How important was food to the colonizers? Historically, the Spanish colonists landed on the island of peace and founded the city of San Salvador, but because of their bad relations with the local natives (the natives of two indigenous villages on the island were driven away by the Spaniards at that time), the natives on land refused to sell food to them.

Then the Spanish colonists on the island lived a miserable life of "being fed and hungry". Food was mainly delivered by Manila's ships, and if Manila's grain ships were late, the island's colonists would starve for a long time.

In the early 17th century, the first British colony in North America, Jamestown, was cut off by the English colonists in the cold winter of 1609 because they offended the native Indians who provided them with food. Then, 500 colonists in Jamestown, many died of starvation. The worst thing is that many people eat the corpses of their starving companions in order to survive. Even, kill your companions and eat meat...... Then, of the 500 colonists in Jamestown, only 60 survived in the end. And these 60 people have all eaten the meat of their companions......

It is precisely because of reading these histories that Marin was never blind when he colonized. Having not colonized a single land, Marindu initially tried to avoid violent conflicts with the aborigines. Because, if you come into conflict with the indigenous people too early, it may be difficult to gain a foothold.

In addition, everywhere he went, Marlin always considered the source of food as the most important thing. For example, Marin colonized North America and colonized the two islands of North America first, rather than rushing to land all at once. It was only after the food supply of the North American twin islands stabilized that the plot against New York began. Even if New York fails, the North American twin islands will provide enough food to supply the colonists.

Marin also thought a lot about setting up a stronghold on Peace Island. Heping Island is located at the exit of Keelung Port, where a number of freshwater rivers converge, and the south bank is facing Keelung Port. Of course, it is the villagers of Jilong Village who are farming.

On the north shore, there is the Stone Coast, and outside the northeast coast, there is a saltwater area, where you can take water to boil salt. The 10 solar cookers brought by Kong Tai were placed on the northeast coast to boil seawater to obtain salt.

Of course, the colonists are not short of salt now, because the ships brought a lot of salt. But the solar cooker does not consume firewood, it is not cooking time, and it is wasted if you don't use it. Therefore, while directing the masons to build Majiabao, Kong Tai arranged for several masons to bring their wives to help them go to the sea to get seawater to boil salt. In this way, while building Majiabao, you can also get a lot of salt every day.

Salt is a good thing, in the Beihai Kingdom or the Ming Dynasty, maybe salt is not rare. But for the people on Taiwan Island, it is a very precious thing. Because, most of the people don't know how to boil salt. So, salt on the island, too, is a hard currency that can be exchanged for a lot of things. For example, venison, deer skin, deer antler velvet, such as wood...... And these things are not worth much in the eyes of the natives......

What do the natives like best? Salt, iron, and cloth. However, Kong Tai did not have the conditions to supply iron and cloth at present, so he had to supply salt first, mainly to establish good relations with the local natives.

As for the land that was deceived on the east coast of Keelung Port, Kong Tai was not in a hurry to land and build a fortress. The main thing is - there is not enough building materials......

Before, Kong Tai did not expect to be able to smoothly change to land on land, so the cement and bricks brought with him were insufficient, so he could only meet the needs of building a walled city on Heping Island, and there was no surplus to build on the shore.

Therefore, Kong Tai simply let the villagers of Jilong Village row a raft to the shore to farm, but reserved a place to build a fortress. Wait until the next time the Beihai fleet arrives, and then send people ashore to build a serious castle.

If you build a castle, you will not use bricks and cement, but stone. The reason why Majiapu uses brick cement is mainly because of the speed of construction. After all, put the bricks well, smear them with cement, and expose them to the wind and sun, and it's OK directly. Unlike building a stone castle, you have to collect the stone first, and then build it slowly, which is very time-consuming. If a strong enemy comes to the middle of the castle, the consequences will be unimaginable......

But when building a castle on land, it was different, because Conté didn't have to hurry. With Majiabao on Heping Island as his base camp, he was in no hurry to build a castle on land. He planned to hire the people of Jilong Village and send his masons to mine stone and stock it up during the slack period. When the materials are enough, take advantage of the slack to build a sturdy stone castle.

Why don't you use cement, you ask? If you don't use reinforced concrete or bamboo-reinforced concrete, a castle made of brick and concrete is not as strong as a stone fortress. The advantage of brick cement is that it is built quickly, but in terms of sturdiness, it is really not good. Unless, there is a supply of rebar.

However, the cost of producing steel wire rods in this era was too high, so Marin's decision was to vigorously promote the cultivation of moso bamboo in the colony in the future, and use bamboo-reinforced concrete for construction. Unless it is a very important military fortress, extravagant reinforced concrete will be used. Even, in the future, when building cement buildings locally, such as river embankments, they will choose to import moso bamboo from North America. Moso bamboo has now taken root in Savannah, and Marin has given an order to give Moso bamboo enough space to scurry, even if the grain fields must make way for Moso Bamboo. In addition, it is never allowed to eat bamboo shoots......

After all, every fresh bamboo shoot is an ungrown bamboo. In the future, a lot of bamboo will be needed to build concrete buildings, and how can Marin tolerate bamboo seedlings being eaten?

Not only that, but in the future, Marin plans to cut down trees everywhere in North America and plant moso bamboo. With enough bamboo, there are materials to build the river's embankment and prevent flooding.

There are many large rivers in North America, such as the Mississippi River. But if you want to take advantage of the fertile soil along these great rivers, you must also be prepared to withstand floods. The Mississippi River flows more than 10 times the annual flow of the Yellow River, and flooding can be very scary. Only by building enough levees can this golden river be put to good use.

In addition, even small rivers like the Hudson River in New York occasionally flood in the summer. Therefore, every river of upper scale has the need to build flood control levees. And the demand for moso bamboo is very, very large. And it is impossible to use steel bars, and Marin's wealth cannot be increased by 10,000 times. After all, there are so many rivers whose embankments need to be repaired. The "bones" needed to build the river embankment can only be moso bamboo......

In fact, Marin also plans to use Dongfan Island as a base in the future to purchase a large number of moso bamboo seeds from Daming and bring them back to the southern part of North America for planting. In this way, North America can provide enough bamboo reinforcement for the local area as soon as possible. After all, rivers such as the Emes River in the mainland also need to be built with bamboo-reinforced concrete levees. The Ruhr area, in particular, is located on the banks of the great river Rhine, and flooding is a common occurrence.

In fact, at this time, there is also bamboo on Taiwan Island, and its native endemic species, Taiwan Gui bamboo, is an excellent variety with strong toughness and great bending strength. It's just that Kong Tai doesn't know. Moreover, even if he knew, he would not dare to take people into the jungle of Taiwan Island to find this kind of bamboo now.

What's more, even if it's Marin, I don't know that there is an excellent bamboo called Guizhu on Taiwan Island. Because of its high bending strength, this kind of bamboo is even more suitable as a bamboo bar for construction than moso bamboo. It's just that Ma Lin had only heard of Maozhu and Nanzhu in his previous life, and he didn't know much about Guizhu on Taiwan Island. Perhaps, Hsinchu in later generations has something to do with Taidao Guizhu. Otherwise, it wouldn't be called Hsinchu for no reason......