Sitting in a three-room brick house in the center of the main city, Wang Tiehammer looked around. I saw that the walls were all made of red bricks, but they were not painted, and they were still the same as when they were first built. There is a large piece of paper pasted on the wall, on which are written in crooked handwriting "Project Progress Node Table" in a few big characters, I don't know who the road is from.

The roof is made of Paraná pine wood and covered with locally fired green tiles. At the southeast corner of the roof, a skylight was opened, covered with a thick layer of translucent tarpaulin, which was used to facilitate daylighting. As for why not to use transparent glass, Wang Tiezhuan estimated that it was because the quality of the local glass was too slagty, and it was easy to break when it was a little bumpy when shipping.

Overall, this kind of Chinese 90s rustic style architecture is still very suitable for the environment. As soon as the front door and back door are opened, the wind passing through the hall suddenly makes people feel extremely cool; In addition, the tiles on the roof are stacked at an angle, which is good for drainage, which is ideal for the rainy climate. However, this type of building is not without its drawbacks, and if a hurricane or tornado happens to pass by during the rainy season and knock over the roof of this not very sturdy roof, then it can be a lot of fun. It seems that we will have to think of a way in the future, and it is best to build the tiles with cement mortar to make them stronger and stronger.

The ground is slightly leveled with mud and no cement. Although it was the dry season, the floor in the room was still visibly damp and looked wet. However, this is a geographical and climatic factor, which is unsolvable, and can only be like this.

"Nice place." Wang Tiehammer, who had finished looking, exclaimed, "It's a bit decent, if I give you some time." Maybe I can really make a difference. Tell me about your plans for the next phase. See what I can do to help you. ”

"Commander Wang. As I said before, we need people, and the more the merrier! "The rainy season begins from late October to November, and from then on, it rains a few hundred millimeters every month until April or May of the following year. With such a terrible amount of precipitation, if we don't take advantage of the current dry season to repair the water conservancy and sewerage facilities. I'm afraid I'm going to have to suffer a lot when the time comes. In addition, we will need to build more houses, as well as city walls, forts, and other facilities, which do not require a large number of people to fill in. So, Commander Wang, if possible, can you go to the Portuguese on the west side of the Channel and buy some Bantu slaves? ”

"I can't help with this." When Wang Tiehammer heard this, he waved his hand again and again, and then he explained: "I have a batch of gold and silver on my ship, but this is all the proceeds from the sale of goods and the advance payment paid by the Turks for the purchase of ships, and every cent has an account book, and it cannot be used at will. And. Even if I buy you some slaves now, you will be old and sick here now. I'm afraid I can't drive them smoothly, right? These people are not the long-domesticated slaves of the Eight Banners in South Africa, but the unruly Shengfan, I dare say that you bought 100 people on the first day, and half of them will escape the next day! So, you'd better put out this thought for a while. Maybe when the strength of our own people on your side increases, we can consider bringing some raw slaves nearby; Or simply go and conquer the indigenous feudal kingdoms on the island to plunder slaves, but not now. ”

"Okay." Daoist Shou thought about it for a while, and then took a step back and said, "Then please ask Commander Wang to leave us some more supplies." To tell you the truth, we don't lack anything but food. ”

Wang Tiezhu thought about it slightly when he heard this, and then said, "That's it." I'll leave you some more livestock, well, just two horses, ten sheep, no more, this is our own supply, and now it's all for you. In addition, I will leave you a few spare naval guns, which may be useful if you repair the batteries in the future. ”

After speaking, Wang Tiehammer stopped the Shou Taoist priest who wanted to bargain again, and smiled: "Don't be too greedy, I can really only help you here." So be it, and then fill the buckets of water on our boat with clean and fresh drinking water, and send a dozen or twenty baskets of coconuts up. By the way, I heard that the lobsters and sea cucumbers here are very good, and I will ...... for a while Forget it, I'll send someone to catch it myself. I won't stay here much longer, you guys do a good job, I'll go back to the ship first. ”

After Wang Tiehammer returned to the ship, the naval officers and soldiers who went ashore to rest saw that the infrastructure construction here was still very poor, and after the freshness had passed, they also returned to the ship one after another, and only Shou Daoist and a group of people were left in the city.

Together with the two oxen and ten sheep that had been given to them, the Second Fleet had left two horses, four oxen and twenty goats to the Anziranana colony. For the poor and white colonies, these livestock are also rare and valuable assets, and they are more expensive than those Eight Banner slaves, but they have to be carefully served. So, after sending off the navy, Shou Daoist immediately instructed Sergeant Kyle to bring some men over to cut down wood so that he could build a livestock shed. In the future, it is necessary to designate special people to cut the grass and clean the livestock sheds every day to take care of these precious livestock.

Two ships of the Second Fleet set sail again in the late afternoon and left the bay heading towards the island of Mozambique under the watchful eye of more than 300 pioneers from the Anziranana colony.

After the departure of the Second Fleet, the colony of Antsiranana was once again engaged in a daily and tedious construction work, starting with the small river about 600 meters from the main city. In this small river, which the slaves called Coconut Tree Creek (named after the wild coconut groves that line its banks), Shou Daoist did not find many aquatic animals, probably because the river was in the dry season during the off-season. After more than two months of continuous observation, Shou Daoist found that the water level of this river is not high on weekdays, only about 1.5 meters; Even after a few days of rain, the water level in the riverbed climbed to a little over 1.8 meters at most, and it didn't seem to be much scary except for the rapidity of the water.

However, Shou Daoist did not feel the slightest relief. Because he knows very well that the average monthly precipitation in Antsiranana during the dry season is often only 10-30 mm, but once the rainy season comes, the monthly precipitation can quickly climb to close to 200 mm, and even reach 350-400 mm at the peak. With such a terrible amount of precipitation, floods will inevitably form in the mountains in the upper reaches of the river, and the surface of the karst terrain often cannot hold water, and these terrible amounts of water will only rush down the river, and if it is not good, it will rush out of the river, causing disasters to the areas on both sides of the river.

In the face of such a situation, after considering the materials and manpower at hand, Shou Daoist felt that he could still take advantage of today's favorable weather to transform this small river, and it was best to dig it deep and wide, and transform it into a small artificial reservoir to increase its water storage capacity.

His idea was unanimously supported by both Pei Soonen and Kyle. In particular, he felt that the significance of this artificial reservoir was very large, first of all, because its existence allowed people to retain more of the abundant water during the rainy season. The rainy season is often only four or five months, and the vast majority of the year's precipitation is concentrated in these months. It would be a great waste to allow these precious freshwater resources to flow down the river into the sea.

Moreover, in Pei Sonin's calculations, in the future, the colony will have to cultivate fields and grow rice to provide for the living needs of the colonists. The growing season of rice requires a lot of water resources, and if there is such a reservoir, then a series of irrigation facilities can be built on the reservoir at that time. With sufficient irrigation facilities and the unique climate here, it is not a problem at all to grow rice twice or even three times a year, and the grain problem will be basically solved.

After exchanging their thoughts with the other two, everyone felt that this reservoir really had to be repaired from the perspective of flood control and irrigation of farmland.

After the plan was decided, several people began to divide and cooperate. Pei Soning began to urge the brick kiln to start work day and night, striving to produce more bricks to supply the needs for the construction of the reservoir; Sergeant Kyle organized the excavation of the river, the construction of mud dams, and the diversion of the river. The Shou Daoist began to widen and deepen the original river channel with the largest number of manpower to increase its water storage, and the important areas were built with red brick cement to ensure the quality of the project.

Since nearly one-fifth of slaves had lost their ability to work, even many overseers and army soldiers joined the workforce. The work is extremely hard, and everyone is covered in mud, like a mud monkey. And the occasional showers often bothered the brave pioneers, who often had to drain the rainwater from the bottom of the reservoir before they could continue digging the river bottom.

This hard work continued until August 1. On this day, a flotilla flying the flag of the Republic of China on the east coast of China once again sailed in the sunny Agiranana Bay. The fleet consisted of four ships: a frigate gunboat, an armed transport ship, and two flute-type transport ships, and after confirming them, Shou Daoist found that they had indeed returned to Li Yi's fleet from the port dock in the South African River.

In addition to a large amount of supplies, two platoons of soldiers of the 101st Company of the Army, 30 Eight Banner overseers, and 400 slaves, the most important person who came with this fleet was their immediate boss, the leader of the Madagascar Pioneer Team, Shi Qinjieshi, who came from the Ministry of Agriculture. (To be continued......)