The operation of transporting Chinese workers lasted for more than two months. During this period, Li Mingyuan took out a large amount of seized silver coins and part of the gold in stock, and hired merchant ships to transport them at a price 1.5 times higher than the market price. The British, Dutch, Belgian, and even
The Spanish merchant ships that were fighting the rebellion welcomed all comers. As long as the tonnage of the ships was higher than 500 tons, Li Mingyuan paid to hire them.
Transporting Chinese workers seems to be very profitable, but in fact, the profit for a trip from the Caribbean to Rio Grande do Sul is more than 200%, and Rio Grande do Sul pays the cost of hiring merchant ships at 1.5 times the market price.
The profit margins of each country's fleet will only be higher.
After the first industrial revolution, the navigation industry became the most profitable industry. From the early triangular trade in Africa to the later plundering of colonial mineral resources, European merchant ships that went out to sea often had to make a round trip successfully.
Times or even ten times.
In the 19th century, in order to stabilize the colonial order and obtain more benefits from the colonies, Britain announced a ban on the slave trade. Later, France, the United States, the Netherlands and other countries successively abolished the slavery system.
North and South America and the Caribbean are rich in resources and sparsely populated. Without the slave trade, mines and plantations will not have sufficient labor. In this case, the American countries after independence found an alternative method to use indentured labor.
This method deceived Chinese people to go overseas and serve as the new main force of labor.
Nearly 100,000 Chinese workers go to sea every year to promote maritime trade between South America and the mainland. Hundreds of coolie ships full of Chinese sail across the Pacific, Indian Ocean, and Atlantic Ocean, transporting Chinese workers defrauded from the mainland to every corner of the world.
There are overseas Chinese wherever the sea passes. Chinese wandering around the world is a passive and helpless choice. During the navigation process, a coolie ship often carries three to four hundred Chinese workers. They are crowded in the lower deck of the coolie ship, everyone is shoulder to shoulder.
A place to lie down and rest.
The space was small and the living environment was harsh. Many Chinese workers died on the ship during the journey and were then thrown into the sea and became food for fish.
The Chinese workers in Cuba who were able to survive had experienced unimaginable suffering and hardship, and on the way back to Rio Grande do Sul, Li Mingyuan did not want them to suffer the torture they suffered when they went to sea again.
Hiring merchant ships at a price higher than the market price, Li Mingyuan also required that each merchant ship should not carry more than the standard number of Chinese workers, and ensure that the Chinese workers on the ship had a place to rest.
The operation of transporting Chinese workers must be completed in as little time as possible. It is impossible to provide a very good environment on board for the Chinese workers. However, the rest area for one person, the diet and physical health of the Chinese workers on the ship must be basically guaranteed.
When he was in Rio Grande do Sul, Li Mingyuan had always been concerned about the transportation of Chinese workers.
After the first batch of large-scale transport fleets returned with 25,000 Chinese laborers, in order to improve transportation efficiency, the ships hired from various countries no longer acted in a unified manner as a large fleet, but were organized into a small fleet of more than a dozen large and medium-sized ships.
fleet, once enough Chinese workers are on board, the small fleet will set off immediately. The large-scale pirate forces entrenched in the Caribbean were wiped out by Chen Sen and others. Small-scale pirates pose no threat to the transport fleet carrying weapons. The scattered
Small transport fleets sailing in Caribbean waters need not worry.
A large amount of money was spent in exchange for the safe arrival of most Chinese Chinese workers in Cuba to Rio Grande do Sul. A small number of Chinese workers stranded on the island of Cuba were also gathered in more than ten temporary settlement sites and will leave the island of Cuba within the next month.
Most of the Brazilian soldiers were released, and the construction work they had previously done was handed over to the Chinese workers who had arrived earlier.
In the Xinjing (Porto Alegre) area, Chinese-style wooden houses are neatly arranged outside the old city. Outside the wooden houses, a new city wall more than two meters high surrounds the old city and wooden houses.
Xinjing is the administrative and military center of Rio Grande do Sul. The city built by the Brazilians was small and could not accommodate the garrison and retired soldiers gathered near Xinjing. Therefore, the new city expansion work was started soon after the arrival of Prussian experts.
The new city covers an area of about seven square kilometers and is mainly planned to be divided into four areas: residential areas for ordinary people, military garrison areas, government troop garrison areas, and light factory and commercial blocks. As for the request of his generals to build a palace, Li Mingyuan did not agree.
Facility construction, industrial development, transportation of Chinese workers... There are many places where a lot of money needs to be invested in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China. At this time, the gain of building a palace outweighs the loss.
After rejecting the proposal to build a royal palace, Li Mingyuan continued to live in the castle left by the Brazilians. Liu Pu, Sun Bin and others placed their residences near the castle to facilitate them to report national affairs to Li Mingyuan.
On the construction site outside the wooden house, about 10,000 Chinese workers who had arrived earlier were carrying cement and bricks to build the city wall.
The cement factory and brick factory were built at the foot of a mountain more than ten miles away, and were constructed by Prussian experts under the guidance of Chinese workers.
Some of the more than 10,000 Chinese workers were responsible for transporting bricks and cement from more than ten miles away, and some were responsible for mixing cement and building city walls. The two groups of Chinese workers had a clear division of labor, and the vast construction site was full of orderly labor scenes.
Li Mingyuan wore an ordinary black military uniform and came to the construction site with Sun Bin and others to check.
In the center of the construction site is a cement pile of more than 20 square meters. More than a dozen Chinese workers are pouring water and stirring lime with shovels.
Li Mingyuan walked to the cement pile and found that more than a dozen Chinese workers were working on the cement with bare feet. He immediately stopped them and said: "Cement is corrosive. Everyone, put on shoes and don't mix cement with bare feet."
After the words fell, the eyes of more than a dozen Chinese workers who were working all focused on Li Mingyuan and his group. They were wearing military uniforms and had many guards around them. The Chinese workers regarded Li Mingyuan as an officer of the National Defense Forces.
"Sir, the government gave each of us a pair of cloth shoes. The cloth shoes are all new. We didn't want to damage the cloth shoes, so we simply mixed the cement and lime with bare feet."
A man wearing a white turban explained.
Cement is corrosive, and cloth shoes are easily damaged when stepped in the cement slurry. Li Mingyuan understood this truth, but he felt a little uncomfortable when he saw the Chinese workers working barefoot in order to save a pair of shoes.
"Building the city wall cannot be completed in a short time. Working barefoot all the time will be very harmful to your body. Let's do this. I will ask the factory to make a batch of waterproof rubber shoes for you. In the future, you will not have to worry about your feet being corroded by cement while wearing rubber shoes."
"Your Majesty, what are rubber shoes? How come I haven't heard of them before?" The factories that the Prussians helped set up included a textile factory, a garment factory, and a cloth shoe factory, but they were not connected to each other. Therefore, Sun Bin felt strange and puzzled.
"No rubber shoes? Brazil is the origin of rubber. The rubber extracted from rubber trees can be used to manufacture rubber shoes, tires and other basic industrial products. Rio Grande do Sul belongs to Brazil, and rubber trees should grow there."
Li Mingyuan was surprised at first, and then thought slowly and finally understood the key to the matter. In order to monopolize rubber production, the Brazilians prohibited the flow of rubber seeds to other countries. At this time, rubber was only available in Brazil. If other countries wanted to obtain rubber raw materials, they could only
Purchased from Brazil, later in 1876, British businessmen secretly brought thousands of rubber tree seeds from Brazil and moved them to the Malay Peninsula, breaking the Brazilian monopoly on rubber.
The sources of rubber raw materials are limited, and automobiles and other machinery are still in the exploratory stage. Therefore, European countries have not developed a systematic rubber industry chain, and rubber shoes have not been put into large-scale industrial production.
In 1839, the American Goodyear invented the vulcanization method of rubber, which solved the problem of raw rubber becoming sticky and brittle, making the rubber highly elastic and tough. Only then did rubber truly enter the stage of industrial practicality. Therefore, natural rubber became an important industry
The demand for raw materials and rubber has also increased sharply.
The production process of rubber shoes is simple, and the elasticity problem of rubber was solved by Goodyear thirty years ago. The only problem that hinders the large-scale production of rubber shoes is raw materials.
The rubber monopoly is in the hands of the Brazilians. It is expensive for European countries to obtain a large amount of rubber raw materials and it is impossible to form large-scale industrial production. However, these problems happen to be advantages in Li Mingyuan's eyes. Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina states are in Brazil.
The local environment is suitable for the growth of rubber trees. He does not believe that there are no rubber trees in the 403,000 square kilometers of land.
Rubber production and processing technology has matured. With the acceleration of industrialization in cities, rubber has been an important and indispensable industrial raw material for more than a hundred years. Rubber has been transferred to other areas and formed a large-scale plantation.
There is still at least ten years left. Rio Grande do Sul just takes advantage of the time lag before the rubber flows out to develop the rubber industry on a large scale and use the first-mover advantage to establish its dominant position in the rubber industry. In this way, even if the rubber seeds are obtained by other countries in advance,
It will take several years to form large-scale planting to meet the needs of industrial production.
An unintentional inspection of the construction site allowed Li Mingyuan to discover a new industry that could bring huge returns to Rio Grande do Sul. After a casual chat with the Chinese workers on the construction site, Li Mingyuan returned to his residence and immediately arranged for people to explore the distribution of rubber in Rio Grande do Sul.
situation.
The personnel sent to search for rubber soon brought back the news that Li Mingyuan wanted. There are thousands of wild rubber trees scattered in the jungle west of Xinjing. Soldiers sent to other places also brought back news of the discovery of rubber trees.
In a forest west of Xinjing, Li Mingyuan, Liu Pu, Sun Bin and others walked through the path opened by the soldiers, bypassed the scattered bushes, and came to the foot of a tall rubber tree.
"Your Majesty, is this the rubber tree you sent people to look for?"
Sun Bin looked at the big tree that was more than thirty meters high in front of him, and felt that it was no different from the sappan trees, bitterwoods and other trees that were everywhere in the area.
"Come on, let's see what this is?"
Li Mingyuan took out the dagger he carried with him and gently made a cut in the rubber tree, and then a stream of milky white mucus immediately flowed out of the wound in the tree.
Sun Bin moved forward and dipped his hand into a dab of lotion. Just as he was about to put it in his mouth to taste it, he was stopped by Li Mingyuan.
"The rubber liquid is poisonous. Although it is not fatal, it will cause abdominal pain for several days after being ingested."
The milky white liquid was like coconut milk. Sun Bin didn't expect it to be poisonous, so he quickly took his finger away from his mouth and said with a smile: "Thank you, Your Majesty, for reminding me."
"It's okay, just be careful in the future." Li Mingyuan waved his hand, then circled around the surrounding rubber trees and returned to his original position.
"The lifespan of a rubber tree is about sixty years. This rubber tree is about twenty years old, which is the peak period for producing rubber liquid. There is also a forest nearby. There are about three hundred rubber trees in total, and there are 130 trees that are more than twenty years old.
More than ten trees.”
Li Mingyuan introduced with some joy: "Brazilians only cut rubber sap from wild rubber trees. Not only is the quantity obtained, but it also leads to a lot of waste. We cannot imitate the Brazilians. The rubber tree is a money tree, so we must make good use of it."
That’s all.”
"Your Majesty, we have never touched a rubber tree before. Will doing it by ourselves cause harm to the tree?"
Liu Pu asked.
"Don't worry, Rio Grande do Sul's environment and soil are suitable for the survival of rubber trees. Brothers, please be careful and move the rubber tree seedlings to the cleared land, water them regularly and take care of them, and the seedlings will survive."
In addition to some special requirements for the living environment, rubber trees are similar to ordinary trees in terms of transplantation and planting, and do not require extra manual care.
When Brazilians obtain rubber liquid, most of them directly cut down the tree body with an axe. After several cuts, most of the rubber trees will be seriously damaged and die, or the trees will be damaged, and the output of rubber liquid will be seriously reduced.
Obtaining rubber liquid is a practice for Brazilians to catch all the benefits. Li Mingyuan will not do it. Instead, he will use a more efficient method that can obtain a sufficient amount of rubber liquid without endangering the survival of the rubber trees.
This method was invented by a botanical garden owner in Singapore in 1887. It repeatedly cuts the original cut to obtain rubber liquid without harming the formation tissue area of the rubber tree, allowing a rubber tree to continuously provide rubber liquid for decades.
