Wind Rises in North America 1625

Chapter 319 Xinhua Bay Colonization Team (Continued)

On April 6, 1636, the Qingming Festival had just passed, and a slight chill still lingered in the air.

Four medium-sized transport ships were quietly moored in Shixing Port, their hulls swaying gently with the soft ripples of the water.

Several days ago, these ships were surrounded by busy crowds, with sailors moving back and forth on the decks, shouting work songs as they hoisted bags of grain and tools onto the ships.

This morning, more than six hundred Ming Dynasty immigrants with different expressions boarded the ship one by one.

Among them were strong, robust young men, their eyes filled with trepidation and anticipation for the unknown future, and women with their families, clutching their children tightly, their eyes full of unease.

After everything was ready, at the captain's command, several ships slowly sailed away from the calm bay one by one.

The sails billowed in the sea breeze, and the ship gradually increased its speed, speeding towards the southeast, leaving white streaks in its wake on the sea.

Luo Congnan, wrapped in a woolen military police overcoat, stood on one side of the ship's railing, feeling the salty sea breeze and looking at the boundless blue sea. He felt a sense of vastness before him and an overwhelming sense of pride rose in his heart.

This is the time for a true man to make his mark and achieve great things!

"Want a sip?" A short, stocky man holding a bottle of liquor walked up to him with a smile.

"I won't drink a drop of wine with a Tartar like you!" Luo Congnan glanced at him, his face instantly turning cold, his words full of disgust.

“Captain Luo, we’re both in the Internal Affairs Department now, so we’re all in the same boat. Why be so formal?” Tong Yongxiang was unfazed by his blunt retort. He simply shrugged and took a small sip from the bottle. “Look, this sea breeze is like a knife, it’s so cold! At least a sip of wine can warm me up.”

"Hmm, I'm a little tipsy, but I'll be able to get a good night's sleep in the cabin later. I imagine none of us slept well last night after saying goodbye to our families and friends?"

After signing a ceasefire agreement with the Spanish, Tong Yongxiang ended his "military guidance" work with the Guaymiya tribe in Panama and returned to Xinhua.

After the establishment of the National Intelligence Agency, a subordinate agency of the Ministry of the Interior, he was recruited to join it and served as the deputy director of the Indigenous Affairs Management Office, specializing in supervising, transforming and handling various affairs of local indigenous tribes.

Therefore, what he said about sharing meals with Luo Congnan was not wrong.

"I slept perfectly well!" Luo Congnan snorted coldly, turned his face away, and subconsciously looked towards Qiming Island.

Damn it, I'm going to take up my post at the Xinhua Bay Colonization Team. I don't know if that country bumpkin can take good care of her two little brats.

"Commander Luo, why do you think we were slaves to the Tartars before?" Tong Yongxiang's lips curled into a mocking smile. "Because the Ming Dynasty never treated us Liaodong people as human beings!"

"So, you took up arms and turned around to follow the Jurchens to slaughter your former comrades?" Luo Congnan said bitterly.

"Back then, there were rumors all over Liaodong that the four great hatreds of the Liaodong people were the most heartbreaking one: the eunuch Gao's chaos in Liaodong!" Tong Yongxiang did not answer Luo Congnan's question. After taking a swig of liquor, he said to himself, "That dog of a mining supervisor has been ruthlessly embezzling military pay since he came to Liaodong. Not to mention that ordinary soldiers can't get enough to eat, even the centurions and captains in the army have been squandering their wealth. There are countless examples of this."

"To pay taxes and survive, we Liaodong soldiers had no choice but to sell our children. Some military wives couldn't bear it any longer and thousands of them starved to death. Haha, even the dead weren't spared; their bodies were hung on the flagpoles of the garrison. Those corpses swayed in the cold wind of Liaodong for three days and three nights; it was a chilling sight!"

"Could it be that your wife was hanged by that eunuch Gao on the flagpole of the garrison?" Luo Congnan said sarcastically, his vicious words like a sharp blade piercing Tong Yongxiang.

"Heh heh, how could someone as insignificant as me have a wife by my side?" Tong Yongxiang smiled bitterly. "To tell you the truth, when I was fifteen, I personally witnessed my mother being hung on the flagpole atop the garrison city wall!"

"In the 45th year of the Wanli reign, my family's twenty mu of military farmland required us to pay ten shi of grain, five bolts of cloth, and three hundred jin of fodder. That wasn't all; the government also forcibly requisitioned carts to transport the grain. My family's donkey was worked to death halfway there, but the officials told my father that even a dead donkey had to pull the cart. Isn't that bullying people?"

"Heh heh..." Tong Yongxiang took a big gulp of liquor and chuckled sinisterly, "So, my father was treated like a donkey pulling a cart and was whipped to death on the road. Father dead, mother dead, all that's left is me, a half-grown boy not even fifteen years old. Tell me, how am I supposed to live?"

"To hell with the Zhu Emperor! I'm willing to risk my life to take my last knife and go to that old fool (Nurhaci) to demand justice!"

"..." Luo Congnan glared at him, his eyes seemingly spitting fire, "You bunch of fake Tartars, you all like to find a good reason to surrender to the slaves!"

"..." Tong Yongxiang leaned on the gunwale, exhaled a breath of stale air, shook his head and said, "Commander Luo, I remember when I was a child, I went with my father to buy donkeys at the Fushun horse market. I saw Tartar merchants shouting in broken Chinese, 'Anyone who submits to Hetu Ala will be given a draft ox and three bushels of grain.' In a short time, hundreds or even thousands of people responded. ... Ha, that's how I went with the Tartars."

"In the 45th year of the Wanli reign, when I joined the Jurchens, more than 3,000 households of soldiers from Kaiyuan Guard fled, and more than half of them fled to Jurchen territory. Even more extreme, some of the fleeing soldiers dismantled the cannons on the city walls as a pledge of allegiance to the Jurchens, hoping to gain promotion."

"What's even more ironic is that while the Ming army was being slaughtered by the Jurchens at the Battle of Sarhu, hundreds of Liao blacksmiths were helping to repair armor and weapons in the Eight Banners formation. Did you know that these blacksmiths were forging muskets and weapons for the Ming army just a few months earlier?"

"Guess why? It's because when the imperial court conscripted these craftsmen to come to Liaodong, they withheld their resettlement allowances, leaving them with no way out." Tong Yongxiang's voice grew increasingly low, filled with deep helplessness and sorrow.

"Heh, the imperial court thought that withholding those thirty taels of resettlement allowance was no big deal, but they never considered that this would cut off the livelihoods of those craftsmen and destroy their own foundation!"

The sea breeze continued to howl, and the ship moved steadily forward through the waves. However, Tong Yongxiang's conversation pulled Luo Congnan back to that heavy and chaotic past, leaving him unable to calm down for a long time.

"It was only when we arrived in Xinhua that we Liaodong people finally started to live like human beings!"
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Shixing Port was separated from Xinhua Bay Colonization Area by only the narrow Qiming Strait. The fleet sailed for more than seven hours and arrived at Gu'anbao (now Townsend Port) at 4:20 pm.

This settlement, established less than two years ago, has a population of just over fifty people. It has built a small wooden stockade, making it a typical midway supply point.

The dock was extremely rudimentary, with no pier for ships to dock easily, and no breakwater to protect against the waves. Several transport ships could only moor far away on the sea, about forty meters from the shore.

Several small boats were lowered, and the food, tools, wine, and other supplies they carried were gradually transferred ashore.

Gu'an Fort was too small to accommodate too many people, so when the fleet stopped there to rest, most of the people, except for the senior management of the colonization team who were welcomed into the fort, were left on the ship.

In fact, apart from relatively good shipping conditions and abundant fish resources, the agricultural conditions in Xinhua Bay are really unsatisfactory.

The surrounding land is almost entirely composed of glacial hills and narrow U-shaped valleys, with dense forests, making it extremely difficult to develop agriculture. After more than a year of development, Gu'anbao had only managed to cultivate a little over 100 acres of land, and the vegetables and grains planted there grew unevenly, with yields being pitifully low.

This resulted in the village not having a rich variety of produce; apart from dried fish, potatoes, and corn, there was basically nothing decent to offer to the important figures from the village.

After attending a simple and meager banquet, Luo Congnan had no time to rest when he received a summons from the head of the Xinhua Bay Colonization Team, ordering him to attend a meeting immediately.

He dared not delay, and after dressing neatly, he immediately rushed to the leader's lodging.

"...Your Gu'an Fort lacks manpower, and it is unrealistic to expect to cultivate more land for food production in the short term. For now, you should adapt to local conditions and formulate a development path and goals that suit your own circumstances."

"Guanbao is a vital maritime hub connecting the core base of Qiming Island and the Xinhua Bay colonization area, and its role should be that of a port supply point."

"So, shouldn't you vigorously develop fruit and vegetable cultivation, build more warehouses and hotels, and provide services such as food and water supply and rest for passing ships?"

"But look at what you've done in the past year or so. The docks haven't been repaired, the resettlement area for immigrants hasn't been built, the warehouses haven't been built, and you haven't even opened up a few more acres of vegetable gardens."

"You think that as long as you grow more food, you can fill your own stomachs?... Hmph, what a naive idea!"

"It is important to understand that Xinhua Bay Colonization Zone is a whole. Development must be coordinated and balanced, and we must highlight the characteristics of the region. We must not just focus on our own hard work and ignore the overall pace of development."

"..."

Inside the government office, Lu Zhenzhong, the head of the Xinhua Bay Expansion Team, was reprimanding Yu Zhongmin, the head of Gu'anbao Village, without any politeness. His words were sharp, like sharp arrows, aimed at Yu Zhongmin, and he seemed very dissatisfied with his work results over the past year.

Luo Congnan quietly entered the hall, bowed slightly, and stood quietly to the side.

Lu Zhenzhong glanced at him, his expression softening slightly, and gestured for him to sit down.

"Alright, go down and think it over carefully. Also, discuss it with your subordinates, pool your wisdom and efforts, and strive to build Gu'anbao into a relatively well-equipped material supply transshipment port as soon as possible."

"Yes, sir!" Yu Zhongmin secretly breathed a sigh of relief, bowed respectfully, took a few steps back, wiped the sweat from his forehead, and then turned and left the government office.

“Captain Luo…” Lü Zhenzhong turned to look at Luo Congnan.

"Your humble servant is here!" Luo Congnan bowed and replied.

“Although you belong to the Ministry of Internal Affairs’ police system, you are also a seasoned and valiant soldier.” Lu Zhenzhong looked at him intently. “Now that you’ve arrived at the Xinhua Bay Colonization Area, I wonder if you can stabilize the situation and allow us to carry out development and construction in the entire area safely?”

"..." Luo Congnan took a deep breath and said in a deep voice, "Please give your orders, sir. I am willing to die for you!"

"Give orders?" Lu Zhenzhong smiled, took a few steps forward, and patted him on the shoulder. "Captain Luo, as the deputy chief of police in Xinhua Bay, you should have initiative. You can't let me arrange everything and give orders for many important matters."

"My lord..." Luo Congnan was stunned for a moment upon hearing this, then forced himself to say, "My lord, are you referring to the indigenous tribes within the colony area..."

"What do you think?" Lu Zhenzhong retorted irritably.

The Spanish were thousands of miles away, so the only ones who could threaten the Xinhua Bay colony were the local indigenous tribes.

According to feedback from early settlers, there are several large indigenous tribes in areas such as Haiyanbao, Huaanbao, Xuanhamu, and Fuanbao, with populations ranging from over 150 to 40 or 50. They mainly live in coastal plains and river valley plains, making a living by gathering, hunting, and fishing.

Especially around Sherburgh, because there was a large lake to the east (now Lake Washington, east of Seattle), with abundant water and grass and a comfortable climate, it was home to seven or eight indigenous tribes, with a total population that may have exceeded two thousand (the Duwamish, whose later chief Seattle's name became the city's name).

These indigenous people are extremely skilled at building redwood canoes. They not only catch large quantities of migratory salmon in rivers and streams, but also frequently sail out to sea outside of the fishing season to catch various kinds of sea fish. They live a pretty good life.

However, after the new immigrants arrived, after an initial period of good relations, conflicts and contradictions gradually arose due to issues such as land and salmon fishing.

For example, local tribes believe that the new Chinese immigrants have taken over their salmon fishing grounds, causing a decrease in their catch.

For example, some tribes regard cedars as sacred trees, which directly conflicts with the logging needs of the Xinhua immigrants.

For example, some tribes believe that the new Chinese immigrants have encroached on their traditional hunting grounds.

Although no serious armed conflicts have broken out between the forts and settlements under the jurisdiction of Xinhua Colonization Area and the local indigenous tribes, sporadic standoffs and expulsions occur from time to time.

Of course, before the arrival of the new Chinese, these indigenous tribes often had friction, even conflicts and killings, over salmon fishing rights and territorial violations.

Faced with this situation, the new immigrants, being unfamiliar with the local customs and traditions, generally adopt a strategy of forbearance and concession. Even when faced with strong threats from local indigenous tribes, they will compromise and provide them with some food, salt, and a small amount of ironware at a relatively "favorable" price in exchange for the opportunity to "develop stealthily".

Now, with the arrival of the second batch of more than 1,200 immigrants, the total population of the Xinhua Bay settlement will reach 2,000, making it the largest "tribal force" in the area in terms of overall strength.

none of them!

So, shouldn't we now assert our authority over the local indigenous tribes and let everyone know who the real kings and queens are here?

"I understand!" After a brief reminder from Lü Zhenzhong, Luo Congnan immediately knew what to do.

"After assuming office, I shall intensify the training of the local militia, and then launch a large-scale sweep against the surrounding indigenous peoples at the appropriate time, clarify the subordinate relationship between Xinhua and the indigenous tribes, and create a peaceful and stable development environment for the entire colony area!"

"Yes, but don't kill too much. In addition to ruthlessness, we should also be gentle and considerate. We need to find the right balance between tightening and loosening."
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(End of this chapter)