Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 2515 "Oriental Giant"

On June 1704, 6, an old sailing ship docked in Cape Town Harbour.

Although the ship is old, its name is very domineering. It is called "Oriental Giant", and it belongs to the Blackwater Shipping Company.The ship left its home port in the second half of last year, then passed through Wonsan in North Korea, Jeju Island, Dinghai in Ningbo, Mawei in Fujian, Qinzhou in Lianwu, Brunei, Malacca, Puba Island, and Xinhua Port, and finally arrived in Cape Town, South Africa. The entire voyage As long as more than nine months, it can be called an epic voyage.

Of course, this is only for the small local airline company Heishui Shipping Company. After all, this is the first time it has opened such a long-distance route. It is really not easy to go all the way to Africa.But for shipping giants such as the South China Sea Shipping Company and the East African Shipping Company, this kind of route that has not crossed half of the world is really nothing.In particular, the South China Sea Company, which is firmly seated on the throne of the first brother, is equipped with a large number of all-steam-powered ships. With the support of the ports along the way that the east coast government spent decades and huge costs to build, they can already achieve fixed It is difficult for other companies to catch up with the global voyage route, and it cannot be replicated in the short term.

Blackwater Shipping Company signed an agreement with Nanhai Shipping Company the year before last, and with the approval of the local Ministry of Transport, opened a route between Cape Town and Dabo Port.This route is mainly for freight, that is, to transport the rich medicinal materials, gold, high-grade furs, silk fabrics, tea and other special products in East Asia to Cape Town, and then purchase complete sets of equipment, books, weapons, medical supplies, hardware products, etc. here. And then shipped to East Asia for profit.

There is no doubt that this is a trade route flowing with gold, and the Blackwater Shipping Company will definitely make a lot of money from it.Although according to the agreement, they have to share part of the profits with the South China Sea Shipping Company (the two sides share the route), but they are also very profitable. It is the first step for the company to move from the offshore to the ocean, which is of great significance.

The "Oriental Giant" is a large ship of 1100 tons. After anchoring at the commercial berth in Cape Town, the Port Authority immediately sent some people to organize unloading and collect fees.As the only free port on the African continent, although Cape Town has no tariffs, it will also levy other fees appropriately. The rates are not high, but considering that there are so many ships docking here, the Cape Town Port Authority is still very profitable. enterprises.Otherwise, the South African Riverside Regional Administration would not use its income as collateral to borrow money from the Public Savings Bank to repair the railway, and the bank is not stupid!

When they first came to Cape Town from the relatively backward Blackwater area, the sailors of the "Oriental Giant" were immediately dazzled.The first mate who led the team off the ship looked at these people vigilantly, especially the young lads, for fear that they would disappear without saying a word. The Russian merchant ship sailing to Amsterdam, after a few days of docking, all the sailors refused to return to Russia, which made a big joke for a while.

Fortunately, the sailors of the "Oriental Giant" were not so miserable.Maybe it's because the income in Dabo, Heishui and other cities is not bad, they just go to the store to make big purchases, and they don't do anything else.Because Cape Town is a free port, the price of goods here is not expensive, and the quantity is very large, which is generally the same as that of a big local city. Therefore, you can see a large number of crew members wandering in various stores almost every day to purchase various products. Commodities that are hard to find elsewhere - most importantly, the price is cheap.

In this era, the risks of ocean voyages are unpredictable, and it takes a year or two to go there.If the income is unsatisfactory, indeed, few people will want to be sailors.The East Coast Republic has gone through this stage. There was a shortage of sailors for a time, and it was difficult to recruit those who went offshore, or they couldn't keep them for a long time if they were recruited.At that time, they were even forced to use a large number of foreign sailors to fill the gap, which shows how serious the shortage is.

Later, the Ministry of Transportation on the East Coast had to introduce a series of measures to increase the income of sailors.One of the most important items is to legalize the duty-free quota for sailors' private purchases, that is, to allow sailors to purchase a certain amount of duty-free goods, which will greatly increase their income, and the popularity of sailors will gradually increase. Only then has the predicament of insufficient manpower been reversed.

Now the sailors of the "Oriental Giant" are buying goods in a big way, and there is a unified space on board to store them. As long as the specified quota is not exceeded, everything will be fine.In addition, according to the old tradition left over from the sailing age, some goods can also be stored in each sailor's personal belongings box.In theory, this is illegal, but tradition is tradition. Sailors from all over the world have been doing this for hundreds of years. The officials on the east coast naturally turned a blind eye. Anyway, the luggage box is not big, and daily necessities must be placed. It doesn't matter if you have something in it, that's all.

Businessmen or sailors from Europe can be seen everywhere on the streets of Cape Town's business district.In fact, this is a large-scale trade distribution center. Merchants from many countries choose to ship their goods here to sell, and then buy back what they need and ship it back to their destination.For example, the Dutch in India purchased weapons and ammunition and commodities from their old European countries here, and then sold Indian commodities including Ceylon gems, copra, and Punjab raw silk.This saves them voyage and procurement costs, while reducing risk, which has many benefits.The only displeasure is probably that many commodities are controlled by Cape Town merchants—whether they are people from the East Coast or foreigners—and they have sucked an extra layer of blood. This seems to be why the Dutch East India Company insisted that the company’s merchant ships The reason why the whole transportation of spices is local, they really don’t want to be controlled by Cape Town businessmen, so they would rather take some risks and increase the cost, but also do it by themselves.

Such a prosperous business has naturally brought huge financial revenue to the Cape Town government, and at the same time provided many high-income and high-quality jobs for the local people.After all, the shops lined up on the street, the banks gathered together, the numerous hotels, and restaurants are not fake. In addition, many foreign businessmen invest in real estate here. If the city is not prosperous and the people's wages are not high, it will be real It's unreasonable.

After the sailors of the "Oriental Giant" disembarked, a group of special "guests" on board also went to an open area to rest under the guidance of the dock management department.This is a group of immigrants from mainland China, the number of which exceeds two hundred.According to the plan, they will live in this place that doubles as an isolation and quarantine area for a while, waiting for an old motor sailing ship of the South Sea Transportation Company to pick them up and head to the Gulf of Gibraltar in Europe.

Yes, that's right, they will be a new batch of residents of Jinghai County under the name of the Straits Management Committee.With the continuous operations of the East Coast Army in southern Spain, the area of ​​Jinghai County will be ten times that of the present in the future, which will undoubtedly require more people to fill the gap.The local Spaniards are all untrustworthy, and they will all be transported to other places for resettlement in the future.In fact, in the second half of the year, a merchant ship full of Spanish residents from Gibraltar will arrive at the port of Cape Town, and then wait for another ship to transport them to Australia for settlement.Before them, a merchant ship had already arrived here carrying hundreds of Poles from Danzig County.According to the agreement, the "Oriental Giant" will take some of them back to Northeast Asia, and disperse them in Vladivostok, Ezo and even Kamchatka to enrich the local population.

The area of ​​the isolation and quarantine area is not very large, and it can accommodate about 5000 people, which is enough for the time being.However, I heard that Cape County is building a larger temporary resettlement area adjacent to the Freeport area, which can accommodate about 5 people to cope with the increasing pressure of short-term resettlement.

This was mainly allocated for the construction of a large number of Indians and Mestizos brought in from the mainland.No way, it has been cleaned up for so many years, but the transportation and resettlement capacity is still insufficient. More and more relevant people are stranded in various temporary resettlement sites. Not only Cape Town, but Dayuan Harbor and other places have already resettled at least [-] people The population relies on working in the local supporting state-owned farms for a living.Now that the yellow-black dividing line finally has a further personnel receiving capacity, the local government has decided to increase the sending of personnel to this side, and strive to clear more people of Indian descent from the local area as soon as possible.The Cape County government has money, so it is natural to share the country's worries and build the largest temporary resettlement site in southern Africa. Anyway, this account can be recorded first, and then repaid after the countries on the demarcation line have some financial revenue. Not urgent.

In addition, according to a gossip, the Cape County government will also "loan" a considerable amount of funds to Yicheng County for them to build infrastructure along the Marching Railway, including but not limited to rural roads, farmland water conservancy facilities, and agricultural products. Distributing markets, agricultural product deep-processing enterprises, and even farmers’ residences, in the hope that the development of those areas can be further improved, so that the colonial support for the columns of the yellow-black dividing line will also be stronger.Those grasshead kings have to rely on the marching railway to transport all supplies. The longer the marching railway is built, the better their lives will be. Otherwise, colonial failure is not impossible. Anyway, more than one column has been wiped out over the years. Supported.

The "Oriental Giant" stayed in Cape Town for about two weeks. On June 6, after purchasing the supplies and delivering the immigrants to be transported, the ship pulled anchor and set sail.Their return route was slightly different—this may be due to commercial considerations, monsoons, and ocean currents—the next stop was Yicheng Port under the administration of the Yicheng District Administration, a famous large port in East Africa. port.

(End of this chapter)