March 20, 1687, southeastern New China Island, heavy rain. Yang Jie, the commissioner of the Zelu District Administration, had just received a group of expedition teams returning from the inland mountains and had dinner with them.

After staggering, Yang Jie and his secretary returned to the villa located in the county seat. It was dusk, and despite the pouring rain, the dutiful night watchman climbed the gas pole on the side of the road with a ladder to light up this important lighting facility for the convenience of pedestrians at night.

Of course, the gas lighting system in Dorfan Port was also invested and built by the East Coast Gas Company managed by Wang Huadu. The guy who has invested almost all of his wealth in the company (with more than 10% of the shares) has now accelerated the expansion of East Coast Gas in various places, including both the mainland and some of the more affluent overseas colonies. The reason is actually very simple, that is, he felt a certain degree of threat, and the originally stable situation was shaken, so he had to change his relatively conservative style and start a more radical business model.

As for who the competitor of the famous East Coast Gas Company is, in fact, it is very clear that it is the East Coast Power Company that is not yet known. The power company, run by Ma Xiaopeng, has installed arc lamps in several ports in China, and has launched fierce competition with gas lamps.

Of course, Wang Huadu knows that although the brightness of the arc lamp exceeds that of the gas lamp, for the time being, its installation cost is too high, and the market competitiveness should not be very strong. But Wang Huadu is still afraid, because he knows that the power industry on the east coast is still developing steadily, and no one can predict how far the arc lamp system will develop in the future. What if someone makes a breakthrough in technology and the cost suddenly decreases? Or will the state suddenly start investing in power generation equipment and start building power grids in some key cities? While this doesn't seem likely at the moment, you have to be on your guard.

Therefore, Wang Huadu thought about it and finally decided to make major investments in some cities that have not yet established gas lighting systems in the next few years, and strive to cover them, so as to eliminate the possibility of any other competitors grabbing land. To this end, he has already tried to persuade the shareholders of the company (anyway, the main shares are in the hands of the government, in fact, as long as the Ministry of Civil Affairs is done), suspend the dividends for three years, take out the profits that should be paid dividends within three years, and at the same time borrow 500,000 yuan each from the United Industrial Credit Bank, the Northwest Reclamation Bank, and the Public Savings Bank to invest in small and medium-sized cities that were not originally planned by the company, build gas generators, install gas pipelines, and finally establish a perfect gas lighting system.

These small inland counties are very willing to pay a monthly fee for the use of gas lamps, but if you ask them to purchase equipment from the gas company, and then install and debug and lay the pipes themselves, then they are not willing. For no other reason, these counties are very financially strained, basically living on land sales, and the construction tasks are heavy, and they also have to ensure the county's public officials and education funds - the latter is the executive committee's repeated orders to protect, dare not ignore - it is really difficult to spend a lot of money on the construction of a "luxury" system such as gas lamps at one time, so the East Coast Gas Company can only come to the company.

The same is true for New Huaxia Island. This time, the East Coast Gas Company really made a bloody investment, and set up branches in Xinhua, Tacheng, Mianhe, and Daze counties respectively -- basically one branch in each county like the East Coast Building Materials Company and department stores—or wholly owned by itself, or jointly ventured with local governments, and comprehensively rolled out the construction of the gas lighting system, striving to cover most of the county areas. For example, Xinhua County, which was originally only lit by gas lamps in the government of the pioneer team and a few other key areas, has basically spread to the entire county, and the intensity is not small, and the investment is naturally very amazing.

Duofan County Gas Company is wholly owned by the East Coast Gas Company, and at present, a lighting system has been built on a cross street where the district administration, the county government, and the town government are located, and it is working very well, which makes the people of the county very happy. In addition, the dock, the naval ship repair yard and the Taoist Association have also purchased a lighting system from Towngas for their own night lighting. All in all, as the central city of the region, the night of Duofan Town is much brighter than in the past, which makes some foreign merchant ships that occasionally sail into the port at night also extremely amazed, and even have a faint sense of worship for this symbol of civilization and progress.

Yang Jie was fascinated by this lighting "gadget", because it meant that he could also work on documents at night with bright lighting, and even convened a meeting of the staff of the District Administration and the Garrison Command (he also served as the District Garrison Commander) to carry out his will, which helped him a lot.

He was also helped by another group of "knick-knacks", that is, natives captured from the forests of the mountains in the northwest and other eastern coastal areas. These people are complex and have different customs, and the people of the East Coast are now too lazy to distinguish their ethnic attributes, but are uniformly called Turen, and the total number is about 20,000 people.

These people are now being invested in batches into the growing coffee planting and picking industry in Daze County, which has become an important part of the plantation economy. Among them, the long ones have been working for two years, and the short ones have just been arrested for a few days, and they are all under the supervision of the Eight Banners of the island, and organize them to work, and the harvest from selling coffee beans naturally has a share of the Eight Banners, so their enthusiasm is still quite good, and they are not merciless in squeezing these close relatives and even compatriots on the blood.

In addition to working on state-run plantations, the captured natives may have worked in swamps, especially in Lu'an and Gaodu counties on the east coast, where there are large swampy tidal flats near the coastline. And as Operation Oil Palm progresses, it will take a lot of people to clean up these swamps, and that's where they come in handy.

Yang Jie felt that the area was relatively lucky many times, because the number of natives was relatively dense, which was a lot of wealth. Because of the climate, environment, soil and other factors, there are not many foreigners to invest here, such as the northwest of the island is jointly developed by three Italian companies (Geno*Africa Company, Delta Company and Marco Polo Company), and the good deeds of 20,000 or 30,000 Italians who work hard to pioneer cannot fall on their heads. Therefore, in the absence of Italian "cannon fodder" pioneering, they can only hit the idea on the Malay "cannon fodder", and these people can be said to be legitimate.

There are still about 15,000 people working in the coastal marshes of the two counties. Their main task is to cooperate with the engineers and technicians on the east bank to dig ditches, dredge rivers, build reservoirs, and in a word, drain the stagnant water in the local swamps, clear out a large amount of fertile land, and lay a good foundation for the next step of planting pepper, oil palm, coconut and other crops. In the process, due to the harsh natural environment, there is no doubt that they will have a large number of injuries, but this is unavoidable, and the captives themselves have few human rights, do they?

Recently, however, the government has introduced a new initiative to allow the island to count the number of Malay labourers on their own territory and count their years of service. If it is found that it has been three years and has performed well in the work within three years, it can be pardoned and incorporated into the Eight Banners system of the island to supplement it, and get rid of the de facto slave class.

At the same time, it began to increase the speed of relocation to the islands of Baqi. To this end, the Pioneer Government could request the assistance of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to allow the Portuguese to open up the Zambezi River basin and allow the Eight Banners of the island to carry their possessions through their territory to settle inland. As for where they settled, it was already clear that it was the area around the famous yellow-black decomposition line, which served as a barrier separating the East Coast and the Bantu blacks.

It is believed that the final destination of these Malays was in what would become northwestern Mozambique and the neighbouring northeastern region of Zambia. The living conditions here are okay, the climate is not very hot, and if it is well developed, it can be used as the foundation of their country. Of course, this is only the preliminary assumption at present, the yellow and black dividing line is generally in this area, but there are still fine-tuning of the specific location (for example, some of the surviving veterans in China can't let go of Zambia's copper mining area), in short, let the island eight flags go over and then talk about it, and then look at the future things.

Yang Jie felt in his heart that the Portuguese probably could not resist the request of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the east coast. They are now so tied to the East Coast Republic that they have tags on them and can no longer be torn off, although they are also eye-to-eyeing with the British.

The Portuguese may find it difficult to understand this "miserable march" along the Zambezi River to the west of the island's population of more than 100,000 people, but there is no doubt that the Zambezi housewives of the local estates welcomed the arrival of these Malays, because they could take advantage of the opportunity to sell the grain that had been stored in their granaries for a long time and was almost moldy, and the fruit in the orchards that had been rotten and unattended by no one was expected to sell a lot, not to mention the herds of cattle and sheep. They can hear that even the Eight Banners, a second-class citizen island under the rule of the East Coast, may have some money in hand and cannot be called poor, so their consumption along the way will inevitably greatly promote the economic development of the Portuguese estates in the Zambezi Valley.

Some of the Portuguese may even have the idea of the East Coasters dropping by to help them clean up the black tribes they encountered along the way. Because of the limited Portuguese colonial power in Mozambique, Gayzambique could only focus on a few large cities, and even in the relatively rich Zambezi River Valley, where there were large numbers of blacks living in the wilderness between its two estates, the law and order situation was not stable. Therefore, if the Eight Banners of the islands with weapons and ammunition are swept all the way, it is believed that the local situation will be much more stable, although the Portuguese may also lose some of the "wealth" that can be active.

And since they want to replenish the people to the island eight flags, so that they can go to the African continent to scare the blacks, then those state farms and plantations naturally need to replenish the manpower, after all, they can't close their doors, so the initial investment will not be in vain! Therefore, it is estimated that in the next few years, the government of the pioneer team should raise funds and manpower to organize a number of battles to sweep away the natives in order to obtain a sufficient source of labor. And this is likely to clash with the Melina people on the Central Plateau, but so what? Are you still afraid that they won't be able to? According to the people on the east coast, the people of Melina on the central plateau have not yet been unified, although the strength of one of them is already very large, but there are still local separatist forces resisting, so they are obviously very powerless in the face of the multi-way attacks of the people on the east coast, if nothing else, they will be defeated all the way.

The expedition members that Yang Jie met with today were outposts that set out from the area controlled by the people on the east coast, went deep into the lofty mountains, and finally arrived at the central plateau for reconnaissance. They were active in the southern part of the Central Plateau for several months, drawing a large map, carefully examining every possible route of march, and even arresting a few locals down the mountain before leaving, and handing them over to the officials of the General Intelligence Bureau for interrogation—their work was undoubtedly very crucial for the future multi-channel attack of the large army, so after the turnaround, Yang Jie, on behalf of the Zelu District Administration and the Garrison Command, gave them a clean sweep, and promoted many people on the spot at the meeting, and gave them large bonuses. It can be described as a joy for both guests and hosts.

And if this is not enough to show the determination of the upper authorities to march into the Central Plateau, then it is already obvious that Shao Yaoguang wants to split the New Huaxia Infantry Battalion into two, replenish new recruits at the same time, and form two infantry battalions. Once the two infantry battalions are formed, the combat effectiveness of the people on the east coast can be greatly improved, and even they can attack from the north and south or the east and west, and completely destroy the group of Melinas who are still in the early feudal society with skillful combat skills and fierce artillery fire, and control the cool climate and fertile central plateau.

You know, this is a familiar land that has been cultivated by the people of Merina for 600 years, and they have built cities here, built water conservancy facilities for farmland, and the golden rice fields at harvest time are endless, which is not an ordinary temptation for the people of the east coast. Moreover, these Melina people are also a little different from history, they are now unable to contact other overseas merchants, because almost all the land along the coast of New China Island is developed and occupied by the people of the east coast, and they have almost become turtles in an urn living on the central plateau, and there is no other place to go. What will happen in the future, I don't know!

Only when the people on the east coast occupy the vast and relatively cool Central Plateau can the development of the new Huaxia Island have a stronger backing. In later generations, Madagascar's main population, economy and industrial society were basically distributed on the central plateau, and even the capital was located here, which shows the importance of this plateau. I believe that after the two Xinhua infantry battalions are formed and the training is completed, Captain Shao will use them to train in battle and test the waters of the Central Plateau, which is a very clear thing.