Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 879 Southeast Pacific ([-])

"The temperature must be several degrees below zero, right?" Liu Jianguo, a senior technician in the engineering department of the Southern Railway Company, looked at the fine snowflakes floating in the sky and muttered to himself.

It is already the cold winter in the southern hemisphere, and in a place with such a high latitude as Chiloe Island, the climate is dropping extremely fast.Often a gust of cold air from the westerly drifting belt blows from the Pacific Ocean, which can cause the air here to drop many degrees, but fortunately, this is not common, because if there is often cold and dry air blowing over, it will prevent the water vapor on the sea from rising Formation of rainfall - but local rainfall is very abundant, which is rare in temperate regions of the world.

The frequent rainfall and the relatively cold local weather have created special geographical features in places such as Hokkaido, Japan, parts of the United Kingdom, and Baleen Whale Harbor on the Falkland Islands: swampy depressions are densely covered, and the soil in some areas is peaty.What's more, the peat deposits in some areas have been deposited for a long time, and lignite has gradually formed. It's just that this kind of coal reserves are not large and of little value, so no one develops it.

"Get ready to go." Wang Dali, who was over 300 years old, tightened the whale skin rain boots on his feet, leaned on a wooden stick, and said while looking at the confused road ahead.There was a path cleared from the dense forest to a lumber camp deep in the forest.There are more than 5 prisoners of war from Poland working in the lumberyard. These people were all transferred to the inspection period after their outstanding performance in the Southern Cone and Ocean Railway.If no major mistakes are made after the three-year inspection period, then they can apply for the citizenship of the East Coast Republic of China. Generally speaking, it can be done within one year, which means that they only need 6-3 months before and after. You can get free status in one year.Although it is not as fast as ordinary indentured slaves can obtain free status in 5-[-] years, considering their initial status as prisoners of war slaves, this can already be called a kind of benevolent government.

Following Wang Dali and others, Xu Gang, the former company commander of the 101st company (now abolished) of the army, and the current squadron leader of the South Railway Company's road protection team, also set out.Xu Gang took dozens of heavily armed road guard soldiers to escort more than a hundred pack animals hired in the Port of Araucan (with more than a hundred Araucan Indian drivers), and more than 300 soldiers from the North Zhili River of the Ming Dynasty. The people of Jianfu are ready to set off together.

The destination of these materials is the logging camp deep in the dense forest, and the destination of the immigrants is the same.Where they will be enriched together will help the Polish prisoners of war who arrived there earlier establish a relatively stable settlement, which will facilitate future colonization activities in the deep interior of Chiloe Island.Obviously, the Southern Railway Company will not limit its pace to the small coastal port of Guanhai Port. Their ultimate goal is to occupy this big island in southern Chile. It is dangerous to emigrate from areas that have been colonized, but the Southern Railway Company is a rogue company from top to bottom, and their president Mo Ming is also a rogue leader with a strong personality. It is impossible to expect them not to cross the line.

Of course, Mo Ming’s move is not unsupported. Powerful departments of some countries, such as the General Administration of National Intelligence, the Gendarmerie, the Ministry of the Army and even the Ministry of the Navy, expressed their concern for the Southern Railway Company’s behavior of secretly developing territory and testing the bottom line of the Spaniards. limited support, that is, they really wanted to know if the Spaniards would do anything about the East Coasters who crossed the border and colonized them.

Although according to some limited information, the Kingdom of Spain did not have any strong dissatisfaction with the countries that seized their colonies, such as Britain, the Netherlands, France, and Portugal. The overseas colonies themselves will fight back and forth.For example, the Spaniards have organized fleets and soldiers many times to recover colonies occupied by other countries, and then they were beaten back by other countries, and then fought back again. The whole process lasted for decades, but the relationship between the two countries was basically not affected by any negative effects during this period. .Perhaps in their cognition, the competition among overseas colonies is not enough to cause the whole country to go to war.

But even so, the people on the east bank still want to know for sure that the Kingdom of Spain can not do anything to France, Portugal, England, and the Netherlands, which are both Christians and whites, but whether the people on the east coast, as pagans and yellow people, will make the Spanish Generate greater anger, and thus make up their minds to break with the East Bank and even go to war.This kind of thing cannot be guessed, and they can only use actual actions to test their bottom line. Fortunately, the Southern Railway is a colonial trading company in name. Although they seem to be the largest shareholder of Southern Railway), it is not difficult to close the market.

Speaking of which, the market of Southern Railway Company is continuously bullish in the country, especially after it independently developed the smuggling trade in Peru. Even though the company has made it clear that it will suffer a huge loss for the third consecutive year, it is still relatively weak in Qingdao's financial market. favored by investors.The company's seven-year and ten-year bond sales are in good condition, and the expected yield has repeatedly hit new lows; share sales have also begun to accelerate gradually. Among them, the Doria family of Genoa has exercised the acquisition right a while ago and invested huge sums of money to sell their own shares. The ratio has increased to 5%, and some other investors are also very active. At present, the 40% equity of the Southern Railway Company has sold a total of 19.85%. Presidents are also capable of performing some extraordinary tasks.

Perhaps the only concern of investors is the strong army background of Southern Railway Company.The company not only accepted several army companies that were abolished by the Ministry of the Army, but also clearly stated in the company's articles of incorporation that each president of the Southern Railway Company must be an active military officer appointed by the Ministry of the Army.This kind of large-scale concerned enterprise, which is regarded as a "horse dung concentration camp" by civilian white shirts and naval officers, will inevitably be affected to a certain extent when seeking financing in the capital market because of its strong army background-but about this At one point, the War Department seemed unimpressed.

However, regardless of the background of the Southern Railway Company, as the first company in China to carry out overseas colonization and trade, its influence and exemplaryness are undoubtedly extremely huge, and the company has also brought a broad market to the domestic industrial and commercial circles. A large number of cheap agricultural and mining products are of great positive significance in terms of promoting the development of domestic industry and commerce and reducing the prices of daily consumer goods.Based on this alone, no matter how some sour civil servants twist their mouths, they cannot stop the executive committee from fully supporting this company-this of course includes the Southern Railway's exploration and colonization of Chiloe Island.

well, let's get back to business.At this time, the expedition team led by Liu Jianguo (representative of the Southern Railway Company), Wang Dali (representative of the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Geology and Mineral Resources), and Xu Gang (the client of the Army Forces) set off from Guanhaigang, a settlement in the initial stage. , advancing towards the logging camps in the interior.Today is August 1651, 8, and they are expected to spend two or three days traveling through the temporary forest path between the hills to reach the coast on the other side of the north.

The logging camp was on the other side of the hills, because experts from the Ministry of Agriculture agreed that the soil was more fertile and the conditions for farming were better there.Therefore, the Southern Railway Company decisively set up a logging camp there, and sent many prisoners of war slaves (including supervisors) to log and clear the land, laying a solid foundation for subsequent colonial settlements.

The expedition, led by Wang Dali, will distribute supplies to local loggers and take a day's rest after arriving at what is marked on the map as "Mishan Logging Ground" (meaning a hilly area covered with dense trees) , and then proceed further depending on weather conditions.If the weather conditions are not good (this is often the case in winter), then they will return to Guanhai Port, and then take a 72-ton steam steamer (an old paddle steamer that has been eliminated in China, and it is sold by the Southern Railway Company at a low price) Bought to make use of the waste heat), explored, observed and drew maps along the east coast of the island, providing detailed information for future comprehensive colonization.

Of course, if the weather conditions are good, they will explore the inland areas along the trails between hills and valleys.They will try their best to find a road suitable for people and animals among the hills covered with dense forests, swamps, rivers, depressions, and lakes. At the same time, they will record in detail the soil, forest, animal and plant resources of the areas they pass along the way, and mark each piece A place suitable for human reclamation and settlement, as the official basis for future colonization.

On August 1651, 8, Wang Dali and his party finally arrived at the Mishan logging camp after a difficult trek.The local Polish loggers cheered. They had had enough of this cold and wet place.Because the water near the sea is shallow and silted, and the seabed is full of hidden reefs, it is not suitable to build a port at all. Therefore, their supplies are all transported by ships that dock from the port, and then sent over through a very difficult forest path.The road condition of this path is so bad (many places are built with thick logs laid down on the ground), so that vehicles cannot pass at all, and they can only be transported by horse teams, and the supply speed is naturally extremely slow.

The poor road conditions, on the other hand, also means that the timber resources here are difficult to transport out.This requires a lot of effort to build roads. For example, the Southern Railway Company has seriously considered building a railway from Guanhai Port to the north, passing through mountain valleys and directly to the Mishan Logging Field (it can also be extended to other areas in the future).Except for forests and hills (no more than 200 meters, the undulations are not large and the slope is gentle), the area passed by this railway is full of swampy depressions.It can be said that the technical difficulty of railway construction is not great, but the project volume is very large. This requires the Southern Railway Company to invest a lot of manpower and material resources here to cut down trees, drain swamps, and build reservoirs, and then build railways section by section. Before the official opening of the Liangyang Railway, this is destined to be just a dream.

On August 1651, 8, the weather on Chiloe Island, which had been gloomy for a week, finally cleared up.Wang Dali and others packed up their things, and then continued their exploration and exploration along the mountain path.

(End of this chapter)