Chapter 190, Chinatown in Australia
October 1634, southwestern Australia, the lower reaches of the Swan River entering the sea
The gentle breeze from the Indian Ocean blew across the vast prairie, creating undulating blue waves among the knee-high grass.
It is late spring in the southern hemisphere, and this is when the prairie is at its most beautiful. Flowers of all kinds of white, red, gold, blue, purple and other brilliant colors are dotted on this emerald green grassland. With the fresh and warm sea breeze, it exudes a charming fragrance.
Under the bright and bright sunshine, you can see groups of snow-white sheep grazing peacefully everywhere, and vigilant sheepdogs patrolling around. The bouncing groups of kangaroos were jumping between the vast grasslands and sparse woods, looking curiously at their new neighbors. As for Australia's specialties, the black swans, which are unique in the world, gracefully raise their slender necks and swim on the clear and winding river.
Behind this beautiful and vibrant wilderness, there stands a series of towering and majestic buildings.
This is the new headquarters of the Global Chinese Travelers Alliance, a great city that is preparing to become the capital of the earth: Chinatown!
When human beings gradually got rid of the primitive era of eating blood, slashing and burning, no longer afraid of wild beasts in the wilderness, and stumbled into the door of civilized society; when human beings initially defeated the dangerous and unpredictable nature, they finally no longer have to worry about the next step. Where is the meal after ; When the earliest philosophers and wise men appeared among human beings, and began to use words and mysterious and strange religious symbols to express their thoughts and wonders about the world, and after they were no longer ignorant, the first and oldest prehistoric cities, It began to be born on the earth in the prehistoric era.
——The first batch of human thinkers from all over the world who were separated from basic labor production unanimously poured their abundant brainpower and the little wealth accumulated by their ancestors into heavy and huge stones. On the blocks, various exquisite or rough high walls, columns, vaults and stairs were used to build cities symbolizing human power, and their courtyards were decorated with reliefs and statues full of religious mystery. The meaning of the existence of "architecture" has been simple and simple from the beginning to provide shelter from wind and rain and to resist wild beasts. It has gradually evolved into a variety of dazzling additional functions, from military to production to Religious, even purely symbolic...
In short, with the birth of ancient human civilization, various splendid megalithic buildings have risen in every corner of the earth as symbols of glory of their respective civilizations, and have quickly become the most eye-catching and most impressive on the planet. One of the most incredible products.
The Global Chinese Travelers Alliance, which is committed to becoming a new generation of earth hegemons, has carried out large-scale construction projects in this ancient and wild land of Western Australia with great efforts that exceed the limits of the imagination of the indigenous people in this time and space - the surface of the Swan River has been dug up to the depths. The pit was filled with new concrete to create a Lay down the foundation, and then erect various classic buildings from another time and space one after another on top: the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, the Sydney Opera House, the White House, Parliament Hill, the Statue of Liberty, the Pentagon, the Oriental Pearl Tower... Take them one by one The Australian wilderness reappears in this time and space. This is not only to show the power and toughness of the travelers themselves, but also to represent their longing for the world before they traveled.
Although to most people on earth in this time and space, these buildings seem a bit weird, but they are absolutely magnificent!
——Standing on the deck of the "Hangzhou" slowly entering the port, whether it was the female captain Li Huamei who had been dealing with "Australians" for many years, or the famous donkey traveler Xu Xiake who had just traveled half of the world, they were all stood up first. The one on the artificial island outside the harbor is 37 meters high. He raised the torch in one hand and held a replica of the Statue of Liberty of the Preamble to the Chinese League Constitution in the other. He was deeply shocked, and then he saw the huge buildings behind the port terminal that stretched to the sky like mountains. group, so I was suddenly shocked from the bottom of my heart!
Compared with this magnificent city in front of us, even the most prosperous cities of the Ming Dynasty, such as Guangzhou and Nanjing, seemed too petty.
That shocking visual effect is like... a tourist from a small place in the modern world who lacks knowledge, standing on the embankment of the Bund Park of the Huangpu River in Shanghai, looking up at the dazzling Pudong skyscrapers opposite with his mouth wide open. , it feels like they are oppressing all living beings.
"...Is this...is this the capital of Australia? It's...it's...ah! It's so spectacular!" After finally coming back to his senses, Xu Xiake searched for a long time, but still didn't know what words to use. To describe it, I could only let out a long sigh.
As for Captain Li Huamei, who was standing next to him, he still hadn't woken up yet, and his mouth was open so much that he was almost drooling.
"...Ahem, Captain Li, please report to the Chinese League Admiralty Building at nine o'clock tomorrow morning. Here is the notice, please sign for it..."
Seeing the fuss and stupidity of the female captain, a time traveler pilot who had just come up in a small boat couldn't help but rolled his eyes and coughed dryly.
"...Ah...you're awake. Comrade, do you have any other instructions?" Captain Li Huamei, who had just woken up from a dream, was startled when he heard the sound. He took off a pencil and scrawled a ghost symbol on the notice.
"...The leader didn't say, um...but it's best to dress more formally. And take a shower as soon as possible..."
Facing the beautiful female pirate who came closer, the time traveler pilot pinched his nose and took half a step back while subconsciously shaking his head.
"...I know." The female pirate, who was still in the business-like cuteness mode just now, looked down at her dirty coat and long skirt, and her pretty face stretched two feet in an instant: "...Hmph, don't look down on me. My aunt has as many beautiful clothes as she wants, but the eldest lady doesn’t have as many as I do!”
Li Huamei snorted unhappily in her heart, but of course she just nodded her thanks and left, returning to the steering wheel in the cab.
Next, after the "Hangzhou" docked at the pier and the anchors and moorings were lowered, Xu Xiake, a passenger, disembarked with his servants. But the female captain Li Huamei, who had just been disliked by others, had to continue to direct her even dirtier sailors to unload cargo with a look of bad luck and a filthy smell all over her body. But thinking that she would soon be able to settle in this magical city with her fiancé, Chief Qi Feng, while the old man Xu Xiake was just a passing passerby, the female pirate's mood became balanced again...< br>
But... the ship today really stinks! ! !
As the cabin doors opened, all kinds of disgusting smells poured out, replacing the fresh sea breeze, making Li Huamei almost vomit.
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With the successful conclusion of this round of raids on mainland China and the preliminary completion of the Australian headquarters of the Chinese Alliance, the maritime transport capacity of the time travelers has been much more abundant. But then the headquarters of the Chinese Alliance issued a series of urgent additional material purchase lists, so that the merchant fleets of the various union republics were filled with orders in an instant. Even Captain Li Huamei's new "Hangzhou" warship had to undergo temporary modifications, unload some of its artillery to free up space, and turn it into an armed merchant ship. Then it went to the port of Goa, India, where Li Huamei often visited before "defecting Kun" to transport Chinese goods. Various bulk goods ordered by the alliance.
According to the information Li Huamei received, the first thing the Chinese League authorities urgently need to import is a special commodity: hundreds of thousands of female slaves. This is not mainly to serve as maids for travelers, but to balance the ratio of men and women in the areas controlled by the Chinese League, and at the same time solve the actual physiological needs of the naturalized people of the Chinese League - according to the predetermined plan, after the mainland strategy is completed and the confrontation stage is entered , the armies of all countries in the China Alliance will have a large-scale retirement peak. For those retired soldiers, whether they work as police officers or cadres, or as workers or farmers, those who are single are not as reliable as those who have a family, especially those who will be sent to the newly occupied areas along the coast of the Ming Dynasty to serve as township police and grassroots workers. If the retired soldiers of the personnel go to work with only one pair of hands, there is no guarantee that they will not cause any trouble after a long time. Even if the time travelers are lonely for a long time, they will cause big troubles.
In addition, the immigrants from the Central Plains who were recruited to reclaim the wasteland in South America, North America, Africa and the outer northeast also had a huge imbalance between men and women. Although the gap in the proportion of women in the population can be solved by intermarriage with local indigenous people, in general it is still far from enough.
However, although the Chinese League has seized several provinces from the territory of the Ming Empire, the ratio of men to women in the total social population is the same in both southern and northern China. It is very exaggerated: there has always been drowning in ancient China. The tradition of female infanticide has become more common and serious at the end of a feudal dynasty, when the pressure for survival intensified and the conflict between population and land became more acute.
For example, as a woman who always has a dissatisfied stomach, if Li Huamei's mother had not worked as a nanny for a foreign businessman's family and her family was relatively well-off, then the legendary life of Li Huamei, a female pirate, might have ended long ago. I don’t know which broken bucket it ended up in.
In addition, according to survey statistics of various major occupied areas in the Ming Dynasty, the number of private child brides today is also extremely alarming. In this era, the vast majority of women usually get married in their teens, and the labor force they can contribute throughout their lives basically belongs to their husband's family. In this way, for the natal family as the "investor", of course, the sooner the daughter is given away, the less burden she will have (hence the saying that the daughter is a loser).
Therefore, on top of the huge base of thousands of little Li Huamei who were sold by their cruel parents to be their little wives when they were just a few years old, plus all kinds of unrepeatable chances and coincidences, there will be a legendary figure. The female captain Li Huamei is able to escape this common fate of reincarnation.
Of course, Captain Li Huamei, who is currently eager to have a baby with his fiancé as soon as possible, when he thinks of those little Chaoshan wives who were born more than ten years later than himself and can carry their babies to the ground, I am afraid that what surges in his heart is probably not pride and pity, but resentment. Handkerchief, all kinds of envy, jealousy and hatred...
If we do not consider the luxury of human rights, from the perspective of the development of the entire society, child brides themselves are not a problem, but the problem is that once combined with Cheng and Zhu Li’s strict requirements for treating women, it becomes an even worse situation. Catastrophe: It should be noted that the child mortality rate is very high these days, and it is very likely that both the child bride and the young husband will not survive to adulthood. If the woman dies first, it doesn’t matter except for the man losing a betrothal gift. But if the man dies first, the child bride is very likely to be forced to remain a widow by her husband’s family and spend her whole life holding a memorial tablet...
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On one side, there are a large number of young men who cannot find wives and are forced to stay single, causing serious social security risks; on the other side, there are a large number of women of the right age who are forced to remain widowed and unable to get married because of outdated moral concepts... Pay attention to The actual time-travelers simply could not understand and completely refused to tolerate such a strange status quo, so they publicly declared that widowhood was a crime, and at the same time ordered the occupying forces to dispatch and destroy chastity arches everywhere.
In order to further change customs, the occupying forces also imposed very strict regulations. In addition to the tolerance given to the families of martyrs, all widows under the age of thirty-five must remarry. If they remain widowed, they must pay a large fine every month, and whistleblowers will receive heavy rewards. In addition, young women were prohibited from becoming a monk, and nuns under the age of thirty were forced to return to the secular world (the young nun in the Jingxiu nunnery was dragged out of the nunnery in tears as soon as Agui, the aforementioned Agui, left Weichuang).
The above-mentioned violent reform measures provoked countless bloody conflicts and countless riots in China's rural areas with stubborn and conservative customs. However, in the end, the number of marriageable young women squeezed out was still very limited, which was far from satisfactory. It cannot meet the actual needs of the Chinese League's global colonial cause.
Therefore, in order to make up for the lack of female "supply" in China, the slave markets in major ports along the Indian Ocean were booming for a while, allowing slave traders of all walks of life to welcome a new round of boom. The untouchable daughters of the major princely states in southern India, the captive nuns from Ceylon, Siam, and Burma, the decent German women who became spoils of war in the Thirty Years War in Europe, and the families of the rebellious parties suppressed by the Turkish and Persian empires. , East African Department of Ethiopia and Somalia The black-skinned girls of the tribe, regardless of their skin color, language, or cultural beliefs, were all collected by slave caravans and transported continuously to Goa, Surat, and Malacca, and then were controlled by the time-travelers. fleet to transport to their own territory.
This time Li Huamei was ordered to come to the Australian capital, and she packed more than twenty Persian slave girls in the cabin of the Hangzhou. They were all decent-looking, hard-working, docile and obedient types, so they were carefully selected. Come to the Hua League Capital to do some light work such as cleaning, laundry, and pruning flowers and plants. If you are very lucky and fall in love with a time traveler, you might be able to get rid of your slave status in one fell swoop.
As for the female slaves who were transported to places like Hainan Island, Taiwan, or Liaodong, their lives were probably not so good. After stumbling out of the stuffy cabin, completing the handover procedures, and undergoing quarantine and purification, they will be thrown into the steamy steam reeling factory, the deafening textile factory, and the pungent-smelling pharmaceutical factory. wait. No matter what you believed in, what you couldn't eat, or what you couldn't touch. After more than ten hours of endless manual labor every day, the only remaining instinct is to listen to the whistle and sit down to work, listen to the whistle and get up to eat, listen to the whistle to queue up and go back to the dormitory, listen to the whistle to sing loudly, listen to the whistle to drink water and go to the toilet, listen to the whistle If you don't make noise, you can only immerse yourself in work. Until one day, they were used to fill the seriously imbalanced ratio of men to women, and were ordered to line up to participate in certain social activities, and then marry a man to give birth to the next generation of working population for this country.
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In addition to frantically importing girls from all over the world, the Chinese League authorities are also currently purchasing buffaloes, scalpers, Dutch cows, Indian zebu, cowhide, cow bones... It seems that almost everything related to cows is in Among Huameng’s purchases. Li Huamei also had a lot of them on his boat. Among them, the purchased cowhide is mainly for military use. Due to the consumption of large-scale wars against the Ming Empire in the past two years, the munitions warehouses of various union republics have almost reached their bottom, and it is difficult to even ensure regular uniform changes for regular soldiers. Before the first artificial leather factory was put into operation, the military logistics department still had to collect all kinds of leather to make soles, holsters and belts for soldiers, such as elephant skin, whale skin, shark skin, python skin, etc. Even salmon skin and bonito skin are required. Of course, the most widely used and popular natural leathers are cowhide and sheepskin. Female pirate Li Huamei has a lot of gorgeous-looking leather shoes, boots and leather armor in her cabin's closet.
Originally, Indians worshiped cows as gods, and anyone who dared to eat beef would be lynched to death. Naturally, there were not many cow hides available for sale. However, the overlords who rule India now are the Mughal dynasty who believe in God. As more people eat beef, the production of cowhide naturally increases. It's just that the tanning technology in India was quite primitive at this time. Every time the cowhide was transported, it had to rot a lot on the ship. When the cargo was opened and unloaded, the smell was overwhelming.
Since there is a supply of cowhide in India, it is natural to purchase cow bones. Travelers purchase large quantities of cow bones for use in bone china. If they are relatively fresh cow bones, they can be used to make glue first. The demand for glue in modern industries is really outrageous. Construction, shipbuilding, military industry, machinery, chemicals, medicine, furniture, printing, shoemaking... No industry dares to say that it does not use glue, and the glue-making industry itself has already It has become a quite developed private industry, and there are hundreds of small glue-making workshops in each of the member republics of the Chinese League.
In order to ensure the supply of raw materials for the rubber industry, the municipal governments of some cities even ordered their restaurants to check their food waste every day and remove pork bones, lamb bones, fish bones, fish scales, fish skins, fish intestines, etc. Fish bones and other things that can be used to make glue are all picked out, collected and handed over.
However, those freshly killed beef bones, even if they are completely dried, will immediately become foul-smelling as soon as they are taken to the sea and the tide returns. Although Li Huamei listened to the experience of other veteran captains and asked the supplier in advance to smash all the beef bones before purchasing goods at the Goa port, and then put them in barrels and seal them, it was finally a little better, but As time goes by, the smell that permeates the ship will still be comparable to poison gas bombs.
Of course, the smelliest cargo on Li Huamei's ship is currently nearly a hundred live Indian cattle, which are used to provide livestock power for farming and reclamation.
Up to now, time travelers have mainly relied on oxen to pull plows instead of tractors for agricultural development. With modern social technology and material support, as well as the 22nd century black technology of the world of Doraemon Doraemon For prop-assisted time-travelers, it is not difficult to dig oil wells in this world, and it is not impossible to build an oil refinery. In fact, there are currently two oil refineries in production in Hainan Island and North America. But the real problem that is difficult to solve is how to deliver fuel and parts to the colonial strongholds scattered in every corner of the world, and at the same time, how to quickly train so many maintenance personnel and drivers from the indigenous residents of this time and space. Member...this difficulty is really too high.
In addition, in the early stages of colonial reclamation, before the land became fully mature, it was actually not cost-effective to use tractors. Moreover, buffaloes are naturally suited to plowing rice fields. Even in rural China in the 21st century, walking tractors have not completely replaced the status of water buffaloes.
Now that the Chinese League is determined to colonize and open up the world, the number of cattle it needs to raise is naturally an astronomical figure. However, the breed of cattle produced in China at this time did not meet the actual needs of the time travellers. In the south of China, because there are more people and less land, and the plots are fragmented, after thousands of years of selective breeding from generation to generation, the Chinese buffalo has been successfully cultivated into a small breed, with an average weight of only more than 300 kilograms. The large-scale agricultural production carried out by time travelers in Australia must be planted continuously. Naturally, the bigger the cattle, the better. The smaller the cattle, the less economical they are.
For this reason, Li Huamei was ordered to purchase large cattle breeds from West Asia and India. Because adult cattle are not suitable for large-scale centralized transportation, Li Huamei bought calves that are about one year old. As for calves, no matter how young they are, they are too delicate and may not be able to survive the long voyage by relying on physical strength.
However, it was not a comfortable journey to cram so many calves into a narrow cabin, and toss around the rough waves from time to time. Even when the weather is calm, the cabin is stuffy and hot, and there is no fresh water pool for them to bathe and cool down. Therefore, these Indian calves consume a lot of energy and need to be fed enough concentrate feed all the way. As a result, the cabin The cow dung quickly piled up into a mountain, and flies immediately became a plague. More than a dozen female slaves who were ordered to clean the cattle pens were still unable to clean them even if they broke their backs from working all day.
So, as time went by, the smell on the Hangzhou became more and more smelly, becoming more and more like a mobile floating garbage dump.
Unfortunately, during this long voyage from Goa, in order to free up space for loading, the ship did not carry much fresh water, and there was no rain along the way. As a result, even the captain Li Huamei could not take a bath, and she also stank... ...Fortunately, all this nightmare experience has finally passed.
Li Huamei directed the sailors to spend a whole day, first driving all the female slaves and calves off the ship. With the help of the dock crane, the cattle hides and bones loaded on the ship were unloaded, and then they borrowed the large bathroom of the port purification camp to wash them in a hurry, and then rushed to the Seamen's Hotel by the dock - in the lobby on the first floor of the hotel. Here, the reception staff who were notified had already prepared a sumptuous feast for the sailors:
Thickly coated in fat, golden and crispy on the outside, herb-cooked barbecue sprinkled with cumin, pepper and refined salt. Large pieces of meaty bones are thrown into a large pot of vegetable stew with radish, cabbage and other vegetables. There are all kinds of dishes. Such delicious fresh fruits, and finally strong rum and vodka.
Although the sailors were a little regretful that there was no romantic tavern (this was a newly built new city), the fragrant barbecue, delicious hot soup, and mellow spirits still made them feel comfortable and excited. Laughed unbridled.
As for the more distinguished Captain Li Huamei, she did not drink and frolic in the hall below with her sailors. Instead, he stayed alone in the bathroom of the luxury suite on the top floor, soaking his bronzed body in a white porcelain bathtub filled with hot water. While working hard to wash away the odor on his body with shampoo, he looked through the open door. From the bathroom window, he looked at the sea of city lights outside the window with curiosity and admiration.
"...The big wheel on the opposite side...is the Ferris wheel that Brother Feng drew in his notebook? I really want to go up there and play with Brother Feng!"
Holding a glass of red wine and lying half in the bathtub with a towel wrapped around her head, Li Huamei couldn't help but become obsessed with the thought of her lover Qi Feng's honest smile. On the other hand, Li Huamei and others are not the first visitors to visit Chinatown in Western Australia. Before the Hangzhou arrived, a group of visitors from various countries in Europe and Asia had already set foot on the dock of this "Australian capital" through various means...