Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 2093 West Indian Ocean (29)

On February 1690, 2, in moderate rain, a medium-sized steamship puffing out black smoke was riding the wind and waves in the Indian Ocean.

They are already very close to Tacheng Port, an important town on the east coast of Xinhua Island. This port city now has a permanent population of more than 2, accounting for one-third of the county. The total exceeds Mianhe County and is second only to Xinhua The county is the second most populous city on the island, accounting for more than 28% of the total population (more than [-]) in the area under the jurisdiction of the New China Pioneering Team, so its importance goes without saying.

Currently the most important industry in Tacheng Port is coal mining.The Tacheng Mining Bureau with a long history is also one of the few high-quality enterprises on the island. The coal it produces is not only used for military use, but also used for civilian use, and its sales volume is huge.Once upon a time, the coal produced by the Tacheng Coal Mine was exported to the mainland and the river region of South Africa. However, after the local Heishan Coal Mine and Heijin Island Coal Mine were put into production, the Tacheng clean coal market, which has been famous for many years, has slowly shrunk. Turned to the island and the South African market, and invested a lot of resources here, built a lot of coal storage yards, and established a sales team composed of capable personnel to stabilize the market.

Later, even greater bad news came!The Chenggao coal mine in Yicheng area was discovered, and then quickly received capital injection from the local area and South Africa. The coal mine was successfully put into production in a short period of time and began to be sold in Yicheng area.At that time, limited by the lack of infrastructure and transportation capacity, although the coal of Chenggao Coal Mine was of good quality, the radiation range was not wide, and most of it could only be sold locally, and a small part was exported to Hezhong area, which did not cause any damage to Tacheng Coal Mine. Huge impact today.

Still, infrastructure can be improved, especially if funding is made available quickly.And Yicheng area has a higher "birth background" than Xinhua Island. In fact, it is included in the unified management of central finance, and it is easier to obtain funds and talents. It is not comparable to a colony like Xinhua Island.In addition, Xiao Jingzong, who was the commissioner of the Yicheng District Administrative Office at the time, was a more capable person and had a good relationship with various central ministries and commissions. Therefore, it was easy to attract projects and funds, and the transportation infrastructure in Yicheng District was rapidly improved. Improvement, ports and roads have been built one after another, and even railways are already under construction. Although some are intermittent, they have been tenaciously built. These have greatly reduced the logistics cost between Chenggao Coal Mine and Yicheng Wharf. Gao Coal Mine has made it possible to export coal on a large scale.

So far, the coal from Chenggao and the coal from Tacheng have competed fiercely in the Hezhong area.The coal of the former is better in quality and more abundant in variety. In addition, it has received local investment and modernization has been relatively smooth, so the cost is also very low.The latter benefited from the excellent sales management team and the good personal connections established in the Hezhong area over the years. At the same time, the East African transportation company based on the island also provided some assistance, so it would not be possible to be under the aggressive offensive of Chenggao Coal. Lost all, and still retained part of the market share in the Hezhong area.

But in any case, this situation is very worrying, especially for the Tacheng County government, which regards the coal mining industry as a local pillar industry.They are worried that in the future, the Chenggao Coal Mine may be—no, not just the Chenggao Coal Mine. In fact, many large and small coal mines have been discovered in South Africa. There is not only a huge amount of gold underground, but also an even larger amount of gold. Coal is really enviable - it will gradually unify the energy market of the entire South Africa, and gradually squeeze out the clean coal of Tacheng. Unemployment, how much will the market be depressed.

Based on this consideration, Tacheng County officials have now begun to invest in other industries, such as the forestry industry and food processing industry that are currently being promoted, in order to reduce the extreme dependence on the coal mining industry.You must know that the Tacheng coal mine is not a big coal mine, and its reserves are actually limited. Although it does not seem to be exhausted in the short term, there will always be such a day in the future.At that time, there is no need for South Africa's coal competition, and they will collapse themselves. If they don't plan ahead now, they will have to pay the price in the future.

To be fair, the two breakthroughs chosen by the Tacheng County officials are quite good.Needless to say about the forest industry, the west of Tacheng County is on a side slope, and the forest area is extremely vast.Although after so many years of development, the forest has been destroyed a lot, but to be honest, the area is still daunting, and there is still a lot of potential to be tapped.Of course, when they cut down trees, they will replant new trees in the open space, and they will try their best to replant different types of saplings according to the original appearance of the forest, so as to prevent the tree species from being too single. Not beautiful anymore.

At the beginning of the previous year (1688), the Tacheng County government began to actively guide some local businessmen to invest in the forest industry, and provided some funds for subsidies, that is, a certain amount of cash for each woodworking machine imported from the local area, which greatly improved the forestry industry. People are actively engaged in forest logging and wood processing, and the forest industry in Tacheng County has gradually grown.The government of Tacheng County believes that South Africa will definitely have a large population in the future. In the era of rapid development of gold and coal mines, its market capacity must not be underestimated.Moreover, South Africa is generally arid and the forest area is very small. Even on the east coast where there is more precipitation, due to environmental protection factors, its forests cannot be cut down at will. Not only will the relevant local departments interfere, but the Yicheng District Administration is afraid It is also unlikely to agree, South Africa wants to keep a forest, it is really not easy!

Therefore, this gives opportunities to the forestry industry in Tacheng County.Although they may face competition from counties with vast forest areas such as Xinhua County and Qingtian County, they can more or less get a share of it.What's more, the demand for wood from the 30 million people on this island is not low, especially the counties in the western grassland area. They are relatively rich in cotton cultivation, and there are not many forests in the local area (they dare not cut them down). The market for buying from the east coast is not small.

In addition to the forest industry, the food processing industry is another key area of ​​advancement.The grain planting industry in Shangdang County, located to the west of Tacheng County, has already reached a certain scale. Although most of it is used for its own consumption and filling the grain reserve, some of it is still exported to Tacheng County for overseas sales. , so it is still very interesting.What's more, with the continuous immigration of Shangdang County by the pioneering team government and the difficult advancement of the Tadong Railway, it is doomed that the rice production on the shore of Liusha Lake will increase year after year, and then it will be logical to transport it to Tacheng Port through the Tadong Railway .It can be said that Tacheng County has found the right opportunity to develop the food processing industry at this time.Not to mention anything else in the future, just processing the grain shipped from Shangdang County is enough for them to make a fortune.

Of course, Tacheng County also has its own locally produced food, such as rice, corn, etc., are not uncommon, and the output is also quite large, but most of them are consumed locally.However, they also have several advantageous specialties, such as honey, palm oil, coconut and so on.Of course, these are not all unique to Tacheng County, but because of their earlier development, larger scale, and more output.

The three major commodities, honey, palm oil, and coconut powder, have made a lot of profits for Tacheng County over the years.For example, the [-]-ton steamship that is currently slowly sailing to the port in the open sea left from Tacheng Port before, and its owner is also a local businessman, who travels from Tacheng Port to Persian Abbas all the year round. port route.

Now all the ports of the Persian Kingdom have been opened to people on the east coast, and there are a lot of merchants in Xinhuaxia Island doing business there.This man in Tacheng County is mainly engaged in food trade, and then brought back a large number of ceramic tiles, porcelain vases, livestock, leather, blankets, silk, spices and other commodities from Persia, and the profit was not bad.

In recent years, the Kingdom of Persia has taken advantage of the turbulent situation of the Mughal Dynasty to restore its rule over Afghanistan, but it has repeatedly failed.On the other hand, the invasion of this country by the Ottoman Empire, the Russian Empire, and the Central Asian nomads has become more and more serious, resulting in constant fighting and tension in the border areas.Even people on the east coast have faintly heard that the Kalmyks under Ayuqi Khan have invaded the country's land in the Caspian Sea many times, which makes people very speechless.

The frequent use of troops exhausted the vitality of the Persian Kingdom, and the efficiency of domestic agricultural production was greatly reduced.Coupled with the unfavorable weather, the dry climate lasted for several years, bringing the country to the brink of famine.The Persians had no choice but to find ways to import food from the outside, and the people on the east coast of Xinhuaxia Island were one of the major sources.

Of course, the food provided by the people on the east coast may not be enough.Because Xinhuaxia Island has been planting too many cash crops in recent years, the grain output has dropped rapidly, and some of it has to be exported to South Africa, so the amount that can be exported to Persia is quite limited.But the limit is limited, there are still some after all, not to mention the higher bids of the Persians, and the profit-seeking businessmen are naturally willing to export local corn, rice, palm oil, honey, dried fruits and even salted fish to others, which is normal Commercial activity.I believe that after the explosive growth of the grain base in Shangdang County in the future, Tacheng County will naturally become the center of the grain processing industry, and then export to various places at home and abroad, earn huge profits, and feed back the expenditure of the Tacheng County Government at this time .

Naturally, the control area on the east coast that exported grain to the Persian Safavid Dynasty was not limited to Xinhuaxia Island.In fact, the island of Diu in northwestern India has recently become more and more a grain distribution center.The existence of the East-Portuguese joint fleet allows them to greatly affect the maritime trade in the Rajput region of northeastern India. The ships of local Indian merchants and Middle Eastern Green Christians are checked by them, and various murders and robbings are often carried out. , so they obtained the largest piece of cake in foreign trade in the Rajput region and gained countless benefits.

Of course, if they were left in the past, they wouldn't be so arrogant.The Mughal Dynasty still had a little deterrent power. This country could easily mobilize hundreds of thousands of troops, which was a big trouble for foreign colonists.Also, an agrarian country with a large population like India (probably 1.5 million people) doesn't really need much overseas trade, so you can block it and it won't feel bad.What's more, its coastline is extremely long, and it is basically impossible to block it. Therefore, no matter whether it is the people on the east coast, England, France or the Netherlands, they do not intend to have a direct conflict with them, so that they will be disqualified from trading and let their competitors occupy cheap.

But today is different!The Mughal dynasty was in the midst of fierce internal wars, and the central government of the empire seemed to be completely mired in a quagmire. There was no hope of successful suppression. On the contrary, money was spent like running water, and the country's finances were on the verge of collapse.Such a state will naturally cause the foreign colonists to covet and despise them. Therefore, after paying a lot of money, they have obtained more footholds, and then built more fortress-style commercial stations to expand their influence. , Control India's foreign trade, in order to grab huge profits.

Of course, the people from the east coast were also deeply involved, but they borrowed the shell of the Portuguese, and they didn't come forward in person.For example, they were allowed to build a commercial station in the Kandela port in the Rajput region. This was the Portuguese who came forward to negotiate, but the money came from the east bank, and the actual operation and management of the commercial station were also done by the east bankers.

Kandla Port and Diu Island are one east and one west, firmly controlling the foreign trade routes in the Rajput region.The local Indian businessmen had no choice but to sell the goods to the East Bank trading stations in the two places, and then the East Coast people were responsible for selling them to make profits.Of course, there are also unbelieving Indian businessmen who are unwilling to do this. They prefer to sail to sea to do trade by themselves, but this will undoubtedly face greater risks, not only the risk of sailing at sea, but also encountering true and false. The danger of "pirates" is actually not a wise choice.

But no matter what, even if some Indian or Green Christian businessmen insist on independent trade, it will not change the overall situation.The East Coast and Portuguese powers (the latter is clearly a subordinate position) are growing in influence in this area, and their profits are also rapidly increasing, which is gratifying.

Now there are voices in the mainland, saying that Diu Island should be directly managed as an overseas enclave to expand more efficiently in the Rajput region.Members of parliament who support this idea believe that anyway, most of the Indians on Diu Island were forcibly immigrated to the port of Salalah in the Muscat Sultanate, and the rest either fled or resigned themselves to their fate and waited for the next one. Migrants to Oman.

Most of the population on the island of Diu is now people from the east coast, and a small part is Portuguese or Indo-Portuguese. It is necessary to give it an independent political status.The establishment of the commercial station currently in operation is completely unable to adapt to the development of the situation and must be changed!There are even some people who are fanciful and want to establish several cities or regions in northwestern India that are completely populated by people from the east coast, and use this as a fulcrum to better control the local area.After all, in their view, Indian agents are still not as good as the natives, and the short-term cost of doing so is huge and completely unnecessary.But in the long run, it seems to be a good deal.

As for the local executive committee, the bigwigs are currently discussing the status of Diu Island. According to sources, the approval is a high probability event.And once Diu Island is officially upgraded and a pioneering team or management committee is established, the expansion of the East Coast people in Northwest India will usher in a new opportunity.Such a lucrative place that no one will ignore for long!

(End of this chapter)