Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 647 Excavating the Foundation ([-])

Port of Santa Fe, December 1647, 12.

Two Malay sailors silently brought boxes of canned food ashore, and some soldiers from the 6th Company who were resting on the pier immediately surrounded them.

"Fuck, it's old canned bacon again. I want to eat canned spinach and cod." A senior soldier in the army cursed directly on the pier. There were several blisters at the corners of his mouth, and it seemed that his internal fire was relatively hot.It can be seen that it is not easy to fight on the front line. The mental pressure is high, the environmental conditions are harsh, and the food is extremely mediocre or even bad. It is indeed normal to get angry.

"The canned whale meat with scallions and sauce last time was not bad, why is it gone this time?" A corporal stood in the crowd with his arms folded and looked straight ahead, "Should we let those white shirts Embezzled? Damn it, they just know to hide behind and drag us down."

"Hey, there are more canned yellow peaches. It's not bad." A recruit who obviously just joined the army said happily: "There are also soybeans and beef. Not bad, it's delicious again."

Captain Ventura sat on the deck with his legs crossed, drinking yerba mate tea comfortably, while smiling and looking at the group of east coast soldiers who were resting on the shore.They are all good lads who have been fighting for the land under the sun for the country for more than a year without complaint or regret.In the past year or so, the family's wheat has been planted, harvested, and planted again, the child has grown a full year, and the appearance of his hometown has also changed a lot. Now he only hopes that these boys can safely take him with him. Get the spoils and go back to your hometown to reunite with your relatives.

On the battlefield in the distance, the dull sound of artillery was still sounding.Most of them are the artillery of the people on the east coast, because the artillery of their opponents, the Spaniards, suffered heavy losses and could not be replenished at all. At present, there are only two or three newly shipped guns left for decoration.The offensive and defensive battle between the two sides in Santa Fe, an important transportation point, has lasted for several months, and the strength of the Spaniards here has gradually increased to more than 500 people ([-] Crandis + [-] Lima Legion soldiers), while the defensive force on the east bank included two infantry companies, two artillery companies, four cavalry companies, a militia brigade and part of the Gaucho Volunteer Army, with a total strength of about [-].

At present, except for the cavalry units that have all been dispatched to suppress the Krandi rebellion and maintain the safety of the city and its suburbs, the rest of the infantry and artillery are deployed inside and outside the city, engaging in increasingly boring offensive and defensive battles with the Spaniards.The Spaniards couldn't attack outside the city, and the people on the east coast temporarily lacked enough superior forces to push the Spaniards back.

However, Captain Jiang Zhiqing, who is in charge of the Santa Fe theater, is not in a hurry. Time is on the side of the people on the east bank. They are backed by the Parana River wharf, so it is more convenient to transport supplies—well, because a large number of ships have been transferred back to China recently. It’s not as convenient as it used to be—it’s much less labor-intensive than the Spaniards relying solely on mules and horses to transport a large amount of supplies from Cordoba.If it weren't for the fact that the Spaniards had hundreds of thousands of Kelandi slaves in Córdoba, Tucumán, Jujuy and other places, and the Paraguay region in the north rushed some emergency supplies to them from time to time, these three or four thousand Spanish The soldiers couldn't hold on until now, and were dragged to death by the long supply line.

Jiang Zhiqing recently saw that the Spaniards who attacked Santa Fe were plagued by epidemics and inconvenient supplies, and he had already moved to completely defeat the Spaniards outside Santa Fe. It is only possible after the second militia brigade is assembled.At that time, the people on the east coast will have an absolute advantage in terms of military strength, and the Spaniards will be exhausted by long-term and fruitless offensive and defensive battles and various epidemics. .

But now that they can't counterattack the Spaniards, it doesn't mean they have nothing to do.No, while Captain Ventura was drinking yerba mate tea comfortably, a group of soldiers conscripted from the country drove a group of lowing black cows over.These cattle were all collected from nearby villages. Their original owners could not bear the harassment of the rioting Kelandi people, so they either fled their families to the western part of La Plata, or went to the people on the east coast to register and ask for overseas development.They have had enough of the chaotic situation and endless killings here, they just want a place with fertile land to live peacefully, even if they start from scratch for this.

Of course, there are also quite a few livestock here that come from the enemy's property of the Spanish "spy" who was shot.In order to compete for Santa Fe, the hub of internal and external communication, the Spaniards and the East Coast have invested thousands of troops in a series of battles that lasted for half a year.There were originally a considerable number of white Spanish residents in Santa Fe, and naturally many of these people secretly communicated with the Spanish army either because of religious factors or because of the excessive expropriation of the people on the east coast. The fate can be imagined.Captain Jiang Zhiqing ordered more than a dozen of them to be shot immediately, and the rest were all sent back to their homeland. Some of them will spend a miserable life in the Changshan Iron Mine hard labor camp, and some will be sent to the Pingan County Medical Center. The research institute serves as a material for human experiments.

After the black cattle are transported to the pier, some inland steamboats will ferry the livestock one by one to the south bank of the Salado River, and then the soldiers who have already set off there will drive the cattle all the way south to Buenos Aires. In Leith, their safety was taken care of by some cavalry troops temporarily transferred.

After these black cattle are driven to Buenos Aires, they generally have to be raised for two to three months, because most of these cattle that have traveled long distances are already skinny at this moment, and it is impossible to move forward again without adequate nutritional supplements. OK.The fattened cattle are re-shipped at the port of Buenos Aires to the port of Mall (Cologna) on the other side, and then continue to be driven by the cattlemen back to the local towns for sale-cheap cattle have always been the government One of the war dividends promised to farmers.

According to a conservative estimate, if the 70 mu of wheat fields planted in the East Coast Republic of China last year were calculated according to the three-crop rotation system, a total of about 28 to 30 adult cows would be needed to provide manure. If the management is not good, it may not even reach a hundred catties. This is definitely not a joke.

And how many cows are there in total in China now? More than 11 heads!This figure was reached after the mad grabbing of more than 6 cattle from La Plata a while ago, and it was not even half of it before. It is no wonder that the average yield of wheat on the east coast is only seven Eighty catties, there is really too little fertilizer and not enough land.Even though the climate on the east coast is good, the rainfall is abundant, and the land is very fertile, but energy is conserved. There are only so many nutrients in the land, and you will have less food in one crop.If the land is not supplemented with nutrients from time to time, then the output will decline year by year.

Therefore, the huge herd of cattle in the La Plata area is one of the most valued properties of the people on the east coast, because it is an indispensable part of realizing the "modernization" of agriculture on the east coast.With the expansion of land reclamation on the east coast year by year, the demand for livestock is also increasing rapidly. The gap of hundreds of thousands of cattle is not easy to solve in normal times, because even if you can spend a huge amount of money (maybe 500-1000 [-] yuan) to buy cattle, the Spaniards may not sell it to you.Even if most of the steers sold to you are steers that have been steered, it is difficult for them to sit back and watch the people on the east coast who also own a large grassland also develop animal husbandry rapidly.

But now, during the war, this problem is much easier to solve.For example, what the people on the east coast are doing intentionally or unintentionally at present is to buy a large amount of property that originally belonged to the Spanish colonists at a low price by conniving at the revenge of the freed Krandi slaves against the Spanish slave owners, or sometimes It can be picked up for nothing - because some slave owners unfortunately lost their entire family.

This turned out to be the case for several La Plata families who maintained close commercial ties with the East Coasters.Except for the eight or nine big businessmen, farmers, and ranchers headed by the Rodriguez family who are strong and have a certain number of private soldiers to protect themselves, the other small Spanish businessmen and ranchers who are weak They fell bloody bad luck.It is unknown elsewhere that 49 white Hispanic farm and ranch operators were murdered in the city of Santa Fe (including the suburbs) within the first half of this month.Although Captain Jiang Zhiqing, commander-in-chief of the Santa Fe theater on the east coast, quickly sent people to capture a group of stupid Kelandi criminals who publicly sold stolen goods (cattle) in the livestock market, the dead Spaniards could not be resurrected. Unowned things" naturally became the property of the East Coasters themselves.

In addition to cattle, the people on the east coast are also trying their best to dig out the roots of the Spaniards' rule in La Plata.For example, they planted a large amount of pasture in the wheat fields of the Spaniards to supply the horses accompanying the army or the passing cattle; Secretly use all means to keep the white colonists in La Plata continuing to lose—whether it is going to the overseas colony on the east bank or rolling back to the western half of La Plata, in short, just don't appear in the Paraná River Basin.

It is believed that after the end of the war, the Spaniards' colonial efforts throughout La Plata will be set back by ten or even decades.The sharp decline in the number of white colonists, the barren land, the deterioration of the public security environment, and the damage to colonial facilities will undoubtedly trouble the Spanish officials who are determined to rebuild the La Plata colony for a long time.At that time, if it is necessary to restore La Plata to its former prosperous situation-at least to support the Kingdom of Spain to deploy an elite army of thousands of people here, I am afraid that the king of the Spanish will need to immigrate 3 to [-] people from the mainland. Five to ten years of painstaking construction with an upfront investment of millions of pesos, but is it possible?

Once the foundation of the Spaniard La Plata is dug up by the people on the east coast, there will probably never be a chance to recover it!

(End of this chapter)