January 15, 1644, Xinhua Port, pouring rain.

The tropical weather of the rainy season is difficult, with continuous rain, hot and humid weather, and rampant diseases all challenging the limits of patience for newcomers. According to statistics, since the rainy season entered at the end of October 43 in the Xinhua area, the number of sick people in Xinhua Port has surged by about 20% compared with usual. Although many people suffer from minor ailments and recover on their own, a considerable number of people still contract malaria.

Even though the people of the east coast have planted some cinchona trees in the hilly and mountainous areas north of Ping'an County, the number is still too scarce to be large-scale. Therefore, although the production of this precious drug has increased compared with the past, it is still not available in large quantities. At this stage, only military and political officials, senior soldiers, and technical personnel in the New China Colony are eligible to use medication after contracting malaria, and ordinary people can only survive when they get sick.

In the three months since the rainy season, more than 60 people have been infected with malaria, most of them residents who need to work in the fields or near the water, and a third of these people have died, but the situation of those who have not died is not optimistic. In addition to these, more than 10 people have died of dysentery, typhoid fever and other diseases, in short, every rainy season, it is the moment of the outbreak of diseases in the new China area.

In fact, the city of Xinhuagang is relatively much better than the colonial cities established by Europeans in the Caribbean, Africa, India and Indonesia, especially in terms of hygiene. First of all, the city is clean and clean, with hardened pavements paved with bricks and stones, and underground drainage pipes that were buried at great cost at the beginning of the construction of the city. These two are rare either in the Old Continent of Europe or in its overseas colonial cities. Even many of the towns on the East Coast that were planned in advance were not so extravagant.

Good drainage facilities have greatly reduced the amount of water in and around the city. This reduces the breeding environment for many mosquitoes, which reduces the chance of people getting sick. In fact, we can compare Batavia and Xinhua Port at this time, Batavia's urban area is vast, the environment is complex, there are small rivers and forests in the city, and many residents even build fish ponds to raise fish in it; The circumference of Xinhuabao is only 1,000 meters, and the area is far less than that of Batavia, and the city is full of brick buildings. With the exception of a few wells and enclosed drinking water treatment facilities, there is no water surface, leaving mosquitoes with little breeding ground. It's no wonder, then, that the living conditions of the two cities in the same tropical region are so different.

The second is people's hygiene habits. From the very beginning, the captain of the Madagascar development team, Shi Qinjie, issued an order strictly prohibiting the spilling of sewage and garbage on the streets, and the offender was punished with a fine. Every day, residents have to dump all kinds of garbage into designated places, and then have them incinerated or landfilled. Residents will also get regular haircuts and baths, and the city's public baths will be boiling hot water every day for no charge, and workers won't mind taking a hot bath after work. to remove the fatigue of the body.

In this way, the incidence of various diseases among the residents of Xinhuabao is minimized. It is nothing compared to Batavia's horrific annual mortality rate of 17 per cent. Although a large number of people still get sick and die during the rainy season, they are generally dealt with in a timely manner, so the mortality rate is also controlled within a tolerable range.

Compared to Xinhuabao, the situation in Tacheng is much worse. The construction of the city walls has only just been completed, but the various facilities in the city, such as the forts, lighthouses, and permanent docks outside the city, have not yet been completed, so the living conditions of the local residents are still quite poor. Naturally, the mortality rate of its inhabitants is also very high, and for this reason, the Executive Committee even added 200 French immigrants from the mainland to supplement the large number of diseases caused by logging, coal mining, and land reclamation. It can be said that every bit of construction achievement in the primitive tropics was made up of a large number of bones in this era.

Nine vessels, large and small, are moored at the pier of Xinhua Port. The nine ships arrived here from mainland China via Baleen Whale Harbor and Fort River, including four of the latest 1,200-ton Scud-class scissor carriers, two special migrant ships "Sprint Champion" and "Postman" with compartments and steam ventilation fans, two 1,150-ton steam engine sailing ships "Treading Waves" and "Splitting Water", and a newly built frigate gunboat "Swordfish".

Among these ships, the special migrant ships "Sprint Champion" and "Postman" were originally not steam-powered in the original design, but later considered that the two ships will be put into operation from Gushan Port in Australia to Xinhua Port in Xinhuaxia, the voyage is long, especially when sailing in the tropics on the return trip, the conditions are relatively harsh, so a set of 62.8 horsepower steam units was added when it was built. The ship adopts a propeller thruster with iron pear wood bushing, with a normal speed of 11-12 knots, and a speed of about 16-17 knots when the wind and water are downwind. With such a high speed, in order to avoid the instability of the ship's center of gravity, only one layer of emigrant compartments was added above the deck, so that the whole ship could carry 800 people. Of course, it may be possible to carry more people without the modification of steam power, but this is undoubtedly not in line with the original intention of the East Coasters to quickly transport migrants.

The two expensive ships could barely carry any cargo, and when they left Xinhua Port for Australia, they were mostly empty, and there was no one else in the hold except for the fifty gunners who had carried past the Yantai Fortress. Therefore, it is a standard "special ship for immigrants", and it is not equipped with any equipment, and the Executive Committee has only built two ships to test the water, and only God knows when the construction of such extravagant and expensive ships will start in the future.

The two ships will be joined by two flute transports already operating on this section of the voyage, each capable of transporting more than 2,500 migrants. Of course, they don't sail with the slow flutes, which would not take advantage of their high speed. They will arrive at Gushan Port in early May each year to load migrants back to Xinhuabao; A fleet of flute-type transports, escorted by a fast cruiser, will arrive at the end of May each year. The first fleet will take a break after arriving at Xinhuabao, and then will arrive at Gushan Port again in late June to pick up the second group of migrants for their return; In mid-August, the second fleet will arrive at Gushan Port again to transport the last batch of migrants, and thus the transportation task of the whole year is basically over.

It can be seen from this that at present, the fleet of people on the east coast can run two round trips a year from Xinhua Port to Gushan Port, carrying more than 5,000 people. Of course, if there are too many immigrants, it is not impossible to make one or two more round-trips, but then the speed will be slower due to the weather, sea conditions and other factors, especially for flute transports that rely on pure sail power. Therefore, if possible, the people of the East Coast are willing to finish their year's voyage between mid-October and give the sailors a holiday and maintenance of their ships.

The four "Scud" class sail clipping carriers are responsible for the voyage from the mainland to Xinhua Port via South Africa, and the sailing time period is basically the same as the previous one, that is, the winter and spring seasons in the southern hemisphere, and can also run two round trips a year. During this time, the wind direction is conducive to navigation, and the summer storm sea of Cape Agulhas in South Africa is calm and the risk is low. The four Scud-class clippers can carry about 3,600-4,000 people at a time, but they are still cargo ships at a time, and it is impossible to carry all the migrants on the return journey – in fact, there are not so many people for them in the early stage, and they will carry some timber back to the mainland in addition to the migrants. Of course, if there were slave girls or livestock traded from the port of Suez, they might have carried some on their return journey.

The last remaining frigate gunboat and the multi-purpose sailing ships "Treading the Waves" and "Dividing Water" will be fully loaded with cargo, pass through the port of Gushan in Australia, go to Jinshan Port to join the three ships that arrived there in the early stage (a frigate gunboat, a flute-type transport ship, and an armed transport ship), and then head north to Blackwater Port to join the sequence of Blackwater's temporary dispatch fleet. By that time, the Blackwater Fleet would have a colossal size of six steam engine sailing ships. Among them, depending on the situation, two paddle turbine sailing ships with smaller tonnage may be placed in Australia, which will travel between its two ports and be navigable all year round; The other four ships will depart from the port of Yuanbo on Rishiri Island to the port of Kanayama in the winter and spring of the northern hemisphere, and can carry 3,500-4,000 people at a time, and can also run two round trips a year, which is seven or eight thousand people.

With so many more ships at once, the number of sailors required was also quite huge, at least 250 sailors, 30-40 steam engine maintenance and repairmen, and more than 100 naval gunners, and this pressure was quite enormous. To this end, the locals increased their own efforts in the training of sailors, and opened sailors' training schools for large-scale training, and at the same time, they also selected some Malay sailors who were considered relatively reliable after years of observation, and finally some from the Chinese-Portuguese combined fleet and local fishermen in the New China area, which barely supported them.

However, this year's sailor gap has passed, and it will not be solved for a while next year. Therefore, in the plan of the Executive Committee, only one steam engine sailing ship, one flute-type transport ship will be launched next year, and perhaps there will be a special ship for immigrants, but it is only a certain possibility. While recruiting manpower and expanding the slipway, the three domestic shipyards carried out technical renovation of the three main battleships in China, and at the same time built a fourth battleship, the "National Will", and also undertook orders for two additional fast cruisers from the Ottoman Empire, so as to improve their finances and pay off in installments the huge debt of more than 1 million yuan in principal and interest accumulated a few years ago. (To be continued......)