Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 737 Across the Ocean ([-])

In December, Madagascar has officially entered the rainy season. In places such as Xinhua Port, Tacheng Port, St. Mary's Island Naturalization Port, and Isle of Bey Lobster Port operated by people on the east coast, there is a vast expanse of white torrential rain everywhere. .The endless rain poured down from the sky, filling the rivers, creeks and lakes.

The karst lava terrain in the mountains cannot hold too much water, and soon, the raging and muddy torrents will carry a large number of dead branches, fallen leaves, small trees, and even whining animals, rushing out of the valley with an unstoppable momentum, and then along the east bank Over the years, the widened and deepened river channel flows downstream.After the mountain torrent entered the Coconut Creek Reservoir, its momentum was slightly slowed down. However, as the influx of water from the upstream became larger and larger, and finally approached the warning water level, the Coconut Creek Reservoir had no choice but to open the gate to release water. , Let these excess fresh water resources rush into Xinhua Bay.

At this time, a row of hydraulic mills, hydraulic circular saws, hydraulic planers, hydraulic hammers and other mechanical equipment originally built along the river had all stopped operating. The workers stood nervously on the watchtower, staring at the raging river. In case they accidentally come to the shore.

Storms, lightning and thunder, flash floods, and the power of nature are vividly displayed at this moment.

However, in the tropical grassland area west of the Central Plateau of Xinhua Island, the sun hangs in the sky like a fiery fireball, constantly projecting scorching sunlight onto the earth, scorching everything on the ground.The cracked land is full of smoke and dust, extremely thirsty, and large groups of animals are crowded on both sides of the Mian River, competing for water, the source of life.Some small animals were accidentally dragged into the water by the Nile crocodile (subspecies of Madagascar) in the Cotton River, and then disappeared in the churning waves.

Today is December 1648, 12. For cotton planters on the east bank of Cotton River Port, it is just an ordinary day that is so hot and dry that it is smoky.A group of Comorian hired laborers (in fact, serfs are more accurate) in sackcloth are working hard in the field. They are holding shovels and digging ditches section by section under the scorching sun, while their sons and daughters are beside them Herd the goats, while occasionally checking out the transplanted cactus fence - set up to keep out the wild boars that often roam the neighborhood.

These mixed races of Arabs and Bantu blacks were basically plundered to the island by violent means by the people on the east coast.With long shackles on their feet, they live in huts built on the edge of the open farmland, and through their hard work, they create for the east coast employers (well, the employers who don't pay wages). benefit.

The people on the east bank were "benevolent" serf owners, and they even allowed these serfs to continue living with their original families, which obviously prevented their morale from being too low.After going through the initial period of emotional instability, these serfs soon discovered that, apart from restrictions on freedom, their living standards were not affected much, and even slightly improved.

For example, they can now eat enough corn or sweet potato porridge, and occasionally some cheap salted fish and shrimps when the work is heavy. You must know that even in tropical areas where food is abundant, not everyone can fill their stomachs of.If the people in the tropics had had enough to eat, the Dutch grain trade would not have flourished in the East Indies, where there were famines, and no less severe than in the temperate regions.

Under such a comparison of living standards, the grievances of these people have also disappeared a lot. Now they feel that everything is fine except that they cannot adapt to the hard work.In addition, their employers spontaneously united to form a team of supervisors, equipped with weapons, armor and horses, and supervised the serfs in rotation. Therefore, most of these serfs who had already dragged their families at this time were temporarily extinguished. The thought of running away.

According to incomplete statistics, in the past seven months or so, the east bank slave hunting team headed by the notorious slave trader Ma Wanpeng swept across the islands near the New China region, captured a large number of natives and came to the Mian River Basin to carry out the war. Sell ​​it as a labor force for the development of this place.Of course, the Tacheng Coal Mine, St. Mary’s Island Coffee Pepper Plantation, and Xinhua Port Sisal Coffee Plantation are also its big customers. A large number of Swahili people were sold to major plantations at an astonishingly low price, and then became Huaxia Agricultural employees in the legal sense of the East Coast Republic, and serfs in the actual sense, exerted every bit of vitality for these fledgling plantations.

In addition to these plantation owners and serfs who opened up the wasteland, since August, some Ming immigrants have been arranged here one after another.These people are all new immigrants this year, and the New China Pioneering Team "drifted" more than 3000 people as usual, and about one-fifth of them (nearly 700 people) were assigned to the Mianhe area.

Of course, these people are all freedmen—whether in the legal sense or in the actual sense, they build houses in the country unilaterally delineated by the Republic on the east bank of the north bank of the Cotton River: they are all mud walls, because there is no corresponding local area. of building materials.These adobe houses are not a big problem in the dry and rainless Mianhe area, and they will not collapse like a heavy rain in the Xinhuagang area in the north.Of course, after the local brick kilns were built and the economic strength of the new immigrants increased, these houses would eventually be gradually replaced with solid brick houses.

The new immigrants are basically men, and only about a quarter of them are young women (older women without children from the East Coast generally do not bring them here, unless they happen to be the family members of some young and middle-aged immigrants).However, what is "happier" compared with the local area is that the New China region has never worried about the shortage of women. Because Shi Qinjie, the local supreme official, always thinks about the people, he spends huge sums of money every year to support the people who have relations with the people on the east coast. Muscat businessmen with a long-term cooperative relationship buy a large number of Persian and Baluchi female slaves, and then sell them to Ming people in need at a low price-if you are in financial difficulties, the government will even arrange loans for you.

Today, among the immigrants transported all the way from the Ming Dynasty in the Far East, young and middle-aged men still account for the vast majority.At the beginning, people on the east coast of that era were mainly recruiting refugees, and it was not surprising that men were the majority of the people transported in at that time; In China, young and middle-aged men still occupy the majority, which has to be said to be due to policy.

Members of the local executive committee have always believed that transporting men from the Far East would be more conducive to the development of the country.After all, there are only so many transport tonnages, and one more woman transported will transport one less man. It is more difficult for men to create value than women, and it is also more conducive to the control of the country by the same race across the blood. Therefore, over time, more men are transported from the Ming Dynasty. Promoting women has become a basic national policy.Even, some radicals even declared that in the future, it is forbidden to import men from Europe, only women are allowed to import, and all men will be transported from the Ming Dynasty, and we will "grass" a new nation.However, the number of women flowing in from Europe has not been very close, so this kind of rhetoric has never been fully implemented.Today, among the new immigrants who flow into the east coast every year, there are still a certain number of white men, and the ratio of men to women among immigrants from the Ming Dynasty is roughly maintained between 2:1 and 3:1. This is the normal state of the current immigration policy on the east coast.

The current six settlements in the New China region have a total population of about 1.28. Although the pioneering team continues to intercept the population every year, although the locals exile Indians here every year, and although the locals buy female slaves every year, the harsh natural environment, Raging deadly diseases and hard land reclamation work still killed a large number of laborers.Especially for those Indians who were exiled, they almost came and died one by one, and it would be good if one tenth of them survived.

According to statistics, in 1647, the population death rate in six townships in the New China region was 13%. Even if the number of imported immigrants (Ming immigration, exiled prisoners, and purchased female slaves) and the natural population growth were included, the annual population growth rate would be only 1%. It's just 20%, which is nothing compared to the local [-]% annual growth rate.

The data for 1647 were the same, and the data for 1648 were similar.Therefore, for so many years in New China, what Shi Qinjie has done most is to transform the environment and increase the population, but the results always seem to be not commensurate with his efforts. Whenever I think about this, I can't help but feel very distressed.

With the government's intentional guidance, the plantation economy in the New China region has gradually heated up in the past two years.There is no doubt that the plantation economy has a huge demand for labor, and this obviously led to the prevalence of the slave trade, and a large number of Comoros and Swahili were captured on New Huaxia Island (according to incomplete statistics, it is possible There are nearly 6000 people), opened up wasteland and organized plantations for the people on the east coast, which temporarily eased the tense situation of the local labor force.

After tasting the sweetness of armed slave capture, more and more plantation owners in the New China region now tend to expand the scale of slave capture and accelerate the development of the local economy.However, this kind of voice seems to have been suppressed by others recently, because Shi Qinjie, the captain of the New China Pioneering Team, seems to be a racist. He has a discriminatory attitude, and he has recently emphasized on many informal occasions that after the labor required for the existing plantations has been raised, the capture of Swahili people should be stopped, and it is not appropriate to introduce black skin to Xinhua Island. race.

Therefore, under such a wind, the newly born slave trader group on the east bank suddenly jumped up and down, but there was nothing they could do.Among them, Ma Wanpeng, the leader, was even more disheartened. He said in public that he would return to his hometown for retirement, and that he would use all the income from the slave arrest to build stadiums, theaters and other entertainment facilities. turmoil.

And since Shi Qinjie thwarted the slave traders' dream of turning Xinhua Island into a paradise for blacks, he had to consider the shortage of local labor force.Therefore, at his request, the mainland has now begun to exhaust various methods to expedite the exile of Indians to the New China region.No, the local expedition to Persia shipped more than 2000 Kelandi exiled prisoners this time, and quietly approached their destination on December 1648, 12 - Mianhe Port, Xinhua Island .

(End of this chapter)