Nanyang Storm 1864

Chapter 101 Lingshui County

Seeing all these changes, Zheng Guohui's mood became very good. Along the way, he chatted and laughed with the accompanying Governor Zheng Shouxin, Davao Prefect Zheng Shouzhong, Garrison Qianjiang and other military and political officials. The atmosphere was relaxed and casual.

Zheng Guohui saw that the mining town was well built and had great potential for development, so he said;
“It’s a good thing that the number of immigrants is increasing and some villages and towns are developing very well.

Go back and research how many other mining towns there are?

The hard indicators are that the population must exceed 2,000, there must be considerable development potential in the future, water and road transportation must be convenient, and the layout must be reasonable.

For example, villages and towns that produce coal, copper, and iron ore resources, and areas where new iron and steel plants are planned, can all be taken into consideration.

For example, this mining town has a population of over 3,000 (note: only Chinese immigrants, not their indigenous spouses), which has met the standards for upgrading.

It can be upgraded to a county seat in the future. Davao Province is so big that it cannot have only one city.

Other towns and villages that meet the standards can also be upgraded to county seats. The specific details are up to you, but the population must exceed 3,000, and the construction standards for towns must be followed."

"Reporting to the general, I and my subordinates do have this idea. The Governor's Office has preliminarily selected seven villages and towns with relatively good development, two in Zamboanga Province and five in Davao Province. We plan to report to the general." Zheng Shouxin stepped forward and explained in a gentle voice.

Zheng Guohui smiled and said, "It seems like great minds think alike. You guys can come up with the specific plan. After careful discussion and listening to opinions from all sides, we'll present it to you."

"This gives me peace of mind. I know what to do from now on."

"No need to be modest, look..." Zheng Guohui pointed to the wide and flat road ahead, the fields with rolling wheat waves, and the farmers working hard in the fields.

Said with great pride;
"Whether policies are implemented well and whether officials are diligent in their governance will ultimately be determined by facts.

Good people can't be bad, and bad people won't say hello to you.

There are many things to consider in advance.

Now that a smooth road has been built, roads to villages and towns also need to be built, so that at least two carriages can run side by side and the grain output can be transported smoothly.

We cannot leave all these roads to the convicts to build. We can introduce some preferential policies to reduce or exempt wages and mobilize Chinese immigrants to build the roads themselves during the slack season.

After one or two years of hard work, the roads in cities and villages will be smooth, which will benefit future generations.

No one wants the road to be bumpy and difficult to travel on, with feet covered in mud on rainy days and covered in dust on sunny days. That is not acceptable.

Pastoral officials pay attention to the right balance, and want every Chinese immigrant to feel that there is a future, that they have enough to eat and wear, and that they don't feel pressured to have more children in the future.

To do this

If you just deduct money from the land you were allocated, you definitely won’t get much silver.

Chinese immigrants should be encouraged to develop agricultural and sideline businesses. The fruits from the fruit trees in the yards in front of and behind their houses can be sold to the town or city, or taken to the farmers' market for trading.

It's not much money, so no tax is required.

You can also raise chickens, ducks and other livestock. As long as they are not sold at the market, poultry such as chickens and ducks will not be taxed. Giving immigrants more meat in their bowls can be considered a benevolent policy.

Of course, if it is sold at a farmers' market, it will still be taxed, and this is not a contradiction.

The middle point is a matter of finding the right degree, which needs to be carefully experienced.

The same principle applies to fishing, hunting, etc.

Only when these Chinese immigrants live a good life will they support the southern expedition army wholeheartedly. We have completely taken root and gained a firm foothold in Mindanao.

Only then can we look north to Luzon and the Cebu Islands, accumulate enough strength to march north and establish our kingdom in one fell swoop."

These words filled the military and political officials with admiration, and they all praised him, saying, "General, you are a benevolent and righteous man who loves the people like his own children. We, the tens of thousands of Chinese immigrants, are so lucky to have you. We will repay you with our unwavering loyalty."

"That's too much. Let's go ahead and take a look." Zheng Guohui waved his hand nonchalantly and took the lead to walk towards the wooden fence camp on the outskirts of the town.

On the other side of the wooden fence camp is a thriving mining town. Various businesses are springing up like mushrooms after a rain, including breakfast shops, tea stalls, restaurants, clinics, blacksmith shops, etc., presenting a prosperous situation of all industries.

On the other side of the wooden fence camp was a mining convict camp with as many as six to seven thousand people. Rows of straw huts were where these indigenous convicts lived.

Apart from the toilets that were equipped with military camp standards, everything else was very simple. Many people were dressed in rags. The only thing that was consistent was that every convict carried a bamboo tube on his back.

In the mine, shouts were heard saying, "Get out of the way...there's going to be an explosion."

Then there was a muffled "boom" sound, and the soil and rocks on the mountain were cracked by the explosion, and stones of all sizes fell down.

When the dust and smoke cleared, dense crowds of convicts came forward, cleared out the stones of all sizes, and piled them aside according to categories.

Fingernail-sized stones were melon seed-sized pieces, considered fine gravel. Anything larger was crushed stone. Crushed stones larger than a head required convicts to use iron chisels to repair them, turning them into paving stones suitable for courtyards. Larger stones were treated similarly, but split into larger slabs for export and higher-end architectural uses.

On the riverside of the labor camp, there is a whole row of tall windmills. The shafts are driven by water, driving several grinding wheels as big as millstones to rotate continuously.

Some high-end stones that need to be exported are trimmed to size and then ground on these grinding wheels. There are two types of grinding: coarse grinding and fine grinding. This is a very physically demanding and hard work.

After one side of the stone is polished, it will have extremely high smoothness and beautiful natural patterns, and it can naturally be sold at a good price.

After these best stones are produced, they are stacked layer by layer on the river bank, waiting for cargo ships to transport them.

This one mining labor camp alone can produce thousands of tons of various stone materials every day, including stone powder, melon seed slices, crushed stone, road bricks and stone slabs, as well as high-end stone specifically for export.

So by the river
A new wooden trestle was built, and rails were laid on it for the operation of flatbed trucks carrying cargo.

On the trestle
There are also two cranes. This type of crane is very simple, with an 800-kilogram counterweight at one end, which is made of a whole piece of stone and firmly tied to one end of the crane.

The other end can lift the cargo on the flatbed truck, and all of it is dragged by manpower. Sometimes the weight of one or two people is added to achieve a rough balance.

Although it is so primitive, it can greatly save labor and speed up the loading and unloading of cargo ships.

Two Fujian ships with a capacity of more than 1,000 dan could be filled with cargo in one day, but this required the use of sixty or seventy convicts, who had to pull and drag, and even climb up to provide additional weight when necessary, which was not easy.

Every few days here
Every year, a cargo ship loaded with kelp and seaweed arrived. This was the ship that all the convicts feared and hated the most, but they had to accept it because they had no choice.

Zheng Guohui led a group of officials into the labor camp. After an inspection, he left without saying much.

He mainly looks at the sanitary conditions, as required;
Even in the labor camps, strict hygiene control measures must be implemented. Urine and feces must be discharged in centralized locations, which must be disinfected with lime and free of mosquitoes and flies. Feces and urine must not be left in the open anywhere.

As long as you do this, everything else is trivial.

It was precisely because of the strict health control measures that no large-scale tropical plague broke out in either the labor camps or the immigration camps. Even if someone occasionally contracted the disease, they were quickly isolated and treated.

It turns out
As long as the measures are in place, developing and colonizing tropical regions is not a terrible or even suicidal thing.

In tropical regions

It is not possible to eliminate all mosquito and fly bites that spread the disease, but measures can be taken to greatly reduce it and control the scope of the harm.

For example, in areas where humans gather, health regulations require the leveling of stagnant ponds and foul-smelling ditches, the removal of stagnant water in depressions, strict control of the hygiene of toilets and other places, and the elimination of places where mosquitoes and flies breed.

on the basis of

Different burning activities will be organized, which is also an important measure to greatly reduce the breeding of mosquitoes and flies and prevent the spread of mosquitoes.

In villages where there are many cattle and sheep, the livestock are regularly taken for medicinal baths, which can effectively prevent and treat external parasites and skin diseases of the livestock.

"Medicinal bath" can not only disinfect various parasites attached to the hair of livestock and control skin scabies, but also kill mosquitoes, flies and insect eggs to ensure the health of livestock.

This is just like what Zheng Guohui has repeatedly emphasized: "We must pay attention to details, eliminate blind spots in hygiene, and continue this work over the long term to build a general consensus among the public."

Only when you are healthy can you have the energy to develop the economy.

After returning to the mining town
After a short rest, Zheng Guohui called everyone to a meeting to discuss, especially what kind of support should be given to key developing villages and towns such as mining towns?
Everyone spoke enthusiastically at the meeting and put forward many useful suggestions.

For example, setting up a police station, a tax office, an industrial and commercial office, a post office, a branch of the Nanyang Money House, a farmers' market, etc., and increasing authority accordingly can allow some tax revenue to be used for urban construction.

Some people advocate support from above, such as setting up garment factories, shipyards, coking plants, etc., to further expand the city's agglomeration effect and create more jobs.

Continuing north from the mining town is a vast tropical forest with extremely rich timber resources. However, only a few sawmills could not use much timber, so shipbuilding was put on the agenda.

Large logs felled from the mountains are made into rafts and floated down the river to the mining town. They are then pulled ashore and dried in the shade for two or three years before being used as shipbuilding materials.

Zheng Guohui of course adopted all these good methods that were adapted to local conditions and recorded them all.

It is possible to fell large trees in the mountains, but experienced shipbuilding craftsmen still have to go to the Chinese mainland to find them. You can also post a notice to invite experienced shipbuilding masters from all over Southeast Asia to come.

The ships built were, of course, mainly large Western sailing ships.

The reason is that Fujian ships are more suitable for rivers, lakes and reservoirs with smaller winds and waves. In the rough waves along the coast, the control ability of the ship will quickly decline, thereby increasing the risk of capsizing.

Mindanao Island is located among the South Pacific archipelagoes, with the vast Western Pacific Ocean just outside its door. It was built mainly on Western sailing ships, which can better adapt to the sea conditions here and have a larger loading capacity.

At the end of the meeting, Zheng Guohui personally named the mining town "Lingshui County", which will also become the first county town under the jurisdiction of Davao Province.

(End of this chapter)