December 25, 1645, Christmas Day.

Highway No. 2 is more than 10 kilometers away from Hekou Township, and a few wisps of residual smoke rise through the gaps in the forest. A few dead horses fell to the ground, still wailing without a sound; Two carriages overturned on their sides, and golden grains of wheat were scattered on the ground. Dozens of soldiers in khaki uniforms, armed with rifles with bayonets, stepped past the overturned vehicle and walked over to some Guaraní who were panting and stumbling to the ground from their wounds, and stabbed their bayonets down with expressionless expressions. After the stabbing, they kicked twice with their feet until the corpse was unresponsive before they began to rummage through the next "corpse", and from time to time they added a bayonet in case any fish slipped through the net.

Meng Hu, the leader of the 18th expedition in the hilly area of Huxi under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Communications, who set off with the army, sighed and turned his head away, and said to Long Xu, the commander of the 103rd Company of the army, who was inspecting the road conditions on the side: "Actually, there is a question I wanted to ask a long time ago, why do we want to kill these Guarani people?" As for it, such a big mortal feud? Now that they have come to destroy the roads we have built and attack our convoys, aren't you afraid of these days of fear? ”

"You have to figure it out, it's not that we're going to kill them now, it's that they're going to kill us." Long Xu glanced at Meng Hu and said seriously.

"Don't talk to me about this." "If you hadn't implemented a brutal policy of extermination against these natives in the first place, how could they have been so hostile to us?" Your military department is really a group of emperors and Han elements, plus militarist madmen, and the country is making a mess of you. ”

"Hehe, since you said so. Then I'm too lazy to talk nonsense with you. You just ask. How did the 300,000 Guarani in southern Brazil become just over 50,000? Now there are even fewer than 40,000 people. If you look at the Guarani slaves on the plantations in Brazil and the Guarani soldiers who went with the São Paulo people, you can see that we are the ones who caused all this? Yes, we killed a few thousand Guarani, and by the way, exiled one or two thousand, but what is the difference between the Brazilians and the vendetta between the natives? Long Xu sneered and said, "Also, you are also 40 years old." How can you still be like a young man who has universal human rights all day long or something? You remember, all of us outsiders are robbers, and how can robbers safely seize their master's property without killing all their masters? ”

"And they're all in the church!" Long Xu continued to strike at Meng Hu mercilessly, "You should also know that religion is a very important part of culture, because it permeates people's way of thinking, code of conduct, and details in all aspects of life. If these people were naturalized by us, wouldn't our country have become a Catholic country? Will our country be an Eastern country or a Western country in the future? Don't tell me you can convert them, but look at how many years have they been converted, how many of those immigrants from Central and Western Europe have converted? Is there a tenth. Not yet, right? Why do we advocate science and break down superstition in China? Why do we only bring in religiously unaffiliated Livonians in Europe? It's not about making yourself less troublesome! ”

Although Meng Hu understood that what the other party said was right, he was unwilling to accept these things that did not conform to his own philosophy. It was useless for others to say anything, he was only willing to live in his own world. Therefore, he didn't take Long Xu's words, and instead led the expedition to pick up the vehicle and pick up the wheat scattered on the ground.

Half an hour earlier, they had just come under an attack – an armed attack led by about a few hundred Guarani. Armed with bows and arrows, wooden spears, and a small number of arquebuses, they launched a surprise attack on the convoy of goods from the east coast. The small militia carrying supplies was fairly well trained, and they immediately relied on wagons and cargo boxes to fire heavily at the enemy, and together with the army following the convoy, they repelled the invading enemy.

In the whole battle, only 2 militiamen were killed, and 6 others were slightly wounded; Only one soldier was killed and four were wounded. As their opponents, the Guarani paid at least eighty casualties – or eighty to be more accurate, because the inaccessible wounded were now also stabbed to death with bayonets by the East Coast soldiers who were cleaning the battlefield.

Hmph, looking at the messy battlefield, Long Xu sneered in his heart. The hilly area between New Königsberg and the estuary is full of forests and grasslands, but there are very few Guarani villages, and the gendarmerie estimates that there are no more than 2,000 Guarani people living in the whole area. And in the past six months, nearly half of these 2,000 people have already defected to the East Coasters, and the rest have also suffered hundreds of casualties in several skirmishes, how can they still muster a few hundred strong men to attack the East Coast convoy? Look at the sackcloth clothes worn by these attackers, which is what the local bitter Guarani people can wear? The Jesuits, the Franciscans, their hearts can be punished!

It seems that it is possible to contact the São Paulo people in the north, whose slave trapping team seems to have not been opened for a long time since they were repeatedly defeated by the armed Paranaguarani, right? After returning home, you can ask the military headquarters to discuss with the other side, and the two sides will advance north and south, and the several mission areas set up by the Spaniards in the Paraná Valley will be wiped out and uprooted! The captured slaves were taken away by the São Paulians, and in any case we would have to exterminate or expel the Guarani people from the region, and nothing else, and the São Paulians would have been glad to do so.

But that's all for later, and now it's better to fix the damaged road first, otherwise the convoy won't be able to pass. They were loaded with food, ammunition, livestock, tools, and other supplies that were urgently needed by the pioneers of New Königsberg, which had to be delivered there as soon as possible.

It's a pity that the Executive Committee currently has no extra steel production capacity to build railways in hilly areas. Over the past few years, most of the steel capacity of Ping An Iron and Steel Plant has been supplied to the First Machinery Plant to produce cast iron tracks, which are used to lay a total of 180 kilometers of railway lines on the Luomei Line and the first phase of the Northwest Corridor Railway (Xiayihe Fort - Canyon Fort). Among them, 150 kilometers of the double line of the Luomei Line has been officially completed, while the first phase of the Northwest Railway has just completed the construction of the roadbed, and the official laying of rails has not yet begun. However, in the construction of railways, leveling the roadbed, excavating tunnels, and erecting bridges are the largest parts of the project.

Most of the steel production capacity is used in the south, and the Executive Committee and the Ministry of Communications will naturally not consider building a railway in the hilly and low mountain area west of Yazi Lake in the short term. After all, although the slopes here are not steep at all, and the terrain is okay, it is not as convenient as building a railway on the flat prairie in the south, so the Ministry of Communications is currently trying to ensure the completion of the Northwest Railway. As for the traffic between New Königsberg and Hekou Township, it can only be dealt with by the simple gravel road of Highway 2. When the new steel plant in the Corrales mining area is in the planning process and the Northwest Railway is completed, it is only natural that the Ministry of Transportation will build a railway in the north for balancing reasons.

Some of the soldiers recruited from Zhenhai County quickly filled in the potholed road and laid some large wooden planks in several muddy areas to allow the carriage to pass smoothly. After receiving the confirmed information that the enemy of the scouts had gone away, Long Xu immediately ordered the convoy and the expedition team to follow, and they had to rush to a military station located 20 kilometers from Highway 2 to rest before the sun set. Otherwise, it is too dangerous to camp in the wilderness, and it is easy to be disturbed by the enemy at night.

This military station is a mixed brick and wood structure, which is not large, but very strong. There were more than 30 militiamen on duty inside, in addition to two 4-pounder steel cannons. There is really nothing that the Guarani people can gnaw on this small but sturdy turret, so it is perfect as a temporary resting place for passing convoys and personnel.

As the leading officer, Long Xu rode a war horse in the middle of the team under the escort of the regiment, he observed the road ahead, and wondered whether to jointly write to the military headquarters with Chang Kaisheng and others after arriving at New Königsberg, requesting partial mobilization in more than ten towns and towns in the north and south of Yahu Lake, mobilizing 1000-1500 militia to assemble in Coal River Township, and then it is best to transfer 1-2 additional regular army companies and some artillery to come over, with a total of about 2500 soldiers along the Yakuyi River to the west, Fight for the elimination of the Guaraní tribes who settled in the valleys of the Uruguay and Paraná rivers.

These tribes were large and civilized, and were under the umbrella of missionary groups such as the Jesuits and Franciscans. The people on the east coast had never thought of provoking them before, but this time since the other party had torn their faces and openly interfered with the township clean-up operation carried out by the people on the east coast in the hilly area of Huxi, then the people on the east coast no longer had to care about the face of the Spaniards.

Gather a large army to directly destroy those tribes, and solve the enemy's war potential at the bottom of the kettle, this is a matter of once and for all! As for the diplomatic troubles that may arise from this, it is the business of the white shirts (civilian officials), and it has nothing to do with our military department.

Over the years, thanks to the persuasion of army veteran Peng Zhicheng, the military department has been relatively stable and has not done anything too out of the ordinary, so as to create a good external environment for the country and fully guarantee the smooth progress of the migration operation. But as Europe's 30-year war draws to a close and La Plata is changing, it's time for the War Office to come out and make a statement. Now that these Spanish missionaries and Guarani have sent their faces up, then don't blame the East Coasters for giving you a hard blow!

On the evening of December 25, 1645, the convoy successfully arrived at the military station to rest; On the 27th, the convoy arrived outside New Königsberg, and the material transportation task was successfully completed. (To be continued......)