Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 1458 East Coast

"Now Dofan Fort has been controlled by our people. This stronghold echoes Guihua Island and Tacheng Port in the north. The time is ripe to open up the east coast." About 27 years old, graduated from Dayuhe Youth Cadre School , Cai Shengguo, who has just been transferred from the Ministry of Construction to the east coast of Xinhua Island to work (plating) and work (gold), talked to everyone: "The five nearby towns of Lingchuan, Qinshui, Yangcheng, Lu'an, and Gaoping will also be Ushering in great development, the planning of its spice planting area has already been included in the government work plan of the New China Pioneering Team, which is written very clearly in black and white, so the future prospects are extremely promising, everyone!"

Listening to his talk at this time is a group of businessmen from the local area. They have earned enough capital in the booming economic tide in the past three to forty years, and then they are either limited by further development in their careers, or guided by government policies, or He was simply influenced by other people's fortune-telling propaganda, and then took a boat to Xinhua Island, the largest overseas colony on the east coast (and also the most important colony), to see if there were any opportunities for development.

If there is, then it is inevitable for them to extract funds from the mainland to invest in Xinhua Island; The stocks of airlines and other companies are good. After all, nothing is as good as nothing. The most important thing in this world is opportunity!

Of course, New China is not without powerful investors. After all, although the entire New China Island has experienced frequent outbreaks of epidemics and rapid land expansion in the past few years, its total population has still grown tenaciously to a scale of 10.9. The strength should not be underestimated; in addition, many businessmen who were the first to invest in the island's plantations back then have already established a certain business foundation and have the ability to mobilize funds at hand. Therefore, the island's businessmen also have the strength to invest to the planned spice-growing region on the east coast.However, their number is too small after all, and they are more keen to continue to expand the existing plantation scale than to be distracted elsewhere (in fact, they are unwilling to take risks in new lands), so they are willing to go to the wild land of the east coast Businessmen who try their luck are basically foreigners.

In New China Island, which is centered on economic construction, how to attract capital investment has increasingly become an important reference factor when considering an official’s performance—generally, the places where investment is arranged are wild lands, which means that businessmen will help the government Undertaking certain functions of land reclamation can effectively reduce the cost of land reclamation and increase the speed of land reclamation, which is of great benefit to the people on the east coast to quickly control the place, so this is always a factor that the superiors value very much.Otherwise, if the "natural" colonization method of the Europeans is followed, it will take the year of the monkey to actually control the entire Xinhua Island, won't it take 100 years?

Because of this, Cai Shengguo (he is the son of Cai De, the general manager of Dafeng Food Company, the younger brother of Cai Anguo, the captain of the navy, and Cai Youguo, the county magistrate of Jiaohe County), who is determined to be in politics, will work very hard to attract these people to come. Investment, so when he talked, he was frothy, and the tricks of empty talk were also used one after another. I just heard him say: "According to the decision of the development team government and Captain Huang's plan, we will be here almost next year. A county-level administrative unit, namely Daze County, will be established to unify the resources of multiple nearby settlements and conduct overall planning to better adapt to the development of the local economic situation and escort the development of the spice plantation area..."

However, although there are suspicions of bragging and fooling around, there is nothing wrong with what Cai Shengguo mentioned just now, that is, the establishment of Daze County.From Xinhua Port's point of view, since the people on the east coast will definitely acquire Dofanburg, an important southern town, it is also a matter of course to establish an important county at the southern tip of the island to develop the southern economy better and faster. meaning.Therefore, a while ago, Huang Yi held a meeting in Xinhua County, and made clear the resolution to establish Daze County—the county will take Duofan Town as the seat of the county government, and will have jurisdiction over Duofan Town, Daze Township, Qinshui Township, Lingchuan Township and There are five towns in Yangcheng Township, with a population of more than 7000, and the economy will be divided into two.

One is Edofan Castle and its surrounding mountains (need to negotiate with the natives in the mountains, but some exquisite gifts can solve the problem, so the problem is not big).Fort Dofan itself is located on a narrow coastal plain, so except for the building materials industry, ship repair industry, simple mechanical processing and other industries supporting future cities and naval bases, the rest of the land resources are very precious and must be used to grow rice. , corn and other staple foods to ensure that once the sea line of communication changes, Dofanburg, an important place, still has a certain self-sustaining ability.Of course, from a cost point of view, it will be cheaper to supply grains, fruits and vegetables, and meat locally.

On the other hand, the east and west directions of Duofan Town are dominated by swamps, lagoons, and tortuous rivers (including the formed oxbow lakes). Ditching, draining the accumulated water, and building reservoirs, but the amount of this project is so huge that it is far from what the current colonists on the east coast can touch, so they can only abandon it—besides, go east and west from here It didn't take long, and it was the territory of the natives. There is no need to have conflicts and conflicts with them now because of these rotten places.It's not worth it, if you really want it, you will have the opportunity to deal with them slowly in the future, there is no need to rush for a while!

Therefore, the real value of Duofan Town actually falls on the mountainous area several kilometers behind the city.In fact, to put it bluntly, the climate, soil and environment of these mountainous areas are very suitable for growing a cash crop, that is, coffee.This is the case in later generations. The Arabica coffee beans produced in the mountains of southeastern Madagascar are quite famous, and they have been exported in large quantities through the special relationship with France.

Therefore, now that people from the east coast are operating the southeast of Xinhua Island, from an economic point of view, coffee is indeed a tool that cannot be ignored for making money, so it is also following the old path of later French colonists.After all, as far as the growing environment of coffee (especially the Arabica species from Ethiopia) is concerned, the conditions here may not be much worse than those in Tacheng in the north, and may even be better (this is very likely), So what are you waiting for, let's get started!

Of course, before this, there may be a small problem that needs to be resolved first, that is, to negotiate the demarcation issue with the Antemoro, Antefazi, Antenoji and other mountain tribe alliances (a relatively loose alliance). It is clear which places belong to them and which places belong to the people on the east coast. Because of the nomadic farming habits of these mountain people, the people on the east coast are completely at a loss as to how large their territory is.Therefore, we must reach an agreement with them on this issue in advance, even if we spend some money and give some gifts, it is just to avoid future disputes and troubles, and save time to affect the overall economic situation of Daze County, and then affect the county. "Investment Attraction" activities.

And if this problem is solved, then the economy of Duofan Town will really open up a new world.Tianzun bestowed the land with continuous mountains in the southeast of Xinhua Island, and it is so suitable for the growth of coffee, an important economic crop, if it is not used well, it will be a waste of money - Cai Shengguo is also very concerned about this, Because although he is only the mayor of Daze Township now, his administrative level is at the deputy director level. When he was transferred from the ministry to Xinhua Island, he knew vaguely that he would actually preside over the work of Daze County as the executive deputy county magistrate in the future. Therefore, he will take time to visit Dofan Town in a few months time to preach the benefits of investing in coffee plantations to another group of local businessmen.

Second, in addition to the coffee plantation industry in Duofan Town, another important industrial area in Daze County—and also a major industrial area on the east coast under planning—is the spice plantation mentioned above. To be more precise, it is actually several spices such as pepper, ginger, fennel, cloves (it seems a bit difficult to get the clove seeds).

For these commodities, the annual demand for these commodities is still quite large in the East China Republic, where domestic consumption is getting stronger and stronger (mainly because there are too many people who eat meat...), and it has become more and more a major commodity. Business, don’t you see that the Dutch East India Company steals hundreds of thousands of cash from the East Coast every year just for spices?It's no wonder that the people on the east coast want to do it themselves, it's really rich and touching!

In fact, with the arrival of a large number of new immigrants, the time is ripe to develop the east coast of Xinhua Island, not to mention the few settlements that have been established. Qiliao people, Tanara people, and Comoros people (a "big news", the aborigines on Comoros Island have been tossed clean by the people on the east coast...) are using their lives to help the people on the east coast tidy up the area The swamp area is over, digging ditches, opening canals, repairing reservoirs, and clearing rivers, I am very busy.And as far as its work efficiency is concerned, it is still acceptable. This is probably because the people on the east coast are well managed-these supervisors of the new Chinese aborigines are taken by the French, and the number is about a few hundred. There were the French colonists who ran from Fort Doufan to Daze Township to surrender to the people on the east coast and asked for asylum, and there were also about 700 French Huguenot soldiers who were intercepted by the Second Fleet at sea.Now after they have been rectified, they have all worked for the people on the east coast. There are a total of [-] people, managing more than [-] various native slave laborers under them, and they are directly responsible to the officials on the east coast.

The land organized by the aborigines was immediately distributed to the immigrants intercepted from the Far East, as well as the Indians and exiled prisoners from the mainland (the exiled prisoners had to serve their sentences before they were eligible to officially Own land), support them to settle down as soon as possible, and take root in the reclamation business.As for the land that has not yet been opened up, in addition to allowing these aboriginal laborers to continue to develop with their lives, the remaining part depends on whether investors value it and are willing to invest.If there is no one, it can only continue to be deserted. If there is one—such as the local businessman Cai Shengguo is fooling around and the Italian investors who have been attracted before—congratulations, the investors will pay their own money to purchase materials and organize personnel. Helping the government open up a piece of wasteland, the premise is that you have to sign a 50-year land lease contract with them, and the rent is also very low.

It can be seen that the industrial concentration of Xinhua Island is getting higher and higher, and the economy is basically inseparable from the plantation. Sisal, vanilla, coffee, cocoa, cotton, sugar cane, pepper and other export commodities, Almost all of them are from large plantations.On the contrary, industries such as timber, fishing, coal, and dried fruits that had strongly supported the island's economic development in the early days are becoming increasingly irrelevant industries. Due to economic transformation, funds and manpower began to flow into the above-mentioned tropical cash crop plantations with higher profit margins——Xinhuaxia Island, its economic model has finally changed!

However, no matter how the economic model changes, people—or labor force—as the core factor is what every industry desperately desires.Since the development of Xinhua Island, there have been 10.9 official citizens. There are still a large number of non-national laborers active in plantations and factories. It is almost the area that uses the largest number of non-national laborers except the mainland. The footprints are almost all over the island. circle, playing with the Sakarava, Bezimisaraka, Barra, Antemoro and other aborigines. The population of the aborigines on the island has dropped to less than one million (maybe even Only a few hundred thousand), in time, the complete east coast of the whole island will also be a high probability event.

"...Captain Huang also said that this year the New China pioneering team will intercept thousands of immigrants from the Ming Dynasty, mainly for the development of the east coast. Although they cannot be directly used for plantation workers, with these self-cultivated farmers or With the existence of the handicraft class, a series of production and living tools such as grain, fruits and vegetables, cloth, salt, and ironware needed by the plantation can be supplied nearby, which is very beneficial to effectively reduce the operating cost of the plantation. At the end of Cai Shengguo's speech, he cheered up all the investors present, only to hear him continue: "You must have heard of the Genoa Africa Company and Delta Company of the Italian. They operate sugarcane planting The garden has really made a lot of money, and it has greatly improved the voice of Italian businessmen and monarchs in the Mediterranean area. It is really famous and rich. You may as well learn from it. Don’t laugh, what I said is true Yes, the spice plantation is also promising. Prince Cosimo of Tuscany is very interested. Last month, he sent a representative to inquire and investigate. You can't let outsiders focus on the front. "

Cai Shengguo's words immediately ignited everyone present, who doesn't know about Prince Cosimo?The shareholder of Delta Company, the prince of Tuscany, even he wants to invest in spice plantations, so maybe this project is really a good idea?Many people feel a little anxious in their hearts, and they are eager to go to the site as soon as possible to see if it is worth the investment.

(End of this chapter)