New World 1620

On February 1621, 2, Thursday, the lunar solar term was rainy and cloudy.

For the residents of Manhattan transported back to the 17th century, the experience of this first spring coming was extremely harsh.The swell caused by snowmelt in the upper Hudson caused more than trouble for residents.

Many of the newly opened coastal low-lying areas in winter are almost restored to swamps, and then combined with the ridiculously abundant groundwater of Manhattan Island after the winter snow melts, several "inner city lakes" have been formed in residential areas. and the stream".

Almost overnight, the residents returned to their status as "disaster victims" in great distress.The community committee was overwhelmed, organizing residents to fight the disaster, organizing manpower to expand and dredge the drainage ditches in the residential area, and going to the Indian tribes to recruit people from all over to form engineering teams to consolidate the embankments along the East River.

On the other side of the river, the progress of the spring plowing agricultural project in Brooklyn, Long Island is not very satisfactory, and the time is still tight.The large-scale trade with the surrounding Indian tribes, which has just started, cannot be easily interrupted, and everything has exhausted the members of the community committee.

Despite all the troubles, it still makes the committee focus on another place today.

At 11:[-] a.m., Governor’s Island, the completion ceremony of the project that was officially renamed “Neiwan Fortress” was underway not long ago. Due to the spring disaster relief work of various departments, only military safety committee member Zheng Quan was present.

The small inner bay fortress was built at the southeastern tip of the island, forming a triangle shape along the coast of the island.The main body of the thick first defensive outer wall of the fortress is composed of large stones, logs and limited steel structures shipped from Staten Island, and then poured with cement.

The fort has set up eight permanently reinforced forts and a large number of heavily protected barracks and material storage rooms.The entire fortress was completely designed and built against European military threats before the 19th century.

The cement and other building materials consumed during the two-month construction period accounted for almost 70% of the total output of the Brooklyn industrial zone during this period, and the Indian manpower hired made it possible that there were no fewer than 24 people on the fort's construction site in 200 hours.

Dozens of Indian hired workers lost their lives during the project, and the committee paid compensation for more than a dozen cast iron tools to turn the bad-faced Indian village chiefs into a better place.

The fluke process before and after the Mayflower incident made the committee extremely insecure, which led Zheng Quan to put forward a proposal for the construction of the fort recklessly, and the production plan for supporting military equipment for other forts was given priority over everything else.Fortunately, there are more ordinary residents who feel insecure, so Zheng Quan's militaristic promotion of the fortress construction has also been understood by most people.

Five 24-pound heavy guns dismantled from the Mayflower were slowly placed on the gun mounts by a herringbone manpower crane. The recruits wearing the new "Sea Garrison" uniforms began to be busy, testing the flexibility of the gun mounts, adjusting Observe the angle of fire.

These fortress garrisons were selected from among the residents of Manhattan, and they were all former dock workers or security guards who really couldn't find any special skills.The current number is only 20 people, commanded by Zhang Chunrui, a 40-year-old retired anti-aircraft artillery officer.

The imitation German-style M36 military uniforms sorted out from the ruins have become one of the most convenient equipment for the committee to reorganize the military security forces, and they can be issued immediately without much modification.

Under the command of Zhang Chunrui, the artillerymen of the fortress who had only undergone simple training for a week began to conduct artillery demonstrations.Zhang Chunrui, who had personally practiced many times on the Mayflower and was in charge of writing the gun firing operation manual for the muzzle gun, turned dark because the five gun groups below performed five different operations at almost the same time.

Some have stuffed all the shells into the barrel, only to find out that they forgot to load gunpowder... After loading gunpowder, they did not use the cannon pestle, but pierced the rotary rod specially used to remove the gunpowder into the barrel... What's more frightening is that from Zhang Chunrui The nearest artillery group actually loaded three sets of gunpowder in a row!

In short, all kinds of brains are looking for death!

"Minister... Hey, Old Zheng, you see, we don't want to train for a while..." Zhang Chunrui, who was dressed in an officer's uniform, didn't know what to say at this time, so he could only ask for help from the silent side with an embarrassing expression on his face. Zheng Quan's opinion.

"Maybe we were in a hurry... After a while, the military industry should be able to come up with newer cannons, but without qualified soldiers, no matter how good things are, it's meaningless. Hey... time won't wait for me."

Zheng Quan was also extremely dissatisfied with the current rookie recruits, but thinking about this phenomenon is the inevitable beginning of the new armed forces in the settlements, he endured it.

Just as he was about to wait for the gun crew's first round of firing drills, the motorboat sent a message from Manhattan.Zheng Quan's face changed several times in a row, and he quickly returned to the former customs anti-smuggling ship No. 516 on a motorboat, which has now been changed to patrol ship No. 516 of the Maritime Guard.

Not long after leaving the fortress dock, there was a loud noise from the inner bay fortress behind him.Looking back, I saw a fortress gun fired the first shell, which fell far away on the sea to the south, shooting a high water column.

……

……

The first Indian trading post established by the committee was set up on the platform on the west bank of the Hudson River, open to the Indian tribes in the west.From there, it is impossible to see the communities on the southeast coast of Manhattan Island. This is for safety reasons. After all, the Indians on the West Bank of the Hudson still have too little contact time.

Since the completion of the trading post in early January, a number of Indians brought various items to the trading post built with wooden fences every day in exchange for various exquisite daily necessities produced in the Manhattan community.These trading items are completely different from the rough goods brought by white fur traders in the past. In addition to being more practical and durable, the trading results are often more "fair".

These good impressions left on the natives spread farther and farther west of the Hudson River, and the Indian trade and foreign affairs commissioners headed by Li Xiang also took the opportunity to put forward more demand for items needed for industrial development in Manhattan.

In the trading area, all kinds of fancy-dressed native Indians wandered around, looking very lively and peaceful. In the surrounding high-rise buildings stood Indian warriors invited by Li Xiang's "father-in-law" family. These warriors of the Delaware Indian tribe They already have a very good relationship with Li Xiang. With bows and arrows in hand, they are responsible for the daily security of the entire trading station with another kind of proud master attitude.

A few Manhattan residents who acted as settlement traders were in charge of several large counter areas, constantly running around to receive Indians from afar, bringing all kinds of "colored stones", furs, food, and even Indian copper they sent to them. He took it away, and then vigorously promoted several industrial products in Manhattan: wooden wheelbarrows, wooden two-wheeled flat carts, hunting knives, pig iron arrowheads, shovels, and special smoked sausages.

For the Indians who have not mastered wheel tools after thousands of years of civilization development, wooden wheelbarrows and two-wheel flat carts are the most popular.Indians in South America are better off, with domesticated livestock such as alpacas, while Indians in North America, whose main mode of social production is fishing and hunting, rely more solely on manpower for any of their weight-bearing migrations.

With these things, it will be more exciting and convenient for Indians to come to trade in the future. I believe that it will not be long before more Indians will push these wheeled vehicles to bring a larger amount of ore and copper.

Li Xiang had to lament the unluckyness of the Manhattan community.Except for a very small amount of coal and iron ore, many important raw materials for industrial development are lacking here. In addition to the extremely developed agricultural resources in New York State in history, the mining industry has always been a shortcoming.However, the limited reserves of minerals with good reserves are far away in the northern part of New York State. With the current strength of the Manhattan community, don't think about it in a short time.

However, Lin Youde, the chief engineer of the Brooklyn Industrial Zone, made a good suggestion for the committee, which is to collect a large number of copperware and other ores from North American Indians.In particular, the closer to the North American Great Lakes region in the northwest, the easier it is to obtain various surface minerals from those Indians, and the North American Indians, who have a 6000-year history of making copper with natural copper, must have accumulated a considerable amount of natural copper resources.

Through the most competitive industrial transactions of this era, the influence of the Manhattan community on the banks of the Hudson River and the upper and middle reaches will be greatly increased, and the wooden human transportation vehicles sold will accelerate these influences. way to spread farther afield.

"I believe that within a few months, Indians from the Great Lakes region will come to trade, right?" This is Li Xiang's optimistic estimate at a routine trade report meeting after the New Year.And the current situation is obviously more optimistic than he expected.

Because today, a group of Indians from the Northwest arrived.A large number of high-quality ores and copperware carried gradually filled the warehouse of the trading station, and all the business representatives in charge of the transaction were full of energy.

Now, standing next to Li Xiang is Na Da, a newlywed daughter-in-law who has just turned 16 and is wearing a beautiful spring mid-length coat.It is said that the name is a beautiful seabird feather in the Indian Delaware language.

After Li Xiang's training and the care of several modern "crazy women" in the community, as long as Nada doesn't speak, it may not be easy for many people to distinguish Nada, who was an Indian girl a few months ago.

"Li Xiang... Husband... Husband... There are a lot of people today." The little Indian girl with a Chinese husband and tutor obviously has better conditions for learning Chinese than her peers in the school in the Brooklyn industrial area.

Seeing the lively trading scene in front of him, Li wanted to know that his efforts were not in vain, and wanted to stand up with a more heroic posture, but because he was on the tallest wooden building in the trading station, the young wife next to him was holding him tightly. He had to lower his body to protect the opponent as much as possible.

"Is your husband good?"

From his young daughter-in-law, Li Xiang found a sense of self-superiority that he never had before.In the previous society, it was almost a fantasy for a small tour guide like Li Xiang to get ahead. No woman would throw herself into the arms of a poor boy.

But now in this time and space, this little Indian girl who secretly winked at her from the very beginning made Li Xiang germinate the plan of "not staying here, but having a place to stay".

Under the intentional mode of the female lover, Li Xiang settled the Indian girl who had just begun to love within a few months, and then the leader who had a great voice in the tribe, after getting a few "special cigarettes", he became a Li Xiang's cheap old man.

The excitement of the pre-Chinese New Year wedding was an eye-opener for any Manhattan resident who thought he had attended a big wedding.Almost all the leaders of the village and even other famous villages around came to the wedding of this couple. Li Xiang, who was wrapped in various feathers and animal skins, looked very painful.

When Li Xiang's thoughts were in a mess, suddenly there was a fierce shout from a certain trading area in the distance. It seemed that two waves of Indians were fighting for something.

An Indian warrior in a turret blew a sharp whistle, and then saw a group of Drava archers surrounding them...