The river construction site is in full swing.

Although the temperature was close to five degrees Celsius, the Ming immigrants still stood on the muddy side of the river with only thin shirts and rain boots, digging inch by inch with shovels to dig through the dirt on both sides of the river and then carry it away.

The technicians sent by the Ministry of Communications constantly looked at the drawings, and then instructed the river workers in a timely manner where to dig, where not to dig, where to dig deeper, and where to dig shallower, and they were also very busy. All in all, it's a hot scene.

Zheng Bin watched from afar by the river, shaking hands with the cadres of the Corps who were personally participating in the river dredging project, and encouraged them to continue their efforts, and the government would definitely not treat them badly. And he also noticed that the number of river workers digging the river was far more than four or five hundred as he thought, but more than a thousand, perhaps close to two thousand.

Where did so many people come from? He was a little puzzled, but after a closer look, he came to the conclusion that these were all Mamelukos from the mountains, and even a few Scots and Irish. His secretary came to the same conclusion, having just asked the local chief, who told him that these were Brazilians who had come to the East Coast to do odd jobs while he had time.

The East Coasters offered them a high price of two dimes a day, and they were given food (bread, salted fish, cheese), shelter (reed huts), and wine every five days, which made the Mameluko people, who had nothing to do every winter, not be impressed? Now it is becoming more and more difficult to catch slaves, and the Guarani people are becoming more and more armed. If you don't do it, it won't work. In that case, it is better to come to the East Coast to do odd jobs. And the salary is not low, and the part-time job when I am a farmer is quite good.

It's just that there are some holes in the way these East Coasters pay their salaries, and it is not the rial, the East Coast dollar or any other coin that they are familiar with, but a thin piece of "paper". It is said that it was used by the Northwest Reclamation Bank, which is famous even in the Gérard Mountains, and can be used to buy goods directly from the people of the East Coast, and of course it can be exchanged for silver dollars after the expiration of one year.

Although the people of Mameluko protested vigorously, the attitude of the people on the east coast was very resolute: love to do it, not to do it! Lao Tzu only pays bank acceptance bills. If you are not satisfied, you can go!

Some of the Mameluko people left in disgrief, but some chose to stay. After a month of drying, they tried to use this "piece of paper" to buy some cotton cloth from the state-run store opened by the Dong'an people in Baoan Township, and they can now use it as a silver dollar! And to be precise, it may be better than a silver dollar, because many times the coins you buy are oddly shaped, the quality is often very suspicious, and the weight is quite different from the face value. At this time, the clerk will often refuse to accept it or ask you to calculate the discount. However, the use of banker's acceptance is not a problem at all, because this "piece of paper" does not depreciate due to wear and tear like silver coins, and there is no problem with fineness, so it is quite convenient to use.

Now that the banker's acceptance has successfully built its credibility, the number of Mamelukos going to the East Bank for odd jobs has increased, reaching its peak this month: on the Sinos River channel construction site. A total of 1,525 Mamelukos and 281 Britons were employed, who played a huge role in the timely completion of the river widening and dredging project. On a more positive note, East Coast banknotes have also managed to pry open a crack in the door of neighboring countries, making their audience even wider.

"I wish the Portuguese would build more settlements and move more people in the Gérard Mountains. Hmph, actually colonized and expanded west of the papal meridian stipulated in the Treaty of Tordesillas. This is the land of the Spaniards, when will it be your turn to be the Portuguese? When no one cares about the land, it's fine. But if you're targeted, you'll be waiting to suffer. Zheng Bin rubbed his chin with his right hand, his eyes looked at the dry river that was widening, but the thoughts in his mind had drifted to other places: "When we end the war with the Spaniards and redraw the border, what if this land that nominally belongs to the Spaniards is also included in the territory of Xinjiang on the east coast?" Hehe, it must be interesting then. ”

These Portuguese settlements were built over the last decade6 and developed rapidly through trade, as well as other Portuguese towns within the distance. However, the attitude of the Portuguese and Brazilian colonial authorities towards these settlements, especially the civilian ones, was negative, because the inhabitants of these settlements facilitated the escape of indentured slaves to the East Bank and always evaded taxes in places where the officials did not notice, so the officials tried on several occasions to ban these settlements and relocate all their inhabitants to the slave towns and the towns of Captain Ricardo. However, local Brazilian officials have provided them with protection, which has temporarily discouraged the bigwigs in São Paulo's general district.

Of course, although these local residents provided convenience for the white indentured slaves who fled to the East Coast, it did not mean that they themselves were willing to flee to the East Coast. They are all devout believers in the Lord, full of instinctive fear of going to a foreign land of heathen, and if it were not for the indentured slaves who had completely despaired for the rest of their lives, then who would abandon their homes and careers and go to the devil so that their souls could not be saved?

Although there are some Catholic churches on the east coast, more of them are so-called Taoist Taoist temples. I heard that a few months ago, their government had assigned a highly respected "real person" to preach in the area of Ping'an County, and as soon as this real person named Wang Bao arrived in Ping'an County, he broke ground on one of the busiest streets to build a majestic religious building, a three-story Taoist temple. In addition, Wang Zhenren also sent some Taoist chiefs and Taoist priests to the countryside to preach, and at the same time looked for land to build Taoist temples. It is absolutely impossible for these God's people, who have been bathed in the light of the Lord all their lives, to survive in such a country where the shadow of the devil is completely shrouded, let alone absconding to live in that country.

However, the reluctance to live on the East Coast does not mean that they are unwilling to do business with the East Coast. Here they cultivated wheat and corn, grazed cattle and sheep, raised chickens and ducks, and made a large number of handicrafts to sell to the people of the East Coast, from whom they bought good iron farming implements, durable muskets, cheap cotton cloth, standard hardware tools, salted fish (now out of service), and some mechanical parts—and the Brazilians were now learning to use machinery.

The scale of this business was so great that so many people gathered in the vicinity of the Gérard Mountains. You know, in Portuguese Brazil at this time, there were only 50,000 white Portuguese, who were either plantation owners or ranchers, colonial officials, military personnel and their families, or farm managers, factory technicians, etc. These people are mainly scattered in the countryside, and the urban population is small, and in the 18th century Rio de Janeiro had only 25oo white residents.

The rest of Brazil is home to only 50,000 civilized people, and it's home to a population of about one-twentieth of the population, which is a surprising number by any measure. What is even more surprising is the radically different social structure from that of the Brazilian hinterland, a backward social form of slave estates, where the feudal and capitalist civilizations of Western Europe have completely regressed, and the enslavement of the barbarians by civilized men has become the mainstream, just as their neighbors, the Spaniards, have done.

But the small towns of the Gérard region are full of life, full of life, and full of the atmosphere of the old Great 6 North-West Europe (Holland, England, France, northern Germany) where the crafts flourished. In short, the Gérard Mountains and the Brazilian hinterland were two worlds entirely, a favorite of merchants and factory owners, but not of hacienda owners and slave owners.

In addition, the Portuguese government's restrictions on colonial industrial exhibitions were not as strict as those of the Spanish government, so some Portuguese merchants set up workshops here one after another, and constantly used their connections to collect all kinds of craftsmen in the old big 6, and then deceived the new big 6 to produce all kinds of small goods for them to sell to the east coast. At the same time, they themselves resold some of the industrial products they bought from the east coast to the rest of Brazil, making a lot of money. In such a situation, it is no wonder that the population density here is far from that of the rest of Brazil, after all, the industrialized organized social structure is always somewhat different from the serfdom society.

"These towns have also created a lot of value for our eastern republic, at least it is entirely their credit that the food gap in Ping'an County can be filled, which allows us not to spend precious transportation capacity to transport grain from other places to Ping'an County. They also provided the handicrafts which were necessary for production and life, and which we could not or could not or could not make, and the one or two thousand craftsmen and their apprentices were a real treasure, and it would be nice to find a way to get them. Although Zheng Bin is an agricultural person, he is a senior official after all, so he also knows some things about the country.

If nothing else, these few Portuguese towns are home to enough artisans to satisfy the people of the East Coast. If they were to be swallowed up, it would inevitably solve the shortfall of a large part of the country's goods. However, this will also have a considerable negative effect, that is, it will cause bad relations with the Portuguese, and at the same time, it will completely destroy these handicraft towns that have been formed so hard. After all, these towns were just ordinary towns in the hands of the people on the east coast, but in the hands of the Portuguese they were industrial and commercial towns that constantly attracted new immigrants (artisans). Therefore, how to operate at that time really needs to be considered in the long run.

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