On the right bank of the Paraná River, dark clouds are thick.

"Teacher Wang said to go immediately!" A bespectacled student walked up to a resting team of mules and horses, waved his hand, and said loudly: "It's a little bad now, try to get to the ferry before nightfall, or I'm afraid I'll have to sleep in the wind and rain." ”

The crowd who was closing their eyes and recuperating scolded bitterly when they heard this, and then quickly stood up one by one, began to pack their luggage, and prepared to go on the road. This is still the "enemy territory", it is the territory of the Paraguayan general of the Buenos Aires Prosecutorial Court District in Spain (Paraguay was originally part of the Chalcas Prosecutorial Court District, now part of Buenos Aires), strictly speaking, this group of people from the east coast entered the country without permission, and the Spaniards have the right to arrest or even kill them.

Of course, the Spaniards would never dare to do this, and the people on the east coast knew this very well. Because they have even gone beyond the realm of setting up a forward base in Paraguay, let alone crossing the border? It's a small thing. As long as the pioneer settlement of Monzé Township (located near the later mayor of José Martínez) remains, the inflincessive nature of the Spaniards will never change, and what is the point of a few activists who have crossed the border? Really provoked the people on the east coast, sent naval gunboats up the water, and blocked the external contact here, what can you do?

Perhaps it was for this reason that after the Spaniards discovered and reported the Monzé Township, a cross-border settlement on the right bank of the Paraná River, Buenos Aires was "slow to react" and was speechless, saying nothing more than a few silent protests through the ambassador to the east bank. Perhaps they were negligent in their duties, or perhaps they were afraid of the East Coasters, or perhaps they had been cocooned by hearing such information for many years, but in short, the Buenos Aires Prosecutor's Court did not care about the matter, and seemed to have acquiesced in the privilege of the East Coasters to cross the border here.

Compared to them, the local government in Paraguay reacted a little more violently. Under the organization of the Church and the Paraguayan generals, they harassed, attacked, blockaded, and isolated the people of the East Coast through various means. However, because it could be supplied by the great river, all the methods of the Spanish did not work, and the town of Monzer still stood tenaciously on the right bank of the Paraná River, becoming a symbol of the expansion of the eastern bank like Paraguay.

Later, I don't know what kind of way the troupe went through, and at what price in exchange for the promise of the superiors not to continue to expand in the Paraguayan region, it is also strange. Many have speculated that because of Paraguay's dense population and economic wealth, as well as its barrier to the Chalcas Court of Attorney (which is also the barrier of the Potosí silver mines), the Spaniards did not want their rights and interests in the land to be violated, so they exchanged interests with the east coast in exchange for their commitment not to continue any kind of expansion in Paraguay - of course, this is also temporary, and no one knows what the future holds.

However, although it promised not to continue to expand, the Mengze Township that had already been established would not be withdrawn in any case. Not only that, but after learning that the upper echelons had reached a provisional agreement with the Spaniards, the lower echelons seized the gap before the order was delivered, and sent people to preemptively go to the vicinity of the later town of Umaita, and set up a new settlement called "Hequdu Township", which was both a pioneer settlement and a ferry, a ferry to the Chaco Plain to the west.

When the student just said "ferry", he was actually referring to the meandering crossing, where about 1,000 settlers were settled on the east bank, and a wharf was built to transport supplies and personnel between the banks of the Paraguay River in small wooden boats. Now the ultimate goal of their group is actually to cross to the Chaco Plain on the west bank through the meandering river, and they are now walking on the extremely muddy road between Mengze Township and Ximendu Township.

Due to poor drainage, the road is full of swamps, and it is still winter and spring, and many of the swamps have dried up and disappeared. In the summer and autumn, when the rainfall is abundant, the number of swamps and ponds is even more terrifying, and flooding is not a joke, but a real fact. At that time, it was not a question of muddy roads, but of whether there were roads.

From here, we can also compare the difference between the left bank of the Paraná River (the inter-river area under the jurisdiction of the east bank), which has spent a lot of money to build water conservancy facilities, and the right bank of the river, which has not built any effective flood control facilities. The people of the east bank formulated a grand plan of "15 million yuan in water conservancy investment over 50 years" in the inter-river area, and it has been implemented for many years now, and the results can be described as remarkable. In the south, several counties with earlier construction near the Wujiang River have built long levees along the river to block the threat of flooding during the flood season. At the same time, rivers in the counties have been widened and dredged, making them not only possible for boating, but also faster for water to drain out during high seasons, preventing floods from flooding farmland and other facilities.

But what about the Spaniards? I'm sorry, it's not that they don't invest at all, in fact, they do, but the problem is that it's not enough! And with this pitiful amount, they have also invested more in important areas (such as the capital Asunción and other places), and it is impossible to throw money in such marginal and remote places. There are not many people living in it.

However, after these lands are occupied by the east coast, they will continue to invest in renovation in the future, which is also a good thing. But for now, it is far from quenching the thirst of the near, and the people of the east coast can still only trek through mule and horse teams. Fortunately, this will not be far from Hequdu Township, after a lot of effort, they finally arrived in the township when the sky was just dark, and at this time, the sky was officially pouring heavy rain.

"It's good luck." While waiting for the cadres of the township government to prepare dinner for everyone, Wang Zhijie spread out his collection of documents, planning to sort out the next work plan.

In the notebook are the records of the young and enthusiastic staff officers of the Gendarmerie Command about the Great Plains of Chaco. Not long after graduating from the military academy or the Corps Fort, these young people took the risk of entering this strange and dangerous continent many times, observing, surveying and recording a lot of information, and then compiled a book to share with other departments. Wang Zhijie had one in hand, only to see that it read: "...... The Chaco is flat, endless, and at a very low altitude, resulting in floodplains, swamps, and lakes. However, the topography of the Chaco Plain is still somewhat sloping, as revealed by the northwest-southeast direction of the confluence of some rivers into the Paraná River, i.e., the topography is high in the west and low in the east. On the map, the inclination of the Chaco land can also be seen by the changes in the contour line, and the 100-meter contour line runs diagonally from northeast to southwest on this plain. The distance between the prison Chaco and the Atlantic Ocean is so far away that it is rare for the Chaco Plains to be so low. The lowest part of it, as we observed, is supposed to be on the bank of the river east of the city of Resistensia, where it is only 70 meters above sea level. ”

“…… The slightly sloping ground creates a flooding area, so drainage becomes a priority. Unfortunately, the Spaniards had not focused on hydraulic engineering for a century and a half, so the entire Chaco Plain remained largely untouched, and unstable drainage led to frequent river diversions, as evidenced by the abandoned dry beds of many rivers. The stranded water bodies form swamps, miniature lakes, which are among the elements that make up the Chaco landscape. Unfortunately, due to poor drainage, these bodies of water have accumulated over thousands of years, and the mineral content of these bodies is high, and most of them are brackish water lakes. The Quechua people often go to the bottom of the lakes to scrape for salt during the winter when the water is dry and some small lakes dry up and disappear. ”

“…… Much of the land near the marshes and lakes is sandy, and in many places sand dunes have formed. The riverbed of the river is deeply cut, and even more so in the eastern Chaco. But there are also areas where the banks of the river are low-lying plains, which are flooded to form wetlands, which in principle seem to be usable, but require a huge investment of manpower, material resources and energy to transform them in advance, as is the case in many counties in the riverine area. ”

Wang Zhijie quickly read the documents, and then sighed softly, because there was no climatic and hydrological information. However, considering that this is the information collected by the Army's intelligence officers during their staff trips, it is quite good to be able to write about the terrain and involve the soil situation, what kind of bicycle! For more information, I'm afraid I'll have to go there and investigate it myself. However, I heard that the State Administration of Development has set up a weather station there, and in a cross-border reclamation site called Hexi Township (near the later town of La Leonesa), it has been collecting climate data for more than two years, and I should be able to gain something by going there.

Thinking of this, Wang Zhijie took out his notebook and wrote down this on it. In order to develop an area, especially the often flooded lowland plains, climate, hydrology, topography and soil information are undoubtedly crucial. Without these relevant data to refer to, are you going to follow the example of the British, Spaniards and French on the North American continent, and rely entirely on God to decide what this year's harvest will look like, and whether next winter will pass? That's too rough, it's not the style of the East Coasters.

Speaking of the weather station, we have to mention its station manager Wang Dazhuang. This Jun is the eldest grandson of Wang Dali, one of the founders of East Coast Exploration, Botany and Geology, graduated from Bingtuanbao, and is currently a section-level cadre of the General Meteorological Administration of the Ministry of Geology. To work at the Hexi Township Meteorological Station, Wang Dazhuang took the initiative to propose, and got the consent of his grandfather Wang Dali, who had just died of illness not long ago-to go to the more dangerous grassroots level to exercise and serve, it was originally a stroke on the resume, Wang Dazhuang did this, in fact, in order to have enough political capital when he was promoted in the future, which was very popular among the second and third generations.

Wang Zhijie and others finally rested in Hequdu Township for a night. Early the next morning, after eating the fragrant fillet porridge, they brought a lot of flatbread and pickled crocodile meat as reserve food—because of the swampy wetlands, the number of crocodiles here was so great that it had to be hunted and killed—and then they were transported in small wooden boats sent by the township government, and crossed the river in batches, and officially stood on the land of the Chaco Plains.

This place is still a certain distance from Hexi Township, and as far as the eye can see, there are swamps and ponds everywhere, which makes Wang Zhijie frown. You know, it's winter, the standard dry season, many swamps and ponds are going to disappear, but there is still a standard wetland in front of you, you can imagine what it looks like here in summer and autumn. In this way, it is no wonder that the people of the State Exploitation Administration chose the first (and only one) official reclamation site of the people on the east bank on the Chaco Plain in Hexi Township, really to avoid this annoying floodplain!

"Water conservancy fruit is the lifeblood of the development of the Chaco Plain." Wang Zhijie sighed lightly and muttered to himself: "The burden of the construction of water conservancy facilities in the Hejian area has been on the head of the central government for many years, and they also have the construction of water conservancy facilities along the Wujiang River and the Heihe River, and the construction of water conservancy facilities in the upper reaches of the Tiete River and Paraná River in the north. Therefore, this progress in the Chaco region will be dominated by inland areas far away from the Paraguay River and Paraná River water systems in the future, which is a little inconvenient in terms of supply, and I don't know how it will be solved in the future. ”

With such doubts or apprehensions, Wang Zhijie and his party did not delay, immediately put their ranks in order, and then set off towards Hexi Township, and finally arrived at this deserted and almost non-existent pioneer settlement on August 20, 1684.

This settlement was established at the end of last year, and there are about 800 people at present, but more than half of them are non-productive soldiers, that is, the officers and soldiers of the Hexi Garrison Command, which is under the jurisdiction of the military department, and belong to the army reserve system. The fact that the ratio of people to armed combatants is close to 1:1 is also related to the relatively poor security situation here. Of course, the more important factor is that the State Development Administration intends to secretly set up more settlements, and these 400 garrison soldiers will still have to be dispersed at that time, so that the pressure on a single settlement will be much less.

"These descendants of the General Bureau of Pioneering Affairs have a lot of appetite, but they don't know whether the actual situation supports or not their radical moves." Wang Zhijie smiled lightly and thought.