Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 2040 Unity River ([-])

A piece of white belly is exposed in the east, and the peaceful and peaceful day on the eastern Brazilian plateau has begun again.

Fangshan Township is a young town. It has only been established for about a year, and its population is less than 2000. The economy is mainly based on agriculture.However, it is such a young town, but now it is getting more and more attention from the superiors. There is no other reason. After the continuous report of gold exploration came back, the members of the Executive Committee attached great importance to it and instructed the Government Administration Council to formulate a plan for the gold mining area. Revitalize the development plan and carry out the general development of this wild area.

For this reason, the population in the south of Zhuoshui (Grande River) has been greatly enriched, and the State Development Bureau has also allocated a considerable part of funds and materials to support the economic construction here, with a view to building the counties on the south bank of Zhuoshui into a An industrial and agricultural base, supporting the future development of the gold mining area.

There are currently five counties south of Zhuoshui, among which Changcen, Changli, and Zhuolu counties have been established for some time and have a large population, mostly around 148.The two counties of Zhending and Lingshou were established relatively late. It has only been one year so far, and the population is still less than 149. There is still a lot of room for improvement——Zhending County has four jurisdictions: Zhending Town, Jiumen Township, Shiyi Township, and Guquan Township. It is the [-]th county in the country. Lingshou County has five townships under its jurisdiction: Lingshou Township, Lunu Township, Feilei Township, Xiyang Township, and Shoudong Township (located near the small town of Itajuba in later generations). The [-]th county-level administrative unit.

These five counties have had great luck this time, and a lot of immigrants have been added to the inland one year after another.Even, the Ministry of Immigration has received instructions to increase the total population of the five counties by 50% in the next three years, and there will be a certain proportion of handicraft workers. For this reason, a lot of immigrants who originally belonged to the Pampa area have been cut off. It can be seen that The determination above is great.

The Ministry of Communications also grasped the spirit of the superiors well, gritted their teeth and invested a lot of money and manpower to dredge waterways and build roads in the area of ​​Zhuo River, and even planned to build a bridge between the north and south of Zhuo River, connecting Fangshan Township at one end. An important relay point to the gold mining area, the other end is connected to Jiumen Township in Zhending County, which is a distribution center for living materials and labor tools, and is very important.

In this era, the mining industry has always been a labor-intensive and capital-intensive industry.At this time, there were no various construction machinery of later generations, and no efficient transportation system, so it was destined to require a large amount of labor to do this work, even the most industrialized China East Coast Republic was no exception.In order to provide a series of commodities from drinking water, medicine, daily necessities to labor tools to the large number of laborers in the mining area, it is necessary to set up one or more logistics supply bases in adjacent areas.Today, the five counties on the south bank of Zhuoshui are responsible for such a function. The government improves its productivity level through targeted investment, enabling them to produce a large amount of agricultural products and some handicraft products, and solve the problem of high cost of purchasing the above-mentioned materials from a distance.

All kinds of industrial or agricultural products produced by the five counties on the south bank of Zhuo River are usually transported to the boundary of Fangshan Township in the north by ferry boats (the bridge is still under discussion), or sold directly to local shops, or sold to some who dare to go deep into the mining area. There are hawkers who go all over the place, in short, the sales are quite good.

It is worth mentioning that in such a wild place as Fangshan Township, the state-run department store and Sun Chunyang Nanhuo Store have also set up branches, selling all kinds of commodities from hardware tools to daily necessities.It can be seen that these two large commercial enterprises are unanimously optimistic about the future of the Tuanjie River Basin, believing that gold will greatly improve the local conditions, and the future is bound to usher in a great opportunity for development. layout.

Dong'an Gold Company has also set up a branch here, which covers a vast area and has a large number of personnel. Basically, they are the backbone of the business transferred from the Tieling Gold Mine in the south, mainly engaged in smelting, testing, casting and other work.Dongjin Company has spent a lot of money on this large mining area of ​​Tuanhe River and its tributaries. The building that the branch company is building is very grand and costly. It has all kinds of equipment in it, all of which are new-style ones ordered from a domestic company. machine.

In the mining area in the north, they also set up a total of eight offices, each occupying a deposit, and engaged in the work of collecting gold sand and ore.Most of the workers were captured Indians, bought blacks, and some Russian prisoners of war sent last year (1688). There were quite a lot of workers, and the work was very heavy.For this reason, each of these offices has a security department, and each department has dozens of fully armed security guards, as well as a large number of bred wolf dogs, hounds, etc., to ensure that the gold mines are punctual, orderly, and safe. , Production in sufficient quantities.

Xiao Guang has been living in the compound of Dongjin Company for the past few days.His expedition team has basically completed the preliminary tasks, and there is nothing to do now, and is waiting for the next order from the Ministry of Geology.With nothing to do, Xiao Guang decided to go out for a walk, visit the Fangshan Township Government, and eat something good.

It rained heavily yesterday, and the road was a bit wet.Fortunately, the road was paved with cinders, so it had little impact.However, there are occasional ruts left by heavy-duty carriages on the surface, which are filled with stagnant water, and a group of mosquitoes are flying on them, making it a little annoying to watch.

There were quite a few pedestrians on the road, some of them were wearing shirts and carrying briefcases, who looked like they were eating public meals.Some people were wearing denim or thick linen clothes. They were manual workers. There were many privately invested building materials workshops nearby, as well as some transport teams, and there were a large number of such people.In addition, there are many people in traditional clothes, these people seem to be relatively leisurely, either businessmen, business owners, or people engaged in private financial services.

Xiao Guang soon turned to the big square in front of the township government, which was also the busiest place in Fangshan Township.A row of houses with brick and wood structure stand on both sides of the road, with banners hung or wooden signs at the door, most of which are various shops, among which restaurants and restaurants are the most common.These stores opened their stores here, and their customers were mainly those who returned from the Tuanjiehe gold mining area in the north.These people are either employees of the East Coast Gold Company, or guys who secretly go to gold mining with dreams of getting rich. In short, they are all rich and can do a lot of business.

I have to mention one thing here.Because there are a large number of gold mines in the Tuanjie River Basin, although the East Bank Gold Company has monopolized a considerable part of the high-grade and high-quality gold mines, there are still countless small and micro gold mines in the remaining vast space.These gold mines are basically being mined secretly at present. Although the harvest is far inferior to those big mines dominated by the East Coast Gold Company, they are still quite good.

In addition, from time to time there will be news of some small gold mines that have never been discovered.These small ore deposits often have low reserves and poor quality, but for a group of miserable poor ghosts, they are already great wealth.They roughly smelted the mined raw ore, and then sold it to the office of the East Coast Gold Company in exchange for funds.They lack professional technology and lack funds, so they can only do this.Although the bulk of the profits may be taken by Dongjin Company, what can be done about it?He is an enterprise directly under the State Administration of Precious Metals. He has capital, technology, talents, and a good armed force. Is it interesting to be different from him?

Of course, the largest private gold mining industry is actually those gold diggers who use small baskets to pan for gold sand on the riverbed of the Tuanjie River and its tributaries.In fact, these people worked very hard, facing the scorching sun and mosquitoes, soaking in the water all day long, their eyes were blurred, just looking for the golden grains that flashed away in the river bottom sediment.

Some of the gold dust scavenged by the gold diggers was taken away by them, either for daily consumption or as souvenirs - the small gold beans scavenged at the bottom of the river can even be used as hard currency in the mining area or in Fangshan Township. Italian prostitutes were happy to accept this form of payment—but most of them were sold to East Coast gold companies in exchange for funds that allowed them to continue in the local area.

Xiao Guang quickly turned into a restaurant.The size of this restaurant is quite large, there are a total of twenty Eight Immortals tables inside, and the business is also very prosperous.He took a general look, and found that most of them were gold diggers in ragged clothes but with piercing eyes. They gathered together in twos and threes, and they didn't know what they were talking about.In the corner of the hall, there were two women holding pipas and singing babblingly. It seemed that they were invited by the store, and their wages were settled on a daily basis.

"Inviting art performers to cheer you up, you can only see it in a big southern city. It's really speechless that a place like Fangshan Township can afford it. It's really a fucking evil place!" Let the shopkeeper go After the kitchen cooked a beggar chicken, Xiao Guang sat on a chair, opened a bottle of Madeira liqueur that he carried with him, and poured himself a drink.

Opposite him were two grim-looking policemen.They glanced at Xiao Guang casually, then lowered their heads and went to eat again, it could be seen that their stomachs were full of worries.Xiao Guang understood them very well. The Tuanjie River Basin is not only a holy place for gold panning, but also the starting point of many people's dreams of making a fortune, but also the end of many people's lives.In this remote and savage place, robbery and murder are too common. You can see corpses floating down the main road of the Tuanjie River almost every day, not to mention the large number of dead corpses that have sunk to the bottom of the river. The police here have added endless troubles.

The two policemen sitting in front of Xiao Guang are from the Fangshan Township Police Station (this is a large police station with more than 50 armed policemen), and they have been under a lot of pressure recently because of the endless murder cases.Among them, two Jiangyang thieves even killed someone in Fangshan Township, snatched a small bag of golden beans, and then disappeared.The police station had no choice but to send elite personnel to search around, hoping to find something, but it seems that the situation is not very optimistic so far.

Xiao Guang didn't have much interest in these things, and he wasn't very worried.As a well-informed person, he already knows that the Joint Chiefs of Staff will send a mixed battalion to Fangshan Township in the first half of this year. The local law and order situation is a mess.

In addition, the east bank even notified the Portuguese downstream, asking them to close the downstream of the Tuanjie River, set up checkpoints, and strictly investigate suspicious elements, so that those lawless bastards must not be allowed to escape.With such a heavy blow, Xiao Guang believes that the local situation will have a significant improvement, and the country obviously will not let this golden place continue to be chaotic.You know, the State Administration of Precious Metals is staring at the gold in this area eagerly!

At present, the national military expenditure is very huge, and various constructions are coming one after another. The gold reserves in the treasury have not been increased. At present, they can barely be maintained at four or five tons, which is far from enough to complete the currency reform. Therefore, the gold in the Tuanhe River Basin It is very important to the country. They hope that after stable production, they will contribute more than three tons of gold each year in the early stage. After maturity, the output will increase year by year, as much as they produce.It just so happens that domestic papermaking and printing technology has made new breakthroughs, and bill anti-counterfeiting technology has also made great progress. Therefore, the conditions for issuing treasury gold exchange certificates are basically mature, and you can try it.

Against such a background, how can the country allow you to continue the chaos?Impossible!Enlarging and strengthening the various industries in the gold mining area and increasing gold production will always be the top priority.

(End of this chapter)