After successfully acquiring the San Javier iron ore, the war between Paraguay and Argentina had little to do with Rio Grande do Sul, and Li Mingyuan also focused more on domestic regional development.
The rubber industry is a pillar industry in the plan. After the discovery of wild rubber trees, a group of laborers with experience in working in plantations were selected to take care of the rubber forests distributed in various places, and to select suitable fields in areas near the discovery of rubber as artificial
Base for transplanting rubber trees.
The development of the rubber industry is a step-by-step process. Li Mingyuan first planned to introduce wild rubber trees and conduct large-scale artificial planting within two years to form a dense rubber planting area, replace Brazil's monopoly, and build Rio Grande do Sul into a major rubber tree in the world.
country that supplies rubber raw materials. Then, while introducing rubber industry technology from Europe, it also cultivates Rio Grande do Sul’s own rubber industry technicians, establishes an independent rubber industry system, and makes various types of rubber raw materials through upgrading and processing.
Industrial products to obtain greater economic profits.
After two months of hard work by the Chinese, most of the industrial equipment purchased from Prussia is in the factory construction and installation stage. Some of the light industrial machinery and equipment involved in the production of daily life products have been installed and started to produce products due to relatively low technical requirements.
Various domestic industries in Rio Grande do Sul are in a state of vigorous construction, and the transportation work of Cuban Chinese workers is also coming to an end. On February 4, the last batch of Chinese workers set off from Cuba's Isla de la Juventud, which means that the transportation operation has been put on hold.
The transportation operation lasted for more than three months, employing a total of more than 270 ships of various types, plus more than 120 ships with a tonnage of more than 500 tons dispatched by Rio Grande do Sul, and more than 400 ships were used for transportation.
The cost was US$7 million and 120,000 Chinese workers were transported.
Counting from the end of the 16th century, when the first batch of Chinese people set sail from the Philippines to the American continent, by February 1869, about 700,000 Chinese workers had been transported to the Americas. Due to factors such as deaths during navigation and overwork, many of them were still alive.
There are about 300,000 Chinese workers who came down.
The total number of Chinese workers rescued from Peru was 150,000, and about 20,000 died in previous battles. 120,000 Cuban Chinese workers arrived in Rio Grande do Sul, and 500 Caribbean Chinese voluntarily immigrated to Rio Grande do Sul. After large-scale immigration,
The total number of Chinese in Rio Grande do Sul has exceeded 250,000, accounting for more than two-thirds of the Chinese in North and South America.
There are more than 120,000 Chinese workers in Cuba. Due to various factors, about 20,000 Chinese workers still stay there. Some of them join the rebel forces in the hope of overthrowing the Spanish colonial rule. Then the Cubans will give the Chinese normalcy.
national status.
Some of them are free Chinese who were responsible for the Spanish colonists. They used to suppress their own people in exchange for the appointment of the Spaniards. They were worried that they would be settled by the future when they came to Rio Grande do Sul. Generally speaking, people like them existed locally.
The land wealth is not small, and the thirty to one hundred acres of land offered by Rio Grande do Sul cannot impress them.
The third group has the largest number of people, and their experiences are also the most tragic. In Cuba, some plantation and farm owners regard their Chinese as slaves and private wealth. They are not willing to let the Chinese leave. Therefore, many Chinese have no choice but to stay in Cuba and continue to work.
A life like a slave.
Life not only has a bright side but also a dark side. For the entire society in the second half of the 19th century, profit was the most important thing for European countries. Africans and Asians were just inferior races in their eyes, and there was no need to kill them.
The trial of the law, and as white Europeans, people of different nationalities will be treated differently. Ireland is part of the British Empire, but the Irish have not enjoyed the benefits brought by the prosperity of the British Empire.
From 1845 to 1850, the Great Famine occurred in Ireland. Although the British had abundant food, they did not provide relief to the hungry Irish civilians and watched as more than one million people starved to death in Ireland. After the Great Famine, the poor Irish people who had nothing left immigrated to the United States on a large scale.
Like more than 10,000 Chinese workers, they became the main force in building the Pacific Railway.
The heavy labor exhausted the Chinese and Irish workers, and tens of thousands of Irish workers died on the railway tracks.
During this period, although the status of whites was higher than that of Chinese, as railway workers, Irish workers and Chinese workers shouldered the same workload.
Living in this era, Li Mingyuan tried his best to help the Chinese workers in the Americas. However, some places that were beyond the reach of Rio Grande do Sul could only be put on hold until the country becomes stronger in the future to help the Chinese workers there.
The census work has been in progress. After Sun Bin returned from Prussia, Liu Pu, Zhao Yan, and Sun Bin were responsible for managing the immigration work while handling other matters.
In the study room in the backyard of the castle, Liu Pu and the others took out more than ten notebooks and placed them one next to the other on the desk.
"After the Rio Grande do Sul mopping up operation, my subordinates arranged for manpower to continue to recruit women of appropriate age from Paraguay. Before the conflict in Misiones broke out, we recruited 2,000 women of appropriate age. In December, our army and Paraguay reached a population exchange arms agreement.
After the agreement, the recruitment of people accelerated rapidly. As of two days ago, from December to early February, a total of 11,000 Paraguayan women of working age had been recruited, with a payment of 1.7 million silver dollars and 300 tons of grain."
Zhao Yan opened a notebook with dense numbers written on it and said.
"Little Lopez received the weapons and ammunition we delivered, as well as a batch of silver coins and grain. It seems that they can hold on in Misiones for a while longer." Li Mingyuan thought to himself.
"The Crown Prince misunderstood. The 1.7 million silver dollars and 300 tons of grain are compensation payments to Paraguayan women and will not fall into the hands of little Lopez." Zhao Yan explained.
"That's not necessarily true. The Paraguayans are fighting in Misiones Province and need a lot of financial and food support. 1.7 million silver dollars is not a small amount. Little Lopez is likely to focus on this money and exploit it."
The conditions for the Chinese to recruit Paraguayan women were to deliver one hundred and fifty silver dollars and one month's worth of food. One month's food was not valuable in normal times, but in post-war Paraguay, one month's food could help them survive the critical period of food shortage.
, until the new grain is harvested, and one hundred and fifty silver dollars can support ordinary people for ten years, allowing them to live a good life.
In order to attract Paraguayan women to marry Chinese, Rio Grande do Sul offers a very favorable price and attractive living conditions.
After Paraguayan women agreed to immigrate, food was immediately distributed to their families, and silver coins were personally distributed to them for them to handle.
After receiving one hundred and fifty silver dollars, most Paraguayan women leave the money to their families and keep part of it for themselves as private money.
In Rio Grande do Sul, Chinese who are able to marry wives are generally soldiers and officers who have performed meritorious services. They generally own a large amount of land. Therefore, Chinese recruiters in Paraguay often use land as a sign to attract Paraguayan female immigrants, promising them that they will marry a Chinese.
You can be a landlord and don't have to worry about being oppressed by the big landlords in your hometown.
Using land to attract Paraguayan women had little effect at first. They did not believe that after marrying a Chinese, they would have more than 300 acres of land. However, as the first batch of Paraguayan women who married Chinese returned home to visit relatives, they began to settle in Rio Grande do Sul.
The real life is also known to other Paraguayans. Therefore, attracted by the dual attraction of having enough food to avoid starving to death and obtaining a large amount of land, more and more women of working age choose to immigrate.
What Li Mingyuan cares about is that enough women immigrate to balance the gender ratio in the country. As for whether Lopez Jr. will annex the silver dollars and food left by Paraguayan women to his family, it is none of his business.
The call for the implementation of monarchy in Paraguay is getting louder and louder. Concerned about his reputation, Lopez Jr. may not exploit the "selling money" of Paraguayan women under his rule. However, ordinary Paraguayan officials will never do it when faced with a group of civilians who have been poor for a long time and then become rich.
No movement at all.
"Paraguay's overall strength is not as good as that of Argentina. Even if little Lopez plunders the silver coins we gave to the Paraguayan women's families, he can maintain the offensive for a period of time at most, but it will not change the overall situation."
Li Mingyuan said softly, put his eyes back on the thin book on the desk, glanced at it briefly, and felt a little strange, and asked, "There were 15,000 naturalized women in the early stage. Adding the number of immigrants this time, how many women will be naturalized this time?"
It should be 28,700 people. The data recorded in the notebook is 34,000 people. What happened to the extra 5,000 people?"
"It's like this. After occupying the state of Santa Catarina, most of the captured Brazilian troops were made up of local people. When we exchanged prisoners with Brazil, they were sent out of Rio Grande do Sul by us like other prisoners, which reduced the number by more than 4,000
The number of local young men and white women in Santa Catalina far exceeds that of white men, so many white women choose to marry Chinese as wives, and the number of naturalized women has also increased a lot."
Liu Pu explained.
"Well, not bad." Li Mingyuan nodded with satisfaction and said with a smile: "The men of the Han family are no worse than white people. It is a wise choice for them to take the initiative to marry their brothers.
Sun Bin, you are responsible for promoting the advantages of our Han people to our neighboring countries, and encourage women of appropriate age in other countries to marry Han people."
"I understand." Sun Bin stood aside and responded with his hands raised, but his expression looked unnatural.
"Sun Bin, you haven't spoken in the study. Is there something wrong?" Li Mingyuan noticed his abnormality and asked directly.
"Your Majesty, I have a question in my mind, but I have never dared to ask it."
"It doesn't matter if you say anything." Li Mingyuan waved his hand.
"The number of Chinese and naturalized women in Rio Sul has reached 285,000, and the number of unnaturalized Brazilians is 30,000. The total population exceeds that of Paraguay, and it is considered a large country in the La Plata region. However, Rio Sul
The vast majority of Cuba's population is Chinese who have immigrated from other regions. We lack a foundation here. Purchasing machinery and equipment and transporting Cuban Chinese consume a large amount of gold reserves, and the 120,000 newly immigrated Chinese workers also need to spend a large amount of money to resettle.
My subordinates believe that the current population size of Rio Grande do Sul has reached its limit, and I implore the Crown Prince to temporarily postpone the immigration plan from the mainland and Southeast Asia."
"The mainland and Southeast Asia are far away from Rio Grande do Sul, and the cost of transporting Chinese is much higher than the cost from Cuba to Rio Grande do Sul. Your worries are not unreasonable."
Li Mingyuan closed the notebook, spoke softly, and slowly explained: "Rio Grande do Sul's strength is limited, and large-scale immigration regardless of national strength will lead to national financial bankruptcy and national unrest. Although I want to help Chinese brothers from other places immigrate to Rio Grande do Sul
Glen will not act blindly.
The imbalance of the sex ratio between men and women in Rio Grande do Sul is still very serious. The movement to obtain female immigrants from the outside cannot be stopped. After the Cuban immigrants, the immigrants from Southeast Asia and the mainland will be mainly female immigrants. Considering the current tight gold reserves,
According to the situation, the scale of immigration from the mainland and Southeast Asia has been reduced by more than half, and the first batch of immigration from the mainland and Southeast Asia has been postponed to one month later."
After the end of Cuban immigration, sending fleets to the mainland to transport immigrants was a plan made before the founding of the country. However, the new atmosphere in Rio Grande do Sul that relied on transporting immigrants from the mainland to return to the mainland made Sun Bin feel dangerous.
.
Less than five years after the fall of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the Hunan Army, Huai Army and other troops equipped with Western weapons that relied on the annihilation of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom were numerous and powerful, and were far beyond the ability of the current National Defense Forces to provoke.
Not only was Rio Grande do Sul's national strength unable to bear the large-scale transportation of Chinese workers, but it might also arouse the vigilance of the Qing court in advance. Rio Grande do Sul was far away from the mainland, and it was impossible for the Qing army to attack it. However, in order to immigrate, the National Defense Forces deployed in the mainland and
The Qing army fought a war, but it was very harmful. Far away from Rio Grande do Sul, the National Defense Forces could not get effective supplies. Moreover, the Western powers regarded the mainland as an economic colony, and they certainly did not want the National Defense Forces to endanger their rule of good domestic slaves. In this way, the National Defense Forces in the mainland
The possibility of victory in a battle with the Qing army is extremely low.
For the Chinese to establish a country in Rio Grande do Sul, it was a matter of risk and danger. Now that they had a base to settle down, Sun Bin did not want to take risks that would cause Rio Grande do Sul to face the crisis of national subjugation.
Li Mingyuan felt lucky to hear Sun Bin's suggestion, but after the conversation ended, he was left alone.
