Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 1190 Ocean Economy ([-])

Yu Xingguo had just arrived at the port of Rabaul by boat.

He originally worked on the full steam-powered ship "Tierra del Fuego". Since the ship was damaged in Baleen Whale Harbor on Falkland Island, he quit his job under the persuasion of his family. With funding from the Navy, he bought two old ships from the navy and started a business.

As the lucrative Peru or New Spain trade is now increasingly monopolized, the profit margins of these second-tier dealers who can only buy goods from Southern Railway or Air Canada are getting thinner and thinner, so many people began to turn their attention to the new library. Trade between Ireland and New China.However, the trade competition between the two places is fierce, and there are also monopolies of varying degrees and one of the troublesome local protections, which is not so easy to do. In the South Pacific, he hopes to obtain excess profits here, but in fact he is somewhat close to success now.

Yu Xingguo, which travels between the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean, has now expanded to four ships under its name, and its total transport tonnage has reached more than 1100 tons. It can be regarded as a small shipping company on the east coast.I heard that recently, with the rapid development of business, Yu Xingguo also ordered two 650-ton large ships at the Xinhua Shipyard on Xinhua Island - the required funds were borrowed from the United Industrial Credit Bank - the intention to dig deeper into profits has already is obvious.

This time Yu Xingguo arrived at Rabaul Port from Dinghai Port in Ningbo. In addition to a large amount of high-value commodities such as tea, raw silk, brocade (the east coast has a huge demand for handmade brocade in the Ming Dynasty), medicinal materials, fur, etc. Many Ming immigrants from the eastern part of Zhejiang Province, the number is about two hundred, most of them are the relatives of the Sun, Xu, and Chen families recruited from the country, and they plan to settle on the east bank—recently The flames of war in eastern Zhejiang are raging, and many people feel precarious. Since their relatives who went to sea many years ago have made a fortune overseas, they should send some young children of the clan or villagers to seek refuge there. , but not a bad thing.

Yu Xingguo's fleet consisted of two ships, and the other two took advantage of the prevailing northeast wind to go to Xinhua Island via the port of Malacca. By the way, they also helped the government transport [-] immigrants from Huai'an Prefecture there. The actions of immigrants have always been profitable, because the price given by the government is not bad. Besides, this is also an obligation of all businessmen who operate overseas business-the two ships will stay in Xinhua Port for several months, and then they will be full of sugar, Tobacco, cocoa, coffee, spirits, pepper, vanilla and other specialty products return to the Blackwater area, waiting for the next winter to start the next cycle again.Undoubtedly, this is a very profitable route. The raw silk, tea, medicinal materials, silk and a small amount of porcelain in the Heishui area sell well in Xinhua Island (not to mention that you can buy some exotic commodities along the way), and the new The demand for various specialties of Huaxia Island is not small in the Heishui area. If it weren't for the wind direction and ocean currents, Yu Xingguo wished that these ships could make two or three round trips a year, which is much better than the current one trip a year. .

The two ships went to the Indian Ocean, and Yu Xingguo personally led the other two ships to the Pacific Ocean.To be precise, after a brief stay in Rabaul, they will go south to Jinshan Port in Australia again, and then go eastward along the sea at about 40 degrees south latitude, and arrive at the port of Araucan on the coast of Chile, where they will sell the goods to the local Agents - of course also put immigrants down by the way.

They arrived at the port of Rabaul on January 1659, 1. Unfortunately, at this time, his old friend Ding Zhen and others had already gone north to Shandong, and the two sides passed by again.After Yu Xingguo arranged for the left-behind personnel, he began to order the Zhejiang immigrants on the ship to disembark in batches to rest. This is the advantage of the middle node of Rabaul Port. She is more than 10 days away from Ningbo Dinghai Port, the starting point of the people on the east coast. The voyage is only half a month away from the final destination, Jinshan Port in Australia. It happens to be in the middle, which is very suitable for immigrants to go ashore to rest halfway.What's even better is that in the area around Rabaul Port from January to April every year, the southeast wind covering the local area for half a year will be covered by the northwest wind that crosses the equator and goes south, which is very conducive to the sailing of sailboats and even motor sailboats, because At this time, the ships going south are often full of immigrants, and the faster the speed, the better.

There are a lot of teahouses, restaurants, and inns on the wharf. The bosses are all Ming people, and the guys, chefs, and shopkeepers are generally relatives. Only low-end jobs such as sweeping, firework, and hospital care are hired by Melani The West Asians are in charge.At this time, after more than 200 Zhejiang immigrants landed, they began to prepare guest rooms (actually Datong shop) for these immigrants to rest. Hot water and food (usually taro, bananas, coconuts, etc.) will also be delivered one by one by local workers. The price is not expensive: Calculated according to the three-day rest, the cost of each person is only sixty cents, which is very cheap. Of course, this is also because these shopkeepers can buy a large amount of taro, banana, It is related to food such as big potatoes and seafood - Yu Xingguo once saw that in the friendly tribes who intermarried with the Ming people outside Rabaul, the natives adopted the slash-and-burn farming method, and the usual method was to cut down in the dry season. For small trees, peel the bark of the big tree (wait for it to die), and then burn it together with the dead branches and broken vines.Such a roughly treated field is, of course, very unattractive, for there are stumps left, uneven ground, fallen trees, and sometimes ash and unburned logs, but the It is enough for natives.The place with the best conditions is used to plant taro, and bananas are planted between the taro; in addition, there are some unfallen saplings specially reserved, and the side will be full of crops such as large potatoes, climbing beans, and vegetables. The sweet potatoes and cassava introduced by people from the east coast have also been added, and some places have also begun to try to grow corn.In short, their agricultural technology is undoubtedly extremely low, but backed by relatively fertile land and a suitable climate, the grain output is quite good. After selling to the people on the east coast, they can exchange for a lot of consumer goods for them to enjoy. It's a pleasure to cooperate with you.

Yu Xingguo is sitting in a cafe at the moment—the business is a bit deserted, perhaps because there are not many consumers—while drinking coffee, he can see many mountains and forests smoking in the distance. The human tribe is burning wasteland, it is too primitive and too backward.

There is a farmland behind the cafe, and several Ming farmers are fencing the crops to prevent them from being ruined by sheep, pigs and other livestock that can be seen everywhere outside.Several businessmen who knew the farmers were chatting and laughing with them. Yu Xingguo had seen these people. Most of them had just bought a lot of sago (that is, sago) from farmers living near the coconut grove. The island of Bougainville is the densest and has the largest output. The island is also called West Valley Island by the people on the east coast of Rabaul Port), and it is planned to be transported to Port Motu in the south (that is, Port Moresby in later generations, because it is named after the territory of the Motu people) to trade in exchange for feathers, fur, fish (the local natives caught a lot of fish, and in recent years they learned to pickle under the teachings of the people on the east coast), wild boar, Possums, kangaroos, wallabies, cassowaries, hornbills, pigeons and other commodities.

However, with the increasing demand for sago on the east coast, this kind of trade has begun to decrease in recent years. A large amount of sago has been loaded on ships and shipped back to the mainland for sale through Australia, which is very profitable, because It is said that many local dignitaries like this food very much and are willing to pay high prices for it.This demand in turn promoted the local exploration of sago resources. Yu Xingguo once vaguely heard people mention that some bold people had rowed dozens of tons of boats along the island group to the southeastern archipelago (namely the Solomon Islands) ) looking for sago in the area is crazy.

After resting in Rabaul Port for three days, on January 1, the two sailboats bought some sago in the local area, and then set off to the south. With the help of the northwest wind and the warm current of East Australia, they sailed at a high speed of more than six knots. , going straight to Jinshan Port.

On January 1, Yu Xingguo and others set foot on the land of Jinshan Port in Australia safely, and disembarked again to start a two-day rest.The chef on the ship also led the helpers ashore to purchase flour, corn, bacon, vegetables, spirits and other food in large quantities, making adequate preparations for the next dangerous journey—going to Chile at 26 degrees south latitude.

After many years of stagnation in Australia's population and economy (constantly sucked by the Southern Cone), with the appointment of the first pioneer team captain Wang Yan, it gradually began to improve-at least in Western Australia, Captain Wang established three new The settlements are Hulukou Township (named because the local bay looks like a gourd) in the vicinity of Dengmark City, Yangzhai Township, an important animal husbandry town north of Gushan Port (near the later Mount Baker City), and Progress Township near the small town of Rockigali in later generations.The current population of these three townships is not large, but the significance is extremely significant. After all, Australia has expanded its territory for the first time in so many years. The symbolic significance cannot be underestimated. We can wait and see how it will develop in the future.

However, the agricultural conditions in Western Australia are good, so some agricultural towns have been set up, but near Jinshan Port, where the conditions are not so good, Wang Yan has not established any new settlements, that is, there is still only Jinshan Port in Eastern Australia—although Her official resident population exceeded 7000 last year—the economy is not very developed, and agriculture and animal husbandry are the mainstay (even animal husbandry has surpassed planting), so Yu Xingguo feels that the future of this city is really worrying.

In the early morning of January 1, the rested fleet left Jinshan Port, then crossed the Bass Strait, and sailed eastward near New Zealand.Under the command of an experienced captain, the two ships, carrying a large amount of cargo and more than 28 immigrants from eastern Zhejiang, arrived in the coastal waters of Chile without any danger along the way, and it was already March 200, 1659.

(End of this chapter)