Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 1565 Chile's Progress ([-])

On November 1669, 11, the southern hemisphere had just entered the beautiful season of spring and flowers.In the hundreds of miles of fertile fields in the Central Valley of south-central Chile, there is also a scene of brilliant spring everywhere.Sergio Rivera quietly came to Maolin County at this season - a county established in the middle of this year, which governs Maolin Township, Anling Township, Lutai Township and Gonggao Township, and is also the first county in the country There are 1 county-level administrative units, with a population of more than 81, which is quite a lot, and the economy is relatively developed.

Maolin Town is the county seat of the county. Due to the historical reasons of the special envoy, the county seat still retains a large number of Spanish elements, especially the core old city. Even the county government and town government are located in the reconstruction of the original Spanish colonial institutions. Not to mention the densely packed private villas on this block, there are still a large number of former Spanish businessmen who have changed their nationality (abandoned Spanish nationality and joined East Coast nationality).In short, this is a city with a strong Spanish style, and Spanish businessmen in the Viceroyalty of Peru also like to come to this city to do business.

Sergio Rivera is a standard Tuscan, and he is very familiar with Spanish culture and adapts very well, but his destination today is not here, but the town of Boling further north. , a Spanish town formerly known as "Osorno", so he is just a passer-by in Maolin City.

Rivera, the heir of the Principality of Tuscany, Prince Cosimo, is the highest person in charge of the New World. He has always been based on the interests of the prince and the Principality (in order of ranking). This time he came to Chile with only one purpose, that It is to open up more sources of income for Prince Cosimo—the Delta Company, in which the prince holds 20% of the shares, is operating well and can get considerable dividends every year. At this stage, various undertakings are progressing steadily, so Prince Cosimo, who still has a large amount of surplus capital on hand, has moved his mind to other places.

The first time Prince Cosimo heard of the term Chile was when his tutor was teaching geography. At that time, he probably never thought that one day he would have something to do with this remote place.However, fate is always unpredictable, and the time in the world is often so strange. One day, an official from the east coast found Rivera, the spokesperson of Prince Cosimo in the New World, and tentatively asked if they were interested in starting from the Old World. When organizing people to go to Chile to mine, Prince Cosimo finally agreed after much consideration, because the people on the east coast agreed to give priority to building a third-class national road near Prince Cosimo's plantation, and finally connect it to the coastal wharf.

The people on the east bank give face so much, Prince Cosimo naturally has to be illiterate, just like the old saying of the people on the east coast, you give me face, I will give you face, so everyone has face.Therefore, Prince Cosimo appointed Sergio Rivera to go out on his own behalf to investigate mining in Chile—well, it is said to be a sulfur mine located in the mountains tens of kilometers east of Osorno. It was mined intermittently in the Spanish era, but was later abandoned due to lack of manpower.

Sulfur is definitely in short supply on the east coast today, not only in the military industry, but also in the civilian industry, such as the production of sulfuric acid, a basic but extremely important intermediate product.However, there are no natural sulfur mines in the east coast itself. Except for a small amount of sulfur recovered from coal, the sulfur needed in the country is only a by-product of the emerging primary chlor-alkali chemical industry, but the output is relatively limited. Far from meeting industrial and military needs.Therefore, the amount of money used to import sulfur on the east coast every year is an astronomical figure, especially in the case of rapid industrial development and a skyrocketing demand for gunpowder. It will definitely be a profitable thing to develop sulfur mines in Chile. .

Rivera has lived on the east coast for many years, so he naturally knows the market and future of sulfur as a material, so to be honest, he doesn't resist the request of the people on the east coast.Although he also thinks it is a pity to "waste" the money on the lower profit margin sulfur instead of investing in sugar cane plantations, there is no way, is it?If you don't agree to the request of the East Coast people, do you think the East Coast people will grant you land when you want to expand the plantation in the future?I'm afraid it will be difficult!

Therefore, under such a background, Sergio Rivera first disembarked at Xingnan Port on a ship of the Nanhai Liner Company, then arrived at the Port of Araucan by train, and then took a ship to the Port of Maolin for disembarkation , It can be said that it is full of dust.A few months before Rivera came here, two subordinates had been sent to Maolin to make contact. With the help of the officials on the east coast, everything is running smoothly, and after Rivera got in touch with them as soon as he arrived here, He has already rented a carriage to go north to Boling Town - a luxurious carriage with solid rubber tires and shock-absorbing brass springs.

To be honest, going from Maolin Port to Boling Town is inconvenient given the current road conditions. The short journey may be bearable, but the long journey is simply a kind of torture.Therefore, now the mainland has planned to build a high-standard second-class national road between the two to connect these two geographically important towns, so that the people on the east bank can extend their power to the boundary river line faster (the boundary river is the The Bueno River, so named because the river was the natural dividing line between the East Bank concessions and Spain).

This second-class national road will be built entirely of crushed stones, and will be constructed in strict accordance with national standards, that is, the road width will be 6 meters, and there will be 2.5 meters wide subgrade roads on both sides for future widening; Shade trees will be planted on the outermost layer with a distance of 10 meters in order to clarify the boundaries of the road land and add to the beauty of the road.The cross-sectional slope of the road surface is 7%. Based on the principle of saving construction costs, spare roadbeds on both sides, side ditches and other facilities can be omitted in places with high soil accumulation.

According to the forecast of the officials of the Ministry of Communications, even if local materials are used, the total construction cost of this second-class national highway should be around 40 yuan, which is considered a large project. In the case of the government's financial constraints, I think It is indeed a bit difficult to allocate such a fund.However, the Chilean region is fortunate that they are backed by the rich and powerful Southern Railway Company, so they can often obtain subsidies that are difficult to obtain in some places on the map.For example, the construction of the 140-kilometer-long second-class national highway between Maolin and Boling will receive a cash subsidy of 5 yuan and a material subsidy worth 5 yuan from the South Railway Company. The financial pressure of road construction has been relieved.

And since the Southern Railway Corporation has donated generously, the Ministry of Communications should not be too stingy.Therefore, they also allocated 8 to 1 yuan from the special funds of the transportation lottery to build this second-class national road leading directly from north to south-this is not useless work, because since the people on the east bank and the Kingdom of Spain obtained the boundary river through an agreement, After the more than [-] square kilometers of land in the South, it has been decided to add some settlements here to accommodate some new immigrants and second-generation young people from the country.

These settlements are basically located in the central valley with a mild climate, sufficient sunlight, and fertile soil, and there are no mountains. Fukasawa Lake), Beixin Township near Ocote Port, Wangdu Township near Plank City, Lunu Township near Felicia Township, and Xinchu Township near Puyehue Township Township, Lucheng Township near the small town of Rio Bueno in later generations, a total of six new settlements.

Of course, if you count the Boling Town mentioned earlier, the future will be the basic territory of the two counties, and the south of Jiehe will basically look like this.However, even though Maolin County is only the size of three counties, the more than 1 square kilometers of land that the people on the east coast "spoofed" from the Kingdom of Spain this time is definitely a land with good water and grass. If it is managed well, the existing agricultural conditions can definitely support a population of more than 15, and if more fields are reclaimed in the future, its capacity to carry the population will be even stronger.

What's more, from the Calbuco volcano to the north, the series of volcanoes, in addition to providing a large amount of mineral nutrients to the soil in the Central Valley, also gifted humans with a large amount of sulfur, which is undoubtedly an extremely important product. out.At present, on the outskirts of Calbuco and Osorno volcanoes, there are several mining farms of various sizes set up by the Southern Railway Company and the East Coast Materials Department.Due to the extreme danger of mining sulfur, except for supervisory personnel, the rest of these mines are mainly Indian non-national laborers. The sulfur mined is also transported to Liucheng Port by land and water, and then loaded Ships go out to sea and are transported to various local factories as raw materials for production.

Some mines to the east of Boling Town, where Sergio Rivera is about to go, are undoubtedly not enough compared to those currently being mined by people on the east coast. Not only is the transportation not very convenient, but the output will also be very large in the future. limited.Of course, this is also normal. If it was a big mine and a rich mine at that time, how could the people on the east coast hand it over to outsiders to develop it?The people on the east coast are not stupid, even if they are short of labor, they will not do this!

Of course, this is not to say that the Italians will lose money after setting up this mine. In fact, it is still profitable, but the profit is not as large as imagined. Most of its future output will be used in the nearest Chilean region, because The Government Council has decided to set up a rough processing sulfur factory in Liucheng Port to meet the market demand in Chile.

Well, let's move the topic back to the second-class national highway.The Ministry of Communications also receives revenue from the lottery. The transportation lottery was originally issued nationwide for the construction of water conservancy facilities in the river area. Now the Ministry of Communications uses it to build roads in Chile. Strictly speaking, it is considered misappropriation. Naturally, the people in the Hejian area were very dissatisfied, but they couldn’t get angry—after spending 8 yuan to build roads, manufacturers that often use sulfur, such as North Chemical, North Ordnance, and Dayuhe Ordnance, also took out 2 yuan. With some money, 20 yuan was pooled, making the start-up capital of this national highway reach 20 yuan, and the construction can already start!As for what to do with the remaining [-] yuan, let's talk about it later!Whether it is issuing public bonds, borrowing from banks, appropriating funds from the central government, or paying from local finances, there are always ways to do it. After all, it is impossible for a living person to be suffocated to death by urine.

Sergio Rivera and a group of six or seven people took a carriage and drove along the second-class national road that had already been surveyed. The road was generally smooth, and perhaps it was different from the central and southern regions of Chile today. It is related to the season with more precipitation.However, the mud pits, swamps and bushes that appeared from time to time along the way still showed Rivera and others how difficult it is to walk on this road, and also fully explained the necessity of road construction-there are mountains on both sides to block In terms of transportation, a railway or road running from north to south is indeed quite necessary, and it can even be said to determine the speed of development of the new settlements nearby.

Later in the day, the carriage of Rivera and others stopped to rest in a military outpost (which also doubles as a military depot, an expedition team, and a resting place for government workers).This outpost is quite large, and there are about [-] militia members belonging to the Maolin County Security Regiment stationed there.Several carriages were already parked in the compound surrounded by wooden fences, and there were many mules and horses calling in the stables in the corner. It seemed that people who traveled between Boling Town and Maolin City would basically choose to rest here.

"We can take care of the draft horses that pull the carts, but we need to pay for the care and fodder. There is a cafeteria just around the corner from here. There is nothing delicious in it, but there are still trout and lake fresh from Fukasawa Lake. Some, and the potatoes are full, and there is no wine, of course, you need to pay for these." A middle-aged militiaman with gray temples came over and negotiated with the east bank government officials who accompanied Rivera Finally, he looked at them, these Italians, and said slowly: "But don't worry about security issues, the hostile Indians here have been wiped out by the Southern Railway Company several times, and now they either die or swim." I crossed the river and went to the Spaniards, and the rest are working as coolies in the sulfur mines, so you can rest assured to sleep well, nothing can disturb you."

"Thank you very much for your generous help, we are very grateful for it." Sergio Rivera said sincerely in Chinese: "I think we need something to fill our stomachs now, if you happen to have no meal If so, can we go together? I brought wine, the snow mountain beer I bought in the port of Araucan."

"Thank you very much for your kindness." The middle-aged militiaman sniffled, and then said regretfully: "But I think I have to inspect the warehouse. Recently, a new batch of machines has arrived here. The matter is of great importance, so we have to proceed with caution."

After finishing speaking, the middle-aged militiamen left with their sabers in their arms. It seems that the batch of machines he said was shipped to Boling Town is indeed more important, and he cannot bear the responsibility for the accident.

(End of this chapter)