Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 257 Antsiranana ([-])

Sitting in a three-room brick and tile house in the very center of the main city, Wang Tiehammer looked around.I saw that the walls are all made of red bricks, but they have not been painted, and they still look like they were when they were just built.A large piece of paper was pasted on the wall, with the words "Project Schedule" written in crooked handwriting, and it was unknown who wrote it.

The roof frame is made of Paraná pine wood, and covered with locally fired blue tiles.At the southeast corner of the roof, there is also a skylight covered with a thick layer of translucent oilcloth for the convenience of lighting.As for why transparent glass was not used, Wang Tiehammer estimated that it was because the quality of the local glass was too shoddy, and it was easily broken by a slight bump during sea transportation.

Overall, this Chinese 90s country-style architecture is very suitable for the environment here.Once the front door and the back door are opened, the drafts pass through the hall, which immediately makes people feel extremely cool; moreover, the slanted and stacked tiles on the roof are good for drainage, which is very suitable for the rainy climate here.However, this kind of building is not without disadvantages. If a hurricane or tornado happens to pass by during the rainy season, and the roof is not very strong, then the fun will be great.It seems that we have to think of a way in the future. It is best to use cement mortar between the tiles to make it stronger and stronger.

The ground is a slightly flattened mud floor and has not been poured with cement.Although this is the dry season, the ground in the room is still obviously damp and looks relatively wet.But this is due to geographical and climatic factors, there is no solution, and this is the only way to go.

"It's a good place." Wang Tiehammer praised after looking at it. "It's a bit decent. If you give you some more time, you may really be able to make some achievements. Tell me about your plans for the next stage. See See how I can help you."

"Commander Wang, I just said that we need people, the more the better!" Taoist Shou looked at Wang Tiehammer and said earnestly, "The rainy season will start from late October to November. From then on, The precipitation is hundreds of millimeters every month, and it will last until April and May of the next year. If such a terrible amount of precipitation is not repaired during the dry season, the water conservancy and sewage facilities will be repaired, and I am afraid that it will suffer a lot. .Also, we need to build more houses, city walls, forts and other facilities in the future. We don’t need a lot of manpower to fill them in. So, Commander Wang, if possible, can you go to the west of the strait? Where did the Portuguese buy some Bantu slaves?"

"I can't help this." Wang Tiehammer waved his hands again and again when he heard this, and then he explained: "I do have a batch of gold and silver on board, but this is all the money from the sale of the goods and the advance payment paid by the Turks for the purchase of the ship. They all have account books, and they cannot be used at will. Moreover, even if I buy some slaves for you now, I am afraid that you will not be able to drive them smoothly based on the old, weak, sick and disabled here? These people are not domesticated in South Africa. The long-awaited slaves of the Eight Banners are rebellious and unruly students. I dare say that if you buy 100 people on the first day, half of them will escape on the second day! So, you should stop this idea for a while. Maybe wait After the strength of our own people on your side increases, we can consider bringing some raw slaves here; or we can simply go to conquer the indigenous feudal kingdoms on the island to plunder slaves, but not now."

"Okay." Taoist Shou thought about it for a while, and then he took a step back and said, "Then, Commander Wang, please leave some supplies for us. To be honest, we are short of everything except food."

Wang Tiechui thought for a while when he heard the words, and then said: "Let's do this. I'll leave some livestock for you, well, just two draft horses and ten sheep, nothing more. This is our own supply. Now all Here you go. In addition, I will leave you a few spare naval guns, which may be useful when repairing the fort in the future."

After finishing speaking, Wang Tiehammer stopped Taoist Shou who wanted to bargain again, and smiled: "Don't be too greedy, I really can only help you so far. So let's do it, and we will change it in the bucket on our boat later." Bring clean and fresh drinking water, and bring up a dozen or twenty baskets of coconuts. By the way, I heard that the lobster and sea cucumber here are very good. After a while... Forget it, I will send someone to catch it myself. Stay longer, do your best, I'll go back to the boat first."

After Wang Tiehammer returned to the ship, the naval officers and soldiers who went ashore to rest saw that the infrastructure here was still poorly constructed. After one after another, they returned to the ship one after another after the freshness passed. Only Taoist Shou remained in the city. A bunch of them.

In addition to the two cows and ten sheep donated before, the Second Fleet left a total of two draft horses, four cows and twenty goats to the Antsiranana colony.For the poor and white colonies, these livestock are also a rare and precious property. To put it bluntly, they are more expensive than those slaves of the Eight Banners, but they must be handled carefully.So, after sending the navy away, Taoist Shou immediately ordered Sergeant Kyle to take some people to cut wood in order to build a livestock shed.In the future, it is even more necessary to designate special personnel to mow the grass and clean the livestock barn every day to take good care of these precious livestock.

The two ships of the Second Fleet set sail again in the late afternoon, and under the watchful eyes of more than [-] pioneers in the Antsiranana colony, they left the bay and headed towards Mozambique Island.

After the Second Fleet left, the Antsiranana Colony once again entered the day-to-day, extremely boring construction work. The first thing to bear the brunt was the small river about 600 meters away from the main city.In this small river called Coconut Creek by the slaves (named for the wild coconut groves all over the river bank), Shou Daoshi did not find too many aquatic animals, probably because the river is in the low season and dry season at this time for the sake of it.After more than two months of continuous observation, Taoist Shou found that the water level of this river is not high on weekdays, only about 1.5 meters; even if it rains for several days, the water level in the river bed will climb to 1.8 meters From Mi Duo's appearance, it seems that Coconut Tree Creek doesn't have much to fear except that the water is a little more turbulent.

But Daoist Shou didn't feel the slightest bit of relief.Because he knows very well that the average monthly precipitation in Antsiranana in the dry season is usually only 10-30 millimeters, but once the rainy season comes, the monthly precipitation will quickly rise to close to 200 millimeters, and even reach 350-400 millimeters at the peak.With such a terrifying amount of precipitation, floods will inevitably form in the mountains in the upper reaches, and the surface of the karst terrain often cannot hold water. Disasters on both sides of the strait.

Faced with such a situation, Taoist Shou, after considering the materials and manpower at hand, felt that he could take advantage of the favorable weather to improve the small river. A small artificial reservoir comes out to increase its water storage capacity.

His idea was unanimously supported by Pei Suoning and Kyle.Especially Pei Suoning, he thinks this artificial reservoir is of great significance, first of all, its existence allows people to store more abundant water during the rainy season.You must know that the rainy season is often only a short period of four or five months, and most of the annual precipitation is concentrated in these months.If these precious fresh water resources are allowed to flow into the sea along the river course, it will be a great waste.

Moreover, in Pei Suoning's calculation, in the future, the colony will have to reclaim fields and grow rice to supply the daily needs of the colonists.The growth period of rice requires a lot of water resources. If there is such a reservoir, then a series of irrigation facilities can be built relying on the reservoir.With sufficient irrigation facilities and the unique climate here, it is not a problem to grow rice twice or even three times a year, and the food problem will be basically solved.

After sharing their thoughts with the other two, everyone felt that this reservoir really had to be repaired from the perspective of flood control and flood discharge, as well as farmland irrigation.

After the plan was decided, several people began to work together.Pei Suoning began to urge the brick kiln to start working day and night, striving to produce more bricks to supply the needs of the construction of the reservoir; Sergeant Kyle organized manpower to dig river channels, build mud dams, and divert river water; Taoist Shou With the most manpower, the original river channel was widened and deepened to increase its water storage capacity, and important areas were built with red brick cement to ensure the quality of the project.

With nearly one in five slaves already disabled, many overseers and army soldiers joined the work.The work was extremely hard, and everyone was covered in mud, like a mud monkey.Moreover, a shower that falls from time to time often troubles these brave pioneers. They often need to drain the rainwater accumulated at the bottom of the reservoir before they can continue to excavate the river bottom silt.

This hard work continued until August 8st.On this day, another fleet flying the flag of the East Coast Republic of China sailed in the sunny Antsiranana Bay.There are four ships in the fleet: one escort gunboat, one armed transport ship, and two flute-shaped transport ships. After confirmation, Taoist Shou found that they were indeed Li Yi's fleet returning here from the South African River Zhonggang Wharf.

Along with this fleet, in addition to a large amount of supplies, two platoons of soldiers from the 101st Company of the Army, 30 Overseers of the Eight Banners and 400 slaves, the most important person is their immediate boss, the captain of the Madagascar Pioneering Team, the agricultural Shi Qinjie, who was born in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is someone.

(End of this chapter)