It is true that a lot of immigrants have come to the mainland recently, mainly because of the need to prevent war.

Relations with the Netherlands have fallen to a bottom in the past two years, and some maritime conflicts have even erupted between the two sides. Moreover, the Netherlands have recently made a lot of moves in Cape Town and Tulare, increasing their power through immigration, and on the other hand, buying off local natives on a large scale, and fighting against the East Coasters. At this time, even a fool could see that something was wrong, and for this reason, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the East Bank Republic of China held a second round of consultations between the two sides in the second half of last year with the Dutch in the Fort of Good Hope, focusing on how to regulate and restrain the behavior between the two sides, so as to minimize the possibility of misfire caused by accidents.

However, the attitude of the Dutch was very arrogant, they did not regard the Easterners as equal negotiable opponents, but only blindly demanded concessions from the Easterners in all aspects, and were unwilling to make any equal exchange of interests. For example, they demanded that the East Coasters immediately stop arms aid to Brazilians, and that Fort Xinhua be dearmed and turned into a free port. However, they were unwilling to respond positively to the demands of the people on the east coast for a free stop in Malacca. They were only interested in the offer of the East Coasters to transport immigrants for a fee, but probably because of their bad relations in the Ming Kingdom, so that they could not find an agent on the mainland for a while, they categorically asked the East Coast people for 500 yuan per person. It was an insincere price, and the East Coasters certainly could not afford it, so the second round of negotiations between the two sides was again fruitless – because of the arrogance of the Dutch.

Since the negotiation is fruitless, then you must be prepared to turn the other party on the other side. Given the scarcity of natural resources on the East Coast, almost everything needs to be imported. Therefore, the people of the East Coast are stepping up the purchase of all kinds of scarce materials. At the same time, he continued to collect immigrants to the East Coast through his business network in Europe. In 1641, more than 11,500 immigrants (including 6,000 Ming) were recruited to enter the east coast. It almost bursts the limited capacity of the local area. By 1642, the Executive Committee would say that it would no longer dare to bring in such a large number of people, because neither the infrastructure nor the resources of the country would allow it.

Thus, by the beginning of February 43, the merchant station in Riga of the Republic of East China had sent only about 1,000 Livonians, 500 North Germans, and 500 Bohemians to the East Coast with the help of the Hanseatic League, at a total cost of less than 10,000 yuan to pay for various expenses. The trading post of the East Coasters in Florence was much less impressive. Due to limited connections, the obstruction of hostile forces (Venetians), and the relative affluence of Italy, this year's Italian immigration imports have been significantly lower than last year's, with only a mere 900 people arriving on the east coast through the port of Livorno. By contrast, the number of slaves (mainly female slaves) imported from the Ottoman Empire has increased every year, and last year more than 1,000 Wallachian, Moldavian and Serbian slaves were imported into the East Coast through the port of Smyrna; At the port of Suez, a large number of Berber, Maghreb and Persian slaves were sent to Fort Xinhua and then transferred back to the mainland.

At a time when immigrants were being imported at these points, the Bordeaux trading station, the largest stronghold of the East Coasters on the European continent, stopped its efforts to collect immigrants at the behest of the mainland. Even the children stopped collecting for the time being, so the number of French who set out for the east coast via the Bordeaux trading station throughout the year was zero! Other words. The second-largest ethnic group in the country, the French, hardly had any new blood joining last year. But they are not alone, as ships returning from Xinhua have reported that the number of Ming immigrants imported into Xinhua by the Portuguese has also shrunk significantly since October last year. They seem to be in serious trouble, which should be related to the gradual fading of their power in the Far East. As a result, the growth of the two most populous ethnic groups in the country has stagnated almost simultaneously. The difference is that the French were artificially and temporarily excluded by the Executive Committee, while the Ming were for other reasons.

In any case, despite artificial control and intervention, the number of immigrants who entered the country through various channels from the outside world still exceeded 5,500 last year. Combined with natural population growth and a small number of cross-border smuggling, the total population of the East Coast Republic of China reached nearly 63,000 at the beginning of 43, which can be said to be a record high every year.

With so many people, it is natural that they cannot all be idle. Moreover, it coincided with the change of government, and many former central officials were transferred to local governments one after another, and began vigorous domestic construction, so the arrival of these immigrants was also timely. For example, in addition to serving as the director of the Dayuhe Naval Shipyard and responsible for supervising shipbuilding, Xiao Bailang also serves as the chairman of the National River Widening and Dredging Committee. As the name suggests, the main responsibilities of this position are to be responsible for widening and dredging several major inland river communication arteries in the country, such as the Dayu River, which connects the capital region; the two-lake canal connecting Lake Milin and Duck Lake; the Yi River connecting the Changshan Iron Mine, Xiayi River Fort and Milin Lake; The Yakuyi River, which connects the heavy industrial zone of Ping'an Town and the energy base of Coal River Township, and so on. In addition, there are small and medium-sized rivers such as Ping'an River, Xiaoxi River, and Kamakuang River that need to be dredged.

After the widening and dredging of these rivers, it will be able to pass large tonnage ships, which will be of great significance for alleviating the bottleneck of domestic capacity. Therefore, Xiao Bailang has been focusing on this matter for a considerable part recently. Over the past few months, more than 1,500 people have been assigned to various river construction sites in China, and it is expected that they will continue to contribute to the great cause of widening the canals in the Republic of China on the east bank of China for more than a year.

Ma Jia went to the South Yazihu area as a regional commissioner, presiding over the development of Huxi agricultural base on the one hand, and paying close attention to the production of various enterprises in the entire shipbuilding industry chain on the other hand. I heard that he has an iron fist over there, and those small private enterprises such as cable workshops, coop workshops, canvas workshops, blacksmith workshops, brewing workshops, etc., are included in the entire production chain and strictly regulated. Those who should expand production should immediately increase capital and expand production, and those who have no strength or procrastination will be immediately warned, or asked to get out of the way, and let the virtuous to powerful investors. Xiao Bailang said with a smile, "I heard that the movement is quite big, and many workshops that were originally exclusively operated have been forced to integrate everywhere and operate jointly. Moreover, the people of the United Industrial Credit Bank complained to Lu Shang a while ago, saying that Lao Ma forced them to lend to small enterprises that lacked funds, which infinitely magnified their business risks. But this matter was later suppressed, and when I think about it, this little thing is a fart compared to the political task of emigration from the Far East, and the pattern of these people is too small to distinguish between priorities and priorities. ”

"Lao Ma is very busy over there, and Lao Shao is also doing well in the Xiling area in the south." Liu Weimin also took over the topic and said: "He has been serving as the commissioner of the Xiling area for more than a month, and he has recently been overhauling the reservoir and irrigation canals for farmland, and it seems that he wants to open up a cotton and soybean planting area in the two places of the Corps Fort and the Invalids Farm. In addition, the expansion of the port of Rocha is also being carried out step by step, and it is said that there will be a fishing port here to specialize in fishing, and even whaling, but it seems that there are still some difficulties. After all, Luoqia Port and even the entire Xiling area have always been a sparsely populated area, and labor resources are extremely scarce. Hehe, Lao Shao is still a person with ideas, he wants to put up the shelves on the local area in advance, and when the Far East immigrants really come, they can be resettled one by one. In this way, Luo Qiake will develop all of a sudden, and it will not be a problem to build a county at that time. ”

"Hehe, he wants Luoqia to build a fourth county, I guess Lao Peng won't agree." Xiao Bailang seemed to have found some interesting topic, and said: "He is such a big soldier and ruffian to serve as the commissioner of the Yihe region, and I don't know what Lu Dao will make that place look like, if he can govern the local economy and do it, it will be really hell." As far as his military rule of law is concerned, he hasn't tossed all the already weak family backgrounds in the Yihe area. ”

Peng Zhicheng, the country's largest "military chief," resigned from his posts as chief of the general staff of the National Armed Forces and minister of the Army, and was transferred to the posts of Yihe District Commissioner and National Railway Superintendent. At present, the Yihe area has three places: Changshan Fort, Xia Yihe Fort and Meilin Port, which can be described as vast and sparsely populated. As one of the three major bases for undertaking oriental immigrants in China (the other two are the Xiling area and the South Yazihu area), the Yihe area has fertile land, convenient transportation and great development potential. For this reason, Peng Zhicheng launched a lot of old relations, and finally won the promise of the first batch of 1,000 sets of Ming resettlement houses in China to settle in the area near Meilin Port, which made Ma Jia, Shao Shude and others sigh.

In fact, the Executive Committee and the Government Council have done a lot of preparatory work in order to undertake the possible arrival of a large number of Ming immigrants. For example, the construction of resettlement houses, the construction of farmland water conservancy and irrigation facilities, the construction of transportation facilities, the leveling and reclamation of wasteland, and so on. These constructions are mainly concentrated in the above three areas, and if everything goes well, it will not be a problem to resettle 20,000 or 30,000 people in these three areas.

For the time being, Peng Zhicheng's other task, the National Railway Supervision Office, is mainly to pay close attention to the laying of the double track of the Luomei Line Railway, with a view to connecting the six stations in these two places with a double-track railway as soon as possible. Because only when the double-track railway is built, the vehicles can go north and south at the same time, which really means that the whole line of the railway is connected. And this work will undoubtedly absorb a large number of newly arrived Ming migrant laborers.

To sum up, the local government has basically prepared houses, farmland, roads and even jobs, and has waited for someone to come and fill in. (To be continued......)