought with a slight smile.

(End of this chapter)