PS: See the exclusive story behind "Crossing 1630: The Rise of South America", listen to your more suggestions for the novel, pay attention to the starting point Chinese network public account (WeChat add friends - add public account - enter ddxiaoshuo can be), quietly tell me!

"Researcher Chen, from here to the north, across this river, you will enter the boundary of Taoyuan Township." The man from the bush farm pointed to a small river about ten meters wide in front of him and said.

Because it was so desolate and sparsely populated, there was not even a bridge over the river, so it had to wade ashore. Fortunately, there were farm workers who were familiar with the nearby geography to lead the way, so Chen Ke and his team quickly found a suitable section of the river downstream for swimming.

Today is January 20, 1651, and Chen Ke and his team spent three weeks on a rough survey of the Great Wilderness Farm, the Shrub Farm, and the Glorious Farm, and then they set off to the north to Taoyuan Township (about 20 kilometers east-north, at the confluence of the Shosai River and the Little Olimar River), the last destination of the expedition.

A young man acting as a guide—the son of a farm renter, who was just eighteen years old—rode first into the creek, only to see him stripped naked and mounted on a bare, bare-free horse. When the horse approached the center of the river, the horse's legs could no longer touch the bottom of the river, and the young man slipped off the horse's buttocks, grasped the horse's tail tightly, and swam forward with the horse. Whenever the horse wanted to turn back, he threw water on the horse's face and made the horse turn its head back and swim on. And when the horse's legs reached the riverbed on the other side of the center of the river, he jumped on the horse's back again. Finally, when the horse stepped on the opposite bank. He was already firmly on the ground. And play with their horses affectionately.

The others looked at each other. They didn't have the same equestrian skills and familiarity with horses as this young man, which can only be done by people who have lived with horses all year round. I heard that in the western grasslands, many children of wealthy farmers would try to raise a foal when they were young, and they would become familiar with riding while taking care of the horses, and by the time they grew up, they were often very good at riding. These men were also the main force in every battle against the barbarians, and they brought their own horses, equipment and sabers, and followed the regular cavalry units of the army. Search the camp of the Charuya for raids.

Chen Ke spends much more time in the office than he spends outdoors in a year, and his riding skills are naturally very average, so he can only honestly take off his clothes and swim down the river to the opposite side. Some of his entourages tried to learn the way of the guide—but most of them failed, and they ended up swimming honestly across the river.

The deeper you go into the north bank of the river, the more desolate the ground becomes, and the road is full of scenes of animals living happily, but there are no human beings. The steppes are covered with endless grasses and spiny bud thistles, two plants that seem to have been brought from the Old World by the Spaniards many years ago. But now it's growing spectacularly – it seems that the environment here is particularly suitable for thistle and spiny bracts, which is why the plant grows everywhere. It has almost formed a trend of invasive species.

Chen Ke and the others walked north along a sandy road that could barely be called a road, and the thistles and thorny bracts on both sides were almost as tall as horseback. According to one of the gauchos who traveled with him, the thistles on the east coast savannah were not particularly tall, and in many places in the fertile pampas savannah, the thorny bracts were often higher than the riders' heads, and cattle herders were often reluctant to lose their cattle in the thistle bushes (and then the cattle were so happy that they became bison...... ), heavy losses.

"It's all the work of the Spaniards! Fortunately, however, this plant does not grow well in moist areas suitable for farming, otherwise it would have been a hassle to develop these areas in the future, and it would have been necessary to spend a lot of effort to clean them up first, which is probably a blessing in misfortune. Chen Ke looked at the tall thistles and thorny bud thistle bushes on both sides of the road, and thought with some rejoicing.

Walking on the path among the tall thistle grasses, they spent a day and arrived in Taoyuan Township on the evening of January 21. The number of people in this settlement in Taoyuan Township is not much, there are about 700 people, most of them are European poor people attracted by the "Homestead Law" on the east coast, and the proportion of Ming people is about one-third - almost all of them work in the orchards.

The number of settlers in this stronghold is obviously not comparable to that of Dahuang Farm (more than 1,200 people), shrub farm (more than 1,300 people), and Glorious Farm (more than 900 people) in the south, and Taoyuan Township, which has only 722 settlers, originally originated from a large orchard (peach tree orchard). Because the soil here is very suitable for the growth of fruits such as peach trees, orange trees and grapes, and the terrain is excellent between the low hills, Tao Chenxi, director of the General Bureau of Textile Industry of the East Coast Republic, rented a large piece of land in Taoyuan Township, which was still a wilderness at that time, and then recruited manpower, leveled the land, transplanted fruit trees, and began the pioneering operation in earnest.

Of course, he himself did not forget to buy a homestead in this peach orchard to build a villa garden of his own design, which is called "Tao Garden". It was only later that with the increasing number of local immigrants and the gradual growth of peach groves, outsiders increasingly called this place "Taoyuan" instead of "Taoyuan", and over time "Taoyuan" became the official name of this place. In mid-December last year, the Government Council explicitly named the settlement Taoyuan Township, and relocated a new group of four or five hundred Livonian immigrants to the place - they are still on the road, and should arrive here in a few days, after all, the transportation is not convenient.

Chen Ke and others lived in a small guest house next to the township government, saying that it was a guest house, and it was almost the same as a farmhouse. There are also vegetables and some chickens and ducks in the front yard, and there are seven or eight sheep in the back yard, which are not only fishy, but also bleating all day long. But that's the way it is when you're on a business trip, at least there's hot water and a neat bed for everyone to live in, which is much better than living in a tent in the wilderness, isn't it?

The guest house is run by a middle-aged veteran soldier of the Akito who is missing a leg, and he wears a prosthetic leg and does not have a particularly difficult time walking. Chen Ke saw that he didn't have the sad expression of ordinary disabled people, and he seemed to have a very cheerful personality; His Polish wife is very beautiful, and his children are also very lovely and diligent. At this moment, the sun is setting, the little girl has come back from the outside of the yard with a pile of firewood, her mother is cooking in the kitchen, her younger brother is lighting the fire in front of the stove, and her father is pouring hot water on the briquette stove in the yard, and the family is busy.

After dinner was ready, Chen Ke beckoned everyone to help move the table to the courtyard, and then a group of more than ten people sat together, opened a few bottles of West Lake beer, and then ate and drank. Beef stew with potatoes, lamb with garlic, steamed cod, and some vegetables, everyone was hungry for a long time, so they ate quite sweetly.

When they had finished eating, the innkeeper's son, who was not yet ten years old, brought a few plates of cleanly washed peaches, and then ran to the stable in the corner of the yard, and took a brush and bathed a foal. The foal, which must have been prepared for him by his father, was licking the little one's face affectionately, and he was having a great time with one man and one horse.

Chen Ke watched silently for a while, and then asked how the child's father went to school, there are only more than 700 people in Taoyuan Township, I'm afraid there may not be a school, right? Unexpectedly, the facts were far beyond Chen Ke's expectations, although there were only dozens of children in Taoyuan Township, of which only about 20 lived in the township, and the rest were scattered in various villages, but the township still built a primary school to teach students ideological morality, Chinese, arithmetic, labor (generally handmade), singing, and gymnastics; In addition, there are additional classes in agriculture and commerce for boys and tailoring for girls.

It is worth mentioning that the education system on the East Coast is similar as a whole, but there are still some differences in different places. For example, Dongfang County, the capital city, Ping'an County, an important industrial town in the north, and Zhenhai County, a veteran shipbuilding base, do not have agriculture and tailoring in the curriculum of these wealthy counties, because there are more local handicraftsmen and the social division of labor is relatively detailed, so there is no need to learn these knowledge. But in the inlandish savannah, where traffic is closed, these courses are necessary, because there are not many craftsmen here to do this and that for you, and there is a need for generalists, not specialists, and everyone has to master multiple skills.

Another difference from the coastal areas is that because of population density, transportation factors and poor governance, children here – especially in remote rural areas – may not go to the township or county to receive compulsory education, they often work at home from an early age, even if the village urges them to go to the township or county to go to school, most of them will be delayed, and the distance is too long, so the school enrollment rate of rural children is not very high.

In order to solve this situation, local governments have tried their best to create opportunities for rural children to receive education. For example, they arranged for some low-level scholars from the former Ming Dynasty to teach them in the village (with the increase in the number of immigrants, the teachers trained by the East Bank themselves were insufficient), but the methods of teaching knowledge to these scholars were traditional and old-fashioned, and Yan zhòng did not conform to modern education methods.

For example, they mainly teach literature (ancient Chinese, vernacular), occasionally mixed with some abacus, rulers and the like, the most common scene in the classroom is to memorize from dawn to dusk, the education methods are extremely backward, but also quite incomplete. In the future, after the training of teachers gradually catches up, these private schools will have to merge and abolish sooner or later. However, for the time being, the existence of these private schools, which are generally non-formal schools, still has its positive significance, because it gives children in remote villages where it is difficult to go to school a chance to be educated, no matter how outdated the teaching methods and teaching content are, but at least it teaches these children to read and write, and that is enough! (A good event for pie in the sky, cool mobile phones are waiting for you!) Follow from ~ Dian/Chinese network public account (WeChat add friends - add public account - enter ddxiaoshuo), participate now! Everyone has a prize, now pay attention to ddxiaoshuo WeChat public account! (To be continued......)