Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 2397 Central Valley (28)

"Han Junxing, age 52, two houses in District A, one woodshed, and one vegetable garden."

"Zheng Fu, age 29, a house in District A, a carriage, 39 bags of wheat, [-] bags of potatoes."

"Song Kejun, age 26, a house in District A, a carriage, and a vegetable garden."

"Fan Xiaoyi, age 33, two houses in District A, one cowshed, one big and one big cow, and three acres of orchard."

On January 1700, 1, in front of Tuerling Prison, Qin Dajiang, the new warden, stood on a high platform and read out the order solemnly.His Mandarin is not very standard, with a strong Shandong accent, but everyone in the audience didn't find it funny at all, especially those prisoners who had been released after serving their sentences and their families, tears filled their eyes, and the hard days finally came to an end. it's over!

The names Qin Dajiang read just now are all prisoners who have served their sentences.They came from all over the east coast and were exiled to Chile after committing various crimes. Some went alone on the road, and some family members followed them.While serving their sentences, they transformed the environment and reclaimed wasteland. Over time, they accumulated a modest fortune.According to regulations, after being verified and registered by the prison, they can keep these properties as family property, such as the above-mentioned houses, livestock, vehicles, orchards, vegetable gardens, etc., except that orchards and vegetable gardens need to pay a very small land purchase fee Other than that, the rest can be kept free of charge and operated independently.

In addition, with regard to the cultivated land for growing grain that was reclaimed while serving the sentence, it will take some time to wait for the State Development Bureau to send personnel to verify it.In principle, it is still up to each person to cultivate, and the superintendent recognizes the fait accompli, and the people from the General Bureau of Development just come and walk around, sign and confirm, and the job is over.The districts A, B, C, and D are actually divisions of the prison. Each district governs a number of villages, with tens to hundreds of people in each village.

It can be said that the prison land reclamation model set up by the people on the east coast is still very humane. It has given prisoners a lot of protection of rights and naturally mobilized their enthusiasm.And this, to a certain extent, was actually forced by public opinion.

In recent years, there have been quite a few complaints about the exile of prisoners in the East Coast.The most criticized place is that the court ruled that the exile was "too much, too excessive, and too strict".Many people were often sentenced to exile because of some petty crimes, and had to leave their homes and go to Chile, South Africa, or even Australia, Rabaul, Blackwater and other places. It was really miserable.Some newspapers even publicly accused the courts at all levels of arbitrarily increasing the sentencing ratio for exiled prisoners in order to cater to the central government’s desire to open up territories, causing serious social problems—it is reasonable to be sentenced to exile for stealing a few dollars from others. ?

Faced with such fierce pressure, although the Ministry of Justice still resisted the pressure strongly, it had to make some reforms in its Pioneer Prisons, specifically in reducing corporal punishment and other insults to exiled prisoners, and increasing the monthly payment Subsidies for food, seeds, and agricultural tools, and at the same time let them own private property to the greatest extent to reduce the pressure from society.

Tuerling Prison has been established for some years. Last year (1699), a total of 46 prisoners were released after serving their sentences. Therefore, the announcement was made this month to boost the morale of the prisoners.Now it seems that the effect is good, and the prisoners and their families are very satisfied.

After Qin Dajiang read the above list, he smiled and asked someone to bring a cart of salted fish.Six for each prisoner, which is regarded as a parting gift from the prison.From now on, they are local free citizens, and their "fate" with the prison is over, so the prison has to show something.

Of course, these are not heavy gifts.Southern Chile may be short of everything, but there's an outrageous amount of seafood that can make you vomit.The reason may be that it is backed by a large fishing ground. The output of salmon, rainbow trout, whale, and squid is extremely large, which brings extremely rich protein to the local people.

Here we need to add an additional word, that is, the plight and prospect of fisheries in southern Chile.As we all know, the people on the east coast like to eat fish and consume seafood very much, but because most of the population is concentrated on the Atlantic coast, the focus of fishery consumption is also here, that is, the main consumption is cod produced in the offshore of the Southern Cone Platform, Calamari, whale meat, and sometimes tuna off the coast of Brazil and hake off the coast of the Namib Desert.But in any case, because of the long distance, seafood from Chile is sold at a high price, which is not very popular with Dong'an people.

In the era when Southern Railway operated the Strait of Magellan and Southern Chile, they sold a large amount of seafood from Southern Chile to the densely populated areas through the management privileges and fishery quotas they won, and gained a lot of profits.At that time, it was also the golden age of Nantie Fishery Company. The company had as many as [-] professional fishing vessels and whaling vessels at one time, and the annual output was very huge.

In addition, because the southern sea is cold and clean, and there are many broken islands, the artificial salmon farming industry led by Qingfeng County and Araucan County is also very developed. Pacific Coho once became a famous brand on the east coast, bringing local people Great benefits come.

However, with the passage of time and the withdrawal of the Southern Railway, the Chilean fishery industry suffered from a large backlog of southern cone and South African seafood, and sales entered an inevitable decline channel, which hurt the people in southern Chile very much.Today in 1700, although the Pacific coho can still gain a stable market share, the sales of Chilean seafood such as rainbow trout, squid, and whales are not satisfactory, especially in La Plata and Southern Cone, which are close to the Andes Mountains. After the local cold-water lakes also began to breed rainbow trout in large quantities, the flagship product of trout was also wiped out, and Chilean fishery entered a precarious era.

The only way to break the situation now is probably to hope that the population on the east coast will continue to increase, people's consumption capacity will continue to increase, and the market will be enlarged, so that the rich seafood in Chile can be sold, but this is undoubtedly It takes time.

"Everyone, please listen to me. Seeing that the number of people in Tuerling Prison is increasing, the total number of released prisoners, their families, and immigrants has exceeded [-]. It's getting closer." After talking with his subordinates for a few words, Qin Dajiang turned around and said to everyone: "Once the township is officially established, the finances will be merged with the state, and various investment projects will come one after another. Everyone, this is This rare opportunity is also the beginning of the development of our Tuerling University. Therefore, be a good person, work hard, and strive to make life better and better. That’s all I have to say, so let’s leave the meeting!”

After finishing speaking, Qin Dajiang waved his hand and returned to the prison with a group of subordinate officials and prison guards.

The prison was swept extremely clean, not a stone, a piece of rubbish, a piece of waste or a dirty puddle in sight.A dozen or so prisoners were sitting on the ground in the yard where the wind was released, rubbing the hemp rope expressionlessly.Everyone knew that these were dangerous guys who committed crimes again while serving their sentences. They had already been deprived of the right to serve their sentences outside prison, and were instead reformed through labor in prison.

A group of people walked into the long corridor.There were cells on both sides of the corridor, built of wood, unpainted, and smelled like logs.The size of the cell is actually not small. Two rows of large bunks are next to each other, and the prisoners sleep in two rows, head to head.The bunks are not numbered and there is no baffle in the middle, so in theory it can sleep 40 people, or sleep 140 people.There are hats, shoes, empty milk bottles (the mouth of the bottle is plugged by a ball of paper) and other things on the bunk, and boxes, bundles, pockets, tools and all kinds of broken things that have been picked up under the bunk.A well-fed and well-fed cat was wandering around the shop.Clothes, small pots, lunch boxes, and kettles are hung on the walls of the cell, and teapots, teacups, needles, threads, and other sewing items are placed on the shelves.It can be seen that the conditions in the prison are actually quite good, at least more civilized than those in the Old Continent, and certainly more civilized than prisons in other places on the east coast. After all, it is a place of exile, so it must be a little more relaxed.

After passing through the two doors at the end of the corridor, everyone came to Qin Dajiang's office.Here, two officers from the army are puffing and chatting about yesterday's fishing experience.

"Ahem, Staff Officer Cheng, Staff Officer Yu. I'm sorry to keep you waiting." Qin Dajiang pulled out the chair, motioned everyone to sit down, and said.

"You're being polite, Warden Qin. Then let's not waste time, let's get straight to the point." Staff Officer Cheng put out the cigarette in his hand, and said with a smile: "Actually, there are two things. The first thing, Tuerling The prison will switch to wartime production mode from next month. The military department will place a series of orders for you, including food, bacon, salted fish, wooden barrels, ropes, tents, baskets and other materials. Please be sure to send them in the shortest possible time The second thing is that the prisoners in the prison will reduce their working hours and add a certain amount of training time. Well, it will follow the training subjects of the militia, but the intensity will be higher. In the future, we will recruit them to go north Combat, as an important armed force."

As we all know, the East Coast Army has always followed the route of elite soldiers, and the elite is not expensive.According to the plan, those who went to fight in Chile and the adjacent Chalkas and Peru regions were actually a mixed regiment with about 5000 people.With such input of troops alone, the enemy might be able to defeat the enemy in field battles, but in order to capture cities one by one, it still had to rely on irregular troops, which could number as high as [-] or more, that is, militias and various armed forces.The prisoners in the southern Chilean exile area are undoubtedly a very good military supplement.

At present, there are eight prisons in the north of Yingtian County, including Tuerling, Xiamahe, and Goubangzi. Excluding those serving sentences outside the prison, the number of prisoners in prisons still exceeds 500.These people are rebellious, brave and difficult to control. After forming an army, they may not be able to fight hard and tough battles, but they can fight against the wind, attack the enemy's small towns, go to the countryside to collect food and grass, control the lines of communication, and act as an occupying army. Not a problem.

In addition, according to the plan of the Ministry of Justice and the National Development Administration, in the middle of this year (1700), several prisons will be set up in the central valley of southern Chile in one go, and the opening of the prisons will be carried out to the end.These prisons are: Shuangtuo Prison (located near the later town of Saavedra), Clam Beach Prison (located near the later town of Tirua), Changgang Prison (located near the later town of Curacautin), Cape Prison (located near the later town of Leib), River Ridge Prison (located near the later town of Santa Barbara), Changyong Prison (located near the later town of Antuco), Daqingshan Prison (located in the later San Fabian Near the small town), there are a total of seven prison reclamation areas, and it is estimated that more than [-] prisoners will be exiled here—those petty thieves in the east coast are trembling again, and the end of the fight is coming...

These [-] prisoners will basically live at home and will no longer be executed outside prison.They planted farmland, orchards and vegetable gardens around the prison, feeding themselves and stockpiling as much food as possible.In addition, they will also undergo rigorous military training under the leadership of militia training officers drawn from various counties in the interior to prepare for war.The superiors have already promised that those who have made contributions in the war will not only have their sentence reduced, but also receive generous rewards.Although they are unlikely to remain in the military system after the war, as long as they have money in hand, how difficult is it to start a new life?

Fifteen prisons, [-] armed prisoners, are the Spaniards ready?This is an authentic "barbarian" invasion!

(End of this chapter)