Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 2087 Pampa (26)

"Someone is already farming here?" Looking at the green vegetable fields on both sides of the road, Li Zheng said with a look of surprise: "These vegetables are growing really well. Let me see, there are green vegetables, leeks, and It’s nice to have burdock.”

Li Zheng was born in the third generation on the east bank. His grandfather was Li Gen, a native of Huaiyang Prefecture in China, who has been farming for generations.Marshal Mo was in charge of the Denglei Nahui, and once led his troops to attack the Manchu-controlled areas.Once when he led his troops to land near Yangzhou by boat, because Li Gen restrained himself and buried the bones of soldiers who died in battle on the east bank, he praised them as "righteous people", and after rewarding them, he took his whole family to the east bank to settle down.

After Li Gen came to the east bank, he plunged headlong into his own fields, and then reproduced, just like most immigrants.Li Zheng was born in Shenwu County in the Yazihu ​​Basin. This county has one town and six townships, with a population of 7000. The terrain is complex, with both plains and mountains, as well as many swamps and forests. The people's life is neither bad nor bad.

Li Zheng's biggest dream is to grab a share of public land in the local area, and then live in a place he is familiar with, manage his property well, and run his family.But his dream is just an extravagant hope after all. The strict land policy of the East Coast government prevents many "old districts" from getting enough public land development indicators, and prevents many young people born in the local area from being allocated land and can only leave. In foreign lands (the few public land development indicators should give priority to those who are married and one of the couples has no land), it is extremely hard to go to the frontier or inland undeveloped areas to open up wasteland and cultivate.

Undoubtedly, this policy of the East Coast government is very criticized, and there are many voices of opposition at the grassroots level. Some people even use "separation of flesh and blood, madness" to describe this forced immigration policy.That is to say, the economy on the east coast has developed rapidly in recent years, the government has a higher prestige, and its actions are relatively strong. If it is a less powerful government, I am afraid that it will not be able to withstand the pressure long ago and will change course.

However, if this is the case, many people also speculate that this kind of policy may not be able to continue in the future.After all, there is too much resistance at the grassroots level, and there are many grievances among the people. If this continues, there may be accidents.If the government wants to attract people to the real border, it still has to find a way to use real incentive policies, that is to say, to pay money, instead of relying entirely on administrative orders to enforce it as it is now, and giving Lai the huge cost that should have been paid. Lost.Although they have also taken into account the integration of immigrants in doing so, that is, to allow immigrants to intermingle with native-born nationals as much as possible to speed up the integration, but the problem is that the common people don't care about your rationale. What they want is a safe and secure life. Live, not uprooted.

Of course, Li Zheng had a little resentment towards the government in his heart, but it was not serious.Although he himself wants to live in his hometown, but when it is impossible, he is willing to go out for a break.There really is nothing there in my hometown, Shenwu County. Except for planting and forest logging, there are only some small industrial workshops left.Or even if you find it, if you start as an apprentice or a small worker, your income will not be satisfactory. You must know that he is also a family man now, and the expenses are very high. It is impossible to rely on the apprentice salary of three to five yuan a month. live.

Therefore, after thinking twice, he bid farewell to his parents and took his family to the south to open up wasteland.Before he left, he had inquired with others, and now there are two hot spots for land reclamation, one is the Tuanjie River Basin in the north, but he heard that it is lawless and very dangerous, and it is not suitable for a family-led person like him, so he gave up.The other one is the Pampa Plain, which is fertile and wild. I heard that the climate there is pleasant, and the government supports it a lot. In the early stage, there are bonuses and low-interest loans to buy farm tools and seeds.Housing can also be obtained by installment loans without down payment. This is a policy that only existed in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China. It is simply too generous, so he signed up here very happily.

After staying in Yancheng County for one night, they joined a convoy the next day under the escort of dozens of militiamen and headed northwest all the way.On the way, they passed through Yanxi Township, a town whose main industry is salt, and picked up some food from the National Grain Reserve here, and then continued westward.

Three days later, they arrived at Gushu Township (near the later town of St. Hermann), a small settlement that has only been established for a few months, and currently only looks like seven or eight hundred immigrants.Because it was only winter, the land here was not well groomed, so they only had time to plant some vegetables after the spring, in order to earn as much income as possible.

Li Zheng had also done farm work at home before, and he could tell at a glance that the vegetables were well taken care of.He guessed that the seeds of these vegetables should all come from the fine varieties cultivated and sold by the Northern Seed Company.And the land should be good, rich in nutrients and fertile enough, or even if it is not enough, there is a manure tank next to the vegetable field-a large earthenware tank buried below the ground, covered with wooden boards, and used as a toilet-you can fertilize at any time.

The only problem here is probably the lack of water.Li Zheng looked left and right, but didn't find any rivers. This was very different from the situation in his hometown where there were many rivers and ponds everywhere. It was obviously a relatively dry land, at least with little surface water.No wonder there are still people digging pits over there. I dare say they are building an artificial reservoir!That's right, the climate here is relatively cool, and the sunlight is not too strong, so even if an open-air reservoir is built, the problem is not too big. It is enough water for agriculture and domestic use. Li Zheng is a little relieved.

In fact, Li Zheng's worries were a bit unnecessary.Although the dry Pampa area is relatively dry and lacks water as a whole, it depends on the situation.In the east and north, due to the influence of the oceanic climate, the precipitation is slightly more than other places, generally four to five hundred millimeters, which is enough.Moreover, this piece of groundwater resources is relatively rich, and the water level is not low. If the water conservancy facilities are properly built, a large area of ​​high-quality grain production can be built-Yancheng County's continuous development for decades is a proof, and the surrounding areas can produce steadily every year. Lots of good quality wheat.

However, in the west and south of the dry pampa, due to the influence of the continental climate, there is less precipitation, four distinct seasons, and a little water shortage.The high temperature in summer here is unbearable, the highest may approach 40 degrees (generally 36-38 degrees), and the winter is very cold, the absolute low temperature in the coldest month can reach minus 10-15 degrees.And because of the influence of the polar climate, it may be hit by cold waves in winter, which is even more annoying-especially in the southern part of the dry Pampa, which already shows a bit of the climate characteristics of the Patagonian platform. Precipitation is scarce (about 300 mm), dominated by strong and persistent westerly and southwest winds, and the temperature difference between day and night is large.

The geographical boundary between the dry Pampa and the Patagonian platform divided by the people on the east coast is the Baoxing River (Colorado River), and the north is the Pampa Plain-a total of about 53.5 square kilometers, divided into two parts, of which the dry Pampa is 12.8 square kilometers, and the wet Pampa is 40.7 square kilometers—patagonia to the south.The Baoxing River, which is the boundary river between the two places, is a transit river. It originates from the Andes Mountains and is mainly sourced from ice and snow melt.

The Baoxing River generally has abundant water in spring and summer, especially at the end of spring when the water level soars, which brings convenience to agricultural production.The valley of the Baoxing River is quite wide, several kilometers wide, but if it is not the flood season, the width of the part with water (river channel) is only a few hundred meters, which clearly reveals the limitations of this passing river sex.

Due to the extremely rich land resources and a population of only about 4000 million in later generations, Argentina has underdeveloped areas including Patagonia, Chaco, Dry Pampa, Cuyo, Northwest, and mountains. Some large-scale water conservancy facilities planned It was a premature death, stillborn.Their population is mainly concentrated in the humid Pampa region. The capital Buenos Aires alone houses 30% of the country's population (nearly 1300 million people), so there is no incentive to develop other areas.

During the rule of the military government, there was a vigorous development movement.At that time, they planned to start operations in the Andes Mountains, introducing more ice and snow melt water into several transit rivers (the annual precipitation in the mountains is more than 4000 mm, mostly in the form of winter blizzards), increasing Patagonia, Water resources in semi-arid regions such as Cuyo and the Dry Pampa.However, due to the huge amount of the project and the high cost, it was temporarily put on hold, and after the military government fell, it was even more impossible for the newly elected government to do such thankless things, so all these water diversion projects were abolished, which is also true. It's a pity.

Today, the East Coast Republic has only about 700 million people, and there are almost no conflicts among them. The per capita resource possession is more than that of Argentina in the future. Therefore, in the foreseeable future, they should not have the motivation to dredge, Deepen the river, and at the same time open up some passes in the mountains to bring in more melted ice and snow, because it is completely unnecessary.Perhaps in the future, when the population on the east coast reaches hundreds of millions or even one billion, and the conflict between people and land becomes more prominent, they will have the motivation to engage in such large-scale water diversion and dispatching projects, but it is impossible now.

So, the problem is now clear.The development of the Pampa Plain by the people on the east coast will only be limited to the wet Pampa and parts of the dry Pampa with better agricultural conditions (such as areas along rivers or areas with rich groundwater).As for the western and southern parts of the dry pampa, in their plan, they exist as pastures and are unlikely to be developed by large-scale immigration.There may be some settlements, but they are limited to areas with rich water resources along the river, or settlements with a certain military color set up to form a strategic encirclement against the Spaniards, but the number will definitely not be many. Very clear thing.

(End of this chapter)