On May 20, 1640, even during the dry season, some rain fell in this hot and humid place on the northeastern coast of Madagascar. Today, an unexpected thunderstorm in the afternoon drove all the Eight Banners slaves who were working on the construction site and in the forest back to their tents. Some overseers and soldiers with leather whips yelled at them to hang the screens on the doors and windows so that mosquitoes could not escape.

In the past two days, several Eight Banner slaves have had periodic outbreaks of malaria symptoms such as chills, chills, and sweating, which made everyone feel a little frightened. They must have been bitten by mosquitoes within a day or two of landing, causing malaria, and the malaria parasites are now starting to develop after a certain incubation period. Looking at the painful appearance of these people at the time of the onset of the disease, everyone felt related.

As the temporary supreme governor of the camp, Shou Daoist placed these sick people in an empty wooden house, and at the same time sent several people to take care of and monitor them, giving them the best food and living accommodation as much as possible. In the case of no drug treatment, these people are basically hopeless, Shou Taoist as a Taoist priest who travels all over the world, he will also have both shallow medical skills, and he still has a deep sense of awe for things like "miasma".

Although there were several packets of precious cinchona bark powder in the tin cabinet in his room, these gold-priced medicines were not used to cure the slaves. Even ordinary soldiers who are sick have difficulty getting medical treatment unless they are allowed to do so, and these drugs are prepared for managers, technicians, officers, and senior non-commissioned officers, and everyone else is left to their fate when they are sick.

Except for a few of these infected slaves who may survive with a large life, good health, and strong immunity, the other longevity Taoist priests are not optimistic that they will survive, and they may die after a few attacks. Now they are sent to take care of them just to appease the hearts of those slaves. Keep their morale from getting too low and affecting their productivity.

This thunderstorm doesn't look small. Bean-sized raindrops fell densely from the sky. The surroundings were white, and you couldn't see a few meters away. Shou Daoist was a little worried, the small stream a few hundred meters away from the camp was fine on weekdays, and the amount of water was average, but now that it was raining so much, the water volume would definitely increase after a while, and I hope that it would not affect the good of this place at that time. This is the case with these tropical rivers, where the currents are short and turbulent. Normally, it's fine, but once it rains heavily, it is easy to break out into flooding.

However, the Antsiranana region is currently in the dry season, and the monthly precipitation is only a few tens of millimeters, which is not enough to cause any major disasters. But be careful when the rainy season begins in November, when hundreds of millimetres of rain fall each month, as much as an entire year in the Cape Town area. In addition, if you don't do it for a few months, floods will break out, so if you want to live in this place, you must have good water conservancy facilities.

"Mr. Pesonen, this thunderstorm is expected to continue until the evening." Shou stood under the eaves of the only brick house in the camp. Looking at the vast rain and fog outside, he said, "I think that river really needs to be transformed." Before leaving, Chief Li Yi said that it was suitable for transformation into an artificial reservoir. I think that's right. We should do this, otherwise the raging water will probably rush out of the river when the rainy season comes, causing us a lot of trouble. ”

"Please call me Pei Soning, Xie Lu Xie. I have a surname, my surname is Pei. Pesonen, a former Finnish young man, corrected Shou Daoist's words a little, and then said: "On the whole, your advice is indeed very pertinent, but I don't think it is our first priority right now. ”

"It's certainly not our top priority right now, I'm talking about the future." "What we need now is to build more brick houses and docks for the fleet to dock and unload cargo the next time it comes. Oh, and by the way, we also need to build a smooth road for horse-loaded wagons to pass through. ”

"Housing is the most important thing." Pei Soning looked up at the roof, and then said with satisfaction: "You look at this brick house, it's very good." The design of the buildings in the water towns of southern China is simple and fast, and the tiles can drain the rainwater under the eaves as quickly as possible, so that the interior of the house is kept dry. It only takes less than 10,000 red bricks, some tiles, and a wooden beam to build a house like this, and I think we need more of them. Now there is only one set, three rooms, which is far from enough. You look at those pine plank houses, it rains heavily outside, it rains lightly inside, and the environment is really bad. After a long time, everyone will get sick easily. ”

"There are less than 100,000 bricks in total, and there are not a lot of cement, lime, and wood that we have brought in. And we currently need to build too many projects, and it is really difficult to rely on the transportation capacity of building materials from the local area alone. Shou Daoist wiped a handful of the rain splashed on his face, and then said, "It's best to burn bricks locally." If this can be realized, then our construction progress will be much faster, after all, it is really time-consuming, laborious, and uneconomical to transport thousands of miles from the mainland, and it will not take long to transport so many things. It's a pity, I don't think I can ...... here."

"Can't what?" Pei Soonen interrupted Shou Daoist's words with a smile, and then said, "Don't worry, Shou Lian Chief. I've been surveying the area for a few kilometers in the past few days, and haven't you noticed that this is a typical karst terrain? ”

"Ka...... What? Daoist Shou asked a little embarrassed. His cultural level is not high, and he can barely recognize more than 200 words at present, so he has always respected Pei Soning, a "cultural person".

"It's karst terrain." "To put it simply, this terrain is generally rich in limestone, marble, gypsum, clay, bauxite, rock salt and other minerals. Among them, limestone and marble are important raw materials used to burn lime and cement, and clay is the raw material for burning bricks and tiles. So, what you're saying is that it's perfectly feasible and perfect to produce these building materials locally, because there's so much of it in the local area. ”

"Really?" Shou Daoist was a little excited, this is a great thing, "Lao Pei, do you know the technique of burning bricks and cement?" If we can, we'll start working in the near future, and nothing else is more important than this. With a large amount of building materials, we can easily get a lot more here. ”

"Of course I do." Pei Soning smiled, he also worked in a brick factory for a while at the beginning, "Actually, it's not just me who knows. Some of the soldiers of the 101st Company were themselves workers from the Oriental Port Building Materials Company, and the least of them had been working for three or four years. It's just that in the last two years, the Government Council has replaced them with slave laborers, but I don't think they have left their old profession behind. You can organize them and start figuring out how to erect the brick kiln tomorrow when the rain stops. It just so happened that a batch of refractory bricks was shipped over the previous time, which was originally going to be used elsewhere, and now it happened to be used to build a kiln first. ”

The heavy rain stopped that night. Early the next morning, Shou Daoist took people to the creekside area to check the water situation. I saw that the water of the creek was slightly muddy after the rain, and the current was also very fast, but the water level did not overflow the riverbank. Most of the rain washed down the river into the bay, which made Shou Daoist somewhat relieved, which was really good news.

Of course, the bad news is not without it. A few more slaves started fighting last night, and now they have also been moved to the resettlement house and placed in place. So far, 11 of the 300 slaves have contracted malaria, and there should be a significant number of slaves who have been infected with malaria, but are still in the incubation period.

What a headache! Shou Daoist is really a little depressed, he has done everything to the extreme, but he didn't expect that so many people are still sick, how good is this. Alas, the only way to continue to strengthen mosquito prevention education is to continue to strengthen mosquito prevention education, and yesterday he asked those who had malaria, and most of them were bitten by mosquitoes on the first day. They were working in the woods at the time, and because of the hot weather, they secretly untied their collars and bandanas, leaving a lot of skin exposed, which led to mosquito bites. It seems that stricter measures will be implemented in the future, and the slaves must be made to develop a good habit of not showing their skin in the mosquito breeding grounds.

Throwing off these troublesome, Shou Daoist selected 100 able-bodied Xhosa blacks from among the slaves, and then took 10 Eight Banner Overseers and 16 soldiers of the 101st Company with tools and weapons and headed towards the clay land chosen by Peisonin.

It's about a kilometre away from the camp, next to a vast coconut grove with the red soil characteristic of the Falklands. According to Pei Soning, the soil here is more viscous, which is very suitable for taking soil to make bricks and burn bricks.

Since the "experts" have said so, and several of his subordinates from the brick and tile factory have also nodded and agreed with Pei Soning's opinion, then Shou Daoist simply did not doubt the use of people and directly authorized Pei Soning to do it. He was only responsible for providing Pei Soning with supplies and labor, as well as the necessary security guards.

Pei Soning is also a practical person, after Shou Daoist handed over the matter to him, he took the mountain knife and led a group of slaves to clear the low bushes and level the foundation here, so as to clear a place where an earthen kiln could be built as soon as possible.

What he plans to build here is the kind of small clay kiln with high energy consumption and low output used in the early days of the country. There is no way, although the technology of the three wheel kilns in local production is advanced enough, the manpower and material resources required in the early stage of construction are relatively large, and it is not suitable for the small operation of the Agiranana colony at this stage. Therefore, he was ready to build this relatively economical small earthen kiln to deal with it. When the colony has a certain foundation in the future, we will find a way to replace it with a more advanced wheel kiln. (To be continued......)