The Port of Kushiro thawed back in early February.

This port was partly affected by the warm current of Japan, and it was an ice-free port in later generations, but this ice-free port was for those large iron ships. In the 17th century, when all sails were made of wooden ships, Kushiro Port still had a freeze period of about a month, because the thin layer of ice that formed on the sea near the port did not hinder iron ships, but it was a big problem for wooden ships. Even if the ships of the people on the east coast did not use soft oak and pine trees as the main materials like the Europeans, even the hull made of red sandalwood in New China did not dare to hit the ice casually, so in the coldest month of the year, Kushiro Port is generally closed.

It's now the end of May, not to mention the thaw at the Kushiro port, and even the Amur River is already navigable. In the middle of this month (May), Yoshinosuke Imamura of the Matsumae Domain sent someone over to secretly pick up a sum of money - a batch of copper coins worth 200,000 kanbun. They are bold now, last year they bought more than 20,000 copper coins to sell like thieves, and now they actually bought eight times the amount of the previous one in one go, which made Huang Yi, who was in charge of the business here, only say admiration.

But maybe they dragged the largest military leader in the northeast, the Date family, into the water, otherwise they wouldn't have the guts. You must know that the people of the east coast of this transaction alone have made a profit of nearly 180,000 taels of silver, and the profit of the Matsumae domain is also 780,000 taels (both the profits of the east coast and the Matsumae domain are converted according to the proportion of gold, silver and copper in Europe, and the profits of the people on the east coast are not large, but the real profit of the Matsumae domain is only about 30,000 taels of silver). The copper coin trade of this scale is obviously beyond the control of a small lord like the Matsumae Domain, and it should be a high probability event that the Date family in Sendai is pulled into the water, otherwise it is impossible for the 200,000 copper coins to be sold in a short period of time.

Of course. Since people dare to buy, people on the east coast also dare to sell, afraid of Mao! When the matter is big, the shogunate will naturally have tall people to hold it down, and then the Edo shogunate will have to trouble the Date family in the northeast region first. And the Date family is not a soft persimmon, this back and forth can be a bit of a rupture, and it may be a few years before the matter is transmitted to the people of the East Coast.

The port of Kushiro is now a distribution center for fake money, and nothing else. And Wei Boqiu, who is in charge of the economy of the entire Heishui region, naturally cannot let this situation continue for a long time. In his heart, Ezo is to be vigorously developed. For this reason, a while ago, he also joined Huang Yi to report to Shao Shude. It is required to set up a Japanese company on the east coast and a company on the east coast of Korea respectively, and to recruit military personnel with large amounts of cash in hand to take shares, and vigorously develop the Korean and Japanese regions (mainly Ezo Jijijima).

After Shao Shude's approval, the Japanese company was established on May 10. And raised a huge investment of nearly 200,000 silver dollars in the Heishui area. These investments came mainly from the East Coast Army and the soldiers of the Black Eight Banners in South Africa. They have been in the Far East for several years, and now everyone is embarrassed to talk to people when they don't have five or six hundred yuan in their pockets.

The investment of 200,000 silver dollars is at best only 10% of the total amount of funds they have on hand, and it is just a drizzle for them to take them out for upfront investment. And out of trust in the East Coast government, and because they don't know how to manage their finances -- in fact, the Blackwater region now lacks access to consumption and investment -- they simply hand over some of their savings to their superiors to run it, and they enjoy the dividends themselves.

The investment of 200,000 silver dollars accounted for about 40% of the shares of the Japanese company (4,000 shares), and the Blackwater Development Team also contributed 300,000 yuan (about 100,000 yuan in advance), accounting for 60% of the shares. At present, the general manager of the Japanese company is Chen Shuo, a student of Wei Boqiu. Specializing in the development of the Ezo Tei area - the company was awarded a 30-year exclusive development rights for Ezo Tei Island by the Blackwater Pioneer Team - including farming, fishing and hunting. However, the lucrative Japanese copper coin trade was still firmly in the hands of the Blackwater Pioneers. After all, it is impossible for Shao Shude, such a large source of wealth, to give it away, otherwise it will not be able to make up for the huge hole in the military spending in the Heishui area.

After the establishment of the East Coast Japanese Company, the first thing it did was to collect about 10,000 farmers from the Qingzhou Prefecture at cost price (transportation fees, management fees, nutrition fees, etc.), and pay a total of 50,000 silver dollars to the Blackwater Pioneer Team. Among these 10,000 people, there are men, women and children, and they have all been scattered to Yantai and Dengzhou, and the Heishui Temporary Task Force, which has just finished maintenance, has also dispatched two flute-type ships to help with transportation.

In order to reduce losses, Chen Shuo, the general manager of the Japanese company, specially spent a lot of money to "invite" a few Langzhong from Shandong to take care of the ship, so as to minimize the mortality rate of immigrants on the way. After all, these people have signed employment agreements with the company, and they have also paid a full fee of 50,000 yuan for them, which is a loss for the company for each death, so everyone can't afford not to care.

Many of the employees of the Japanese company came from the wounded veterans of the front line, mainly the team system, and they often forcibly arrested immigrants in Shandong, Beizhili, and Jiangbei, so it was quite easy to do these management work. In addition, Chen Shuo also hired some low-level readers such as Luodi Xiucai and copyists with high salaries, and let them do copywriting, finance and part of the management work. In short, the East Coast company was just getting started, but it quickly stepped into the role.

Wei Boqiu was also quite concerned about the operation of the Japanese company (according to the grapevine, Wei Boqiu himself subscribed for 500 shares of the Japanese company), and he was really not interested in Shao Shude's set of fighting local tyrants and dividing the land in Shandong, and he also stayed away from the boss who claimed to be a "Communist Party member". He still prefers to use the corporatized business model to attract a large number of soldiers to become shareholders, jointly develop Ezo, increase local output, and try his best to revitalize the economy of the Blackwater area.

On June 1, the first batch of 1,500 Qingzhou migrants arrived at Kushiro Port by boat. They will cut down trees and open mines (Kushiro coal mines), farm and graze, build houses and ports, and so on. In Wei Boqiu's plan, the entire Ezo land was divided into four areas, namely: the south of the island, the middle of the island, the east of the island and the north of the island.

Of the four, the conditions in the island were the best, and Sapporo, the capital of Hokkaido, Japan, was home to paddy agriculture (rice cultivation) in the Ishikari River area, coal from Sorachi, livestock breeding in Hidaka (mainly horse breeding), and coastal fishing.

The conditions in the southern part of the island are slightly worse than those in the island, because the agricultural conditions here are mainly dry land, and the soil texture is poor, but the climate is mild, and in later generations it was a mixture of agriculture (vegetables, horticulture) and animal husbandry. Of course, at this time and space, it was occupied by the Matsumae Domain, and there were more than 20,000 Japanese immigrants, who were busy fishing, farming, and mining in the coastal area, but for some reason animal husbandry never developed, perhaps because of the lack of large livestock in Japan.

As for the eastern and northern parts of the island, the conditions are relatively much worse. First of all, these areas have harsh winters and warmer summers, so you can only grow potatoes and vegetables, and occasionally there are some places near rivers and lakes that are suitable for grain farming, provided that you improve the soil of these wastelands. It is important to know that a lot of the land here is mostly peat soil due to the long-term wet and cold environment, and the soil itself has less nutrients, which is not suitable for large-scale agricultural cultivation.

What's more, in the eastern and northern parts of the island, especially at the estuaries of rivers, large-scale flooding disasters often occur due to the topping effect of seawater. Unfortunately, this is the case with Kushiro Port, which is currently occupied by people on the east coast, and the early settlers of the area have already tasted a flood.

Therefore, in Wei Boqiu's plan, the eastern and northern parts of the island, which can be developed with peace of mind by people on the east coast, will still be mainly planted with dryland potatoes and vegetables, with occasional dryland oats and rye planting. In addition, a large number of lakes, swamps and floodplains will be temporarily zoned for livestock grazing. When conditions permit in the future, a large number of people will be organized to go to these areas to build dams and embankments, dig artificial reservoirs, and transform farmland. As for now, it's better to engage in animal husbandry first, which can make people see the benefits quickly, after all, Japanese companies also need to make money. Not allowing shareholders to see the benefits in a few years is also a lot of pressure for Wei Boqiu.

After the livestock industry is established here, a dairy factory will be set up to produce all kinds of cheese, milk powder, cream and so on. For this reason, Wei Boqiu is even ready to persuade Shao Shude to gradually promote children's dairy products in the Heishui area in the future, so that every child can eat them regularly, especially during the critical period of growing taller, and the supplement of some dairy products can definitely make them grow taller and stronger than their peers in Daming.

In addition to these agricultural ideas, Japanese companies will spend huge sums of money to order fishing boats from the Heisui Shipyard, fishing nets from Damarari, fishing gear from Yantai, and salt from Jeju, and then spend huge sums of money to train fishermen and organize professional fishing teams to fish nearby. Some of the fish they catch are salted or dried on site, some are stored in ice cellars dug underground, and of course they sell large quantities of the catch to the newly established canned food factory in Omari for reprocessing, in order to make the most of the abundant fishery resources in the waters around Ezo Island.

Chen Shuo, as Wei Boqiu's proud student, naturally obeyed him, so he carried out Wei Boqiu's intentions to the letter. When the 1,500 Qingzhou migrants arrived, the first thing they did was to renovate some of the river embankments, then cut down the trees to build houses, and at the same time cut the grass to feed some of the purchased livestock. All of them are considered employees of the company, and all of them have signed employment contracts ranging from 5 to 10 years, and their monthly salaries range from 3 to 5 yuan.

In addition, the second thing they did was to develop the Kushiro Coal Mine near the Kushiro Port, which has a good quality of coal, shallow burial, and a high thickness of coal seams, and the Japanese dug this coal mine to a depth of -200 meters (200 meters underground) in later generations (early 200 years). If this coal mine is properly managed, it will provide a solid backing for Japanese companies to develop the entire Ezo area. (To be continued......)