Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 466 Tropical Fertile Soil ([-])

In mid-March 1645, there was heavy rain in Xinhua Port.

The last batch of ships transporting immigrants from the east has just left the port, and the five "Scud" class large clipper transport ships have just left after resupply. Following the Mozambique warm current and northwest wind, they headed for the mainland smoothly. Of course, they will stop at Take a short break at the South African River Central Harbor.In addition to taking away the last batch of about 1643 immigrants from the Ming Dynasty waiting to be shipped in the last shipping season (44-[-] shipping season), the five ships also brought a large number of tropical specialties in the New China region: sisal, coconut, hardwood, coal (to be shipped at Tacheng Port), honey, hump cattle and other agricultural and pastoral products or mineral products.

But when they drove from the mainland, they were full of industrial products such as cloth, leather goods, mechanical equipment, metal tools, weapons and ammunition.Even after some precious woods such as red sandalwood, red sandalwood, and ebony native to New China were shipped back to the mainland, they were sold back in the form of high-end furniture, musical instruments, carriage bodies, spear shafts and other finished products.For this, the local residents paid a lot of money, and this is what Shi Qinjie, the captain of the New China Pioneering Team who is currently active in the local area, is extremely dissatisfied with: New China really lacks all kinds of technical talents, and the development is too great. Too laggy.

But let’s not talk about the shortage of all kinds of talents in the local area. After all, the cultivation of talents is a long process, and it can’t be done overnight. Just say that New China, the largest high-quality hardwood producing area in the East Coast Republic, doesn’t even have a few decent carpenters. , which is incomprehensible and unbearable.For this reason, before Shi Qinjie went to the central government to run the project, he secretly instructed Kyle, a former naval sergeant who was recently acting as the mayor of Xinhua Port, to find a way to retain some technical talents from the Ming Dynasty immigrants.A considerable part of this group of people are the county residents of Yucheng and Shanghe counties where Guo Sheng moved over as a whole. Since the population of the entire county has been brought here, there are naturally many talents from all walks of life among them.

For this reason, Kyle, who was deeply impressed by Shi Qingjie's confession, also secretly found a group of people in the local area, and asked them to use various means such as emotional wooing while the immigrants from Australia were waiting for the ship in Hong Kong and recuperating. , deceit, intimidation, lure, etc. will intercept some skilled immigrants among the immigrants.The reason for the interception is nothing more than poor physical condition, not suitable for long-distance voyages, and the captains responsible for transporting immigrants will naturally not specifically target them in this matter, so they basically turned a blind eye and let them go .Anyway, after returning to the mainland, the Ministry of Civil Affairs and the New China Development Team will file a lawsuit, so it's none of their business!

But after all, it was too dependent on the local area, and Kyle didn't dare to go too far. He just concentrated on attracting and intercepting a group of carpenters, doctors, and some older farmers that were urgently needed in New China.Naturally, carpenters will be assigned to work in the local wood processing factory. Shi Qinjie has long wanted to expand the scale of the wood processing factory and make it gradually able to produce some local daily consumer goods, such as wooden bowls, chopsticks, musical instruments, and carriages etc.It's not that these things can't be produced locally, but the output is seriously insufficient and the cost is very high.At present, there are only a few technicians in the local area who can produce these "advanced" products, and the majority of apprentices in the wood processing factory can only do some rough work such as processing logs.

With these Ming Dynasty woodworkers who have a certain technical foundation, coupled with the apprentices they brought, in time, the wood processing industry in New China will definitely be able to develop.In Shi Qinjie's eyes, it is a "shame" and something he cannot accept that the New China region, which is rich in high-quality timber resources, still imports a large amount of wood products from the local area.After the local talent training mechanism is gradually on the right track, he is very confident that New China's current "abnormal" import situation will be reversed.At that time, Xinhua will export a large amount of wood products such as mahogany furniture and high-end musical instruments to the mainland to earn high profits.

In addition to carpenters, there is also a great demand for experienced farmers in New China.These people are generally not young, and it is not easy to reach New China from the Blackwater area via Australia, so it makes sense to keep them here.Nowadays, the agricultural development in the New China region has not been very good, and the annual grain output is just enough for local (Xinhua Port and Tacheng Port) consumption, and a slight surplus is exported to Australia.

The types of food are mainly corn and sweet potatoes, which are deep-rooted crops that are easy to grow and have high yields. Because the land has a tropical marine climate, leaching is relatively strong, so most of them are relatively barren brick red soil.In fact, brick red soil is not devoid of nutrients at all. It is mainly because the nutrients in the surface soil are taken away by rainwater, so it appears relatively barren.However, the nutrients in the middle and lower layers of the soil are relatively rich, and even some nutrients in the surface soil have been washed down by the rain. Therefore, the New China colony promoted deep-rooted crops such as corn and sweet potatoes according to local conditions to minimize the damage caused by leaching. Negative impact.

However, this is obviously not enough. After all, crops such as corn and sweet potatoes are not rich in nutrients, which have a certain negative effect on human growth, especially height.Don't you see that the height of Chinese people in the late Qing Dynasty was generally short, and there may not be some "credit" of sweet potatoes among them.Therefore, the local government officials have been trying to find ways to grow some other crops to improve the local food structure, so as not to often take up precious transportation resources to import wheat from South Africa or even the Ottoman Empire.Taking into account the local hot and humid climate and abundant precipitation, Shi Qinjie and others initially promoted rice planting as a key agricultural project in the next stage.

To be honest, the conditions near Xinhua Port are not very suitable for rice cultivation.The best rice growing area in Madagascar is still located in the Central Plateau region in the middle of the island, where the climate is relatively cool, the land is relatively fertile, and the rainfall is not bad. If it is well developed, it will definitely be a big granary.However, it is currently still the territory of the Melinas. They have established several feudal kingdoms there, and they are constantly fighting each other. The most powerful kingdom is about to annex the entire area.Such a situation is obviously not something that people from the East Coast can covet.Moreover, because the people on the east bank occupied the Tacheng Port area they originally peeped at, the relationship between the two parties has not been very harmonious, and it is not very realistic to trade with them to buy some rice.What's more, Shi Qinjie was quite skeptical that with the occasional wars in the Central Plateau and the backward agricultural production conditions there, it was hard to say whether they had surplus food.

Therefore, everything depends on oneself.This time, Shi Qinjie chose the western peninsula, which is only separated from Xinhua Port by a waterway, which is the peninsula where the future Antsiranana Airport is located.At present, the virgin forest on this peninsula has been cut down a lot, and then a large area of ​​open space has been cleared. A small wharf was built on the side facing the Xinhua Port, which can dock some small-tonnage fishing boats or small steamers.A few years ago, a gunpowder factory was built on the island, with less than a hundred workers, and it was divided into two parts: the pig raising workshop and the dispensing workshop.Among them, the pig breeding workshop currently has hundreds of fattened pigs, and produces a large amount of manure every day. These manures, together with many cattle and sheep manures transported by fishing boats from Xinhua Port, are used as raw materials for the production of nitrate fields in the dispensing workshop, and the output is quite good. The earliest gunpowder used in the Far East was transported from here.

Now Shi Qinjie wants to open up some rice-growing areas here.Why did you choose this place? The main reason is that the land here is slightly more fertile than that of Xinhua Port, and there is more farmyard manure here (there is a pig farm nearby), which can add some fertility to the barren brick red soil, and there is less precipitation. The dry season can still greatly improve the soil texture.

However, Shi Qinjie didn't plan to increase the area of ​​these rice planting areas at present, because of the characteristics of rice, it is easy to breed a large number of mosquitoes, which has brought great harm to rice farmers.You must know that the sanitation conditions in Xinhua Port have improved so much at this stage, and the annual population death rate is still hovering around 10%.If it weren't for the migration of some residents from the mainland from time to time, the population of Xinhua Port and Tacheng must have been in a state of negative growth over the years.

When the Zheng family opened up Taiwan, the annual death rate of immigrants reached a shocking 30%. Most of the immigrants from the Fujian region of the mainland died in three years. Even Zheng Chenggong himself died of malaria. An important reason for the slow development of forces.However, during the Japanese occupation period of later generations, after the Japanese invested a lot of energy in improving the environment and promoting hygienic living habits, the annual death rate in Taiwan remained at around 10% for many years, and malaria played an important role in this.We can see from it that the tropics are really a hell on earth in this era!The biggest killer of such a high death rate is disease, mainly malaria, which is transmitted by mosquitoes.

Limited by the scarcity of medicines, the majority of groups in New China except officials, technicians, and soldiers are still unable to cover the therapeutic range of the precious cinchona bark powder.Most people can only fend for themselves after suffering from the dismal malaria. If they are lucky, the disease may be relieved, but most people are not so lucky. They can only die in pain.Perhaps only after the population of cinchona trees planted in the mountainous area north of Ping'an County in China expands, they will have the opportunity to receive treatment. At least for now, precious medicines can only be given priority to treatment of officials, technicians and soldiers. Donate all your wealth and don't get this life-saving medicine.

Therefore, in Xixiang (that is, the peninsula west of Xinhua Port), residents who grow rice must strictly pay attention to protective measures.At the same time, stagnant pools and the like in a certain area near the rice fields must also be filled to minimize the breeding of malaria parasite-carrying mosquitoes.At the same time, some freshwater fish will also be stocked in the rice fields.These fish will feed on the larvae of mosquitoes, which can effectively slow down the breeding speed of mosquitoes in rice field areas, and at the same time increase some economic income for farmers, which can be said to kill two birds with one stone.

And the old farmers from Shandong, although they have basically no experience in growing rice, have many things in common. They are better than those who have never done anything, so many of them were intercepted.

(End of this chapter)