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"Everyone, listen up, the immigrants from the Ariake Kingdom are coming from the west! Let me tell you to be ready within two hours. "Outside the walls of the mixed civil structure of the New Castle, several former soldiers of the Eight Banners wearing large cotton jackets on the east bank are braving the bitter west wind and receiving orders from an east coast patrol officer in black police uniforms.

After the patrol gave the order, and confirmed that the settlers from Newcastle knew what they were going to do, they did not stop any longer, turned their horses' heads, and headed west along the Hungnan Highway. Although the wind was biting cold and the snow was flying, and although the former settlers of the Eight Banners from Newcastle tried their best to keep the herald to rest for a while, he still had to hurry back to resume his life, and did not dare to stay here for a while. The East Coast has only been a country for 20 years, and the law and discipline are strict, and the orders are strict, and few people dare to violate various regulations.

"I don't mean that those Nikans in the Ming Kingdom are shaking now, thinking that I would kill a few if I wanted to kill a few back then, but now, ...... Alas, don't say it! After a settler from the Han Army Banner heard that he was going to work for these Ming immigrants, his resentment suddenly couldn't be suppressed. In fact, it is no wonder that the weather is so cold now, they still have to go to the railway construction site to work, day by day tired like dogs, before they can catch their breath, the above sent a lively "black skin" (patrol police, military police, Ministry of Internal Affairs police, uniforms are black) to give them orders, for those Ming people who used to be like two-legged sheep in their eyes to boil water and cook, feed horses and repair cars. I also have to give them some quilts and beds that I don't even have enough. Every time I think of this, I make these former Qing army prisoners sad-this is too embarrassing!

"What are you complaining about at this time...... a flag man from a white flag glanced at the Han army flag soldier. Said disdainfully: "If you are bold enough to kill the black skin and take the horse, then I will still be impressed." Like now, who only dares to hide behind his back and complain, what kind of hero is it? Hurry up and boil water for Lao Tzu, the boss just approved five acres of land for me, and borrowed money to buy me an aunt. Lao Tzu will follow us on the east coast in the future. You, Nikan, also got the land, but you are still full of complaints, you really don't know anything, get out of here! ”

The surrounding Manchurian and Mongolian Eight Banners more or less knew some Chinese, and most of them laughed when they heard the words at this moment. In addition, the settlers who were captured by the Green Camp also had a lot of contempt for the Han Army Banner soldiers who surrendered to the Qing Dynasty in Liaodong, so they did not mean to help at all at this moment, which made this Han Army Banner soldier who was born as a close confidant of Shi Tingzhu blushing with shame.

"Alright, don't stick here, fuck the fuck and work!" An official who was born in Niu Lu couldn't listen to it anymore in the end. He began to come forward to assign tasks to everyone, so that they would not have to fight at the end: "The cow with the broken leg in the bullpen will be carried out for me." The Xingnan Port side has already approved it, and it can be killed! The radishes, cabbage, onions, potatoes and so on in the vegetable cellar should not be hidden, but should be taken out and stewed in a large pot of meat. The new seafood also took out some of it, well, unpacked a bucket of cod, a bucket of squid. In addition, bring some sorghum rice to cook rice, which is almost enough! Grandma drops, dip these nuns...... The light of the Ming people is gone, let's also have a tooth sacrifice. ”

After assigning their tasks, the officer, with seven or eight heavily armed retinues, kicked and beat a group of Krandi, who were crouching on the side of the road in a daze, and escorted them towards the construction site. Now there is still an hour or two before dark, but we can't be idle, let's hurry up and do some more work, after all, the construction period is tight, and no one can bear the consequences of not completing it on time. Unbelief? The well-equipped, wolf-like soldiers of the Southern Railway Company will make you understand this.

The group walked slowly westward with seventy or eighty dejected Crandy workers. On their left is the Xingnan Highway, and on the right is the South Cone Liangyang Railway, which is in the process of construction, and the railroad tracks have been laid for a long distance, standing on the Gobi Desert, there is almost no end in sight.

Although it was approaching evening - it was raining and snowing and it was getting dark earlier - the Hungnam Highway on the left was still busy, with horse-drawn wagons of varying loads passing by them from time to time. Of course, they couldn't see the situation on the highway clearly, because in order to prevent accidents caused by people and animals entering and exiting at will, there were large wooden fences of different heights on both sides of the Heungnam Highway, leaving only gaps in certain places. However, they have also lived here for more than a year, and they can hear what kind of vehicles are walking on the road, and in addition to a few migrant buses, most of them are freight carriages, and the goods pulled from east to west are also truckloads of goods, which also illustrates the importance of this traffic artery connecting the two oceans from one side, and also shows the importance of the Southern Cone Railway and its future profit prospects.

"This official road in Xingnan seems to be getting more and more dilapidated. It's no wonder that in less than a year since the opening of traffic, there have been more and more carriages walking on this road. Walking on the road, the officials who led the team from Newcastle pondered: "A while ago, two senior officials came to the west, and they also asked us to repair some of the damage on the road. Forget it today, tomorrow we will arrange for these Krandi Savages to work overtime at night and fill in some obvious potholes on the nearby road first. Seeing that the rain and snow continue to enter the winter, this road is becoming more and more prone to breakage, so we must hurry. ”

In fact, the Southern Railway Company was a little ill-prepared for the Xingnan Highway at the beginning. In particular, long after reaching a smuggling trade agreement with the Peruvian side, they are still hesitant to upgrade this temporary sand road into a high-grade highway, because once the 300-kilometer-long Xingnan Highway is re-upgraded, it will probably need 6 or 700,000 yuan in cash, and at the same time, it will also occupy a lot of manpower and material resources.

But now, it was evident that they could not drag it any longer, and the grumbling of the thirty or forty heavy freight wagons that Gain had been running on the highway every day was almost clamour. The poor road conditions not only increase the failure rate of trucks, reduce the service life of vehicles (including the pull-up horses), and even cause a lot of material losses. For example, the loss of fragile items such as tiles, glassware, cans, and wine (which is quite expensive in the windy sea) adds up to a staggering amount over a period of several months. In addition, I am afraid that it will take four or five years for the expected Southern Cone Railway to be officially opened to traffic -- if there is no additional investment (whether it is cash investment or material and personnel investment) -- the senior management of the Southern Railway Company can finally no longer be indifferent to the poor road conditions of the Xingnan Highway, so Mo Ming made the decision to squeeze out a part of the investment in Xingnan Port and Araukan Port, and publicly issue a batch of bonds in Qingdao Port to make up for this batch of road construction funds. The aim is to completely upgrade the road to a permanent asphalt road within a year.

As for whether this high-grade highway with a huge amount of money is suspected of being wasteful -- after all, there is a road under construction next to it -- the Southern Railway Company does not think it is a big problem. Because after the completion of the construction of the Southern Cone Railway, it is conceivable that the trains passing through this railway, in addition to supplying coal and water, will basically not stop in the inland towns where the population is scarce and the products are not abundant. However, along the way, Zixinbao, Sand Castle, and some settlements that will be developed by the Southern Railway Company along the railway line in the future, also need to communicate with the outside world, and they also have the need to export their products to the outside world and then import goods from the outside world, and this naturally depends on the Xingnan Highway.

For example, farmers and herders scattered over vast areas in the wild often need to concentrate their goods in a specific town to sell, and then the local processing companies will reprocess them, and finally contact the wagons to transport the final product to the port to organize export. But before that, a lot of short-distance transportation still had to be carried out by road, so this high-grade road really can't be saved. If you look at the country, you will know that the first railway in China, the Luomei Line, is 180 kilometers long, but there are hundreds of kilometers of county roads, township roads and even village-level dirt roads parallel or intersected with this railway. It is these roads of different grades that in fact act as branch lines of the railway, connecting the vast rural areas, making the movement of goods and people more efficient and faster, after all, trains do not stop everywhere.

In addition, there is another important reason, that is, even if the Southern Cone Railway is fully opened to traffic in a few years, it will only be a single line. With trade with Peruvians becoming more and more frequent, it was still a question whether the capacity of the railways would be able to keep up at that time, and everyone knew how troublesome the transportation of single-track railways was. Perhaps the Southern Railway Company will then want to double track this critical railway – which is almost inevitable – and it will obviously take time, and then an intact Xingnan Highway will be of great use. All in all, the money for building this road really can't be saved, not to mention that the roadbed has been leveled when the sand road was originally built, and if it is abandoned in the future, the previous investment of 300,000 yuan will be wasted, which is really a pity.

On the evening of July 4, 1650, 174 Ming immigrants from the Far East arrived safely at Zixinbao, only two days away from their final destination, the port of Hungnan. (The novel "Crossing 1630: The Rise of South America" will have more fresh content on the official WeChat platform, and there will also be a 100% lottery gift for everyone!) Open WeChat now, click on the "+" sign in the upper right corner "Add Friends", search for the official account "ddxiaoshuo" and follow, hurry up! (To be continued......)