The vest came out of the bumpy carriage and stretched his aching body hard, and then he let out a long sigh of relief. It took four days to take a horse-drawn carriage all the way from Canyon Fort to 200 kilometers, which made the vest, who is now over fifty years old, really unbearable.

However, he still came here with full enthusiasm, and of course, there was also the persuasion of some friends, which made Ma Jia, who was comfortably working in the position of commissioner of the South Duck Lake area, resign from the position of commissioner and took up the position of director of the Northwest Reclamation Bureau (regional level), which had recently become independent from the Yihe region. The bureau has jurisdiction over five places: Baiqi Cliff Fort, Merlot Fort, Hejin Fort, Chengshan Fort, and Tieling Fort, with a total population of more than 7,500 people, which is about the same as the population of an ordinary county.

However, the economy here is undoubtedly far worse than that of the five counties in the coastal areas. First of all, it has just been opened for a long time, even if the earliest 100-foot cliff fort and Merlot Fort have only been opened for a year or two, among which the most populous Merlot Fort has only more than 25oo residents, basically based on agricultural planting, and the roads and houses are repaired under the arrangement of the government during the slack time. What is even more tragic is that these two settlements, which are mainly agricultural, have been established for a year or two, but the food gap is still not small. In addition to the fact that Fort Hundred Feet Cliff barely achieved food self-sufficiency last year, Fort Merlot still needs the government to mobilize a large amount of grain from the nearby Fort of the Gorge and the Lower River Fort, otherwise the survival of the 2,500 local residents will become a problem.

Immediately after taking office, Ma Jia asked for 10,000 head of cattle from the second batch of cattle sent back from La Plata, and then the local Northwest Reclamation Bank also provided farmers with a ten-year low-interest loan (3% interest per annum) for them to buy cattle, the best breeds of the agricultural technology station (in limited quantities), and more agricultural tools. At the same time, Ma Jia also vigorously promoted the three-crop rotation system in rural areas, encouraging each farmer to cultivate as much as possible 30 acres of land, so as to quickly increase local grain production and increase farmers' income. After all, it will be a trouble for farmers to not be able to repay bank loans, so they must not let the bank continue to roll over the loan.

At the same time, he also organized farmers to use some local swamps and wetlands to build a large number of artificial reservoirs during the off-season, which are used as a source of drinking water on the one hand, and as a source of water for the irrigation system of farmland on the other. The annual rainfall in the Uruguayan steppes is more than 1ooo mm. It is abundant, but there is less large local surface runoff, so irrigation of farmland is inconvenient. The only way to solve this problem is to make great efforts to improve the local environment, and the construction of reservoirs and canals is one of the most important tasks. However, this is a long-term action on a year-by-year basis, and in the East Coast, where labor is severely scarce, the process could be extended indefinitely.

But it doesn't matter. You don't have the time and patience to transform the environment, even if the process takes five, ten, or twenty years, everyone will continue to do it year after year. Do not doubt the enthusiasm of these peasants from the Ming Dynasty, who burst out with amazing perseverance and enthusiasm after using agricultural loans to buy their own share of land. Many people get up early and work in the fields at night. They picked up the best silt from the reservoir construction site two miles away, then soaked it in the fields, and then continued to carry the manure basket to the construction site, repeating the action.

The Legion Fort graduate, who was in charge of the new peasants, confessed that he had never seen anyone so attached to the land, and that if they hadn't stopped them severely, the peasants would have taken out the special loans for female slaves from above to buy land and cattle. It's laughable. What are you kidding, the state gave you a loan to buy a daughter-in-law because it wanted you to give birth to a cub quickly, and you actually wanted to buy a field, do you still have a royal law in your eyes?

In order to punish this unhealthy practice, the Family Planning Administration Commission under the Ministry of Civil Affairs issued a new regulation that if a female slave gives birth to two children within the loan repayment period (10 years), the interest rate on the loan is 5% per annum, and on top of that, for each additional child. Lending rates fell by 1%. If the number of children is less than two, the annual interest rate is doubled to 1o%. I believe that with this policy, these mud legs should make the right choice.

The offices of the Northwest Reclamation Bureau are located in the most remote part of the Republic, Fort Tieling (Corrales Mining Area). This settlement was expanded on the basis of the original 6th Army Station, and the walls have not yet been built. In fact, they didn't have time to build the walls, not even the brick houses - 8o% of the buildings in Tieling Fort are currently made of wood, and the main task of the 1,500 inhabitants here is to build roads. That is, to build a simple road to communicate with the inside and outside, so that external materials can be transported in time. Otherwise, in this far-flung place where there is no food for itself, the livelihood of so many people will not be solved.

Of course, this is a flat prairie. The road construction is easy, and it is often just a matter of draining some swamps and filling in some depressions. These improvised roads do not require much effort to maintain, after all, after they have completed their historical mission, the local traffic will be completely undertaken by the Northwest Railway, which extends to them. In the future, the special steel, machinery and other products produced in Tielingbao will be continuously transported by the guò railway, and at the same time, a large number of raw materials and even labor required for industrial production will be imported from the outside world.

Majia's office is on the second floor of a small building in the middle of the city - the only brick and stone "high-rise" building in the area, and a maid from Greece cleans the office immoculately. His secretary, Kontan (Constantine), a young French student who graduated from the Chrysburg, had already brewed him a pot of Tieguanyin, thanks to the blessing of Mo Dashuai, and now some wealthy people in the local area consume tea and porcelain without asking the Dutch to spend a lot of money to buy them. Mo Dashuai's career has grown bigger and bigger, and now he returns tens of thousands of pieces of porcelain and hundreds of boxes of tea to the mainland every year, much to the delight of European immigrants who have a special preference for these luxuries.

The wooden staircase sounded, and Contin immediately put down the text in his hand, walked to the door, bowed down and said, "Director." ”

Ma Jia nodded, then walked to his desk and sat down, after seeing a copy of the text on the table, he picked it up and looked at it carefully, then put it down, and said, "Why did you damage 11 heavy trucks this month?" How are drivers trained? Or is the road condition too bad? ”

Hearing this, Contin immediately straightened up and said, "These drivers are all gauchos recruited from La Plata, and their riding skills are quite good, and their driving skills are quite good, probably because they are not familiar with our 2.5-ton heavy truck, and they still need to continue training. The other thing is that the roads are in terrible condition, and there are often Guarani people who come to destroy the roads at night, and they often dig the roads with potholes everywhere. The wooden bridges we built over some of the small streams were also torn down or simply burned, which caused a lot of trouble for our transportation. ”

Ma Jia frowned slightly when he heard this, but he didn't look up, still looking at the text behind him: "This month (May), 25 tons of wheat, 6 barrels of pickled cod (1ooo per barrel), 4 barrels of pickled soft fish, 3 tons of spiced whale meat, and a large amount of cheese, animal fat, salt and so on, the food expenditure of Tieling Fort alone will cost the central government nearly 5,000 yuan every month. It costs us two hundred dollars a night to complete the work in one day, and as a local governor, I can't be indifferent to that. Of the five settlements under the jurisdiction of the Northwest Reclamation Bureau, only the 100-foot cliff fort has barely achieved food self-sufficiency, and finally it is no longer possible to rely on the central government for a large amount of blood transfusion, but the remaining four settlements still cost the central government 25,000 yuan per month to maintain it, which still eliminates a large number of hidden expenses such as transportation losses and expenses. How difficult it is to open a new settlement! ”

"And with our construction being completed every night, our farmland being cleared every night, and our factories starting every night, the income of farmers and workers has never been raised. When the time comes, they can't afford to repay the loans, shouldn't we, as their parents, blame ourselves? Without waiting for Kang Tan to say anything, Ma Jia continued to say to himself: "From tomorrow, the staff of various departments will take turns to build roads, and then deal with official business at night. You score everyone for me, and if you want to be promoted, work hard for me, and then don't show it well, when will you show it? Everyone should also think of ways to plant some crops inside the outer walls of the courtyard to minimize the import of food from the outside world and reduce the pressure on transportation. I think the vines planted in our front yard are very good, they were planted by the new Greek maid, right? The Greeks already had a long history of growing grapes, and they wanted to make the most of their expertise. ”

"As for security, it's a real headache." Seeing the end of Wen Jiàn, Ma Jia finally frowned and said, "The cavalry company of the 6th Army that was originally stationed here has been transferred, and now these Guarani people are rampant. However, they have really grasped our weakness, our troops are not enough, and we can't support a large-scale army for a long time, which is really a troublesome thing. There is no way, now I can only let the local militia take more precautions. The Chang Kaisheng detachment attacking Asunción fought fairly smoothly, and they had won three battles in a row, approaching the outskirts of Asunción, and the final general attack was only in these two days. When Asunción is captured by us, then these Guarani, who are in the rear of Paraguay, will lose their roots and will not be able to stay here any longer. Now is their last madness, and let them run rampant for a while, in short, we must closely guard the camp of Tieling Fort, and not let those Guarani barbarians sneak up here. ”

While listening, Kang Tan quickly recorded the main points in the horse's words, and after a while, he will also communicate with the leaders of various departments to quickly implement the instructions of the horse. The East Coast has not been built for a long time, everyone is relatively pragmatic, and the upload and issuance of government decrees are quite accessible, which is very important for a new big six country that focuses on construction.

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