Chapter 3559
If compared with the time when Roger led his troops to develop Star Island more than 20 years ago, it would have been much less difficult for the expedition fleet to build a colony on the shores of Swan Lake.
Not only do the Luo brothers have sufficient material support, but the natural environment here is excellent. The hydrological conditions of Swan Lake are very suitable for building a good inland port, which is much easier than Xingdao, which has no natural harbor.
The most important thing is that in the area around Swan Lake, the expeditionary force has not yet found any hostile forces that can pose a threat. This allowed the Luo brothers to focus their resources on infrastructure projects as much as possible, without having to constantly deal with threats of force from neighboring countries while building settlements like their fathers did when they developed Star Island.
Of course, the disadvantage of this place is also quite obvious, that is, it is too far from the Star Island Base Camp.
There are a large number of slow-moving cargo ships and immigrant ships in the expedition fleet. Even with the guidance of accurate charts, it took more than half a month to get here. In the future, most of the tasks of transporting people and materials between the two places may have to be undertaken by these civilian ships.
For a simple comparison, this is approximately equivalent to the flight distance between Xingdao and Hangzhou.
However, during the voyage between Xingdao and Hangzhou, there were numerous ports, large and small, with places for supply and shelter from bad weather along the way, and most of the sea area was under the control of Haihan.
As for the newly opened Swan Port going south from Xingdao, after crossing the Sunda Strait, you will enter a vast no-man's land. There is no port for supply in the thousands of miles of voyage. This is very difficult for people traveling between the two places. The ship will be no small test.
Such a long distance has led to a significant increase in the cost of developing the Swan Harbor colony on Star Island. After all, these investments can be earned back through mineral development later. What really makes the Xingdao authorities uneasy is the governance problem caused by distance.
This is just like the Star Island, which is far away from the center of power of Haihan. Over time, it will naturally be affected by the influence of the consuls and gradually become a separate entity overseas.
That's why Roger sent his two sons to lead the expedition fleet to ensure that the new colony would leave its mark deeply upon its establishment.
Of course, if the internal stability and balance of Star Island are taken into account, this team should also include the family members of Tan Juren, the second-in-command of Star Island. However, Tan Juren’s eldest son Tan Tianming has gone to Phuket on behalf of the Star Island military. His second son Tan Juren Tianming is still studying abroad in Sanya, and there is no one available for the time being, so he can only make arrangements in the future.
A week after the expedition fleet landed in Swan Lake, a telegram from Xingdao brought good news to the Luo brothers.
The Executive Committee has confirmed that the Star Island Expedition Fleet is the first team to officially set foot on the unclaimed continent and establish a colony on behalf of Haihan.
This means that they have achieved their goal of landing first before their competitor Luzon Region. For the entire Star Island Expedition Fleet, the Executive Committee will award the collective second-class merit once, and will issue commemorative medals and cash rewards to all members of the fleet.
The message also briefly explained why they were able to achieve this victory. It was because the Luzon fleet was indeed attacked by the Spanish on its way south. For this reason, it spent many days with the Spanish fleet among the islands in the Banda Sea and went through several battles. , only after the threat was eliminated, we were able to continue heading south.
The time when Luzon arrived at the scheduled location on the north coast of the mainland was only one day behind the arrival of the Xingdao Fleet at Swan Harbor. For the Luo brothers, this was considered a narrow victory. However, as Roger had predicted beforehand, the outcome of this competition was only a symbolic honor at this stage and was unlikely to have any actual impact on the development of the two regions in the New World.
The straight-line distance between the Luzon Region's chosen location on the north coast and Swan Harbor on the west coast is more than five thousand miles, and the sea voyage is nearly seven thousand miles, which is almost the same as the voyage from Xingdao. In such a distant place, even if the Luzon Region voluntarily handed over to Xingdao, it would definitely not have the spare capacity to take over now.
Therefore, the instruction given by the Executive Committee to the Xingdao Region is to continue the current development work, achieve self-sufficiency in the colony as soon as possible, and expand the scope of control in the New World based on its own development situation.
At the same time, the Executive Committee also granted the Swan Port authorities the authority to appoint local officials on their own, and to use force when necessary, and report afterwards to avoid the delay in efficiency caused by layers of reports waiting for approval.
This is indeed good news for Swan Port. Even if there is a channel for quickly transmitting information such as telegraph, if everything has to be reported and processed, the delay will be considerable. After the executive committee eliminates these red tapes, it can do many things freely.
At the same time, the team that went out to conduct reconnaissance in nearby areas brought back another news. They discovered an indigenous tribe of about three to five hundred people in the upper reaches of the Swan Lake water source about thirty miles away.
According to the description of the scout cavalry, the appearance of these indigenous people is somewhat similar to that of South Asians, with dark skin, curly hair, and generally short stature.
The indigenous people are equipped with stone knives and spears. They seem to make a living by hunting animals and picking plant fruits. It seems that they have not yet evolved to the stage of agricultural civilization.
Of course, such indigenous tribes could not pose much threat to the colonists of Swan Harbor, but the Luo brothers wished that their level of civilization could be slightly higher, so that they could at least communicate and negotiate.
But even so, they still hope to try to contact the indigenous people. If they can persuade these indigenous people to accept barter, there may be a chance for the indigenous people to sell their labor for them and do some heavy work.
So Luo Shenghuai took a batch of Haihan products and a large group of armed cavalry to visit the area where the indigenous tribes were located.
After repeated testing by both parties, part of the gifts given by Luo Shenghuai were finally accepted by the other party, but the subsequent negotiations did not go smoothly.
The two parties are basically unable to communicate through language, and can only express their meaning through gestures. However, this method is difficult to accurately convey information to the other party. After a long time of gestures, the communication is still ineffective.
Luo Shenghuai had seen many uncivilized natives near Star Island in the past, but those natives had had some contact with the outside civilized world, and communication was much easier than the natives of this New World.
Seeing that he could not achieve his goal, Luo Shenghuai could only leave in frustration. Before leaving, he asked someone to draw a map of the nearby area on the ground and marked the location of the colony.
But he never thought that the rivers and lakes on the map made the other party understand the meaning. He actually pointed at the map and nodded to them, which seemed to mean that he understood where they came from.