"The Executive Committee has agreed in principle to the establishment of the 'new railway', and will soon organize a group of personnel to come to explore the terrain and plan the route, this work is expected to be completed in three to five years, and the railway is optimistically estimated to start construction in five years, and the new Huaxia Island is likely to have the first railway to open to traffic before 1660." Shi Qinjie, who was getting better and better, sat in the Taishi chair made of precious wood, sipping tea and whispering.

The full name of the "new railway" in his mouth is the New Huaxia Railway Company, which is currently under preparation. The company is controlled by local capital, of which the Central Railway Company holds 40% of the shares, the Southern Cone Railway Company holds 20% of the shares, the New China Development Team holds 20% of the shares, and the other 20% of the shares are open to the public.

To be honest, the company's business prospects are not optimistic for many people, and the biggest reason for this is the extreme shortage of manpower on the island of New China - which means that the economic development process is not high, in addition to the frequent diseases and hot climate in the local area, which is also a major reason for many people to be discouraged, in short, many people want to wait and see the development prospects of the local area in the next few years. However, no one subscribed for the shares, and the sales of the 100,000 yuan corporate bonds of the New Railway Company, guaranteed by China Railway and Southern Railway, were quite stable, because everyone knew how rich and wealthy these two railway companies belonged in the East Coast Republic; In addition, the Genoese people's keen sense of smell and good connections came into play again, and they quietly bought 50,000 yuan of registered bonds with their idle funds, which can be regarded as the investment in the East Coast to the end.

However, the construction of the railway was easy to raise and the materials were well prepared. But it's hard to raise manpower. At present, the construction of the Northwest Railway and the South Cone Two Oceans Railway is progressing steadily. The foundation stone of the Southwest Railway has also begun. The transportation and construction bureau and the railway company do not train enough talents to grab everywhere, so they send technical personnel to Xinhuaxia Island, the "terrible place of death", to survey and plan the railway line, which is simply killing them.

And if it is difficult to recruit engineers and technicians, then it is even more difficult to raise ordinary labor. You must know that due to policy reasons, there are no indigenous people in the East Coast Control District today. There is no other way to obtain the large number of ordinary labourers who are to build the railroad than to go to war - or to incite the natives to go to war.

"Of course. The opening of a short section of the railroad before 1660 was only a good wish of ours, and now it seems that the practical difficulties are quite significant. Shi Qinjie smiled bitterly at Ma Wanpeng at this time, and the two of them were in Shi Qinjie's family's private residence on the outskirts of Xinhua Port at this time, so they spoke more casually: "Later, the French also suffered from the lack of manpower when they built the railway in Madagascar, and the local aborigines were relatively lazy and impatient to work, so they introduced a large number of piglets from China to build the railway at the end of the Qing Dynasty, which is the famous Tadong Railway (the railway from Antananarivo to the east coast), and these people are also the ancestors of the Chinese community in Madagascar." Could it be that we also want to import a large number of people from the Ming Dynasty to build railways? However, the Chinese of the late Ming Dynasty may not necessarily have the Chinese hard-working ...... of the late Qing Dynasty in later generations."

"Let's talk about it then, in the early days, when building the roadbed, we still used more locals. Railways travel through forests, meadows, swamps, deserts. Overcoming obstacles along the way, this time is often the most dead, and it takes a lot of lives to fill that bottomless pit. At this stage, people are just a kind of consumables, so let's use as many natives as possible, and if you can't do it, you can go to Comoros to catch the natives. Don't look at me like this, you ordered to stop catching slaves at the beginning, but at this time and then, catching slaves to build railways is just consumables, and you can get on the line. Ma Wanpeng picked up a cup of coffee, said with a smile: "This coffee is really unpalatable, and the introduction of Robusta coffee beans seems to have failed......

"Don't talk nonsense, you're giving you the best coffee from Naturalization Island, and exporting Ottoman fist products." Shi Qinjie glanced at Ma Wanpeng with disdain and said: "The coffee plantation has been relatively successful on Guihua Island, and the production of Robusta coffee beans has increased year by year, but it is a pity that the acceptance of this coffee bean by the Ottomans is not high enough, and the quality of most of our products is not good, so the export volume is limited." Thankfully, we were relieved that the locals were more fond of tea, but they were not averse to coffee. ”

In fact, Shi Qinjie said it lightly, but of the large number of coffee plantations developed by the people of the East Coast in Xinhuagang, Tacheng Port and Guihua Port, only one of them has succeeded, and the coffee trees in the other two places are not growing satisfactorily, and the quality of the fruit is also very problematic, it seems that the environment here is not suitable for the growth of coffee trees.

However, the "stout coffee trees" (Arabica species) planted by the Ministry of Agriculture in Tacheng Port in small quantities were unexpectedly successful, which made Shi Qinjie and others realize that the problem lies in the variety, that is, the slopes in the eastern coastal area of Xinhuaxia Island are actually more suitable for planting Arabica coffee trees. The coffee beans grown in this environment have a very good texture and are judged by the Ottomans to be of the highest quality, and the market prospects are very promising.

Based on this judgment, the people of the east coast immediately decided to expand the scale of coffee plantations on the inland slopes of Tacheng Port and plant Arabica coffee beans in full. In addition, it was the most important clove growing area in Madagascar, and the environment was very suitable for the growth of this spice crop, which was monopolized by the Dutch at this time and was extremely valuable in Europe.

"Hehe, I know, I know, just kidding." Ma Wanpeng laughed nonchalantly, and then said as if he suddenly remembered something: "By the way, I heard that you just sent away a group of messengers from the Merina last month?" And promised to sell them muskets and cold weapons? ”

"There's such a thing." Shi Qinjie nodded and confirmed: "The Andrina dynasty of the Immerina Kingdom established by the Melina people is located in the Central Plateau region, and it currently seems to be one of the more powerful feudal and slave kingdoms on the plateau. Their king's name was Andrea Ritacatlandriana - damn it, that's a bad name - and he was the fourth king of this dynasty. Their territory was relatively large, reaching the edge of the plateau in the east. bordering the territory of the Bezimisarakha; West to the grasslands. They fought with the Sakarava people for many years - in fact, they were beaten by the Sakarava people. Other than that. The kingdom has just taken over Antananarivo ('land of a thousand people' in honor of the thousand soldiers stationed here) in the last generation and moved its capital here, and is now the economic, political, and military center of the kingdom. They built palaces, walled cities, and moats, built irrigation facilities, developed terraced rice cultivation here, and the army used javelins, scimitars, iron spears, and axes made by themselves as the main weapons, and constantly annexed other small surrounding states through guò wars and marriages, and the rise of the army on the central plateau became more and more obvious......"

"Damn. This kind of rising country, why should we sell weapons to them? They had already gained the upper hand in the battle with those nations, and now that they had muskets, wouldn't they be able to sweep away the princes and unify the central highlands soon? When Ma Wanpeng heard this, he cried out and said loudly: "Shouldn't we contact those small countries there?" It's only right to sell weapons to small countries to offset the advantages of the Kingdom of Imerina! ”

Shi Qinjie was also a little embarrassed by Ma Wanpeng's snatching, because this decision was made by him, so he could only explain at this moment: "We can't contact other countries in the Central Highlands, and only this Immerina Kingdom has sent envoys to communicate with us at present." In addition, they have a feud with the Sakarava people of the Manab kingdom and they have agreed to fight with us from east to west, and together they will destroy the Sakarava people who are fighting with us in the steppes and hills at this moment. That's a great thing for us. Furthermore, they agreed to sell us a piece of territory that they disputed with the Bezimisaraka people. The amount was used to offset the amount of the arms. ”

Speaking of this, Shi Qinjie took out a sketchy hand-drawn map of Xinhuaxia Island, which had been carefully preserved, from under the drawer, pointed to a slope in the interior of Tacheng Port, drew a circle, and said: "From the east coast to the second step of the Central Highlands - about fifty kilometers east of Antananarivo to draw a straight line, and less than ten kilometers to the left of the straight line is the second step of the Central Highlands - to the east is the traditional area of activity of the Betsy Misaraka, but the kingdom of Imoryna has previously claimed sovereignty over it, and has sent troops to conquer it many times, Unfortunately, none of them established a solid rule; The west of Ewest is naturally the territory of the Melinas, and the port of Tacheng has long figured out the complex historical ownership of that land for so many years, so this time I took the opportunity to ask the envoy of the Melina to purchase part of the land east of this straight line - well, the general area is the area north of the Tadong Railway, south of Lake Aratra, and east of the straight line, with basins and mountains as the main terrain - as a result, the envoy of the Melina decisively sold this land that did not actually belong to them to us after several back and forth negotiations, In exchange for six hundred muskets, a thousand sabers, two thousand spears, and five hundred pairs of leather armor, I don't think the trade was really a loss - if we ignore the thoughts of the Bezimisaraka people who live in this land......"

"The land is very fertile, rich in flora and fauna, and its climate is very suitable for growing cash crops such as cloves, coffee, pepper, vanilla, sisal, cocoa, etc., so it is still very valuable." "In addition, Lake Arautra was the most important mechanized rice producing area in Madagascar in later generations, and the agricultural conditions were too good to be true, but they were not well known at this time. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the French planned and built the Tadong Railway, Antananarivo-Tamatave (i.e., Tacheng Port), which built a branch line to the north to Lake Arautra, in order to transport the rich agricultural and fishery resources of this God-given land, and this is exactly what we can emulate. ”

"The prospect sounds good, but we still have to build a railway on the west coast, and you have to build a railway to Lake Arautra, which feels very unreliable, and we are still so short of manpower." Ma Wanpeng said a little weakly, "Forget it, the business is over, it's useless to regret it, it seems that our new Huaxia development team is going to prepare for unconventional development in the next period of time, right?" Otherwise, it will take until the Year of the Monkey to complete such a grand plan? The first step is to talk about the whole people first, Captain Shi, Commander Shi, Brother Shi? ”

"People must be rectified." Shi Qinjie said, "In recent years, the export of materials from our new China region to the local area has grown rapidly, and the total amount of seafood, timber, sisal, cocoa, coffee, vanilla, rubber, cotton, coal and other agricultural and mineral products exported in 1651 has reached more than 630,000 yuan, of which the tax and profits attributable to the local treasury are still quite large. Therefore, I am going to expand the fleet of the East African Transport Company, and then organize the migration and trade fleet to Daming. Of course, this will require the local authorities to help us coordinate with the Dutch, because our route will inevitably lead to the ...... of the Strait of Malacca" (to be continued......

PS: Continue to recommend the same "West Look. From China to the East Coast", which is really well written.