Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 469 Tropical Fertile Soil ([-])

Although the income level of the residents of the New China colony is not very high, they still consume some of these common consumer goods from time to time in addition to consuming the necessities of life.Take an ordinary shipbuilder with a monthly income of 5 yuan as an example, and his annual income is 60 yuan. Assuming that his family of four (the couple and two children) spends more than 30 yuan a year on food such as sorghum and wheat .If you add the consumption of daily necessities such as cotton cloth, salt, palm oil, and honeycomb coal, and buy some beef every now and then, the salary will basically not be left, and it may not even be enough.

Of course, the actual situation may not be so embarrassing.Because most of his wives also work. Although the salary is not as high as his, it is not difficult to have a monthly income of 3-4 yuan.In that way, they will have an extra 40 yuan in cash every year. Since the government no longer sells new land to local residents, their 40 yuan can only be used for consumption.They may choose to buy livestock, furniture, or choose to renovate their houses. Of course, more of them are used to consume commodities such as tropical fruits, dairy products, shredded tobacco, sugar, and wine.

If the prices of these goods rise sharply, causing their actual purchasing power to shrink, then their satisfaction will obviously decline.In fact, strictly speaking, although the prices of commodities such as mangoes, bananas, sugar, butter, shredded tobacco, cashew nuts, and eggs sold to the east coast by Zambezi housewives in Mozambique have risen slightly, the overall trend is still very stable. .However, after the state-run stores wholesaled to hawkers at a fixed price that rarely changed, the final retail price experienced a sharp rise. The prices of many commodities such as sugar, shredded tobacco, and eggs directly skyrocketed by more than 50%, which is staggering.

There are many reasons for this kind of thing, but the most important point is that the supply is less than demand and the supply of goods is insufficient.That is to say, there is more currency in circulation in the market, but the supply of consumer goods has not increased. Coupled with the influx of funds brought by foreign merchants, it slowly causes local inflation.And, in the long run, the faster the local economy develops, the more inflationary tendencies may become.

The solution to the problem is mainly to increase the supply of goods, but to be honest this is difficult and it will take time.The reaction speed and pace of life of the group of Portuguese on the other side of the sea are super slow. Even if the people on the east coast ask them to increase the supply of goods, even if there are a lot of business opportunities waiting for them, they still move so slowly. The step-by-step expansion of production can make people on the east coast who are used to a fast-paced life anxious to death.

"We can't increase the effective supply of goods in a short period of time. Then we have to find a way to reduce the amount of currency on the market, that is, to guide the money to invest in other areas. As Captain Shi said, we buy beef to eat It is called life consumption, but there is another kind of consumption called production consumption, we can direct funds to this aspect.” Kyle looked at the 30 people sitting sparsely in the venue, and continued: “Before Captain Shi left, there was a There are three main plans in a package plan."

"One is to continue to expand the scale of sisal plantations on the current scale. The government will open up a large area of ​​land in Xixiang for planting sisal. The land will be leveled by the local township government and then leased out to the majority of planters. account, which should be able to absorb a substantial amount of money.”

The current production of sisal in the New China region is not very large. After all, the growth cycle of this thing is very long. It will take two or three years to pick the leaves for the first time, and it has been six or seven years since we can pick a large amount.In addition, there are not many tropical plants native to Central America, and the planting area has not been expanded enough, so the output has not been very large.

However, its demand is increasing in today's Eastern China Republic. Due to the strong fiber tension, high flexibility, and corrosion resistance of this plant, it has a wide range of applications, whether it is military or civilian.At present, the customer with the largest domestic demand is the navy (military cables), and there are also ropes for the army and industrial ropes.With the great development of the fishing industry in the Heishui area of ​​the Far East, the demand for this kind of high-quality fishing net raw materials has gradually increased. Therefore, the sisal planting market in the New China area is indeed favored by many people.

It is indeed a good idea to absorb a large amount of capital into sisal planting, an industry with a long investment cycle but a decent rate of return.On the one hand, this can increase the returns of investors, and on the other hand, it also absorbs a large amount of funds, leaving time for the government to develop various industries and stabilize prices.Moreover, due to the unique geographical environment of Madagascar, many common biological diseases and insect pests on the mainland are not found here, so this has laid a good foundation for the large-scale development of the cultivation of economic crops.It is not unreasonable for later generations to call the fourth largest island in the world a closed continent.The unique climate, unique species of flora and fauna, and the scarcity of pests and diseases are of great value to agriculture.

"Secondly, after the downfall of the Grand Vizier Mustafa Pasha of the Ottoman Empire, the cafes that were originally closed were revived due to the power of the new army, and they are now spreading across the country. The Hornician family also asked us It is another good business to be able to export a large amount of coffee beans to the Port of Suez. After our research, we believe that we can organize manpower for large-scale planting. The demand for coffee beans in the Ottoman Empire and even the rest of the world is huge, and the local climate It is also very suitable for planting this kind of crop. At the beginning of this year, some European pirates and their descendants on St. Mary’s Island have already begun to try to grow this kind of cash crop. I believe that once we increase the production and become famous, we will definitely be able to Capturing the hearts of those prostitutes is also a promising industry."

What Kyle said really entered McKinley's heart.He has also been to St. Mary's Island once, that time as a staff member of the agricultural technology station, he took a naval ship and docked in the port that the pirates called "the old den".It is said that the pirates on St. Mary's Island have increasingly close ties with the people on the east coast. They need all kinds of goods provided by the east coast, from daily necessities to weapons and ammunition.Some injured pirates can even go to the towns of the people on the east coast to receive simple treatment and recuperation, which is a treatment they will never get in other places.And all they need to do is not to attack the ships of the people on the east coast (including ships from other countries trading with the east coast), and the pirates readily accept this.

With the increasingly close contacts, some old pirates have even brought their savings accumulated over the years to the two east coast towns of Xinhua Port and Tacheng to request to settle down.Shi Qinjie, who was tortured by the super high population death rate, naturally did not refuse any comers, and approved their settlement requests with a swipe of a pen.At this time, there are still a large number of settlers descended from pirates on St. Mary's Island. Most of these people are mixed descendants of European pirates and local people. Some people have passed through several generations, and they don't even speak European languages ​​very well.

These people are also emotionally close to the East Coast, because only the civilized world of the East Coast Republic is willing to accept them.Considering that when there were many European pirates on St. Mary's Island, there were more than a dozen ships, and there were six to seven hundred settlers all year round, and many of them had experience as sailors. There was no harm in uniting them.Therefore, over the past year, people from the east coast have repeatedly landed on St. Mary's Island relying on the good relationship between the two parties, guiding them to plant crops, build bridges and houses, and operate it as if it were a vassal territory.

McKinley had been on the island at the beginning of the year. At that time, he was with the head of the agricultural technology station. His main job was to guide the old pirates and their children on the island to plant coffee trees.The seeds are the predecessor of the famous Robusta coffee tree (originated in Central Africa and West Africa), provided by people on the east coast, and planted in St. Mary's Island, Tacheng and Xinhuagang at the same time.Once the planting is successful, there will be an additional high-quality export product in the local area in the future.After the pirates and their descendants have tasted the benefits of growing coffee, they will be formally incorporated by the East Coast people sooner or later as they have closer ties with the East Coast people. This is really the best of both worlds.

McKinley himself is also very interested in planting coffee trees. His Ming wife has been clamoring to learn from others to plant some lychee trees, but McKinley always feels that the shelf life of those things is too short, and the local area lacks the opportunity for further processing. It is a fruit factory, so he is very pessimistic about the prospect of planting this tree.On the contrary, he really thinks that planting coffee trees is a good business. This kind of thing has a large market demand (mainly in the Japanese world), is easy to store, and the price is not very low. It is definitely worth investing in.There are quite a few people who think the same as him, and everyone is even discussing how to organize a coffee plantation association, just like the group of sisal farmers who established a sisal plantation association. The members of the association help each other, benefit and prosper together, Get rich together.

"Thirdly, vigorously develop beekeeping in coffee and lychee planting areas to harvest honey. Similarly, there are no bee pests and diseases that have plagued the residents of the Old World for thousands of years. There are eucalyptus forests everywhere in the mountains, mountains, and inland areas, and the honey flow period is from the end of each year to the beginning of the next year, which is very suitable for bees to collect honey, and its development is also a good thing for the country and the people.”

"In addition, the introduction and planting of Southeast Asian teak, East Indian pepper, and South American cocoa trees are still under further demonstration..." Following Kyle's words, the audience below gradually began to discuss in low voices.To be honest, everyone present here has some spare money. Many of them have participated in the battle against the Bezimisaraka people. After the war, they got a lot of spoils, and most of them didn’t invest their money in those payback periods. Longer sisal plantings.Many people turned to buy some livestock, bought some cheap corn and sweet potatoes from local farmers to raise hump cattle and pigs, and made some quick money.

But now that they heard the "ways" mentioned by Kyle, they felt that they looked very good, so they were all a little eager to try, and decided to call their friends to raise funds for a joint venture to get a lot of votes.There are not too many diseases and insect pests on the island, and the climate is very suitable for the growth of these plants. Perhaps the only thing that is lacking is the lack of labor, but this is nothing, we can start on a small scale.

(End of this chapter)