Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 780 West of the Great River ([-])

"The Shifang store is here!" Captain Ventura shouted with a clear and short siren.

As soon as he finished speaking, a group of Ming immigrants in cotton clothes and sweat towels wrapped around their heads rushed over.Each of them held a big sack in their hands, and they watched eagerly at the grain, sorghum, corn, soybeans and other things piled up in the open air in the cabin.The patrolmen in charge of maintaining order were lazy. They held batons in their hands and drove back some people who were too crowded, and then stood there calmly, waiting for orders from their superiors.

"Okay, come one by one, only those whose names are called can come. Anyone who crowds and bumps and disturbs order will be disqualified from seed distribution." A middle-aged patrolman missing an arm came over and said.He seemed to be a senior police officer. As he waved his hand, two young patrol officers immediately trotted over and removed a small roadblock, revealing an opening for two or three people to pass through. Then they took the roster and began to roll their names.

This is Shifangdian, a settlement spontaneously formed during the westward expansion of the people on the east coast.She is located on the north bank of the later Yakui River, west of Triunfo, east of Rio Pardo, and south of Valli Verde. It was originally a logging camp, and a few Irish and Italians introduced by labor brokers Logging here is expected to obtain East Coast citizenship after five years of work, and then be allocated land and houses.

Later, as more and more lumberjacks came here, in order to solve the daily life problems here, the government rebuilt the simple wharf on the river bank so that it could berth smoothly for inland steamboats that transport materials back and forth.After the opening of the fixed route for steamships on the inland river, the Ping'an County Government, which is in charge of the place, sent people here to collect materials from the local area, and built several decent two-story houses with stones, which served as management agencies and material warehouses. It also assumes the function of a store (sell daily necessities to lumberjacks to recycle currency), so it is affectionately called "Stone House Store" by local lumberjacks.

By May and June of this year, the number of loggers in Shifangdian had reached more than [-], and a considerable part of the land along the river bank had been cleared. Therefore, the executive committee simply decided to upgrade this logging camp to a settlement, and notified The Ministry of Immigration includes it in the New Immigrant Allocation Plan.As for the original logging camp, of course it will continue to be preserved. On the one hand, these foreigners who were attracted by the "Homestead Law" on the east coast cannot lose their jobs. On the other hand, it is necessary to reserve land for future town development.After all, in this primitive and wild place, there are only forests besides the big river. If you want to have arable land that can feed all the residents, isn't the only way to ask for land from the forest?

Soon, the Immigration Department sent the last batch of more than 200 Ming immigrants (mainly men) here; half a month later, more than 10 men and women from Livonia also settled here with their own packages; At the beginning of October (October), three hundred Polish slave girls were also sent to the docks.So far, the population of Shifangdian, a new settlement, has skyrocketed to nearly a thousand people (not counting stateless loggers), and its scale is not too small.

On October 10th, Shifangdian Township was incorporated into the soon-to-be-established Dingxi County (formally established on January 5, 1650, with jurisdiction over five township-level administrations of Dingxi Township, Pingxi Township, Rat Township, Takquari Township and Northern Botanical Garden unit, the administrative office is Dingxi Township), the county’s leading group, which is still under preparation, has also sent some staff from the agricultural technology station to Shifangdian Township on horseback under the urging of the Ministry of Agriculture. The guidance has been missed Farmers in the area who have been sowing in autumn are doing spring sowing.

In addition, they also coordinated the transportation capacity and pulled out a ship to deliver some supplies and improved seeds here. This is the reason why Captain Ventura's "Yiyun 007" came to Shifangdian.After this ship, there will be more ships coming in the next two days to bring a batch of fertilizer to Shifangdian Township.According to the latest requirements of the Ministry of Agriculture on the East Coast, all arable land across the country must be fertilized, and those who engage in predatory planting without fertilization may be fined.As soon as this regulation came out, the prices of animal manure, human manure, bean cake, sesame oil, black beans, fried perilla seeds, pig blood, stove soil and stove ash, and sludge from ponds and rivers in the east bank rose across the board, and farmers from all over the country rushed to buy these fertilizers. .And Shifangdian Township, as a newly developed territory, naturally has to follow the national policy, so the Dingxi County Government painstakingly squeezed out part of its quota and shipped it to Shifangdian to sell to local farmers on credit.

In addition to fertilizer, what was sold to them on credit included a batch of fine varieties just bred by the Northern Botanical Garden.These seeds are all fine varieties cultivated by the garden in recent years, and after trial planting in other places, the yield was found to be good, so they began to be promoted in the important agricultural area of ​​the Yazihu ​​River Basin.

When it comes to improving old agricultural and animal husbandry varieties and multiplying fine varieties, the Northern Botanical Garden has put in a lot of effort in recent years.They set up numerous experimental fields and nurseries to simulate various soil environments—such as the lack of certain elements or varying degrees of salinity—for planting experiments.At the same time, they are also responsible for cross-breeding and domesticating exotic crops. Generally speaking, the work is going well, and a lot of results have been achieved, which is worthy of their current monthly expenditure of more than 5000 yuan.

Among the various seeds improved in the Northern Botanical Garden, the most important ones are the improvement of grains and soybeans.Among them, wheat, which has the largest sown area in the East Coast and is most economically beneficial to farmers, is the most important. In 1647, the agricultural technicians of the Northern Botanical Garden used the method of separating the pure line of the original species to breed the high-quality wheat seed "Big Douhuang 47". This new variety not only increased the yield by 20% compared with the previous one, but also had a better taste. Everyone's favorite.Later, with the goal of further improving quality and increasing yield, and at the same time taking into account the cultivation of disease-resistant varieties, they successively carried out experimental research on multiple projects, but no latest results have been released yet.

As for rice, the investment is slightly smaller, but it is not without success.Some farmers who traveled across the country and brought a group of North Korean farmers had done more than ten years of research before the establishment of the Northern Botanical Garden, and cultivated a kind of "Bo Rent 48" with full seeds (meaning that their own harvest has increased ) seeds, which received a good response after being popularized and planted in Xihu County.In addition, there are corn seeds "big spike yellow" and "small spike yellow", sorghum seeds "little yellow valley", "big yellow husk" and "big black husk", upland rice seeds "birds don't know" and "Dingxi no awn", barley Grain seeds such as "Fumin" are planted on a small scale among the people, and they are not well-known, but they have also steadily increased the output of farmers.

As for the cultivation of soybean seeds, which are of special significance to the East Coast economy, the East Coast people have devoted endless efforts.For example, they used the northeast soybean seeds they brought (the variety has degenerated in recent years, but it is still a good variety) as the original species, separated the pure line, and selected the excellent variety "Huang Baozhu". "Huang Baozhu" is a medium-maturing variety with large grains and bright color. The yield has increased by 3% to [-]% compared with the original variety, and the oil content has also increased by about [-]% compared with the original variety. It has a high economic value.

In the past two years, the original soybean breeding station, which has been completely relocated to the Northern Botanical Garden, has discovered some new excellent varieties in the actual promotion, such as the moisture-resistant and high-oil variety planted in Onuma Township, Yihe District (later named "Mancang") Jin"), such as the drought-tolerant variety grown in Canyon Town (later named "Mancanghuang"), and the variety suitable for making miso, soy sauce and soybean products (later named "Mancanghuang"), and of course A series of seeds suitable for planting (short growing season) varieties (later named "Keshuang 47") in cold southern regions.

According to the data collected by the Ministry of Agriculture from various counties and townships, the proportion of farmers planting new soybean seeds is getting higher and higher. After these years of promotion, the sown area has accounted for 45% of the total area, resulting in a huge economic benefits.With the gradual increase in the demand for seeds in various places, the Northern Botanical Garden is also constantly recruiting troops and expanding its territory, preparing to select suitable places across the country to establish nurseries and original seed nurseries to produce original seeds of improved soybeans and other seeds.Earlier this month, with the approval of the Ministry of Agriculture, the park established a company called "Northern Seed Company" and put in all the nurseries, original seed nurseries and other assets in various places, and will specialize in the production of improved seeds in the future. And sold, to benefit the vast number of domestic farmers.

Closer to home.After the seeds were distributed, the local residents returned home with the seeds.They have almost nothing now, and even their daily rations need government relief, otherwise they will not be able to survive the first year, and even the second year may have to borrow money from the Northwest Reclamation Bank to survive. Life is not easy.But if you look closely at their facial expressions, you will find that their mental state is not bad, because they still have hope for life.The arable land under their feet is their own, and now there are good seeds from the top hair. These Ming immigrants from the East feel that with their hardworking hands, at most two or three years, the business will be able to improve.Then spend money to marry a seductive daughter-in-law, give birth to a litter of children, and then buy some land, and this root will be firmly established.

After occupying Shifangdian Township in the middle and upper reaches of the Yakui River in this way, the east bank government is obviously not satisfied. They still feel that their domestic land development is not fast enough.Therefore, they asked those foreign brokers who were active in the east coast to "swindle" more honest farmers from the old continent to the east coast, and let them go to the wild areas of the west to log, plant land, and compete with the barbarians. fighting.And when these places are almost cleaned up, the Ming immigrants from the east will almost arrive, and then they will immigrate and build in these newly developed areas on a large scale, turning them into their own familiar land, and at the same time, the territories actually controlled by the East Coast Republic The border gradually extended to the inland area.

(End of this chapter)