Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 1514 The Policy of the Newly Occupied Land

Lieutenant Yang Liang rode contentedly on the empty "Savannah" (short hay meadow) land on the Little Karoo Plateau, followed by a team of more than a thousand people.There were soldiers and immigrants in the team, as well as a large number of grooms and draft animals. They were loaded with all kinds of materials necessary for settling down and headed north along a dry riverbed.

The livestock in the team is relatively mixed, including horses, donkeys, mules, and of course more camels, which are perfect for the arid Little Karoo Plateau and even the Great Karoo Plateau.Some people may say why horse-drawn carriages are not used. There is actually a reason for this: the surface of the Little Karoo Plateau has become riddled with ravines under the erosion of river rejuvenation. It is difficult, and it is relatively ruined, especially when Captain Yang leads people from south to north.

It is precisely for this reason that when this army set off from Changqing Port (a small town established by the original English, located near the later city of Mossel Bay), it carried a large number of draft animals, some of which were bred and raised by South Africa itself. Yes, but more of them are mobilized from the local area or simply imported from the Ottoman Empire, such as camels.

Thanks to Tianzun, it just rained on the Little Karoo Plateau a while ago.Although it was only a few ten minutes, the tens of millimeters of precipitation still brought the much-needed source of life to the thirsty land, making all kinds of wild flowers and green grass sprouts bloom on the grasslands where people on the east coast pass. Regardless of the season, it got out of the ground tenaciously, and there were a few traces of dark dampness at the bottom of the small river beside it. This is really special for the small Karu plateau, which is covered with a layer of yellowish brown and dark tones all the year round. .

However, this little rain is of limited help to this mobile military-civilian mixed team.Because of the strong evaporation (although it will be autumn already), the precipitation will be evaporated quickly in the next few days, so there is not much time left for those weeds, shrubs and other plants.And because the earth has been thirsty for a long time, it is difficult for these precipitations to store water on the ground, so it is impossible to replenish drinking water for the people and animals in this east bank team. Therefore, in addition to making people feel a little refreshed, it is really has no other effect.

And when it comes to being in a good mood, Captain Yang Liang is in a good mood recently, which stems from two aspects.One is that the Krivitz fleet on the New Courland side of South Africa recently brought two beautiful female slaves from Sweden to Captain Yang. He was raised in South Africa, and he didn't dare to bring it back to his native land to be bumped into by his wife.You know, the tigress' natal family in his own family has a lot of influence on the east bank, so he is not so stupid.And through this incident, the Courlandians successfully connected with the new military generals of the East Coast Republic. It can be regarded as a long-term investment. In short, they will not lose money in the future.

The second is naturally the progress in official career.In fact, it’s nothing to put it bluntly. Colonel Xie Hansan, the commander of the South African Garrison Army, was promoted to colonel just because of his qualifications and merit. It was basically the last promotion before retirement, and Xie has already confirmed that he will retire at the end of this year and go home to take care of him. Colonel The military rank is a consolation prize for his hard work over the years - Captain Yang Liang was just ordered to be the commander-in-chief of the war against the Karma Kingdom to replace Reynold who retired from active service and transferred to the reserve. The Kingdom’s Shawi Fortress (now Oudtshoorn, South Africa) was used as a base, commanding more than a thousand infantry, and gradually encroaching eastward on the territory of the Karma Kingdom and some other "wild black tribes". While escorting the pioneers on the east coast, It also continuously expands the future living space for the citizens of the East China Republic - there is no doubt that this position can earn a lot of credit, if Captain Yang is strong enough.

When it comes to Captain Yang's appointment this time, we have to mention the current executive committee's thinking on South Africa's governance.Basically swallowing the colonies of Britain and France in South Africa in one breath (it is already certain that the east coast will not return New Brittany in the peace negotiations, if the French insist on asking, then the war will continue), yes After the control of the western half of South Africa has been greatly enhanced, it can be said that no one can shake the competitive advantage in South Africa.Therefore, they no longer plan to spend much resources here. In fact, the development of South Africa in the future will depend more on themselves, because the current focus of the executive committee is on core territories such as Hejian and southern Brazil. In theory, it is already officially native.

However, the Executive Committee no longer invests huge sums of money in South Africa, but it does not mean that the Central African District Administration has no action.In fact, the local orders are open, that is, if you think it is possible, you can send troops all the way to the east to conquer the vast inland plateaus, grasslands and limited river valleys. They will no longer dispatch troops from the mainland, subsidize military expenditures, and invest huge sums of money for you to build infrastructure.

However, in the face of such an attitude from the local people, the people in the Hezhong area are full of confidence, and feel that they can already make a difference here by relying on themselves alone, and there is no need for the central government to subsidize more funds, materials or personnel.In such a large area in the middle of the river, it is still possible to maintain a team of thousands of troops on the front line all year round. As long as the combat effectiveness of such a team is not very bad, and on the premise of having the advantage of cavalry, in places like the large and small Karoo plateaus , still can do a lot of things.

Therefore, the core combat mission of Captain Yang's newly formed mixed unit called "Yang Liang Detachment" included the eastward invasion to harass and weaken the Kama Kingdom and other black tribes.Jiao Tang and Xie Hansan believed that no matter how large the black population in South Africa was and no matter how powerful the power was, it was only common for them to collapse under the daily attacks of the cavalry on the east coast.Unless they quickly unite to form a powerful kingdom, train a large number of elite and brave troops, and then formulate reasonable tactics based on the terrain, it is possible to achieve the huge damage caused by the Zulus to the British and Dutch colonists in history.Otherwise, there is still no way, and they can only be forced to death step by step by the people on the east bank. After all, not everyone can bear the slashing of the sun and the moon.

This fertile and vast land in South Africa—although it is a bit dry and unfavorable to industrial development, but it is not unbearable—land, its strategic position is also extremely important now that the Suez Canal has not been opened, so how can it be given up to the uncivilized? What about black people?This is absolutely unacceptable to the high-level people on the east coast who have always been disrespectful to black people (this is somewhat inexplicable to outsiders), let alone South Africa is one of the four geological wonders of the world, including coal, Mineral resources including chromium, manganese and asbestos are extremely rich.If you don't hold such a treasure land in your hands, it's really heaven and earth, and you will be blamed instead. The people on the east bank are not so stupid!

The immigrant team, numbering over a thousand, safely arrived at Fort Alexandra, which was being repaired and strengthened, in the evening a few days later. It was already May 1668, 5, which was the season of late autumn in the southern hemisphere.

Alexandra Fort was renovated on the basis of the original Kama Kingdom fortress.Because of the clumsy construction level of the Xhosa blacks, after the East Coast people took over the Shawi Fortress, they had to carry out extensive renovations.The reconstruction project started last year and has lasted for seven or eight months, and the entire fortress has almost changed beyond recognition.The construction engineer Sun Dapeng who was in charge of this project—he is the second generation of the wearer and was seconded from the Capital Architectural Design Institute—has said frankly that because of the lack of professional technicians, construction materials and even labor force, the entire Alexandra Castle renovation is completed. It will be the second half of 1669, if the progress of the project is still at the current pace.

There are also some farmlands outside Alexandra, which were left by the residents of the Karma Kingdom.In that primitive country, the residents live together in families, and their sheds are distributed around a super-large livestock pen, and the layout is very messy.After the East Coasters took over, they tore down the messy and smelly huts of the natives, demolished the livestock pens, and then unified them into farmland.The direction of the farmland is roughly east-west to make full use of the irrigation water flowing through the nearby river.As for the places where the residents live, they are also lined up along the farmland, and the houses are adobe houses covered with oilcloth and thatch. Anyway, it doesn’t rain often in the local area. Such houses are fine for living, don’t you see? In the 90s and [-]s, there were a large number of such adobe houses in the rural areas of China in later generations.

The hundreds of settlers brought by Captain Yang this time are all immigrants from the Huai'an Prefecture of the Ming Dynasty in the Far East who were intercepted in the Hezhong area. To provide food and grass for his troops nearby.Of course, Lishanbao is located on the front line, so it is impossible to arrange too many settlers-at least not at this stage-the main agricultural area in the eastern half of the Little Karoo Plateau, it seems that it will be in Yuancheng Township-Huai In the area of ​​Yin Township (near the small town of Kalitsdorp in later generations), there are rivers and streams criss-crossing near the agricultural belt, and the water source is not too short, which has laid an excellent foundation for the development of agriculture and animal husbandry. The rear is not easily harassed by the natives, so you can safely develop agriculture to supply the front nearby.

As for why the food is not transported from other places in the Hezhong area, this is because of the long distance and inconvenient transshipment. Erma is also related to the large amount of food from the Hezhong area being exported to the New Courland and Yicheng areas. The agriculture in the French colonies is really not very good, so self-reliance is the most important thing.

As for the newly occupied British, French and South African colonies, the local Government Council has also issued new instructions, that is, the former British colony is still under the jurisdiction of the River Central region, and the French colony of New Brittany will be divided separately. It is said that a new region will be established in the future , Peng Yuanzhi from the army will fully preside over the work, in case the jurisdiction of the Hezhong area is too large, which is not conducive to the development of the work. Of course, the above are all high-sounding reasons. Not enough reassurance, so decisively carried out the administrative split, limiting the area, population and economic volume of each region in the future, so as not to affect the in-depth control of the central government.

Therefore, it can be said that if Captain Yang wanted to expand the territory and make contributions for the country, he could basically only advance about two hundred kilometers eastward from Lishanbao.Further to the east, it is basically no longer under the jurisdiction of the Hezhong area. Even if it is laid down, it will be the land of other people in the future. The Hezhong area may be forced to send troops to attack the blacks in the area under the orders of the superiors, but it will definitely not be too caring.However, going north from the Lishan-Huaiyin-Yuancheng line, crossing the North Hengshan Mountains and entering the Great Karoo Plateau, there may be some tricks.It’s just that it depends on the meaning of the regional administration. Maybe they think that the large desert (drier than the Little Karoo Plateau) is not interesting. Even if they swallow it, it just looks good on the map. , In fact, it can't bring any substantial benefits to the regional administration. In short, it depends on what they think.

The arrival of new immigrants made Alexandra slightly confused.The cavalry lieutenant Lai Weichang, the son of Lainide who stayed here, immediately led people out of the city to greet him, and then ordered his subordinates to lead people to start cooking.

After this order was given, the cooks immediately set up more than a dozen cauldrons quickly, and then picked up the materials from the strategic reserve of Alexandra Castle—a large pile of bean stalks, wheat straw, horse manure, etc. piled up under the city wall. Fuel, a valuable resource in Alexandra, deep in the arid interior, was pumped out in abundance and started cooking.

The food was crude, but nutritious enough, although the beef jerky that had been stored for a long time had to be chopped with an axe.But meat is meat, both in terms of nutrition and taste, it is much better than the coarse grains these Ming immigrants are used to eating, and the people on the east coast have never really worried about meat.

"Detachment Captain, I'm afraid this year is not suitable for launching an offensive. Whether it is supplies, personnel or other things, there is a serious shortage. I reckon that we should use a small group of cavalry to harass the area east of Alexandra. Search and attack. As for dispatching a large-scale cavalry, let's wait until next year's summer grain harvest..." Lai Weichang, an experienced cavalry officer, said after inviting Captain Yang Liang into the core command room of the fortress.

"Of course I know this." Yang Liang waved his hand, and said as a matter of course: "I heard that the Karma Kingdom is willing to take out their baby bumpy cavalry troops to confront us recently? This step-by-step pressing has messed up the situation, so there is no move. However, as far as those half-baked cavalry, I believe that the masters of the famous South African cavalry battalion should not be unable to take it, right?"

"Of course it's impossible!" Lai Weichang also laughed when he heard the words, and only heard him say: "The black cavalry in the Kama Kingdom are not worth mentioning. As long as we are willing and spend a little more time, we can eliminate them. If they dare to fight us head-on. However, didn’t the superiors always decide to expel them to the east as the king’s vanguard, and now they want to change their tactics and gather them and wipe them out?”

"Of course the policy hasn't changed yet." Yang Liang sat down on a comfortable chair, then looked at Lai Weichang, and said slowly: "But I heard that from Lishanbao to the east, there are still large areas with rich water and grass. So what if this place is not occupied? The next stage of your cavalry mission is to do everything possible to drive the threat of the Xhosa out of this area, so that our people can farm and graze here safely, understand Is it? Let’s be honest, the conditions here are not too bad, but don’t make it worse than others’ Yicheng area!”

(End of this chapter)