Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 32

1632年6月10日。定远堡垦殖区开拓大队第1生产队的1000亩农田获得了巨大的丰收，超过900吨的土豆被纳入东岸公司储备粮仓库。这批土豆足够目前所有人加在一起吃半年，悬在大家头顶挥之不去的粮食阴影终于暂时消退了。

To this end, the Executive Committee organized a large-scale celebration, and designated June 6th as the Harvest Festival every year.

Blanco Sousa de Almeida and his entourage walked among the bustling crowd, and the streets were filled with carnival crowds.A few rude Germans were sitting at a small table on the street, drinking drunkenly unknown spirits in small wooden barrels, talking and laughing loudly as if no one was there.

Street corners seemed to be handing out free food, and huge crowds crowded there.A few policemen in black uniforms were there to keep order, with brass whistles around their necks and short clubs at their waists, so that even the roughest Irishman became respectful at the sight of them.

As the most learned scholar in San Vicente, Blanco discovered many things that interested him.The pedestrians walking on the street are obviously from many different countries, the most of them are German, followed by Czechs, Norwegians, Finns and Irish, which can be heard from the language they use to talk to each other .It seems that people from different countries use another unique language for conversation. Blanco is a little ashamed. He didn't recognize the language of which nation or country it is, maybe it is Tatan?

But Father Simão Pérez da Silva, from the Society of Jesus, put forward a different opinion. He believes that this language seems to be very similar to the language used by the Eastern Ming Empire.Father Simao, who had stayed in Macau for many years, was proficient in the characters of the Ming Dynasty and could speak the dialect of the southern region of the Ming Dynasty fluently. His words had great credibility.

And, he quickly found evidence to support his thesis.At the crossroads ahead, there is a row of newly built oriental-style houses with red bricks and blue tiles. A wooden sign is hung under the eaves of the houses, with a row of words written on it with some kind of black dye.

"What are you writing?" Blanco looked at Father Simao.

"Supply...Sale... Society." Father Simao was a little at a loss. He knew these three words, but he had no idea what they meant when they were connected together.

"Maybe it's a store." Father Simao said uncertainly after looking at it for a while.

"Let's go and have a look." Blanco turned his head and said, "Ricardo, Carlos, let's go and have a look together, maybe we will find something new."

The four of them walked through the intersection and entered the "Supply and Marketing Cooperative".The clerk looked at the four well-dressed people and was a little surprised.However, she was only a little surprised. There were often ships from various countries berthing on the pier. Dirty and rude sailors, well-dressed gentlemen, and even some beautiful ladies would take advantage of the berthing to enter the city for a stroll.She has seen a lot of people of all kinds. Although the combination of the four gentlemen, priests, businessmen, and military officers is rare, it does not arouse her too much interest.

There is not much space in the store.There is a long counter at the door, and behind the counter are several shelves next to the wall. The types of goods on the shelves are not very rich.Blanco approached and looked at the shelves facing the door in the middle, and found that most of them were common commodities in Europe, such as cotton cloth, linen, wine, sugar, salt, olive oil and so on.Blanco judged that only the salt was produced by the Tatans themselves, and the rest should be imported from Europe.

A sound of "弧啷" came from the left, and Blanco looked over in a blink of an eye, and found that Captain Ricardo had pulled out a saber placed on the shelf on the left.

The movement here attracted the attention of two guards inside the door. Each of the guards carried a matchlock gun on their backs, and a similar saber was hung on their waists.The clerk also came over, and she hesitated for a moment, as if she didn't know how to speak, maybe she didn't know what language to use to talk to these people.

"Good day, sir. Do you need any help?" Alessia Bastian asked carefully in French. The four customers seemed to be Spanish in their attire, hoping they could understand French.

"Good day, beautiful lady." Captain Ricardo replied, "I just want to try this sharp saber. I'm sorry for disturbing you."

"Sir, this saber is forged from high-quality steel, which is of better quality than similar sabers. It is very suitable for you." Alessia said skillfully, "Believe me, whether it is on the battlefield or in the duel field, he Both are partners you can rely on. In fact, we have sold over 1000 of these knives. Today in Sweden, Russia and the Brandenburg region, our sabers are synonymous with dependability.”

Ricardo pondered for a moment, stroked the inscription on the saber, and asked, "How much is the price of this saber?"

"Two yuan and fifty cents, sir." Alessia immediately returned, "Do you need it?"

"Yes, I need it." Captain Ricardo paid the money, and then hung the knife on his waist.He had exchanged some Tartan currency on the pier, and he knew that 2 yuan and 5 cents were equivalent to 20 Spanish riyals.The price is neither expensive nor cheap, but Captain Ricardo really likes this knife. Men always need some special toys.

"Sir, do you need to look at other things?" Alessia finished a business and continued to sell other products, "The tools and agricultural tools produced by our East Coast company are also very good. Please see below, shovel , sickle, pickaxe, fork, axe, iron nails, hammer, butcher knife, etc. are all very good, and they are also made of high-quality steel, and the price is also very cheap."

Ricardo didn't speak, but Blanco looked over.As we all know, the suzerain country has strict restrictions on the industrial development of the New World colonies.Every year, the royal family or large companies that monopolize trade transport various production and living materials from the mainland to sell at high prices in the colonies, and then transport special products such as cotton, sugar, cocoa, and coffee from the colonies back to the mainland for sale, earning high profits.

In the first half of the 17th century, in addition to Brazilian mahogany, Brazil’s main export trade products were plantation crops such as sugar, tobacco leaves, cotton, and indigo, or leather, tallow, horse (cattle) hair, horns, fur, feathers and sweets. Wine and other livestock products.Corresponding to the export trade products, the products imported by Brazil are mainly vinegar, ironware, linen cloth, cotton cloth, silk satin, medicinal materials, oil, hats, wine, cured ham and machinery and other production and living materials, mainly from Portugal.

It can be seen from this that the colony exported a large amount of primary agricultural and animal husbandry products, and imported production tools and consumer goods.Due to trade monopoly, the Brazilian native plantation nobles and livestock nobles will lose a lot of profits every year.This made them extremely angry with the Portuguese merchants in the big cities, but they had no choice but to rely on them.

Blanco Sousa de Almeida, as the son of the owner of the "sugar aristocrat" in southern Brazil, knows this situation all too well.Now seeing that the Tatan people have such a complete range of agricultural tools and hardware products here, I can't help but move my mind.If their production is enough, they can smuggle it back to Brazil through the family's ships, and then either use it for themselves or re-export it for sale.

Moreover, these Tartans seem to be very lacking in Brazil's large surplus of livestock products and cash crops such as sugar, tobacco leaves, cotton, and indigo, and the economic complementarity between the two sides is very strong.Thinking of this, Blanco kept his expression on the surface, but he had his own thoughts in his heart.

The four looked at it for a while, and found that there was nothing new, so they left the store.In the store just now, they had asked clearly how to get to where they were going, and now they went straight to their destination as soon as they went out.

Walking north along the intersection for a few minutes, passing two waves of celebrating crowds, we arrived in front of a three-story red brick building with a wall.This is the tallest building in the whole city and the only high-rise building. It is made of red bricks and cement prefabricated panels, just like the rural buildings that can be seen everywhere in China in the early 90s.

This is the newly built Executive Committee Administration Building.After the original office wooden house was demolished, the construction company built this building on the original site, and used the latest reinforced cement prefabricated panels produced by the cement prefabricated panel branch of the brick kiln factory.The entire building has three floors and [-] rooms, covering almost all the administrative agencies of the Transit Congregation.

A team of 8 policemen from the Ministry of Internal Affairs was stationed at the entrance of the wall, and there were also three scattered teams with a total of 24 policemen inside, which can be regarded as heavily guarded.There is a reception room at the door, and there is a time traveler working in it, with a translator by his side.

The interpreter was a Frenchman. After listening to Blanco's introduction, he relayed it to the time traveler in English.

"You said you are Brazilian? Come here to buy weapons and equipment?" Li Le asked, "What equipment do you want to buy?"

"We need your high-quality plate armor, powerful light artillery, and of course, sharp sabers." Blanco said, "I have been authorized by the Governor of Bahia, and we can establish a long-term cooperative relationship."

"I can't decide this matter." Li Le took out a piece of paper, scribbled a few strokes, and then said: "The sale of plate armor and cannon requires the joint approval of the Army Commissioner, Navy Commissioner, and Material Commissioner. Unfortunately today, they all went to the west to participate in the celebration ceremony. How about this, you take this list and go to the Port Authority upstream of the dam, and they will arrange for you to take a boat to your destination. Go!"

The four of Blanco had no choice but to find the Port Authority in the city with the list.A "Tatan" official from the Port Authority checked the form carefully, then filled out a few more lines and handed it to Blanco, instructing him to pass it on to the next official he met.Then, after each of them charged a dime for the boat ticket, they were arranged to take a small inland river boat to transport supplies to the first production team of the development team.

(End of this chapter)