Thanks to classmates Yunhai Shuyoushi Tongzhou and Mengshixihua for the reward!
The fleet sailed on the Guaiba River for half a day and arrived at its destination, Passowindu, in the afternoon.
A group of Chinese who had received the news in advance gathered on the river bank. As soon as Li Mingyuan came ashore, a Chinese in his thirties first came up to him.
"Zhao Yan, who holds a humble position, has met the crown prince."
"I haven't seen you in two months. Mr. Zhao has a lot of tan." Li Mingyuan smiled and helped Zhao Yan up.
After Sun Bin went to Prussia as ambassador, most of the specific work of resettling retired soldiers was transferred to Zhao Yan.
"The prince has entrusted the important matter of the placement of retired brothers to his humble position, and I dare not slack off."
Zhao Yan said respectfully.
"My brothers have followed me through life and death, and they have finally settled down. We must arrange for them properly. If there is insufficient food, medicine, and building materials, report it directly to me and I will dispatch supplies from Porto Alegre."
"Two days ago, Chief of Staff Liu transported part of the food delivered by the Brazilians to Passo Fondu, and the food gap has been temporarily solved.
In terms of house construction, Pasudu Feng has a mild climate and abundant rainfall. Various tall trees grow in the nearby areas. Wood for building houses is easy to obtain. It took two months for the humble post to arrive in Pasu Fengdu, and the retired soldiers who arrived earlier were arranged to cut down the trees.
The wasteland was leveled, and fifty wooden houses of various sizes and three hundred simple wooden sheds were built, which can accommodate two thousand people to live together."
Passo Fundo is one of the key construction areas and is planned to be built into the fourth county-level administrative unit in Rio Grande do Sul next year. Therefore, more retired soldiers are transported here than other places.
Zhao Yan first gave a general introduction to the early stage of construction in Pasu Fengdu, and then changed the topic and raised the difficulties faced in the resettlement work. "The construction work of Pasu Fengdu started in early September. In the middle, due to the war with the Brazilians,
, half of the retired soldiers were transferred to the front line to assist in combat operations.
Manpower reduction, felling trees, and lack of manpower to build houses, the menial jobs had to reduce the number of people who reclaimed the wasteland, and concentrated most of the efforts to ensure that the house construction work was completed before December. Therefore, most of the wasteland was not developed, and the planting time of crops was also delayed.
, it won’t be until next spring that Passu Fengdu will be self-sufficient.”
"The Second Brazilian War was an emergency, because the reduction in crop planting area caused by the war is not your fault."
Li Mingyuan nodded and continued, "You don't have to worry about the food problem. Liu Pu has already started to purchase food from outside. The food supply in the Pasu Fengdu area will not last until next spring."
The two continued to talk for a while, and then walked into the Chinese settlement.
The settlement of retired soldiers in Pasu Fendou is built on a small plain. In the front is a continuous forest that is planned to be reclaimed as fields, in the rear is a hill, and on the left and right are small rivers that run through the Guayba River.
The water volume of the creek is too small and only small flat-bottomed sand boats can pass through, so the fleet is anchored at the entrance of the creek. The supplies on board are carried by soldiers to small boats, and then transported by small boats to the small river, where they are temporarily stored in a makeshift building by the river.
base.
In the settlement site, wooden houses and wooden sheds were lined up on both sides of the newly repaired road. More than a hundred retired soldiers who had lost their labor force lined up in two rows to welcome Li Mingyuan. Li Mingyuan cordially greeted these disabled soldiers and asked about their living conditions.
, Li Mingyuan was very pleased when he heard that each of them had been allocated more than 300 acres of land, houses, and farm tools.
Disabilities are properly arranged, and soldiers will not have any worries when fighting. Disabled veterans distributed in various settlements serve as grassroots leaders and can play a role in stabilizing rule. Therefore, Li Mingyuan has never regarded disabled soldiers as
Abandon the burdens that weigh down the troops.
After talking to more than a dozen disabled veterans, Li Mingyuan saw an acquaintance, Zhao Youde, a survivor of the Ming Dynasty whom he met in Peru. Zhao Youde was in his forties. His long and hard work made him look like an old man in his sixties or seventies.
His quality gradually deteriorated due to injuries sustained in his early years. Therefore, Zhao Youde was placed with Sun Bin and more than a hundred disabled veterans, so that he did not have to engage in high-intensity labor such as felling trees.
"After coming here from Peru, is Mr. Zhao still used to it?" Li Mingyuan chatted with Zhao Youde in a family-like manner.
"Your Majesty Lao is thinking about me. I am very satisfied with the life here. Mr. Zhao also takes good care of me. When I was in Peru, I never thought that a person who is about to be buried can still live a life of land and land."
"The Chinese Independence Army has just ended the war. They have to be busy doing a lot of things in the early days. After a while, they can completely calm down. Then the life will be better. Mr. Zhao should pay more attention to his health. The good days are yet to come."
"I'm old and no longer useful." Zhao Youde smiled and waved his hand, "I thought I could do some small things for the prince like I did when I was young, but when I was crossing the Bolivian plateau, I encountered a blizzard. A migration team of more than 100 people
More than half of people die from cold and illness, but this little old man barely managed to survive, but his health is getting worse and worse."
After Zhao Youde finished speaking, he felt that it was unlucky to say such words in front of Li Mingyuan, and added, "Although my body is not as good as it was back then, it won't be a problem to hold on for a few years."
During the long-distance migration, the dead Chinese could not be taken away and could only be buried in the jungles and mountains on the way. After the success, it would be too unfair for them to let those dead soldiers remain unknown.
"Liu Pu, count the brothers who died during the expedition, as well as the soldiers who died in previous battles, record their names and specific circumstances, and after a while build a hall specifically to commemorate the fallen soldiers."
"I understand," Liu Pu wrote down carefully.
"And when we send people to the mainland next year to absorb immigrants, we should inquire more about the situation and see if we can find the family members and orphans left behind by the brothers who died in the war. Brothers died in battle and their bones are buried in the wilderness. We can no longer leave their families without care."
There are more than 100,000 Chinese in Rio Grande do Sul, of which less than 10,000 are remnants of the Taiping Army. The rest are all ordinary Chinese workers who have been trafficked or deceived into the Americas. Most of them have relatives in the mainland.
The arrival of the relatives of the Chinese workers in Rio Grande do Sul was not only a responsibility to them, but also a way for ordinary Chinese soldiers to feel at ease.
Chinese workers in South America mainly come from coastal areas, with Guangdong, Guangxi and southern Fujian being the main distribution areas.
Guangdong and Guangxi are the areas set for obtaining immigrants next year. While obtaining immigrants from there, you can also inquire about the relatives of Chinese workers. Although the circumstances of some of the families of the sacrificed Chinese workers are not specific and it is difficult to contact their families, considering the big picture, Liu Pu still agrees with Li Mingyuan.
idea.
"Your Majesty has a kind heart. Those Chinese brothers who sacrificed their lives know the secrets and will definitely be grateful to His Majesty for his great kindness!"
Zhao Youde has long been integrated into the large group of the Chinese Independence Army and has deep feelings for the Chinese workers along the way.
"This is what I should do." Li Mingyuan said softly.
After discussing the issue of how to deal with the sacrificed Chinese soldiers, the conversation became relaxed again.
"Thanks to the gift of the crown prince, Erlang of Xiaolao'er's family married his daughter-in-law three months ago. Six days ago, Erlang took his daughter-in-law to the doctor in the army to see a doctor. He learned from the doctor that his daughter-in-law was just two and a half months pregnant.
By next summer, we can have a new baby in the family."
"Congratulations to Mr. Zhao. I met Erlang once. He is a very energetic young man. I didn't expect to become a father so soon."
"It's getting late. After the Chinese New Year, Erlang will be nineteen years old. If his family hadn't been poor, I would have thought of marrying him a wife."
Zhao Youde was smiling all over his face, but he did not notice that Li Mingyuan was only 17 years old during the Chinese New Year. Instead, like other Chinese generals, he habitually treated him as a leader and ignored his true age.
After Zhao Youde was happy, he continued, "I didn't have any land before, so I always dreamed of having a piece of land of my own. When I settled here, I was assigned a large piece of land but couldn't plant it. I could only use it as pasture to raise five alpacas and more than ten alpacas."
of pheasant.”
"How much land will Mr. Zhao's family receive?"
"The army was granted 400 acres of land according to my work of collecting alpacas in Peru. Erlang was also granted 400 acres of land when he was a soldier in the army and was rewarded for his meritorious service. A total of 800 acres of land was only used by the old man, his son, and his daughter-in-law.
Well, now that my daughter-in-law is pregnant, she cannot do the hard work of clearing the land. Erlang and I have worked hard for more than ten days to clear the land, and have leveled 200 acres of land. There are still 600 acres of land left uncultivated and we have no time to take care of."
"The retired soldiers in the Rio Grande do Sul region are all old brothers who followed me in the uprising. The land acquired cannot be hidden. Three hundred acres of land per person seems too much now. After ten or twenty years, the land will be divided.
The soldiers who came to the land married a wife and gave birth to five or six children. Even if each child was divided, there would not be much land left."
Having many children and bringing happiness is a tradition recognized by ordinary Chinese. Three hundred acres of land may seem like a lot. However, according to the fertility wishes of the Chinese during peacetime, after two generations, the land of three hundred acres per household will be reduced to dozens of acres per household.
Zhao Youde obviously didn't think about what would happen decades later. Hearing what Li Mingyuan said, he immediately became worried, "If Erlang's wife gives birth to five sons, each son will have five sons, and 800 pieces of land will be divided into the hands of twenty-five great-grandchildren.
One person has less than forty acres of land."
Zhao Youde finished the calculation and was shocked by the result: "Eight hundred acres of land is not enough. We need to talk to Erlang and let him make more contributions in the army and earn some land back."
Li Mingyuan said that considering the situation of the Chinese in the early decades after the founding of South America, with economic development and ordinary Chinese getting used to a stable life, the biological level will drop to a normal level.
Zhao Youde's own calculations were also wrong. Even if his daughter-in-law gave birth to five children, it would be difficult to guarantee that they would all be boys, let alone the next generation.
Li Mingyuan explained, telling him not to worry so much, and then gave him an idea.
If you can't finish growing 800 acres of land, you can choose more than 30 acres to plant crops. The other land can be used to plant precious woods such as quail and sanduo, or be used as pasture to raise alpacas, cattle, sheep, etc.
Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina are Brazil's livestock industry bases. The local dense forests and high-quality pastures are suitable for cattle and sheep to survive.
However, because the three southern states of Brazil are geographically closer to Argentina, the economy has not developed well.
The agricultural and industrial development plans of the two states are huge and complex. Li Mingyuan has ordered Sun Bin to invite relevant experts from Prussia to Rio Grande do Sul. When they come back with industrial equipment and experts, the large-scale construction of Rio Grande do Sul will be formalized.
