Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 2044 Hunting Country ([-])

"This leather is not in good condition. Look, here...here...and here, there are many holes." In a certain shop on the street of Hexi Township, an old-looking master picked up customers and brought them over. He carefully appraised the lion skin while looking at it, and only heard him say: "This skin, I can only give you five yuan, no more."

The young man who brought the leather to sell sighed in disappointment, and said helplessly: "Master Jiang, look, this is the skin of a puma, not some broken ostrich skin or cow and sheep skin. Five yuan is too much money." Less, you can give me some more."

"Not a single penny." Master Jiang threw the leather on the counter and said impatiently: "As long as your leather is full of holes, I will buy it at my discretion, and I will find a craftsman to find a way in the future." Cleaning up, it doesn’t cost money? Besides, puma skin is not a rare commodity. Last year, a thousand pieces were produced on the East Coast Prairie, and they were all of good quality. The market supply is still very sufficient Yes, why sell at a high price."

"But it can't be only five yuan, right?" The young man was still unconvinced.

"Young man, let's improve your hunting skills. There are many pumas on the Chaco prairie. My husband, I went to the Spanish city of Resistencia last time to buy goods. I met pumas along the way, and along the way There are traces of puma grinding claws on almost every tree, which shows that the number of lions is still very large. You should polish your skills more. If you improve your level, you will definitely make a fortune in the future." Master Jiang shook his head and said resolutely: "But right now, this piece of skin is only worth five yuan. Do you want to sell it or not?"

In fact, from a certain point of view, what this master Jiang said is not nonsense.Pumas, an animal, are widely distributed on the east coast, and there are many of them.Taking the east coast prairie with a large population and rapid development as an example, human activities are increasingly eroding the territory of animals, the original ecosystem on the grassland collapsed, and a large number of puma groups began to be hunted by people on the east coast. There are so many, probably hundreds of them.

In addition to the eastern prairie, many puma skins are also produced in the Duck Lake, Pampa, and Southern Cone areas, and there may be as many as two thousand pieces in total.Although it is not as good as Buenos Aires exported more than 18 cougar skins every year in the [-]th century in later history, it is still very impressive and a huge fortune.

Of course, some zoologists and botanists on the East Coast have jointly petitioned the Ministry of Agriculture to revoke the licenses of some hunters in order to reduce the number of hunting cougars.They believe that pumas are a key link in the biological chain system, and they are indispensable. Although the stock was huge before, after so many years of hunting, the number has dropped to an acceptable level. Now is the time to limit indiscriminate hunting. up.

Therefore, these zoologists unanimously demanded that part of the cougar hunting licenses issued over the past few years should be withdrawn, and at the same time, the number of existing cougars should be counted, and protection should be carried out in areas with few numbers, so as to prevent people from ignorance. exterminate it.These same people also point to the example of the European bison, arguing that the once ubiquitous animal has declined to dangerous levels and may become extinct within a few decades.

The Ministry of Agriculture carefully considered the opinions of these people and finally decided to withdraw some of the licenses in Duck Lake and East Coast Prairie, but it does not plan to withdraw all of them.These two places are the most developed areas on the east coast, where most of the population, industrial facilities, and industrial and commercial enterprises are gathered. The expansion of human activities will only become faster and faster. It is not appropriate to withdraw all licenses to establish nature reserves.In Patagonia, where the ecosystem is relatively fragile, the Ministry of Agriculture intends to withdraw most of the licenses to prevent the ecosystem from collapsing after the pumas are hunted in large numbers.

Some people may say, why do people on the east coast hunt and kill so many pumas? Has their pursuit of leather reached the point of "sickness"?Well, it may be a little "sick", but people on the east coast really love leather, and the annual consumption is an astronomical figure, from civilian clothing, bags, to industrial conveyor belts, to military use All kinds of skins, water bladders, ammunition bags, leather hats, armed belts, etc., the industrial scale is very large, and the entire industrial chain has fully supported thousands of workers from the beginning to the end, which is amazing.

Take clothing as an example. The increasingly affluent East Coast people are very fond of warm leather clothes.When non-national laborers were still saving money to buy cotton coats, fur coats that were windproof, cold proof, and warm had become standard equipment for the middle class on the East Coast.Designers, cobblers, and tailors who immigrated from the Old World continued to produce beaver or bear fur hats, seal or lion fur coats, whale skin waterproof (cold-proof) sleeves, etc. day and night, supplying the increasingly crazy consumer market.

Therefore, under such circumstances, it is not unusual for a large number of East Coast hunters to go hunting pumas, crocodiles and various sea animals.Especially in the Chaco Plain, which nominally belongs to the territory of the Kingdom of Spain, the laws of the east coast are not yet in control here, so all kinds of people with licenses and unlicensed people swarmed here to hunt large animals, mainly pumas— —Some crocodiles or large pythons are sometimes hunted in the swamp area to provide raw materials for women's exquisite leather bags, but they are relatively small and unsystematic—injecting new impetus into the developed leather industry on the east coast.

The Chaco Plain means "Land of Hunting" in the Quechua language. It is rich in animal resources and has a large number of pumas. Therefore, the hunters from the east coast who flock here are delighted from ear to ear. Using means, ready to laugh at the great gift that Tianzun gave them.In order to purchase these raw materials nearby, many fur shops have also set up branches in Hexi Township and other places, so this is the scene at the beginning of this chapter, where hunters and merchants bargain for the quality and price of leather.

Such a large-scale influx of hunters—according to incomplete reports from the public, the total number may be close to 1000, both professional and business, there are many—the Spaniards are not blind, so they naturally learned about it through various channels.Surprisingly, but not surprisingly, the Spanish colonial government chose to forgive the East Coasters—well, choose to turn a blind eye to the influx of East Coast hunters.This is actually an "old problem" of the Spaniards. They can't beat the people on the east coast, and they can't punish these lawless east coast border crossers, so why make yourself uncomfortable?It's better to turn a blind eye and close one eye. Anyway, the people on the East Coast are quite good at life, and occasionally give them some money and bribes, which is enough!

However, the Spanish colonial government ignored these things, and suddenly made the local Quechua people who had surrendered to them sit on wax.The Spanish colonists could pretend not to see it, but they couldn't!The Chaco Plain is their home, and quite a few of them make a living by hunting. Now well-equipped and enthusiastic East Coast hunters have broken in and plundered their prey, which has seriously affected their survival. How can we keep them from being angry?

What's more, the previous series of cross-border reclamation activities by the people on the east bank on the west bank of the Paraguay River have seized the livelihood of some Quechua people who live on farming, leaving them without food and clothing, and have killed and injured many people. People, the vicious attitude is on full display, can you still expect the Quechuas to back down and tolerate it?

Ever since, a fierce armed conflict broke out between the East Coast hunters and the Quechuas.Especially in the past year, the conflicts have become extremely bloody and cruel, so that the National Intelligence Agency and the Gendarmerie Command couldn't sit still, and began to secretly send elite personnel to mix with the hunter group, slowly seize the dominance, and began to Develop more effective attack measures against the Quechuas to effectively protect the interests of the people on the east coast.

In addition, several settlements that have been cultivated on the west bank of the Paraguay River for almost two years have also received dual orders from the State Development Bureau and the Ministry of War to organize manpower and carry weapons to start moving further inland. On the one hand, it attacked the recalcitrant Quechuas, on the other hand, it established new settlements to compress the living space of these aborigines.

Officials at the State Development Administration drew up the plan with a sense of urgency.They judge that the situation in Europe may change drastically in the next few years. The Kingdom of France, which is about to move, may launch a war of aggression against its neighbors. The Kingdom of Spain may be involved in a terrible war again.Then, at that time, it will be a good time for the East Coast Republic, which stays out of the way, to seize the land of the Spaniards. They speculate that the guilds of the Executive Committee will seize this opportunity to completely take the fertile Pampa Plain east of the Yanbu Railway. At the same time, it will also make territorial claims on the Central Valley of Chile and the Chaco Plain.

There are more than [-] immigrants from the east coast in the east of the Pampa Plain. Numerous settlements, roads, railways and other facilities have been established. The government agencies are also relatively complete, basically the same as the mainland.The Spaniards have long been psychologically prepared for the loss of this land, and if the Ministry of Foreign Affairs sends someone to discuss it by then, it should not be a big problem.

The same goes for him in the southern Central Valley of Chile.People from the east bank exiled many prisoners there, and at the same time relocated some immigrants. The land was leased, and it was not very difficult to deal with it.As long as they let go of the economy a little bit, the Spaniards who are extremely short of money should be half-hearted and sign a new agreement with the east coast government to sell this piece of land for a good price.

But compared with the above two, the Chaco Plain is much more complicated.The people from the east coast entered this land very late, and their strength is not very strong. Moreover, the Spaniards pay more attention to this land and will not give in easily. Therefore, it may be difficult to sign an agreement with them in the future.Therefore, the officials of the National Intelligence Agency believe that it is necessary to work harder in advance to create chaos in the area, making the Spaniards feel that it is not worth the loss to hold this land, forcing them to make concessions, and eventually sell the entire Chaco Plain For East Coasters.

Based on this kind of thinking, sending immigrants across the border to open up wasteland and reclamation, sending hunters across the border to fight for prey, sending shepherds across the border to graze cattle and sheep, and even sending pretended bandits across the border to rob and kill are all in the plan of the officials of the National Intelligence Agency.So you can see that the officials of the General Intelligence Bureau took advantage of the popularity of the domestic leather market, borrowed the capital and strength of the people, and entered the depths of the Chaco Plain on a large scale, causing countless disputes in this land.Once a dispute arises and the Spaniards feel bored and scared, then things will turn around in the future. This is their wishful thinking.

(End of this chapter)