Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 1703 Large Infrastructure ([-])

The planned route of this road is very long, and it is similar to the route built by the British in Patagonia in history.

Argentina in history, according to the evaluation of Europeans, at least before 1914, existed as an "informal vassal state" of the British Empire.The democratically elected government of this country is controlled by British capitalists, supplies meat, leather, wool and grain to Britain, and is a major market for Britain's coal, industrial products and capital exports, and it is not at all that the infrastructure is controlled by British capital. It's strange.

Strictly speaking, there are two special wool transportation lines built by the British.One line starts from Neuquén, which is now Dingnan County on the east coast, and goes east all the way to the Port of Blanca, which is now Yancheng Port on the east coast.This line, in addition to transporting wool, leather, meat and livestock, also transports fruit, grain and oil, it is considered a relatively busy line.

The other one, starting from San Carlos de Bariloche (that is, Shuofang County), the railway winds all the way to the northeast, and then turns to the north in the coastal area of ​​San Matias Bay, crossing Xuanwu and Daliang in the control area of ​​the east coast today. Two counties (these are also two important wheat-producing areas in later generations), and finally arrived at Yancheng Port - this line has a branch line near the source, starting from today's Jincheng County, and intersecting with the main railway line in Shuofang County - Mainly grain, leather and wool are transported.

These two lines, according to the research of people on the east coast, are basically relatively reliable.The British who chose the site must have done a great job. Taking into account various factors such as the economy, population, and products in Patagonia, they finally planned these two railway lines with a total length of almost [-] kilometers. , and now the East Coast people do not intend to make much of this change.

But having said that, with the manpower, material and financial resources at hand of the East Coast government, the consumption situation of wool products in the international market, and the population and economic situation of Patagonia, it is impossible to start construction of two railways at the same time. , They can't even agree to start construction of one, because the extension of the northern railway under planning in China is the key investment target. After all, that railway will cross the largest coal mine on the entire east coast (even in later generations it will also be a large coal mine. , more than 200 billion tons of reserves, but unfortunately most of them are low-quality coal), the value is much higher than that of the wool transportation line.

It is also based on this consideration that the Executive Committee has never agreed to the plan reported by the Patagonia region, even though it will be in the context of crazy infrastructure.However, the old cadre Yang Mingyang went to the Executive Committee and the State Railway Administration to make a fuss. After all, it still had some effect. Construction of the Salt Highway.

The so-called Dingyan Highway is actually a third-class national highway (because there is less rainfall in Patagonia, and ordinary fine sand roads are sufficient), and the construction cost will not be too high.There are no expensive woodlands, swamps, rivers, or mountains. The only thing that needs to be spent is a few gullies and a lot of pebbles on the ground that need to be cleaned, but the cost will never be high.

The main body of the road construction comes from three parts, a total of about 5000 people, of which 2000 are newly arrived Polish non-national laborers, 1000 are black laborers affiliated to the Ministry of Communications, and 1000 are provided by Patagonia. Tehuelches and Araucans were captured, and the rest came from the famous Batino construction company, whose members were basically from Italy.

The 5000-person engineering team is quite large in scale, and the daily food and drink expenses are not small, not to mention the consumption of labor tools and other materials. It is estimated that it will cost 40 to [-] yuan if it is fully built. It can be seen that the infrastructure is indeed a gold-swallowing behemoth. No wonder the countries in the Old Continent, except the Kingdom of France, are doing drastic road repairs, other countries would rather sew and repair than embark on large-scale projects. Yes, I really have no money.

However, don’t make fun of the old continent countries. Although the East Coast government has borrowed a large amount of money, used the treasury’s gold reserves, and issued some commercial papers, it has too many projects at hand, and it is really unable to start many projects at the same time. , so they also demanded that the completion deadline of the Dingyan Highway Salt Farm be five years, so that the financial pressure will be much smaller-of course they didn't say anything, maybe it was because of the anger of the veteran cadres, the officials of the Ministry of Communications also said , Once the government's financial situation improves, it will give priority to increasing the investment in the Dingyan Highway, so this is a little bit of a fool.

Today is September 1675, 9, and the first batch of five hundred non-national laborers of Polish descent has been in place for several days.They arrived at the wharf of Dingnan Town on a 4-ton inland river steamer, and then dug some nests outside the city and built a group of reed sheds as a temporary camp.An infantry company from the Army's No.72 mixed battalion was stationed next door. They pulled up barbed wire and built tents to monitor the Poles from a distance, but they didn't care too much. Not very worried that these Poles will take the opportunity to escape.

The reason for this is actually related to the special geographical environment of the Patagonian platform.To put it more bluntly, where are you going to eat when you run away?The wild is full of sand, shrubs, and gravel, and you can't even find any berries to satisfy your hunger.Occasionally there are some animals, but what can you do without tools?To put it bluntly, it’s not bad if you don’t get preyed by those pumas, basically you can’t survive, so the supervisors and army officers and soldiers who guard them don’t worry about them being able to escape when the food is rationed every day.

However, it is not ruled out that some people will go out with their brains twitching, so the militiamen with excellent riding skills in Dingnan County will be useful. They can wear lassoes and look for traces of these people on the grassland, and then they will be like a set of cattle. It doesn't seem very difficult to catch them all back.

Of course, when the people on the east coast provide reasonable treatment-a wage of five cents per person per day, ample flatbread or bread, and cheap corned beef from the northern grasslands-these Polish people generally People don't have much desire to escape.You know, building roads is hard work, but wouldn't it be hard to grow rye for the nobles in Poland?The seed-to-harvest ratio of Polish rye is only one to four, and it can still be exported to the United Provinces, England and France in large quantities. It is conceivable how ordinary tenant farmers are squeezed!Therefore, is it really difficult to accept going to the east coast of the New World to build roads?Unless you were not a low-level citizen in Poland, but an aristocrat, businessman or religious person who was not involved in production, then it is another matter.

Staying with these guards were more than a dozen agents from the Bureau of Statistics and Investigation of Syphilis Patients, led by Wei Jianzhang, the son of Wei Boqiu, who has now been promoted to deputy director.Wei Jianzhang has worked hard in the Mei agency for many years, and now he has climbed to the high position of the head of anti-espionage in the entire Patagonia region. Master Wei is now the overlord of the Free State. It is not comparable to people like them who have worked hard in the country and have little oil and water.

Wei Jianzhang basically didn't know anything about his father, but it wouldn't be right to say he wasn't aware of it at all.He has been rolling around in the Mei Agency since he was an adult. He really has no business contact with his father, and he is also very low-key on weekdays. After the death of his biological mother, he is even more reclusive, and he has very little communication with his younger brothers and sisters who were born in the Far East. , but this does not mean that this outstanding intelligence officer knows nothing, but that he has been cautiously staying away from these things.After all, he is mainly developing in China, and he is not interested in going to Japan or other places, so it is better not to provoke these things that are easy to get burned.

In addition, he is more conscientious in his work. In recent years, he has cracked several espionage cases and recovered huge losses for the country.These solid achievements, in addition to allowing him to climb to a high position, are also his amulet, a talisman to ensure that he will not be involved in the whirlpool in case his father fails.

Wei Jianzhang is also very familiar with the current domestic economic situation on the east coast, and he is not ignorant of some intricate personal connections, so he also knows the importance of the construction of the Dingyan Highway.No, after the first batch of non-national laborers arrived here, he personally brought a professional team to Dingnan Town by boat from Haian County, and carefully screened more than 500 laborers. It's not to investigate any spies, but mainly to prevent these people from ganging up and doing some stupid things like fleeing or rebelling, which will affect the progress of the road construction.

"If this road can be built, the economy of the entire Patagonia will be revitalized. Fruits, grain, livestock, wool, leather, cheese, tallow, as much as you can. Of course, I am not talking about fixed The Yanyan Highway, but the Dingyan Railway, one of the two legendary wool transportation lines." In the office of the Statistics and Investigation Bureau of Syphilis Patients in Dingnan Town, the visiting army captain Pei Dade was talking with Wei Jianzhang.

Although there are all kinds of bad rumors, he still respects Deputy Director Wei.There is no other reason, mainly the difference in the identity of the two, which means the difference in the upper limit of future prospects.However, because the two belong to different systems, and his benefactor Guo Handong's development seems to be many times stronger than that of Wei, so there is no need to be too servile, just communicate normally.

Wei Jianzhang took out a bottle of wine from the wine cabinet opposite the desk, poured a small glass for Pei Dade, then stuffed the cork into the mouth of the bottle, and explained: "Because of the doctor's instructions, I'd better stay away from Alcohol, it's a painful torture for me, but there's nothing I can do about it, I want to live longer."

After putting the wine bottle on the table, Wei Jianzhang handed a document to Pei Dade and said: "The names marked on the first page are all Polish laborers who were originally from nobles, businessmen or priests. The life of these people in Poland was not too bad. After they were sold to us by the Tatars, their situation plummeted, so there is a big gap in their hearts. You can focus on observing in the future, and decisively take them down if something goes wrong. If something goes wrong and there is a big mess, it will be troublesome."

In fact, the non-national laborers who were born as prisoners of war (of course, the vast majority of them are not prisoners of war...) are not emotionally stable, easy to escape and resist, and are far inferior to those laborers who voluntarily go to sea to beg for a living under the hands of the three major labor brokers. The construction industry on the east coast is not a secret, and many construction team leaders know it.However, these people are large in number, cheap, and able to meet the huge labor gap. Therefore, the East Bank government has never been able to give up buying Poles, Ukrainians, Moldavians, and Transylvanians from the Crimean Tatars. The temptation of human beings is imported in large quantities every year, and enriched into various domestic mines, construction sites, forest farms, farms, brick kilns and other units.

The Poles who were trafficked during the Polish-Turkish War basically came from the Podolia region in the southeast, which has always been a province with relatively developed agriculture. It was seized by the country, and later it was used as a base, and continued eastward to grind the whole Ukraine bit by bit from the descendants of the Mongols.Therefore, in this province, there are many descendants of the original Polish military nobles (of course, the rich Cossack leaders who defected to the Poles are indispensable). During the Polish-Turkish War, they were looted by the Tatar cavalry who came and went like the wind. (When the Turks were besieging some Polish fortresses, at least 3 of the [-] Tatar cavalry were robbed, and they were also drunk...), many nobles and businessmen were demolished and sent to Haji Port for merchants The station is for people on the east coast to choose.

In addition, the Turks even converted some Catholic churches in Podolia into mosques—they also did this in Ukraine, which aroused the Cossack rebellion in history, and this time and space is no exception—a large number of clergy were sent to They got into the prison van and were shipped to Haji Port for unified sale. The methods were extremely rough.

These people certainly hate the Turks and Tatars, but they don't like the people on the east bank who bought them. They used to encourage those ordinary tenant farmers to flee with them, so Wei Jianzhang circled their names and let them Pei Dade, who is responsible for the safety of the entire road, should be careful not to cause unmanageable chaos.

"Compared with the Dingyan Railway, what I am looking forward to more is that we can build a railway that spans the entire Pampa Plain and leads directly to Buenos Aires. It is so beautiful." After handing over the documents, Wei Jianzhang turned and sat back He got out of his chair, looked at Pei Dade and said, "Of course this may not be possible in the short term, but we must always work hard for it, don't we? You need to pay more attention to the Dingyan Highway. I may not be able to stay here for too long." A long time. Next month, I will go to the Xingnan Port area. There are some things to deal with there. You know, the concession of the Southern Railway Company will expire at the end of 1678, and the railway subsidiary will also be handed over to In the local area, the bureau has issued an instruction to complete the establishment of the branch and office there this year, and I don't have much time to waste."

(End of this chapter)