March 20, 1644, fine.

The tranquil Kamakang River flows quietly out of the mountains and meanders through vast forests and meadows before empiring into the vast Duck Lake. On the banks of the river, a wooden wharf is almost complete, and a dozen South African labourers are soaking in the already chilly water to further reinforce the wooden piles of the trestle. On the other side of the pier, Captain Ventura's paddle steamer Yiyun-015 is quietly moored.

Dozens of South African labourers are carrying dung baskets to lift the foul-smelling silt from the ship's cabin, while more South African labourers are sitting under canopies, making bricks from the silt from the river bottom. The finished bricks were stacked aside to dry, and two hundred meters east of where the bricks were made, a huge wheel kiln was nearing completion.

This is a large-scale wheel kiln with a designed annual output of 40 million standard bricks, and it is also the fourth large-scale brick kiln factory in China. Once this large-scale brick kiln factory is successfully put into operation, the theoretical limit of the annual output of bricks in China can reach 160 million horses. But in fact, the output cannot reach such a high level, because there are 5%-10% of the bricks produced by each kiln, plus the kiln maintenance and major holidays, the annual output can reach 130 million horses, which is quite good.

However, such a large production capacity is completely scum in the face of the increasingly strong demand in China. Not to mention the huge demand for various facilities such as city walls, roads, forts, docks, canals, and reservoirs, it is not a small number to say that there is a huge shortage of resettlement housing. Assuming 6,000 immigrants a year, based on two people living in a house (20,000 bricks), this is the demand for 60 million bricks. If the number of immigrants is a little more. Whether the current domestic brick production capacity can keep up is still two words. In that case, the migrants would have to go to the Duck Lake area to cut down trees and make makeshift wooden houses. Moreover, the demand for bricks has increased. This supporting cement, lime, sand also have to keep up, although the demand is not as terrible as bricks, but at least the current production capacity is not enough, expansion is also necessary.

All in all, from now to a long time to come, the domestic construction industry will continue to be in rapid growth. Whether it is ordinary bricks, tiles, sand and gravel, or lime, cement and some finished products such as cement prefabricated panels, etc., which are slightly thresholded, will be in a high-demand environment. And these industries will also greatly absorb a considerable part of the labor force. At present, some people with a little wealth and some vision have begun to raise funds to invest in the building materials industry, the main way is to raise funds for shipbuilding, and then dig up river sand and sell it to several major construction bureaus under the Ministry of Communications, and the rate of return on this investment has been proved to be very high in practice.

This time, the Ministry of Industry and the United Industrial Credit Bank jointly funded the construction of a new large-scale brick kiln on this virgin land in the upper reaches of the Kamakang River, and used the silt from the river bottom dug up by dredgers to make bricks and burn bricks, which cleared the waterway. I also got the materials to make bricks, which can be described as killing two birds with one stone. These are produced as building materials. It is mainly used to build various facilities such as city walls, houses, reservoirs, roads and other facilities in the local area, and the remaining small part may be transported downstream by boat to support the construction of Xihu Fort and Dafeng Fort.

In fact, strictly speaking, there is still a considerable part of the plain along the lake along the line of Xihu Fort and Dafeng Fort that has not been developed, and after the new immigrants come, they can be organized to cut down trees, burn wasteland, and then continue to develop new farmland. However, considering that the area of these plains is extremely limited, and that the people on the east coast will mainly face a large area of hills and low mountains west of Duck Lake in the future, the question of how to develop these hills has become a very real problem before the Executive Committee.

To this end, the Ministry of Agriculture has sent personnel to conduct a long-term investigation in these hilly areas, and have made a general understanding of various factors such as topography, water sources, climate, and soil. After a year-long comprehensive demonstration, they finally decided to select a typical site for development to verify their development ideas. The chosen site has both abundant water sources and a suitable climate for precipitation; There are hills and low mountains in the vicinity, as well as small river valleys and plains, and the soil fertility is also uneven, which is exactly the dream test subject of the Ministry of Agriculture.

This point is the area north of the later Kristal region. The two rivers meet here, forming a small and rare valley plain, and the soil fertility is quite good; To the north, however, there are large hilly areas covered with low scrubland, some of which are of acceptable soil fertility or not at all, and it would take a lot of effort to develop them.

In the early days, there was a proposal from the Ministry of Agriculture to develop terraces and grow all kinds of crops. However, on the east coast, where the contradiction between man and land is not so great – or even that there is no contradiction between man and land – it is unreasonable to build terraces at the cost of destroying the environment. In addition, it is very troublesome to irrigate those terraced fields, and most of them can only be used as dry land, and the grain production will be reduced a lot. Instead of that, it's better to find a new way and change to a new development model.

According to a rough survey by the Ministry of Agriculture, the more fertile soils in this area are brown forest soils, and the annual litter adds a lot of fertility to the soil, coupled with abundant (but not excessive) rainfall and good soil permeability (the soil temperature rises quickly in spring), so these lands are more suitable for farming, and most of them are concentrated in gentle river valleys. However, for those hilly valleys, the cohesive soil is mostly poor, and the soil temperature rises slowly in spring, which greatly shortens the time for crop growth. The soil is often saturated with water and can only be used for grazing. In addition, the vast majority of the hilly slopes are mostly sandy soils with insufficient water storage, and these lands are of little use unless a lot of fertilizer is applied and small reservoirs in the mountains are built at great expense.

After repeated arguments, the Ministry of Agriculture finally chose the way of planting pasture grass on these slopes and then raising cattle and sheep to make use of the resources in this area. In their plan, these slopes are suitable for planting soybeans, and unsuitable for alfalfa and other pastures. To this end, they are also preparing to develop a horse-drawn forage harvester on the basis of the horse-drawn corn harvester developed by the harvest agricultural machinery factory. To be honest, the difference between these two harvesters is not very big, and the main thing that needs to be modified is the divider, and there is no technical difficulty at all.

With a harvester that is dozens of times more efficient than humans, it is possible to grow pasture grass on a large undulating slope here, and then harvest it with a machine. With the climate of Duck Lake, each mu of alfalfa can be cut almost four or five stubbles a year, and the harvested forage is enough to feed more than 20 sheep or four or five adult cattle, which is much more cost-effective than farming. After all, if you plant a year, even if you harvest two crops of crops, judging from the situation of these slopes, you can harvest at most three or four hundred catties of wheat a year, which is completely incomparable with the benefits produced by more than 20 sheep. Even if you plant potatoes with a high harvest, harvested three times a year, and the yield is two or three thousand catties, the calorific value of these foods is completely inferior to the calorific value of beef obtained by those cows after slaughter.

Therefore, from an economic point of view, it is absolutely reasonable to grow alfalfa and other pastures on hilly slopes that are not suitable for growing crops, and then feed beef cows, sheep and other livestock. Most of these hilly slopes do not exceed 200 meters above sea level, and a few do not exceed 400-500 meters, but they are basically undulating gentle slopes, which are conducive to harvesting machinery in large areas. Of course, on some slopes suitable for growing crops, the Ministry of Agriculture will also guide local residents to plant some sweet potatoes, corn and other crops that do not pick up the ground. Sweet potato seedlings are also a very good feed for livestock, and after the sweet potatoes grow to a certain stage, they can be repeatedly harvested, and residents can use them to feed livestock. In the same way, corn stalks can also be used as feed, which is very practical.

Overall, these hilly slopes are also economically important for the people of the East Coast. Once the cattle and sheep breeding here is on a large scale, a large amount of meat, oil, leather, dairy products and wool will be produced every year, which is also of great strategic significance for the next stage of domestic industrial planning. With the rapid development of cotton textiles on the East Coast, the current market has been almost developed, in addition to further improving the series of products, such as high-grade dyed cloth, calico, towels, socks, burqas, handkerchiefs and other products, they have also begun to prepare for the development of another fist industry, that is, the leather processing industry, which has been small-scale.

In recent years, the East Coast people export a large number of leather goods to Britain, France, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Ottoman and other countries every year, mainly saddles, leather armor, ammunition bags, water bladders, leather gloves, leather boots and other cattle and sheepskin products, creating economic benefits of more than 200,000 yuan per year. With the abundant and cheap raw materials provided by La Plata, coupled with the exclusive leather dyeing technology of the East Coast, the leather products of the East Coast are very competitive in the European market.

It can be predicted that from this year onwards, a large number of immigrants from the East will come to the mainland every year, so the shortage of human resources is bound to ease somewhat. At this time, the development of leather processing, an industry with comparative advantages, can also be loosened, and the development of this industry can also indirectly integrate La Plata into the economic system of the people of the East Coast, and the economic and political benefits brought by it cannot be underestimated. (To be continued......)