Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 759 South Patagonia ([-])

April 1649, 4, Free City of Araucan.A large group of immigrants wearing light blue jeans came out of the quarantine area with lingering fears. When the ship carrying them was passing through the waters of Cape Horn, the crew reported that the immigrants in the cabin had an infectious disease, and the captain immediately took the sick people away. Quarantine until everyone berths at the port of Araucan.

After arriving at the port, the only doctor in the port of Araucan, accompanied by a deputy chief of the health department of the Ministry of Civil Affairs of the Southern Railway Company, boarded the ship to check all the immigrants. It was found that many people on board had measles, and some children Suffering from diphtheria, he was dying at this time.

According to investigations, the ship came from Lübeck, was fully loaded with 213 Livonian immigrants when it departed, and was destined for the free city of Araucan on the Pacific side.Since 46, the East Coast government has introduced various policies to attract voluntary immigrants. After all, the East Coast Republic is very short of people. It is more important for the Executive Committee to save the people who come here at their own expense. The more the better.

Those who immigrated to the east coast at their own expense were generally from Livonia.At present, the number of Livonians in the east coast is increasing, and many of them are thinking of bringing relatives and friends from their hometowns after they settle down.After all, this place has been through wars and turmoil, and now it is under the violent expropriation of foreign races in Sweden. Everyone's life is very difficult.Therefore, since many years ago, people from the East Coast have been remitting money to Riga through the East Coast’s own network, and sometimes some representatives elected by everyone will return to Livonia with the boat to organize immigration.

This time, the immigrant ship from Lübeck is dedicated to immigration business (on the return trip, another ship with special products from the east coast is loaded). More than 300 Livonians packed the ship to the brim, but only 200 people arrived at Dongfang Port. Many people are alive.The ship had already suffered an epidemic while en route, when the sailors threw forty or fifty immigrant corpses into the sea.After arriving at Dongfang Port, people from the East Coast Port Authority carried out routine disinfection on it, and then stuffed more than 100 newly arrived Ming immigrants on board, and ordered it to continue driving south to Araucan on the Pacific side. free city.In order to compensate for this shipping fee, the East Coast Immigration Department paid an additional 2 yuan to the immigration ship.

Unexpectedly, measles and diphtheria broke out again on the way of the ship, causing a group of children with weak body resistance to die. I don’t know whether it was because the disinfection was not thorough in the Oriental Port, or there were still patients lurking in the crowd. In short, in Araucan When Liberty City disembarked, the crew managed to reduce the crew by a quarter again, to less than [-] people.

All sailors and immigrants who did not show symptoms were allowed to disembark after everyone was bored on the ship for fifteen days.They will rest in Araucan Free City for a whole month, during which time they will do some light physical labor, such as combing wool for the Southern Railway Company, planting vegetables and cutting grass.After the rest is over, those Ming immigrants will go to the nearby designated villages to settle under the leadership of the staff of the Civil Affairs Department of the Southern Railway Company.

As for those new immigrants who came on their own initiative (only Livonians), they do not need to live in the villages planned by the government.According to the encouraging policy for self-financed immigrants issued by the East Coast government, these people can freely choose from the vacant public land, of course, the number should not exceed 20 mu.These lands do not have to pay any taxes to the Southern Railway Company for [-] years, but if they have no money to buy out the land they have chosen permanently ([-] yuan per mu), they can choose to lease it temporarily. The rent is free for the first three years, and the Southern Railway Corporation The company only asked them to charge cheap land rent. It can be said that the conditions are very generous.

Compared with those immigrants who were forced to settle in designated places, new immigrants who chose settlements according to their own wishes and habits were more able to tolerate possible setbacks-this is the case in southern Patagonia, where the land is barren and the environment is not good. Region still matters - and they are more at ease with some of the imperfections of their land.

On the contrary, for those immigrants who are forced to settle in designated places, even if the harvest is caused by their own fault, they will blame their superiors, and endlessly apply for relief or simply ask to go out to work, which often makes the local township government officials They are devastated.

The government will never be able to understand the actual needs of everyone. Even if the settlements chosen by the government are very good in many cases, they are not favored by the immigrants. In order to develop their careers, they should also recognize the reclamation sites chosen by the immigrants themselves, because maybe these The location immigrants are more familiar with themselves, more in line with their working habits, and their output will be higher.Therefore, from the perspective of the Southern Railway Company, which pays more attention to output efficiency, it is not a big deal to let immigrants choose suitable settlements. Except for some companies that consider strategically the areas where settlements should be set up, other The localities are basically liberalized, allowing these self-financed immigrants to choose freely (the public-financed immigrants are resettled in strategic points for concentrated settlement).

Of course, out of security considerations, the Southern Railway Company still requires self-financed immigrants to live together on the land they choose as much as possible.In principle, there should be at least fifteen households in each village (one hundred households per local village). For these villagers who live together, the South Railway Company not only grants them arable land, but also allows them to go to the state-run pastures designated by the government (generally aquatic plants) At the same time, it also reduces the time of corvée—just as local farmers will participate in road construction and serve as soldiers for the army, farmers under the Southern Railway Company will also participate in the construction of roads, railways and ports Work.

As for the immigrants who did not live together with other people to form a village and settled on their own land, they could not send their flocks to the state-run pastures to graze, and their corvee hours could not be reduced.In fact, due to the reduction of corvee working hours by the villagers living together, the actual workload of these single settlers has also increased.Therefore, from a practical point of view, there are very few people who choose to live alone at present, and basically everyone chooses to choose a place that everyone thinks is suitable to live together.

The Southern Railway Company is persistent in promoting the construction of the Liangyang Railway and the two modern ports at both ends, because if the railway is not completed, the Southern Railway Company will not be able to make a profit for a day.If it is not profitable, how can it attract follow-up funds to enter the South Patagonia region for development and construction?To promote the construction of the railway, the most important thing is to obtain enough labor force - not only slave labor, but also a large number of formally settled free people. After all, they are the foundation of the local society on the east coast.

Generally speaking, the new immigrants will live in their own simple shacks or adobe houses for the first year. Of course, it cannot be ruled out that some immigrants with good economic status can afford to buy some wood to build houses.These timbers are all produced in the state-owned forest farm of Fort Fuego Beech, of course not beech, this kind of timber is too precious and can only be used to build boats, and half of the houses used to build houses are just some second- and third-rate timber such as fir. But it was still beyond the reach of most of the impoverished immigrants who had traveled long distances to come here.

After these two or three hundred new immigrants settle down, they will begin to prepare for their future life.Livestock such as cattle and sheep can only be purchased from a few old local residents, or from the Araucan natives who are driving their flocks, or from the Southern Railway Company on credit (the East Coast Pacific Task Force that has just been preparing to withdraw from Chile recently handed over a large number of cattle, sheep, horses and other livestock to the Southern Railway Company); and after they had the livestock, they had to prepare hay, and then they would open up a small vegetable garden around the residence they chose, and plant some vegetables that they brought from the Old World. to the vegetable seeds.

In today's Free City of Araucan, growing vegetables is almost the most profitable way, because the degree of commercialization is quite high.In addition to vegetable gardens, wealthy new immigrants who had the money to buy farm tools or cattle and horses had time to clean up the land and ditches, and prepare to plant cold-resistant grains such as buckwheat, rye, or oats as soon as spring began.They can help their neighbors reclaim some land as much as possible for a fee, as long as they agree with them on the proportion of the grain harvest. This kind of mutual benefit is generally not rejected by everyone.

According to the estimation of the Civil Affairs Department of the Southern Railway Company, regardless of the first year, the immigrants basically belong to the abject poverty class; from the second and third years, with the continuous development of the land, they will start to have enough money to buy wood or bricks for renovation. After four years, due to the stable land output and the advantages of tax exemption, they will start to sell some of the surplus agricultural products, and then buy cattle, sheep, farm tools or daily commodities that they could not afford before, and they will be officially settled. Come down and become a person who can create wealth by himself rather than need to receive handouts.

There are people who have everything, what the Southern Railway Company lacks now is people!Especially now that the two-ocean simple highway has been fully started, the thirst for manpower is almost magnified to the point of infinity.The captains and foremen of the engineering department shouted at their superiors all day long, and in order to achieve their own goals, they even threatened that the construction period might be delayed.But what's the use?Nowadays, 90% of the immigrants are assigned to the mainland on the east coast. It is quite good that the immigration department can leak some of them and assign them to the southern Patagonia region. You don't even want to see a hair.

But maybe the situation will be much better next year, because at that time, some experimental immigration ships will be launched in the direction of Australia, heading east along the edge of the westerly belt to the port of Araucan. The fresh blood of China has made the construction of the Liangyang Railway and the port step into a substantial acceleration channel.

(End of this chapter)