Although it is the rainy season of Xinhuaxia Island, the rain in the Daqing Basin has been concentrated in the previous month, and under the strong direct sunlight, with the strong evaporation, the earth has fallen into thirst again.

Wrapped in a turban in the style of an old peasant from northern Shaanxi, Ma Wanpeng took a boat to the settlement of Xinlaibao, which had been established for several months, to inspect the construction there. He was now largely in charge of the military and political affairs of the entire arid region of the West Coast, so while his primary concern was still the East Coast Expedition that was playing hide-and-seek with the Sakarava people in the hills, he had to find time to deign to visit Neulaiburg to see how it was being built.

It's a pity that except for the mangrove forests in the Mangoji River Delta, there are monotonous grass grasslands everywhere you look, and under the scorching sun, you can't even see a ghost, which makes Ma Wanpeng extremely disappointed.

"Commander Ma, don't look at the barren grass belt here, in fact, there used to be trees." McGinn, who was in charge of the local development, used a shovel to shovel away a puff of dirt and pulled out a peat-induced branch from the ground, saying, "Originally, this was probably the course of the Xinlai River, but then for unknown reasons, the river was diverted, and the place became arid." However, due to the low agricultural technology, the Sakarava people still maintain a state of slash-and-burn farming, so the bright forests of the local area have been destroyed and the soil has gradually become desertified. According to our analysis, there must have been a large area of bright mangrove forests along the sea, but they have been destroyed by the Sakarava people for thousands of years, and there are not many left......"

Ma Wanpeng nodded when he heard this, he understood what McKinley meant. That is, don't look at the place. Dozens or hundreds of years ago, it was a vast expanse of luxuriant woods. It's just a pity that the Sakarava people have destroyed it. Therefore, as long as the people on the east coast pick up a little, build reservoirs and irrigation canals nearby, and then focus on cultivating them, it will be good farmland.

"The existing forests must not be destroyed, and those who violate the order will be punished." Ma Wanpeng is well aware that the forests along the delta of the mouth of the Sinle River are far more abundant than they were hundreds of years later – because they have not yet been destroyed by the French colonizers and later the Malagasy population boom – but it is not a bad idea to get vaccinated now. Because he knew better than anyone the importance of these bright forests along the western coast to the fragile ecology of the arid regions of the west, the grasslands of western Madagascar became increasingly desertified. He didn't want the same to be true of the plane of the Eastcoasters.

"Yes." McKinley straightened up, and then said in a flattering tone: "We have heard the natives call the names of places here, many of them have roots such as 'Allah', 'Azo', 'Kazo', etc., which in the Sakarava language mean forest, but now most of those places are bare, and it is clear that they have been destroyed by the Sakaravas. The Heavenly Venerable has given us this fertile land as a blessing, and we will never allow the barbarians to continue to destroy it. In the past, it was entrusted to the barbarians, and a lot of irreparable damage had been done, and this must be absolutely avoided in the future. ”

It has been more than half a year since the Xinlai River area was planted by the people on the east bank to declare sovereignty. Over the course of about eight or nine months, as many as 4,000 East Coast immigrants and amnesty Polish prisoners of war were settled here. The scope of resettlement is so vast. So much so that it stretches from the bright forest strip of the Sinlai Delta to the "successional forest" zone to the south, where thousands of people have built warehouses, houses, reservoirs, canals, and improvised earthen walls (for protection) using the building materials brought in.

In the future, the area will be dominated by sugarcane cultivation, as the climate is ideal for the growth of this economically valuable crop, just as it was later known as Madagascar's most famous sugarcane growing and dry farming region. Sugar cane plantations have now been roughly carved out by officials of the Department of Agriculture, which the settlers refer to as "enclosures," which means the removal or extermination of the Sakarava diaspora nomads from these lands and the distribution of land.

According to Ma Wanpeng's meaning, the distribution of land is in principle a dual-track system, that is, the new immigrants are each allocated 30 acres of cultivated land and 20 acres of grassland, and this part of the land has basically been allocated, and the new immigrants only need to concentrate on building some infrastructure before they can return to work on their own land; In addition to these small plots of land, there are also a large number of large and medium-sized farms (sugar cane plantations) on both sides of the Xinlai River, about half of which are state-owned farms, and the rest are listed for auction and operated by private individuals for 30 years, and the conditions are also quite favorable, all of which are modeled after the sisal, cocoa, and coffee plantations in Guihuagang, Xinhuagang and other places, as well as the cotton plantations in Mianhe Port.

As for the large area of land on both sides of the Xinlai River south to the Mianhe Port, it has also been included in the development area for the time being, but how to operate it, the Xinhua Development Team has not yet come up with a specific guideline. Xinhua Port actually called for vigorous development at first, and they even prepared people to open up a large area of peanut, sugarcane, wheat, Huanilla grass, soybean and cotton plantations in this coastal area to increase the output of new Huaxia Island's cash crops and boost the local economy.

However, Ma Wanpeng temporarily suppressed the pace of development here with the reason that "the environment is dangerous", which is very nonsense in the eyes of people in this era. The vegetation of this vast area of land has been so devastated over the years that the nomadic Sakarava people have no regard for permanent damage to the environment, cutting down trees, overgrazing and often setting fire to the forest, which has gradually degraded the dense woods and turned them into a transition zone between forest and scrub – known to the people of the east coast as the "successional forest".

The term successional forest roughly refers to the destruction of the old bright forest (sparse mangrove forests by the sea in arid areas, corresponding to the dark and dense rainforests), and the natural environment gradually evolved into a special landform called "Savoca" by the locals. This landform is dominated by short-grass grasslands, with a large number of plants such as traveler's banana, black dragon gum, longoza, bamboo, etc., and occasionally some trees can be seen in twos and threes, which seems to indicate that the forest here has the possibility of restoration.

In fact, Ma Wanpeng plans to put the development of the area on hold for the time being, and then find a way to improve the environment, first to restore the mangrove forests here, and then to think of other ways. Nowadays, there are very few people on Xinhuaxia Island (in the eyes of the people on the east coast, barbarians naturally cannot be counted as "people"), and the contradiction between man and land is not prominent at all, so it is possible to achieve the harmonious development of man and nature -- the first step is to start by improving the environment on the west coast.

At present, these "successional forests" are in a state of advance and retreat, which means that the trees gradually increase, and eventually return to the vegetation of the bright coastal forests, and the retreat is very simple, that is, first degenerate into grass grasslands, and then if you still insist on overgrazing regardless of the land, then the most terrible soil desertification is inevitable.

"After this batch of new immigrants arrives here this year, after deducting the intercepted population in accordance with the rules, the population of the whole island is expected to reach an unprecedented 43,000, which is a very rapid growth!" Ma Wanpeng wiped the beads of sweat on his face with a headscarf and said: "Except for a few new immigrants who have been filled in the old settlements such as Xinhuagang, Xixiang Peninsula, Guihuagang, and Tacheng, most of them will be assigned to western settlements such as Lobster Port, Mianhe Port, and Xinlaibao to enrich the population here. The environment in these places is much better than in the rainforest areas, and although it is a little drier, at least there are no large number of deaths. You've been here for a few months, how many outbreaks have you had? How many more people died? Isn't it much better than the eastern seaboard? ”

"More than 200 people died of illness in more than half a year, which is much better than the humid and stuffy Xinhua Port and Tacheng Port, and even the relatively cool Guihua Island is not as good as here, after all, there are many mosquitoes there." McKinley said honestly, "There are not many people here who can afford to drink rich wine, but the incidence and mortality rate of malaria is far less than that of the eastern region, which is really a godsend." After hearing that Commander Ma encouraged everyone to plant sugarcane, which is a precious thing, everyone felt that life was much more promising than before. ”

"By the way, this time, the development team sent a batch of hydraulic machinery through Mianhe Port, all of which were ordered from the local area, and the quality was very good and very practical. I mean, you detach some of your men and go to the new Mtengburg on the map (south of Ankyriab near the banks of the Mangoki River) and open a small fort, and then install the machine, debug the equipment, and try to get it up and running. For the development of the Xinlai River Delta and its adjacent inland areas, this processing and manufacturing center is the key, and it cannot be sloppy. Ma Wanpeng carefully admonished.

The section of the Sinlai River, where Sintenburg is located, has a turbulent water potential and a certain drop of dù, and the French planned to build a hydropower station in this area when they colonized it, but this plan was not implemented due to various reasons (mainly not enough funds were raised), but it is enough to show the abundant hydropower resources of this place.

The New China Pioneer Team ordered a large number of hydraulic machinery from the mainland and prepared to install it here, in order to make use of the abundant local water resources, and then form a primary industrial center to escort the colonization of the East Coast people here. According to their calculations, the water resources available in this section of the river alone are more than tens of thousands of horsepower, which is extremely considerable. And even in the dry season, there are thousands of horsepower, which is a pity if you don't make good use of it.

"I'll arrange it." McKinley said: "Tomorrow I will arrange for a group of militia to go and explore the way, and then set about building a fortress and installing a machine, and try to gain a foothold there." The local natives did not have a unified government at all, and their weapons and equipment were also very poor, and they were even colonized by the Melina people on the highlands in history. (To be continued......)