Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 1936 West Indian Ocean (21)

"Come on, try this lobster, it's very good." In a beautiful villa in Xinhua Port City, Shao Yaoguang, the leader of the island's pioneering team and security commander, was recommending a dish to his second brother.

Lobsters are grown off the coast of Xinhua Island and are very large.Because the immigrants on the east coast and the residents of the local island Baqi do not like to eat it (they prefer tilapia and other inland river fish), the offshore lobster grows almost freely without any natural enemies, so it is very large.

Crabs have a similar encounter.Because Xinhuaxia Island has many rivers entering the sea and the water flow is fast, it carries very rich nutrients, so many fishing grounds, large and small, are formed around the island.Although individual fishing grounds may be far inferior to those large fishing grounds on the east coast and the black waters of the Far East, they are superior in number, and the combined annual catch is not a small amount.

Therefore, the supply of seafood in Xinhuaxia Island is still very sufficient. The output of lobster, meat crab (the first two are mainly eaten by middle- and upper-class people on the east coast), grouper, and prawn is the largest, followed by tuna, eel, flounder, and shark. There is also a lot of production. In addition to meeting their own needs, they also export a large amount to the Ui Seng area, which competes fiercely with the seafood in the Hezhong area.

The dishes Shao Yaoguang entertained his younger brother today are traditional New China dishes, lobster, prawns, steamed grouper, grilled flounder, braised crocodile and hump beef.Especially the last one, which has almost become one of the signature dishes of the island, and now Shao Shuguang has a dish in front of him: a kind of stewed with hump beef and pork with the stems and leaves of a certain local plant, with some spices added , the taste is very good, and even a canned version was made under the strong suggestion of the Navy for military supplies.

"It seems that brother is living very comfortably here." Shao Shuguang put down the glass containing the South African Xianghe wine, and the servant brought over the processed lobster, and said with a smile: "This house is quite cool. The design has been worked hard. The dishes are even richer and have a special flavor. I can’t eat this kind of food in Ningbo. It’s good, it’s good.”

This villa was bought by Shao Yaoguang from Huang Yi, the former captain of the New China Pioneering Team.Later, he spent a lot of money to renovate it, using several medium-sized water pumps to pump out the groundwater, pass through the heat exchange system inside the room, and then flow out to a reservoir for drinking water and irrigation water for people and animals inside and outside the villa. .This system called "earth air conditioning" has been popular in Xinhua Island for some years, but because of the complicated design and high cost, only the rich can afford it.

Shao Yaoguang is undoubtedly a rich man!Therefore, he spent money to ask someone to design such a system, not as cool as the ether refrigeration device on the refrigerated ship, but only to be not too different from the temperature of the groundwater, and this cooling performance requirement can undoubtedly be achieved, which is why enough!

It can also be seen from this that after so many years of development in the East Coast Republic, dignitaries and dignitaries have also put forward higher requirements for the quality of life.This air conditioner is just one example, and there are many others. In short, if you compare it with decades ago, it is simply unimaginable. After all, people have the urge to pursue a better life.

"Eat more if you like it." Shao Yaoguang said with a smile: "But brother, I also heard that you live a luxurious life in Ningbo, and there are often dozens of people in your entourage. At that time, I was still a commissioner of the administrative office in Baoding. The news spread so widely, it’s really scary. I’m not talking about you, second brother, you are now working in the mainland—well, it’s either a state-owned department store or the general manager of the Nanhai Group—it’s not like an overseas colony, and there are people in every move Staring, you better restrain yourself. You have too many cooks, musicians, painters, guards and so on. After returning to China, they will be dismissed with a sum of money. Just keep a few people, so that others will not treat us old Shao The family pointed and pointed."

It is said that as an old family in the political arena on the east coast, the Shaw family is indeed on the cusp now, especially after the death of the big tree, Shao Shude, the former Central Executive Committee member, now it is only Shao Yaoguang who is struggling to support him in the political arena. Compared with the family, it seems somewhat weak.In today’s Shaw family, more resources have been transferred to the business world, such as the well-known Bank of Taiwan, where the three brothers Shao Yaoguang, Shao Shuguang, and Shao Zhengguang (who are engaged in painting and music in the local area, and also invest in some artworks and antiques) jointly hold shares It's already close to 20%.Now that the Bank of Taiwan is developing better and better, the value-added rate of this asset is also increasing, which makes many people jealous, so Shao Yaoguang asked his second brother to keep a low profile and not to overly stimulate people from other families. Adding obstacles to his career.

After hearing this, Shao Shuguang sighed softly, nodded in agreement.The most important task of the Shao family now is to escort Shao Yaoguang who is the captain of the New China Pioneering Team, and do everything possible to promote him to the throne of the executive committee member in the future.He is not too young now, and if he is in his early fifties, if he doesn't seize the opportunity, he may really have no chance to join the cabinet, and this is undoubtedly bad news for the Shao family, which they cannot accept no matter what.In ancient and modern China and abroad, there is no family that lacks the protection of the political arena, can develop steadily and continue to progress, and of course the East Bank can't do it!

"Tell me about the development of Xinhua Island. This is your next step, brother. How are you doing now?" Shao Shuguang drank a glass of wine and changed the subject.

"It's okay." Shao Yaoguang said: "It's just a little deformed. The advantages in agriculture have become more prominent, and other aspects have not been developed at all. I am afraid that this kind of too single industrial structure will exist for a long time in the future. Of course, this may also be true. It is the unanimous hope of the local political and business circles."

In fact, to expand it, it is to let Xinhua Island rush all the way on the road of tropical cash crop plantations under the local requirements, focusing on the development of hot-selling crops such as sugar, coffee, cocoa, and pepper in the international market, as well as domestic The sisal, cotton, rubber and other crops that are very much needed in industrial and agricultural production are exhausted, and there are some coal, iron and gold mining, logging, fishing and the cultivation of medical crops such as cinchona and strychnium.In short, it looks like an economy with agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, fishery and resource extraction as its main components. It completely relies on local imports for industrial products and daily necessities, and has become an important part of the colonial economic system of the Great East Coast.

Based on this consideration, all the captains of the New China Pioneering Team have taken the development of the above-mentioned industries as their own responsibility for decades. Therefore, the cotton, cane sugar, coffee, cocoa, sisal, tobacco, peanuts, vanilla, The output of tropical products such as pepper, rubber, oil palm, and coconut is increasing day by day, and the scale of labor employed is also increasing, providing huge profits for a large number of local distribution companies on the island and the east coast.At the same time, the industrial development of this big island is extremely slow, because countless funds are poured into the plantations, and very little is invested in the industrial field, and because of the relationship between cost and technical factors, the development of these very few industrial capitals is extremely slow. It is also relatively difficult. At present, except for the timber, shipbuilding, mining and construction industries, the development of other industries is very unsatisfactory. Almost everything depends on imports and is heavily exploited by local industrial products.Otherwise, do you think that when Xinhua Island believed that a large number of companies distributing the island's products were registered in the mainland, so that profits and taxes were kept in the mainland and caused dissatisfaction, why did the mainland give in readily?It's not that they have the means to counter you!The scissors of industrial exploitation and agriculture are poor and have always been very useful.

"Now there are more and more Italians. The Genoa African Company, the Delta Company, and the Marco Polo Company started by the new Venetian are all stimulated by profits to continue to occupy wasteland on the island for development and build Piece after piece of economic crop plantation. Especially the new Marco Polo company, due to the local and their political transactions, gave the company great convenience, not only allowing the Venetian circulation bank and the Rialto Plaza Bank (East Coast Company to take shares) 20% to reopen) opened a branch in Xinhua Port to provide financial services, and produced more than ten 650-ton flute-shaped transport ships for them locally at preferential prices. After such a crocodile flooded in, Xinhua’s The tropical planting industry is bound to be more prosperous. But to be honest, I don’t have the data from the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, so I don’t know what impact the island’s production will have on the world market. But as far as we can enter the Mediterranean market, pepper, The prices of sugar, coffee and other commodities have indeed dropped a lot, and at the same time they have squeezed out a lot of "Caribbean goods" from the Dutch, British and French, although they have a great advantage in terms of transportation costs." Shao Yaoguang continued to introduce: "Of course, in order to obtain more land, we are also continuing to fight against the natives. However, it is not a one-time war of destroying the country, but boiling frogs in warm water to bleed them bit by bit. The focus is on On the banks of Liusha Lake and the southeast mountainous area, there are no major problems, and the progress is also very fast."

In other words, without the interference of external forces, the colonization and expansion of the people on the East Coast on Xinhua Island is really very pleasant.On the banks of Liusha Lake, people on the east bank have established some fixed villages and towns, vigorously developing rice planting to supplement the food shortage of the island.The situation here is now relatively stable. At the time when the New Huaxia Infantry Battalion fought here, the Merina people were so terrified that they dare not peek at it. Therefore, farms and villages were quickly opened up, and the railway was also slowly being built. , everything is developing in a positive direction.

In the southeast of the island, the people on the east coast had wiped out the two original forces, the Antaifazians and the Bala people, and completely controlled most of the southeastern mountainous area and the Mahafari Plateau.Now there are only some undisciplined natives who are still making their final resistance, but it is only a matter of time before they are completely wiped out by the people on the east coast.

At the end of last year (1685), the Xinhua pioneering team set up several settlements in this direction at one go, namely: Yangzhou Township near the later town of Andruka, and the later town of Ampanixi The nearby Xiangle Township, Zhenning Township near the later town of Beluha, Heshui Township (former French colony) near the later town of Ambuwenbe, and Le Pan near the later town of Beijitruu Township, a total of five newly-built settlements, resettled more than [-] settlers, basically distributed in areas with water, in order to develop agricultural and animal husbandry production as soon as possible-in fact, from the perspective of developing tropical plantation economy, the establishment of such Towns that rely solely on agriculture and animal husbandry are quite uneconomical, but the occupied land has to be consolidated, coupled with some leaders' preference for expanding territories, so these five settlements were established.

Compared with these five settlements in the arid southern region, the conditions of the settlements established by the people on the east coast in the northwest of the island and in the later Ambanga County of Madagascar are much better.They are respectively located in Lunan Township near the small town of Antunibei in later generations, Lidong Township near the small town of Anchuxixi in later generations, Danchi Township near Beilanana in later generations, and Malumandia Township in later generations. Xiangwu Township not only has sufficient rainfall, but also has a lot more fertile plains for farming. The only disadvantage is probably that it is too hot and humid, and there are too many diseases.However, with the Marco Polo company started by the Venetians aggressively entering the development, these wastelands were naturally conquered by the colonists on the overpopulated Italian peninsula. Necessities such as mosquito nets and axes and saws are just subsidized for them, so that they don't have too much fear of difficulties.

In this way, the Genoa Africa Company, the Delta Company, and the Marco Polo Company (representing the three forces headed by Genoa, Tuscany, and Venice respectively) will transfer Xinhua and Lidong in the north of Xinhua Island (not yet Founded), Ningguo, and Qingtian (just established at the end of last year), many wastelands in four counties were contracted, and the two parties divided their respective scopes, and each occupied a large piece of wasteland to slowly develop, build plantations, and then obtain profits.

This model is a win-win model for both East Coasters and Italians.East Coasters can offer them a level of security that they cannot get in the Caribbean - this is very important, in the highly competitive Caribbean where many islands change hands so often that investment security cannot be fully guaranteed - and even A lot of cheap tools, medicines and daily necessities, they only need to send labor here from overpopulated Italy to open up wasteland.As for the profits obtained from tropical cash crops, the people on the east coast are also very generous. In addition to requiring them to be transported to designated refineries and processing plants for processing (processing fees are charged), they basically only charge reasonable taxes and keep a lot of profits. Given these Italian consortiums, the cooperation between the two parties is still very pleasant.

This tight bond of economic interests will inevitably penetrate into the political level, which will greatly increase the influence of the East Coast Republic of China in the Mediterranean area and have more cards to play.And this influence itself, of course, can be transformed into economic benefits through various channels (such as the sales of industrial products of the East Coast Republic in the Italian market, and maintaining the stability of Ottoman and Black Sea trade, etc.), this is beyond doubt matter.

(End of this chapter)