Nanyang Storm 1864

Chapter 105 The Magical Cinchona Tree

Zheng Guohui is a general who has fought his way out of a sea of ​​blood and corpses, and the soldiers under his command are elite and brave, and it is almost impossible to deal with them easily.

No matter how ferocious a man is, he has to bow down and become a docile little dog in front of the king's tyranny.

Zhang Dalei was like this now, respectfully bending his bear-like waist, leading General Zheng Guohui and the accompanying military and political officials into the plantation, introducing them as they walked inside.
"General,

I and my brothers are all from farming backgrounds, and we are very good at taking care of these flowers, plants and seedlings. The transplanted seedlings have been resting for more than two months, and are now growing well.

Look this way

These are all seedlings under 5 years old. We were very careful when digging them. We kept the hoe far away and it took three or five strokes to dig up one, and the roots were basically not damaged.

There are a total of 3265 seedlings in this field, and more than % of them survived and are now blooming and producing seeds, which are these small white flowers.

Look, there are these green seeds. They will mature in about two months.

When mature, the seeds are as big as a little finger. They are small orange-red seeds that can be planted right after being collected.

General, this island is truly a treasure.

The climate is similar throughout the year. You can wear a thin shirt all year round and cover yourself with a thin blanket when sleeping. It doesn’t matter if you don’t cover yourself with a blanket.

The rain feels similar to Chongming Island. It's not too flooded during the rainy season, and it rains every 10 days or half a month during the dry season, which is great for crops.

No matter what seedlings are planted, the tips of the seedlings will grow rapidly after the rain, which makes people happy to see.

My subordinates and I sit in the fields when we have nothing to do, and these seedlings are growing differently every day..."

Zheng Guohui only then realized that this rough man was actually a chatterbox. Once he opened his mouth, he kept chattering and couldn't stop.

Zhang Dalei led the way to the front of the field, talking as he walked.

Zheng Guohui suppressed a smile and waved his hand, asking Qian Jiang not to scold this person. He walked along with his hands behind his back with great interest, carefully admiring the legendary cinchona tree.

Cinchona trees under 5 years old are all seedlings, about as tall as a person's waist, with emerald green leaves spread out and clusters of small white flowers.

Green fruits can be seen in some seedlings. They are only the size of soybeans now. After more than two months, they will turn orange-red when they mature and grow to the size of fingers. These are the precious cinchona seeds.

Looking ahead, there is a large area of ​​these seedlings.

In fact, the bark of this kind of seedling cannot be harvested. Firstly, it is not old enough, and secondly, it is easy for the seedling to wither and die, which would be a pity.

If these seeds were collected now and planted again, there would be hundreds of thousands or even more seeds.

Artificially planted and carefully cultivated.

In any case, the survival rate is much higher than that of wild cinchona trees, and the planting scale can be expanded much faster.

Not long ahead
We came to the area where 6 to 30-year-old cinchona trees were transplanted. These cinchona trees were much taller. The tallest one was one and a half people tall, and the trunk was as thick as an egg.

The roots of this tree are not deep, but there are many branches on both sides, which makes it look a bit like an upside-down bowl. It only takes a dozen hoes to dig up a tree.

There are far fewer cinchona trees in this forest. According to Zhang Dalei, there are only 417 of them, and less than of them can be harvested for bark. It is best to wait a few years before harvesting them to ensure their medicinal effects.

Finally, we arrived at a place not far from the officers and soldiers' accommodation. There are 13 cinchona trees here. The youngest one is more than 30 years old, and the largest one is definitely more than 60 years old.

The trunk of this largest cinchona tree is as thick as a large plate, with obvious mottled marks of bark removal, carefully wrapped with oil paper and thin hemp rope. There are also traces of the soil being turned and leveled under the roots.

This tree might be a mother tree from a British plantation. Only British plantations have such ancient trees that are over 60 years old or even over a hundred years old. You can't see them anywhere else.

The British cinchona plantation near Batavia has the longest history. Until now, it still belongs to the family business of a great British nobleman and generates astonishing profits every year.

The effective drugs it produces for treating malaria are provided to world powers such as Britain and France for use in global colonization, and the scale of this is far beyond the reach of the current small-scale operations.

Those who have been lucky enough to visit say

There are towering ancient trees everywhere, many of which are seventy, eighty, or even over a hundred years old. The tallest trees are at least twenty or thirty meters tall. You can imagine how powerful the medicinal effect is if you scrape off the bark.

There is no need to envy others. The English have a colonial history of more than 300 years since the Age of Discovery, and their cultural heritage is truly amazing.

According to Zhang Dalei's introduction
Caring for a tree is similar to caring for a person. After taking the bark, it is equivalent to being injured. You have to apply a mixture of fermented bean liquid and manure on it, wrap it up and let the tree heal.

Every twenty days or a month, bury some manure mixed with bean dregs under the roots of the tree. It is easy to absorb and nutritious, and you can provide the tree with delicious food and drink.

In addition, the weather on this island is really great. The temperature will not drop below 20 degrees, and will not exceed 33 degrees. There is plenty of sunshine and heavy rain, so recovery is really fast.

These 13 cinchona trees are now the main source of bark. Together with the more than 200 kilograms of bark obtained by plundering the stocks of white plantation owners, they can basically meet the needs of treating malaria and other diseases on the island.

I’m afraid that a major epidemic will break out and clear out the inventory in an instant.

According to the accompanying officials
So far, the bark has only been harvested once from this plantation, and the plan is to harvest it again in August next year.

During this time of collecting bark, Zhang Dalei and his brothers had a fierce quarrel with the officials who came to collect the bark. They almost drew their knives. It was an outrageous quarrel.

They argued over what could be cut and what couldn't, and when they disagreed, they started arguing. When Zhang Dalei talked about cutting the bark, his expression was as if it were cutting his flesh, and his face twitched constantly.

Zheng Guohui couldn't help laughing, shaking his head and criticizing;
"Everything grows for a reason. The special effects of the cinchona tree can save lives. Isn't that its value?
Even if you destroy a tree, it's worth it if you can save one person.

All those who come to this island are Chinese Han men, who share the same blood and spirit. In this barbaric land, we must unite and face the outside world together.

The officials came to collect the bark, not to take it home to stew old hens, but to use it to save people.

If you do this again next time, you will be severely punished.

Your task is ordinary yet important. As long as you maintain and preserve this cinchona plantation well, it will be a great achievement and can save countless lives at a critical moment.

It has been of great help to this general in leading his people to Southeast Asia and vigorously expanding the living space of the Chinese nation and pursuing hegemony.

Every detail needs to be understood carefully.

Don't act so petty, wouldn't that make women laugh at you? "

Zhang Dalei's forehead was covered with sweat after hearing the general's instructions. He nodded repeatedly with a guilty conscience and bowed deeply respectfully again.

He said, "General, I know I was wrong. I will never do it again, or you will chop off my head."

"Okay, keep it for yourself." Zheng Guohui waved his hand in disdain and continued walking forward with his hands behind his back.

Zhang Dalei followed behind with a sheepish look on his face, one step behind his immediate superior Qian Jiang. He did have a sharp eye.

The accompanying military and political officials could see that the general was very fond of this rough man with a leopard head and round eyes, and they did not hesitate to say a lot of words to give him advice.

This is the measure of "what is big and what is small". If you don't have this idea in mind, I guess your career as a captain will end there.

Being able to receive personal guidance from the general, several astute military and political officials were prepared to build a closer relationship with Zhang Dalei afterwards, so that they could enlighten him if they couldn't see through him.

If this person becomes successful one day, it would be a bit of a favor to him.

These are just chess pieces placed randomly, it doesn't take much effort anyway.

This cinchona plantation hidden in the valley covers a large area. It not only grows one type of tree, but also transplants many fruit trees, dozens of species.

Regulations of the Chinese colonial government
When organizing land reclamation, fruit trees must not be destroyed. Otherwise, certain economic penalties will be imposed, usually a fine of silver, starting from three taels of silver per fruit tree.

Some old wild fruit trees, such as those with trunks thicker than waists, can be fined up to 10 taels of silver.

This regulation was also the order Zheng Guohui issued quickly after receiving the secret letter from Li Hezhang, "regardless of the number, all will be transported north together." He was overjoyed and immediately issued the order.

If it weren’t for these eight words, Li Hezhang, I really wouldn’t have remembered this.

There are so many fruit trees on Mindanao Island that they can be seen everywhere, whether in the plains or the mountains. Even when the ripe fruits fall to the ground, no one picks them up.

The local natives are tired of eating them and would rather eat grains than these fruits.

Why?

Fruits don't satisfy your hunger. You can eat a little every now and then, but if you eat them as a meal every day, you will feel nauseous and will be resistant to them.

This is just like the seafood at the seaside. In this era, Boston lobsters are all eaten by prisoners, making the prisoners suffer a fate worse than death. When they are forced into a corner, they directly start a prison riot, resulting in more than a dozen deaths and injuries.

This is not false at all, it is a completely true event.

People nowadays have no oil or water in their stomachs, so eating fruits and seafood as meals is a very painful thing.

There’s never enough food to eat every day, and these things won’t work.

Therefore, Zheng Guohui did not pay attention to it at the beginning. He just added fruits to the convicts' diet. As long as there was a way to reduce food consumption, it would definitely be used on the convicts first.

Later, after receiving a letter from Li Hezhang, he immediately realized the huge financial prospects and quickly issued a decree to protect fruit tree resources and carry out organized transplantation.

In this way, many fruit trees were transplanted to this valley plantation.

Other fruit trees are transplanted to nearby plantations according to the "proximity principle". The fruit tree yield can always be guaranteed without affecting land reclamation.

Mindanao is truly a magical place. Fruit trees and seedlings can be transplanted anytime and anywhere throughout the year without considering factors such as seasons, temperature, and rainfall, and the transplant survival rate is particularly high.

This is just like the cinchona tree, which lives a very miserable life in its original homeland of Central America and is an extremely rare tree species. Otherwise, its magical functions would not have been discovered until now.

After being transplanted to Java Island, it grew very well, with a high survival rate, and grew tall, strong and lush. It was simply a godsend.

This shows that this place is particularly suitable for the growth of cinchona trees. It's like a turtle and a mung bean, and they fall in love with each other.

The British have colonies all over the world, but only Java Island has preserved unique cinchona plantations. It is the only place in the world with this kind of plantation. This is the reason.

Today's monopoly of the British and the Dutch has been quietly broken.

(End of this chapter)