Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 1914 Pampa (Twenty)

Alvarez Rodriguez has returned to Buenos Aires accompanied by his son Jose.

A meeting was held in the Pampa Plain, and they were forced to subscribe for more than 1 yuan in stocks. At the same time, they were also hinted to donate part of the grain, cured meat and forage to the American Railway Company to relieve their pressure on purchasing materials.Rodriguez was extremely troubled by all these troubles, and it was really depressing that the people from the east coast had called them over to pay the apportionment.

In addition, the protest against the "horse bandit" attack to the people on the east coast also ended without a problem.The Vice President Chen of the American Railway Company just blindly denied that this matter was not within his scope of business, and asked him to report to the relevant department through formal diplomatic channels.Such an answer, of course, is difficult to satisfy Rodriguez, but he has nothing to do. The railway company really doesn't care about this matter, and it's useless to say it.And through the so-called formal channels?That would be even less effective. Neither General de la Plata nor the ambassador to the east coast could achieve any positive results.The vast bureaucratic machine on the East Coast didn’t seem to respond particularly to their complaints, or if it did, it wouldn’t be the result they wanted—Alvarez still remembers that when tens of thousands of East Coast When the immigrants came to the Pampa Plain, because of the protests of the Spaniards, the east bank government sent an investigation team to investigate, and came to the absurd conclusion that there were only "more than 100" pioneers operating agriculture in the Pampa Plain.

If you really want to talk about these things, you still have to blame your own lack of strength!People on the east coast are extremely realistic people, and they value strength very much.If you have no strength, he will never put you in his eyes.You can see their warships coming and going in the Rio de la Plata, showing off their might, and their tax police force even blatantly smuggling in the territory of the Kingdom of Spain. When did they respect the sovereignty of the Kingdom of Spain?Therefore, Alvarez has now resigned to his fate. It is estimated that this matter, like most previous protests, has slowly disappeared amidst endless evasion and wrangling by people on the east coast, and no one has paid attention to it.

However, the matter of the "horse bandits" on the east bank can be ignored for the time being, but what is the damage and purpose they caused?Alvarez talked with some manor owners who suffered losses a while ago, and felt that the matter might not be that simple, because the intensity and time of this attack were far longer than before, and it seemed that it was not just a simple act of revenge, but also mixed with some other factors.As for the other factors, Alvarez has a vague understanding, but he still dare not confirm it, because it is too shocking and ridiculous, that is, the people on the east coast want to drive them out of Buenos Aires. Les away!

This is actually not impossible!We all know how rich the surrounding area of ​​Buenos Aires is and how crucial its geographical location is. People on the east coast want to get this city so urgently, especially after the railway has been built to this city. When the Lata Pearl was in the suburbs.

But there are many obstacles in front of people on the east coast, the biggest of which is undoubtedly the important position of Putrajaya and the many Spanish farmers, herdsmen, soldiers, businessmen, priests and other personnel living here.If these people and their families do not leave, the occupation of the city by the East Coasters will never succeed, unless they obtain legal ownership of the city through political means, which currently seems impossible.

So they used such indecent means?Alvarez was a little uncertain, but felt that the possibility was quite high.But then again, this kind of speculation is not enough to persuade the president of the Buenos Aires prosecutor's court and the top real power figures such as General La Plata to take decisive measures.The upper echelons of Putrajaya have been rotten for a long time. They lack enough courage when facing the people on the east coast, but they are extremely majestic when they are extorting businessmen.If there is no particularly conclusive evidence, those gentlemen will definitely continue to pretend to be deaf and dumb until their term of office is exhausted. There is no other possibility except that Alvarez knows those people too well.

Is it just to let the pagans on the east coast continue to wreak havoc on the vast Pampa Plain?Seeing his son Jose's wrinkled face due to his long-term labor of family affairs, he thought of his grandson Pedro's nostalgia for the prairie, his grandfather Manuel, and his father Alvaro's hard work in running the family business. Alvarez was very sad.He felt that he should do something, but after thinking about it, he let go of these plans, because the risk was too great.The family business created by the Rodriguez family for generations cannot be destroyed because of his personal likes and dislikes. This is an unforgivable thing.

Thinking of this, Alvarez had a headache: This time, the people on the east coast agreed to subscribe for the shares of the Yanbu Railway for about [-] silver pesos. How can it be troublesome to convince other old guys to subscribe for investment? ?You know, there are quite a few people whose properties were damaged in the mad dog-like attack of the "horse bandits" on the east coast.It is indeed a very challenging thing to get them to pay obediently after being stimulated just now, and Alvarez is not very sure that he can accomplish such a feat!No way, in the end, the Rodriguez family still had to find a way to pay part of the money themselves to make up for the shortfall.

Why is it so difficult?Alvarez sighed for a long time, then clenched the cross hanging on his chest, meditated for a while, and then returned to his villa accompanied by his son Jose.He planned to take a rest for two days to calm down. After all, he was not young anymore, and he was no longer the youthful young man who followed his grandfather and father to smuggle goods from the east coast back to La Plata.After the rest, he planned to visit the leading figures in the city and exchange views with them on the current situation, and then he would visit those old partners one by one to see how to solve the matter of subscribing for stocks.

The spring breeze is blowing, and the greenery is abundant.

On the third-class national road temporarily built for the construction of the railway outside Xinying Township, a long horse team has just finished supplying water and is heading north.They are members of the Yanbu Railway Security Command, commanded by the deputy commander, Major Inigo, and their destination is Nancun Port in the north, where they will join a tax police company commanded by Cai Dao, and while receiving some weapons and ammunition, By the way, the fifty recruits allocated from above were added in.

Today is October 1684, 10, and they have been active in the northern Pampa Plain for almost a month.Of the more than 25 garrison soldiers under his command, there are still about 70 left. All of them are heroic and extremely capable.From this point of view, Alvarez called them "horse bandits", which is not nonsense, because they really look alike.

Inigo's men had just been chased by a Spanish cavalry team before, so they got rid of the enemy and entered Xinying Township for supplies.The township head of this settlement knew how powerful he was, and immediately arranged for them board and lodging, and at the same time summoned the few medical staff to treat the wounded soldiers, not to mention how attentive they were.

Tens of meters away, the townspeople in the town of Franco in the Kingdom of Spain watched the team's "victorious" return with complicated expressions.As the southernmost colonial town of the Kingdom of Spain on the Pampa Plain, the town of Franco is not ignorant of recent events on the grassland.Considering that they live next to the pioneers on the east coast, the feeling is even more complicated. They are afraid that the "horse bandits" on the east coast who can kill will rush here, and then fight with the pioneers on the east coast next door. They should work together from inside to outside, and take the hundreds of colonists left in Franco town to one pot.

Fortunately, such a thing did not happen in the end.The "horse bandits" on the east bank did come, but they only came to buy some supplies, and sold the stolen goods on a small scale, and then walked away without even looking at their small town.This kind of behavior, while letting everyone in the town of Franco breathe a sigh of relief, is even more doubtful: Is it true that the rumors that people from the east coast are interested in Buenos Aires are not just speculation, but a real fact? ?If you think about it this way, things are very frightening. If Buenos Aires is lost, then what is their lonely town of Franco?

Inigo has nothing to do with what the Spaniards think. He only knows that Colonel Guo Handong, who is said to be the Minister of Army in the next government, is very appreciative of him. He personally sent someone to send a message to him, encouraging him to work hard and broaden the lives of the people of the Great East Coast. space and work hard.At the same time, the government of Qingyuan County, his hometown, also enrolled Inigo's two sons into the county middle school without examination, and the future is boundless.All of this made Inigo's desire to make contributions even more intense and unstoppable.Driven by the trust, respect and reasonable incentives given by the people on the East Coast, this Spanish soldier who was once down and out and a veteran of swordsmanship, worked hard to fight for the colonization of the Great East Coast and killed his former compatriots. That is really merciless, and it can be regarded as an anomaly.

Nancun Port is the terminus of the Yanbu Railway, and it is also one of the most important outer ports of Buenos Aires, where business has always been very prosperous.Since the establishment of the tax police camp on the East Bank, a company has been sent to station here, and it has been used as a base to attack all kinds of smuggling activities that evade taxes.Now stationed here is the company led by Cai Dao, who had fought nearby before. Together with many East Coast commercial organizations established here, they have almost covered the entire city and turned Nancungang into an East Coast people. de facto territory.

Cai Dao was very clear about what Inigo and others were doing on the Pampa Plain, so after Inigo's men arrived, he readily opened his arsenal and stockpiled a large number of weapons, ammunition and other military items They were taken out and handed over to Inigo and others under the supervision of the representatives of the Ministry of War.

Inigo looked at those things and was very satisfied.The brand-new rifled rifles can replace the old flintlocks they have on hand, and it will be easier to face the Spaniards who are only equipped with smoothbore flintlocks in the future.You must know that the government on the east coast still has relatively strict control over rifled guns. So far, most of them have been equipped in the regular army system, and very few have flowed into the reserve forces.This time, Inigo was able to receive a hundred rifles and a large amount of ammunition in one go. It was really a blessing, and Shangfeng loved him, so he was very satisfied!

Of course, Inigo also has something that is not so satisfactory, that is, before leaving, Chen Jia, the vice president of Amtrak who rushed to Nancun Port to discuss the loan with bank officials for some reason, talked to him.With a bitter face, Mr. Chen asked Inigo if he could suspend his harassment of the Spaniards and reduce the tension between the two parties, because Amtrak is trying to raise funds from Spanish businessmen recently. Inigo If Ge does this, it is likely to hurt the interests of those businessmen, leading to the failure of the financing operation, which in turn affects the construction progress of the Yanbu Railway.

To be honest, Inigo was a little tired of Chen Jia's words.These civil affairs officials always feel that the army system is causing them trouble and sabotaging their work, so there is always a strong desire to "guidance" them, and to some extent, they even wish to establish a Ministry of National Defense, The Navy is under the jurisdiction of the Government Affairs Council.As a member of the army, Inigo has been indoctrinated by his colleagues for a long time, and he naturally does not have a good impression of the white shirts, especially after the many transferred military cadres who filled the railway department gradually lost their power.

Because of this, he just perfunctoryly persuaded Chen Jia and didn't take it to heart at all. He planned to straighten out his subordinates as soon as he returned to his jurisdiction, and then give the Spaniard a big surprise.The pearl of Buenos Aires will sooner or later be eclipsed!Since the Spaniards have caused so much trouble to the people on the east coast in building the railway, it is time to give them a retribution.

Looking at Inigo's attitude, Chen Jia knew that he would not listen to him, so besides being angry, he had nothing to say, so he could only smoke in depression, and began to think about where to get money.After much deliberation, we can only persuade the Ministry of Finance to increase a temporary tax to raise funds, and it seems that there is no other way.But things like tax increases have always been very sensitive.It's really hard to say whether the big men in the Ministry of Finance are willing or not, so this matter has to be coordinated by a central boss from the Central Committee of Tie to see if a resolution can be passed in the end.

"How can the military expenditure of the army and navy increase so much all of a sudden? It's all at the cost of squeezing the country's construction funds!" Chen Jia said with a frown.Of course he knew that the country's large investment in the army and navy must have some purpose, but as the saying goes, the ass decides the head, and the railway construction is unsustainable due to the sharp increase in military expenditure, which of course will make him, a railway official, angry.

Moreover, this is only the early stage of military expansion and construction. After it is completed in the future, the annual maintenance cost will also be a very astonishing figure.Chen Jia couldn't figure out the exact number for a while, but it would take an increase of [-] to [-] percent on the current basis.Moreover, this is a figure in peacetime. Once a war breaks out between the east coast and other countries, even if the scale is small, the cost will be gone. At that time, I am afraid that the construction of the entire country will not have to be re-planned. The Planning and Production Management Committee Is the short-lived organization coming back out of the rivers and lakes?

"What is the idea of ​​this country investing heavily in the construction of the army (mainly the navy)? Who is it targeting? The Portuguese? The Spaniards? The French? It is unlikely! It is the Dutch and the English. It's possible, but judging from the current situation, there is no possibility of deterioration in diplomatic relations in the short term. Could it be that they want to go on an expedition to the Mediterranean to help the Ottoman Empire's mud that can't support the wall? Impossible?" Chen Jia I am a little irritable, not knowing where the country will go in the future, and at the same time, I am worried about the future of the Yanbu Railway, which was still receiving a large amount of government subsidies a year ago.

I've been really busy recently, and I have dinner every night, and today I finally got over it.It is expected that from tomorrow onwards, it will be easier, and we will strive for more during the Chinese New Year. Thank you for your company and support.

(End of this chapter)