Sensing His Majesty's unswerving expression, Liu Daqing, Minister of the Colonial Department, understood what the problem was and immediately asked for a decree to solve it.

After getting the permission of the saint, Liu Daqing said "confession" and left in a hurry.

Today, the island of Kalimantan is under military control, and the empire has vigorously pursued a colonial policy, sending siege teams to destroy the Malay indigenous tribes in the jungle and capturing male laborers into forced labor camps.

The old order has been broken, a new order is being established, and in the face of major infrastructure construction, it is not surprising that there is a little chaos.

The governance of the military has always been simple and crude, and it would be surprising that the Imperial Guard had the meticulous and skillful governance ability of Hu Yongtang, a high-ranking official in heaven.

The key lies in the colonization of tropical areas, and the most important thing is to prevent tropical plagues and disease epidemics.

There have been countless painful lessons that show that the slightest mistake in this area can kill a lot of people.

Therefore, in the colonization of tropical areas, sanitary measures must be in place to prevent the emergence of epidemics as much as possible.

At this point

The colonial officials of Sanmarinda obviously did not do a good job, and Liu Daqing, the minister of the colonial department, rushed over in a hurry, just to wipe the butts of these subordinates and take urgent measures to make up for their mistakes.

It's only half a day

You can see a large number of soldiers in teams of five or six people, urging laborers to clean up the sanitary corners, clean up the feces and morning toilets, sprinkle lime for disinfection, and get busy all over the city.

After the end of the evening, the convicts gathered together to bathe in the river, threw all their clothes into a cauldron and steamed them in hot water, and then took them to the river to be washed and dried.

The whole city took action to clean up the sanitary corners, filling in the black ponds where flies were flying, removing a large amount of rags and wood, garbage that had been sitting for an unknown amount of time, and even shallow burial of corpses.

In just half a day, hundreds of truckloads of garbage were cleaned out, and this action will be intensified tomorrow and the day after tomorrow to thoroughly clean up and sanitize the entire city.

In Samarinda

A large number of white Dutch plantations and mature fields cultivated by indigenous tribes in the surrounding area were partly owned by the royal farms and the rest was distributed by the military.

Generally speaking, it will be distributed to retired officers and soldiers in the form of meritorious fields, and after the local garrison officers and soldiers retire, they will take root on the spot and become plantation owners, large and small.

This practice has been a practice for a long time.

The part of the underdistribution of officers and soldiers was obtained from the newly reclaimed "black land".

The so-called "black land" refers to the land that has been cleared out of the tropical jungle along the ring road.

The land has been systematically burned, and the bottom shrubs of the tropical forest have been burned to the ground, and there is a thick layer of black grass ash on the ground.

As soon as you step in, you can go over the surface of your foot to the calf.

After several rains, the black water formed by the ashes of the plants and trees penetrates deeply into the land, which is the so-called "black land".

After the "black land" is burned, it is generally placed after 1~2 months, and the colonial government will organize a logging team to enter, cut down the towering trees, remove the branches, and then sawn them into sections of 3~4 meters.

The trees are hauled by a convoy to the lumber yard, where they are piled up in hills, covered with straw mats and dried in the shade, and finally made into timber for the construction of houses.

At this time, the "black ground" could not be delivered, and the final step was for the "hard laborers" to enter the site, dig out the remaining roots of the trees, and pile them on one side of the site.

This is the most tiring work, usually performed by the hard labor prisoners, and after clearing the roots of a "black field", they move on to the next construction site.

So repeatedly, the heavy labor is almost endless.

As long as the local area does not stop burning and colonizing for a day, this hard work of cutting tree roots will not stop, and it may last for 10 years, 20 years, or even longer.

The "black land" cleared by the convicts can be delivered, and there are two destinations;

One is to distribute to retired officers and soldiers, and most of these black lands are fertile lands close to cities, with relatively convenient transportation and convenient irrigation by rivers.

The so-called building near the water gets the first month, and the military still takes great care of its retired soldiers.

There is no doubt that the meritorious fields allocated to retired soldiers, if you want to get cultivated cultivated land, then one acre is 1 acre.

If you choose the "black land", there is a preferential policy in East Kalimantan Province, and the land title certificate can be granted at a ratio of 1:2.2.

For example, if a soldier has 40 acres of meritorious land, he can get 88 acres if he chooses "black land", and if he invests his savings to buy some more, he can buy another 50 acres at the military discounted price.

In addition, you will have to buy the land at the market price.

The introduction of such a policy has made most of the retired soldiers willing to choose the "black land", after all, the area is much larger, and after it is reclaimed, they can enjoy the lifelong preferential policy of "ten taxes and one".

The concept of the lifelong preferential policy is that before the death of retired officers and soldiers, these meritorious fields can enjoy the preferential tax of "ten taxes and one".

After his death, these meritorious fields will be inherited by his children, and the nature will be transformed into ordinary private fields with "ten taxes and three taxes" at the same time.

"Merit fields" cannot be transferred, sold, and can only be acquired by inheritance.

"Private land" can be registered and sold by the government department, but a property transfer tax of 10% of the transaction amount is charged.

6% of this tax is handed over to the central government of the empire, and 4% is attributed to the local government revenue, which is reasonable and legal only after filing.

Within the territory directly under the Crown, 6 percent is handed over to the Royal Interior Office, and 4 percent is retained in the local government for financial expenditure and construction.

Nowadays, in the empire itself, seven or eight out of ten of the retired officers and soldiers of the earliest generation have withered, and the vast majority of the land has been converted into private land, and there are very few meritorious fields that still enjoy tax incentives.

The second destination of the "black land" is to go to the market, and most of it falls into the hands of Chinese immigrants through public listing.

Most of these Chinese immigrants from Paradise Province have formed teams ranging from 120 to 30 or 50 people to acquire land in the form of clan surnames and relatives and friends.

It is not uncommon to buy thousands of acres, and tens of thousands of acres are also common.

This is because everyone knows that every colonial frontier war is an opportunity to acquire large quantities of high-quality land.

If you miss such a good opportunity, you won't know the next time you don't know the Year of the Monkey?

The "black land" listed by the colonial government is all on both sides of the ring road, for example, the ring road in the Sammarinda area is oriented north-south.

Then the listing of "South 17.6 C plot, 1270 acres" plot, the meaning is very easy to understand.

This plot is located 17.6 kilometers south of the city of Sammarinda and is a "C" plot with a total area of 1,270 acres, which is the basic information of the plot.

To find out more, you have to go to the site to investigate.

Such a plot is suitable for a pioneer team of more than 10 people to auction, and it is also suitable for a large team to auction multiple plots nearby. For example, Liujia Farm has three points and other practices.

After all, the entire area is more than 5,000 acres, or even tens of thousands of acres, and there are not many "black lands", and the good geographical conditions are either occupied by the military chiefs or pinched in the hands of the colonial government, waiting to be sold at a price.

Sammarinda will conduct a black land auction twice a week, and most of the colonial teams who are interested in bidding are highly concerned and have done their homework in advance, and many of them will go to the auction plot to explore in advance.

For example, the direction of the river, whether it is hilly, soil quality and other conditions, etc., will affect the final price of the listing.

High-quality black land, the unit price of one acre can be auctioned for 28~30 Tang Yuan, and the unit price of one acre of black land with poor conditions is enough for 10 Tang Yuan.

The prices of these black fields are generally not high, because of the current supply and the need for long-term investment.

Every time after the "black land" is put up, there are always hundreds of Chinese immigrants who leave Samarinda and march towards the "black land" they bid for.

All the banks of the empire have branches in Sanmarinda, providing loan services for immigrants, and the collateral is the "black land" they have auctioned, and the loan can be up to 6%.

Each Chinese immigrant reclamation team needs to be equipped with at least 1~2 tractors, 6~10 cattle, various agricultural machinery, seeds and fertilizers, etc.

The usual procedure is that when you arrive at the Black Field, a large amount of timber purchased from the wood processing factory will be shipped in succession, and you will start to build a simple workshop.

meanwhile

The black ground needs to be cleaned thoroughly, and the countless branches cut down from the ground must be cleared, and the useless roots of the large trees must be transported to the side and stacked.

Then the tractor enters the field and begins to level the land, rake out the grass roots and gravel, fill in the potholes, open ditches and ridges, and sort out the land piece by piece.

The land is then ploughed and exposed to the sun for at least 10 days, and then the ploughed land is crushed and raked so that crops can be planted, and the next step is to divert water for irrigation......

Basically, from the beginning of entering the black field, it goes into high-intensity farming. After one piece of land is cultivated, the next piece of land is cultivated, and so on.

Not a few years away

It is impossible to reclaim thousands of acres of land, which needs to be carried out step by step, and there is no urgency.

Fortunately, Chinese immigrants are never afraid of hardship, sweat, and work their own land, and can work from morning to night like old cattle.

As long as the land is opened up on the black ground, it basically enters a virtuous circle.

The sprinkled vegetable seeds can be harvested in more than a month, the rice can be matured in three months, and the three crops can be harvested in a year, and a steady stream of grain can be produced.

Grain can be sold, rice bran and wheat bran raise livestock and poultry, and as the planting area expands, the output will become higher and higher.

Chinese farms have developed in this way, and relatively scientific and rigorous procedures have been formed, which has greatly improved the efficiency of pioneering, and the benefits can basically be seen in that year.

The colonial government of East Kalimantan Province can get a lot of money from the sale of black land, and in addition to the part that is handed over to the Royal Ministry of Internal Affairs, the part that is kept by itself can be used to cover the construction costs.

With money, it is possible to invest heavily in the important cities of the province such as Samarinda and Balikpapan according to the standards of the medium-sized cities of the empire, expand roads and bridges, improve the city's sewer culvert facilities, build major municipal buildings, squares, thermal power plants, hydropower stations and dams, and improve public facilities including street lights, parks, toilets, etc., and much more needs to be done.

The face of the city is changing every day, from a small Dutch town to a modern medium-sized city.

It will take at least a decade to see significant results in this process, transforming the entire city from top to bottom.

Emperor Richard spent a month and a half visiting important towns such as Samarinda, Balikpapan, Mazen, Sampetit and Palangkaraya, the capital of Central Kalimantan Province, and there was a thriving construction scene everywhere.

Of course, there was a lot of chaos and turmoil.

In the middle of a tropical jungle

There are still some indigenous armed forces that have been scattered in the war, and from time to time they will attack the construction camps and Chinese colonization teams, causing varying losses.

But as colonization deepened, there were fewer and fewer similar stragglers.

The Chinese colonization team was not unarmed, especially on retired soldiers' farms, where it was common to be armed with weapons and conduct daily armed patrols.

Those who hide in the jungle are only left with cold weapons, and many times the attack is tantamount to suicide, kicking the iron plate. The grasshoppers after autumn won't be long away.

On the island of Kalimantan

The most developed area is the area of about 300 kilometers along the stretch of Sampet in Central Kalimantan Province to the capital Palangkaraya, where more than 2,700 white colonists and plantations originally existed.

It is a fertile land with an area of hundreds of thousands of acres and a history of hundreds of years of development.

This area is also a place where retired officers and soldiers of the Imperial Royal Guard gather intensively, and hundreds of thousands of acres of fertile land have been carved up, and most of them belong to meritorious fields.

Whether it is from the security environment, social order or geographical conditions, it is the best choice.

The area is also a place that Emperor Richard was more satisfied with after his inspection, and after making up for the shortcomings of infrastructure construction, the distribution and development of villages and towns has been very mature.

It is common to see a variety of Dutch manor houses, churches in every village and town, and the faces of white women are common.

Unlike before the war, these white women were basically family members of Chinese American officers and soldiers.

Whether you want to do it or not, at least on the surface, there is nothing out of the ordinary.

There are also a few white women who try their best to escape their families, running to the town or to the seaside, but without exception they are caught and sent back.

Nowadays, during the military administration, there are at least a dozen checkpoints from Palangkalaya to Sampeit on the coast, and strict checks are carried out on people who pass by.

Not to mention these white women, not even a fly can fly over.

The fate of these captured white women will not be good, and it is not one or two who are openly immersed in the pig cage, which is entirely a local matter.

It is said that such things rarely happen these days.

Knowing that they can't escape, there are only a few women who are bent on seeking death.

The arms can't twist the thighs, and many white women simply lie flat and live with peace of mind after giving birth to mixed-race children.

The entire island of Kalimantan is now in the stage of transition from chaos to order, in the stage of infrastructure construction boom, and in the stage of land reclamation and colonization is becoming more and more hot.

Along both sides of the Ring Road, vast tracts of rainforest have been burned and deforested, and millions of acres of land have been cleared each year, and more and more Chinese immigrants have poured into the hot land.

Change...... It's a work in progress all the time.

When the power of tens of millions of people comes together, Kalimantan, Sumatra, and Java are all undergoing radical changes.

This kind of craze for land reclamation is something that the Dutch dream of but can't do. (End of chapter)