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On June 30, 1650, it was sunny and westerly blows of magnitude 6.

A few days after a lighter sandstorm, as the temperature plummeted, small snowflakes drifted in the sky, which made the people of the sand castle suddenly realize that the harsh winter was finally coming. To be honest, however, the change of seasons makes little difference to the 1,500 inhabitants of the area (another batch of Polish prisoners of war were housed here more than two months ago). Whether it was a hot summer or a bitterly cold winter, the settlers, known as "indentured servants", had to work, and such days were said to last for seven years, which was extremely frustrating.

Xu Xiangdong rode a Turkmen horse, and had just returned from patrolling outside with a group of patrol policemen, and before he could get off the horse, the deputy director of the police station who stayed behind immediately reported to him: Half an hour ago, more than a dozen carriages had just arrived from the direction of Araukan Port, and the carriages were carrying a new batch of Ming immigrants (immigrants from the Pacific route), a total of 174 people, all of whom were adult men and women, including 116 men and 58 women, with a ratio of 2:1. This is a change from the previous 3:1 ratio of Far Eastern immigrants to men, and this seems to indicate a fine-tuning of the Executive Committee's immigration policy.

Of course, these Far Eastern immigrants were not assigned to Sand Castle, but in fact their destination was the port of Shingnan, a seaport city that concentrates almost one-third of the population of Southern Patagonia and one of the best agricultural developments among the settlements along the Transoceanic Railway. Since the first acre of farmland was cleared in 1648, it has been developed for nearly two years. Under the organization of the Southern Railway Company. At present, more than 15,000 acres of farmland have been developed in the area of Xingnan Port. About a third of them are "cooked ground" in the second year. In the past two years, all of these fields have been planted with alfalfa, a high-quality pasture grass, in order to decompose some of the unabsorbable calcium and phosphorus organic acids that are abundant in the soil into absorbable substances, even at the expense of the grain production of previous years.

The company has clearly explained this to local farmers, and has implemented special subsidies for these farmers to improve their soil and accumulate fertility with peace of mind. The poor soil texture in arid areas should have been cared for by settlers, and if they were excessive, they should have demanded too much. What awaits them is that the soil fertility is exhausted, and they will not be able to recover their vitality in three or five years.

However, alfalfa is not without value, at least in countries such as the east coast, which have a high livestock stock (second only to Britain and Spain compared to Western European countries), this crop that can be harvested a few times a year and has a high yield is still in a vast market. Don't you see the state-owned ranch in Ranch Township, Dongfang County, seeking to buy all kinds of high-quality pasture grass all year round, drying the alfalfa collected in the field, and then shipping it back to the mainland by packing a ship, which can still exchange for some much-needed grain.

In the past, settlers in the port of Shingnan and even in the neighboring city of Novofort did just that, but now they have a new option: as the Peruvian smuggling trade unfolds, the Southern Railway Company buys a large number of beef and dairy cows from Chile. They were then driven to the port of Hungnam by hired gaucho cowboys, and the livestock holdings of local residents began to rise dramatically. This naturally led to a decline in alfalfa exports – most of which was used by them themselves, after all.

At this time, there were also some such herds tied to the walls of the sand castle, and there were about two hundred of them, all of them skinny. Some Polish indentured slaves are currently tending to the animals, feeding them with bean cakes brought from home, a small amount of oats from the port of Araucan, and weeds harvested by the river to ensure that the cattle are fattened within the stipulated time. After all, only after these cattle have been fattened can they have enough body to continue eastward and reach their final destination, Xingnan Port.

There are also many messy shacks outside the cowshed, which are very simple and primitive, and the main material is a large number of reeds growing along the Hungnam River. In the deep Gobi and scarce sand castles, reeds are still a very valuable thing: reed wadding can be used to stuff pillows and make cotton clothes (in order to save money, the Southern Railway Company actually gave Polish indentured slaves coats filled with reed wadding and covers to keep out the cold), reed poles can be used to weave various utensils, and of course it is quite suitable to build shacks - the duck houses and chicken coops of some farmers on both sides of the local Yi River are made of reed poles.

Of course, in the sand castle, the shacks were not for the poultry, but for the people – to be exact, for the Far Eastern immigrants who were here to rest and recuperate. After these Far Eastern immigrants landed at the port of Araukan and passed the quarantine period, they were organized in batches, and traveled eastward along the Xingnan Highway in horse-drawn carriages, resting at the Sand Castle for two or three days on the way, and then arriving in the east in the area of Zixinbao and Xingnan Port to settle down and cultivate.

In other words, on this migrant transportation route, which is known as the lifeline of the Southern Railway Company, Sand Castle is the most important and only intermediate supply node, and its geographical location is quite critical. Here, damaged wagons will be repaired, sick people will be housed, overused water will be replenished, and drivers will be able to replace their fattened horses and replace them from the stables for a long time to improve the efficiency of transportation.

At this time, along the outside of the adobe walls of the sand castle, there was a large area of slightly messy shacks, inside and outside which lived 174 Ming immigrants who stayed here temporarily. As it was getting nearly evening, these Ming immigrants, under the command of the cadres of the Corps Fort who led the team, selected some people to go to the river to fetch water and cook.

The Poles of Sand Castle painlessly took out some salted fish (mainly cod and slippery fish abundant on the east coast), cured meat (mainly cod and whale meat) with coarse flesh, and some shriveled vegetables (their own vegetable fields by the river, which were harvested and stored in the zài cellar). These are already the best supplies they can come up with, and they are usually reluctant to eat them, so they are specially reserved for past immigrants or employees of the Southern Railway Company to enjoy at this time - because this is also one of their work content and assessment items, if they want to "reduce the sentence", this item must not lose points.

The Poles also brought some fuel, most of which was gangue from the Black Mountain Coal Mine (due to the low coal content, it was smashed by the steam breaker and sent to various places for fuel), a small part of it was dry grass and bean stalks (the Poles also opened up a little arable land to grow soybean fertilizer), and diligently helped these newcomers to the Ming immigrants to set fire to the water - according to the regulations, on the first night of their stay in each settlement, all immigrants had to bathe with the soap they were sent down - it was like honoring these Ming immigrants as if they were ancestors, Let the people of the Ming people, who are also from bitter haha, panic.

After taking a shower, the meal was almost ready. Each of the more than 100 Ming people was given two multigrain cakes, a messy stew of pickled fish, pickled meat and vegetables, and a thin bowl of fish soup from the fish caught in large quantities by the Southern Railway Company in the northern waters of Chile. Although it was not the first time that the two hundred Ming immigrants in front of him had eaten these fragrant foods, they were still so moved that they almost shed tears.

Thinking about the fact that after he was sold to the "Yellow Thief" by the "Yuyuan Thief" in his hometown in Henan, he was terrified to death, for fear of being eaten alive by these pirates (the Qing court publicized that the Yellow Thief eats people's hearts), so he tried his best to resist what the Yellow Thief asked them to do, until he was subdued by the swords and guns they held high. But things in the world are often unexpected, and instead of killing people and eating meat, these yellow-clothed pirates distributed clothes and rations to them, and they took care of them quite well.

To put it mildly, some small landlords in Shandong, Henan, and Hebei who were forced to go to sea to emigrate to the east coast unanimously felt that the food they ate on weekdays was not as good as the food cooked for them by the yellow thieves, and they were also evil. And during the time when they went to sea by boat, the officers and men of the sailors in the yellow thieves did nothing to oppress and do good, except for some female immigrants who were eaten tofu by some sailors during the period when they were on the deck to watch the wind, most of them were not disturbed at all, and they were very comfortable, which made people have to be impressed.

And when they heard that the government of the yellow-clothed thieves - no, the people from the east coast - would also grant them land, this shocked them even more. They all came from the Ming Kingdom, where land annexation was extremely strict, and of course they knew what it meant for a peasant to have their own land - that meant that you would be a "good family" from now on, not a "tenant farmer" without any security or status, and this qiē naturally quickly captured the hearts of the immigrants, and at the same time that they became extremely submissive, the work of transporting immigrants was naturally extremely smooth - for example, this group of 174 Far Eastern immigrants, not a single one of them escaped without permission along the way, This is in stark contrast to the indian migrant transport fleets that have been fleeing one after another.

Xu Xiangdong, who came out of dinner to walk around, saw the scene of the Ming immigrants eating dinner quietly and being extremely obedient. His parents were both time-travelers, and he vaguely knew a lot of things, and he was also quite kind to these immigrants from the Far East. The Poles of the Sand Castle were able to supply these immigrants with good food and drink, not necessarily without the pressure exerted by him, otherwise would you think that they would have entertained the immigrants with so many big fish and meat, as well as so many very valuable vegetables in winter? If nothing else, last month, when a group of more than 100 immigrants from Livonia passed through Sand Castle to the port of Araucan, they were treated more than one level worse than this time, which is already very telling.

After casually walking around, Xu Xiangdong returned to the police station. The migrants will remain here for two more days, after which he will escort them east with a group of patrol officers until the handover from Newcastle is completed. (My novel "Crossing 1630: The Rise of South America" will have more fresh content on the official WeChat platform, and there will also be a 100% lottery gift for everyone!) Open WeChat now, click on the "+" sign in the upper right corner "Add Friends", search for the official account "ddxiaoshuo" and follow, hurry up! (To be continued......)