Wild North America 1846

Chapter 238 Construction of Donggang
Paradise Island East Harbor (Port Moresby)

This is an encircling azure coast, located at the southeastern tip of Paradise Island (New Guinea Island), with a mild spring-like climate, annual precipitation of 1100 mm, year-round temperature between 20 and 26 degrees, and a very small temperature difference.

Around Donggang, there are scattered islands of various sizes, with countless beautiful bays full of tropical style. The scenery is so beautiful that it seems to be a lost paradise.

The entrance of Donggang is a terrain between two mountains. The whole port is like a big-bellied thin-mouthed bottle. After entering from the entrance, it suddenly opens up. It is an irregular bay of about 26 square kilometers.

Deep in the bay is a flat valley and hilly terrain, with lush and towering trees growing, and the dense forest extends to a place very close to the coast. The white sandy beach and the blue bay form a beautiful picture.

The fleet that arrived here dropped anchor one after another, and the nearest one was only more than 120 meters away from the coast, which shows that the water depth here is very good and it is an excellent seaport.

More than 10 small boats unloaded from the cargo ship began to transport people and supplies to the shore one after another. These small boats are equipped with propellers driven by 12 horsepower diesel engines, and they are very convenient in the bay.

Dong Jie and the first expedition team arrived in a small boat. This is an expedition team composed of retired soldiers, surveyors and administrators. Equipped with guns and machetes, a total of 166 people will be divided into 4 teams to survey the gentle valley.

From the coast where people are located, you can see high mountains rising in the distance. This gentle valley area is quite large, and it is roughly estimated to be thousands of square kilometers.

The expedition will be divided into four routes to go deep into the jungle to survey the terrain, rivers, forest species and local flora and fauna, and plan to return in five days.

The expedition team will determine the location of the new town, which must be located at a high place, with reliable river water nearby, ventilated, far away from tropical flash floods and mudslide disaster areas, and relatively solid geology, etc.

When the expedition returns, large-scale arson will begin to clear the land, and the gasoline carried on the freighter is for this purpose.

It is almost impossible to open up such a large area of ​​lush forests and shrubs by manpower alone. After the fleet supplies fresh water and some fodder for raising cattle and sheep here, half of the ships will continue to sail to another new town 2870 kilometers away. New Xi'an.

There are only more than 2100 people who can stay in Donggang to participate in the development. They can only start the preliminary planning and colonization work. The follow-up mainly relies on a large number of Chinese immigrant labor from the land of China to fully promote the development and colonization.

Therefore, many extraordinary measures have to be used, including burning mountains with fire.

After the expedition team set off, they chose a relatively spacious open area. Dong Jie began to direct the disembarkation personnel to build a tent area and a row of more than 20 stoves, let the crew members come down to bathe by the river, prepare logging tools, and give priority to unloading steel bars and building brick kilns. Masonry, machinery and equipment and other materials.

three days later

The materials unloaded on the shore were piled up like a hill. The personnel who got off the ship formed a logging team with 18 to 20 people. A total of 35 logging teams were organized, and they began to expand outward along the campsite, felling down the big trees in the surrounding forest, cutting Remove the branches, cut into sections of large wood and pile them up.

only two days

The campsite has been expanded by more than 500 meters, forming a spacious open space of nearly 1.8 square kilometers to ensure that after the mountain is set on fire, the wildfire will not affect the supplies of the campsite.

At this time, the four expedition teams that went to explore came back one after another, bringing back hand-painted topographic maps of the valley, and finally splicing them together to present a clear appearance of the entire valley.

In this gentle valley area of ​​more than 27 square kilometers, there are 375 rivers, large and small, originating from the mountainous area. Among them, there are three major rivers. The largest one is called "Bishui River". The river mouth is [-] meters wide, and the water quality is clear and sweet. , is a very good source of drinking water.

Going up along the Yudai River, less than 10 kilometers away from the coast is a stretch of gentle hills, belonging to the Mesozoic granite geology, with floating soil as deep as 6 to 9 meters on the surface, which is the best place for building towns.

After Dong Jie met with the main persons in charge of the Donggang Construction Headquarters, he quickly decided that the future Donggang City will be built in this gentle and hilly area. In addition, the port area, warehouse area, fishery production area and residential areas are planned. District and other key areas, roll up your sleeves and prepare for a big fight.

Hundreds of barrels of gasoline were transported to the shore, and then dumped along the planned area. After a fire was ignited, the flames blazed, and the several kilometers long line of fire was truly spectacular.

For the sake of safety, all the personnel retreated to the ship, watching the spectacular scene of burning fire from a long distance.

When a tropical forest burns, damp bushes and leaves produce a cloud of smoke that billows into the clear sky like countless black dragons at play.

a few hours later

The dense smoke that covered the sky blocked the sunlight, making the sky darker, and the black dust in the air fell like rain, with a little residual heat.

In the valley in front of you, you can see a clear line of fire moving forward, and the sound of "crackling" from the burning can be heard endlessly. Because of the division of the river, the fire in the area to be developed on the side of the Bishui River is particularly fierce, as if a large area of ​​​​the forest was swept into the flames.

On the other side of the Bishui River, the vegetation was still lush and the forest was green. The sparks flying in the air and the burning branches falling with the wind fell into the forest and quickly extinguished.

The shrubs and forests in the tropical rain forest have a lot of water and are relatively humid. Without gasoline, a violent combustion accelerant, it is difficult to ignite, and even if it is ignited, it will be extinguished soon.

When the fierce mountain fire arrived at night, the fiercely burning fire head changed from the line of fire to the point of fire, and the fire was not as big as it was at the beginning.

At dawn the next day, only dots of flames could be seen in the distance from the billowing smoke. By 10 o'clock in the morning, the flames could no longer be seen, only billowing smoke filled the air.

At this time, looking back at the results of one day and one night of burning, the huge valley in Donggang seemed to be bald, and it became scorched and ugly. The burned area was about 40 square kilometers, showing a clear area because of the barrier of the river.

The densely packed black tree trunks in the burned area pointed directly at the sky, looking extremely desolate. Although the outer bark of these trees was burnt, the inside was still untouched, but it played a very good role in drying.

Such overgrown trees are felled and cleaned up, sent to the sawmill for sawing into squares, planks, and slats, and can be used after a week of drying in the shade, which is equivalent to the effect of drying in the sun for one to two years after felling trees.

It's just more crude and simple, and it may cause some big trees to burst inside and become waste wood.

But this is not a problem. On Paradise Island, which is full of forests, the stock of trees is an unbelievable number. Even if it takes 100 years to cut down, it will not be finished.

Dong Jie is generally satisfied with the effect of burning the mountain this time, but considering the arrival of a large number of Chinese immigrants in the later stage, more fields and plantations need to be opened up, and he decided to implement the second round of burning the mountain while the current conditions are available.

Soon, thousands of barrels of gasoline were transported to the shore, and a fire was ignited again, making the sky that was brighter just now shrouded in dark clouds again, turning it into darkness.

The second time the fire burned the mountain was better than the first time. It burned for three days and three nights, and then it was extinguished in the afternoon rainstorm.

This torrential rain lasted for most of the day, washing away a large amount of black ash after burning, turning the Bishui River into a black water river, and then a thick layer of black ash was washed into the bay, forming a black circle in the bay. Ocean currents float and sink.

At this moment

The people who went ashore were already working in full swing. Fifty walk-behind tractors had begun to plow the land on a large scale, raking and compacting it, and building roads with gravel, which stretched far away along the edge of the Bishui River.

The other construction team, with 10 people as a team, dug up the tree roots that were in the way on the road one by one, and hung them on a walking tractor or bullock cart to drag them away.

As for more big tree roots and overgrown trees in other places, we can only deal with them after a large number of Chinese immigrants arrive, and we have no time to pay attention to them for the time being.

On the other side of the forest, more than a dozen large fences have been built. The cattle, sheep and poultry that came across the ocean live here leisurely, and the pregnant ewes even gave birth to more than a dozen lambs.

The picking team went deep into the forest and picked a lot of mushrooms, fungus, wild fruits and fresh wild vegetables, so that the builders of Donggang could eat the long-lost fruits and vegetables, and their spirits were greatly lifted.

The industrious builders took the lead in opening up dozens of acres of land, sowed vegetable seeds, and planted green vegetables, peppers, cucumbers, edamame, tomatoes, cabbage, and eggplant. Under suitable climate and soil conditions, only a few dozen You can eat fresh green vegetables in just one day, and others will take a little longer.

The immigrant boats and cargo ships parked in the bay left one after another, leaving only a few cargo ships carrying coal and kerosene still anchored, waiting to unload.

by the bay
Hundreds of large floating logs form a temporary pier extending into the bay. These large logs are connected by I-beams at both ends and fixed in the seabed mud with crossed I-beams. A layer of reinforced concrete is poured on the wooden square to form a flat temporary pier.

Machinery and equipment, steel, cement, grain seeds and other bulk materials unloaded from the wharf have continuously arrived on the shore, indicating that the development of Donggang has entered a new stage.

On this scorched land, more than 2100 builders worked with enthusiasm. The road leading from the port to the town was quickly built, and more than 10 wooden bridges across the stream along the way were also completed one after another.

Next Step

Entering the stage of urban land leveling, the land that needs to be leveled initially covers an area of ​​4 square kilometers. Weeds and rocks need to be cleared, and the roots of deep-buried trees need to be cleared. .

on the basis of

According to the terrain characteristics of the town, the planning department uses lime lines to draw commercial streets, concentrated housing construction areas, urban sewer ditches, residential areas, administrative areas and educational areas, as well as factory areas in the downwind direction of the town, and classify the construction.

In the early stage, tents stood on the flattened land, which will become a lively neighborhood in the future, where buildings with strong Chinese characteristics will rise from the ground and become a beautiful city on the Pacific Ocean.

at the same time
New Xi'an, which is 2400 kilometers away in a straight line, is also setting fire to wasteland, building docks, and building new towns in accordance with similar procedures.

The freighters and immigrant ships that unloaded supplies went straight to the land of Shenzhou in the northwest, where hundreds of thousands of Chinese refugees were already waiting eagerly, eager to usher in a new life.

(End of this chapter)