Chapter 143 Landing in New Port
Fortunately, these fishermen don't have too many belongings, so it doesn't take much time to pack and move. At ten o'clock in the morning, the "Speed" set out from here with seven small wooden boats and more than 40 fishermen. Two hours later, this strange-looking small fleet finally caught up with the big fish in the northeastern waters of Cat Ba Island. force. After seeing this "huge" fleet of eight large ships, the fishermen who were originally a little uneasy also settled down. It was the first time for many of them to see such a large ship, and they couldn't help but marvel.
The fleet crossed Halong Bay eastward. There are many islands in this area, and the beautiful sea scenery also attracted immigrants to come to the deck to watch. At two o'clock in the afternoon, the fleet arrived at the coast of Jinpu Port, and then turned north along the coast to continue moving forward. About half an hour later, the pilot "Speed" sent a signal that it was about to reach its destination and asked the fleet behind it to start slowing down.
After passing through a strait about 300 meters wide and 600 meters long, the harbor selected by the expedition team last time finally appeared in front of the fleet. This natural harbor has a coastline of about 500 meters. There are no rocks or sandbars near the shore, and the water depth is also ideal. Close to the south side of the harbor, there is a hill with an altitude of about 60 to 70 meters, which happens to guard the entire channel in and out of the harbor from the island on the opposite side of the strait.
On July 21, 1627, the ninth day of June in the seventh year of the Great Ming Dynasty, the colonization team from Victory Port finally arrived at the destination of their trip.
According to the landing plan made in advance, the "Speed" with a shallow draft docked first. After checking the water depth and currents along the coast, it notified the following ships to dock in sequence. The first to land were members of the military and police departments and armed militia. They needed to delineate a landing area near the shore and implement a certain degree of vigilance around the landing site. Although this is an uninhabited land, there are still many wild beasts of all kinds. The expedition team saw rhinos and crocodiles last time here, but there are still tigers, leopards, bears and other beasts that have not yet appeared, living in the forest here. Don't be careless either.
The civil affairs department divided the temporarily recruited immigrants into groups during the two-day voyage, and distributed two hundred immigrants from Victory Port to these immigrant groups in a ratio of one to four. Each immigration group is maintained at a size of about a hundred people, and immigrants from Victory Port are responsible for leading the new immigrants. These naturalized people who have lived in communes for at least one month have been continuously brainwashed in various ways and will learn to obey the law. Set a good example for new immigrants.
In addition to the travelers, militiamen and crew, this fleet carried a total of almost a thousand immigrants. If this number of immigrants had not been well prepared by the relevant departments, it would have been a mess after landing. Fortunately, Chuan Chuanzhong already had the experience of landing once, so he seemed much more calm during this operation. There is a dedicated person responsible for instructing immigrants to drop off their luggage at the designated location and then immediately start unloading the goods. The entire fleet was unloading on the coast, and the immigrants, like a line of ants, continued to transfer the goods on the ship to the shore by carrying them on their hands and shoulders.
No one clearly expressed dissatisfaction with this arrangement. On the one hand, the surrounding armed militias responsible for maintaining order played a certain deterrent effect. On the other hand, on the way here, the relevant departments had also reported the situation here to the police. The immigrants have given lectures, and they all know that the large and small bags they are carrying now are the materials they will depend on for their survival here in the future. This includes the food they will eat in the future, the tents they will live in, the tools they will use, etc. If they want to settle here, moving these supplies off the ship is the current task that must be completed. Moreover, all these supplies are provided by these overseas visitors who call themselves "Haihan people". If you want to eat other people's food and live in other people's homes, it is natural to sell your labor to work for others.
Liu Shanxia led a group of immigrants to start leveling the ground at a relatively flat place selected in advance. At present, all other infrastructure projects can be postponed, but the camping site is a problem that must be solved first. The Executive Committee did not expect that the first immigration recruitment would be of such a large scale. Just setting up tents could not meet the accommodation needs of more than a thousand people. This time, although the colonization team brought almost all the people who could free up The large military tents are used out of the tents, but they can only accommodate half of the population at most. There are more than a dozen prefabricated houses, but they are only for the office workers stationed here to live and store some important supplies. It is only a drop in the bucket for the current situation, and the prefab houses must at least be fixed with ground beams. Structure, this is not something that can be completed on the day of landing.
Liu Shanxia's solution to this situation was to seize the time and build some simple bamboo and wood sheds on the shore to temporarily settle the immigrants. It only takes about a week for the immigrants to live in a more sturdy boat-shaped house. This is not unacceptable to the war refugees who have abandoned their homes and property. In fact, most people can live in it. The purpose of coming here is to find a stable living environment, and the quality of their residence is not their primary consideration.
An hour after landing, the first tents had been set up on the shore. These tents are not used to house people, but to store some important supplies unloaded from the ship, such as food, cement, gunpowder, etc. In view of the fact that the number of immigrants arriving in this batch has exceeded expectations, after a short discussion, several leading figures in the colonization team decided not to rush to build roads to the inland mining areas for the time being, but to build settlements first and transfer them at the same time. The cargo on board allows these ships to set off as soon as possible and make another trip to Thanh Hoa.
The colonization team believed that after the population here exceeded 1,500, there would basically be no shortage of manpower in the initial development and construction plan. As for the scale of coal mining in the future, it probably needs to be linked to the maritime transportation capacity of the Cross-Train Group. For now, the Ministry of Shipping estimates that it can transport 500 to 800 tons of high-quality coal back to Victory Port every month, so the number of local miners required is 500 to 600. Compared with the base camp, the development and construction here The requirement for manpower is not that urgent. At this time, Gu Kai and Qian Tiandun led a few people and were doing another very important thing at the hill on the south side of the port.
Although the time travel group has not yet formally established a political power to show its banner, every time traveler has taken it for granted that the group they belong to has regarded the group they belong to as the most promising emerging political power in this era. As for when it will start to be used externally, " The name "Haihan Republic" is just a matter of time.
The Executive Committee is now sending a colonization team to build a seaport and settlement in the Beibu Gulf. This was undoubtedly an act of expanding territory through colonization in the seventeenth century, and the establishment of the first overseas colony also set the stage for the future. The expansion of the Haihan Republic provides a practical example that is of great significance to the entire Traverse Group. So for this purpose, the executive committee specially found a few local masons to make a sovereignty monument two meters long and half a meter wide on all sides, and asked the colonization team to take it to Xingang and find a place to erect it near the port.
After a group of people from the headquarters went ashore and walked around the area, they decided to select this place as the place to erect the sovereignty monument. First, this place is relatively conspicuous and can be easily seen after landing. Second, the surface of the surface here is full of solid rocks, which is perfect for pouring the sovereignty monument. So a few workers were immediately dispatched to lift the monument of sovereignty from the ship.
This granite sovereignty monument looks small in size, but it weighs more than 700 kilograms. Several workers managed to lift the monument to the hillside with great difficulty, followed by several people carrying it on their backs in backpacks. A few bags of cement came up.
Under the command of Chuanzhong, the workers first used hoes and shovels to remove the loose soil on the ground, and then used chisels and hammers to cut out a stone groove on the stone ground. This process was very time-consuming. Qian Tiandun only waited for about ten minutes before leaving. As a military officer, he had to keep an eye on the dock to prevent any trouble. Gu Kai waited patiently for a full hour before the clanking sound of chipping stones finally stopped. The workers carefully erected the sovereignty monument into a stone trough and straightened it, and then someone nearby poured cement that had been mixed into the roots to firmly combine the sovereignty monument with the ground.
As for the content on the sovereignty monument, the Executive Committee has had a thorough discussion before, and finally decided to use the form of the sovereignty monument in later republics as a reference to simplify it as much as possible, because this thing is likely to need to be built on a large scale in a few years. , if we make the regulations too complicated now, we will have a lot of trouble during construction in the future. Thus, the content of the first overseas sovereignty monument of the Haihan regime was born. It is consistent on all sides. The top is engraved with two one-foot-square characters "Haihan", and the bottom is engraved with "Haihan in 1627." The words "Committee Established" are all filled with red paint and can be seen from a distance.
According to later historical records, "The establishment of this sovereign monument symbolized that the Haihan Republic had embarked on the road to conquer the world. The people present were all rejoicing and applauded. Thousands of immigrants celebrated together and this place was incorporated into the Haihan Executive Committee." Under the rule of the society, it has become a new paradise..."
But in fact, when the Monument of Sovereignty was completed, there were only the hungry Gu Kai and seven or eight exhausted workers on the hill. There was no applause or cheers at all, and there were no cheering people. Everyone had the same idea in their minds. A thought - finish it quickly and go down the mountain for dinner!
(End of chapter)