Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 376 Australia

After replenishing a large amount of food and vegetables in Xinhua Port, several ships departed southward to Tacheng Port without stopping any longer, and arrived at the Tacheng Port wharf at noon on January 1.To tell the truth, Tacheng, as the second town in the New China region, is far inferior to Xinhua Port in all aspects of development.At present, the city is only limited to providing coal and drinking water supplies for the passing ships. Apart from this, there are no bright spots, and the population is relatively sparse, only about a quarter of that of Xinhua Castle.

Therefore, the five-ship fleet of the people from the east bank (four clipper ships returned to the mainland) after resupplying supplies, set sail again with a wave of greetings from Anda Fifteen, who was temporarily in charge of the local area, and left After leaving Tacheng Wharf, where it was pouring rain, they headed south towards the 40th parallel south latitude. Their next destination was Gushan Port, Australia.

On February 2, the fleet finally arrived at Gushan Port, which stands alone in the southwest corner of Australia, without any risk after experiencing the violent wind and waves in the westerly belt.At this time, in the port of Gushan Port, more than 15 Ming people were harvesting potatoes in the field under the scorching sun in the southern hemisphere summer.They just set off from Heishui Port, which was covered with heavy snow at the end of October, and arrived at Jinshan Port in Australia after less than a month's voyage. Then, while recuperating there, they did some farm work within their ability.For example, when the potatoes in Jinshan Port were just entering the planting season, some people began to sow the germinated potato pieces under the guidance of local residents.

Others began planting spring wheat under the guidance of experts sent by the Ministry of Agriculture.However, the level of these old Chinese farmers is not necessarily much worse than those local "experts" who came to guide them with half a bucket of water. skilled.Their farming skills are comparable to those of the English immigrants who are recognized as having the strongest agricultural technology in the country, which makes the local civil affairs officials very happy.

In the end, they unanimously decided to keep those old Ming farmers who were too old and in poor health in the local area, and distributed the fields to them.After a few months, after the construction of the resettlement houses is completed, they will be allocated houses.With such generous conditions, these bright people who have planted land for others for a lifetime scratched their heads and scratched their heads. If they were not stopped, they would probably kneel down and thank them.

Nearly 600 Ming people were left there to graze and farm in Jinshan Port. Most of them were Ming people and their families who were too old or in poor physical condition to continue sailing.After adding these people, the total population of Jinshan Port has reached 100 people (including [-] black soldiers), and thousands of acres of Susukida have been opened up. There are more than ten cattle, more than fifty pigs and sheep (only), and ten army horses. two horses.In addition, there are more than [-] newly captured Australian aboriginal serfs. These Australian aborigines who were still living in the Stone Age were all captured when the people on the east coast were exploring the inland, and they are currently being left in the cities of the people on the east coast. Do some work such as collecting soil and burning bricks, logging and farming.But I don't know whether it's because of IQ or nature, they are always unable to do those seemingly very simple tasks, and often try to escape.For this reason, the irritated people from the East Coast decided to take the opportunity to send them all to South Africa to supplement the Eight Banners.

Compared with Jinshan Port in the southeast corner of the Australian mainland, Gushan Port in Western Australia has a more prosperous population, and currently has more than 800 official residents.The origin of its residents is very mixed, most of them are Koreans from Hamgyong Province who migrated before, and the rest are either technicians and their families sent by the local people, or the families of prisoners who were exiled, or they were forced to migrate from the Falkland Islands. Malays, of course, this place is still the resident of the No. 2 Squadron of the Volunteer Squad, and more than a hundred officers and soldiers of the Volunteer Squad also settled here.

To be honest, the Executive Committee built Gushan Port as the ruling center of the East Coasters in Australia.All of this stems from the extremely important geographical location of this place. Gushan Port is not only the only export port for people from the east coast to immigrate around the southern Indian Ocean, but also an important transit point connecting the Blackwater area with the mainland, which is of great significance.In addition, from a military point of view, the fleet of the people on the east coast can go northward along the ocean current from Gushan Port, and it can reach Batavia, the ruling center of the Dutch in East India, which is of great significance in terms of tactical offensive and strategic deterrence. .For this reason, the executive committee has prepared to set up a deputy pioneer team leader who is directly responsible to the executive committee in Australia, stationed in Gushan Port, to fully guarantee the construction of castles, farmland reclamation, fort construction, port construction, etc. , in order to form a certain self-protection capability and material supply capability as soon as possible.

And to carry out construction, of course, no one can do it, which of course requires local support.However, the number of prisoners and their family members exiled from the local area is only a hundred, plus some immigrants from the Ming Dynasty and North Korea who settled in the local area, and the new population may range from [-] to [-] each year. What can scale do?Not to mention that the executive committee also has a policy of controlling the use of aboriginal migration from other places, which further blocks the rapid development of Gushan Port by using local Australian aboriginals.Not to mention that there is still a rather vexing unsolvable problem in immigration, that is, the imbalance of the male-female population ratio.

In fact, this problem of uneven male-female ratio has existed for a long time among the native European immigrants. The majority of those who are willing to go to the New World are young and middle-aged men, and the number of women is very small. Otherwise, the French would not have given everyone willing to go to the New World. French women in North America have a very generous "dowry".Many European colonists who went overseas in the early days had to marry local indigenous women as wives, such as Spanish men married Indian women, Dutch men married Indonesian women, Portuguese men married Indian women, etc. The colony has an extremely large mixed-race population.According to the different policies of each country, the political rights enjoyed by these mixed descendants are also different. Dutch mixed descendants enjoy the same rights as European whites, but Portuguese and Spanish mixed descendants only enjoy partial rights.

Of course, if given a choice, these colonists were still willing to marry white women from Europe. This has nothing to do with other factors, mainly due to various factors such as language, aesthetics, living habits, and religious beliefs.In other words, the possibility of spontaneous intermarriage between different races is extremely low, unless they have no choice.Just like the Spanish men who killed those indigenous men and married indigenous women, if there were white women to choose from, they would never look at those indigenous women. is infinitely stretched.

In fact, the ratio of male to female among the European immigrants who came to the east coast is already considered good. This is due to the fact that the people on the east coast have started to pay attention to this matter several years ago, and have also given a lot of money to every woman who is willing to go to the east coast. .But if this is the case, the ratio of European men and women who come to the east bank is still about 3:2, that is, in theory, one of every European men who come to the east bank will not be able to marry a wife.This problem is even more prominent among Ming immigrants. Due to the chaotic situation in Ming Dynasty, the ratio of men and women among Ming immigrants trafficked by the Portuguese is even more disparate, basically between 2:1 and 3:1, that is, every three to four There is only one woman among them.

This problem is actually easy to understand. In troubled times, men are more capable of surviving than women, and they are less likely to be eaten as food by hungry people.And the proportion of men and women among the Ming refugees recruited by Dongan people in Shandong is almost the same. From the more than 2000 Ming people transported to Gushan Port this time, it can be seen that there are only more than 500 young and middle-aged women with fertility. The number of men is more than 500, with a ratio of 3:1.This is still in Shandong, where the situation is relatively stable. If it is in Henan, Shaanxi, Gansu, Hubei, Shanxi, and parts of southern Zhili where refugees are concentrated, the ratio of men to women may be even more disparate.

Therefore, in order to develop the population of Gushan Port, given the limited local blood transfusion capacity, the most important thing is to marry a large number of local bachelor residents and let them reproduce by themselves. road.But this matter is easier said than done. There are still a large number of bachelors in the mainland. The Executive Committee spends a lot of money every year to buy female slaves from the Ottoman Empire and some Middle Eastern businessmen.As the number of Ming people transported by the Portuguese to Xinhua Port in the past two years has been decreasing, it has been less than 1000 for two consecutive years. Therefore, the large sum of money saved is not only used to increase the purchase of strategic materials and repay debts, Most of them were used to buy female slaves from the Ottomans in the Balkans and Caucasus, but there was still a large gap in the number.

Under such circumstances, it is not easy to get some female slaves to come to Australia!Moreover, the Executive Committee has not done anything new except to distribute a small number of indigenous women from the Falkland Islands to the first batch of Irish residents who went to New China to reclaim wasteland. They are very vigilant, and they are not even willing to see the further expansion of the number of their mixed descendants in the country.Therefore, under this kind of national policy that can be called self-binding, it is very difficult to increase the population of overseas colonies, and there is no other possibility except to rely on local blood transfusions.

However, these policies are the collective will of the upper ruling class in the country. At least so far, there is no possibility of changing the course. The development of the colonies still has to wait for local arrangements.

Among the five ships in Gushan Port, two special ships for immigrants will linger in the port for a long time, and may not be loaded with immigrants until early May when the trade winds pick up and return to Xinhua Castle; after the remaining three ships are repaired, they will Led by Lieutenant Liu Haiyang, they left the pier, headed east and arrived at Jinshan Port on February 2. After a short rest, their next destination will be Yantai Port in Shandong.

(End of this chapter)