The exploration fleet led by Guo Zili stayed at Fort Hezhong for three days.

Because of the good hope of marrying a wife to the singles in the region, the officers and men of the navy were very popular in and around the city of Fort River, not only did the town government buy their Persian slave girls at a "premium", but many of the former singles who quickly got married also invited the officers and men of the navy to drink and eat every now and then, in short, they were very enthusiastic.

Of course, the cattle and camels they bought from East Africa were also very popular with the local residents, and they were immediately bought by the town government to start raising them in order to expand the population.

After a few days of rest, the resupplied expeditionary fleet quietly left the docks of the River Fort, and after more than a month of sailing, finally arrived at the port of Orient on the evening of December 31, 1638, after a more than five months of absence.

The wharf of the Oriental Port is still very prosperous, ships from Brazil, La Plata, New Spain and even Chile, Peru and other regions gather here, they bring a shipload of pig iron, cotton, wool, saltpeter, struvite, cocoa, coffee and other industrial raw materials and consumer goods needed on the east coast, and transport away cotton, woollen wool, weapons, hardware products, refined coal, leather goods, cement, red bricks and other industrial manufactured goods, the prosperity of trade has made the Oriental Port the premier commercial port of the New World.

In addition to these ships from the New World, many ships from other countries passing through the Strait of Magellan preferred to resupply and rest in the East. This includes many merchant ships, whaling ships, and some well-camouflaged pirate ships. However, these pirate ships had no resistance to the proud speed of the East Coast Navy's high-speed cruiser formation, so they were generally honest along the East Coast and did not dare to make mistakes.

A large group of men in round-necked white shirts on the military dock were conducting basic queue training. These are former pirate members who have been recruited from the Caribbean in recent times. These pirates come from a variety of sources. There are all kinds of countries and nationalities. A lot of people have become accustomed to living an unorganized and undisciplined life. The East Coast didn't need these pirate grease soldiers, they wanted pirates who were tired of hiding in Tibet.

These long-to-learn pirates are wanted in the Old World, and many have no home to return, so they have to waste their lives aimlessly in the Caribbean. How can these people not be ecstatic now that the East Coasters have found them through some old connections and promised them official status? In addition, some officers and sailors of the East Coast Navy who were originally pirates came forward to say. In July, the East Coast Navy's pirate recruitment campaign was a great success, with more than 500 pirates recruited in a single occasion near Cap-de-France and Tortuga.

Except for some who are older and unwilling to continue their maritime careers, most of them (about 300) have chosen to join the navy of the Republic of China on the east coast of China, where there is a huge shortage of personnel. Those who did not want to continue their lives at sea, with the exception of a few who were allocated to shipyards by the Council, were mostly assigned to the vast inland areas to establish new settlements, along with the more than 2,000 new French immigrants and the more than 1,000 Ming immigrants.

The first highway in the East Coast Republic of China, Highway No. 1 (Dongfang Port North City - Dingyuan Township), after continuous expansion and extension in recent years, has now reached the fishing wharf on the shore of Dayu Lake. The originally extremely rich fishery resources of Dayu Lake are now close to depletion after uninterrupted fishing in recent years. In order to recuperate in Dayu Lake, the Government Council decisively decided to carry out economic transformation of Dingyuan Township. The original economic model, which was based on cropping, fishing, salt drying and processing of fishery products, will undergo a large-scale transformation.

To be honest, the port of Vostochny and its vicinity are not suitable for large-scale agricultural production at the moment. There is no other reason. The main thing is the lack of water. Yes, there is a lack of large surface runoff, and in layman's terms, there are no major rivers. As far as the eye can see, there are some small streams and rivers that are not very abundant, and many of them are seasonal rivers. There's no way, the grassland area, that's all there is to it. If it weren't for the fact that the Government Council had spent a lot of effort and cost to build a large number of reservoirs, rainwater collection ponds, artificial reservoirs, and farmland water conservancy and irrigation facilities in recent years, it would have been very difficult to feed more than 10,000 people in Dongfang Port and its vicinity, not to mention the development of various types of farmland totaling more than 20,000 mu.

Now that this problem is recognized, it is natural that the Executive Committee and the Government Council cannot afford to make this mistake again. In order to alleviate the population pressure in the vicinity of Dongfang Port and to provide sufficient raw materials for the further development of the domestic textile industry, the Government Council decided to exchange the new arrivals, totaling more than 3,500 new immigrants, with some old residents of Dingyuan Township and Dongfang Port, and then send them to the northwest inland region near the water source to build new settlements, and then carry out grazing and reclamation.

The grazing breeds are mainly fine-wool sheep imported from Europe to provide sufficient raw materials for the country's burgeoning textile industry. Speaking of which, it has to be mentioned that it is regrettable that the diplomats of the Eastern Republic have not yet been able to get the famous Spanish Merino sheep despite all the scheming and tricks. At present, the State Intelligence Administration has begun to think of a way, if this kind of sheep, which produce a large number of high-quality fine wool, can be raised on the prairie on the east coast, then it will definitely give wings to the development of the woolen industry in the Eastern Republic of China.

On and around the north shore of the lake in and around Big Fish Lake, the location of the new settlement was determined even as early as the middle of the year, and part of the preliminary construction was carried out by the construction team. There are two planned settlements, namely the Cotton Farmer's Fort on the north shore of Dayu Lake – as the name suggests, the inhabitants of this settlement will mainly grow cotton; and Fort Yuan, near the later city of Castillos, a settlement inhabited mainly by sheep herders.

Cotton and wool from the two settlements were sent to Dongfang Port and Ping'an County for production and processing. In order to improve the transportation efficiency, the East Coast Construction Company built a small wharf in the Cotton Farmer Fort on the north bank of Dayu Lake, and the cotton produced here will be transported to the Dongfang Port through the Dayu Lake - Dayu River system after being loaded onto ships, and the transportation is quite convenient. Zhenyuanbao is about 10 kilometers north of Cotton Farmer Fort, and in order to improve transportation efficiency, the construction company has already begun to plan an extension of Highway 1 - the asphalt road from Cotton Farmer Fort to Zhenyuan Fort. After the completion of this road, supplemented by large four-wheeled freight wagons, Zhenyuan Fort and Cotton Farmer Fort will be able to be easily connected.

In order to improve the labor enthusiasm of new immigrants, the Government Council has also issued a new policy this time. The general content of the plan is to distribute more than 2,000 sheep in the hands of the Animal Husbandry Bureau of the Ministry of Agriculture to the new immigrants in the form of loans. Of course, in the future, the houses, rations, land, farm tools, seeds, etc., which will be prepared for them, will also be included in the loan. The loan will be interest-free for three years, with a gradual start after three years to encourage newcomers to get into the role as soon as possible and earn the output to repay the loan.

To this end, with the approval of the Executive Committee, the Government Council has set up a special policy bank, the Northwest Reclamation Bank, to handle this matter. The Northwest Reclamation Bank, the first financial institution in the eastern Republic of China, has a reserve of 2,688 sheep, 200 tons of potatoes, and a number of farm tools, seeds, building materials, and other materials. Of course, more than 50,000 acres of land in Cotton Farmer Fort and Zhenyuanbao were also included in its name, and these lands could be sold to local farmers for money after they were developed.

After the policy was settled, in mid-December, the first batch of 600 migrants, escorted by two platoons of militia, arrived by boat at the Cotton Farmer's Fort on the northern shore of Dayu Lake. Of the 600 immigrants, 300 were old residents of their original hometowns, and only 300 were new immigrants. Old and new immigrants live in a mixed mood, which is also deliberately done by the Government Council. After all, with the old residents, the new immigrants can adapt to the new environment more quickly, and the assimilation speed in all aspects can be slightly accelerated.

At this time, the Cotton Farmer's Fort was still a large construction site. More than 200 workers of the East Coast Construction Company are working overtime to build the city walls, houses, toilets, canteens, bathhouses, cisterns, warehouses and other facilities. Around them, as many as 1,000 Khoisans are working hard to level foundations and carry building materials under the watchful eye of the East Bank militia.

These 1,000 Khoisans are the second batch of labor dispatchers sent from Fort Riverwater last month, and in addition to the slaves of the Lower Two Banners, more are the families and immediate families of the indigenous soldiers of the Eight Banners who escaped and failed to fight in the last battle with the British. They were burdened by their families and sent to work in the local area. Of course, before they came, they were also told that at the end of the three-year period, they would be repatriated to South Africa and promoted to the Upper Six Flags and freed.

The wharf of the Cotton Farmer's Fort was full of people shouting and neighing, and there was a lot of noise. Waves of supplies, people, and livestock were transported by ship from the Big Fish River, the Big Fish Lake, and then continued north to Zhenyuan Fort. After several years of development and precipitation, the Eastern Republic now has the ability to organize thousands of people to work on large-scale projects at the same time, which cannot but be said to be a big progress. It is important to know that such large-scale projects can test the country's financial, organizational and transportation capabilities. Naturally, there is no problem with organizational ability and delivery ability, but there is a small problem with financial ability.

The materials that came and went on the two huge construction sites in front of them, and even the huge immigration costs of some of the Ming immigrants, were all borrowed by the East Coast Republic of China from the two surrounding neighbors, Brazil and some native white elite families in La Plata. (To be continued......)