Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 2524 I really can't think of a title

"Motu City is a glorious city. The discovery of copper mines will definitely help the city develop rapidly in the future. I am very optimistic about this." Speaking at the newly opened Motu Geology and Mining Specialized School (Technical Secondary School) After finishing his speech, Director Stanley University left the school in a carriage and went to the agricultural area in the west of the city.

It is an indisputable fact that Rabaul lacks iron and coal.So the discovery of copper looks more like salvation for this remote and barren region.Now that the price of copper is soaring, to be honest, mining copper mines is not much less profitable than mining silver mines. After all, silver is no longer the legal currency on the east coast, although the overseas colonies are still gold and silver.

There are two copper mines that have been discovered so far.One is an open-pit mine located in Xiye Island, which has been discovered for a year and is currently being prepared for mining.But the second copper mine near Motu Port was newly discovered, which is a bit surprising.People from the Ministry of Geology joked that it was dark under the lamp. They explored many nearby islands with volcanoes, collected a large number of mineral specimens of sulfur, copper, gold, manganese, and nickel, and locked a manganese mine, a copper mine, and a It is a gold mine, which has contributed a lot, but it almost missed the copper mine near Motu City.

This mine is not as large as the one on West Coconut Island, and it is more difficult to mine, but it is close to the capital city and is very convenient in all aspects.Stanley has decided to send someone to conduct a thorough investigation to see what conditions are needed for mining and how much manpower and material resources will be invested.

However, with the current situation of the Rabaul Management Committee, it may not be able to mine two copper mines at the same time.Therefore, Stanley is already seriously considering whether to sell the mine on Xiyue Island to the local Wolong Nonferrous Metals Company.If the price is good, it can bring a lot of income to the Rabaul Management Committee, which is good for local development.What's more, although the copper mine is sold, Wolong Nonferrous Metals must set up a branch company locally for mining, and it must also have a rough smelter. In order to transport mining and smelting equipment, they have to invest in road construction. How many jobs and jobs will be created? Economic benefits.After stable production, there is still a tax every year, how nice!No wonder every big official in Xinjiang likes to invest in it. With money, the local weather is different.

Gold mines are even more important than copper mines.The Rabaul Management Committee has a large reserve of gold. This is a fact that many people know, because they have found dog head gold and alluvial gold in too many places.There are West Coconut Island, west of Rabaul, and New Guinea Island, but the former two are located in dense forests, mining is difficult and costly. Only the gold mines located in the Burolo River Valley in the upper reaches of the Markham River have comparisons. Great mining feasibility.

This gold mine was also discovered by a joint expedition.Their original purpose was not to find gold, but to explore geography and find the source of the Markham River.Therefore, I went ashore at the location of Lai City in the later generations, and then went all the way back.During this process, they discovered a large amount of alluvial gold washed down in the river bed, and concluded that there must be a gold mining area upstream, so they asked the management committee for support and planned to expand the investigation team to conduct a survey on the main stream and tributaries of the river. A thorough investigation.

The Rabaul Management Committee was naturally very interested in this, and they sent people and provided considerable supplies at the first time.In addition, they also built a camp near the mouth of the river, named Laicheng, to facilitate the supply of the expedition team, and also to facilitate the inland gold panning in the future.

After the expedition went up the river, they accidentally discovered a wide river valley, which surprised them very much.The accompanying officials of the Rabaul Management Committee seemed to be more mobile, because they discovered that this valley had the potential to be developed into good farmland.God is sorry, the area of ​​the Rabaul Management Committee is large enough, but there are mountains and virgin forests everywhere, and there are only a few flat lands in the coastal area on the south bank where food can be grown.The Lee Valley they discovered this time—yes, they've renamed what the locals call the Markham River—the Lee River—is big enough and level enough that all it takes is to cut down the forest above it (which is also a fortune. income (after all, they are all high-quality trees that have grown for hundreds of years), then a large amount of land can be leveled out, and food production will be guaranteed to a considerable extent.

Unfortunately, they still don't have enough people.Whether it is deforestation or farming, people are needed, and judging from the harsh natural environment of the local area, this level of development is bound to kill many people. Perhaps the operation to arrest the natives will be launched on a large scale.Although there are few Melanesians, if you search around, you can always find a few, right?

Closer to home.After the investigation team completed the exploration along the Lai River system, they entered the further upstream La River (Lamo River) water system, and then entered a vast highland area.The environment in the highlands is complex, with dense forests and snakes and insects everywhere, but even under such difficult circumstances, the joint expedition team still discovered a manganese mine.It's a pity that this manganese mine is too remote. Without high-grade roads and railways, mining is simply unrealistic, so we have to give up.

But no matter what, the location of the gold mine has been determined, and the alluvial gold washed down for thousands of years lies quietly on the river bed, which is a huge fortune.After taking office, Stanley learned about these situations, and his first reaction was to advertise in the Far East to attract people who wanted to pan for gold to come and settle here.He is very aware of the gold rush in the local Tuanjie River Basin, so he expects that the gold mines in the Lai River and La River systems will become the second holy land for gold panning, attracting countless people, which is obviously crucial to the economic development of the Rabaul Colony .

However, the gold mine is a matter of the future. Even if the preparations start now, there will be no results in three to five years.Before a large amount of gold was produced, the largest export commodity of the Rabaul Management Committee was still copra, which was the first way for them to obtain export income, followed by dried fruits and canned fruits, wood, sago and other materials.

Therefore, the first stop for Stanley to visit the agricultural area in the west of the city was the state-run coconut orchard.More than 500 Motu laborers work on this plantation, making it the largest in the region.They pick coconuts from the trees and process them.The whole process uses few machines and is purely manual, so the plantation is undoubtedly based on the exploitation of the slave-like Motu people.

In addition to local consumption, most of the coconut products are exported, and the main customers are the Chinese from the Far East, Japan and South Korea.However, they have faced fierce competition in recent years. Brunei, Timor and even Lianwu have produced a large amount of coconuts, and the market price has fallen again and again.And they are far away from the market in Rabaul. If they didn't use slaves in large quantities and the cost is extremely low, it would be almost difficult to compete with others.

Stanley visited the entire coconut garden with a grim expression, then turned around and went directly to the rubber plantation next to him.Rubber is nothing new, but it is new to Rabaul because it has not been introduced for a long time.

This plantation is also state-owned, but in order to reduce investment, the Xinhua County Agricultural Bureau of Xinhua Island was introduced as a shareholder.The other party provided tree species and necessary cultivation and management techniques, and Motu County provided land, labor and some cash, and both parties took half of the shares, and finally set up the shelf of this plantation.

When Stanley arrived, it was time for the noon roll call at the plantation.After the supervisors knocked the gong, about 300 indigenous people lined up on the playground. The supervisors stood in front and the laborers stood in the back, which meant that all activities on the plantation were militarized.

Most of the overseers are from the local area, usually of mixed descent from Melanesians and East Coasters.They have higher incomes, have separate houses in the park, and can bring their wives and children.The management and security team of the plantation are from the East Coast, and the owner is the top person in charge. He makes work plans every day, such as pruning 50 trees today, and cleaning up the weeds next to 100 trees tomorrow, etc.

In the eyes of the owner of the garden, he does not regard the aborigines as human beings, but as a "basic work unit", which belongs to consumables, and he doesn't even bother to remember their names. The "work units" complete the work quota every day, which takes about 12 hours. They work six and a half days a week, and they can rest for half a day on Sunday afternoon. They can play cards, go shopping, sleep, handle housework, etc., but they are not allowed to leave Park, otherwise the security has the right to shoot those people.

There is no doubt that the treatment of workers in the Rabaul plantation is much worse than that in places such as Xinhuaxia, because they really have no personal rights.Supervisors and security guards can wantonly humiliate and beat them, and sometimes they can even make excuses to make them die inexplicably.In short, this is a very cruel and inhumane behavior, so much so that the cooperating party, Xinhua County Agricultural Bureau, can't stand it.But perhaps, this is the key secret for the agricultural products exported by the Rabaul Management Committee to maintain low prices for a long time and survive the brutal market competition.

Stanley watched it here for a while and then left.These plantations are of course the mainstay of their current economy, but if the Rabaul Management Committee wants to develop, it will definitely not be able to rely on these low-end gadgets.Their future lies in gold, copper mines, and even those manganese ore and nickel mines that are not very convenient to mine.

In a word, it is impossible to rely on agriculture, and you can only barely get by. If you really want to get rich, you still have to rely on industry.This involves mining and smelting (of course you can't sell ore directly, it's too low-end...), and even if possible, it is possible to introduce talents and technology from other places and do some rough processing.

But the premise of all this is that people are needed!There is news of alluvial gold in the Lai River and La River systems, and it seems that it can be released with great fanfare!

(End of this chapter)