Li Yi wasn't going to stay here for long.

After all, his main task now is to transport people and supplies between the port of River and Angziranana, not as a "project manager" here. Therefore, in two or three days at the latest, he was to leave the bay temporarily with all his ships and return to the river fort to carry men and supplies.

Moreover, when he returned to Fort River, it was estimated that Shi Qinjie, the captain of the Madagascar Pioneer Team, would also come by boat from the port of Vostochny, the home country. It is said that the Council managed to charter a number of Spanish and Portuguese merchant ships on its own territory to transport people and goods between the port of Orient and the port of River.

No way, the capacity of the East Coast Republic is too tight. The existing fleet of seven transport ships (five flutes plus two armed transports) is completely inadequate, three of which went to the port of Suez with the Second Fleet in January, and three are anchored there. As for the only remaining flute-type transport ship "Penglai" in the mainland, it undertook the task of trade and transportation with Brazil and the Caribbean. Even the ships of the Navy's First Fleet were mobilized, using their modest cabins to barely transport some supplies.

As for trade with Europe, the Council tried its best, relying partly on a few galleons of the Pasquier family, and partly entrusting them to rent a few large merchant ships in France at a high price to help run the transportation, which was barely fooled. As for the transportation between the mainland and Colonia, it can only rely on the kind of inland river transport ships of several tens of tons, anyway, the offshore is not a big problem.

It can be seen from this that the capacity of the East Coast Republic of China has become so tight. It is no exaggeration to say that this situation will not change. The country's economic development will also be severely constrained. You don't see it. In total, the five ships that headed for the port of Suez in January carried only 120,000 pieces of cotton cloth. It is 90,000 horses short of the 210,000 horses per year agreed by the two parties, which is mainly limited by insufficient capacity.

Therefore, it is impossible for the four-ship formation led by Li Yi to stay here indefinitely, and they will also take advantage of the calm and calm sea area of Cape Agulhas to increase the frequency of transportation between Hezhong Port and Antsiranana, and strive to rush more people and materials to this side, so as to make full use of the rainy season in the next few months and build an outline here.

Thoughts about Li Yi. At present, Shou Daoshi, Kyle, Pesonen, Mo Dashan and others also knew about it, so they simply ignored the ships moored in the bay, and after spending several days successively unloading the materials in the cabin and storing them in the simple warehouse on the shore, they once again buried their heads in the construction work.

On May 8, just as Li Yi's fleet was about to leave Antsiraana Bay and sail south to return to Hezhong Harbor, dozens of tents and a large number of improvised wooden houses had been erected near the initial landing site. Tents are used for human habitation, while wooden houses are mostly kitchens, warehouses, bathhouses, and outposts.

The weather was also quite good these days, and the thunderstorms that are common from November to March and April every year did not appear, so the work of the slaves in the past few days has made considerable progress. First of all. They succeeded in clearing a clearing south of the landing site, connecting it with the original coast near the landing site. The area is about 20 acres. This area is on a high level and is not afraid of rainwater accumulation, so it can be used as the core of the main urban area in the future. If the sewerage facilities are taken care of during the construction of the city, the annual precipitation of about 1,500-2,000 mm is not so difficult to overcome.

When clearing the vacant lot, most of the trees were low, which had little practical value, and Mo Dashan collected them and piled them up with the cut weeds, and burned them every night to produce thick smoke to repel mosquitoes, and the effect was not bad.

Behind this low wood, along the flat land and inland, there are large expanses of primeval forest. According to Peisonen, the apprentice of Meng Hu, the chief botanist and botanist who traveled through the crowd, many of the trees inside are precious large-leaved rosewood, and the trees are relatively high-end wood for furniture and tools. In the future, these trees can be cut down and shipped back to the mainland, which will make the Falklands development project less costly. Of course, it would be a bit anachronistic to talk about this in the light of the meagre maritime capacity available on the East Coast.

In the short term, the Anziranana colony will remain a place that will require increasing domestic investment, at least for the time being, and will not be self-sufficient. There are not even long-term settlers here, unlike the Riverfort, which already has a few thousand inhabitants and is able to export wool, leather, liquor, agricultural products and other goods to the country on a large scale.

The last day of the sun disappeared into the western col, and a lot of smoke was lit in the camp, and the burning materials in the fires were damp branches, artemisia grass, and leaves, so that a lot of smoke was produced. Many slaves were smoked to tears, but there was no way, the superiors had orders to use these things to repel mosquitoes.

In fact, these Eight Banner slaves are still a little puzzled by what they are doing and being so nervous about mosquitoes. In their opinion, if you are bitten by a mosquito, you will not die, as for being so nervous as now? So much so that in the daytime temperature of 312 degrees, they were required to cover their whole bodies tightly, and the heat was so hot that they died.

In fact, not only the slaves thought so, but even some overseers and the soldiers of the 101st Company of the Army were a little puzzled, but they were used to obeying orders, and they did whatever their superiors asked. In the entire camp, only a few very few senior managers such as Shou Daoshi, Peisonen, and Kyle knew that these flying mosquitoes were likely to carry the terrible Plasmodium parasite. And when bitten by these mosquitoes, people can easily contract malaria, a tropical disease that is so distorted. If there is no specific medical treatment, then the death sentence can basically be pronounced on this person.

Therefore, Shou Daoshi and others attach great importance to mosquito control work, and almost regard it as important as building a camp. Their camp was built far away from the stream, and they would normally prefer to run two extra steps to fetch water than build their camp there, which is likely to be the largest mosquito colony in the vicinity. As for the several small waterholes and stagnant ponds near the camp, they were filled in as early as possible and sprinkled with lime to ensure that there were no future troubles.

At this time, the Europeans did not know that the malaria they got in many places was caused by mosquito bites, and they simply believed that it was because of the large amount of "toxic substances" left in the air in these wild places, which caused the colonists to get sick in the local area. Of course, the traversal crowd is not as ignorant and ignorant as they are, and they know very well that the malaria parasite carried in the body of the mosquito is the cause of the disease. Therefore, knowing the reasons for many things, they have put in place strict mosquito prevention measures and require everyone to strictly follow them. In addition, curtains or mosquito nets were hung in every room and tent in the camp to stop mosquitoes from attacking humans, and the effect seemed to be good for a few days.

In several improvised board houses made of Paraná pine planks brought from the mainland, rows of Eight Banner slaves are standing in large wooden barrels filled with hot water, pouring hot water on their bodies and scrubbing their bodies with soap. Next door to this house, in a wooden house of the same size, a large group of Eight Banners slaves who had finished bathing were sitting quietly on the ground, holding wooden plates and chopsticks in their hands, and quickly pulling their dinner into their mouths.

The slaves' dinner consisted of simple sorghum rice, canned pickles, and fish soup, and this afternoon several former fishermen from Dingyuan Township of the 101st Company caught a lot of sea fish in the bay with their nets, so they brought them to the slaves.

Li Yi was also sitting in his captain's room, and at this time, there were three people sitting across his table, Shou Daoshi, Kyle, and Pessonen. Li Yi finished nibbling on a huge lobster in front of him, then wiped his mouth with a napkin and said, "Tomorrow I will lead the fleet back to Hezhong Harbor." If all goes well, I will return here again in three months' time and bring you a lot of supplies and labor. After I'm gone, I can't let up on my work here. Now is the dry season here, the weather is more favorable, we should hurry up the construction, and strive to build some permanent brick and cement buildings as soon as possible. Otherwise, when the rainy season comes, we will have a lot of fun when we can't work outside, and then our work will be seriously delayed, which will lead to some negative views of me and you by the Executive Committee. ”

"Don't worry, we'll do our best." Hearing that if they couldn't complete their work, they would seriously lose points in the eyes of the executive committee, and they couldn't help but stand up and express their opinions.

"Very well, I hope you can do what you say." Li Yi smiled and nodded, and then said, "By the way, take a good look at your subordinates." Especially those Eight Banner slaves, they must give full play to their abilities reasonably, neither over-squeeze nor make them too easy, in short, this degree must be grasped well. The rest is the same old question, yes, mosquito control must be done well, this is the top priority. Don't be polite when you see people who don't follow the rules, and when you go up, you will use a leather whip to let them know what they are wrong, which is that they are not responsible for their own lives. ”

After Li Yi told him again, everyone returned to the shore by boat. The next day, May 9, 1640, Li Yi and four ships left Antsiraana Bay, turned due west, and then headed south towards the Mozambique Channel and headed for the South African River Harbour. (To be continued......)