ps: Thank you to my classmate Long Aotian for the 100 starting coin reward for your support!
On March 20, 1878, in the Matadi River mouth area of Congo, Huang Naishang commanded more than 200 Chinese soldiers and more than 1,000 black people to level the land near the river bank.
The climate in Africa is hot. Drops of sweat seeped out from the faces of the Chinese soldiers wearing dark green tropical military uniforms. As they dragged the downed trees, the sweat drops were thrown on the damp ground and mixed with the soft soil.
mixed together.
A soldier, soaked in sweat, took off his military cap during a break and held it in his hand as a heat-dispelling fan, blowing up a hot breeze.
"This area has open terrain and fertile land. It is close to the Congo River Basin in the west and is very suitable for reclamation."
Among the nervous and busy crowd, Huang Naichang pointed to the land around him, his eyes full of hope and caution and said, "Lieutenant Colonel Xue, His Highness has allowed some of the refugees stranded in Annan to be transferred to Congo for reclamation activities. The first batch came from Minqing and Gutian.
Seven hundred refugees from Yongtai and other Fujian provinces will arrive in Congo in the next week, and we must build a new camp before the refugees arrive to prevent them from contracting tropical diseases and dying."
"According to the advice of the doctor sent from the country, my soldiers and more than a thousand slaves purchased from nearby indigenous chiefs will level all the land in a radius of half a mile, and use mugwort to isolate the camp from the woods on the edge of the camp.
If you open it, the newly arrived refugees will not be infected with dysentery."
Xue Yizhong replied.
"Lieutenant Colonel Xue is very thoughtful." Huang Naichang nodded and agreed, "Everything is difficult at the beginning. The first batch of refugees who came to Congo were all low-class people with nothing. They believed in the Han Dynasty and worked tirelessly to come to the barbaric land where disease was rampant.
As the two persons in charge of Congo’s colonial project, we need to solve their worries and not allow them to come to Congo and still lack food, clothing, and shelter like they did on the mainland.”
"Don't worry, Mr. Huang, although this place is a little deserted, the land is very fertile. In February last year, I and my brothers reclaimed more than 100 acres of wasteland and planted some sweet potatoes and vegetables. By March this year, it was already
The wasteland is already covered with sweet potato vines. The sweet potatoes under the vines weigh several kilograms. I and my brothers spent more than half a month digging more than 100,000 kilograms of sweet potatoes, except for supplying them to the troops and black slaves.
The grains and a small half of the sweet potatoes were left uneaten and were used by the brothers in charge of logistics to feed the livestock.
Mr. Huang, as long as you grow food in this place, you don’t have to worry about the harvest, and the refugees who come to Congo don’t have to worry about not having enough to eat.”
"This land is indeed very fertile. After the refugees arrive in the Congo, they can be organized to plant some rice and vegetables as food supplies for the base. Then after they adapt to the weather here, they can be arranged to supervise and guide the black slaves to mine the mines."
"Yesterday, a communication ship transmitted a telegram from China. His Highness ordered us to delay the progress of mining Congo's copper mines. The copper mines that have been planned for construction will be temporarily sealed. We will not start mining the copper mines until the relationship with the European powers has been coordinated in China.
.”
"Is Lieutenant Colonel Xue's information reliable?"
Huang Naichang frowned and said.
"It should be reliable that formal notification will be delivered when the fleet receiving the warships stays in Congo."
“Exploration personnel discovered a large copper mine in Kinshasa. Since the domestic order temporarily delays the mining work, I will send someone to inform the exploration team to stop exploring the Kinshasa copper mine to prevent the location of the copper mine from being leaked and causing unnecessary trouble.
"
Huang Naichang pondered for a moment and said seriously, "The Congo region is rich in resources such as copper, coal, gold, and diamonds. There are two copper mines and one iron mine on the east bank of the Ubangi River that border the French colonies. While the three mining fields are still there,
There is no mining, Lieutenant Colonel Xue and your people will try to restore the explored mining area to its original state, and station a troop of soldiers to defend the east bank of the Ubangi River to prevent the French from expanding their power to the east bank area."
"A company of soldiers under Lieutenant Colonel Frank set off for the east bank of the Ubangi River this morning. The defense work in the area near the mine should not be neglected."
Xue Yizhongdao.
"The Foreign Legion are outsiders after all. Are there any hidden dangers in stationing them near the mine?"
Huang Naichang was a little worried when he heard that the troops stationed by Xue Yizhong were foreign legions.
"There will be no problem. The foreign soldiers stationed on the east bank of the Ubangi River are more than 20 kilometers away from the mining area. They do not know the situation in the mining area, and there are more than 100 National Defense Forces within a three-kilometer radius of the mining area.
Soldiers are on guard and no one, including foreign soldiers, will be allowed to enter the mining area without a permit issued by the army."
"Lieutenant Colonel Xue has thought carefully and done the security work of the mine in advance, so I can rest assured."
Huang Naichang nodded, and the cautious expression on his face gradually relaxed.
Unlike ordinary Chinese who immigrated to Han, although Huang Naishang was poor in his childhood, he had the opportunity to receive Western culture as an adult, which enabled him to get rid of the conservative ideas of ordinary Chinese and develop more radical ideas.
In 1866, in order to make ends meet, the eighteen-year-old Huang Naishang was baptized by an American priest and entered a church opened by Americans in Fujian as a handyman. During the six or seven years in the church, in addition to reciting the Bible, Huang Naishang also diligently
I studied English and cultural and scientific knowledge, and came into contact with the expansion and development history of the United States since the founding of the country. I came up with the radical idea that China should learn from the United States, and the government would organize private Chinese to immigrate to Southeast Asia, and open up the Southeast Asia region as a Chinese colony.
Huang Naishang, who was only in his early twenties at the time, had radical ideas, and no one recognized his ideas. It was not until his later years that Huang Naishang, who was determined, took out all the accumulated wealth and borrowed money from other places to save the initial start-up capital for immigration, and then settled in Gary.
Mandan Island bought 3,000 acres of land and recruited more than 1,000 Chinese from Fujian Province to carry out reclamation activities on Mandan Island, Kalimantan.
Huang Naishang is a native of Fuzhou. After the reclamation farm began to take shape, Huang Naishang named it New Fuzhou Reclamation Farm. He hoped to follow the example of the British in developing Australia, New Zealand and other colonies, and develop the reclamation farm in Kalimantan into a new Chinese colony.
of breeding ground.
In 1903, the first batch of purchased land had been fully cultivated. Feeling satisfied, Huang Naishang sent his son-in-law and the descendant of the family Fu Laojia to recruit new immigrants, while negotiating with the British colonists to expand the scope of the reclamation field. However, after seeing
After the prosperity of Chinese farms, the British colonists were worried that more and more Chinese gathering together would bring instability to the local area. Therefore, they not only rejected Huang Naishang's request, but also put pressure on the other party to either agree to the British conditions.
, allowing British merchants to sell opium in the settlements, or disbanding the settlements.
The British used opium to open up China. A large number of Chinese people lost their country and their families because of opium addiction. Opium also gave the Chinese a negative image of the sick man of East Asia. Huang Naishang, who was poor when he was young, knew the dangers of opium and banned it in the reclamation farm and city where he managed it.
The Chinese on the farm smoked opium, and the British once again pressured him on the opium issue, which touched Huang Naishang's bottom line. Out of anger and feeling powerless, Huang Naishang refused the British colonists' request and sold the reclamation farm to the local Chinese.
Along with the Chinese workers working on the farm, he returned to his hometown alone and soon joined the revolutionary cause.
Huang Naishang's original destiny, like that of many Chinese victims who died of hunger, was changed by the sudden rise of the Han Dynasty in South America. After immigrating to South America in 1873, Huang Naishang used the knowledge he learned in the church to first be eager to understand Western culture and master it.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Western Languages was recruited as a section-level diplomatic officer, and then after three years of work, he was gradually promoted to a deputy department-level official.
In early 1877, Huang Naishang suggested that some of the refugees stranded in Nanyang should be evacuated to the colonial strongholds opened by Han in Africa. This would not only solve the resettlement problem of Chinese refugees, but also increase the proportion of Chinese strongholds in Africa and strengthen Han's influence on Africa.
Colonial stronghold control.
The climate in Africa is hot and tropical diseases are prevalent. Even if the Han Dynasty could provide large quantities of the anti-dysentery drug quinine, there would still be great obstacles to the expansion of Chinese influence there.
Deep down in his heart, Li Mingyuan was not willing to let the Chinese immigrate to Africa. Therefore, he had the experience of later generations. After the ruling powers of the great powers in Africa collapsed, none of the outsiders left behind could maintain their power. South Africa, Romania
Desia and Mozambique, African countries dominated by white people were overthrown by black people. The surviving white people were reduced from rulers to ruled, accepting the jurisdiction of black governments.
Due to factors such as poverty and cultural backwardness, Africa's population has grown rapidly. In later generations, black people not only left Africa, but took root in various places around the world, including the United States, Brazil, the United Kingdom, Germany, mainland China, and Russia, not only in those economically developed places
There are black people all over the world. Even Russia, which has a severe cold weather, and the mainland, which is still among the developing countries, have a large number of black people.
Li Mingyuan had no plans to clean up the black people in the Han strongholds in Africa, but he was also unwilling to see the Chinese and white people left in Africa suffer the same fate. Therefore, when he first saw Huang Naishang's proposal, Li Mingyuan refused.
, and later after careful consideration, Huang Naishang's plan was approved, and his establishment level was promoted to a principal-level official, responsible for Han's colonial affairs in Africa.
From a long-term perspective, with the rapid development of science and technology, the unfavorable factors that restricted the expansion of Han's colonial power in Africa will quickly disappear. Immigration ships can transport larger immigrants from the Far East and settle them in African strongholds. Moreover, Han's expansion in South America
It will not stop. Once Argentina and Uruguay are completely annexed, Han can bring the Chinese who have stayed in African strongholds into the country and reduce the number of Chinese in Africa.