Rebirth of South America as King

The action of transporting Chinese workers lasted for more than two months. During this period, Li Mingyuan took out a large sum of silver dollars and a part of the stock of gold, and hired a merchant ship at a price 1.5 times higher than the market price. Britain, the Netherlands, Belgium, and even Visitors to the rebellious Spanish merchant ship refused to refuse, as long as the tonnage of the vessel was higher than 500 tons, Li Mingyuan paid for employment.

The transportation Chinese workers seem to have weak profits. In fact, a boat trip from the Caribbean Sea to Rio Grande do Sul has a profit of more than 200%, and Rio Grande do pays 1.5% of the market price for the hire of merchant ships. The profit margins of national fleets will only be higher.

After the first industrial revolution, the most successful and profitable industry in the maritime industry, from the early African triangle trade to the plundering of the mineral resources of the colonies, as long as the European merchant ships that sailed to the sea can successfully make a round trip, the benefits often obtained are Times or even ten times.

In the nineteenth century, in order to stabilize the colonial order and obtain more benefits from the colonies, Britain announced a ban on the slave trade. Later, France, the United States, the Netherlands and other countries successively abolished the slave system.

North and South America and the Caribbean are rich in resources, with a sparse population. Without the slave trade, mines and plantations do not have sufficient labor. In this case, the post-independence American countries have found an alternative to contract labor. Ways to deceive the Chinese into the sea and serve as a new work force.

Nearly 100,000 Chinese laborers go to sea every year to promote the maritime trade between South America and the Big Six. Hundreds of coolie ships are carrying Chinese people sailing in the Pacific, Indian Ocean, and Atlantic Ocean, transporting the Chinese workers cheated from the Big 6 to every corner of the world.

There are overseas Chinese all over the sea. Chinese wandering around the world is a passive and helpless choice. During the voyage, three or four hundred Chinese laborers are often loaded on a coolie boat. They are crowded on the lower layer of the coolie boat. Lie down and rest.

With a small space and a harsh living environment, many Chinese workers died on the boat on the way, and then were thrown into the sea to become food for fish.

The surviving Cuban Chinese workers have experienced unimaginable suffering and hardships, and on their way back to Rio Grande do Sul, Li Mingyuan does not want them to be tortured when they go out to sea.

Merchant ships are hired at a price higher than the market price. Li Mingyuan also requires that each merchant ship cannot carry a standard number of Chinese workers, and to ensure that Chinese workers have a place to rest on board.

To complete the operation of transporting Chinese workers in as little time as possible, it is impossible to provide Chinese workers with a very good on-board environment. However, the rest area of ​​a single person's place must have basic protection for the diet and physical health of the Chinese workers on board.

While in Rio Grande do Sul, Li Mingyuan was always concerned about the actions of transporting Chinese workers.

After the first large-scale transport fleet returned with 25,000 Chinese workers, in order to improve transportation efficiency, vessels hired from various countries no longer acted as a large fleet, but composed of a dozen large and medium-sized vessels. Fleet, once the number of Chinese workers on board is sufficient, the small fleet will be dispatched immediately. Large-scale pirate forces entangled in the Caribbean Sea were annihilated by Chen Sen and others. Small-scale pirates did not pose a threat to the transport fleet carrying weapons, and scattered small transport fleets did not need to worry about sailing in the Caribbean.

Large sums of money were exchanged for the majority of Cuban Chinese workers to arrive safely in Rio Grande do Sul, and a small number of Chinese workers stranded on the island of Cuba also gathered in more than a dozen temporary settlements and will leave Cuba in the following month.

Most of the Brazilian soldiers were released, and their previous construction work was handed over to Chinese workers who arrived earlier.

In the Xinjing (Port Alegre) area, a series of Chinese-style wooden houses are neatly arranged outside the old city. On the periphery of the wooden houses, a new masonry wall more than two meters high surrounds the old city and wooden houses.

The new Beijing is the administrative and military center of Rio Grande do Sul. The Brazilians built the city in a small area that could not accommodate garrisons and retired soldiers gathered near the new Beijing. Therefore, the expansion of the new city was started soon after the arrival of Prussian experts.

The new city covers an area of ​​about seven square kilometers. It is mainly planned for four areas: ordinary people's residential area, military stationed area, government force station, and light factory commercial block. As for the general's request to build the palace, Li Mingyuan did not agree. Facilities construction, industrial development, transportation of Chinese workers ... There are many places to invest a lot of money in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China.

The proposal to build the palace was rejected, and Li Mingyuan continued to live in the castle left by the Brazilians, while Liu Pu, Sun Bin, and others set up their houses near the castle so that they could report to Li Mingyuan about national affairs.

On the construction site outside the wooden house, about 10,000 previously arrived Chinese workers were moving cement and bricks to build city walls.

The cement plant and the brick plant were built at the foot of a mountain more than ten miles away, and were built by Prussian experts under the guidance of Chinese workers.

More than 10,000 Chinese workers are responsible for transporting brick cement from more than ten miles away, and partly responsible for mixing the cement and building the city walls. The division of labor between the two Chinese laborers is clear, and there are orderly labor scenes everywhere on the vast site.

Li Mingyuan wore ordinary black military uniform, and Sun Bin and others came to the construction site to check.

In the center of the site is a cement pile of more than 20 square meters. More than a dozen Chinese workers are stirring lime with a shovel while pouring water.

Li Mingyuan walked to the cement pile, and now more than a dozen Chinese workers are working barefoot on the cement. He stopped at the moment: "Cement is corrosive, everyone put on shoes, don't stir the cement barefoot."

The words fell, and more than a dozen working Chinese workers gathered their eyes on Li Mingyuan's party, wearing military uniforms, and many guards around them. The Chinese workers regarded Li Mingyuan as a National Defense Army officer.

"Sir, the government has given us a pair of cloth shoes. The cloth shoes are all new. We don't want to break the cloth shoes, so we stir the cement and lime barefoot."

A man in a white headscarf explained.

Cement is corrosive, and cloth shoes are easily damaged when stepping on the cement slurry. Li Mingyuan understands this, but watching Chinese workers to work barefoot in order to save a pair of shoes, he feels a little unpleasant.

"Building the city wall is not completed in a short time, and barefoot labor is very harmful to your body. So, I will let the factory make a batch of waterproof rubber shoes for you. After you wear rubber shoes, you don't have to worry about your feet being corroded by 3 cement.

"Shizi, what are rubber shoes, why haven't you heard of it?" The Prussians helped set up factories including textile factories, garment factories, and cloth shoes factories, but they were not connected to the factory. Therefore, Sun Bin felt strange.

"No rubber shoes? Brazil is the country of origin of rubber. Rubber extracted from rubber trees can be used to make rubber shoes, tires and other basic industrial products. Rio Grande do Sul belongs to Brazil, and it should grow rubber trees."

Li Mingyuan was surprised first, and then slowly pondered to understand the key to the matter. In order to monopolize the benefits of rubber production, Brazilians banned rubber seeds from flowing to other countries. At this time, rubber is only available in Brazil. Other countries want to obtain rubber raw materials. After buying from Brazil, British merchants secretly brought out thousands of rubber tree seeds from Brazil in 1876 and transferred them to the Malay Peninsula to break the Brazilian monopoly on rubber.

The source of rubber raw materials is limited, and automobiles and other machinery are still in the exploration stage. Therefore, European countries have not exhibited a systematic rubber industry chain, and rubber shoes have not been put into large-scale industrial production.

In 1839, American Goodyear made clear of the vulcanization method of rubber, which solved the problem of raw rubber becoming sticky and brittle, so that the rubber has higher elasticity and toughness, and the rubber really entered the industrial practical stage. Therefore, natural rubber has become an important industrial raw material, and the demand for rubber has also increased sharply.

The production process of rubber shoes is simple, and the problem of rubber elasticity was also solved by Goodyear 30 years ago. Only the problem of raw materials is hindered by the large-scale production of rubber shoes.

The rubber monopoly is in the hands of the Brazilians. European countries want to obtain a large amount of rubber raw materials at high cost and cannot form large-scale industrial production. However, these problems are exactly the advantages in Li Mingyuan's eyes. Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina are in Brazil. The local environment is suitable for rubber trees. He does not believe that there are no rubber trees on the 430,000 square kilometers of land.

Rubber production and processing technology has matured. As industrialization accelerates into the city, rubber is an important and indispensable industrial raw material for more than a hundred years. It is at least ten years before rubber is transferred to other areas and a large-scale plantation is formed. Rio Grande do Sul just uses the time difference before the outflow of rubber to develop the rubber industry on a large scale and use its first advantages to establish the advantageous position of the rubber industry. In this way, even if rubber seeds are obtained by other countries in advance, it will take several years to form large-scale planting to meet the needs of industrial production.

Inadvertent inspection of the construction site allowed Li Mingyuan to discover a new industry that can bring great returns to Rio Grande do Sul, and talk casually with the Chinese workers on the site. Li Mingyuan returned to his residence and immediately arranged for manual inspection of the rubber distribution in Rio Grande do Sul situation.

The man searching for the rubber situation sent out soon and brought back the news that Li Mingyuan wanted. In the jungle west of Xinjing, thousands of wild rubber trees were distributed. Soldiers sent to other places also brought back the news of the rubber tree.

In a forest west of Xinjing, Li Mingyuan, Liu Pu, Sun Bin, and others crossed the path opened by soldiers, bypassed the bushes, and came under a tall rubber tree.

"Shizi, is this the rubber tree you sent for?"

Sun Bin looked at the big tree more than 30 meters high in front of him, and felt no different from the local trees such as Sumu and Bitterwood.

"Come, see what this is?"

Li Mingyuan took out the dagger he had carried with him, and gently made a cut in the rubber tree, and then a milky mucus immediately flowed out of the tree wound.

Sun Bin dipped a lot of lotion forward with his hand, and was about to put it in his mouth to try it, but Li Mingyuan stopped it.

"Rubber fluid is toxic. Although it is not fatal, it can cause abdominal pain for several days after ingestion."

The milky liquid was like coconut juice. Sun Bin didn't expect it to be toxic, and quickly took away the finger next to his mouth, smirking: "Thank you Shizi for reminding me."

"It's okay, just be careful in the future." Li Mingyuan waved his hand, then made a circle around the surrounding rubber trees and returned to the original position.

"The rubber tree has a lifespan of about sixty years. This rubber tree is about twenty years old, which is the period when the rubber liquid was produced. There is also a nearby forest. There are about three hundred rubber trees in total, and one hundred and thirty years old. More than a dozen. "

Li Mingyuan introduced with joy: "Brazilians only cut rubber liquid from wild rubber trees. Not only will they get limited quantities, but they will also cause a lot of waste. We ca n’t learn Brazilians. Rubber trees are a cash cow, so we must make good use of them. Only. "

"Shizi, we haven't touched the rubber tree before. Will it cause harm to the tree?"

Liu Pu asked.

"Don't worry ~ www.wuxiaspot.com ~ The environment and soil of Rio Grande do Sul are suitable for the survival of rubber trees. Let the brothers be careful, transfer the rubber tree seedlings to the open wasteland, and water them regularly to care for them. . "

In addition to some special requirements for the living environment, rubber trees are similar to ordinary trees in transfer and planting, and do not require extra manual care.

When Brazilians obtain rubber fluid, they mostly cut the tree directly with an axe. After several fellings, most of the rubber trees will be severely damaged due to damage, or the trees will be damaged, and the rubber fluid output will be seriously reduced.

Obtaining rubber liquids by Brazilians is an exhaustive method. Li Mingyuan will not do it. Instead, he will adopt a more efficient method, which is to obtain a sufficient amount of rubber liquid without harming the survival of the rubber tree.

This method was announced by a botanical garden owner in Singapore in 1887. Repeated cutting on the original cut to obtain rubber fluid does not harm the formation area of ​​the rubber tree, so that a rubber tree can provide rubber fluid for decades.

//

Genius remember the address of this site in a second :. Mobile version reading URL: