Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 2423 Economic prosperity before the war ([-])

On March 1701, 3, Jiaohe Port, sunny.

The passenger and cargo ship of the messenger liner company has been parked here for several days, waiting for a batch of daily necessities transported from Rehe, including ready-made clothes, shoes, blankets, household utensils, etc., as many as more than 100 They are all kinds of things, but the total value is only tens of thousands of yuan. In fact, they are all very fragmentary things, but they are all necessary for ordinary people's daily life.

Rehe is the name of the people on the east bank, and the Portuguese call it the Requitinionha River. It is a river originating in the south of the Tuanjie River area. It has abundant water and a large gradient. It is not very conducive to navigation, but it is very conducive to power generation. , Of course, it has not yet reached the step of building a hydropower station.

According to the agreement between the East Coast people and the Portuguese decades ago, the two countries are bounded by the river port (Porto Seguro).For a long period of time after the signing of the agreement, the people on the east bank abided by the agreement, and did not try their best to cross the border and encroach on other people's territory as they did in other places.The reasons for this are difficult to explain and are very complicated, but generally speaking, the entire Jiaohe area is relatively poor and has no motivation to expand northward, and the leadership at the time was relatively conservative and did not support them in terms of policy.

But nothing is set in stone.After years of development, as a trade node between Africa and the East Coast in the age of sailing, Jiaohe Port has accumulated a lot of capital.Moreover, the local tropical agriculture is becoming more and more mature under the management year after year, and land resources have been developed in large quantities. Many people have set their sights on the fertile land located in the north of Jiaohe and south of Rehe, and the first Cross-border reclamation activities began for the first time.

The Portuguese came earlier than the people on the east bank, but they were small in number. Before the people on the east bank crossed the river in large numbers, they only established a town near the border on the east bank, namely the city of Ennapolis (Eunapolis). .The city's main source of income is agriculture and logging, and a small army is also stationed. It is purely a settlement established forcibly to divide the border between the two countries.

Needless to say, this kind of forced settlement was naturally unpopular with the people, so that ten years after the establishment of the city, there were only 500 people, and it was almost impossible to maintain.If it weren't for the French King Louis XIV's foolishness, which made the Huguenots unable to survive in France and had to flee overseas—many people came to Brazil by boat—the population of a city like Ennapolis would not be large at all. It may reach today's [-], but it will never be possible!

However, outside the forced city of Ennapolis, there are many settlements and villages that formed spontaneously.One of the biggest characteristics of these villages and towns is that people from the east coast and Portuguese live together.Well, it might be wrong to say that it was mixed with the Portuguese, but it was actually with the Iberian "Protestants" (non-Protestant Christians, specifically Jews who converted to Catholicism), the French Huguenots and the Portuguese Mixed living, the number of the first two is even more.

The cultural integration of mixed people is actually very interesting, highlighting the strength of the East Coast in the American continent today.According to a secret investigation by the Jiaohe District Administrative Office, most of the more than 160 villages and four large settlements use Chinese as the mainstream language. Chinese is almost impossible to do business with, so Chinese has become the most popular language in the area.

The four large settlements in the mixed zone are Jinman Township (located near the later town of Santa Cruz Cabralia, where there is a slightly silted small port), Luntai Township (located in the later Almena La small town), Gongyue Township (near the later town of Santa Maria de Salto) and Isi Township (near the later town of Belmonte, which also has a semi-silted port that can only be navigated by small boats) .There are more than 1 people living in these four settlements. The economy is mainly based on the deep processing of agricultural products and handicrafts. At the beginning, the goods were sold to the two counties of Jiaohe and Liucheng in the south. Later, foreign merchants who stopped at Jiaohe Port discovered These cheap "gold mines", these small and small commodities slowly began to go to other parts of the world, bringing a lot of benefits to the local economy.

It is worth mentioning that these four settlements have all appeared on the maps of the East Coast people, and the names were also taken by people from the State Development Bureau, and the locals have another set of names for them.However, it seems that the Jiaohe District Administrative Office has planned to annex it, and it will be brought under the formal control of the East Bank government in the future. Jinman, Luntai, Gongyue, Yixi, etc. will also become official place names, which is almost inevitable. no doubt.

At the beginning of 1698, Serginho was ordered to inspect the city of Ennapolis.That city is famous for its processing of clothes, and almost every household has a mechanical sewing machine imported from the East Coast.They do not produce cloth, but directly purchase cotton cloth from the east bank shipped from the market, and then process it into various textiles such as clothing and quilts, and sell them to several counties in the Jiaohe area.Because of the low cost, fast delivery, and decent quality, the local sewing companies in Jiaohe are very big.The cost can't compete with others, and the quality is too high, so how to fix it?There have been proposals to restrict the export of sewing machines and cotton cloth to these "outlanders", but fortunately this has not happened, and then there have been proposals to build a wall, but this has also failed to become a reality.

During his stay in Ennapolis, Serginho talked with the locals and found that there are no large-scale enterprises in the area, and they basically exist in the form of family workshops.They farm during the day and work hard at night or during slack to process clothes. They don't count their free time into labor costs at all, so their products are extremely competitive.

Similarly, there are handicraftsmen in several other towns who process copper pipes, lead pipes, horseshoes and even dry food.The income of such people is actually quite good, at least much better than that of purely farming farmers.They are an important supplement to the large machine industry and an important part of the social economy.According to the incomplete statistics of the East Coast Ministry of Industry and Commerce, the total number of craftsmen in the hardware industry (gold, silver, copper, iron, and tin processing) in the East Coast has exceeded 12, with an average annual income of more than 140 yuan, which is higher than that of workers and farmers. And soldiers are taller.Isn't it amazing?Handicraft workers in the era of large-scale industry can still live like ducks in water. They have become the middle and upper classes of the middle class and are important consumers of commodities.

Besides the hardware trades there were saddlemakers, shoemakers, watchmakers, woodworkers, carpenters, masons, tailors, bakers, etc., and the list goes on infinitely.Since 1690, the number of these craftsmen has been experiencing a very rapid increase, with an average annual growth rate of 6%-7%, which is higher than the population growth rate. This seems to show the economy of the East Coast from another angle. continued prosperity.

In fact, if we consider it from the perspective of human nature, we will find that everything is normal.People always act as wage laborers at first, and then try to become independent laborers after they have certain skills or capital.The world is not always static, people are always used to move from one class to another.Like joiners, they often only need tens of yuan of capital to start their business. Manufacturers of smoked fish and cured meat need less capital, and lamps, toys, desserts, etc. are also very similar.If these people can successfully find a business, they will try to hire a few people as helpers - if they can't find a business to do, don't worry, they can return to the ranks of wage laborers - and when these helpers have learned skills or accumulated After capital and relationship, these people will try to leave the workshop and become an independent laborer.

The number of handicraftsmen in the East Coast Republic of China may have grown rapidly in such a cycle, and eventually became a very important part of the industrial population, although they could not be accurately ruled.But there is one point that must be explained here, that is, such a growth method is actually very dependent on the healthy development of the economy.Only when the economy is prosperous, the scale continues to expand, and the funds available to the people for consumption continue to increase, can such a scene be born.On the contrary, if the economy goes down all the way and the market shrinks year by year, the number of handicraft craftsmen will definitely not increase, and maybe it will continue to decrease, because they cannot obtain satisfactory income through their crafts, so they can only change jobs or enter factories as income. wages for industrial workers.

Fortunately, the East Bank is now on such a benign track of economic prosperity, the market demand is very strong, and the number of craftsmen is increasing day by day.Especially the hardware industry, which has the largest number of independent laborers, has exploded again and again with the popularity of steamships.More than ten years ago, a senior craftsman who subpackages and nails ship boards may have only one or two people under his command, but now, a master craftsman who has taken over a subcontracted project often shares the money with four or five people, and the work intensity is also high. It is much bigger than before, and I often go to another boat after finishing one boat (the part I am responsible for). I am very busy, but I often have a tired but satisfied smile on my face.There is no other reason, there are many businesses, enough work, and high income!

Serginho compared the artisans in San Salvador and the cities on the east coast, and found that their incomes were relatively low, and their numbers hardly increased, and there was a clear distinction between wage laborers and independent laborers, and there was little movement.This seems to say something about the stagnation and lack of vitality of Portuguese Brazil's economy, but compared to the war-torn old continent, it seems to be very good, doesn't it?

The economy on the east coast is really the only one in the world at this time, and it has prospered to the point where it makes people feel dazzling.After the battle that is bound to break out, I really don't know how far they will develop!

(End of this chapter)