Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 1980 West Indian Ocean (23)

On March 1687, 3, there was heavy rain in the southeast of Xinhuaxia Island.Yang Jie, commissioner of the Zelu District Administrative Office, just received a group of expedition teams returning from the inland mountains and had dinner with them.

After drinking and drinking, Yang Jie and his secretary returned to the villa in the county seat.It was dusk, and even though it was pouring rain, the dedicated night watchman still used a ladder to climb up the gas lamp pole by the side of the road, lighting up this important lighting facility for the convenience of pedestrians at night.

Of course, the gas lamp system in Duofan Port was also invested and constructed by the East Coast Gas Company managed by Wang Huadu.This guy who has invested almost all his net worth in the company (accounting for more than 10% of the shares) has now accelerated the expansion of East Coast Gas in various places, including both the mainland and some relatively wealthy overseas colonies.The reason is actually very simple, that is, Mr. Wang felt a certain degree of threat, and the originally stable situation was shaken, so he had to change his relatively conservative style in the past and started a more radical business model.

As for who is the competitor of the famous East Coast Gas Company, in fact, it is very clear to put it bluntly, that is the East Coast Power Company, which is not yet well known.The electric power company run by Ma Xiaopeng has installed arc lamps in several domestic ports, and has launched fierce competition with gas lamps.

Of course, Wang Huadu knew that although arc lamps were brighter than gas lamps, their installation cost was too high at present, and their market competitiveness should not be very strong.But Wang Huadu is still afraid, because he knows that the electric power industry on the east bank is still developing steadily, and no one can predict how far the arc lamp system will develop in the future.What if someone else's technology makes a breakthrough and the cost suddenly drops?Or the country suddenly began to invest in power generation equipment, and began to build power grids in some key cities?Although this seems unlikely at present, it must be guarded.

Therefore, Director Wang Hua thought it over and over again, and finally decided to invest heavily in some cities that have not yet established gas lighting systems in the next few years, trying to cover them, and eliminate the possibility of any other competitors to grab the site.For this reason, he has managed to persuade the company's shareholders (the main shares are in the hands of the government anyway, in fact, as long as the Ministry of Civil Affairs is dealt with), suspend dividends for three years, take out the profits that should have been distributed within three years, and at the same time pay The United Industrial Credit Bank, the Northwest Reclamation Bank and the Public Savings Bank each borrowed 50 yuan to invest in small and medium-sized cities that were not originally in the company's plan to build gas generators, install gas pipelines, and finally establish a complete gas lamp lighting system.

These small inland counties are very willing to pay the gas lamp usage fee on a monthly basis, but if you let them purchase equipment from the gas company, and then install and debug and lay pipelines themselves, they are not willing.There is no other reason. The financial funds of these counties are very tight. They basically rely on selling land to survive, and the construction tasks are heavy. They also need to guarantee the county's public officials and education funds. The latter is guaranteed by the executive committee repeatedly. Neglect - it is really difficult to spend a lot of money at one time to build a "luxury" system like gas lamps, so the East Coast Gas Company has to come by itself.

The same is true for Xinhua Island.This time, the East Coast Gas Company really spent a lot of money, and established branches in Xinhua, Tacheng, Mianhe, and Daze counties—basically the same as the East Coast Building Materials Company and Department Stores, one branch for each county— —Either proprietorship by itself, or a joint venture with the local government, has fully rolled out the construction of the gas lamp system, and strives to cover most of the county area.For example, in Xinhua County, gas lamps were originally only used in the development team government and a few other key areas, but now they have basically spread to the entire county. The efforts are not insignificant, and the investment is naturally amazing.

Duofan County Gas Company is solely owned by Dongan Gas Company. At present, a lighting system has been built on a cross street where the district administrative office, county government, and town government are located, and the operation is very good, which makes the people in the county very happy. Happy.In addition, the wharf, the naval ship repair yard and the Taoist association also purchased a set of lighting systems from the gas company for their own night lighting.All in all, as the central city of the region, the night of Duofan Town is much brighter than in the past, and some foreign merchant ships who occasionally sail into the port at night are also extremely amazed, and even faintly have a feeling for this symbol of civilization and advancement. The feeling of worship.

Yang Jie is very fascinated by this kind of "gadget" of lighting, because it means that he can also process documents under bright lighting at night, and even call the regional administrative office and security command (he also serves as the regional security commander). A group of staff held a meeting to carry out his will, and in short they helped him a lot.

Also helping him a lot is another group of "little things", that is, the natives captured from the mountains in the northwest and other forests in the eastern coastal areas.The composition of these people is complex, and their customs are also different. The people on the east coast don't bother to distinguish their national attributes now, but they are collectively called natives. There are about [-] people in total.

These people are currently being invested in batches in the increasingly large-scale coffee planting and picking industry in Daze County, and have become an important part of the plantation economy.Among them, the ones with the longest working hours have been working for two years, and the short ones have just been arrested for a few days. They are uniformly guarded by the island's Eight Banners soldiers and organize their labor. Naturally, the harvest from selling coffee beans is as high as that of the Eight Banners One portion, so their enthusiasm is quite good, and they will not hesitate to squeeze these close blood relatives and even compatriots.

In addition to working in the state-run plantations, these captured natives may work in the swamps, especially in Lu'an and Gaodu counties on the east coast, where there are large swamps and tidal flats near the coastline.And with the gradual deepening of the "oil palm operation", a lot of manpower is needed to clean up these swamps, and they will come in handy at this time.

Many times, Yang Jie felt that the region was relatively lucky, because the number of natives was relatively dense, which was quite a fortune.Due to various factors such as climate, environment, and soil, there are not many foreigners investing here. For example, the northwest of the island is jointly developed by three Italian companies (Genoa Africa Company, Delta Company and Marco Polo Company), with a cost of [-] to [-] yuan. The good deeds of the Italians working hard to pioneer the wilderness cannot fall on them.Therefore, they, lacking the Italian "cannon fodder" to open up wasteland, can only focus on the Malay "cannon fodder", and these people can be described as legitimate.

At present, there are about 5000 people working in the coastal swamps of the above two counties.Their main task is to cooperate with the engineering and technical personnel on the east bank to dig ditches, dredge rivers, and build reservoirs. , Coconut and other crops to lay a good foundation.During this process, due to the harsh primitive natural environment, they will undoubtedly suffer extensive injuries, but this is unavoidable. The captives themselves have no human rights, do they?

However, the government has also introduced some new measures recently, which is to let all parts of the island count the number of Malay laborers on their own sites and count their working years.If it is found that it has been three years and has performed well in the work within three years, it can be amnesty and incorporated into the island's Eight Banners system to supplement it, breaking away from the de facto slave class.

At the same time, the speed of relocating the eight banners outlying islands began to increase.For this reason, the pioneering team government can request the assistance of the local Ministry of Foreign Affairs to allow the Portuguese to open the Zambezi River Basin and allow the Eight Banners of the islands to carry their property through their territory and settle in the inland areas.As for where they settled, it was already very clear, that was the area around the famous yellow-black decomposition line, which served as a barrier to separate the people from the east coast and the Bantu blacks.

It is generally believed that the final destination of these Malays was the northwestern part of Mozambique and the adjacent northeastern part of Zambia.The living conditions here are not bad, and the climate is not very hot. If it is well developed, it can be used as the foundation of their country.Of course, this is only a preliminary idea at the moment. The yellow-black dividing line is generally on top of this area, but there are still some fine-tuning of the specific location (for example, some surviving veterans in China are somewhat reluctant to let go of the copper mining area in Zambia). In short, let the island of the Eight Banners Let's talk about the past, and look at the future.

Yang Jie felt in his heart that the Portuguese probably would not be able to resist the request of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the East Coast.They are now so tightly bound to the East Coast Republic that they have labels on them that can no longer be torn off, although they are also flirting with the British.

It may be difficult for the Portuguese to understand the "suffering march" westward along the Zambezi River with a population of 10,000+ in the Eight Banners of the island, but there is no doubt that the Zambezi housewives in various local manors welcome the arrival of these Malays because They can take the opportunity to sell the grains that have accumulated in their granaries for a long time and are almost moldy. It is estimated that a lot of rotten fruits in the orchard that no one cares about can be sold, let alone the herds of cattle and sheep.They can hear that even the second-class citizen island Baqi under the rule of the East Coast people may have some money on hand, and they cannot be called poor ghosts. Therefore, their consumption along the way will definitely greatly promote the development of the Zambezi River. Development of the Portuguese estate economy in the watershed.

Even, some Portuguese may have the idea that the people from the east coast will help them clean up the black tribes they encounter along the way.Gein Mozambique’s Portuguese colonial power is limited, and it can only focus on a few big cities. Even in the relatively affluent Zambezi River Basin, there are a large number of blacks living in the wild between its two manors, and the security situation is not stable. .Therefore, if the eight flags of the island with weapons and ammunition are swept all the way, I believe the local situation will be much more stable, although the Portuguese may also lose some "wealth" that can move.

And since it is necessary to add people to the Eight Banners of the island so that they can go to the African continent to fight against black people, then those state-owned farms and plantations naturally need to be supplemented with manpower. It's all in vain!Therefore, it is estimated that the pioneering team government should raise funds and manpower in the next few years, and organize multiple battles to wipe out the natives in order to obtain sufficient sources of labor.And this is likely to conflict with the Melinas on the central plateau, but so what?Are you afraid that they will fail?According to people from the east coast, the Melina people on the central plateau have not yet been united. Although one of them is very powerful, there are still local separatist forces resisting, so they are facing the people of the east coast. When attacking from multiple directions, it is obviously very weak, and if there is no accident, it will be defeated all the way.

The expedition team members that Yang Jie met today were the outpost troops who set off from the area controlled by the people on the east coast, went deep into the mountains, and finally arrived at the central plateau for investigation.They have been active in the southern part of the Central Plateau for several months, drawing a large map, carefully examining every possible marching route, and even captured a few locals down the mountain before leaving, and handed them over to the officials of the National Intelligence Agency Conduct interrogations—their work is undoubtedly very critical to the multi-pronged raids of large forces in the future. Therefore, after the turnaround, Yang Jie, on behalf of the Zelu District Administrative Office and the Security Command, gave them a clean-up and cleans up the dust at the meeting. Many people were promoted on the spot, and a large amount of bonuses were distributed, which can be described as a joy for both guests and hosts.

And if this is not enough to show the determination of the higher-ups to enter the central plateau, then the recent rumors that Shao Yaoguang wants to split the New China Infantry Battalion into two, and recruit new recruits at the same time to form two infantry battalions is already obvious.Once the two infantry battalions are formed, the combat effectiveness of the people on the east coast can be greatly improved. They can even attack from north, south or east and west directions, and use skilled combat skills and fierce artillery fire to level the group of civilizations. The Melinas, who were still in the early feudal society, were completely destroyed, and they took control of the central plateau with a cool climate and fertile fields.

You know, this is a well-developed land developed by the Malina people for 600 years. They built cities here, built farmland and water conservancy facilities, and the golden rice fields stretch as far as the eye can see during the harvest season. This is not an ordinary temptation for people on the east coast. The land is big.Moreover, these Melinas are also somewhat different from those in history. They cannot contact other overseas businessmen now, because almost all the land along the coast of Xinhuaxia Island has been developed and occupied by people from the east coast. They live on the central plateau. It has become a turtle in a urn, and there is no other place to go.What will happen in the future, it is self-evident!

And the people on the east coast can only have a stronger backing for the development of New Huaxia Island if they occupy the vast and relatively cool central plateau.In later generations of Madagascar, the main population, economy and industrial society are basically distributed on the central plateau, and even the capital is located here, which shows the importance of this plateau.I believe that after the two New China Infantry Battalions are formed and the training is completed, Captain Shao will use them to train in battle and test the Central Plateau. This is a very clear thing.

(End of this chapter)