Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 878 Southeast Pacific ([-])

On August 1651, 8, two escort gunboats of the Third Fleet slowly docked at a trestle bridge built of thick logs, off the coast of the southernmost city of Clion, the southernmost city of Chiloe Island.Some sailors alighted from each of the two ships. Led by the logistics staff, they jumped onto the trestle bridge talking and laughing, and walked towards the city not far away.

Today's weather is not very good, and the sky is a bit gloomy, but if you follow their gaze, you can still clearly find that there is a section of indigo-colored fence that is being repaired and some wooden houses with a slightly messy layout not far ahead. .This is Guanhai Port, a colonial port secretly established by the Southern Railway Company to accommodate more and more immigrants.

It is said that as the country strengthens the naturalization and accommodation capacity of foreign immigrants, since last year, the Immigration Department has continuously placed orders with several major domestic shipyards, such as flute-shaped ships, "sprint champion" class immigration special ships, 1200-ton motor-sailboats, The large clipper cargo ship went into the water like dumplings, and then joined the various fleets.At the same time, the nautical school, the South China Sea Fisheries Company, the South China Sea Transportation Company, and the East African Transportation Company have also trained a large number of qualified or unqualified sailors, and finally barely plugged the sailor gap formed by the surge in ships.

As a result, the maritime power of the Republic of China on the East Coast has been greatly enhanced, and as the tide rises, more and more ships are undertaking the task of transporting immigrants in the South Pacific waters. Now there are as many as 12 ships, which are transported in sections (a section from the Black Water To Australia, a section of the cycle in the South Pacific), almost [-] people can be transported to the port of Araucan a year.Such a huge population pressure is huge for the Southern Railway Company, and it is also unaffordable for the relatively barren Southern Patagonia in the short term.

But who is Mo Ming, the president of the Southern Railway Company? With a strong personality, he absolutely cannot tolerate the influx of these precious people into the mainland.Therefore, with a swipe of his pen, the Southern Railway Company, whose population has soared to 3.39, began to divert the population. The iron company also plans to build another settlement at the southern tip of the island—a settlement that will use whaling, shrimping and hunting sea animals as its main source of income in the future, with a population initially set at 1000.

In addition, the vast mountainous areas in southern Chile that the Kingdom of Araucania de facto controlled will also divert a considerable portion of the population to reclamation.Regarding this point, the Southern Railway Company has officially informed the country that Vicente Jr., acting as the "child emperor" of the East Coast, did not dare to violate the will of the Southern Railway Company, so he acquiesced in the occurrence of such a thing.Coupled with the fact that there are a considerable number of handicraftsmen among the immigrants from the Ming Dynasty, they can produce many high-quality daily necessities, which is quite a temptation for the Kingdom of Araucania.What's more, they also pay taxes, and they are also the citizens of the country in name, which can greatly increase the income of the country's treasury in theory, so the Araucan people held their noses and accepted the arrival of these Ming people.

In this way, two or three thousand Ming people, led by some Bingtuanbao student cadres, rode mules and horses, carrying luggage, livestock, grain, seeds, agricultural tools and other items necessary for settling down, and stepped on the rugged mountain road. Find all the places where you can settle down and farm in the vast south of Chile—they are farming peoples, and naturally they don’t make a living like those Araucan people by herding sheep. After all, it takes a relatively large area of ​​pasture to feed a person.

The Kingdom of Araucania has been stuffed with 3000 people (the country's total population is no more than 1), and it will not be able to accommodate new immigrants in the short term. Therefore, the Southern Railway Company has set its sights on Araucania. The south-central region of Chile outside the actual control area of ​​the Sub-Kingdom.For example, the less than [-] "South Railway Company employees" (actually immigrants from the Ming Dynasty) they stuffed into the banks of the Maolin River were obviously a kind of temptation.After finding that the Spaniards hardly responded, Mo Ming suddenly became more courageous, and he quickly instructed his subordinates to make a plan to colonize the inaccessible southern part of Chiloe Island.

After the plan was demonstrated and perfected by many parties, a few months ago, the Third Fleet of the Navy was almost dispatched. They used their idle warships to serve as a transport fleet, transporting as many as 2000 Ming immigrants and a large number of people. The supplies were brought ashore.After doing this, they returned to the Port of Araucan again, and continued to deliver supplies to this place marked as "Harbour Viewing Port" in the plan, and wholeheartedly supported the Southern Railway Company's local colonial activities.

Fearing that this colonization operation that clearly violated Spanish sovereignty would be discovered, at first the Third Fleet tried to transport personnel and supplies in the middle of the night, but later they discovered that the Spaniards did not have many ships in the Pacific Ocean and they were all concentrated in the Pacific Ocean. After Lima, Quito, and Panama, the navy suddenly let go of their courage. They often loaded a ship of bricks or dozens of Andalusian black cattle to unload at Guanhai Port in broad daylight. The Kingdom of Spain was "surprised".

In fact, they were worried in vain. Not to mention that the Spaniards may not have a ship that can go south to the southern waters of Chile in a year, but the colonial actions of the people on the east coast here can only be protested by the Spaniards. No real action will be taken.Don’t you see that the French claimed sovereignty over the Caribbean islands in the Kingdom of Spain, the British also claimed sovereignty in the southern part of North America (the area around the Spanish Georgia mission), and the Dutch’s colonial expansion in the New Granada area. Naked. Naked. Hitting the Spaniards in the face, have you ever seen the Kingdom of Spain go to war for this?

What's more, the colonial area of ​​the people on the east bank is still the mountainous area in southern Chile, which is regarded as a "barren land" in the eyes of the Spaniards. These sparsely populated, inconvenient transportation, and barren areas have friction with the China East Coast Republic, and they are deeply involved in the war. Among them, the Kingdom of Spain is still unable to make this determination.Even if the people on the east coast are pagan countries, even if this is the Pacific Ocean in the eyes of the Spaniards, the "peaceful backyard" in the eyes of the Spaniards, there is absolutely no reason for the Kingdom of Spain to fight against the east coast, because it is not worth it.

More than 2000 people landed at Guanhai Port in autumn, and then began hard work.The Southern Railway Company divided them into several shifts, logging and hunting, leveling the land, building walls, and installing machinery. They were extremely busy.Their early living needs were completely supplied by the Southern Railway Company, and in order to encourage them to settle here with peace of mind, the Southern Railway Company even promised to provide them with daily necessities such as food, cloth, and salt within three years. Plant some fruits and vegetables, and raise some cattle and sheep to easily get through the most difficult first three years.

The terrain of Chiloe Island is dominated by hills, the latitude is not low, the temperature is not high, and the climate is unique-in the southern part of Chile where there is generally not much precipitation, the precipitation here is unexpectedly large, thus creating a cold and humid climate here .But you must not underestimate this place, the soil here is very fertile, because it is basically a land rich in organic matter formed by the decomposition of volcanic rocks, plus the humus layer of leaves that have fallen from the dense forest for thousands of years , it can be said that the soil here is more fertile than the black soil of Northeast China in later generations-the only flaw is probably that it is too humid here, the sunlight is not very sufficient, and the ground is not very flat.

In the early years, the Spaniards still had some small colonial villages and towns on the island, but after the two East-West Wars and the devastation of the Araucan guerrillas, the few white people on the island, Mesti The So people (mixed-race white) colonists have long since disappeared, and even the Araucan Indians have disappeared-either they migrated to the Kingdom of Araucania in the southern mountains, or died of the blood of the Spaniards Revenge—that is to say, now the entire Chiloe Island has almost become a "ghost land" with no one inhabited.The Southern Railway Company sent more than [-] Ming colonists at one time, and the Guanhaigang colony they formed is probably the largest and perhaps the only human settlement on the island.

This group of Ming people who were forcibly relocated from Guanhaiwei is basically the military households and their families of the guard who are suffering.Of course, these people are all military members in the files of the Ming Dynasty, that is, they are all sergeants in the guard, but in fact these people can't go to battle at all, and they rarely receive military training, just like ordinary Ming farmers.What's more, they lived harder than ordinary farmers because of the dual oppression of local gentry and superior military officers.This can be seen from their nutritional status. Their thin torsos, distressed looks, and gray hair at a young age all clearly tell the extent to which they were squeezed by the rulers.

However, everything has advantages and disadvantages. The boundless suffering these Ming people suffered in Daming also exercised their tenacious will and hard-working disposition. This is very good for the Southern Railway Company, because this characteristic is very suitable for Pioneering in remote areas.Perhaps the task that others seem to be very tiring and impossible-such as the Spaniards, the Mestizos, and the Araucans (the Araucans are very impatient)-colonized these Ming people from afar For some, it is a normal part of life.And once they passed the difficult period of opening up wasteland, the subsequent stable life would surely make them more joyful, so they could take root here with peace of mind and obey the rule of the people on the east coast.

Now that there are such a source of hard-working immigrants, how can the Southern Railway Company limit its pace to a corner of the harbor?In their plan, when the new wharf at Guanhai Port is completed and the construction material factory at Araucan Port is put into production, the colonists on the east coast will gradually penetrate into the interior of the island to explore and utilize the local fertile land. Soil and rich beech forest resources.

(End of this chapter)