Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 1682 Pampa ([-])

"The Spaniards have come to look for me again. This time, they are serious. Don't worry. Xiaobai, I will arrange for you to go to Niuzhuang Port for research this time. You——know what to do, right? "After the meeting with the Spaniards, the Foreign Affairs Commissioner Zheng Yong found Bai Yutang, a senior assistant of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in his office, a Mesozoic official who was favored by many people in the diplomatic and trade system, and was actively operating externally.

Bai Yutang is also 40 years old this year, but his beard has been shaved quickly, his hair is also neatly arranged, and his appearance is quite good.In addition, this person is diligent in his hands and feet and can speak with his mouth. Therefore, although he has not been sent to other places as an official in these years, he has been promoted to the position of senior assistant of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and has become a bureau-level official.Although not as dazzling as deputy ministerial officials such as Liu Jianguo and Ma Wenqiang, they are still quite good, more than the top and the bottom.

This time, he spent a lot of thought and money, planning to move to the Far East to take up an important position. Of course, what he wanted was to make further progress in his future career.His father, Bai Siwen, was active in the political arena in the early years, but unfortunately, it became more and more unsatisfactory later, and he was reduced to work in the literature and history department. In the end, he could only focus on educating future generations and family business.

It was against this background that Bai Yutang embarked on the road to politics. Now his father has high expectations for his eldest son, because the brothers and sisters are either running the family business or working in the ministries and agencies. The revitalization of the family depends on You can only rely on him.Therefore, when he went to the Far East for this operation, his father braved his old face and found some old people from the law department. In addition, Bai Yutang seemed to be doing well among the children of their department, so everyone worked hard to find a way to He gets out.

Of course, the competition for positions in the foreign colonies is very fierce, and it is still unknown whether Bai Yutang and even the law department will be able to break through the siege and become the champion.Therefore, they also chose a backup plan, that is, if they fail to transfer to the Far East, they will retreat to the next best thing and seek to work in South Africa, New China, Australia, and even the Pampa region. A layer of gold, and then find a way to move it later.

Even if you work hard in Pampa and other places, you may be able to take advantage of the trend.You must know that the Eastern China Republic currently has a population of more than 300 million and more than 100 counties. It is impossible not to set up an administrative unit (such as a province) higher than the region. This is an opportunity.

Right now, Bai Yutang's transfer to work is still in the middle of a fierce game and exchange of interests among the top bosses. Therefore, as a member of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he still has to take on his own job, and he must do it well and do it well. Others have nothing to criticize, lest people take advantage of it at this juncture, it would be too unworthy.

But of course the people in this kind of affairs department also know the seriousness, so what Zheng Yong arranged for Bai Yutang this time is to show his face and have an easy task to complete, that is, to go to many settlements on the east coast of the Pampa Plain Research, then write a report and submit it to your superiors.

Speaking of investigating this matter, it happened after the Spanish ambassador Baron Sebastian and Buenos Aires General Obando jointly visited.No matter how arrogant the people on the east coast are, and they don’t take the Spaniards seriously, they still have to do some superficial work, so they sent a research team over there, went around indiscriminately, and then wrote a nonsense report. The copy was handed over to the Spaniards as a prevarication.

As for whether the Spaniards are satisfied with this research report, that is not something that people on the east coast should care about.Sometimes, you don't want to show shame. Now the people from the East Coast still want some face, and don't want to make things too ugly, but if you don't know the way, if you continue to hold on tight, once the people from the East Coast become shameless, don't If you lose your face, you will realize what you missed before - of course, as far as the current situation is concerned, the Spaniards still have a good grasp of it, especially now that their country has joined Austria in the dispute between the ruling and opposition parties In the alliance of countries such as the United Provinces, the United Provinces, and Spain, the future is difficult to predict, so don’t offend the people on the east coast. The two sides basically fought without breaking the point on the illegal cross-border reclamation of the Pampa Plain. That's it.

As a key official in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Bai Yutang is naturally familiar with the principles, so when Zheng Yong and Zheng Zheng asked him about something, he immediately said comprehendingly: "I know what to do, Zheng Minister. Niuzhuang, Yinhai, Niulanshan and other places have been left alone for a long time. The local people are out of the control of the government. They neither pay taxes nor serve in the military. Now it is difficult to estimate how many of them there are, what is the situation of the local economy, and the development trend So what. Therefore, I am going to take this opportunity to have a good look at the local area, and try to clarify most of the issues we want to know, so that the members of the Executive Committee can be targeted when formulating policies. Of course, Spain People will only get what we want them to know. I will be very careful about this. I will write two reports. One will be filed with the Ministry, the Syphilis Patient Statistics and Investigation Bureau and the National Development Directorate, and one will be sent to Spain. Ambassador Baron Sebastian, that should be fine."

"Okay, Xiaobai, as long as you can clear it up. Then I don't have much to say, just one thing, be careful about your own safety. Niuzhuang is okay. He Yuan has managed well in the past two years and is maintaining production. Under the circumstances, a small-scale militia team was also established, which is a bit of a surprise. But other places outside Niuzhuang are a bit chaotic. Where there is a mixture of dragons and snakes, even the veterans of the intelligence department used to be dangerous Very good. Therefore, this time you should bring some more people over there. I will issue an official document to the Ministry of Internal Affairs later, asking them to lend us [-] police officers from the Ministry of Internal Affairs to escort your research team to investigate. I feel much more relieved. All right, you can go back to work quickly, and I will wait for your report."

Bai Yutang nodded upon hearing this, exited the luxuriously decorated office respectfully, then turned and left.

On February 1675, 2, the Pampa research team of three and 27 people who took the messenger liner company "Seagull" finally set foot on the solid land of Niuzhuang Port after several days of rough seas.The mayor of Niuzhuang Town, He Yuan, who had received the news in advance, went to the pier to receive them and his group, and then very cooperatively produced a large number of files and documents for the research team to read.

In addition, He Yuan also talked freely with the research team about the future development of many colonies in the Pampa area. Of course, there is also the meaning of complaining to the local people for more support: It has always been around 4000 people, but there are many floating populations, and even more floating populations flock here during peak production and sales seasons. Of course, these floating populations come from various sources and have different identities, including China There are many nationals and foreigners. Our nationals are mainly cattle catchers, traders, butchers and other craftsmen who came to the local buffalo industry. The number cannot be accurately counted, but we estimate that there are more than 1000 people; foreigners mainly They are non-national laborers—they are generally employed by our country’s cattle catchers—Gauchos, Spaniards, and even a few native Indians, such as the Kelandi and Quechua.”

"At present, the main industries of Niuzhuang are wheat planting, bacon manufacturing, fishing, cowhide processing, etc. Due to the great benefits brought about by the French-Dutch War and the Polish-Turkish War, there are now more and more processing workshops. Rise in the city and the outskirts, employ a large number of people, produce a large number of cured meat, cowhide water bladders, belts, military boots, ammunition bags, armed belts, leather armor, skins, saddles, bowstrings, etc., and all through various It has been exported to the Old Continent through this channel, and has achieved considerable benefits." He Yuan continued.

In fact, as he said before, due to the consumption of 60 to [-] troops in the old continent, the military inventory of France, England, the United Provinces, Spain, Austria, Ottoman, Poland and some German states plummeted. As a result, a large number of cheap and high-quality goods from the east coast flooded into the above-mentioned places.

In the face of this kind of life-and-death war, even if the warring parties have various opinions and dissatisfaction with the East Bank, they will still eat these commodities without hesitation, and then send them to the front line as quickly as possible, and put them into a In battle after battle.Just like the French who had a cold relationship with the East Bank before—it could even be said to be vaguely hostile—they could not quickly end the war in the short term. When facing a protracted tug-of-war, they did not hesitate to allow merchant ships from the East Bank to enter Ports such as Marseille, Montpellier, Bordeaux, and Nantes traded to replenish their dwindling stocks.

The French are like this, not to mention the Spaniards, English, and Ottomans. Except for England, which has a strong production capacity and fewer orders, the other two countries basically buy as much as they have, and their orders are even scheduled for the next year. , which shows how amazing the popularity of these products is.

And such a good sales situation undoubtedly caused the market fluctuations caused by the "peerless idiot" of the United Provinces (a senior official of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce on the East Coast) tore up the purchase contracts for goods such as woolen goods-although the Dutch There is no tearing up the military procurement contract, but the people on the east coast will definitely not sell them to them with a hot face and a cold ass. Still able to obtain enough profits to support the further development of the city and industry.

However, the city has basically passed the extensive period of development until now, and it has begun to pursue fine development, because if it continues to develop in such a disorderly manner, many problems will obviously arise.He Yuan is also a cadre trained by the government for many years, so he has already seen these things, such as education, medical and technical support.

In terms of education, Niuzhuang Town needs local help to build at least two primary schools to help the children of residents inside and outside the city to receive the most basic primary education, otherwise the future development of the city will be limited.

Needless to say about medical treatment, a large number of people gather in a small city, and the possibility of a large-scale epidemic outbreak is extremely high, as evidenced by an injury outbreak in Niuzhuang before (a lot of people died that time), and now this Due to the ambiguous status of the city, it is difficult to provide even the most basic medical services. There are only two medical clinics opened by Ming Dynasty Chinese medicine in the city, which are far from being able to meet all needs.It has been reported before that some fierce cattle catchers tried to kidnap doctors in the city to treat themselves because they were sick. This is enough to make people understand the importance of medical services, and this obviously requires strong local support.

Technical support is also easy to understand: Mayor He Yuan and He Da bear the brunt of the first request is to build a central transmission system that is found in many local industrial towns, that is, to build a steam engine with a horsepower of at least 200 horsepower and an auxiliary transmission system (through a large number of shafts), and then can rent power to artisans in those manual workshops to increase their labor productivity.Because Niuzhuang Town is still dominated by scattered small handicraftsmen (self-employed) and small workshops, they are unable to build a steam power system by themselves, and they do not have the corresponding technology to maintain and improve it. Therefore, the government has come forward to establish a central power workshop. , and then unified rental power has become an inevitable choice, and this is currently the method adopted by many towns on the east coast, although more and more companies have begun to build their own power systems independently.

In addition, there are also some applied talents in other fields such as equipment maintenance, mechanical processing, process design, ship maintenance, etc. This is also a difficult problem that the poor and poor Niuzhuang Town cannot overcome, and it can only be solved by the government.

Bai Yutang carefully recorded all these, and prepared to submit them to his superiors for review after returning home.He knew in his heart that with the current local attitude towards the Pampa Plain, the above-mentioned requirements raised by He Yuan should be met—at least partially—but Niuzhuang is the only one, and other towns want to be like Niuzhuang. It is also impossible to get considerable assistance from the local people, in the current situation where the Spaniards are jumping up and down, it is highly unlikely that they can only rely on themselves.

After spending a week or so in-depth research in Niuzhuang Town, on March 3, Bai Yutang and his party headed towards some small settlements inland, led by the police and guides from the Ministry of Internal Affairs. .The leader of the research team, Bai, intends to spend about two months to conduct a detailed investigation of these places, so as to have a certain degree of understanding of the local population, society and economic scale, otherwise he may not be able to go back to do business.

Of course, the Spaniards will never be able to get these first-hand detailed research materials, they will only get a piece of nonsense handed over to them by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, such as "After investigation, only 53 nationals from the east coast were in Pan Ridiculous reports such as "working on the Pa Plain" - people on the east coast are very curious about what they will do then, and their reactions are also related to the next policy formulation of the east coast government.

(End of this chapter)