Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 942 Heaven-sent Land ([-])

Although it is the rainy season on Xinhua Island, the rain in the Daqing Basin has been concentrated in the previous month. Under the strong direct sunlight, with the strong evaporation, the earth fell into thirst again.

Ma Wanpeng, wearing a turban in the style of an old peasant in northern Shaanxi, took a boat to Xinlaibao settlement, which had been established for several months, to inspect the construction here.Now he is basically in charge of the military and political affairs in the arid area of ​​the west coast, so although he is still most concerned about conquering the army on the east coast where the Sakarawa people are playing hide-and-seek in the hilly area, he has to take time to condescend to visit him New Laiburg, look how the building is doing here.

It's a pity that apart from the fragmented mangrove forests in the Mangoki River Delta, there are monotonous grasslands everywhere. Under the scorching sun, even a ghost can't be seen, which makes Ma Wanpeng extremely disappointed.

"Ma Ling, don't look at the grasslands here, but there used to be trees." McGinn, who is in charge of the local development work, used a shovel to shovel up a pile of soil, and pulled out a peaty branch from the ground. , Said: "In the beginning, this place was likely to be the channel of the Xinlai River, but later the river diverted for unknown reasons, which caused the place to become dry. The Sakarawa people who live here still maintain slash-and-burn farming due to their low agricultural technology. As a result, the local bright forests were largely destroyed, and the soil gradually became desertified. According to our analysis, the seaside here must be full of bright mangroves, but they have been successively covered by Saqqara for thousands of years. The Va people destroyed it, and there are not many left..."

Ma Wanpeng nodded when he heard the words. He understood what McKinley meant, that is, despite the fact that this place is not a good place, it was a large lush forest tens of hundreds of years ago, but it was a pity that the Sakarawa people destroyed it.Therefore, people on the east coast only need to do a little cleaning, build reservoirs and irrigation canals nearby, and then focus on reclamation, and it will be a good farmland.

"The existing forest must not be destroyed, and those who violate the order will be punished." In fact, Ma Wanpeng is very clear that the forest in the delta area of ​​​​the Xinlai River estuary is much more lush than that of later generations—because it has not been colonized by the French colonists and Then the burgeoning Malagasy wreaked havoc - but now it's not such a bad thing to be pre-vaccinated.Because he knows better than anyone else the importance of these bright forests along the western coast to the fragile ecology of the arid regions in the west, and the grasslands in the west of Madagascar are becoming increasingly deserted in later generations.

"Yes." McKinley stood up straight and said yes, and then said in a flattering tone: "We heard the natives call the place names here, and many of them have the roots of 'Ala', 'Azuo', 'Kazuo', etc. There is a meaning of forest in Sakarawa language, but now most of those places are bare, obviously destroyed by the Sakarawa people. Tianzun gave us this fertile land as a blessing, We will never allow the savages to continue to destroy it. In the past, it was managed by the savages and has caused a lot of irreparable damage. This situation must be strictly avoided in the future."

It has been more than half a year since the Xinlai River area was declared sovereignty by the people on the east bank. placed here.So vast was the resettlement that it stretched from the bright forest of the Sang Lai delta to the "successive forest" to the south, where thousands of people used transported building materials to build warehouses, houses, reservoirs, canals and Simple earth wall (for protection).

In the future, this area will be dominated by sugar cane planting, because the nearby climate is very suitable for the growth of this economically valuable crop, just as it is the most famous sugar cane planting area and dry farming area in Madagascar in later generations.The sugarcane plantations have been roughly divided by the officials of the Agricultural Bureau. The immigrants call this behavior "enclosure", which means to drive away or eliminate the Sakarava scattered nomads on these lands, and then distribute the land go out.

According to Ma Wanpeng, in principle, a dual-track system is implemented in land distribution, that is, each new immigrant is allocated 30 mu of cultivated land and [-] mu of grassland. This part of land has basically been allocated at present, and the new immigrants only need to concentrate on construction. With some infrastructure, you can return to work on your own land; and in addition to these small plots of land, there are a large number of large and medium-sized farms (sugar cane plantations) on both sides of the Xinlai River, about half of these farms are state-owned farms, and the rest All of them are put up for auction and operated by private tenants for [-] years. The conditions are also quite favorable. Everything follows the rules of the sisal, cocoa, and coffee plantations in Guihua Port, Xinhua Port and other places, and the cotton plantations in Mianhe Port.

As for the large tracts of land from Xinlai River southwards to the two sides of Mianhe Port, it has also been included in the development area for the time being, but how to operate it, the New China Development Team has not come up with a specific guidance yet.In fact, Xinhua Port originally demanded vigorous development. They even prepared their personnel and planned to open up a large area of ​​peanut, sugar cane, wheat, vanilla grass, soybean and cotton plantations in this coastal area. The output of cash crops on the island boosts the local economy.

However, Ma Wanpeng temporarily suppressed the pace of development here with the reason of "great environmental hazards", which is very nonsense in the eyes of people in this era.The vegetation in this vast area of ​​land has been greatly damaged in these years. The nomadic Sakarava people do not consider the permanent damage to the environment. The woodlands in the area gradually degenerate into a transitional zone between forest and scrubland - what East Coasters call the "successive forest" zone.

The so-called successional forest roughly means that after the destruction of the old bright forest (sparse mangrove forest by the sea in the arid zone, corresponding to the dark and dense rainforest), the natural environment gradually evolved into a forest called "Savoca Forest" by the locals. "The special landform.This landform is dominated by short-grass grasslands, on which there are a large number of plants such as traveler banana, black dragon gum, longoza, bamboo, etc., and occasionally some trees in twos and threes can be seen, which seems to indicate that the forest here may recover.

In fact, Ma Wanpeng intends to put aside the development here for the time being, and then find ways to improve the environment, first restore the mangroves here, and then think of other ways.Nowadays, there are very few people on Xinhua Island (in the eyes of people on the east coast, barbarians are naturally not considered "people"), and the contradiction between man and land is not prominent at all, so it is possible to achieve the harmonious development between man and nature ——The first step is to start by improving the environment on the west coast.

At present, these "successive forests" are in a state of being able to advance and retreat. If you advance, the trees will gradually increase and eventually return to the vegetation of the coastal bright forest. If you retreat, it will first degenerate into a grassy grassland, and then if you If we still persist in overgrazing without sparing the land, then the most terrible soil desertification will be inevitable.

"After this group of new immigrants arrive here this year, after Xinhua deducts the intercepted population according to the rules, it is estimated that the population of the whole island will reach an unprecedented 4.3, and the growth will be very rapid!" Ma Wanpeng wiped the sweat from his face with a turban and said : "Except for a small number of newly arrived immigrants to fill in old settlements such as Xinhua Port, Xixiang Peninsula, Guihua Port, and Tacheng, most of them will be allocated to western settlements such as Lobster Port, Mianhe Port, and Xinlaibao. In order to enrich the population here. The environment in these places is much better than the tropical rainforest area. Although it is a bit dry, at least there will not be a large number of deaths. You have been here for a few months. How many epidemics have occurred? How many have died? Personal? Is it better than the eastern seaboard?”

"In half a year, more than [-] people died of illness. Compared with the humid and hot Xinhua Port and Tacheng Port, it is much better. Even the relatively cool Guihua Island is not as good as here. After all, there are many mosquitoes there." McKinley said honestly. He said, "There are poor people here, and not many people can afford rich wine, but the incidence and death rate of malaria are far lower than those in the eastern region. After everyone planted such a precious thing as sugar cane, they felt that life has more hope than before."

"By the way, this time the development team sent a batch of hydraulic machinery through Mianhe Port, all of which were ordered from the local area. Xindengbao (south of Angliabu near the bank of the Mangoki River in later generations) to open up a small fortress, and then install machinery and debug equipment to try to get it running as soon as possible. The Xinlai River Delta and its adjacent inland areas should be Development, this processing and manufacturing center is the key, we can't be sloppy." Ma Wanpeng warned again carefully.

The section of the Xinlai River where Xindengbao is located is turbulent and has a certain degree of drop. When the French colonized later generations, they planned to build a hydropower station here, but it was not implemented due to various reasons (mainly because they did not raise enough funds). This plan is enough to explain the abundant water resources here.

The New China Pioneering Team ordered a large number of hydraulic machinery from the mainland and prepared to install them here, in order to utilize the abundant local hydraulic resources and form a primary industrial center to protect the colonization of the East Coast people here.According to their calculations, the available hydraulic resources in this section of the river are more than tens of thousands of horsepower, which is extremely impressive.And even in the dry season, there are thousands of horsepower stable, it would be a pity if we don't make good use of it.

"I will arrange it." McKinley said: "Tomorrow I will arrange a team of militiamen to explore the road first, and then start building forts, installing machines, and strive to gain a foothold there as soon as possible. The local natives do not have a unified The regime and the weapons and equipment are also very poor, and it was even colonized by the Melina people on the highlands in history, so it is very weak, so it should be fine."

(End of this chapter)