Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 699 The Church

Beginning in late June 1648, the entire Eastern China Republic began to be immersed in excitement, ecstasy, and pride.Even the Jingjiang Fort, which is far away on the other side of the prairie on the east bank, was contaminated by this emotion. The young cadres of the Corps Fort who commanded the new immigrants to come here to build castles and open up wasteland were even more full of emotion. After telling each other in a red light, they announced loudly to all the new immigrants that they would add a meal at noon to celebrate the navy's return in victory!At the same time, it also celebrates that the war is coming to an end. The East Bank Republic is likely to permanently occupy the area east of the Wujiang River (Uruguay River), which of course includes the Jingjiang Fort they are currently building (later New Carmila).

Some old citizens who came from Dongfang County, Meilin County, and Zhenhai County brought a sumptuous lunch.Due to the continuous reduction in the scale of the La Plata war and the gradual increase in productivity, in recent months, some commodities on the east coast market have gradually bid farewell to the state of shortage, and many prices that were originally high have gradually fallen to dust. The most typical one is beef.

To be honest, beef has almost become a symbolic commodity in today's China East Coast Republic, and the price trend of this widely consumed commodity almost represents the shortage of domestic materials on the East Coast.Just after the war broke out in the second half of 46, the Colonia trade market was forced to close, and after the import of foreign beef cattle was cut off on the east coast, domestic beef prices immediately began to skyrocket.

The economic liberals within the government are usually more or less involved with various import and export trading companies, and they were the ones who strongly urged the government to loosen the control of the beef market and clamored for regulation through the market economy.After the war broke out and the alien beef cattle were cut off, they immediately hoarded the beef cattle on hand, and at the same time vigorously drove up the price, causing the price of meat on the market to soar across the board.And as the government invested a large amount of excess currency in order to cope with the war, the price index also soared day by day, seriously shaking the prestige of the executive committee's rule.

Fortunately, the government later eased everyone's dissatisfaction by promoting whale meat and increasing fishery production. In addition, as a large number of beef and dairy cows plundered from La Plata were put on the market, the price was justified. Gradually dropped down.After the naval escort fleet returned victoriously again, the price of beef fell further and returned to its actual value due to the stimulus of good news.

However, when the price of daily consumer goods represented by the price of beef plummeted, the price of another commodity in the East Coast did not rise, and the recent increase was even faster. This "commodity" was female slaves.Especially in several newly built towns along the Wujiang River, the price of female slaves has risen to an outrageous level.

Of course, the female slaves here are not the Ottoman female slaves collected by the government. The price of those Slavic or Greek women has remained unchanged for thousands of years, and the price is unified at 80 yuan-80 yuan when the government buys it, and 80 yuan when it is sold. From the state's finances, the Ming bachelors from the Far East are subsidized.

It's just that the number of female slaves is still too small. At first, there were less than 3000 per year, and it has risen to 15 in the past two years.As ship after ship of Ming people from the Far East continue to be transported back to China (mostly men), and as the total domestic population exceeds the 2 mark, the number of bachelors in China is now close to [-] according to the latest statistics.This is a dangerous number, a number that is enough to cause headaches for the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Although the East Coast has always enforced severe punishment laws, although the Ministry of Internal Affairs has its eyes all over the country, and although the syphilis patient statistics and investigation bureau (Mei Organ) has a terrific reputation, it is still not guaranteed after a long time. Some old bachelors will take risks and do Next some indecent cases.This is not without precedent. In the past six months, almost every ship bound for New China will contain a dozen rapists-they will spend at least 20 years with slaves in the plantations of New China.

But harsh punishments and harsh laws can only suppress it for a while, and to solve the problem fundamentally, it is necessary to increase the number of women in the country.Of course, you can also choose to reduce the number of male input, which seems to be able to achieve the effect.But this suggestion put forward by Bai Siwen was rejected by the Executive Committee at that time. After careful consideration, the Executive Committee decided to maintain the number of Ming men imported from the Far East, while increasing the number of women imported from Europe.

This almost sets the tone for the immigration policy on the east coast, that is, Ming people are the main body for men, and Eastern Europeans are the main body for women. Obviously, this is the best compromise that everyone can think of.Because this not only makes the men in control of the country mainly of the same race as the cross-cultural people, but also makes the country's population always in a high-speed growth.Of course, it is not that there are no Far Eastern women. The ratio of men to women among the Ming immigrants from Heishui to the mainland has been maintained at 2:1 to 3:1.What needs to be adjusted now is actually only the ratio of men to women among European immigrants.

The above are all European immigrants organized by the government, but there are also a lot of immigrants organized by private organizations on the east coast.This aspect was originally done by those Italian labor brokers. Since last year (1647), they have organized a large number of women from Naples (population 30) in Italy to come to the East Coast to prostitute—in this era, prostitutes almost It is the label of Italian lower-class women, but after a long time, they found that many prostitutes who were originally under their control got rid of their control by marrying locals, which made them quickly change their business strategy.That is to say, they no longer try to control the women collected from the Old World for a long time, but directly sell these women to the people on the east coast, so that everyone can rest easy-just like the Dutch trafficked European women to the Virginia colony. Like profiteering.Of course, there are also some Catholic Italian prostitutes who refuse to marry pagans and still work as prostitutes, but this is another matter.

After discovering that this kind of business is extremely profitable-there are always many men who can't stand it and are willing to spend money to buy a wife to go home, businessmen in the east coast quickly stepped in, and then reached a cooperation agreement with these Italian labor brokers.These east bank merchants have strong financial strength, and it is said that there are some cross-border people standing behind them, so there is no disadvantage in doing business.The executive committee has also kept silent on this kind of business that can fill the gap of women in the country for a long time, and it can even become connivance to a certain extent. Therefore, after this year, this kind of business has flourished in the east coast.

Nowadays, there are quite a number of female slave traders active in newly-built towns along the Wujiang River, such as Jingjiangbao (New Palmyra), Tuanjiebao (Camelo), Xinbunbao (Agraciada) and other places.These three settlements have a total of four to five thousand residents, but more than [-]% of the population are newcomers, so the number of women inside is very small, and many of them are family members of the immigrants themselves.In addition, there is no plan to import Ottoman female slaves here in the short term (at least within two years), so the local residents must either tolerate it or find a way by themselves. This is a huge potential market.

However, most of the new immigrants were poor, and the sales targets of these female slave traders could only be limited to those who brought a lot of cash with them when they came from the Far East.But for most diaosi immigrants, buying a daughter-in-law to go home is still out of reach.But at this time, the emergence of the church has given the bachelors a little bit of good news.

The church here naturally refers to the Taoist church.In order to attract believers and expand the influence of the Taoist church, after a serious discussion, several real people decided to extract a large part of the donations of believers and the income of religious properties, and then set up business stations in Danzig and Riga through the government. Look for young women locally, and then try to get them to the east bank.

Different from those female slave traders who were cheating and abducting, and doing everything they could, Taoist churches acted very formally. They would usually explain to the person they were in contact with why they were going to the East Bank in advance, and then after obtaining the other party’s consent, Only then will the boats be arranged to bring them back to the east bank.In this process, the expenses are naturally expensive, such as resettlement expenses, nutrition expenses, medical expenses, transportation expenses, etc., and in many cases, even some debts have to be settled for these objects.But for people on the east coast, problems that can be solved with money are not a problem. Nowadays, everyone doesn't want money, but women!

The church has recruited more than 150 school-age women in Livonia and Poland last year.According to the latest statutes drawn up by the church, these women are called "the daughters of the church". There is no need to pay any fees to marry them. A registered Taoist priest presides over the entire wedding ceremony.The wife who marries back home enjoys complete freedom, and the man is not allowed to beat, scold or humiliate her. If the two parties have family disputes, they can also find local Taoist priests for mediation.

The executive committee also gave some support to the church's attempt to expand its influence. After all, it is of great benefit to maintaining political stability and assimilating new immigrants.For this reason, they even promised to increase the appropriation for the Religious Affairs Office in the 49 budget, and at the same time called on believers to actively donate to make this project, which is dubbed the "transnational marriage agency" beneficial to the country and the people The business is further developed.

On June 1648, 6, a group wedding was held in the newly built Taoist temple in Jingjiangbao. More than 20 couples were blessed by the local Taoist priests.The influence of Taoism on the East Coast has been further enhanced!

(End of this chapter)