Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 268 Deepening the Roots ([-])

From time to time, people in twos and threes came to say hello to Technician Liu in the Dangkou restaurant where the two had dinner. It could be seen that he was very popular and popular in the local area.

"Eh, there are spices in this soup?" Zhou Dahe shouted in surprise after taking a sip of the soup.

"Oh, that's cinnamon." Technician Liu said without hesitation, "If you don't use this, the smell of mutton is too strong, and many people are not used to it. Well, this spice is shipped from Xiangshanbao, and the price is not expensive, a catty It only costs one yuan and two cents. This bowl only uses two or three grams, but it is only worth half a cent, hey!"

Technician Liu is a senior technician at the Agricultural Technology Station. His monthly salary is six yuan and fifty cents, and there are welfare payments during the New Year and holidays. Half a penny is really nothing in his eyes.

"Xiangshan Fort? Where is this?" Zhou Dahe asked with some doubts.In his memory, there was indeed no place called Xiangshan Castle in middle school.

"Hey, my little brother really concentrates on studying and doesn't care about major national affairs." Technician Liu teased, and then said: "Xiangshan Fort is a new settlement that was just established last month, and it was only last month that it was the first. A group of immigrants settled in the past. However, the specific urban construction started half a year ago. The specific location is in the area opposite to the estuary of Yazihu ​​Lake and Zhenhai Port. Well, the preaching team said at the market before, " It was also published in Pravda. Little brother, I am not talking about you. People in our yamen... uh... civil servants must not be blind. This news must be well-informed, and "Pravda" must be subscribed. share, understand?"

"Brother Liu's heartfelt words, younger brother will keep in mind." Zhou Dahe said gratefully.Indeed, a while ago he was so absorbed in his studies in the accounting vocational school that he even rejected the banquets among some classmates, but now he thinks about it, but he is a bit too closed.Of course, from another perspective, he would not be a blockbuster in the final exam and get No.3 good grades without such a basic foundation.

In fact, the matter of Xiangshan Fort is not as simple as what Technician Liu said. In other words, this time the executive committee did not only set up a new settlement of Xiangshan Fort, but also set up two other settlements in the Yazihu ​​area besides Xiangshan Fort. Xiangshan Fort is just one of these new settlements.

In early November, the third and last new resettlement site in 1640 was settled at the mouth of Duck Lake. This settlement, named Xiangshan Fort, was located at the mouth of Yazi Lake, opposite to Zhenhai Port, the later San Jose do Norte area.Before this group of newcomers (four hundred Ming, two hundred French, and a hundred Germans) arrived, there were only a few isolated naval batteries standing in this area of ​​sand bars covered with cinnamon groves.

Fortunately, the urban area here already has some foundations. Later, the Government Affairs Council sent a South African construction team to build a new castle along the vicinity of the naval fortress, integrating it with the naval fortress.The residents of this settlement mainly pick and grow cinnamon spices, supplemented by planting and cultivating grapes (the local sand bar terrain is especially suitable for growing grapes), and may also participate in some projects such as wineries in the future.Whether it is spices, grapes or wine, in addition to partially meeting the consumption needs of the domestic market, most of them are exported to neighboring regions in exchange for foreign exchange.

During the slack season, farmers in Xiangshanbao can also grow some vegetables, raise some poultry, and raise some goats.The technicians of the Breeding Center of the Animal Husbandry Bureau took a fancy to the environment here, and specially set up a breeding station here. In the future, some East Coast bighorn goats and their follow-up test breeds will be handed over to farmers for breeding, so as to observe each The characteristics of disease resistance, adaptability, and genetic stability of individual varieties can be improved to better improve existing varieties.

Before Xiangshan Fort, two other settlements had been established in the Yazihu ​​area.

At the beginning of October, [-] new immigrants ([-] Ming people, [-] French people) were assigned to the north bank of the two lakes canal (the former San Gonzalo Canal between Milin Lake and Duck Lake) near the Duck Lake. , a water-rich place on the west bank of the Pelotas River (near Pelotas, Brazil in later generations), and began to build a new settlement named Estuary Fort there.

In the past two years, with the take-off of the domestic shipbuilding industry, the industrial development of Zhenhai Port has also begun to accelerate.As of October 1640, the permanent population of the place had officially exceeded 4000. The entire city was filled with naval officers and soldiers, industrial workers in shipyards and their families. It is no exaggeration to say that this is a city born of the sea. .

However, with the development of industry, the agriculture in this area has always relied on the export of Ping'an County in the north, which took up valuable tonnage of inland river transportation.In addition, Zhenhai Port has to undertake the task of supplying transshipment ships such as transporting coal from the north to the south and transporting the west mine to the north, so there has always been a huge shortage of supplies.Therefore, this time, the executive committee simply decided to build a new settlement near it, which will take over the heavy responsibility of resupplying ships.This new settlement has an excellent geographical location, and almost all ships traveling from south to north pass through here, especially after the opening of the canal from the South Cue River extension to Dongfang Port, it will become the most important canal network in the East Coast Republic a node of .

After Hekoubao is completed, agriculture and animal husbandry will be one of the main business activities in the local area, so as to make full use of the abundant water system and lake resources nearby, vigorously develop rice, soybean and corn planting, and herd cattle and sheep at the same time.The Executive Committee optimistically estimates that in just two years, the area near Zhenhai Port may no longer need to transship supplies from the far north.

A wharf will also be built along the river in Hekoubao, and a small ship repair shop will be built at the same time to provide repairs and maintenance for passing ships.This is more than that. According to the plan, next year, led by the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, the First Machinery Factory and Zhenhai Shipyard will transfer some technicians to establish an inland steamboat factory here, which will specialize in the construction of small steamships for domestic inland waterways, and for Dozens of existing inland river flat-bottomed transport ships have been steamed and refitted.After this shipyard has some technical foundation, it will continue to develop sand dredgers, dredgers, hoisting ships and other special ships in the future, and become a civil special ship factory.

In mid-to-late October, another group of new immigrants ([-] Ming, [-] French, and [-] Chaluya) were assigned to the west side of Duck Lake, between the South San Lorenzo River and the Camaca River In the vast plains, trees were cut down, weeds were cleared, and water conservancy facilities were built.In this area named Xihubao (meaning west of Duck Lake), the Executive Committee expects to move about [-] immigrants here and there, and reclaim [-] to [-] mu of farmland here, mainly to grow rice, wheat, soybeans, Corn and other crops have gradually built this place into the granary of the Eastern China Republic.After all, the slightly arid Dingyuan Township area is actually not very suitable as an agricultural planting area. Only the Duck Lake Basin with a warm climate and abundant water resources is a natural food production area.

After the production of various crops here is stable, the Ministry of Agriculture and the United Industrial Credit Bank will also invest in the construction of a series of food machinery such as machine oil mills (using soybeans as raw materials), machine flour mills, and breweries (using corn as raw materials). Deep processing enterprises to fully tap the potential of this agricultural production area.At the same time, the development of the abundant timber resources nearby has also been put on the agenda.It is reported that the executive committee has recently been formulating a plan to relocate the wood processing plant located in Henan Township, Dongfang County to West Lake Fort, so as to make use of the nearby abundant wood resources to support the growing furniture, office desks and chairs, industry and agriculture in China. Supplies Timber Demand offers a wide range of products.Although the Henan Township Government is not very happy, but considering that the forest resources in the temperate grasslands are extremely precious, it is not appropriate to cut them in large quantities to avoid damaging the local environment. Therefore, after careful consideration, it has decided to relocate the only professional wood processing factory in China.

"A total of [-] new immigrants have been assigned to the three newly established settlements this year. It is expected that thousands more immigrants will be sent to the above three settlements in the next two years to develop them as soon as possible." Technician Liu was sipping the beef soup while frothing about the news he read from the newspaper, but while talking, he turned to Zhou Dahe in a low voice with a mysterious face: "I heard people say, Originally, after the arrival of these new immigrants this year, some people with lofty ideals who were worried about state affairs in the government clamored to allocate most of them to Hezhong Fort and New China Colony to speed up the development process of the two places and provide direct flights to Daming. Create conditions. But later, I don’t know why, but this matter was rejected again.”

Speaking of this, Technician Liu looked regretful.

"Hehe." Zhou Dahe smiled perfunctorily.Technician Liu didn't know where he heard the gossip. How can he, a technician at a small township agricultural technology station, know the inside story of this level of decision-making?Mostly it was just nonsense heard from some wine table.

Fortunately, the country is not in the hands of these people.The mature and prudent members of the executive committee did not follow these people's thinking. They still knew the importance of strengthening the foundation.What is fundamental?The east coast and the Duck Lake area are the foundation and foundation of the country.Only when the foundation is solid and the local construction is complete, will the human and material resources at hand be properly invested in the overseas colonies when there is spare capacity, instead of putting the cart before the horse and giving priority to the development of overseas territories.

The two ate for a while, then checked out and left.Technician Liu was more enthusiastic and directly paid the two bills together.Two bowls of beef vermicelli soup cost 4 cents, and a plate of sauced beef and two side dishes add up to 1 cents and 2 cents, making a total of 1 cents and 6 cents.And the Albanian who sat across from them before had quietly left at some point.

(End of this chapter)