The first batch of immigrants who followed Aragones to Jinshan Port were only about a hundred families, but it was obviously impossible for Wang Tom to allow these Spanish immigrants to continue to live together locally, so they had to be dispersed to multiple settlements for resettlement. .
The Hispanic people who had just arrived did not know the quality of the various local settlements, so they had no resistance to the lottery arrangement.
There is a wooden box placed on the table in front of the civil affairs officer, with several small balls corresponding to the settlements inside. There is a hole in the wooden box, and immigrants put their hands in to draw lots. Where they end up depends on their luck.
People were sent from each settlement. After each immigrant household drew lots, they counted the heads on the spot and took the people away.
If the gold mining areas located in the inland mountains are the settlements with the worst conditions, then Jinshan City, with complete facilities and convenient life, is undoubtedly the best destination for immigrants.
However, in view of the special origin status of the immigrants, the upper limit of accepting immigrants in the urban area is only ten households. In the mining areas with the most difficult conditions, there is no upper limit for receipts at all.
These settlements are scattered around Jinshan Bay, and the closest ones are dozens of miles apart. The farthest place is three to four hundred miles away from Jinshan Port, and it takes several days to travel.
All settlements are under military management, and new foreign immigrants like them will not be allowed to leave the settlements until about a year or two.
After listening to the civil affairs officials' explanation of the immigration allocation rules, Aragones couldn't help but admire Haihan's methods. However, as a result, the various settlements are inconvenient to communicate with each other, and his plan to use his family's prestige and reputation to slowly absorb these Spanish immigrants into his ranks may be difficult to realize.
Aragones suddenly realized that if these immigrants would be dispersed to various places for resettlement, then who would be responsible for taking care of the farm that Haihan promised to allocate to him?
Now there are only a few servants left in the family who cook and wash clothes. These people may not be able to take care of farm work. You can't even have to farm and graze by yourself, right?
He immediately raised this question with civil affairs officials, and the answer he received was that at least ten families of Hispanic immigrants would be assigned to the place where he settled, and he could hire these people to take care of the farm.
But the government will also allocate farmland to these Hispanic immigrants and support them in running their own industries. Whether they will accept Aragones' employment depends on his offer.
This is incomparable to the time in San Diego Bay. At that time, the settlement was Aragones' private territory. All people and land were the property of his family, and every household in the local area needed to pay taxes to him. , there is no such thing as spending money to hire long-term workers.
Even if they are servants in his family, they only provide food and accommodation, and they never get wages. Occasionally on special holidays, Aragones would give them some money as a reward depending on his mood.
Of course, not everyone works for him for free, such as the armed men under him. Those who work for him must be paid on time. But this group of people had been disbanded after the war and went back to their respective families. Even if he was willing to pay, Haihan would probably not agree to let him reorganize a private armed force.
In the past, more than 2,000 people worked for Aragones in San Diego Bay to support his family. But now, ten households of immigrants are the quota of hired workers that Aragones can currently get, and these immigrants may not accept his employment after they have their own land.
Aragones instantly felt like he had been cheated.
Morgan had promised him excellent conditions before, including allocating farms and granting tax holidays, but he did not mention this damn resettlement plan.
If there is no one to use it, then even if he has land, even if he never has to pay taxes, he is just guarding a large piece of wasteland, which has no meaning to his family at all. Aragones was no longer in the mood to continue watching the immigration lottery. He immediately made a request to the civil affairs official to meet with the highest official here.
But Wang Tom could be seen by a small character like him whenever he wanted. After the civil affairs officials asked for instructions, they received the reply that he should stay at Jinshan Port to wait for the next step.
So the Aragones family was arranged to stay in a hotel at the port, waiting for official notification. Their big family moved in and immediately occupied half of the hotel room.
Although the accommodation conditions of this hotel are far inferior to Aragones's mansion in San Diego Bay, he can only make do with it because there is only such a hotel in the entire port area.
Jinshan Port looks prosperous, but in fact there is not much floating population. Most of them are just people traveling between the city and various settlements, and the demand for temporary accommodation is extremely low.
Although it is just a hotel, rooms are available most of the year. When their family checked in, most of it was even empty.
After getting permission to go out alone, Aragones chose to walk around the city, intending to see how the Haihan people ran the colony.
The civil affairs officials originally planned to send a Spanish translator to accompany them, but Aragones believed that this was a surveillance measure by the other party and declined the offer.
As an expert in the doorway, Aragones, who was also a colonial ruler, quickly saw some clues about this small coastal town.
First of all, the city's population density is very low, which can be seen from the sparse layout of houses and relatively empty streets. The population is certainly not much larger than the Spanish colonies in San Diego Bay.
Secondly, the infrastructure level here is more than one level higher than the settlements in San Diego Bay. The urban area is neatly planned, the houses have a uniform appearance, the streets are spacious, flat and clean, and water supply and drainage facilities cover almost the entire urban area.
In addition, although Jinshan City is said to be under military control, there is actually no tense atmosphere in the city, and we don't even see any soldiers on duty on the streets.
What you can see on the streets is that most of the local people are indeed Han Chinese, but passers-by don't seem to be curious about Europeans like Aragones, and almost no one pays much attention to him.
After wandering around for a while, Aragones discovered that there were actually many European faces here. This reminded him of Morgan. He was obviously a European, but he was playing for Haihan. It seemed that there should be many people from Europe in the Haihan camp. person.
This is good news for him. It at least shows that Haihan is not particularly repulsive to Europeans. He should not be discriminated against when he settles here in the future.
But language and culture are undoubtedly a big obstacle to integrating here. Aragones can't understand Chinese or read Chinese characters, but he previously refused to travel with a translator, so he can't communicate with others at all and can only stay in the city by himself. Wandering around for a while.