Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 730 Southern Railway Company ([-])

In fact, Liu Weimin has thought a lot about the development of the East Coast colonies over the years.The rulers on the east coast are not geniuses. In fact, most of them are just ordinary people. They have some vague and superficial concepts about governing the country, which is obviously not enough.

Therefore, when they have created such a large foundation from scratch—although they will also grow in the process, they will also make mistakes in areas they are not familiar with and do not understand, and they often make mistakes—whether it is domestic economic policy or The management of overseas colonies.

Liu Weimin has been thinking about the gains and losses of various policies on the East Bank over the years.The open and secret infighting within the executive committee, the discord between the civil servants and the military, the conflict of interests between the land and sea factions within the military, and the dirty things between the civil servants, the transportation department, the legal department, and the industrial party, etc., cannot affect his pursuit of a better life. The pace of statecraft.

The former director of the political and educational department of the middle school understood that the reason why he was able to sit in the position of the **** was just a product of a compromise between the interests of all parties, and his own prestige and ability were not enough to make him ascend to such a high position.Therefore, he has always insisted on being kind to others. He is a well-known good gentleman among the leaders of the executive committee. He never refuted the proposals put forward by all parties face to face. lubricant effect.

While doing a good job as an intermediary to reconcile the interests of all parties, Liu Weimin is also working hard to practice his own philosophy of governing the country.He is an old-school intellectual who came from a peasant background, and he has always insisted that Chinese peasants are the greatest. They are hard-working, persevering, and at the same time there are some philistines and shrewdness. They are simply the best candidates to open up the New World.Therefore, in fact, he is the main backstage of the imperial Han faction and immigration faction in the east coast, not a high-profile radical military officer all day long.

Liu Weimin himself is particularly concerned about the colonial management on the east coast, because he believes that the colonies are related to the living space and development potential of the entire country, and he has to pay close attention to them.In his mind, the colonies can be divided into two categories: one is the immigrant colonies, that is, the people of the suzerain country continue to move to these sparsely populated wild lands, and then build them into new towns.For example, most of the local territories on the east coast today can be regarded as this kind of colonies. It must be known that the people on the east coast were only limited to a few strongholds such as Dongfang Port and Ping Anbao at the beginning, and then slowly moved the pace of expansion to the The entire Duck Lake Basin, the hilly area west of the lake, the area under the jurisdiction of the Northwest Reclamation Bureau, the Uruguay River Basin, etc., these areas are actually a kind of colony of immigrants-of course, they are gradually becoming native.

Another type of colony is defined by Liu Weimin as an investment colony, that is, the suzerain country mainly exports capital and technology to this kind of colony, rather than exporting population. Today's New China region on the east coast has a bit of this meaning.Due to the harsh natural environment and the relatively long distance, the East Bank has not been very active in large-scale immigration to the area. In fact, if it were not for the local East Bank government’s continuous interception of the population from the Far East immigrants, and at the same time there are many The various resources that continue to exist on the east coast may have long been forced to give up the colony due to huge losses.

Now, as part of the surplus capital in the east coast is imported into this fertile tropical land, the plantation owners on the east coast who have completed the initial primitive accumulation have begun to show their talents, arresting local natives, buying slaves from abroad, and even Taking a boat to capture aborigines who are more adapted to the tropical environment, these actions all show that the local economic order on the east coast is mainly based on non-resident labor, using domestic technology and funds to develop the economy, and then prosper the entire colony.This kind of colony has the obvious characteristics of an investment colony, and the New China region currently seems to be only politically and economically subordinate to the east coast of the suzerain country.

When capitalism on the east coast develops to a certain level in the future, and the construction of the New China colony becomes small and scaled, the local people will surely find that their economy has been locked in agricultural and mineral products and their primary processing.And with the advent of the era of monopoly capitalism, the increasingly impoverished colonists will definitely vent their anger on the "vampires" from South America, and this is obviously one of the most important reasons for the independence of the colony-especially in this colony when the majority of its inhabitants are not East Coasters.

Liu Weimin insisted that whether the mainstream population of the colony was the mainstream population of the suzerain country was crucial to the independence of the colony.Didn’t you see that Britain’s Australian, New Zealand, and Canadian colonies did not have a strong desire for independence, but did the vast Asian and African colonies become independent one after another?Moreover, if the United States had not had a special environment (large land and abundant resources) and foreign forces at work, it may not have had such a strong desire for independence.

With this kind of thinking, Liu Weimin became very enthusiastic about the so-called "immigrant colonies", but he was not very interested in the "investment colonies" that could bring huge benefits even in a short period of time, and he has been promoting the colonies owned by the country. All strive to develop into colonies.In his view, this is a century-old plan that concerns the living space of the nation and cannot be ignored.

The establishment of the Southern Railway Company, a colonial government agency disguised as a company, placed great expectations on him.He hoped to practice some of his ideas, such as the railway immigration theory, through the Southern Railway, a large institution with various rights.That is to say, he believes that the railway is the most capable of mobilizing regional economic development, connecting the regional economy with the outside world more closely, and attracting more immigrants to migrate to that region through the improvement of regional living standards.

Of course, this theory has another magical effect in the eyes of the railway immigrant faction represented by Liu Weimin.For example, in the future, once the East Coast Republic obtains the right to build a railway in the more fertile La Plata area, the East Coast People's Congress can transport more Far Eastern immigrants along the line through the railway, and then let them thrive there.After these people took root, they quickly became rich by selling the agricultural products they produced to the local or even international market on the east coast through their own hard work. Under the explicit or covert encouragement, they rushed into this fertile virgin land along the railway, and turned it into fertile fields and pastures with their own hoes.

This is a stopgap measure in the absence of an obvious annexation of the La Plata region.There were not many Spaniards in this land, and after this war, the population dropped sharply. As long as this land is filled with yellow-skinned pagans from the Far East, the fertile land of La Plata will What does it matter who it nominally belongs to for the time being?

Because all the rights and interests in this area have been taken away by the East Coast people through the railway, and the local mainstream population is also the natives brought by the East Coast people through the railway. Spanish law does not apply to criminal or civil disputes of people from the east coast, and Spain must have east coast judges jury when judging foreigners from the east coast, etc.), the Spanish rule in the La Plata area will become increasingly powerless, and the local Spanish immigrants will also The industrious and tenacious Ming country immigrants will be defeated by the competition, and then as long as the international situation is favorable, the government of the East Coast Republic can naturally pick this ripe fruit.

In the final analysis, these are a kind of encroachment and plunder on the backward Spanish agricultural colonies relying on the high government efficiency of the East Coast Republic, as well as superior industrial technology and production capacity, and with the endorsement of the comparatively superior armed forces.Even at the beginning, the Spaniards may not realize that this is a kind of plunder, because the influx of a large number of Chinese farmers will quickly develop the local land, greatly improve the economic situation, increase the tax revenue of the government, and increase the profits of the merchants. The big rise and the king's income increased, almost a win-win situation.And by the time yellow-skinned pagans crowded around every main railway line (the railway is the lifeline of their product export and the import of external goods, and sometimes the most convenient way to mobilize the army), the situation has been hard to return.The Spaniards had to face the mainstream colonial residents who obeyed the orders of neighboring governments. All they could do was to admit the fait accompli and then consider how to hand over the colony to the east coast government with dignity, hoping to Get a little financial compensation.

Liu Weimin hopes that the Southern Railway Company can first practice in the southern Patagonia region, how to better sell the agricultural products (grain, leather, tallow, fish, wool, fruit, wood, etc.) in inland agricultural areas through railways. To better mobilize or even dominate the production and life of the farmers in the area, and then form a wealth effect through capitalized operations, attracting more immigrants from the Ming Dynasty to choose to go to these areas to cultivate wasteland (of course, most of the early immigrants were forced by the government).Once this model is successful, people on the East Coast can replicate it to the La Plata region in the future.

The great plains of north-central Argentina (including the fertile areas of volcanic ash soil in northern Patagonia) and the world's top ten fertile virgin arable land are the ultimate goals that people on the east coast covet.This vast area has flat land, abundant rainfall, suitable temperature, and fertile soil. It is very suitable for growing wheat, soybeans, cotton, and fruits. At the same time, forest resources are also extremely rich, and there are countless groups of wild animals wandering in the wilderness. There are not many such good places in the world, and the bison are suitable for herding and farming. There is no reason for the people on the east coast to let them go!

And the best way for people from the east coast to wedge themselves in here is undoubtedly to obtain the right to build roads here. By then, the Southern Railway Company, whose strength should have grown significantly, will surely achieve a leap-like development here, and become the helper for the Chinese East Coast Republic to take off. pusher.

(End of this chapter)