Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 255 Antsiranana ([-])

May 5, early morning.The weather has been fine these days, and everything in the camp is dry and crisp.Daoist Shou just walked out of the patient placement room, and now the number of people staying in the ward has risen to 25, including an Eight Banners supervisor.

Two Khoisan reds who were already weak seemed to be unable to hold on any longer. They should have suffered from falciparum malaria. Due to their poor physique, the interval between attacks is getting shorter and shorter, almost one or two attacks every day. The next time, a large number of rashes appeared on the face, and it is estimated that it will die within two days.

The mosquitoes on the Falkland Islands are mainly Anopheles Falklands, Anopheles Gambiae and Anopheles lethal. Among them, Anopheles Falklands and Anopheles Gambiae have similar biting rates, both 15-20%, and Anopheles gambiae only 0.5%.The carrier rate of Anopheles gambiae is 1.7%, and most of them carry Plasmodium falciparum. The carrier rate of the other two mosquitoes is about 0.6%, and all of them are Plasmodium falciparum.

It can be seen that the main vector of malaria transmission in the Falklands is Anopheles gambiae.Not many of this kind of mosquito inhabit human houses, but a kind of exogenous mosquito, which mainly bites these slaves when they go out to work.Fortunately, the peak period of mosquito bites is from 1 to 4 in the morning, and there are not many during the daytime, so the impact on these Eight Banners slaves is not particularly large, otherwise the number of infected people may be even more.

After checking the patient's placement room, Daoist Shou called Sergeant Kyle to him and assigned him today's tasks first.As of yesterday, the land in the planned main urban area has been leveled and clean, and the foundations have been laid, and the rest is to start construction.But now there is still a lot of cement and lime, and there is a serious shortage of bricks. Most of the remaining bricks are used to repair small earthen kilns, toilets, and sewer facilities. There are only ten thousand bricks left for the main city to repair houses. piece.

What Taoist Shou wants to tell Kyle is to ask him to organize manpower to build several brick and tile houses as warehouses as soon as possible, in order to properly store some important materials such as muskets, artillery, ammunition, armor, medicine, cloth, salt, etc., so as not to use When I suddenly found out that I couldn't use it because of poor storage, that would be too stupid.

Taoist Shou plans to transfer another 50 people to the small kiln to help today, and then there will be fewer people left in the camp in the main city. Excluding those who do odd jobs and are sick, there are only about 110-120 slaves available.Taoist Shou left all these slaves to Sergeant Kyle, and left him 10 armed supervisors to urge these slaves to work hard.

After the explanation from the camp side, Taoist Shou took 32 musketeers and 15 Eight Banners supervisors, and escorted 150 slave workers to the Xiaotuyao camp.The land over there has also been cleared, and the foundation has been laid, so we need to hurry up and work.

Amidst the supervisor's password and the sound of the whip, the slaves filed into the construction site and began to work.In a place like Ma Island, the sunny weather cannot last for too long, so Taoist Shou always has a sense of urgency in his heart.The slaves started the preparation work under the guidance of several former brick kiln workers as technicians, some were mixing cement, lime, sand, some were transporting bricks with some wheelbarrows, and some had already started Some outer walls were built with red bricks.

Seeing that Pei Suoning had taken care of everything here in an orderly manner, Daoist Shou returned to the main camp with peace of mind.Dozens of slaves in the main camp were sitting on the ground to rest at this time. They took off the turbans on their faces, and while wiping their sweat, they sipped the cool water in the cowhide water bag beside them.Several overseers and soldiers sat on the nearby wooden pier, enjoying the coconuts picked by the slaves comfortably.Under the dual effects of bright sunshine and strong sea breeze, almost all the mosquitoes on the main campsite have disappeared.Daoist Shou leaned under a tall coconut tree, eating the fat coconuts offered by the Eight Banners supervisor respectfully, while looking at the beautiful coastline in front of him.

Taoist Shou is convinced that if this place is well developed, it will definitely be a treasure land.The bay is rich in fish, especially barracuda, swordfish, lobster, sea cucumber and other seafood; besides other things on the shore, the large coconut grove and the dense red sandalwood forest on the south mountain are a huge wealth; not to mention The rainfall here is so abundant, if the water conservancy facilities are built well, it may not be a problem to grow rice three times a year.Taoist Shou thought, this place is much better than his hometown in Shandong.Due to the proximity to the coast and the high rainfall, it is extremely warm all year round.Even in the rainy hot season, it is difficult for the temperature to climb above 35 degrees, let alone the current cool season. The hottest time of the day is only just 31 degrees. Apart from being a bit too humid, everything here is fine. .

As for why the executive committee built this stronghold far away from the mainland, Daoist Shou still knew the reason, and he also agreed with this matter.Especially when the territory of Daming is in turmoil, refugees are everywhere, and the order is on the verge of complete collapse.When Daoist Shou traveled around in his early years, he often saw starving people everywhere on the side of the road, and the people had to change their children to eat. The situation was horrible.I hope that after the completion of this stronghold, the local fleet can also be greatly expanded, and then they can sail directly to Daming to find a way to transport all the refugees who cannot survive.

As for whether those refugees are willing or not, Taoist Shou has never considered this issue at all.Is there anyone that stupid?In Daming, you can’t even drink porridge, so if you come to the east coast, you can eat sorghum and rice every day, and you can eat beef and sea fish. Would you be a fool not to come?Moreover, when the local fleet actually sailed to the coastal waters of Daming, these refugees would not be allowed to make decisions.According to the temperament of these arrogant soldiers on the east bank, it is estimated that they will go ashore directly to take people away.

As long as there is a population, it will be easy to handle.How can such a fertile and rich land here be left to those backward and barbaric natives?Of course, we should hand it over to our Chinese who are good at farming to live and develop. If it doesn’t work, we will leave a few reserved areas for you natives in the future, so that you can reproduce in it.

After the daydreaming, Taoist Shou threw the leftover coconut shells into the wooden trash can, and then began to urge the slaves to start working.

This leisurely state of life lasted until late June.On June 6th, the small kiln, which has been tossing on and off for nearly a month, was finally put into production successfully.After burning with firewood for three days to drive off the moisture, it can be officially used at this time.Before that, a large work shed had been set up next to the small earthen kiln. Under the work shed were all neatly stacked mud bricks, totaling 6 yuan.

Pei Suoning directed the slaves to carefully place the mud bricks in the designated position in the kiln with a trolley, and then closed the kiln door.A large number of branches, leaves and thatch are piled up under the rain shelter outside the kiln door, which are collected for burning bricks.No way, they don't have any coal at hand, so they can only burn it with firewood.Anyway, it doesn't matter much, it just requires people to work hard to collect firewood.

As for manpower, they are not too short for the time being.Of course, if there is no new importation of slaves for a period of time, maybe they will face a shortage of manpower-all because of the terrible disease of malaria.

From the 5th of last month to the present, it has been a month and a half since the landing.So far, among the 300 slaves who first landed, 30 Eight Banners miners, 48 ​​riflemen from the 101st Company of the Army, and three senior managers, among a total of 381 people, the number of people infected with malaria has gradually climbed to 42, all of which are falciparum malaria. .Most of them were slaves, a total of 36 people; in addition, there were 4 supervisors of the Eight Banners and 2 officers and soldiers of the 101st company.

Except for two soldiers who were cured by using precious cinchona bark powder under the special permission of Taoist Shou, all other sick people did not receive any treatment.At present, the death toll has reached 10 people, and there are still 4 people who are on the verge of death. The rest of the people are in good health. With sufficient nutritional intake, some antibodies have been produced in the body, and they are currently struggling with malaria. , but the situation is not optimistic.

The morale of the slaves, overseers, and soldiers who were so happy when they first came is now a little low, especially those slaves, whose morale is extremely low because they often have to work in areas where mosquitoes gather.If it weren't for the fact that the family members were still hostages in Hezhong Fort, and there were few people around here, it would be a death to escape, most of these people would have started fleeing a long time ago.

In addition, two people died after being bitten by some kind of poisonous snake in the woods; one died of other acute diseases; was sentenced to death.Calculated in this way, 300 of the original 41 slaves have lost their labor force, which shows the difficulty and danger of developing a tropical wild land.You know, this is still based on having a certain understanding of the harshness of the environment in advance and making relatively sufficient preparations. In addition, this place is still a coastal area with better conditions. If it is a tropical rainforest in an inland area , the loss is estimated to be even more astonishing.

Faced with such a loss, Taoist Shou remained indifferent.Because all the dead were slaves, no matter how many slaves died, it was just a number to him, and it was not worth regretting.The only thing he cares about is the progress of the construction. After all, when the superiors assess him, they will only assess the progress of the construction, and they don't care about how many slaves are left to him.

On June 6, the first batch of red bricks fired in a small earthen kiln came out of the kiln, and the unusable ones such as broken and deformed ones were removed, and a total of nearly 23 yuan of complete red bricks were obtained for use.At this point, the construction of the Antsiranana colony can finally start to speed up.

(End of this chapter)