Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 792 Trade and Colonization ([-])

"The southern Patagonia area north of the Strait of Magellan is an extremely desolate and barren place. According to statistics, about 73% of the land here is poor." At the end of December 1649, tracking the living conditions of the new immigrants from the Ming Dynasty Lying on the suitcase, Li Dayan took the time to write his own interview: "Is there any place more miserable than these wastelands full of gravel and sparse vegetation? I noticed that the residents of these areas even searched for The fuel for cooking and heating is in a hurry. They even cut reeds to burn, and burned whatever they caught, until some coal gangue was transported from the Black Mountain coal mine. Only the ravines and wet river banks have it here. The land is fertile, and the livestock are also pitiful and skinny..."

What Li Dayan described is exactly the rural situation on the outskirts of Xingnangang.There is no doubt that the land here is extremely barren, except for the relatively fertile land along the river bank, the rest of the place is full of large areas of desert.There are sparse bushes and weeds growing on the desert, and everything indicates that the cultivation industry here is bound to be broken.

Recently, the Southern Railway Company carried out actions to improve the soil and irrigation facilities nearby, and included it in the 1650 work plan, and also prepared a special allocation of up to 25 yuan financially.The South Railway Company believes that in such a relatively arid inland saline-alkali irrigation-poor water area, if the limited annual precipitation (less than 300 mm) and the nearby Xingnan River water are fully utilized, and the masonry and cement If permanent irrigation facilities are provided and water-saving irrigation agriculture is vigorously promoted, it may not be impossible to build a self-sufficient food production system here.

Of course, when developing agriculture here, we must also pay attention to the local environmental tolerance.Excessive extraction of soil will only lead to lower groundwater levels, vegetation degradation, soil salinization, and desertification, and the role of sand barriers in the Xingnan River Basin will become smaller and smaller, resulting in spring wind disasters and summer droughts, eventually leading to the collapse of the local ecosystem. Total breakdown.Therefore, increasing the water-saving awareness of the local residents, controlling the amount of irrigation water, and building a water-saving irrigation system in the vast reclamation area is a top priority for the South Railway Company who is interested in developing this area.

In the middle of last year, the South Railway Company took advantage of the gaps in local construction and organized personnel to build four artificial reservoirs in the lower reaches of the Xingnan River.The outlet of the reservoir is equipped with a flood storage device. On the one hand, it can wait for the relatively abundant water in the Xingnan River in spring, and guide the huge flood from the upstream to the reservoir (the storage capacity is not very large, with an average of more than 20 cubic meters each). Prevent precious freshwater resources from flowing into the sea in vain.Because once the evaporation increases greatly in summer, the water level of the river drops rapidly, and there is almost no rainfall, everyone will have to sit on wax.

Moreover, the water storage device of this reservoir can also greatly reduce the degree of "pollution" of the river water when the tide level in the open sea increases in winter, a large amount of seawater floods back, and the salinity of the Xingnan River water increases rapidly.In addition, these reservoirs also brought an unexpected joy to the people on the east coast who settled here-that is, the sludge accumulated in the reservoirs.

As we all know, the Xingnan River is a very seasonal river. During the dry season, it almost dries up. However, during the wet season, the violent melting of ice and snow will cause a massive spring flood in a short period of time.This raging flood washes down soil, rotting animals and plants, human and animal manure and other nutrient-rich substances in the middle and upper reaches of the Xingnan River. It also cuts nearby gravel (a typical constituent of gray-brown desert soils) into fine soil particles, both of which help improve soil texture.

The artificial reservoir built last year, after experiencing a flood period, everyone was pleased to find that the bottom of the reservoir had been silted up with a mud layer ranging in thickness from 5 to 8 centimeters.These mud layers are rich in nutrients, and the soil particles are far smaller than the Gobi gravel soil at the bottom of the reservoir. They can be used to cover the upper layer of gravel soil to improve the soil texture and make it suitable for planting crops.

Thinking from this point of view, a student from the Southern Railway Company who was born in the Bingtuanbao also pointed out that we can completely transform some places with brown desert soil into reservoirs, and then flood the muddy floodwaters washed down from the upper reaches during the spring floods on top of them. After coming down, the brown desert soil that was originally unsuitable for farming will inevitably be covered with a layer of fine-grained loess rich in nutrients. This is a huge piece of fertile land.And because there is a very thick gravel layer under the brown desert soil, the flood will stop seepage to a certain extent after silting up, and then eventually flow to other nearby places, replenishing the groundwater here, so that some deep-rooted plants can grow Adequate water source growth avoids land desertification and improves soil quality.

The student's suggestion quickly gained the attention of his superiors. After full demonstration and research, the staff of the Ministry of Agriculture, including those who came from the local area, agreed that this strategy was feasible. Therefore, this suggestion was quickly adopted by the Southern Railway Company and included in the list. The plan is ready to be implemented.And this young student who made valuable suggestions has also received a huge bonus of up to [-] yuan. He will also be given priority by his superiors when he is promoted, and it has been a good talk in the company system for a while.

Of course, wheat, rice and other crops could not be rashly planted on these newly irrigated lands in the past few years.In the first few years, alfalfa, a nitrogen-fixing "green manure" crop, must be planted in large quantities here, both to provide feed for livestock and to improve soil texture.After persisting in this way for a few years, the soil composition of the flooded and silted land will be greatly improved, not only the nitrogen element will increase greatly, but also the phosphorus element content will also be greatly improved-Gain alfalfa's huge root system will It is of great significance to produce a large amount of organic acids to convert the extremely high content of phosphorus fixed by calcium in the soil into available phosphorus that can be quickly absorbed by plants.

In view of the special climate, barren land and other factors in the southern Patagonia region, the crops grown on the cultivated land on both sides of the Xingnan River are also quite different from those in the local area.According to Jin Kela, vice president of the Southern Railway Corporation, these lands should be tailored to local conditions and cannot be generalized.Corn, sorghum (drought-resistant, poor-resistant, deep-rooted crops), soybeans, alfalfa, rape, and sugar beets can all be planted. Alfalfa can increase nitrogen in the soil (and a small amount of phosphorus), and soybeans can increase nitrogen in the soil. Rapeseed beets can increase phosphorus, and these types of crops should be rotated with grains to ensure that the fertility in the soil does not dissipate quickly, causing the land to grow thinner and thinner, and eventually run out of nutrients and return to desertification.

In addition, the most important agricultural infrastructure in the Xingnan River Basin is probably the construction of masonry and cement irrigation canals. These permanent canals can effectively prevent irrigation water from leaking, and if they are covered with wooden boards, they can also prevent some evaporation. Definitely a must-have facility here.

"The Southern Railway Company has carried out an epic-level environmental improvement activity here..." Li Dayan, who bought the 1000-yuan bond of the Southern Railway Company, thought about it and decided to add some material to his documentary interview, bragging for the Southern Railway Company. Fan: "After the arrival of these new immigrants, under the arrangement of the Southern Railway Company, together with nearly [-] old settlers here, a large dense field irrigation system will be built along the banks of the Xingnan River. It is different from the local flood irrigation The Xingnan River area mainly adopts trickle and furrow irrigation, and even adopts pipe drip irrigation in some areas, and does everything possible to improve the utilization rate of fresh water, so as to achieve precise and scientific irrigation."

Of course, the construction of irrigation canals is an astonishing project. With such residents around Xingnan Port, it cannot be completed overnight.What's more, the Southern Railway Company's finances are tight, and it is not known when the promised 25 yuan investment will be allocated. If the money cannot be allocated, where will the massive bricks, stones, lime, cement, and planks needed for the aqueduct come from?Taking a step back, even if these materials are complete, there are still a lot of infrastructure projects to be completed at Xingnan Port Wharf, not to mention the Liangyang Railway that has already started construction, which is a huge pit that attracts labor.

Therefore, in order to complete these infrastructure projects, it still depends on the efforts of the officers and soldiers of the Southern Railway Guard Team, that is, to see how many Kelandi slave laborers they can capture from the La Plata area.In addition, it depends on South Africa. At present, the South African local army led by Chang Kaisheng has set up a bandit suppression headquarters in Gundam Fort, and is preparing to dispatch a large army to the Little Karoo Plateau to "suppress bandits" in order to capture more black slaves and send them to The southern Patagonia region is driven by the Southern Railway Company—this matter was facilitated by the unanimous greetings of several veterans in the Ministry of War.

However, is it true that poor water conservancy facilities can stump our intelligent and hardworking Ming immigrants?These Ming immigrants started the process of transforming the land allocated to them from the first day they settled down. They got up early and worked long into the night, and ran long distances to dig the soft and fertile silt in the riverbed (the nearby riverbed silt had been previously removed. The comers dug seven, seven, eight, eight), and then picked it back to their own land. The initiative was many times stronger than those Italian and Livonian settlers.

While moving the silt and fertile fields, they also went along the Xingnan Highway to find the sandbar area with rich water and grass, and cut large bales of hay back from there.In order to get this hay, they often have to walk for several days on the edge of the desert, overcoming the difficulties of hunger and thirst, and bringing back the much-needed feed for livestock.And under startling care, the Andalusian black cattle assigned to them quickly recovered from their emaciated state.According to Li Dayan's observation, although the livestock raised by the Ming people were fed for a short period of time, they were often better than those raised by those relatively free and undisciplined Italian immigrants. They were fat and strong, which made those European immigrants blush when they were doing daily farm work. I'm sorry to be lazy any more.

Undoubtedly, these "colonists" from Shandong Daming were very disappointed with the barrenness and desolation of the land under their feet.But they did not despair, but with their enthusiasm, they prepared to build this desolate land into a beautiful desert oasis little by little.

(End of this chapter)