Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 410 Yihe ([-])

"It's here! Let's all get off the ship!" With Captain Ventura's roar, a Malay sailor immediately laid a board between the deck and the trestle.Then, about thirty or forty men with oriental faces stepped off the boat in a daze.

"It's a man again!" "It's a man again!" "It's been a long time since a woman came here!" "Masters, forget about us!" "I want to go to a big city! There are beautiful and enthusiastic girls there!"

There were sighs and complaints on the pier, and Castelli shrugged. Since he came to the east coast from Italy early last year, he has seen too many such scenes.There seems to be a lack of women in this country, and Castelli can observe this with his own eyes, without any investigation and data-because it is too obvious.

"Mr. Castelli, good morning." Captain Ventura saw Castelli who was working outside the Castle of the Lower I River at a glance, and immediately stepped forward to greet him.It is said that before his family was in decline, he tried to study with the famous scholar Mr. Galileo, but unfortunately he never got the chance.Mr. Castelli was Galileo's student and friend, and Captain Ventura had always admired him, so he greeted him warmly.

"Good morning, Captain Ventura." Castelli also liked this middle-aged captain from Lombardy. Nice guy.

"There are new guests coming? The children seem a little downcast. They seem to be very disappointed." Castelli looked at the Oriental who was walking down the deck silently with his head down, and then at a group of listless people on the pier Young dock workers.The dozen or so dock workers were all fellow Italians from Taranto, and Castelli got along very well with them.These people are good guys, work hard, love life, and they have one more thing in common-they don't have wives.It's not that I can't afford to marry, but that the number of women in this country is really too small!

"They have plenty of reasons to be disappointed." Captain Ventura grinned, picked up the cowhide water bag on his waist, took a sip of the spicy Daqu in the river, and then said: "This time more than 700 Ming people came. Probably the same number will arrive at the end of the year. But that's not the point, the point is that probably less than 500 of those who have arrived are women."

"The news is terrible," Castelli said with a sigh of sympathy.He is a man of his age, and has grandchildren, but now he suddenly doubts whether his grandson will be able to marry a wife smoothly.

"But it's not without good news." Captain Ventura took another sip of his wine. "The census office of the Ministry of Civil Affairs has posted a notice that it is said that this year the quota for Malay women will be relaxed to 750. Cheers, boys, From 500 people to 750 people, this will solve a large part of the problem."

The dockworkers on the deck are still a little listless. What problem can 250 more people solve? You must know that more than 3000 people will come by the end of this year.Besides, those Malay women are mostly assigned to bachelors in big cities. There are also many bachelors in shipyards, coal mines, brick kilns, and steel factories. Farmers are competitive.

Seeing that the response was not very enthusiastic, Captain Ventura shrugged helplessly.He also understands that Xiayihebao is a purely agricultural township, and its population just broke through 50 at the beginning of this year.Their "castle lord" Qin Yu once applied to withdraw the castle and set up a township, but was rejected by Yihe District Commissioner Peng Zhicheng on the grounds that the economic aggregate was too small.In fact, what Peng Zhicheng said was correct. Except for a small ship repair shop, Xiayihe Fort did not have any industrial facilities. There were neither forests nor minerals, and the land was not very fertile.In addition to growing some vegetables and potatoes, the local residents only graze some goats. The average annual income is less than [-] yuan, which is really poor.The only purpose of this settlement may be to provide supplies and maintenance for transport ships traveling between Changshan Iron Mine and Pingan Iron and Steel Works.

In addition to the remoteness and "poverty", this stronghold will be attacked from time to time by the Chaluyas and gaucho horse bandits who crossed the West Ridge and entered the east bank.Compared with these miserable guys, the residents of Lower Yihe Castle who laugh at themselves all day long are rich.Especially those Charuyas who are fierce by nature, they have nothing, and they often cross the West Ridge in groups of three or four, sneak into some villages outside the city of Lower Yihe Castle, and then steal the goats grazing by the people on the east bank.If the people on the east coast were not vigilant enough, they would sometimes act as robbers, breaking into the homes of residents on the east coast at night to rob and murder.

Facing such a ferocious enemy, the residents of Xiayihe Fort not only organized militia patrols at night, but also requested the military to send regular troops to wipe out the enemy.The military department naturally followed suit, and they transferred the most mobile unit - the cavalry battalion.The cavalry battalion led by Major Xu Yu has now expanded to a scale of more than [-] cavalry. After receiving the order from the military department, he almost moved the headquarters to the Yihe area to deter those gangs of Spanish missionaries who were about to move. Charuyas and gaucho horse bandits.

In mid-August, Major Xu Yu led more than 8 heavily armed cavalry to the vicinity of the descendant José Pedro Varela village, about 400 kilometers away from the Fort of the Lower I River.This place is rich in water and grass, and the rivers are crisscrossed. Many small streams originating from the Xiling Mountains converge here, and finally form a fertile plain with rich water and grass, suitable for grazing and farming.After the cavalry troops arrived here, they built a barracks with the assistance of about 30 Shandong immigrants who moved here, and then patrolled around from this base, constantly attacking the Charuya people and gaucho horse bandits who crossed the border, making Xiayihe Fort The surrounding law and order situation has improved significantly.

The residents of Fort Lower Yihe yearn for the superior life of the big city, but criticize the monotonous and boring inland rural life a lot.However, correspondingly, about 2000 Shandong Ninghaizhou immigrants who came to Xiayihebao to reclaim wasteland one after another were quite satisfied with this land.They came here penniless only with shovels, rakes, and hoes issued by the government, and then relying on their hardworking hands, they managed to level out more than [-] acres of farmland in one winter, making the local gang talk all day The immigrants from southern Italy looked at each other in blank dismay.

Although there are many weeds on the ground and the land is not very fertile, their love and dedication to their land is moving.They have planted land for others for half of their lives in Daming, which is thousands of miles away, and they cherish the five acres of farmland allocated to them, and they also take care of the one cow allocated to every two people.In this cold winter, they have been thinking about what to plant in the field after the spring, whether to plant more expensive wheat or cheaper potatoes and corn.I heard that the higher-ups are going to set up a branch of the reclamation bank here, and loan a few sheep to everyone to raise themselves. How can there be such a good thing? !For the first time, they felt that maybe it was worth coming to this place after a narrow escape from Shandong.

If only I could marry another daughter-in-law!Many immigrants from the Ming Dynasty thought so.

"Mr. Castelli, what are you designing? A factory?" Captain Ventura looked curiously at what Castelli was writing and drawing, which seemed to be a group of houses.

"To be precise, this is a combination of a wharf and a railway station." Castelli stopped and said, "Yes, the good days of the Lower Yi River Castle are coming. Shhh, don't tell those people who have been working all day The Neapolitans who only know how to complain know that maybe some people in the government are right. In the future, we should not recruit some citizens to come here to cultivate wasteland, especially those southern Italians. They are flashy and unreliable. What we need is hard work Well, we'll talk about this topic later. All you need to know is that the Department of Transportation is planning to build a railway northward from Fort Lower Ie River, via Fort Canyon (the planned new town near Cuevos Canyon) to A planned and important city on the banks of the great rivers of the North."

"It seems that this plan is huge." Captain Ventura commented, "What does the government want to do? Do you want to squeeze all these eastern farmers who are flocking to those empty prairie? God, there are dangerous highlands everywhere." The Choma bandits and the charuya, who are as annoying as bedbugs, will be dangerous without the protection of the army and the city walls."

"The government will make arrangements." Castelli said, "Everyone knows that Canyon Fort is already on the edge of the legal territory of the east coast. Qiaoma Bandit is a place that is not very friendly to outsiders. Therefore, the government should have made sufficient preparations. The cavalry battalion in the south should send some people to go north, and Dongfang County may also send A westward march of an army, coupled with a planned relocation of older residents—many of whom are well-trained militiamen, can handle almost anything.”

"It's really going west." Captain Ventura sighed, "The area around the Camaquan River in the north has recently been dredging waterways and heading towards the hilly area, and the Yi River area in the south has finally taken action. But this kind of thing is true. It's hard to say whether it's good or bad. After all, the western half of the east bank grassland is nominally still the territory of the Spaniards-although they haven't sent a few immigrants here except missionaries, but there will be hidden dangers after all. , I hope a war will not break out because of this..."

(End of this chapter)