Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 1436 Hue ([-])

Xuan Hao listlessly removed the door panel of the store, and then took a shovel to hastily cleaned up the dry and hard yellow mud at the door, and then stretched gently, a new day began again.

The young guy in the shop brought him breakfast, with meat buns and soy milk, which looked no different from ordinary guys, but as the shopkeeper, Xuan Hao ate pork buns, while the guys could only eat cheap beef buns up.

This may be because it was early in the morning, and the workers were all on their way to work, so the shop was relatively quiet. Xuan Hao ate his breakfast leisurely, picked up the "Kommersant" on the table, and read it with relish. looked up.

As the middle-level manager of the largest large logging camp nearby, Xuan Hao, a shopkeeper who was born in Liaodong Han, is very fond of "Kommersant", which extracts a lot of economic information. Every time the owner reads these mail-order newspapers, he throws them in the corner of the counter. Afterwards, Xuan Hao would go forward and put it away carefully, and then take it out to look at it from time to time in his spare time.You know, before Chongzhen was taken captive by the Qing army to Liaodong in 15 years, he was a young copyist in the Hejian Prefecture of Beizhili. There is probably no problem with writing letters, although he writes with a brush.

And when it comes to writing with a brush, on the east coast today, because of the influx of a large number of immigrants from the Ming Dynasty, even though the proportion of scholars among them is very small, given the huge population base, the absolute number is quite a lot. Especially after a litter settled in the relatively affluent Qingjiangpu.Therefore, even though simplified characters are commonly used in schools, governments, and enterprises on the east coast, the writing tools are mostly quill pens—of course, they are not really made of goose feathers. Expensive special water storage pens have begun to be used—such hard pens, but among the people, there are quite a few people who use brushes to write (even traditional characters), and most of them are concentrated among immigrants from the Ming and Qing Dynasties. People have to lament the power of traditional customs.

There was nothing particularly explosive about the content in the newspaper, and it was a bit calm to read, which made Xuan Hao secretly a little surprised.Over the years, the competition between "Kommersant" and "Pravda" has become increasingly fierce. The two state-owned newspaper companies have dispatched a large number of young reporters to various places to continuously discover valuable news clues and then write them into reports publish it.And if it is particularly valuable and important news, sometimes their reporters will spend a lot of money to send it back by cable telegraph, which shows the fierce competition.

Therefore, Xuan Hao flipped to the end in disbelief, and as expected, he saw a piece of "explosive" news, but it made him dumbfounded when he read it, because it had something to do with him—to put it simply, it was "Kommersant" A reporter from China interviewed many factories and mines in China that wantonly hired non-national laborers, and then pointed out that many business owners did not really pay wages to workers in accordance with national laws, but replaced them with a lot of worthless real goods. There were a lot of fierce protests and complaints, and the relevant state departments were also deeply disturbed by it. They didn't know whether they should take action to rectify it - but this time it was reported to the newspaper, and it was probably going to be serious. This made Xuan Hao feel a little worried. He I'm not sure if I can keep my job.

"In some industries and in some places, the real wage system is tantamount to giving a big discount to the nominal wage, and it is also generally hated by wage workers, especially their wives or family members. Although in the East This kind of situation seldom happens among the local people, but in the vast number of enterprises that employ non-national laborers, this kind of oppression is still common. Especially in those relatively remote forest farms, mines, sand fields, farms or commercial crops On the plantations, whether loggers, miners, sand pickers, or farmers, who know neither money nor prices, are at the mercy of the merchants or their brokers, who pay them as wages in worthless and inferior goods , just as the peddlers who traveled around used to pay the wages of a few handicraftsmen in the past."

"In remote places, almost any kind of workshop or enterprise will occasionally open a shop for convenience, a 'goods for wages shop', and the operation of such a shop is often very problematic, because it has the ability to exploit workers. Attributes, although the proprietors who set up shop quibbled that it was a blessing to the workers. The incident in 1662 when the proprietors refused to pay cash wages is still vivid, but after that they still It did its own thing, and it used a more subtle method, namely..."

After reading this, it seems that it is already autumn and the weather is getting colder, but Xuan Hao's forehead still has a lot of sweat unconsciously.This shit reporter, what kind of articles are they writing? It's just nonsense!Well, maybe not a bunch of bullshit, but is this going to force the brothers to die?Damn, these bird people, have the guts to go to Manchuria to see how those Tartar bannermen squeezed their coated slaves, when did they pay wages?If you don't squeeze the last drop of oil from your body, it's a conscience discovery. Now our lumber mill is just a shop, so you come here to babble, alas, this is really going to ruin the jobs of the brothers, I can't bear it up!

Xuan Hao is now located in Hue County, which was originally Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. It has five townships under the jurisdiction of Hue Town, Hefeng Township, Jianyan Township, Songxing Township, Xinxia Township and Suhai Township, with a total of more than 17800 people. The newly established counties (established at the beginning of this month, the 62nd county-level administrative unit in the country, and Changshun County, which was established last month is the 61st county-level administrative unit in the country) are considered to have a very large population.But it’s actually quite normal when you think about it. Who made Hue Port’s location extremely superior, and it also has a large number of manors and urban facilities left over from the Portuguese colonization for 100 years?Although there are many places that need to be remodeled, in short, it saves a lot of energy for the people on the east coast, so it makes sense for the Immigration Department and the National Development and Development Bureau to send a large number of immigrants here.

Since Hue County and its surrounding areas were taken from Portugal, because of its relatively superior climate and soil environment, it has been the advantage of the Portuguese for many years of colonization and development, and has become a place for the development of local tropical economic crops in the East Coast Republic of China. preferred place.Especially during the administration of Zhou Yafu, the military control committee member at that time, Hue County became a key area for attracting investment, and many domestic businessmen, Italian capitalists, and investors who had a close relationship with the Dutch West India Company flocked here. While inspecting the environment, he also flirted with officials on the East Bank, expressing his desire to develop plantations here.

Regarding their investment tendency, the previous executive committee was naturally very happy, because it meant that someone took the initiative to help the people on the east coast open up wasteland, so why not do it?Therefore, after several rounds of negotiations, a total of 23 Italian and Dutch investors raced to enclose land around Hue County, selected the location of their own plantations in the future, and then signed or signed a contract with the government of the East Coast Republic of China. A 30-year or 50-year land lease contract, and a deposit is paid, which means that the investment has officially settled here.

These more than 20 foreign investors can be regarded as rich and powerful, and the land in Hue County is not a small amount. This can be seen from the fact that the newly established county government has collected tens of thousands of yuan in land rent. Xuan Hao still remembers how happy the leaders of the county government were from ear to ear when they participated in the signing ceremony with the owner.You must know how rare the tens of thousands of yuan in cash (and it is only the first batch) is for the newly established and impoverished Hue County Government, and how much it can do!

Of course, Xuan Hao's owner participated in the signing ceremony, not to engage in any plantation, but to enclose a forest farm in the local area to engage in timber harvesting and rough processing.All the people joining this industry with Xuan Hao’s family are local businessmen, the number is about a dozen, and their behavior is also encouraged by the government to some extent. After all, many lands reclaimed in the Portuguese era are now being used. The East Bank has been occupied by its own immigrants, and some long-abandoned plantation manors have also been leased to domestic investors. The grasslands and river beaches that are conducive to development have also been leased to many businessmen from Italy and the United Provinces. Then the reserve land available for distribution in the future It seems a little insufficient.

It is precisely because of this that the government last year approved many domestic businessmen to invest in the forest logging industry in Hue County and its surrounding areas, planning to develop more land for plantations, and by the way, it also contributed to the construction work that is in full swing across the country It can be said to kill two birds with one stone by providing a large amount of cheap wood.It was against this background that Xuanhao’s proprietor came to Shenmu Township, a newly established town around Hue County (located in the small town of Cabo Frio in later generations). The port conditions here are good, and large ships can berthed. With the wind and waves blocked, it is an excellent anchorage, so it was included in the first batch of pioneering targets around Hue County by the State Development Bureau.

The targets of this batch of pioneering are naturally not limited to Shenmu Township. In fact, five settlements were set up in one go this time. Fuchang Township near the small town of Campos, Fucheng Township at the mouth of the South Paraiba River (near the later town of São João da Barra), and Pingding Township near the later town of Malataygis.The five villages and towns were impartial, and 2000 people were relocated here. In addition to the immigrants from Huai’an Prefecture, there were also many Dan people from Guangzhou and Huizhou (of course, there were also a few poor people from Guangdong who were fooled into coming here). The climate is more adaptable, so the priority is to settle here. Of course, non-nationals who become regulars will be indispensable in the end—well, mainly people from Sicily and Naples, and they are more or less adapted to the hot climate.

The five villages and towns are basically a wild forest landform. A few coastal plains and grasslands have been carved up by new immigrants. Even those barren sandy land and pebble beaches that cannot be farmed have been leveled out to build houses and various In the future, it will be within the urban area to save valuable arable land.The logging camp where Xuan Hao and others are currently working is located on this series of coastal lowland plains. Geographically speaking, it should be within the scope of Shenmu Township, but it is actually at the junction of Shenmu Township and Jianning Township. The forest resources are relatively rich, and there is also a small pier nearby. It is also more convenient to transport the wood after cutting and processing. Of course, it is also convenient to import daily necessities here from the outside world.

Similar to most of the surrounding plantations, farms, and logging camps, the logging camp where Xuan Hao is located is mainly recruited by non-national laborers. More precisely, most of these people are from Sicily, and a few are from Ireland. They usually make a living by logging. The work is tiring and the salary is low. It is a typical example of a capitalist plantation written in the textbook-loggers work up to 54 hours a week, and workers in wood processing factories work up to 63 hours a week.

What's even more frightening is that these business owners don't know how to grow their brains, and it is popular to pay wages to workers in the form of bookkeeping.As disclosed in the "Kommersant", in order to avoid people's accusations of wages in kind, they turned to exploiting workers in a bookkeeping method, that is, they deliberately paid wages every two months and three months, but the workers came to work Often empty-handed, workers are allowed to buy food and goods on credit at stores in logging camps.Discreet workers shy away from both credit and shops, but they can't get rid of them, because these goods are often of low quality and high prices-expensive because credit is available here, while merchants outside demand cash.

This typical exploitation has always been an important source of profit for business owners or plantation owners, because the government does not allow them to use cheaper black slaves, so they can only resort to using these methods this time, and in many cases, They even feel that the cost of exploiting non-national laborers in this way may not be much higher than the cost of using black slaves.Moreover, in order to stabilize those poor people from the old continent that they recruited with great difficulty, they always weave all kinds of beautiful lies, such as "If you can save money, you can avoid credit, and naturally you will have more cash balances." Now, then you can save it, and when you apply for citizenship five years later, you can buy things to install and settle down" and so on - in short, it is to draw a big pie first, to stabilize people's hearts, and then you can continue to exploit these people from the old continent with peace of mind. The poor people, let them continue to use their sweat (and even their health) to provide a steady stream of profits for the plantation owners.

(End of this chapter)