Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 583 Northwest Reclamation Bureau ([-])

The vest got out of the bumpy carriage, stretched his sore body, and then heaved a long sigh of relief.I took a carriage all the way from Canyon Fort, and ran for four days for a distance of [-] kilometers.

However, he came here with full of enthusiasm. Of course, some of his friends persuaded him, which made the vest, who was working comfortably as the commissioner of the South Yazihu ​​District, resign from the commissioner's position and take up the newly appointed position. The position of director of the Northwest Reclamation Bureau (regional level), which was independent from the Yihe region.The bureau has five jurisdictions, including Baichiya Fort, Meluo Fort, Hejin Fort, Chengshan Fort, and Tieling Fort, with a total population of over 500, which is about the same as that of an ordinary county.

However, the economy here is undoubtedly far worse than the five counties in the coastal areas.First of all, it has not been developed for a long time. Even the earliest Baichiya Fort and Merlot Fort have only been developed for a year or two. Among them, the most populous Fort Merlot has only more than 2500 residents. It is basically mainly agricultural planting. Build roads and build houses under the arrangement of the government.What's even more sad is that these two settlements, which are mainly based on agriculture, have been established for a year or two, but the food gap is still not small.Except that Hundred Feet Cliff Fort barely managed to be self-sufficient in food last year, Fort Merlot still needs the government to mobilize a large amount of grain from Canyon Fort and Lower I River Fort, otherwise the survival of the local [-] residents will become a problem.

Immediately after Majia took office, 3 head of the second batch of cattle sent back from La Plata were purchased, and then the local Northwest Reclamation Bank also provided farmers with ten-year low-interest loans ([-]% annual interest), It is for them to buy cattle, to buy good breeds selected by agricultural technology stations (limited quantity), and to buy more farm tools.At the same time, Vest is also vigorously promoting the three-crop crop rotation system in rural areas, encouraging each farmer to try to cultivate as much as [-] acres of land, so as to quickly increase local grain production and increase farmers' income.After all, it will be troublesome for the farmers not to be able to repay the bank loan at that time, so the bank cannot continue to extend the loan.

At the same time, he also organized farmers to use some local swamps and wetlands to build a large number of artificial reservoirs during the slack season. On the one hand, they will be used as a source of drinking water, and on the other hand, they will also be used as a source of water for farmland irrigation systems.Although the annual rainfall in the Uruguayan grassland is more than 1000 mm, which can be called abundant, but the local large-scale surface runoff is less, so farmland irrigation is very inconvenient.To solve this problem, the only way is to make great efforts to improve the local environment. Building reservoirs and digging ditches are the most important tasks.However, this is a long-term operation in units of years, and on the east coast where there is a severe shortage of labor, this process may be extended indefinitely.

But it doesn't matter, we are not talkers, we have time and patience to transform the environment, even if the process takes five, ten, or 20 years, we will continue to do it year after year.Don't doubt the enthusiasm of these farmers from the Ming Dynasty. After using agricultural loans to buy their own land, they broke out with amazing perseverance and enthusiasm. Many people worked in the fields from dawn to dusk.They picked up high-quality silt from the reservoir construction site two miles away, and then soaked it in the field. After finishing, they continued to carry the dung pan to the construction site, repeating this action.

The Bingtuanbao graduate who was in charge of managing these new farmers admitted that he had never seen anyone so obsessed with the land. If they hadn't strictly stopped them, maybe these farmers would use the special loans for female slaves issued by their superiors to buy land, Buying cattle is dumbfounding.What a joke, the state gave you a loan to buy a wife so that you could give birth quickly, but you actually want to buy a field, do you still have Wang Fa in your eyes?

In order to punish this unhealthy atmosphere, the Family Planning Management Committee under the Ministry of Civil Affairs issued new regulations. If a female slave has two children within the repayment period (ten years) of the loan, the annual interest rate of the loan is 5%. Give birth to a child, and the interest rate on the loan drops by 1%.And if the number of children born is less than two, the annual interest rate is doubled to 10%.I believe that with this policy, these mud legs should make the right choice.

The office of the Northwest Reclamation Bureau is located in Tieling Fort (the Corrales mining area), which can be called the most remote place in the Republic.The settlement was expanded on the basis of the former army depot, and the city walls have not yet been built.In fact, they don’t have time to build city walls, or even brick houses—80% of the buildings in Tieling Fort are wooden buildings, and the main task of the [-] residents here is to build roads, that is, to build A simple road that communicates with the inside and outside enables external materials to be brought in in time.Otherwise, in this remote place where there is no self-sufficiency in food, the livelihood of so many people cannot be solved.

Of course, this is a flat prairie, and the work of building roads is very easy. It often only needs to drain some swamps and fill up some depressions.These simple roads do not need to be maintained at ordinary times. After all, after they have completed their historical mission, the local traffic will be fully borne by the Northwest Railway extended here.In the future, special steel, machinery and other products produced in Tieling Fort will be continuously transported by railway, and at the same time, a large amount of raw materials and even labor required for industrial production will be imported from the outside world.

Vest's office is on the second floor of a small building in the city—the only masonry "high-rise" building in the city. The maid from Greece cleans the office spotlessly.His secretary, Constantine, a young French student who graduated from Bingtuanbao, has brewed a pot of Tieguanyin for him. Thanks to the blessing of Marshal Mo, the tea and porcelain consumed by some wealthy locals are now You don’t need to ask the Dutch to spend a lot of money to buy it.Marshal Mo's business is getting bigger and bigger, and now tens of thousands of pieces of porcelain and hundreds of boxes of tea are sent back to the mainland every year, which makes the European immigrants who have a special preference for these luxury items overjoyed.

The wooden stairs thumped, and Kang Tan immediately put down the documents in his hand, walked to the door, bowed and said, "Director."

Vest nodded, then walked to his desk and sat down. After seeing a document on the desk, he picked it up and looked at it carefully, then put it down again, and said, "Why did 11 heavy goods vehicles be damaged this month?" ? How are the drivers trained? Or is the road condition too bad?"

Hearing this, Kang Tan straightened up immediately, and said, "These coachmen are all gauchos recruited from La Plata. Their riding skills are quite good, and their driving skills are not bad. Maybe it's because they are not familiar with Our 2.5-ton heavy-duty truck needs further training. In addition, the road condition is very bad. Some Guarani people often appear here at night to destroy the road. They often dig the road with holes everywhere. We are in The wooden bridges built on some small streams were also demolished or simply burned, which caused a lot of trouble for our transportation."

The vest nodded slightly when he heard the words, but he didn't look up, and was still flipping through the documents behind: "This month (May), 5 tons of wheat, 25 barrels of salted cod (6 pieces per barrel), 1000 Barrel salted soft fish, 4 tons of spiced whale meat, and a large amount of cheese, tallow, salt and so on. Every month, Tieling Fort’s food expenditure alone costs the central government nearly 3 yuan. It will cost two hundred yuan. As the chief official of the local area, I cannot be indifferent to this. Of the five settlements under the jurisdiction of the Northwest Reclamation Bureau, only Baichiyabao is barely self-sufficient in food, and finally can stop relying on the central government for large-scale blood transfusions Yes, but the remaining four settlements still cost the central government 5000 yuan a month for maintenance, which excludes a large number of hidden expenses such as transportation loss and expenses. How difficult it is to develop new settlements !"

"And our construction is completed every night, the farmland is reclaimed every night, and the factory is started every night. The income of the farmers and workers will never be raised. At that time, they will not be able to repay the loan. Shouldn't we as their parents Are you blaming yourself?" Without waiting for Kang Tan to say anything, the vest continued to say: "From tomorrow onwards, the staff of various departments will take turns to build roads, and then handle official duties at night. You give everyone a score for me, and you want to be promoted If you don’t want to be good at this time, when will you do it? You should always think of ways to plant some crops on the outside walls of the courtyard, minimize the food imported from the outside, and reduce the pressure on transportation. I think we Those vines planted in the front yard are very good, are they planted by the new Greek maid? The Greeks have a long history of planting grapes, and we must give full play to their specialties."

"As for the safety issue, it's really a headache." Seeing the end of the document, the vest finally frowned, and said: "The army cavalry company originally stationed here has been transferred, and now these Guarani people have become rampant. But they really took advantage of our weakness. Our military strength is seriously insufficient, and this place cannot support a large-scale army for long-term operations. Take precautions. The Changkaisheng detachment that attacked Asunción played fairly well. At present, they have won three battles in a row and are approaching the outskirts of Asunción. The final general attack will be in these two days. Wait until Asunción is attacked by us Then these Guarani people with Paraguay as the rear will lose their roots and can no longer stay here. Now is their last madness, let them run rampant for a while, in short, we must guard it closely The Tieling Fort camp, we cannot allow those Guarani barbarians to attack here."

While listening, Kang Tan quickly recorded the main points in the vest's words, and he will communicate with the leaders of various departments in a while, so as to quickly implement the vest's instructions.The east coast has not been built for a long time, everyone is more pragmatic, and the government orders are also quite accessible. This is very important for a new continent country that focuses on development and construction.

(End of this chapter)