"Consumption is the ultimate goal of production." This maxim of the Finance and Economics College under the Ministry of Industry and Commerce is a very profound interpretation of the mystery of the commodity economy. Unlike the soybean and milling industries in Meilin and Zhenhai counties, which produce far more than they need, many areas in the northern part of Ping'an County, which have close commercial ties with the Portuguese, are typically produced for consumption.

In Ping'an Township, which is arguably the largest heavy industry center in the Republic of China, the proportion of local workers is quite high, and they do not engage in agricultural production, but rely on the import of grain, meat, oil and other food products from the outside world. As for other small commodities that were not produced on the east coast itself, they were produced by the Portuguese in the mountains.

As the economy of the East Coast grew larger and more populous, the Portuguese towns on the hills flourished. Large numbers of whites who could not get along in the Old World for various reasons flocked to settle in the towns of Blacksmith, New Dundee, Slaves, and Captain Ricardo, and then produced small goods such as buttons, sewing needles, fish hooks, woven bags, hat brims, leather shoes, etc., through guò handicraft workshops, which were exported to the neighboring county of Ping'an for profit. The business was so large and so many people employed that a staggering fifty tons of grain were imported each month from the village of Baoan on the east coast to the Portuguese territory in the mountains.

In fact, it is normal to think about it. The "Portuguese" on the hills, mostly from Portugal, England, Ireland and Scotland in the Old World, were mostly craftsmen, and they used their crafts to make huge profits from the people of the East Coast, so they naturally had no time to produce food. In fact, Brazil's grain farming industry has been on the verge of collapse over the past few years under the onslaught of cheap grain from the East Coast, and they are a little afraid of the aggressive East Coast government. They did not dare to adopt measures to restrict imports, such as trade barriers. As a result, the already scarce grain plantations could compete with the low-cost East Coast grain. Large-scale conversion to tobacco, sugar cane or cotton began. These white planters produced most of their food, except for a small amount of wheat for themselves and their families, by importing wheat bran, potatoes, sweet potatoes, or cassava from the East Coast – for slaves and inferior people (mestizos).

However, not everyone was willing to stay in the mountains to eat wheat bran, sweet potatoes, and cassava, and some Britons, who had no skills (meaning no objective income), overcame their fear of infidels, and under the "inspection" of the East Coast border guards (they were allowed to enter but not leave), they crossed the border and entered the East Coast to earn a living.

In this kind of cross-border migration, the relatively affluent life of Ping'an County, an important city on the east coast, has played a decisive role. Like what. Those "new Brazilians" found that the wives and children of East Coast farmers or workers tended to be robust, which meant that they had plenty of food; For example, the workers of the neighboring East Coast even occasionally had the opportunity to go to the tavern for a drink or some dishes they could not have imagined; What's more, a booklet "50 Different Methods of Making Pork" that is quite popular in Ping'an County has also set off the yearning of these bitter old continent bottom dicks to the east coast. Thus, even though the people on the East Coast were heretics, and even though the Hellfire was full of depravity in the east coast of the priests' propaganda, a considerable number of indentured slaves who were tormented by hunger still tried by all means to escape from the plantations where they worked, and then seek an opportunity to enter the territory of the East Coast.

According to incomplete statistics, more than 1,500 people crossed the border into the East Coast in 1648 and never left, most of them from Britain. And with the acceleration of the East Coast's economic development and the huge thirst for labor. In the first three months of 1649, more than 1,000 Britons crossed the border into the East Coast. This is a sign that perhaps the number of "illegal immigrants" entering the East Coast this year will reach more than 3,000 – an extremely surprising number.

These immigrants who illegally cross the border often choose to live in Ping'an County first. The river digging site in Baoan Township, the orchard in Liming Township, the wharf in Ping'an Township, and the coal mine in Coal River Township all provide them with quite good transitional work. After becoming familiar with the situation in the East Coast, accumulating a small amount of travel expenses, and obtaining official identity certificates, they will be registered by the officials sent by the Ministry of Civil Affairs, and then dispersed to various new and old settlements in the East Coast to settle down, trying not to let them stay in their original places, so as to reduce all kinds of unnecessary troubles.

With the huge thirst for labor for projects such as the South-Northwest Railway and the development of Patagonia by the Southern Railway Company, from the second half of 48 years, these spontaneously immigrant white indentured slaves began to be gradually assigned to railway construction sites, and a few were also planned to be sent to Xingnan Port to support the construction of the Southern Railway Company, which undoubtedly greatly alleviated the domestic hunger for labor.

Migration and goods form the link of exchange between Brazil and the East Coast. The volume of trade between small handicrafts, sugar, spices, tobacco, cotton, tropical fruits, timber and people from the north to the south of Brazil and the grain, oil, bean cakes, leather goods, textiles, steel, honeycomb coal, building materials, hardware, soaps, medicines and some luxury goods (such as clocks and watches, whale oil candles, etc.) on the east coast has increased several times in a few years. They then banded together to form large syndicate companies, which monopolized much of Brazil's trade with the East Coast.

The increasing prosperity of trade and the large inflow of population are self-evident in the benefits to Ping'an County. First of all, Ping An's infrastructure is one of the best in the country's eight counties (including the newly formed counties of Xiayihe and Qingdao), thanks to the large number of cheap and almost unpaid illegal migrant laborers, who use their industrious hands to dig irrigation canals, load and unload bags of goods on and off ships, and mine tons of coal from the ground. secondly, some craftsmen also migrated to the East Coast, bringing to the East Coast skills to fill the gaps, increase the level of productivity, and enrich the commodity market; Finally, the flow of goods from south to north has brought a large amount of commercial tax revenue to Ping'an County and greatly stimulated the development of the local economy. In 48 years, Ping'an County's financial revenue surpassed the capital Dongfang County in one fell swoop and reached the first place in the country. Booming trade with Brazil accounts for nearly one-third of this scorching economic figure.

In addition to these spontaneous migrants, Valentino, a well-known labor broker from Italy, was constantly importing large groups of Italian and Spanish immigrants (mainly persecuted Catalans) to the east coast. Thanks to special instructions and financial incentives from the East Coast Government, Valentino is now increasingly focusing on bringing in skilled craftsmen to the East Coast.

For example, in December '48, a ship from Pisa to the port of Orient was loaded with more than eighty Italian glassblowers; In January this year, more than 50 German beer brewers from Württemberg traveled to the east coast via the Italian port of Livorno; In February, more than 150 Catalan wool carders, persecuted by the Kingdom of Spain, fled the country of a nightmare for them via the Italian port of Messina, and arrived at the port of Rocha in the eastern republic of China......

Except for a few of these skilled immigrants who were assigned to Dongfang County, most of them were assigned to the North Yazihu area, especially Ping'an County, which not only brought the local population to 29,000, but also added another fire to the already scorching economy of Ping'an County, making the county's economic scale, financial income and population rank first in the country, and the distance between the county and the capital Dongfang County is getting wider and wider.

Qian Hao, the magistrate of Ping'an County, was pleased with this phenomenon, which prompted him to be more tolerant of illegal immigrants. For example, he forcefully suppressed the criticism of the old immigrants (mainly the Ming people) in the county: they gave these Britons who came over the mountains a nickname of "migratory birds"; Some small restaurants opened by the Ming people even refused to accept these "Yi people" or charged more expensive fees than ordinary people, all kinds of discrimination and humiliation, even if they themselves immigrated from the Ming Dynasty not long ago, but the prejudice took root so naturally.

Fortunately, Qian Hao, the top local governor, believes that the local residents' criticism of these new immigrants is unfounded. Because these people basically do the leftover work of the locals, and the food they eat is mainly sorghum from South Africa and potatoes and sweet potatoes shipped from Dongfang County, and occasionally eating some meat does not seem to be able to push up the local meat price on a large scale. As a result, he vigorously suppressed these doubts, which led to a population growth that far exceeded the national average, with an increase of 18 percent last year (a net increase after removing the death rate of 68.5 per 1,000), and at the same time, the county's economy has grown far faster than the national average.

More people mean bigger markets and economies, and more government revenues, and that's obvious. Ping'an County is a living example of this, with a thriving cross-border trade in goods and an active population move-in, which is the only way for the county to maintain its rapid economic development. At the same time, different cultures, ideas, ideas and living habits collide fiercely here, and then blend with each other, which makes Ping'an County have the signs of developing its own unique culture. And this does not seem to be a bad thing for the people who travel through it, and the new people will naturally develop different cultures that are different from their mother countries. (To be continued......)