Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 1418 Chile's Progress ([-])

On October 1665, 10, there was a rare drizzle in the outer port of Callao, Lima, which is still very rare in this extremely arid area.On normal days, the main geographical features here are dust flying all over the sky, scorching sunshine and dark and dreary low shrubs, just like what people on the east coast saw in the Cape Verde Islands.

However, if you think that Lima and even the entire Lima Procuratorate District are barren land, you are very wrong.In fact, despite the drought and lack of water, Lima and its surrounding areas have always been very important wheat and corn producing areas in the Viceroyalty of Peru. The grains produced are sold to Quito in the north, Panama and Chalkas in the south. Court District.The mystery of this is mainly the local dense agricultural irrigation system, which diverts water from the inland mountains to the coastal lowland plains to irrigate the farmland everywhere.

This huge water conservancy project began in 1000 BC. It was a miracle created by the Inca Empire. It was later taken over by the Spaniards and properly maintained and repaired. It still plays an extremely important role in grain production——South Patago Apart from a few self-produced grains, most of the grains needed for the daily life of more than [-] people on the east coast in the Nigeria region are imported from Lima and other places. This is already very telling.

"It's an astonishing feat. I didn't expect that the Indians, who seem ignorant and backward to us, can build such a spectacular irrigation system. It looks like a spider's web, doesn't it?" said Mao Desheng, president of the Southern Railway Company. The battleship "Control Dongfang" went down to the pier, and said to Major Jiang Yaohui, who was half a body behind him.

"Yes, this is my first time in Peru. To be honest, I was surprised, really." Major Jiang Yaohui looked at the exotic Callao Outer Port and said, "Of course, if there is no such powerful Agricultural irrigation system, why do they export a large amount of crops such as corn, wheat, tobacco, peppers, tomatoes, pumpkins, lentils, winter squash to southern Patagonia? Well, it seems that there are also a large number of apples, avocados, pineapples, Cash crops such as cocoa, sugar cane, coffee, custard apple, etc. In short, the Peruvians have made a fortune by exporting agricultural products and tropical giant trees to the southern cone these years. This can be seen from the increasing number of plantations here. There should have been a large number of plantation landlords in the country..."

Cultivating their own comprador class in the two viceroyal regions of Peru and New Spain has been the direction that the government of the East Coast Republic of China has been working towards for these years, and after nearly 20 years of continuous implementation, it seems that quite some results have been achieved , which can be reflected from the groups of import and export businessmen active in Maureen, Lima, Guayaquil, Panama, Acapulco and other places.However, just cultivating an import and export comprador class does not seem to be enough to reassure everyone on the east coast of the country based on industry. Under the suggestion of the General Administration of State Intelligence, the Executive Committee approved the plan jointly proposed by the Ministry of Industry and Commerce and the Southern Railway Company to vigorously import Peru's agricultural, forestry and mineral products have cultivated a localized class of big landlords in the country, allowing them to collude with the comprador class mainly engaged in commodities on the east coast, completely controlling the grassroots in the two major regions of Peru and New Spain, strangling all possible local The existing industrial capital squeezed out the colonial capital from the peninsula, and finally made these two vast and rich governorships reduced to dairy cows on the east coast.

This plan seems to be running smoothly at present, especially after the opening of the top ten ports and the opening of Peru and New Spain, the only remaining industrial system in the local area has a tendency to accelerate disintegration, and there is basically no sign of recovery at present. up.For example, the famous silk weaving industry in Mexico City went bankrupt for several years under the impact of the various, high-quality and cheap products of the Rocha United Textile Factory. mines, or to earn a living on country plantations.It is pitiful enough that only a few textile workers can rely on their own skills to earn a living in some remote areas where goods on the east coast cannot be radiated, but this is a cruel market economy, and there is nothing to say.

"There have indeed been a lot of plantation landowners in recent years, most of whom are native-born whites, and a small number are newly immigrated peninsula people." As the new president of Southern Railway, Mao Desheng has obviously done his homework. At least he has carefully investigated the situation of the Viceroyalty of Peru in Spain, which is the main source of income for the Southern Railway, so he continued to say: "The booming plantation economy has created a great demand for slaves, and the Indians are not enough to squeeze, so The Spanish plantation owners paid attention to the black slaves. Look at Curacao, except for salt, there are black slaves. The Dutch West India Company’s financial situation can be improved, not only by us, but also by the Spanish planters. Demand is also one of them, and of course the latter ultimately points to us, after all, it is the market demand on the east coast that gave birth to the prosperous plantation industry in Peru and New Spain.”

"In addition, due to the special political system of the Kingdom of Spain and the colonial traditions of more than 100 years, the grassroots town councils in Peru and New Spain have been increasingly controlled by these comprador merchants or plantation landowners in recent years. The right to speak is getting stronger and stronger, so that many newcomers from the peninsula are often unable to reap any benefits from them." Mao Desheng said: "The increase in their power is also extremely beneficial to us, and now As more and more capital was invested in plantations or import and export business, many colonial officials (accepting bribes from landlords or compradors) and church figures (lending to landlords or compradors) also actively or passively joined this chain of economic interests. In the process, they will naturally slowly maintain the current order after they have tasted the sweetness, which is of great benefit to us."

After finishing speaking, the two said nothing more, waiting patiently on the pier for the arrival of the Spanish envoy.At ten o'clock in the morning, the special envoy Angel Bravo arrived at the Callao pier on behalf of the new Governor of Peru, De Lorenzo, and took Mao Desheng, Jiang Yaohui and others to a luxurious villa in the urban area of ​​Lima.And after they left, the battleship "Control Orient" was still quietly moored in the outer port of Callao, and with its majestic and mighty figure, it severely frightened the surrounding Spaniard ships—constrained by financial difficulties However, the Spaniards' Peruvian fleet has not yet been rebuilt. Currently there are only a few small-scale warships, and even the third fleet, which is the weakest on the east coast, can stabilize one of them, which shows the degree of weakness.

"President Mao, the Puerto Barrios Town Council has received a lot of complaints about your company's cross-border reclamation recently. You must know that not all the land you have occupied is unclaimed land, and quite a lot of it is All of the land is allocated in the name of nobles. Although they did not arrange for people to develop it, it does not mean that there is no land. I say this, can you understand? You have crossed the line! And not once or twice! "In the well-decorated living room, Baron Angel Bravo said helplessly to Mao Desheng: "Although Governor De Lorenzo has just taken office not long ago, he knows this matter very well, because many nobles and The priests teamed up to find him, and he couldn't deal with it perfunctorily, especially those priests."

"Is there any need to make a fuss, Mr. Bravo?" Mao Desheng paced in the room, and said in a slightly exaggerated tone: "It's just another money-seeking trick from His Excellency the Governor. We have experienced it more than once over the years. Well. As for those nobles and priests, their opinions cannot be ignored. So, do we need to pay? Spent it out, exchanged it for a large amount of seeds, agricultural tools and livestock, pounced on the uninhabited Central Valley dense forest with fearless courage, and opened up the land step by step with his hardworking hands. Such a heroic and epic pioneering process, could it be that those Hidalgos Didn’t they touch you a little bit? Do you still want to take back these lands from them?”

Baron Angel Bravo is also a senior comprador businessman, and he also owns a large piece of land near Santiago. This meeting saw him helplessly staring at Mao Desheng who had entered the shameless mode, and said after a long while: "Maybe the Hidalgos It can be bought, but the priests have nothing to do. They themselves hold a lot of wealth, which makes it impossible to use many methods. Unless—you collectively convert to God and let them baptize you. This may be the only way to resolve the conflict Method."

"Oh my god, change the letter!" Mao Desheng and Jiang Yaohui looked at each other, and then laughed and said: "Okay, stop joking, Angel, you know, this is impossible, let's talk about some reality Let’s do something a bit better, such as obtaining the land management and development rights from the Hidalgos in the name of investment. Anyway, most of them live in Peru, and many of them have never been to the southern forest area even once in their lives. We give them idle Is there anything more wonderful than this? As for the priests, let’s leave it to Governor De Lorenzo to solve it, he should have a better solution than us.”

Angel Bravo was a little silent when he heard the words. In fact, he was as smart as him, so how could he not know what methods the people on the east coast would use to put pressure on the governor?There are too many!At present, when Peru and the East Coast economy are more and more closely linked, among other things, the major silver mines in Peru and New Spain need to use a large number of East Coast machines, such as gravel hammers, water pumps, rail flat cars, heavy-duty Wagons and other mining machinery, as well as other essential chemicals, were imported from the east coast.

It can be said that if the east coast interrupts the supply of machinery to the silver mines in the two governorate districts, the Spanish gold and silver production will inevitably decline significantly, and it will last for about two or three years. For the Spanish royal family under great pressure (the gold and silver dug back from the Americas every year is only enough to pay the debt interest), it is undoubtedly bad news.As the confidants and representatives of the royal family, the governors of Peru and New Spain naturally knew this well. Therefore, no matter how the local troubles and anti-Eastern sentiments have risen over the years, they have ignored them. This is not without reason.

Now that the new Governor of De Lorenzo has taken office, Hidalgo and the priests are still not aware of the matter, and they will continue to make trouble. What can we say about them?IQ needs to be recharged!Mao Desheng actually didn’t pay any attention to these people. When he came to Lima this time, in addition to paying a routine visit to the newly appointed governor (it seems that he is also a new official), he probably tried to find a way to sign more agreements with the Spaniards. The investment agreement for the in-depth development of the southern section of the Central Valley - to put it bluntly, it is to put a legal cloak on the illegal cross-border reclamation behavior of the people on the east coast, so that they can reasonably stay and live on the land of central and southern Chile under the guise of various names, and open up wasteland Reclamation and reproduction of offspring at the same time, eventually became a fait accompli, laying the foundation for the full annexation of Chile in the future.

"I heard that the 300 million yuan bonds issued by your country in the Qingdao and West Lake markets of our country need to be extended. At the same time, King Philip's health is also very worrying. Therefore, the Chinese government is deeply impressed by the stability of your country's political situation and debt repayment ability. Worried, and eager to provide some help. And all of this requires a premise, my friend, we also need to see the sincerity of the Spanish Royal Government." Mao Desheng stopped in front of Angel Bravo, using He said in a solemn tone: "Clearing out those ignorant anti-Eastern elements, suppressing the voices of the priests, and signing a more in-depth agreement with us on the development of the southern section of the Central Valley is a good manifestation. The way of your country's sincerity. What do you think? Honorable Hidalgo."

Mao Desheng's words reveal from another angle what Spain needs from the east coast.Yes, their King Philip is said to be seriously ill and is about to die, and if the young Prince Carlos wants to take the throne and rule the country, it is absolutely inseparable from foreign help.Among these countries, the East Coast Republic of China is undoubtedly an extremely important part. They can provide Spain with money, supplies, arms and even troops, just as they have done before. Hard enough to stand up.

"Governor De Lorenzo will probably agree to your plan in the end, but now, I really don't know where the future of Chile is." Baron Angel Bravo, who already had a daughter married to the east coast, shook his head, Said: "During this time, I will introduce some bankers and big businessmen in Lima for you. They are also very interested in joining the trade. I hope you can seriously consider it. Their energy is very strong, even in Quito, Panama The prosecutorial court district also has quite a network of contacts, and you have to rely on them to resolve many matters. Before that, please be patient."

(End of this chapter)