If Jingjiang County originally accounted for two-thirds of the population of the Wujiang area, then when the time came to July 10, 1650, with the relocation of a large number of new immigrants to the Wujiang area by the Ministry of Immigration, the proportion of the population of Jingjiang County began to shrink sharply.

More than a dozen 72-ton river steamboats threw large quantities of construction materials and grain on the shallows at the mouth of the Heihe River (Negro River), and then the 2,500 migrants who had arrived here by sea boat worked together to sort out the supplies and move them into makeshift shelters one by one, so that these precious materials would not be damaged by the harsh winter rain and snow.

After unloading, these river steamboats did not stop long, but went upriver towards Mercedes City further upstream. Of course, this is the name given by later generations of Uruguayans, and now the city has a new name, Suihua Fort. The settlement, which is based on a small amount of cooked land carved out by the early Spanish colonists, currently has a total of 2,200 settlers (including 200 Spaniards), and the future economy will be largely agricultural.

In addition, not far to the south, near Ciudad Dolores on the banks of the San Salvador River, seven or eight other river steamboats carrying a considerable amount of supplies docked on the shore. The supplies were used to build a new settlement, Fort Suiyuan, another name with a hint of conquest, which also developed on a Spanish estate and now has more than 2,100 inhabitants, and looks equally economically lacklustre, and will in the future be dominated by agriculture and animal husbandry.

Straight to the point. The shallows in front of me are covered with wild grass and forests. On the drawings of the people of the east bank was named Fort Mikawaguta. It is named after the confluence of the Black River, the Uruguay River and the San Salvador River. These three settlements (Sanhekou Fort, Suihua Fort, Suiyuan Fort) were combined with the port of Yong'an further north. After a few years of development, it is the foundation of a county.

"The Wujiang River Basin is fertile for thousands of miles, and it is very rich!" Tian Xing, director of the Jingjiang Paper Mill and former official of the State Intelligence Administration, stood on a small high hill, looked at the vast grassland in the distance, and said with emotion. He is only 19 years old this year, and his parents are both cross-sections, and after two years of training at the State Intelligence Administration, he has now "transferred jobs" to the local government and served as the director of the newly established Jingjiang Paper Mill. Of course. In the eyes of Liao Xiaoyao, the commander of the Wujiang District Garrison, the title of the director of the paper mill is purely to sell dog meat on the head of a sheep, and his real duty is to take over some of Liao Xiaoyao's previous work, that is, to keep in touch with the Klandians on the other side of the Wujiang River, and at the same time send people to infiltrate the Hejian area (east of the Paraná River and west of the Wujiang River), so as to lay the foundation for the people on the east bank to completely control this fertile land in the future.

"As the saying goes, there is no work, no wealth, and the settlements in the Wujiang area have neither decent industry nor commercial trade, so they can only cultivate land and graze. Rich? How rich can you be? Liao Xiaoyao disagreed with Tian Xing's opinion, and only heard him say: "You are still young. You'll know with more experience in the future. Getting rich by farming on the east coast, that's the old yellow calendar! Now that the Thirty Years' War in Europe has ended, the order of production has been greatly restored, grain production has increased greatly, and our original export markets have begun to be lost one by one. The export price of grain in the Luoqia Bulk Trade Center has fallen together, and it is a mournful situation to go up to the national grain reserve depot and down to the ordinary farmers who are farming. Those who responded to the country's call to go to the Western Wilderness to pioneer are even more miserable, with the deepening of domestic inflation and the increase in the price of means of production, their profits have been greatly compressed, and now there is a collapse of the grain export market, which is not going to kill them. In my opinion, if the Ministry of Agriculture had not allocated a part of the price subsidy to them this time, encouraging them to sell grain to domestic deep-processing enterprises, I think none of these big agricultural contractors would have survived, and the market is really cruel. ”

What Liao Xiaoyao is talking about is the predicament of agriculture on the east coast today. With the expansion of the sown area of the land year by year, and the in-depth promotion of the three-crop rotation system (soil fertility can be maintained for a long time), the grain production of the East Coast Republic of China has increased year by year in recent years, and it has become a net grain exporter for many years. The main market for its exports is Europe, followed by Dutch Brazil, and there are some small, scattered but small markets. After the end of the war in Europe, production was restored, and Poland, the largest exporter of grain, was the first to suffer, followed by Muscovy, which had exported a large amount of rye to Western Europe in recent years.

And as Europe becomes more stable, the outlook for agriculture on the East Coast will be bleak in the long run, and Europeans will become more self-sufficient in food – the already grain-poor region of central Italy has even begun to grow corn as a high-yielding crop – and it will be almost impossible for them to dump grain on a large scale. As a result, it will be difficult for the domestic grain purchase price on the east coast to remain above 20 yuan per ton, and this is undoubtedly very bad news for the vast number of peasants.

Apparently aware of the problem, the Government Council soon authorized the Ministry of Agriculture to provide price subsidies to large agricultural contractors who responded to the state's call to land in the hinterland to support them in weathering the storm. At the same time, there was a strong promotion of the grain processing industry, that is, the farmers were encouraged to sell their grain to the mills in various places in order to produce high value-added refined flour - which still had some market in the high-end European market; In addition, some other deep-processing industries are also rapidly brewing and promoting to enrich the domestic food market and find a market for these surplus grains.

Of course, there is an overproduction of food, and the best solution is obviously to find more people to eat. And this brought about the question of emigration, and although the Executive Committee ordered the construction of more emigrant ships, it was not until 1651 that the actual increase in the number of immigrants could be reflected. However, if you wait one more year, you can wait one more year, and the state grain reserve can collect grain from the peasants at its original price and stock up for a big increase in the number of immigrants next year.

"Farming doesn't make money, that's because there are too many people farming." Tian Xing also said, "Our country now has more than 200,000 people, and the agricultural population accounts for more than 80%. Rural water conservancy facilities have invested huge sums of money in construction year after year, the amount of livestock maintenance of peasant households has skyrocketed, the three-crop rotation system has been promoted in depth, and God has also given face, there have been no disasters in these years, and the grain has been harvested year after year. According to the statistical law, if grain production increases by 10 percent, the price will fall by at least 30 percent, not to mention that the increase in output is more than 10 percent. I think some of the new immigrants will be thrown to the Southern Railway Company, and let them build roads, fish, log, and mine, which are better than farming, I am serious. ”

In fact, the overpopulation of agriculture mentioned by Tian Xing is indeed a problem. By July 10, 1650, the population of the Republic of China had reached a record 238,000 (the proportion of Ming people also reached a record 42 percent, and the proportion of mixed-race East coasters increased to 14.5 percent, even after the dilution of the new population this year), of which the industrial population was no more than 20,000 people. Of course, there are still 30,000 to 40,000 stateless construction armies and a very unstable number of slave laborers on the east coast - excluding the heads of handicraftsmen, navy and army, administrative personnel, etc., there are still more than 80% of the population who are purely agricultural (at most, they go to work on construction sites or forestry farms in their spare time).

With the help of a large agricultural population, with the help of better basic agricultural conditions, the production capacity that has burst out is astonishing, and the repeated harvests of wheat, rice, corn, sweet potatoes, potatoes, and soybeans have almost become a sweet burden for the Executive Committee. The annoyance of over-harvesting trousers bothered everyone, the income of the peasants gradually declined, the expenditure of the workers on food was markedly lower, and the incomes of the industrial population began to significantly exceed those of the agricultural population, in contrast to the situation many years ago.

"Now that everyone is learning to be obedient, there are not many people who are willing to devote themselves to wheat and rice, and many people are starting to grow soybeans, which are the most commercialized crops. In addition, the conditions in the Wujiang area are so good, planting alfalfa for animal husbandry is also quite good, the Wujiang sheep cultivated by the ranch township breeding station is not very good, the sheep is easy to feed, strong disease resistance, and is very suitable for the environment of the Wujiang area, the hair rate is not low, it is very good to raise more sheep shearing, and it is also a way out for farmers. Liao Xiaoyao said in a somewhat uncertain tone, "Our country's wool industry has not improved, of course, this is related to the national strategy. If the Wujiang District Administration can have a clear development plan, then it is not bad to vigorously carry out sheep farming in the region, at least without swarming to produce grains in large quantities, which is not very profitable. I just don't know what Commissioner Tang thinks, so I'll have to ask him if I have a chance......"

"It's good to raise sheep. In addition, planting soybeans, grapes (winemaking), fruits, vegetables, ducks, chickens and geese are all ways, depending on how you choose. Tian Xing looked at the other side of the Wujiang River and said, "If you can't do it, you can sell some of the excess grain to the Klandians on the other side and let them cut wood for us." The timber in the Hejian area on the other side is also very important to us, and the Jingjiang Paper Mill, the first semi-mechanical and semi-manual papermaking enterprise in China, still has a certain demand for this aspect, so that these Klandians can also be tied to us, and it will be more convenient to drive them in the future. (To be continued......)