On June 6, 1686, in eastern northern Brazil, it was another day of unstoppable heat.

Two ships full of migrants docked off the coast of Puchang County, and more than 2,000 Protestant immigrants from France stumbled out of the cabin carrying their packages. Truth be told, this hot land is not pleasing to them. Coming from northern France, where the climate is colder and the winters are often snowy, they are very different from northern eastern Brazil, where frost is not seen once a year, so it's no wonder they're disappointed.

Of course, the disappointment only existed for a moment, and it was indeed a joy for them to continue to stay in France and suffer persecution and come to the relatively peaceful east coast. According to the description of Michelet, a later French scholar specializing in the Edict of Nantes: "...... They (the soldiers) poured boiling water down the throats of the Huguenots...... They whipped the Huguenots, burned their arms and feet with candles, and forced them to hold burning coals in their hands...... The soldiers caught the feet of many and burned them on the fire; They forced Huguenot women to stand in the streets, where they were insulted and ridiculed by passers-by...... They tied a nursing mother to a bedpost and made her baby cry and scream until she starved to death......"

The French army persecuted the Huguenots so desperately that these poor people had long been frightened. Now that we can cross the ocean to a stable, tranquil country with a relatively liberal religion, what is there not to be satisfied with? Are those damp and sweltering forests on land more terrible than the butcher's knives of Catholic soldiers? How can it be!

Melodious music resounded on the pier as the first French Huguenots to arrive were playing for the faithful to welcome them. These former French artists came from their farmlands, lumberyards, taverns, inns, and other places of work for no other reason than to welcome the French refugees.

Several officials of the Statistical Survey Bureau of Syphilis Patients, dressed in black skins, patrolled the area, looking at these French Huguenots with gloomy faces, and had already made up their minds that when they returned, they would write a report and ask their superiors to disperse all of them, and divide them into relatively sparsely populated places such as Jiaohe, Ningchang, Hue, Jiangbei, and Bac Ninh, so as to see what big waves they could bear.

In the end, it is not obediently contributing their blood and sweat to the great cause of tropical reclamation on the east coast!

It is said that the last two East Coast governments have paid great attention to the development of the Pampa Plain, and invested a lot of manpower and material resources there, so that the local population has increased dramatically and developed rapidly, becoming an important economic region in China. Compared with the extreme importance attached to the Pampa Plains by the local people, the two governments under Liao Xiaoyao have really lackluster investment in Brazil, not only with few funds, but also with few people, so the local area has been sparsely populated for so many years.

After the current Ma Wenqiang government came to power, although it still set the national policy of focusing on the development of the Pampa Plain, it also made some fine-tuning to the previous policy, that is, appropriately increased investment in the Brazilian region, so as not to overly imbalance the development between regions. At the beginning of this year, the Executive Committee approved the establishment of Jinguo County (under the jurisdiction of Jinguo Town, Gouqu Township, Yanya Township, the 136th county in the country), Xiqiao County (under the jurisdiction of Xiqiao Township, Changsco Township, Waterfall Township, Xianggou Township, the 137th county in the country), Jinglong County (under the jurisdiction of Jinglong Town, Cuiwu Township, Feinan Township, Feibei Township, the 138th county in the country), Xinfu County (under the jurisdiction of Xinfu Town, Changshou Township, Linjian Township, Lingqiu Township, the 139th county in the country), Puchang County (under the jurisdiction of Puchang Town, Liuzhong Township, Tuman Township). , Wusun Township, Xianqing Township, the 140th county in the country), Cheshi County (under the jurisdiction of Cheshi Town, Qianting Township, Pingding Township, Neitian Township, the 141st county in the country), Changcen County (under the jurisdiction of Changcen Township, Feiru Township, Daifang Township, Lezhi Township, the 142nd county in the country), Changli County (under the jurisdiction of Changli Township, Gaoxian Township, Bintu Township, Anshi Township, Wangping Township, the 143rd county in the country), Zhuolu County (under the jurisdiction of Zhuolu Township, Baodai Township, Lelang Township, Panquan Township, the 144th county in the country).

Nine new counties were established in one go, and although most of them were old settlements that had been established before, and very few new ones were added, the granting of the status of county-level administrative units to these settlements was itself a form of support. This means that these counties are now included in the central government's budget for expenditure, and from then on they can receive all kinds of central allocations, instead of going to the county accounts that are in escrow and then transferred to them, as was the case before. Not only is there not much money, but also the middle layer of geese has to be plucked, of course, it is not as strong as opening an independent account now.

And since the account has been opened independently, then the central government will naturally have to give a little quota of immigrants and the quota of land reclamation in addition to the appropriation, otherwise how can you make the work of these counties carry out? Thus, after some compromise and bargaining, the nine counties in Brazil finally won a share of a total of 30,000 immigrants: 10,000 from the new generation born in China, 10,000 from the Far East, and 10,000 from non-nationals and European immigrants.

Today, the Huguenots from northern France are part of that third. They are Protestant, they only speak French, they are not the mainstream ethnic groups of the East Coast, and they are not so-called high-quality immigrants. If it is given to the Pampa region, most of the local officials will not want it, and Brazil has been neglected by the higher authorities for many years, and the wasteland in the territory is one after another, and it is in urgent need of manpower to develop and not be picky.

But Rao is like this, and the number of people who are transferred from above is very limited. After this wave of 30,000 people, how many places will be available next year is still unknown, in short, it is not very optimistic. You must know that with the increasing tension in the European continent, the number of people imported from the Black Sea by the East Coast has been greatly reduced, and Gao Wen, the special envoy plenipotentiary to Europe, has been trying to use more precious funds to enhance the influence of the East Coast, collect information, and raise the army since last year, and the funds that can be used to purchase the population are very small. What's more, the main forces of the Crimean Tatars, the main patrons, were attracted to the northern shore of the Black Sea by the movements of the Russian army, and did not have time to go out to plunder, and the "stocks" on hand were quite insufficient. Add to this the bad reputation of human trafficking – something that even its allies in Italy have complained about – and the number of Slavs who have arrived on the East Coast from the Black Sea region has plummeted by two-thirds, a very small number. For such a situation, how can Brazil get too many people raised by a stepmother? It's simply impossible!

"These French must be screened tightly. Although I don't believe that there are French spies among them, it is better to be careful in everything, and there is no one less procedure to follow. These Huguenots, who generally have a high level of knowledge and know a lot of things, let them see something they shouldn't see, and maybe they will soon find their way out. You have to remember that they are not East Coast nationals yet, and they will not be counted until they have worked here for five years, so you don't need to be too polite to them and not cause any trouble. The head of a syphilis patient survey officer instructed his men: "Of course, don't go too far, these people have been oppressed enough in France, and for humanitarian reasons, we should also give them a stable living environment, provided that they comply with the laws and regulations of the East Coast." ”

"Understood." The crowd whispered in reply.

The persecution of the Huguenots intensified in France, and the country's 1.5 million Protestants either converted, pretended to convert, or bravely fled abroad, leaving little other way. The Protestant countries of continental Europe laughed at the wave of Huguenots immigrants, such as England. Even some of the more religiously tolerant Catholic countries have absorbed some French immigrants, such as Courland.

Although the East Coast was a pagan country and lived in the distant Southern New World, its religion was relatively tolerant, coupled with a stable life and a developed economy, which also attracted a considerable number of Huguenots to settle down. So far, the total number has probably exceeded 20,000, and it is still increasing.

These people brought a lot of money, and many of them were craftsmen, painters, musicians, scholars, etc., and they were very fond of high-quality immigrants on the East Coast. However, there is no green light for these high-quality immigrants, who still need to meet the naturalization conditions in the East Coast Homestead Act to become East Coast nationals, which is very different from the direct granting of citizenship in the Netherlands and England.

And for their beliefs, the government also attaches great importance to them. Because the Protestant church has not been legally established on the east coast for a long time, and there are very few Protestant churches in the country—in fact, there are not many Catholic churches, which are usually found in larger cities—so the Religious Affairs Office directly under the Executive Committee also allocated an additional 50,000 yuan in cash to build a Protestant church in each of Puchang, Jinglong, and Changcen counties for the Huguenots to use for their religious ceremonies.

The Protestant priests who presided over the church were all sent by the Religious Affairs Office, and they were all pastors trained by the East Bank Republic itself, and had no relationship with the outside world (similar to the Three-Self Church in China in later generations, autonomous, self-supporting, and autobiographical), so as not to be taken advantage of by foreign forces. In the ideological field, people on the east coast have always been very tightly grasped, and in private, missionaries are generally positioned as cults, and if they are caught, the sentence is not negotiable.

The clergy, who were already in the French Huguenots, needed to go to the religious affairs office to study uniformly, and then obtain the qualifications issued by them before they could preach on the job. Otherwise, they will also be illegally spreading cult elements, and if they are caught, they will also have to be exiled to overseas colonies.

There must have been some of these French clergy who were unwilling to accept this condition. But the people on the East Coast will not change their policies for them at all, and if they do, they will be introduced to New Courland, where there is still more respect for the Holy See, but it is not known what will happen to Protestant priests when they go to Catholic territory.

"Later, there are many people who cooperate with the State Development Administration, and since these people are here to develop the wilderness, it is naturally impossible for all of them to stay in the developed areas. The General Development Bureau had already planned the route for them, and they all headed inland, cutting trees and grass while building new villages and towns. This process is undoubtedly arduous and dangerous, and these French may not always be so obedient, so you should pay more attention to the unstable elements in the crowd, and record the signs at the first sign and focus on observation. If necessary, you can take it on the spot, but you must talk to the head of the local pioneer village to avoid misunderstandings. The intelligence secretly continued: "In addition, you are also staring at the group of grandsons of the General Bureau of Exploitation, some of whom have great appetites, and do not blink an eye when they embezzle tents, tools, food, clothing, and medicines necessary for the cultivation of wasteland, especially the precious medicines. We can't tolerate these silverfish in these countries, and as soon as there is conclusive evidence, we will immediately come to the door to arrest people. ”

In other words, people on the east coast have always had a certain fear of difficulties in the development of Brazil. The hot and humid environment of tropical forests, rampant snakes and insects, frequent diseases, and the hidden arrows of the elusive natives are all headaches. As a result, they would rather settle more migrants into the temperate, endless, fertile Pampa plains than in the forests and mountains of the Brazilian highlands.

For many years, they insisted on bringing in large numbers of Slavic slaves from the Black Sea to carry out the first round of "conquest" of these tropical wildernesses. After these people have waded through the mines, the second wave of immigrants (generally Far Eastern immigrants + native-born new generations) will flock to reclaim the land, build villages and towns, and completely take root. In the process, although the mortality rate of immigrants is still high, it has been greatly reduced compared to the completely primitive environment of the first round.

Therefore, these foreign indentured slaves were always very important, and every year regular Slavic slaves were sent to various places for pioneering. This time, like many French, the people of the east coast did not intend to waste it, and all of them were resettled in the newly established counties of the Brazilian highlands, so that they could become the backbone of local land reclamation.

The only pity is that the appeal of the East Coast Republic is still not strong enough among the Huguenots in France, and it is a little far away, so it cannot compete with the Protestant countries of the United Provinces, England, Brandenburg-Prussia, Sweden, etc. However, as Su said, the people of the East Coast do not have to be such proud Frenchmen. Now that a big war is brewing on the northern shore of the Black Sea, if the war goes smoothly in the future, another wave of big business will come (the Crimean Tatars have captured a large number of Russian prisoners of war), as long as the princes of the Executive Committee can withstand the diplomatic pressure that may come from the Russian Empire and not be intimidated by Moscow, then there will be absolutely no shortage of cannon fodder for land reclamation!