Wind Rises in North America 1625

Chapter 544 The Rear (Part 5)

On September 19th, the morning mist had not yet dissipated, and the surface of the Qiongjiang River was shrouded in water vapor, which mingled with the smoke rising from the various wineries in the city, filling the entire Huichuan City (now Portland) with a faint aroma of malt and the sweet fragrance of fermenting grapes.

The dock was already bustling with activity. Barges loaded with newly harvested barley and grapes from the Qiongjiang River Valley slowly docked. Workers chanted as they unloaded bags of grain and barrels of newly brewed liquor, which were then transported by horse-drawn carts to various wineries in the city.

More ships laden with grain sailed directly down the Meridian River (now the Columbia River) to the estuary, where they would stop briefly to replenish their freshwater and food supplies before continuing south to the distant Mexican front.

The shadow of war did not seem to have enveloped this small riverside town.

On the contrary, it is injecting a strange vitality into Huichuan.

Zhang Sanxing wiped the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve, picked up the mallet, and hammered the last oak barrel lid wedge tightly.

The air in the factory was filled with a strong, intoxicating aroma of wine, almost enough to make one drunk.

The "Hekou Winery" where he works is the largest of the three wineries in Huichuan County, mainly producing wine.

"Xiao San, hurry up! The warehouse is urging us again; this batch of liquor must be shipped out before sunset today!" Foreman Lao Zhao shouted across the mountain of wooden barrels.

"Got it!" Zhang Sanxing responded loudly, and his hands moved even faster.

He just turned twenty this year. He is from Daming Prefecture, Hebei Province, and came to Huichuan two years ago on an immigrant ship.

When he first arrived, he was all alone, with only a resettlement ticket issued by the government and a change of work clothes in his pocket.

Having worked as an apprentice at a distillery, he was recruited to this distillery, and now he is a skilled worker there.

After the war began, orders for the distillery poured in like spring water from the Qiongjiang River.

Previously, the distillery mainly supplied ocean-going merchant ships, the colonies in northern Japan, and...

Uh, there are also supplies from the Spanish in the south.

When the war broke out, business with the Spanish stopped, but orders from the military came pouring in.

The order documents from the Military Supplies Department were stamped with a bright red seal, requesting barrels of wine that could be stored for a long time and were easy to transport, supposedly for the soldiers at the front.

The work got busier, and the wages went up.

Zhang Sanxing still remembers when he first entered the factory, he worked himself to the bone for a month and only earned three yuan and fifty cents - of course, at that time he was still an apprentice and his salary was relatively low.

Last month, his wages plus piece-rate bonuses totaled five yuan and six jiao!

His coarse cloth money bag was stuffed full of heavy silver dollars and copper coins, and it felt very reassuring.

He figured that if he worked for a few more months, he could pay off most of the loan he owed the government for his new home, and maybe even find a wife to carry on the Zhang family line.

As the break bell rang, Zhang Sanxing and his coworkers gathered in the canteen, eating and chatting while enjoying their steaming bowls of rice and salted fish.

"Hey, you guys know what? My neighbor next door just joined the army last year, right? He just sent a message back to his wife saying he did a great job, received a lot of rewards, and even sent his pay and bonuses back through the government postal service. Goodness, a whole twenty dollars! And the war hasn't even been going on for a few months!" one of the workers exclaimed.

“Serving in the army is so dangerous! ... This is all money earned by risking one's life!” Another, more mature-looking man shook his head.

“What’s so dangerous? The Western barbarians are no match for us! Aren’t there government clerks on the streets every day proclaiming that our Xinhua army is winning battles every now and then, and we’re almost at Mexico City! I think the Western barbarians are cowards! Besides, this war was worth it. If it weren’t for this war, would our distillery be so successful, and would we be getting so much pay?” the former worker retorted, his tone tinged with optimism about the war.

Zhang Sanxing listened silently, his hands constantly shoveling rice into his bowl.

He had no concept of war, and he didn't even know exactly where Mexico was.

All he knew was that with more work, more money, and more minced meat and oil in the canteen food.

The streets of Huichuan City seemed more bustling than before, with a constant stream of horse-drawn carts carrying goods, and wineries, hardware factories, grain and oil factories, and clothing factories all recruiting workers.

Prices have risen slightly, but it's far from being unbearable; his increased wages are enough to make ends meet.

As for the Spaniards?

His only impression was of the distillery owner, Mr. Fernandez, who was said to have been Spanish in the past.

However, the owner was a good person and had excellent skills; the wine he brewed was exceptional.

Zhang Sanxing felt that the Spanish were probably not all bad people, at least not his boss, who was usually quite kind to them, the workers.

Therefore, his feelings about the war were far less real than his feelings about the extra wages in his pocket.

The distillery owner, Miguel Fernandez, whom Zhang Sanxing was talking about, was standing at the window of his second-floor office, looking down at the busy workshop below.

Workers scurried about like worker ants, loading barrels of wine, sealed with "Special Military Supply" stickers, onto horse-drawn carts and transporting them to the dock.

The air was filled with a fragrance he was familiar with and had pursued all his life, but at this moment, that fragrance was mixed with a complex emotion that was hard to describe.

He was nearly fifty years old, his face etched with wrinkles by the sea breeze and the passage of time, and his deep-set blue eyes held unspoken thoughts.

He was a sailor on the Spanish Pacific galleon trade route, traveling between Manila and Acapulco.

Seventeen years earlier (1625), on his return to the Americas, a terrible storm pushed his ship off course and eventually drifted to the coast of an unfamiliar island (Qiming Island).

The captain discovered signs of activity by the "natives" on the shore, so he sent them ashore in small boats to conquer this unfamiliar land.

As a result, they encountered the new Chinese, or more accurately, the original veterans of the new Chinese. They easily thwarted the invasion and immediately launched a strong counterattack, killing the captain, first mate, and more than twenty of their companions, and then capturing the remaining crew.

Unsurprisingly, Fernandez and the other prisoners eventually surrendered to Xinhua and became their followers in establishing their foundation.

In the blink of an eye, seventeen years have passed. Xinhua has grown from a population of just over a hundred people and a small fortress to a force of over 300,000, with its territory expanding from Qiming Island all the way to Yongning Bay, and more than a hundred ships of various sizes, becoming the most powerful force on the eastern coast of the Pacific Ocean.

Even a powerful kingdom like Spain dares not challenge the might of Xinhua.

He rose from a Spanish sailor to become one of the many founders of Xinhua, a true founding father of the nation.

For more than a decade, he first joined the Xinhua Navy, sailing ships back and forth across the Pacific Ocean every year, continuously transporting wave after wave of immigrants from the East to Xinhua, until he retired with honors four years ago with the rank of Navy Lieutenant Commander.

In Xinhua, he learned Chinese, adopted a Chinese name, married a Ming woman, and had eight children, living a life of dignity and status.

Three years ago, Gao Wenrui, the head of the Ziwu River Reclamation Zone, invited him to invest in and build a factory in Huichuan to support the local economic development.

Thanks to the superior climate and geographical conditions of the Qiongjiang River Valley, the government of the settlement area not only steadily expanded the area of ​​grain crops, but also encouraged immigrants to plant grapes in large quantities in front of and behind their houses, actively expanding the development of agricultural and sideline industries.

It must be admitted that this Commissioner Gao has a very unique vision. The Qiongjiang River Valley is very suitable for grape cultivation. In just two years, several counties in the valley region have achieved large-scale grape production.

In order to utilize these grapes and improve farmers' income, the establishment of a winery has been put on the agenda.

Fernandez spent a great deal of money to poach several winemakers from Mexico and Lima. With the policy and technical support of the colony government, he built the "Estudy Winery," which quickly became a signature wine of the Meridian region, replacing imported wines from Spanish America.

His wine was even smuggled to the Governor General's Palace in Mexico City, becoming an essential beverage for the daily enjoyment of high-ranking colonial officials there.

However, the good times didn't last long, and news of war arrived.

Xinhua and the Kingdom of Spain clashed again, and this time Xinhua took the initiative to declare war on Spain and quickly invaded Mexican territory.

In fact, by this time, he had long lost all affection for that so-called "mother country." Apart from his own bloodline and appearance, which still bore a trace of Spanish heritage, he felt that he was a true new Chinese.

Moreover, he was one of the founders of this country.

Therefore, in the early stages of the war, he was not worried at all about being impacted, nor was he afraid that he would be regarded as an "enemy overseas Chinese" by the local government, have his property confiscated, or suffer personal persecution.

He believed that his interests and identity were tied to those of Xinhua's veterans.

In the past few months, officials from Huichuan have continued to come to inspect as usual, and tax collectors have been collecting taxes according to regulations as before. The workers still respectfully call him "Boss Fei" or "Master".

Xinhua's military and intelligence departments even consulted him several times on Western strategy because he was "familiar with the situation of the Western barbarians," providing him with information about the lives and customs of the people in the new Spanish colonial territories.

Immediately following this were military orders pouring in like snowflakes.

This is because beer is difficult to preserve and transport over long distances.

Strong liquor (such as sorghum liquor and potato liquor) is more expensive and can easily cause soldiers to get drunk and lose control, so it is only used for special rations or medical purposes.

Only wine strikes the best balance between safety, transportability, and cost, thus gaining favor with the military.

"Master, the quartermasters are here again, asking when the next batch of two hundred barrels of wine will be delivered." The accountant he had invited came upstairs with the ledger, his tone carrying a mixture of joy and annoyance.

Fernando turned around and sighed: "Tell them that there are plenty of raw materials, the workers are working day and night in two shifts, and the goods will definitely be delivered by the end of the month."

Orders and profits poured in, and his distillery had never been so prosperous.

He increased the workers' wages, purchased new equipment, and pre-ordered more grapes for the following year in several counties in the Qiongjiang River Valley.

The war became a catalyst for the expansion of his business.

The money he used to purchase Spanish noble collections came from the profits he made from supplying alcohol to the Xinhua army.

The irony of this often made him smile bitterly to himself in the quiet of the night.

A few days ago, he was invited to a spoils auction held by the district government.

Looking at those Mexican items—Spanish-style silver crosses, silk embroidered with family crests, Baroque-style oil paintings, and even several barrels of fine tequila—being openly sold as spoils of war, his feelings were complex and indescribable.

These were things he had desperately wanted but could never have, and now they were being auctioned off at a price far below market value.

He knew that these things were all captured by our brave Xinhua soldiers when they broke through Spanish towns.

So, with a strange feeling in his heart, he bid on a series of items, including a Bible decorated with gold and silver trim by a Spanish nobleman, dazzling banquet glasses, high-end tequila that he had heard of but never tasted, and even a bag of coffee beans.

As he admired the auction items, he felt not joy, but a profound sense of nostalgia and historical absurdity that transcended the American continent.

He took out an exquisite wine glass, poured a glass of wine produced by his own winery, and facing the direction of the workshop, whispered in his native language, which no one could hear, "Cheers to this absurd fate."

He then downed the wine in one gulp.

The machines in the factory still roared, and the shouts of the dock workers loading military supplies were as loud as ever.

All of this told him with absolute clarity that he belonged here, that he belonged in the present.

The past has become an expensive trophy, something to be cherished only.
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(End of this chapter)