Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 989 Heaven-sent Land ([-])

Ma Wanpeng has just moved into the former Dutch Toulere Commercial Station.

Ma Wanpeng couldn't wait to move in here since it was sold by the Dutch East India Company to the East Coasters at a price of 50 guilders.According to this fellow, the villa where the former Dutch colonial officials lived - a stone building with a strong Gothic style - is "high quality", "complete living facilities", "than the original east bank fortress" Comfortable living in the style of the house".

"Oh, golden city, how lucky you are. That's you, all the waterways, all the streets, and the east and west warehouses and warehouses..." Ma Wanpeng in a short-sleeved sweater sat in the garden restaurant, Tasting a delicious breakfast, while listening to his secretary reciting a book of poetry.

This is a collection of poems by Constantine Huygens left here by former Dutch officials. The 1625 edition is fairly well preserved.Ma Wanpeng's secretary was born in Bingtuanbao and has studied Latin for nearly ten years, so he can read this collection of poems proficiently.In addition, this Mr. Huygens has a similar occupation as him. He is the secretary of Frederick Hendrick at this time, and his father was also the secretary of William the Silent of the Orange Family before. Orange pie.

"This is Mr. Huygens's poem praising Amsterdam. In fact, this solid official of the Orange School who was born as a diplomat has also written many beautiful poems praising the towns and villages of the Netherlands. For example, he praised the artistic life of Haarlem. He praised Hollen's fishermen and cheese, and of course he praised the unyielding Dutch soldiers and civilians during the war and the religious affairs about returning to authenticity." After reading a poem, the secretary explained softly to Ma Wanpeng.

Ma Wanpeng swallowed an egg vigorously, and swallowed the words "what bad poetry" that came to his mouth.He really can't complain about this poem - well, maybe he can't understand Dutch culture, but this doesn't affect his opinion of this poem.Just like those sculptures and oil paintings in the studio and ear room, they are really rotten!When I have time, I have to collect Tang Bohu's paintings from Daming to decorate the facade. The oil paintings given to him by the Dutch officials in the studio are really bad, such as "The Hague" painted by François van Knibbergen. "Landscape" series, such as Jan van Goyen's landscape paintings, and a series of seascape paintings such as "Züderzee" created by Jan Porcellis, are all Ma Wanpeng This guy is hard to appreciate.

"Forget it, don't listen to these poems." Ma Wanpeng took the wet towel handed over by the Persian maid, wiped his mouth, then looked up at the venomous sun hanging in the sky, sighed, and said, "Damn it! It’s so hot in the cool season, why don’t people live? It’s a pity, I still have no free time today, Xiao Liu, prepare the carriage, and come with me to see the construction site of the reservoir.”

Secretary Xiao Liu put away the collection of poems, nodded yes, and then ran out in small steps to prepare the carriage and guards.

Since the Dutch sold the Tulare trading station, Ma Wanpeng has merged it with the original old Mianhe port into the new Mianhe port under the order of the New China Pioneering Team, and moved the governing body to the Dutch trading station on the south bank. .In the first half of this year, with the arrival of a new wave of immigrants from Ming Dynasty, Mianhe Port, centered on the cotton planting industry, immediately ushered in a stage of great development.

On January 1, a group of 15 immigrants from Zhenjiang Prefecture (looted during the Battle of the Yangtze River) were resettled to the south bank of the Mian River.Ma Wanpeng took great care of these "Zhenjiang fellow villagers" and gave them the fertile alluvial plain close to the river bank: [-] mu of arable land and [-] mu of grassland per person. The treatment can be described as extremely generous.

On February 2, Ma Wanpeng once again intercepted a group of more than 10 immigrants from Chizhou Prefecture in South Zhili, and also resettled them to the south bank of Mianhe Port.Together with the last batch of [-] Zhenjiang immigrants, these people will dig ditches and build artificial reservoirs with the help of the only steam plow.The soil farther away from the river is relatively poor, so Ma Wanpeng plans to learn from the South Railway Company in Nangang, using flood irrigation to cover the originally barren land with a layer of silt rich in organic matter. It is easy to open up a large area of ​​farmland.These farmlands will be treated as dry farming, mainly planting peanuts, corn, and leguminous crops.

On March 3, Ma Wanpeng received a big gift, a total of 1 Qing army prisoners who were sold to the East Coast people by Li Chengdong as piglets.Of course, most of these so-called captives are actually local ordinary people in Chaozhou Prefecture. The only hundreds of "real captives" are also armed with local landlords. When he regained Chaozhou Prefecture, he was arrested and sold as piglets in exchange for high-quality weapons produced by the Jeju Island workshop.

Because these 1000 people were all males and possessed certain combat effectiveness, Ma Wanpeng distributed some crude weapons and made them walk less than [-] kilometers south to the area near the later town of St. Augustine. Garrison on the spot, build villages and forts.It is adjacent to the Hun River—the Unirashi River, named for the large amount of sediment carried in the river—the water source is abundant, and there are also stretches of western bright forests and low bushes along the coast. Compared with the large-scale destruction of the environment The later generations are much stronger. If it is developed in an orderly manner, it can become a relatively livable new town.

By the way, this new town is now called Chaoyangbao, so named because most of its residents come from here.In the future, it will be dominated by cotton planting and dry farming, which is almost exactly the same as that at Mianhe Port.And when more and more immigrants from the Ming Dynasty pour into this place in the future, this large piece of land from the Mianhe River in the north to the Hunhe River in the south will become the most important cotton-growing area on Xinhua Island, which will definitely create a huge economy. Benefits have brought the cotton self-sufficiency rate of the East Coast Republic of China to a new level.

The new population has greatly enriched the relatively empty land in the Mianhe River Basin. With the completion of new houses and the development of new land, the new territory of Mianhe Port, which was developed under the supervision of Ma Wanpeng himself, has continued like this. Bit by bit it prospered.

At this time, the carriage that Ma Wanpeng was riding was driving along a dusty dirt road under the scorching sun. Eight soldiers on horseback followed the carriage, and they were transferred to act as Ma Wanpeng's guards.Originally, there were more than 100 German mercenaries in the Tulare trading station. After the Dutch sold the trading station and its affiliated colonies, the contracts of these people were also bought out by the East Coasters, and they began to play for the New China Pioneering Team.

However, Ma Wanpeng didn't trust these bitter Germans very much, so after allocating some land to them to win people's hearts, he organized them into Xiaobaitu's army to conquer the Sakarava natives, and it began It is hard to say how many people survived the life of playing hide-and-seek with the natives in ravines after the war.

The carriage soon stopped at a roadside shaded by trees.This is already the edge of the territory. On the left is the quiet Mian River in the dry season, and on the right is a large wilderness and some rolling hills.The wilderness is very dry, except for the weeds and bushes, there is only dust flying in the sky, which is exactly the same as the inland area of ​​South Africa, a typical semi-arid grassland.

There are many hump cattle wandering on the grassland, which is also the property left by the Dutch. At present, there are more than 1000 remaining cows in total, and they are grazing in the vast coastal area between the Mian River and the Hun River.After Ma Wanpeng took over here, he basically kept the original appearance of the Dutch ranch, and even the original team of herdsmen stayed. The few people he saw on the roadside at this time were only a few of these ranch employees.

"Haven't you learned Mandarin yet?" Ma Wanpeng asked a little irritably as he fanned the wind with his straw hat and heard the awkward Hokkien ringing in his ears.The tanned Fujianese in front of us are ranch employees under the rule of the original Dutch. They are responsible for grazing, milking, tending livestock, making cheese, tanning leather, and curing beef on weekdays. The soldiers went to catch slaves behind their buttocks—of course they were just support staff—the status was very low, just a little higher than those native slaves.

These poor people who were exiled here by the Batavia High Court are basically descendants of early Fujian immigrants.Most of them can only speak Hokkien dialect and Southeast Asian dialect, and occasionally a few bright ones can speak some stuttering Dutch-mostly converted Christians-in short, they just can't Speaking the official dialect of the East Bank, it is quite difficult to communicate.Ma Wanpeng even had to communicate with them through his Dutch-speaking subordinates, otherwise there would be no way to talk at all, which was extremely frustrating.

"Commander, these Hokkien guys are so stupid that they can't teach them no matter what." An officer from Zhejiang came forward and said.His family's ancestors used to be maritime merchants, but they were robbed and killed by Fujian pirates at sea, and the family fortune was ruined. Therefore, he hated these Hokkien people very much-even though they are all descendants of Hokkien people who immigrated to Southeast Asia for many generations.

"Don't talk nonsense to me!" Ma Wanpeng squinted at this subordinate, and knocked: "People from our Dadong'an come from all corners of the country, if you talk such nonsense next time, go home and plant cotton for me, don't be on the garrison anymore The team did it! Tell me, what happened to the thing I asked you to ask last time?"

"No idea." The officer said with some frustration: "These people are also low-class people in the East Indies, otherwise they would not have been sent here for no reason. They don't know anything about the Portuguese, and they don't know anything about the Dutch. Their knowledge is limited, and they don’t know where they can sail, which islands can be docked, which harbors can take shelter from the wind, and which cities can get supplies. They only know how to describe the place where they lived since childhood, but once you Ask them where they live, and they can’t answer.”

"That's it..." Ma Wanpeng was a little disappointed. It seemed that it would be very difficult to get some information about the East Indies from these people.If the people on the east coast want to obtain the key information in that strange sea area, it seems that they have to find a way elsewhere. If it doesn't work, they can only send an expedition ship!

(End of this chapter)