Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 375 Flight segment

On January 1644, 1, there was heavy rain in Xinhua Port.

The tropics in the rainy season are tough. Continuous rain, hot and humid weather, and rampant diseases all challenge the endurance of newcomers.According to statistics, since the rainy season began in October 43, the number of sick people in Xinhua Port has increased by about 10% compared to usual.Although many people suffered from minor ailments, which healed after exposure, a considerable number of people still contracted malaria.

Even though people from the East Coast have planted some cinchona trees in the hilly area north of Ping'an County, the number is still too few to scale.Therefore although this precious medicine output of cinchona bark powder has had certain growth than before, still can't obtain in a large amount at present.As far as the current stage is concerned, only military and political officials, senior soldiers, and technicians in the New China colony are eligible for medical treatment if they are infected with malaria.

Three months into the rainy season, more than 60 people have been infected with malaria, and most of them are residents who need to go to work in the fields or near the water. One-third of these people died, but the condition of the survivors is not tolerable. optimism.In addition to these, more than a dozen people died of dysentery, typhoid and other diseases. In short, every rainy season is the time when diseases break out in New China.

In fact, relatively speaking, compared with the colonial cities established by Europeans in the Caribbean, Africa, India, and Indonesia, the city of Xinhua Port is much better in all aspects, especially in terms of hygiene.First of all, the urban area is dry and tidy, with hardened pavement paved with bricks and stones, and underground drainage pipes buried at a great cost at the beginning of the urban construction. Even many towns planned in the early stage of the East Coast did not have such a luxury.

Good drainage facilities greatly reduce the stagnant water inside and outside the urban area, which reduces the breeding environment for many mosquitoes and relatively reduces the chances of people getting sick.In fact, we can compare Batavia and Xinhua Port at this time. The urban area of ​​Batavia is vast and the environment is complex. There are small rivers and forests in the urban area. Many residents even artificially build fish ponds inside to raise fish; while Xinhua The circumference of the castle is only a few hundred meters, and the area is far smaller than that of Batavia. The city is full of brick and tile buildings, and there is no water surface except for some wells and closed drinking water treatment facilities. , so that there are almost no breeding places for mosquitoes.In this way, it is no wonder that the living environment of the two cities in the same tropical area is so different.

The second is people's hygiene habits.Shi Qinjie, the captain of the Madagascar Pioneering Team, issued an order from the very beginning that it is strictly forbidden to pour sewage into the streets and discard garbage, and violators will be fined.Residents must dump all kinds of garbage to designated places every day, and then incinerate or landfill by special personnel.Residents will also have regular haircuts and baths. The public bathhouses in the urban area burn hot water every day and do not charge any fees. Workers who are off work do not mind enjoying a hot bath after work , to get rid of physical fatigue.

In this way, the incidence of various diseases among the residents of Xinhua Castle has been reduced to the lowest level, which is completely incomparable with Batavia's 17% annual death rate, which is a heart-pounding and terrifying figure.Although a large number of people still get sick and die every rainy season, they are generally dealt with in a timely manner, so the death rate is also controlled within a tolerable range.

Compared with Xinhua Castle, the situation in Tacheng is much worse.The construction of the city walls of this city that was born of coal has just been completed, but various facilities in the city, such as forts, lighthouses, and Yonggu Wharf outside the city, are still not completed. Therefore, the living conditions of the local residents are still quite poor.Naturally, the death rate of its residents is also very high. For this reason, the executive committee even added [-] French immigrants from the mainland to supplement the large number of disease reductions caused by logging, coal mining, and land reclamation. .It can be said that every bit of construction achievement in the primitive tropical area was paved by a large number of bones in this era.

Nine large and small ships are moored at the wharf of Xinhua Port.These nine ships all arrived here from the mainland via the Baleen Whale Harbor and the Fort in the River. They are the latest four 1200-ton "Scud" class flying shear transport ships, and two special immigration ships with compartments and steam ventilation fans. The ships "Dash Champion" and "Postman", two 1150-ton steam engine sailing ships "Treading Wave" and "Fenshui", and a newly built escort gunboat "Swordfish".

Among these ships, the special immigration ships "Sprint Champion" and "Postman" were originally designed without steam power. The voyage to Xinhua Port in New China is long, especially when sailing in the tropics on the return journey, the conditions are relatively harsh, so a 62.8-horsepower steam unit was added during construction.The ship uses propeller propellers with iron pear wood bushings, with a normal speed of 11-12 knots, and a speed of about 16-17 knots when the wind is smooth.With such a high speed, in order to avoid the instability of the ship's center of gravity, only a layer of compartments for immigrants was added above the deck, making the entire ship's carrying capacity reach 800 people.Of course, if the steam power is not modified, it may be possible to carry more people, but this is undoubtedly not in line with the original intention of the people on the east coast to transport immigrants quickly.

These two expensive ships could hardly carry any cargo. When they went from Xinhua Port to Australia, they were basically empty, and there was no one else in the cabin except the fifty gunners sent to Yantai Fortress.Therefore, it is a standard "immigrant special ship" without any weapons. The executive committee only built two ships to test the waters. Only God knows when they will start building such extravagant and expensive ships in the future.

These two ships will transport immigrants together with the two flute-shaped transport ships currently operating on this route, and each trip can transport more than 2500 immigrants.Of course, they will not sail with those slow flute-shaped ships, so they will not be able to take advantage of their high speed at all.They will arrive at Gushan Port at the beginning of May every year to ship immigrants back to Fort Xinhua; and the fleet of flute-shaped transport ships escorted by a fast cruiser will arrive at the end of May every year.The first fleet will take a break after arriving at Xinhua Castle, and then will arrive at Gushan Port again in late June to pick up the second batch of immigrants; and in mid-August, the second fleet will arrive at Gushan Port again. The last batch of migrants was transported away in Shangang, so far, the transportation task for the whole year has basically come to an end.

It can be seen from the figure that at present, on the voyage from Xinhua Port to Gushan Port, the Donganren fleet can make two round trips a year, transporting more than 5000 people.Of course, if there are too many immigrants, it is not impossible to run one or two more round trips. However, affected by factors such as weather and sea conditions, the speed will slow down, especially for flute-shaped transport ships that rely on pure sail power to sail. Say even more so.Therefore, if possible, the people on the east coast are still willing to end their one-year sailing mission between mid-October each year, and then give the sailors a vacation and maintain the ship.

The four "Scud"-class sailing clipper transport ships are responsible for the voyage from the mainland via South Africa to Xinhua Port. The voyage time is somewhat different from the previous ones. They sail in the summer and autumn seasons of the southern hemisphere, and they can also travel two times a year. back and forth.During this period, the wind direction is favorable for navigation, and the winter stormy seas of Cape Agulhas, South Africa, are relatively calm and the risk is small.The four "Scud" class clipper ships can transport 3600-4000 people at a time, but they are still cargo ships in essence, and it is impossible to transport all immigrants on the return journey-in fact, there were not so many people transported to them in the early stage. In addition to immigration, some timber will also be shipped back to the mainland.Of course, if there were female slaves or livestock traded from the port of Suez, they might also carry some on their return journey.

The last remaining gunship escort and the multifunctional motor sailboats "Treadang" and "Fenshui" will be fully loaded with cargo, pass through Gushan Port, Australia, and go to Jinshan Port to join the three ships that arrived there earlier (a gunboat escort, A flute-shaped transport ship and an armed transport ship) meet, and then head north to Heishui Port to join the sequence of the Blackwater Temporary Dispatch Fleet.At that time, the Blackwater Fleet will have a huge size of six steam engine sailing ships.Among them, depending on the situation, two paddle turbine sailing ships with a smaller tonnage may be placed in Australia to travel between the two ports and be navigable throughout the year; the other four ships will berth from Rishiri Island in the winter and spring seasons of the northern hemisphere. Departing from Hong Kong to Jinshan Port, it can transport 3500-4000 people at a time, and it can also go back and forth twice a year, which is 8000 people.

With so many ships all of a sudden, the number of sailors required is quite huge, at least 250 sailors, 30-40 steam engine maintenance repairmen, and more than 100 naval gunners. The pressure is quite huge.For this reason, the local side increased the training of sailors by themselves, and set up a sailor training school for large-scale training. Some of the fleet and local fishermen were transferred to barely support the past.

However, this year's sailor gap has been fooled, and it will not be resolved for a while next year.Therefore, in the plan of the Executive Committee, next year there will be only one steam engine sailing ship, one flute-shaped transport ship, and perhaps a special immigration ship, but it is only a certain possibility.While recruiting manpower and expanding berths, the three domestic shipyards are steaming the three main battleships in the country. At the same time, the fourth battleship "National Will" has been built, and they have also accepted orders for two additional fast cruisers from the Ottoman Empire. In order to improve the finances, the huge debt of more than one million yuan in principal and interest owed a few years ago will be paid off in installments.

(End of this chapter)