Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 791 Trade and Colonization ([-])

"Taking the outbreak of the Second East-West War as an opportunity and out of geopolitical considerations, the great China East Coast Republic naturally paid more and more attention to the Southern Cone region. On the occasion of this victory, in order to permanently protect the transportation channel that can be called the lifeline of the country safety, there has been a heated public opinion discussion all over the country. The core of the discussion is whether we should vigorously develop the Southern Patagonia region as a basic national policy, and make policy and financial preferences for this, so that this The lifeline can be connected earlier." Li Dayan, a senior editor from "Pravda", was flipping through a newly published "South Railway Weekly" in his hand, and a piece of news on the front page of the newspaper attracted some of his attention.

Judging from the narration in this newspaper, it seems that the East Coast is now discussing the southern Patagonia region that they used to regard as a shit.But in fact, this is not the case at all. This is just the "South Railway Weekly" bragging.This is an imposed "public opinion" in order to disguise the immigration policy that the Army Department needs to formulate in order to develop Southern Patagonia as how all citizens strongly demand the implementation of the immigration policy.

Now the Southern Railway Company is really short of immigrants, so short that they have set their sights on the new generation on the east coast who are growing up gradually.Last week, the Southern Railway Company also petitioned the Executive Committee, requesting that the Executive Committee agree to transfer the second and third sons of rural households in China to the southern Patagonia region to grant land and settle down.The reason is to prevent clan cliques from appearing in the rural areas of the country, because most of the men in the East Coast Republic come from the Ming Dynasty, which has a strong clan consciousness.

In addition, the Southern Railway Company is still building up momentum in China, saying that with the end of the 30-year war in Europe, the economy of the entire east coast has now experienced a certain degree of depression, especially the price of agricultural products, whose prices have dropped rapidly in the past year , and in the foreseeable future, with the recovery of European agricultural production, the supply of agricultural products will continue to be saturated, and prices will fall further.In other words, on the east coast today, the income from farming is not as high as before.That being the case, it is better to go to the southern Patagonia region to make a fortune. The wages there are generally higher than those in the local area, and there are many opportunities. It is said that "it is easy to make a fortune."

Don't tell me, the poor publicity of the Southern Railway Company has really fooled a group of Livonian immigrants from Europe. After working in the east coast for a year or two, it will take several years before they can apply for citizenship and get the land purchased. Qualifications.Therefore, under balance, many people still listened to the propaganda of the Southern Railway Company, and then took a settling fee, boarded the boat they rented, and went south to settle in the southern Patagonia region.

Of course, relying on fooling is not a long-term solution after all.The population growth in Southern Patagonia is mainly due to the policy preference of the Executive Committee, such as resettling more immigrants here.As of December 1649, 12, the total population of the Southern Railway Company had reached 15—including more than a thousand Patagonians who had converted to Taoism.More than one-third of these people live in Xingnan Port, the largest city in the region. They usually farm and graze in the nearby river valleys, and do odd jobs at the port construction site to subsidize their families during slack.And it is with their efforts that Xingnan Port, the most modern port in the world, is slowly changing at an astonishing speed. Perhaps it will not take the planned ten years to complete this amazing port. It's fully completed.Of course, there are also several wooden temporary trestles in Xingnan Port now, so it is not a big problem to undertake simple transfer of materials and personnel.

At this time, the carriage that Editor Li Dayan Li was riding on was driving on the wide Xingnan Highway. This sandy and simple road has been busy since the day it was completed.A large number of trucks galloped along this [-]-kilometer-long highway, moving various materials and personnel back and forth between Araucan Port and Xingnan Port.In addition, more trucks loaded with rails and tools have been driven to the construction site of the Liangyang Railway, which has been under construction for some time, for the use of the railway construction workers there.

At this time, Li Dayan was almost at the Port of Araucan, and the road showed an obvious downhill slope. Fortunately, the driver was skilled enough to control the speed of the car steadily, and then turned onto a high-quality gravel road.After half a day of driving, they arrived at the terminal - Araucan Port Marine Terminal.

Today's port of Araucan is as busy as ever. Timber, coal, seafood, grain, leather, and industrial products are continuously distributed here, showing its thriving vitality.There are three 1200-ton steam engine sailboats moored on the pier. The style of the sailboats is probably an immigration transport ship specially built for the Blackwater region of the Far East. It is really strange that such ships appear here.

But what kind of person is Li Dayan? He is a senior editor of "Pravda". He often contacts government officials and is very well-informed.Therefore, after thinking for a while, he realized that this must be an immigrant ship from the Far East via Australia and then heading directly to South America.These ships should have departed from Jinshan Port, Australia in mid-to-late November, and then followed the westerly wind and ocean currents all the way, and arrived at the port of Araucan on the coast of Chile after going through dangerous storms.

Li Dayan originally visited the Southern Cone area to interview the Southern Railway Company's trade issues in Spain, but now he is keenly aware that all this seems to be a good news subject, so he quickly squeezed to the pier with his entourage On the ground, carefully observe every move here.

The three immigrant transport ships seemed to have experienced harsh sea conditions on their way here. The boards of the three ships were damaged to varying degrees, and the canvas was similar. They are in urgent need of repair.Meanwhile, the immigrants from the Far East on the boat had already started to disembark one after another. Li Dayan looked carefully and found that they were similar to the immigrants from the Ming Dynasty who came to the east coast from the Indian Ocean, but their mental state was weaker. It seemed that they were mostly caused by seasickness. .But it's no wonder, coming all the way east from Australia, it's the edge of the westerly belt, where there are strong winds and waves, it's not an easy sea.Sometimes if you are unlucky, you will encounter cyclones, frontal rain, and icebergs on the road, especially when you are sailing at night with poor visibility. When you encounter these things, it depends on your luck. If you are unlucky, it is a dead word.

Li Dayan vaguely heard from others just now that there were originally four immigrant ships heading east from Jinshan Port to Araucan Port this time, but one of them hit a floating iceberg in the southeast waters of New Zealand. More than one immigrant from Shandong, Ming Dynasty sank together with the ship, sleeping forever in the cold seabed of the South Pacific Ocean.It can be seen that although the sailing time required for this route is relatively short, it is indeed a high-risk immigration transport route.

But then again, what is such a small risk in front of the people on the east coast who are in urgent need of population?As long as they continue to transport a large number of people back, the executive committee will not care about other things. On the contrary, they will continue to invest huge sums of money and ships here to expand the transportation capacity of this route and transport more people. Far East immigrants brought back to the East Coast.

The number of this new batch of Ming immigrants should be more than 400, and the death rate during transportation is about 10%, which is acceptable.These people are different from the "scattered immigrants" who came here at their own expense in the East Coast and Livonia. They are "group immigrants" in nature.According to the plan of the Southern Railway Company, the purpose of group resettlement is to form villages and towns, and the number of people is often large, and its construction and operation capabilities are also strong.Even, there are a certain proportion of craftsmen among them.These necessary personnel who constitute a single village and town are basically assigned before boarding the ship and departing. After arriving at the immigration destination, they can often quickly move to an important location and settle there, with strong self-sustaining ability.

As for those scattered immigrants who are also quite large in number, the government basically doesn't care where they settle. They can freely choose unused public land, and then report it to the higher-level government. After approval, they can settle there.It is obvious that this kind of immigrants suffer a lot from many public services because they live more dispersedly.For example, the irrigation canals, roads, and other facilities built by the government all go to densely populated villages and towns, and they will not change their routes arbitrarily just to accommodate them.And in the future, they will also face problems in harvesting crops (the cost of mechanized harvesting alone is too high for a family), themselves and their children and spouses. In short, it is very troublesome.

At the same time, security issues are also more difficult for them, because this is southern Patagonia, and most of the area is a wild and inaccessible land.The savages living there are not all good people, and they don't mind doing some murders and robbery when food is scarce.Therefore, security issues can only be relied on by themselves. Although the road guard team of the Southern Railway Company will also conduct regular patrols (a cavalry company abolished from the Army), the area is too large to cover everything.

Therefore, due to the above-mentioned considerations, it is true that there are currently scattered immigrants, but the proportion is not high. Most of them still live near large villages and towns, or at least dozens of families are looking for a place to settle down together (not going to places designated by the government) ), forming a small natural village.

The male to female ratio of the first batch of more than 400 immigrants from the Far East is still about 3:1. Half of them will settle near the port of Araucan, and a quarter will settle near the coal mines in Montenegro. The remaining 800 people will take a horse-drawn carriage and head east along the Xingnan Highway to settle in the famous Xingnan Port.

"Immigrants from the Far East arrived in South America via the Pacific route. This is a milestone event and deserves a special book." Li Dayan thought to himself.

(End of this chapter)