"With the outbreak of the Second East-West War as an opportunity, the great Republic of East China naturally paid more attention to the Southern Cone region out of geopolitical considerations. On the occasion of this victory, in order to ensure the safety of this transportation route, which can be called the lifeline of the country, there has been a heated public opinion discussion throughout the country. At the heart of the discussion is whether we should make the development of Southern Patagonia a fundamental national policy, and tilt policy and funding towards it so that this lifeline can be connected earlier. Lai Tat-yan, a veteran editor at Pravda, was flipping through a copy of the newly published Southern Rail Weekly when a front-page headline caught some of his attention.

Judging from the newspaper narrative, it seems that there is a heated discussion in the East Coast about the region of Southern Patagonia, which they used to think of as birds that don't. But in fact, this is not the case at all, this is just the "Southern Railway Weekly" is bragging. It is an imposed "public opinion" that presents the immigration policy that the War Office needs to develop in order to develop Southern Patagonia as if the entire population is strongly demanding an immigration policy.

Nowadays, the Southern Railway Company is so short of immigrants that they have set their sights on the new generation of East Coast who are gradually growing up. Last week, the Southern Railway Company also appealed to the Executive Committee, asking it to agree to transfer the second and third sons of rural families in the country to settle in Southern Patagonia. The reason is to prevent the emergence of clan groups in the rural areas of the country, because most of the men in the East Coast Republic come from the Ming Kingdom, which has a strong sense of clan, which will inevitably lead to the distortion of the central government's policies in the countryside, thus affecting the rule of the Executive Committee.

Furthermore. The Southern Railway Company is also building momentum in China. Say with the end of the Thirty Years' War in Europe. There is now a certain period of depression in the economy of the entire East Coast, especially for agricultural products, whose prices have fallen rapidly over the past year, and as European agricultural production resumes, the supply of agricultural products will continue to be saturated and prices will fall further in the foreseeable future. That is, on the East Coast today. The benefits of farming are not as high as they used to be. In this case, it is better to make a fortune in the southern Patagonia region, where wages are generally higher than those in the country, and there are many opportunities, and it is said that "it is easy to make a fortune".

Don't say it, the Southern Railway's clumsy propaganda really fooled a group of Livonian immigrants from Europe, who generally worked on the east coast for a year or two, and it took several years before they could apply for citizenship and be eligible to buy land. Therefore, under the trade-off, many people still listened to the propaganda of the Southern Railway Company. Then with a settling-in fee, they boarded the boat they rented. He went south and settled in Southern Patagonia.

Of course, relying on foolery is not a long-term solution after all. The growth of the population of Southern Patagonia is mainly due to the policy tilt of the Executive Committee, such as the resettlement of more immigrants to the region. By December 15, 1649, the total population of the Southern Railway Company had reached 6,719 - including more than 1,000 Patagoni who had converted to Taoism. More than a third of these people live in the port of Hungnam, the largest city in the region, and spend their days farming and grazing in the nearby river valley and doing odd jobs at the port's construction site to support their families in their spare time. And it is thanks to their efforts that the world's most modern port is slowly changing at an astonishing rate, and it may not take ten years to complete the construction of this amazing port. Of course, there are also several wooden temporary trestle bridges in Xingnan Port, and it is not a big problem to undertake a simple transfer of materials and personnel.

The horse-drawn carriage in which the editor was riding was driving on the wide Hungnam Highway, a sandy road that had been busy since the day it was completed. A large number of trucks run along the 300-kilometre-long road, carrying all kinds of supplies and personnel back and forth between the ports of Araukan and Hungnam. In addition, more wagons loaded with rails and tools were driven to the construction site of the Yoyo Railway, which has been under construction for some time, for the railway construction workers there.

At this time, Li Dayan was almost at the port of Araukan, and there was a significant downhill slope on the road, but fortunately, the driver's skill was high enough to control the speed of the car steadily, and then turned onto a gravel road with high quality. After half a day's journey, they arrived at the final destination, the marine terminal of the port of Araucan.

Today, the port of Araucan is as busy as ever, with timber, coal, seafood, grain, leather, and industrial products constantly coming and going here, showing its thriving vitality. There are three 1,200-ton steam engine sailing ships moored on the dock, and it is strange that they are all migrant transport ships built for the Blackwater region of the Far East.

However, he is also a senior editor of Pravda, who is often in contact with important government officials and is very well informed. Therefore, after only a moment's thought, he realized that this must be a migrant ship from the Far East through Australia and then directly to South America. The ships were supposed to depart from the port of Gold Hill in Australia in mid-to-late November, and then sailed all the way to the port of Araucan off the coast of Chile with a treacherous ride of westerly winds and ocean currents.

Li Dayan had originally come to the Southern Cone to cover the Southern Railway Company's trade in Spain, but now he was keenly aware that the qiē in front of him seemed to be a good news subject, so he quickly crowded into the docks with his entourage to carefully observe every move there.

The three migrant transports appeared to have experienced rough sea conditions on their way, and the boards of all three ships were damaged at different lengths, and the canvases were similar, and they were in urgent need of repair. The Far Eastern immigrants on the ship had almost begun to disembark at this time, and Li Dayan looked carefully and found that they were similar to the Ming immigrants who came to the east coast from the Indian Ocean, but their spirits were worse, and it seemed that most of them were caused by seasickness. But it's no wonder that coming all the way from Australia to the east, walking on the edge of the westerly belt, where there are strong winds and waves, it is not an easy sea area to walk. Sometimes if you are lucky, you will encounter cyclones, frontal rain and icebergs on the road, especially when the vision range of night navigation is very poor, it depends on luck when you encounter these things, and if you are unlucky, it is a dead word.

Li Dayan had just vaguely heard others say that this time, a total of four migrant ships had originally traveled east from Jinshan Port to Araukan Port, but one of them hit a floating iceberg in the southeast sea of New Zealand, and more than 1,200 migrants from Daming Shandong sank with the ship, sleeping forever on the icy seabed of the South Pacific. It can be seen that although this route requires a short voyage time, it is indeed a high-risk migration transportation route.

But then again, what is such a small risk in the face of the East Coasters who are in dire need of population? As long as they keep bringing back a large number of people, then the Executive Committee will not care about anything else, but will continue to invest huge sums of money and ships here to expand the transportation capacity of this route and bring more Far East migrants back to the East Coast.

The number of new Ming immigrants should be more than 3,400, and the mortality rate during transportation is about 10%, which is quite acceptable. These people are different from the "scattered migrants" who came to the East Bank and Livonia at their own expense, and they are "group migrants" in nature. According to the plan of the Southern Railway Company, the group immigrants are for the purpose of forming villages and towns, and the number of people is often relatively large, and their construction and operation capabilities are also relatively strong. There is even a certain percentage of craftsmen among them. The necessary personnel who make up a single village or town are basically allocated before boarding and departing, and after arriving at the destination of the migrants, they are often able to quickly move to important locations and settle in place, with a strong ability to sustain themselves.

As for the scattered immigrants, who are also quite numerous, the government basically does not care where they settle, they are free to choose the unused commons, and then report it to the higher government, and then settle there after the approval of the guò. Obviously, because they live in a scattered area, they suffer a lot in many public services. For example, the irrigation canals, roads, and other facilities built by the government are all routed to densely populated villages and towns, and they will not be rerouted arbitrarily in order to accommodate their two households. In the future, they will also face problems with crop harvesting (the cost of mechanized harvesting alone is too high for a family), and problems for themselves and their children and spouses, in short, it will be very troublesome.

At the same time, security is a tricky issue for them, as this is southern Patagonia, and most of the area is inaccessible and untouched. The barbarians who live there are not all good people, and they don't mind committing murder and robbery when food is scarce. Therefore, they have to rely on themselves for security, although the Southern Railway Company road guard will also have regular patrols (a cavalry company that has been dismantled from the army), but the area is too large to cover everything.

Therefore, due to the above considerations, the number of scattered immigrants is not absent, but the proportion is not high, and most of them still live near large villages and towns, or at least dozens of families are looking for a place to settle down (without going to a place designated by the government) to form a small natural village.

The first batch of more than 3,400 immigrants from the Far East will still have a ratio of about 3:1, half of them will settle in the vicinity of the port of Araukan, a quarter will settle near the Black Mountain Coal Mine, and then the remaining 800 or so will travel in horse-drawn carriages along the Hungnam Highway all the way east to the famous Hungnam Port.

"The arrival of Far Eastern migrants in South America via the Guò Pacific route is a milestone event that deserves special mention." Li Dayan thought to himself. (To be continued......)