"This riverside area, with its humid climate, rivers and fertile soil, is really a good place. Speaking of which, it's somewhat similar to Brother Zhang's ancestral hometown in Sichuan, right? "On the surface of the Paraná River, two boats, one in front and one behind, are sailing against the wind. Because it was summer, the southeast and southwest winds appeared very frequently, so the two ships could sail up the river relatively smoothly without having to rent a steam tug at the Jingjiang port near the mouth of the La Plata, which saved a lot of money.

It was a middle-aged man, in his early thirties, with a ridiculously red turban wrapped around his head, like a classic style popular in Pirates of the Caribbean. And in fact, his profession is not so formal, well, a captain of the running gang, he has been to the Caribbean several times, and he has also been to Africa a few times, and each time there will be some cargo of unknown origin in the cabin, accompanied by a sharp increase in the number of his bank accounts.

Yes, that's what happened to this man who was known as Wang Bingji, who seemed to be running some shady business and making a fortune quickly. However, in the past two years, I heard that he did not go to the Caribbean again, because the British and Dutch frigates were looking for him, and the East Coast government authorities also interviewed him, so he quickly "changed his ways", disbanded part of the crew, and hired a group of local young people who did not want to farm but were willing to go to the sea for adventure, set sail for Chinese mainland, and started the cause of "human trafficking" that the government likes very much—well, we generally call this immigration.

Wang Bingji met Zhang Yilan when he was in the Far East, and that was in 1685. The two of them purchased Tokyo raw silk in Vietnam (shipped back to the east coast to pass off as Chinese raw silk), and then bought a lot of silk and medicinal materials in Ningbo, of course, the main "goods" are still people, some Ming people obtained through various legal or illegal channels. And with this kind of relationship, the relationship between these two people is naturally very iron, even if they later returned to China, the two sides still maintained contact.

Recently, Zhang Yilan went to the Caribbean Sea and sent a batch of medicines, farm tools, hardware and daily necessities to the Air Canada company station at the mouth of the Mobile River, and then went to Sioux City Port, which is very famous among pirates, and also sent a large number of urgently needed materials to this city whose population has gradually increased, and by the way, they shipped a large amount of stolen goods back to China for cash.

This time, his cabin contained linen, cotton, ironware, wine, cheese, ham, vinegar and other daily necessities, which were dumped at low prices by the pirates of Sioux Harbor, and Zhang Yilan planned to sell them to the newly opened cross-border reclamation area of Hexi to recover cash. There is no doubt that this is a good business, because the price is very low, and there is a large market among the settlers who are generally in poor economic condition, and it is a good business to be snapped up as soon as the goods arrive.

Compared with Zhang Yilan, the three-masted sailing ship "Broken Axe Tree" owned by Wang Bingji was closely behind, and there were many people on its deck. These people are all Akito faces, and their clothing, buns, and other details reveal their identity. Of course, there were two officials on the deck, one from the National Development Administration and the Ministry of Immigration, who were responsible for sending the shipload of more than 100 migrants to the land and handing them over to the local government for resettlement, so that they could have an identity and start their lives again.

It is worth mentioning that although there have been proposals for many years to abolish the privileges of Far Eastern immigrants (who have a household registration after registration) and let them work for the same seven years before they can become regulars, in order to squeeze their value to the greatest extent possible and reduce the government's expenditure on immigration. However, after shouting for so many years, the opinions of these people have never been passed, and they have not even had the opportunity to discuss at the meeting, which shows the attitude of the official leadership towards this.

Italians, Russians, or whatever, aren't as good as the Akira. Seven years of working time is a must, it is a hard bar, without this even if you pass the Chinese language, you cannot be naturalized, this alone is destined to countless people to pay a great price - not that no one can be easier, but there is no doubt that the vast majority of non-national laborers who work on the East Coast are engaged in very hard work, such as cleaning sewers, building roads and digging ditches, sailors and mercenaries, etc., which is very difficult.

"Sichuan, that's where my father was born, I heard it's very beautiful and livable, but I haven't had a chance to go there." Zhang Yilan responded with a smile: "The last time I went to China, my ship went to Wuchang, a port city under the rule of Shunguo. There, I had a chat with Zhang Shaozong, the agent of the Dinghai Textile Factory, who was a very nice guy and told me that it would be more troublesome to go to Sichuan, so I gave up. Thinking about it now, I should have insisted on it at the time, but it's a pity. ”

"It's okay not to go. I heard that Tianfu is prosperous and Jincheng is prosperous, but I don't know how much masculinity has been consumed. Since ancient times, there has been a saying in China that 'good women don't enter the class, good men don't enter Sichuan', no matter how heroic you are, if you go to Sichuan, you will be corrupted by that comfortable and enjoyable life over time, right? Wang Bingji also said with a smile: "We, the men of the Great East Coast, should be determined to conquer thousands of miles of waves and open up living space for future generations, how can we be burdened by these?" If you really want to rest and recuperate, let's wait until retirement, haha. ”

While the two were talking and laughing, the ship began to retract its sails and reduce its speed, and this was the time to go. The wharf in front looks new, and the scale is not small, it does not look like it was hastily built on a newly opened land, because it uses a lot of cement, steel bars, stone and high-grade timber, which at first glance costs a lot of money, and it is not sure that it is the work of a state-owned inland river transport company. They have always been well-funded and prefer to invest in the country's important river ports, as they value the commercial value of these river ports and nearby blocks for decades to come.

"This port is called Wangxi Port, which was started and completed in the last year, and it is the masterpiece of the inland waterway transportation company, which is really beautiful." After letting his subordinates board a rowed boat to inquire about the news, Zhang Yilan said.

The dinghy was a port authority vessel, and there were two employees in the uniforms of the inland waterway transport company, who negotiated with the side for a while, and then went back. After a while, two steam tugboats came out with black smoke, and it turned out that the port here was not desilted enough, and the big ship would run aground if it was not careful. Moreover, it is more troublesome for large ships to enter and exit the port, and it is estimated that it will take a long time to toss if you do not rely on steam tugboats, so it is better to spend some money to rent this kind of tugboat, which is not very expensive anyway.

Wangxi Port, later known as Reconquita Port, is a city dominated by agriculture and animal husbandry. The reason why the people on the east coast of this plane named it Wangxi is self-evident, that is, they hope to pin on this outpost and peek into the land further west. You know, unlike the Pampa Plain to the south, the Chaco Plains are relatively sparsely populated and underdeveloped, so when the people on the east coast cross the border to establish colonial towns, they will encounter much less resistance from the Spanish side, and even many colonial activities will not be known to the Spaniards.

The intelligence services on the east coast have now found out that if they bring enough water, supplies, and mules and horses from the port of Wangxi, they can go all the way west to the relatively densely populated areas of Tucumán, Salta, and Jujuy in the northwest of the Buenos Aires Prosecutorial Court District. The road is easy to walk and is smooth all the way, with no other than the occasional nomadic farming or hunting tribe of the Quechua, if you ignore the threat of the numerous cougars in the grasslands.

Of course, if this road only leads to the Spanish colonial towns in the eastern foothills of the Andes, then we would say, oh, that's good, it's a good commercial route, but it's not enough to be called a strategic route. But if you are now told that you can easily cross the Andes and enter the coastal strip of Baja Peru (the district of the Chalcas Inquisition) via Tucumán and Jujuy, then the importance of this route is immensely high. In the eyes of the people on the east coast, any land communication route that can easily communicate the Atlantic and Pacific oceans is extremely valuable, and it is an important wealth of a two-ocean country, and in the future, it is definitely necessary to build high-grade war-ready roads and even railways, otherwise how to control the centrifugal trend of thought on the other side of the Andes?

So, with this in mind, you can now better understand why the state-run inland waterway transport company is building a lot of construction here, and it is not shy about building transport infrastructure at all. It is foreseeable that for a long time to come, this will also be the town that will absorb the most pioneers (as evidenced by the fact that Wu Bingji's ships were arranged here by the State Exploitation Administration), because it needs a large population to make it prosper quickly, so that it can be used as a base for expeditions to the Chaco Plain, and this is the main reason.

There is no doubt that the Spaniards will certainly not support the series of things that the East Coasters are plotting on the Chaco plain. Once the eastern bank eats up the sparsely populated Chaco plain and pushes its sphere of influence into the steppe zone near the eastern foothills of the Andes, it will inevitably pose a serious threat to Jujuy, Salta, Tucumán and other regions. In the most extreme case, such a "broad road" from Córdoba, La Rioja and other places in the south to Baja Peru would be cut off (relatively speaking), so that not only would the gold and silver bars of Chile and Chalcas not be able to be transported to Buenos Aires through here, but even the economy between the two places would be completely stopped. At that time, the entire land of the Buenos Aires Prosecutorial Court District will become a de facto enclave, and it is unknown whether it will be swallowed up by the people of the East Coast in the future!

Therefore, both sides have actually deeply realized the importance of the Chaco Plain, that is, this large plain may be inferior to the Pampa Plain in terms of agricultural conditions, but its geographical location is very important, it can go to Paraguay and Chalcas in the north, go down to the Pampa Plain in the south, and enter the Pacific Ocean side in the west, and the end is the core hinterland, which is very important.

Nowadays, the Spaniards may not have fully realized the possession of this land by the people of the East Coast, or they may not have a good way to stop it, so they can only delay it for a day. But no matter what the Spaniards thought, anyway, the people on the east coast were determined to take this plain, push the Line of Actual Control to the eastern foothills of the Andes, form a semi-encirclement posture over the entire Pampa plain, and lay the foundation for the future swallowing of the entire region.

The large plains of Chaco, Pampa, and Paraguay have long been looked at by the people of the East Coast, and the research materials of various government departments on this large area are even more abundant, and they are many times more than the Spaniards. In the eyes of the people on the east coast, this area will be the "Central Plains" of the Republic of China in the future, and it is the core area, so even if the expansion in the direction of Brazil is suspended, the primary goal is firmly set in the Buenos Aires Prosecutor's Court District, and it will not stop until it is completely eaten!

The ships of Zhang Yilan and Wang Bingji anchored in Wangxi Port for about a day. On January 3, 1688, the two ships left the dock almost empty, and headed for the port of Qingdao. They were to replenish some supplies there, and also to recruit some Italian non-national laborers on board to replenish some of the sailors who were about to leave their posts. Their next goal is to go to the Far East and do trade while trying to find a way to get back a whole group of Ming immigrants. Recently, the central government will set up two settlements near Wangxi Port, namely Baima Township, near the later Las Garzas town, and Baisha Township, near the later Romang Town, both of which require a large number of people to fill. Now they are going to the Far East to pull people, not only can they make a profit from this, but they can also take some in-demand goods from the southern development team in accordance with the policy, which is also very interesting, so this is why the two discussed the matter of going to the Far East together.