1635 Han style rises again

Chapter 334
On an impact plain surrounded by two rivers, more than 130 Hanzhou immigrants are struggling to build a temporary camp.Rows of trees were brought down, cleaned up briefly, and then transported to the camp to build wooden houses.

On the north side of the camp, seven or eight people are building a small brick kiln with a few bricks and cement.It is hoped that in the shortest possible time, through self-made bricks, more space can be freed up for transport ships to transport urgently needed food and production and living tools.

This settlement, named Guangling, is located in Townsville, eastern Australia, and at the northern coast more than 100 kilometers away from it, there is also a new settlement - Gaopingbao (now Innisfail, Australia) Seoul City), is also under the same construction.

In the next one or two months, Hanzhou may welcome about [-] immigrants from the Ming Dynasty. Except for some who will be assigned to Weiyuan Island, Xinxiangbao, and Jianye Mansion, half of them will be arranged to come here. In the east of Hanzhou, these two new settlements will also receive hundreds of immigrants.

The "Flying Fish 3" exploration ship will continue to go to the southern coastal area, looking for new settlements, and confirming colonization sites for the immigrants who will continue to come in the future.According to the expansion plan of the Hanzhou People's Government, it is necessary to complete the [-]-kilometer coastline from Weihai to the south this year, build about five settlements, and plant a large amount of cotton and some high-yield crops such as corn and potatoes on the reclaimed land. .

The construction of new settlements is very difficult in the initial stage.However, the civil government promised that the people who open up the land will shorten the one-year reclamation service period, grant land in advance, and still have [-] mu of land (ten mu of land needs to be kept fallow every year), and give priority to the policy of distributing daughter-in-law.This has greatly stimulated the enthusiasm of the people who have immigrated to Hanzhou in the past two years, and the number of applicants is very enthusiastic.

Since then, as the magistrate of Weihai County (now Cairns, Australia), Wang Zhenliang has had mixed feelings.The expansion of Weihai's jurisdiction means that his authority has increased, which has enabled him to improve his status in the civil government; but it is not easy to accumulate a population in Weihai City, and now it has to be diverted to new lands, and those places have been at least one year old. It cannot be produced within the country, and Weihai needs continuous blood transfusion supply.Although Jianye Mansion and Xinxiangbao will provide most of the production and living materials, as a base for colonization in the south, Weihai will inevitably be allocated a lot of resources nearby.After all, Hanzhou's current sea transportation capacity is still very limited.

Regardless of the rapid expansion of the eastern part of Hanzhou, or whether Mr. Wang is worried about the continuous blood transfusion that will affect the development of Weihai Center, as the interim commander of Guangling Fort, Sun Houming is thinking about how to move forward faster and better. The construction of this new settlement was completed.

Sun Houming just turned 20 this year, and he is one of the many teenagers who studied with Qi Tian.In October last year, he came to Weihai with the supply fleet to assist Wang Zhenliang in managing civil affairs.Half a month ago, Weihai immigrated to the south according to the requirements of the civil government, so he asked himself to lead the team there.

Zhang Wenqi, who grew up with him, has followed the exploration fleet for more than a year in the exploration and construction of supply points on the eastern route. Now, she has stayed on Hanxing Island to build the immigrant supply base closest to Daming.In this regard, as a classmate who once studied together, Sun Houming is naturally not to be outdone, and also wants to make some achievements in this new place.

Based on his experience in the initial construction of Jianye City, he carefully observed the landing camp for two days, and planned to set up the main camp on the north side of the Guangling River (now the Ross River near Townsville, Australia), a location close to the mouth of the sea. .As long as a few artillery pieces are erected on the river bank, any ships that dare to invade the camp can be blocked.In this way, the defensive pressure of Guangling Fort in the entire plan will be greatly reduced.

In fact, according to the estimates of the Hanzhou People's Government, if the nearby indigenous people are ignored, the possible enemy invasion will not happen.After all, there are Weihai and Weiyuan (now Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea) in the north, so this is already the rear of Hanzhou.

But to prevent problems before they happen, Sun Houming planned the entire camp according to the principle of safety, and made a process arrangement for the construction sequence of various facilities, and then carried out spot checks and inspections on the progress of the project every day.

"Old Li, tomorrow you bring a few people to build a cesspool with a little cement first, so that the land can be composted and raised, and it will not easily pollute the underground water source." commanded.

"What Commander Sun said is that compost will be indispensable in the crops in the future. Otherwise, the harvest will be just like Weihai before, which is pitifully small." Li Taidong nodded in agreement.

"In the past few days, I will try my best to repair those rows of wooden houses." Sun Houming continued: "Then level the land in the river bend and plant some vegetables. I always eat potatoes, pickled vegetables and dried salted fish every day. It's not a problem."

"That's right." Li Taidong said: "I used to think that I would be satisfied if I could eat enough. I have raised him in Hanzhou for more than a year, and I have a little stock in my stomach, and I want to eat something good. But, wait until the next boat comes. I don't know if I can bring us some fishing nets, I see that there are still a lot of fish in the river!"

"Really?" Sun Houming suddenly became interested, "There is no fishing net, we can ask people to get some fishing rods and catch some fish in our free time, and have a tooth-beating sacrifice."

"Commander Sun, do we have time?" Li Taidong asked in astonishment.

"When it's raining, aren't you free soon?" Sun Houming said with a smile: "When the time comes, don't you have a coir raincoat and a bamboo hat, and you can enjoy fishing in the rain!"

"Catching a fish, and it's raining, where's the fun?" Li Taidong muttered: "Oh, by the way, two more saws were damaged today. ... Also, Chen Xiaoer said that in the forest While sawing the tree, I could vaguely see some indigenous people."

"Well, there are indigenous people? Why didn't you tell me this earlier?" Sun Houming immediately became serious after hearing this: "Did you take someone to the forest to check?"

"I took three township soldiers to inspect the logging area, but found nothing. As for the depths of the forest, because of the dense trees, I didn't dare to go deeper."

"Distribute all the spears and big knives." Sun Houming said: "Tomorrow, you will take more than 800 village soldiers and go deep into the forest with muskets to patrol within [-] to [-] meters. In addition, when you are on duty tonight, you will be alert A little...It seems that we need to erect the outer wooden wall as soon as possible."

"As far as those natives are concerned, they don't even have a piece of iron. There should be no threat, right?" Li Taidong
"If you sharpen the wooden stick, you can still poke a transparent hole in the human body!" Sun Houming said seriously: "We still have to be careful."
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"Bang! Bang! Bang!..." A volley of muskets fired, seven or eight of the running natives fell down, and the remaining 30 or so people did not stop, and went desperately into the forest.

A few big dogs bravely jumped on it first, but they didn't want to. This way, they saved the fleeing natives in front. The villagers behind were worried about accidentally hurting the big dogs, so they didn't dare to shoot again, and followed after them.

This is a plain area more than ten kilometers northeast of Weiyuan Fort. More than a hundred village soldiers crossed the low mountains and entered this area to clean up the natives here.Because there have always been rumors that the nearby natives, no matter men, women, old or young, may be man-eating demons.

When the more than 100 township soldiers dispatched to kill the natives were apprehensive and extremely cautious.When approaching the native camp from far away, the distance to fire the gun was much farther than usual.In this way, the natives who were attacked easily escaped.

Seeing that many natives fell down one after another when faced with musket fire, and then fled in embarrassment.The town soldiers who were chasing and suppressing him breathed a sigh of relief, the man-eating demons were also afraid of guns.So, under the order of the captain of the village soldier, he chased after him with a musket in his hand.

Considering that Weiyuan Island is far away from the mainland of Hanzhou and is still in the remote development stage, the civil government established the colonization area of ​​Weiyuan Island for this purpose. Xie Limin, the former commander of Weiyuan Fort, was appointed as the general manager, and was ordered to implement overall management of the entire island.

According to the planning of the civil government, the coastal plain in the southeastern part of Weiyuan Island is low and flat, with a humid climate and good soil quality, and has been designated as an important agricultural planting area.In addition, the entire island is rich in forest resources with various varieties, such as teak, pine, camphor and other woods suitable for shipbuilding are inexhaustible.

Therefore, Weiyuan Island will serve as the most important shipbuilding timber supply place in Hanzhou.After a large amount of wood is felled, except for a part of the simple treatment, it is directly transported back to Jianye City for the construction of small and medium-sized offshore transport ships. Ship materials for large warships and transport ships.

In order to meet the food and timber needs of Hanzhou, Weiyuan Island can intercept 500 immigrants from Daming every year.In addition, no less than 500 natives who were captured after the expansion of Xinxiangbao were sent to Weiyuan Island every year depending on the situation.

Although 2000 new laborers are added every year, the development of such a huge island is tantamount to a drop in the bucket.As the manager of Weiyuan Island, Xie Limin, vowed to make some outstanding achievements.

Therefore, since May, he has dispatched rural soldiers in turn, constantly attacking from Weiyuan Fort.Firstly, in order to welcome the arrival of new immigrants, several safe settlements need to be expanded; secondly, they want to obtain more free coolies to cut wood, clear fields, and build houses.

As a traditional Ming scholar, after three years of living in Hanzhou and changing the environment, Xie Limin gradually discarded some unrealistic ideas of literati and became more pragmatic.All business arrangements must be planned and guided by the Hanzhou People's Government.In this dangerous and barren area, traditional Confucian benevolence, righteousness and morality cannot conquer the natives here. They must rely on "dominance" and use Hanzhou's muskets and swords.

(End of this chapter)