November 11, 1679 was the time of year when farming began to increase.

The gate of Rabbit Ridge Prison was opened, and mules and fish full of food walked out of the gate made of thick wooden planks. On the other side of them, trucks laden with sulfur were heading to the prison's warehouse. Some of the reserve militiamen, armed with bayonets and rifles, watched with wary eyes at the exiles who were toiling at work, in case they suddenly couldn't think of something to do, although the possibility was slim.

Rabbit Ridge Prison is a newly established prison for exiled prisoners in the first half of this year, and naturally, it also crosses the border. Located near the later Chilean town of Nertumé, the prison is economically dependent on sulphur extraction and hardy crops, and is currently serving sentences of about 1,000 exiles from all over the country.

As can be seen from the map, Rabbit Ridge Prison is located in the mountains northeast of the Slatted House Prison, and happens to be located in the middle of a traffic channel leading to Shuofang County in the Patagoniatai region, so its geographical location is relatively important. In addition, the nearby area is rich in sulfur and limestone, the nearby lake is stocked with many aquatic organisms, including trout (the harvest is not small in winter, which is an important source of protein for the exiled prisoners and their families), and there are also some mountain flats that can be cultivated and cultivated, so the Ministry of Justice and the Southern Chile Regional Administration jointly decided to set up a prison here for the main purpose of cross-border reclamation, namely the Rabbit Ridge Prison.

Due to the terrain constraints, the exiled prisoners in Rabbit Ridge Prison are not as scattered as those on the other side of the slatted house, but are more concentrated. Some of them cut down trees and built roads, some mined ores, some worked by the lake, loading and unloading goods for boats from Shandong, and the rest of them grew grain, vegetables, and goats on the flats near the prison.

In the summer and autumn of this year, Shuofang County on the other side of the mountain organized a team of mules and horses to travel to the Central Valley through the Rabbit Ridge Prison, and the results were a great success. Not only did they send a considerable amount of supplies and tools of labor to the prison, but they also traded with the Spaniards in the Central Valley, selling their surplus cloth, leather, and cheese, and importing a lot of butter, dried fruits, and silver bars there, and making a lot of money.

With the opening of this trade route, the status of Rabbit Ridge Prison became more and more important. No, even Zhao Ke, the commissioner of the Southern Chile Regional Administration, quietly crossed the boundary river this year and came to inspect this land that nominally belongs to the territory of the Kingdom of Spain.

The exiles who colonized outside the prison walls lived in prisons on weekdays, with bachelors sharing rooms for two and married prisoners sharing a room for their families. Zhao Ke, accompanied by the prison warden, entered the touching prison building and carried out a leisurely inspection.

The cells were not locked, and the first room inside the door was occupied by two bachelors, according to the yellowed note posted on the door, one of them was a non-national of Poland who had been regularized, and the other was a Ming immigrant. The former was guilty of believing in a cult, and the latter was stealing the public's cattle and sheep, and the two of them were not a big deal to put it bluntly, but in today's environment of encouraging prisoners to be exiled (the name suggests that the sentence of exile can be more than 1.5 times the normal sentence), these people have been sent to the border areas by the judges of the county and township courts and the regional circuit courts, so as to enrich the population of the border.

The clothes of the two prisoners were tattered, their bodies were covered with hair like spiders, their eyelids drooped, and they were weak. Zhao Ke looked around, and there was nothing in this prison house with an area of about 20 square meters, except for a few simple pieces of wooden furniture, not even a single iron nail could be seen, and it was also extremely cold.

On the opposite side of this prison house lived an old man with a face full of vicissitudes, but according to the information, he was only about forty years old and came from Huating County, Songjiang Prefecture, Ming Kingdom. Originally, he was a merchant who ran an incense and candle business, but he had no special talents, and only relied on his ancestral shop family to make a living. After coming to the east coast, he originally went to the Brazilian highlands to farm, but his family died of an epidemic, and he himself committed something - he ate the grain and livestock borrowed from the Northwest Reclamation Bank, and more than once, and finally owed the bank dozens of yuan in principal and interest, and was directly sent to Chile after the court judgment - and finally ended up in exile, which was also miserable.

Zhao Ke was a little skeptical that relying on these people who lacked spirit and spirit, they could really do a good job in reclamation. However, he was relieved to think that the Slatted House Prison had been operating normally over the years, and that it had even developed a large settlement area with it as its core. People's desire to survive is really strong, even if he sees this kind of "rotten person" in front of him, it shouldn't be exactly the kind of person who is lifeless and lives a day, right? Perhaps, as some prison officials have said, their insufficiency, weakness, numbness and decadence are, to a certain extent, indeed a kind of protection for themselves, from being too devastated during the long, dangerous and brutal prison sentence. Once they have completed their sentences and been granted land by the prison authorities that belong entirely to them, their enthusiasm and desire for life have been mobilized at once, and many of them will even take their wives and children from their hometowns and settle down in the area where they were originally serving their sentences, becoming a new local population.

After inspecting all the more than 200 prison houses, Zhao Ke returned to the prison square and let out a long breath, as if he had just returned to the world from hell. Although the two prisons of Slatted House and Rabbit Ridge have made great contributions to the cross-border reclamation work, there is no doubt that the environment is also extremely poor, and to put it bluntly, the health and lives of the exiled prisoners are being exchanged for the occupation and development of these wild lands by the people on the east coast.

After inspecting the prison house, everyone then went to the grain depot, weapons depot, ore quarry, stable, canteen, bathroom, firewood room and other places to check - it was said that it was a prison, but in fact it was similar to a fortress, with all kinds of facilities - especially the grain depot. Zhao Ke had supervised agricultural work in Baoyi County for many years, and he still knew a lot about agricultural affairs, so he focused on inquiring about the composition and source of grain in the grain depot, and learned that nearly one-third of the grain depot was locally produced rye and potatoes, one-third was wheat, potatoes, corn and cured meat from the south, and the remaining one-third was transported by mule and horse teams from Shuofang County in Shandong Province in the summer, usually wheat and beans, and sometimes some oilseeds and other high-grade foods.

"The food supply is quite acceptable, and it basically meets the food subsidy standard set by the state for exiled prisoners. Our accounts are also very clear, the accounts of all kinds of food purchased from the south or Shuofang counties are well documented, and the surplus funds of the food subsidy are distributed to every exile on the roster on a per capita basis, to ensure that no property belonging to the prisoners is embezzled. The warden with two beautiful mustaches assured Zhao Ke. His attitude was very respectful, because since this year, the Slatted House Prison and the Rabbit Ridge Prison have been under the joint jurisdiction of the Ministry of Justice and the Southern Chile Regional Administration, and Commissioner Zhao has become his immediate boss, so he cannot be careless.

"The mood of the prisoners is also very good, and so far only a handful of them have fled, and most of them have been arrested. In the final analysis, it is because the work arranged by our prison is not very heavy, it is nothing more than logging, road building, mining, fishing, farming and transportation. Oh, and by the way, there were also rotational servants who went to the lake (later Lake Piriveco) to serve as a coachman and a wharf, which was actually within the tolerance of the prisoners, so it did not provoke a large-scale escape. The warden continued. Moreover, when he said this, he was also very proud, like the nearby Spanish colonial cities, there were often Indians who were forced to come to serve under the "Mita" system, and the proportion of these aborigines fleeing was very high (of course, the mortality rate was also very high), it can be seen that the Spaniards were very cruel to oppress these people, but it was obvious that even so, the labor efficiency of these Indians was far less efficient than that of the East Coasters, in addition to the differences in culture and civilization between the two sides, I'm afraid it's more about the gap in the art of management.

"That's good, that's good. The geographical location is very crucial, and the nearby area is rich in sulfur, which is urgently needed by domestic industry and military, and the economic value is not small. Of course, in addition to these two functions, the two prisons of Slatted House and Rabbit Ridge are also the bridgeheads for our country to further encroach on the fertile Central Valley to the north, and their role is also very huge. As we all know, the Kingdom of Spain is no longer the prosperous state of a hundred years ago, the country is declining, the people are miserable, and the army has been defeated in successive battles. Let's ask how such a 'loser' can keep the great karma handed down by his ancestors? I can't say it, this great mountain and river of Chile should be taken by us people on the east coast. At this time, everyone had already turned to the prison gate, and looking at the exiled prisoners who were still busy transporting supplies, Zhao Ke said loudly: "So don't be afraid of the Spaniards, they are just toothless tigers now, just bluffing." I've heard that the Spaniards from the north came to negotiate last month, don't be afraid, they don't dare to do anything. ”

The warden nodded his head and said, "The Spaniards are indeed bluffing, and they may even be afraid of us." This time, we came to negotiate with us, but because of the establishment of our Rabbit Ridge Prison, it had gone around to their rear and threatened the safety of some small silver mines they opened in the interior, so we sent 180 cavalry to threaten, but we didn't coax at all, and directly copied the guys to confront them, and in the end they didn't dare to shoot, and slipped away. ”

It is said that after the East Coast people set up the Rabbit Ridge Prison, although it was close to the side of the mountain, it was indeed geographically very close to the more than a dozen small silver mining areas scattered by the Spaniards, and in terms of latitude alone, it had also detoured to a place further north than Valdivia, the export port of silver ore, which made the local Spanish colonial government feel a little uncomfortable and had to come forward to negotiate.

But this kind of negotiation, as the warden has just said, is unlikely to achieve any good results in the case of the Spaniards. In the end, I am afraid that it will end like countless negotiations in history, with the people on the east coast continuing to encroach on each step, and the Spaniards retreating step by step, and finally losing the land under their feet.

"The Spaniards are a gang of murderers, and their black eyes can't see the silver in vain. You see, they didn't care about it at all when the slatted houses were set up, but they were in a hurry after the establishment of Rabbit Ridge, afraid that we would attack their inland villages and silver mines from here. Hehe, forget it, ignore them. They continue to mine their silver mines, and we do our own thing, and we don't have anything to do with each other. Now the Spaniards can't figure out our way, and they are just nervous, and after knowing that we have no intention of our silver mines, they will probably stop a little, after all, they don't have the courage to shoot at us, and the consequences are too serious for them to afford. Zhao Ke responded: "But you still have to be more or less prepared, prisoners can't be afraid, but the reserve militia must be trained well." The District Administration has decided that after the New Year, it will add 50 reserve militia to you and 50 reserve militia to each of the Slatted House Prisons, to be dispatched by the six southern counties in rotation for at least two years. ”

"There are so many soldiers added all at once, is there a situation?" The warden was a little nervous, smelling something bad, so he hurriedly asked.

"Actually, it's not a big deal, and it doesn't hurt to tell you. That is, the Ministry of Justice and the regional administration have decided to add two prison reclamation areas in the nearby area next year, and gradually push the control area to the north. This may cause some panic among the Spaniards, but it doesn't matter, we are ready for nothing to happen. Zhao Ke said.

The two new reclamation areas mentioned by Zhao Ke just now are Luyuan Prison near the later Paiyaco Town and Shihezi Prison near the later Los Lagos Town. Fortunately, the former is only a few small Spanish villages nearby, and the population density is not large, but the latter has the presence of Spanish silver mines nearby, which is more troublesome, and once they advance here, the Spaniards can no longer pretend to be deaf and dumb, and they are bound to react strongly.

The prison warden doesn't know what will happen at that time, but since Zhao Ke, the commissioner of the regional administrative department, has a determined face now, there must be a way to deal with it, so that he doesn't have to worry about it, and it is important to take care of his own bowing things, so as not to be caught off guard if something happens.

On November 20, 1679, Zhao Ke, who had secretly patrolled around the north, finally returned to Maolin Harbor. As soon as he sat down in the office, the magistrate of Guanhai County, who had been waiting for a long time, hurriedly ran over and told him that the Southern Railway Company had just announced that it had split off and sold the last part of the county's freight terminal and timber processing plant, or closed it down, and that it had now completely withdrawn from the county. This news made Zhao Ke a little surprised and at the same time a little understanding, it seems that this Southern Railway Company is indeed a little short of money!