Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 1381 He Jian (Fifteen)

On October 1664, 10, the ground west of Fort Pedro in the River.

Inigo de Balboa walked on the lowland plain in the middle of the river with a relaxed expression. Behind them was a large team of mules and horses, which looked like hundreds of horses. The animals carried large and small bags on their backs. Most of them are food, mostly flour, cheese, rice, soybean oil, butter, vegetables, cured meat, salted fish, wine, etc. In addition, there are some daily necessities and weapons and ammunition, but the quantity is not large.

It can be seen that this is a team transporting supplies. According to the direction they are traveling at this time, they should come from the reclamation area of ​​the East Coast people in the east, and they are going west.In fact, it is similar. You can tell from the composition of the team. The grooms are almost all bright faces, but the soldiers guarding them are Spaniards—to be precise, they are stationed in Pedro The Spanish mercenaries in Fortress - are also shocking enough, after all, these are people from the east coast blatantly passing through the territory of the Kingdom of Spain to sell goods. The Spanish soldiers not only did not try to stop them, but on the contrary "helped the evildoers". If King Philip knew, He must be lamenting that he hasn't officially handed over He Jian, which has already been infiltrated into a sieve.

But there is no way!Who told His Majesty the King that you don't like to pay the military salary? Although the military salary has been paid twice before, the problem is that everyone is still owed the military salary for more than ten months, and the property in the Hejian area is not enough. Fengfeng (except for the actual control area of ​​the East Bank), the cost of living has become very high, which has led to an increasing number of fleeing sergeants-more of these people have gone to work in the East Bank control area, and some even crossed the Wujiang River. The east coast prairie—the river fortress system that General Portillo had painstakingly managed for many years collapsed under the impact of the financial crisis, which is also ironic.

In such an embarrassing situation, Inigo had to come forward to accept the employment of the people on the east bank to escort them to transport a large amount of materials from the agricultural area on the west bank of the Wujiang River to the shipping supply nodes on the east bank of the Paraná River.Of course, there are other Spanish mercenaries in charge of other sections of the road. They in Fort Pedro are only responsible for the section from Anxi Township, Torch Township, and Liziyuan Township to Zhenrong Port in the west. Except for some left behind soldiers, everyone else Divided into two shifts, dispatched once every half a month, escorting the mules and horses carrying food to the supply port in the west, earning a little income so that they can support themselves.

At this time, the team had arrived near the castle of Sausse (the later town of Sausse). Inigo and more than 50 soldiers rode horses and rode with ease. In this wilderness, except for the ignorant Guarani people Except for the Kelandi, Quechua, almost no blind people will come to harass such a team. Although they carry a lot of food and supplies that everyone is eager for, you must consider the consequences of doing so. .

The officers of Chateau Chausse were not involved in such large-scale commodity trafficking, but they would not prevent others from doing so. On the contrary, when Inigo's team reached the countryside outside the castle, they would still trade with it, that is, with their own The leather, tallow, and linen obtained are exchanged for some daily necessities, which are extremely important to the Spanish manor owners or yeoman farmers in the nearby troops, so the garrison in the castle can only pretend that they have not seen these east coast caravans, let alone their previous A certain amount of gifts have been collected as hush money.

There is still a distance of more than 100 kilometers from Chausse Castle to Zhenrong Port. This is only a few days’ journey in the middle of the river where the terrain is not so undulating. Except for water parks, swamps and rivers, there is no Any dense forest or mountain that hinders the progress can be said to be a flat river, which is very conducive to the transportation of materials, and of course it is more conducive to the advancement of the army.

"Most of the area south of Corrientes is a floodplain with strips of swamps and lakes, just like what I saw around Castle Sauce." During the rest of the team, follow the team on a field trip An official of the Ministry of Geology quickly recorded in his diary: "The swamp area is a low plain with a small gradient. Like the flow direction of the tributaries of the Paraná River flowing through here, most of the places slope to the southeast. The swamp It is the same, mostly in the shape of a northeast-southwest strip, and some sandy hills with various characteristics of the soil in the dry area stand on the edge of the swamp area, which illustrates a change in the modern climate. In the last geological period, the The climate must be dry, so this dune-shaped sandy surface was formed. Since the period when the dry climate ended, because the river network has not yet fully formed, a large amount of rainwater cannot be completely discharged, and it has accumulated to form swamps and lakes, so This forms the unique landform of the central plain between the rivers.”

"There is no doubt that these soils are valuable for development." The official of the Ministry of Geology continued to record: "Whether it is sandy, chalky, clayy or alluvial soil, there are places that can be used. The soil here It is mainly reddish, and some places are pink, but in those basins that are well-maintained and drained well, the soil is black, and the crops planted here can often get good harvests. This point, in Baishuidian and the hilly lowlands with exposed hard rocks in the north have been well proven. All in all, this is a pretty good piece of land, but the degree of development is unexpectedly low. It is recommended that the National Development Administration should immigrate in large numbers and set up new settlements. Swallow this place completely."

Of course, what the geological officials don’t know is that even without his reminder, the Government Affairs Council has already formulated a new plan to immigrate to the Hejian area at the behest of the Executive Committee. For example, they plan to set up some new settlements here recently. Point, anyway, according to the terms of the "Eastern Secret Treaty", sooner or later these places will belong to people from the east coast, so what is the point of doing some planning in advance.These new settlements are: Xuchang Township near the later city of Mercedes, Juye Township near the small town of Mariano, Lihu Township near the small town of Perugoria, Located in Lei Ze Township near Carlos Pellegrini City, there are a total of four new settlements, which are expected to accommodate more than [-] immigrants from Huai'an Prefecture in the Ming Dynasty.

From the setting of these new settlements, it can basically be seen that the people on the east coast basically no longer have any scruples, and began to expand to the inland area in a grand manner.This may be the psychological impact of the signing of the secret agreement on the princes of the executive committee, so they have become more determined in cross-border reclamation, and they are no longer as timid as before. You see, the new settlements are all located on the edge of the Ibera swamp. The determination to devour the river region is quite obvious.

Naturally, it is impossible for the Spaniards to be indifferent to this, but the time is still short, and they haven't reacted yet, or they are waiting for instructions from their superiors, and they don't know how to react.It’s just that the people on the east coast are not worried about this at all. First of all, their strength here is strong, and the military power of the Kingdom of Spain has basically turned against them. How can Portillo and his like stop the cross-border reclamation of the people on the east coast? Activity?And since they dare not take action against the pioneers on the east coast who crossed the border to reclamation at the military level, they can only report to the governor of Peru and even King Philip to make a decision. These two people know the specific content of the "Oriental Secret Covenant". It is conceivable that they will turn a blind eye to the accelerated reclamation actions of the people on the east bank in the Hejian area. Who told them that they are already planning to give this land away?

On November 1664, 11, after a long journey, the caravan escorted by Inigo and his men finally arrived at Zhenrong Port on the east bank of the Paraná River—a supply station established with the permission of the Spaniards. Mainly to supply food, fresh water and coal, and the targets are all inland river vessels on the east bank passing through this place.

At present, there are about dozens of people in Zhenrong Port, including ship repair technicians, dock laborers and handymen, and there are seven or eight armed policemen in the police station, responsible for the security work of the supply station in the "one-shot place" ——Generally speaking, there is no threat to public security, except for the occasional aborigines wandering over.

There is a roughly built wooden pier in the port. Adjacent to the pier is a small coal storage warehouse, which piles up a large amount of coal shipped from the mainland—in order to reduce the weight of fuel carried by ships and increase the transportation space, these coals are It is all formed by mixing clean coal brought back from overseas with local coal. Next to the storage warehouse, there are food warehouses, weapon depots, ship repair stations and other facilities. The facilities for maintaining the supply of ships in the past and the operation of the terminal itself are all available.

"Ah, it's Technician Zhang, you're here again!" The director of the police station who was patrolling the pier shouted loudly.

"Yes, this time the teacher was delayed by other things, so he asked me to come over and take a look. How is it? Zhenrong Port has been in operation for a long time, is everything going well? I heard that there was a flood last year. Are you not flooded?" Technician Zhang jumped off the back of a mule, and while unloading his luggage, he said, "I heard that Weirong and Baosai in the south were flooded, and the property loss was not small. Know how you are here."

"Our place is okay, maybe it's because of the higher terrain and the small flood." The chief of the police station responded, smoking a cigarette, "The flood flooded over and soaked the pier underwater, but it's okay, everyone is fine. , but the fields were all destroyed, and all the vegetables we had worked on for a season were all flooded, and the loss was not small."

"It's not bad. It is said that the flood last year has not been encountered since the founding of the country for more than 30 years. The terrain on the east bank of the Paraná River is relatively high, which is not bad. The Spaniards built it in the towns of Santa Fe and Rosario on the west bank. It was a tragedy. The flood almost destroyed most of the urban buildings, all the farmland was flooded, and the loss of people and livestock was not small. Compared with this, we are lucky enough. After the ruthless flood overflowed the pier, basically They are all digested and absorbed by the swamps, lakes, and rivers in the river area, and the impact is quite limited. I always think that these swamps and lakes in the river area must not be reclamated in the future, and legislation must be banned To reclaim land from the lake, the river network must also be widened, dredged, and deepened regularly, which is not only conducive to navigation and irrigation, but also conducive to flood control and flood discharge. This flood is not only a lesson, but also an opportunity. An opportunity for more guidance." Technician Zhang spoke eloquently, which made the police, mechanics and technicians on the pier stunned.

"Your statement is somewhat similar to what the technicians of the Ministry of Agriculture said. They are all cultural people." The director of the police station put the big cap under his arm and said with a smile: "The technician came to check the orchards that were damaged by the supply station. , vegetable gardens and farm losses, and then told us not to plant these near the pier. He asked us to go to some inland areas and use the terrain there to build the Zonggang system, just like the one at Baishuidian. Zonggang Plant some fruit trees, melon beans, vegetables and other things on the embankment, and the depressions in the Zonggang can be reclaimed to grow some grains, because the land here is more fertile. Of course, there is a lot of water there now, and the reconstructed Zonggang depressions We can only grow some aquatic or semi-aquatic crops, and even raise fish. We can’t do anything else. We don’t have a steam pump here, and it’s too difficult to drain the Zonggang depression..."

"The construction of Zonggang agriculture is an effective way to resist floods, but it is only a temporary solution, not the root cause." Technician Zhang nodded slightly after hearing the words, and then commented: "In the long run, we still have to be in Bala Only by building a large-scale flood control dam on the east bank of the Na River can it effectively resist periodic floods and fully develop this fertile two-river valley. But how difficult it is, how difficult it is!"

At this point, Technician Zhang also shook his head. There are only a few people in the Hejian area, and there is only so much economic value. Why should the members of the Executive Committee spend astronomical manpower and material resources to build flood control dams on the east bank of the Paraná River?They won't do this even if they are full. There are so many places in the country that need to be developed. With this ability, the Beining area has been rectified. Who would care about your flooded Paraná River?

Besides, the labor force needed to build a flood control facility of this scale is also astronomical. Even if the East Coast Republic of China puts all the non-national laborers on hand, it will not be enough!What's more, now that a new round of domestic production capacity expansion is coming, construction sites are in full swing everywhere, and the poor infrastructure of the newly occupied former Portuguese colony requires a lot of manpower to improve. It can be said that the number of non-national laborers is already at a low level. In an extremely tense state, how can there be spare manpower to move you to repair the dam? Isn't this playing the piano indiscriminately—unless you can take over the old nest of the Zulu people in South Africa or the kingdom of the Melina people on the New Huaxia Island. It is possible to obtain enough labor force, otherwise it is impossible to talk about it!

(End of this chapter)