"Congratulations, from now on, you are the official citizens of the East Coast Republic of China." Outside Fort Linsey, the veteran township chief awarded his identity to the more than 100 Italian indentured servant laborers standing in front of him. Their labor contracts had expired before, and they had worked on the east coast for 5-7 years, and they quickly applied for citizenship, and this time the Linxibao side simply held a collective naturalization ceremony for them, and officially announced that they were residents of Linxi Township, Tieling County, Northwest Reclamation Bureau of the East Bank Republic of China.

Speaking of Tieling County, this is also just approved by the Government Council, under the jurisdiction of Tieling Town (the seat of the county government), Majiawan Township, Jinshui Township, Daoye Township and Linxi Township, a town and four townships with a total population of more than 18,000 people, this is not a small county in the Republic of East China Province, not to mention that there are Tieling Special Steel Plant, Western Forging Plant, the First Heavy Machinery Factory, Tieling Mining Bureau (manganese ore, iron ore, coal mine, gold mine) and many other backbone enterprises, can be called the second industrial town on the east coast, no matter how to raise its importance.

In order to support the development of Tieling County, the Government Council has ordered a while ago to settle in Tieling more than 1,000 foreign laborers whose contracts have expired one after another (originally aided in the construction of various infrastructure facilities in Tieling Town), and later a batch of Bezimisaraka women (about five or six hundred) shipped from New Huaxia Island were distributed to these Italians, and this is also the first time after many years, the East Coast has once again banned Malay women in New China, and it is difficult to say when it will be next time.

This batch of more than 100 Italians has also been working on the East Coast for many years, and now the language and clothing are no different from the locals, and there may be some differences in living habits and cultural cognition, but this is not a big problem, and the Executive Committee did not want to assimilate them, they are more of a second generation.

However, after all, they lived in the East Coast Republic of China, where the proportion of Ming people was as high as 44%, and the proportion of mixed-race descendants was as high as 18.2%. In this new country, elements from the East have always been dominant - most of the men are Men - so it is inevitable that they will change their habits and gradually lose their cultural identity, consciously or unconsciously. Like the Germans who emigrated from the Cape Town colony in South Africa. The bitter Germans were actually no less numerically than the Dutch, who spoke low German, but after intermarriage with the Dutch. The habits and cultural characteristics of their descendants were unanimously close to those of the Dutch, until they were eventually mostly Dutchized.

Nowadays, immigrants from the East Coast also have this trend, and their living habits are gradually moving closer to the Ming people, such as eating "Oriental bread" (steamed buns) - it is quite difficult to find a bakery on the East Coast, perhaps only in Dongfang County, Ping'an County, Qingdao County, these three places only have one or two - noodles, rice and other oriental foods, as well as some later foods advocated by the public; The costumes worn are also mainly through the costumes of the people and the Ming people, and sometimes there are some strange mixed and matched style clothes; The language is the standard East Coast (Mandarin) that is learned in evening school, marked by the Roman phonetic alphabet, and so on.

The ubiquitous social atmosphere is quietly stripping away their own cultural characteristics, forcing them to develop new living habits, and imperceptibly changing their way of thinking and philosophy of life. This is the essence of assimilation. Of course, any assimilation is mutual, and the fierce collision of Eastern and Western cultures (although it has always been dominated by Eastern culture) has also changed some of the ideas of many Oriental immigrants, such as the perspective of the problem and the way of thinking about the problem.

Even some people who have traveled through the country have been infected by these cultures and have made new corrections to their three views -- this can be seen from the trend of some mainstream magazines in the East Coast, such as "East Coast Review", "Minsheng", and "Modern East Coast". In almost every issue of these magazines, which are mainly contributors, there is a debate about new culture, new thinking, new understanding, and new perspective. These sparks of thought are constantly colliding and will take shape in time, and in time they will inevitably form the values and cultural outlook that are unique to the East Coast - one of the core elements of a new nation.

These Italian laborers have lived on the East Coast for many years. Their laid-back habits have been greatly improved, and they have become accustomed to strict labor discipline and iron-like management systems on railroad construction sites, in dark and damp mines, in muddy rivers, and in fast-paced brick kilns. To put it simply. These 5-7 years of labor have made them get a deep memory, and the so-called high-pressure society they live in will continue to teach them how to be a qualified East Coaster, which will become a conspicuous cultural imprint on them and their descendants.

"I hope that you will remember your oath under the national flag in the future, never forget your obligations, always safeguard the interests of the motherland, and always ......" Speaking of this, the old and rough township chief (a veteran) who had just taken office for a few days suddenly realized that he had forgotten his words, so he could only awkwardly end the tirade that he was about to unfold. Instead, I got to the point and talked to them about the future work.

"Given that the fourth phase of the Northwest Railway is still fully completed. This time, it's still according to the old rules. Only half of the 119 new nationals in Linxi Township who were naturalized in this batch were transferred to agricultural households, and the remaining half were all transferred to the State Railway Administration and became regular employees of the unit, continuing to fight on the construction front of the Northwest Railway. Well, you've known these things for a few months, and I told you back then that the people who are at the top of the rating during work have priority. Now let's start the roll call by rating from highest to lowest, and the people named make their choices quickly and don't waste everyone's time......"

As for the choice of future careers, to be honest, there is nothing to hesitate about for these newly naturalized workers. Most of them were peasants, with the occasional few bankrupt merchants (skilled craftsmen had long been singled out for official national status), so it was not surprising that most of the top 50 or so chose to settle down in Linxi Township and become farmers. Only a few people, who do not know what to think, are still willing to work as construction workers in the General Administration of Railways - the regular construction workers of the General Railways themselves are still very light and have a very good income, and this is probably the main reason for the attraction of these people.

The first half of the people have been selected, and the rest of the people have no choice but to honestly put away their bags and become railway workers - currently construction workers, and when the railway construction is completed, they may also receive various training and transfer to railway operation workers. To be honest, the wages of railway workers are higher than those of peasants, and the tax burden is relatively light, so it is reasonable to say that they are a relatively ideal occupation. But who made everyone from a dirt bun background, and felt that they were not sure if they didn't have any land at hand? Therefore, the status of peasants who can legally own 30 acres of land naturally attracts them, and in this regard, ancient and modern, Chinese and foreign, and all kinds of people are really no exception.

At present, the fourth phase of the Northwest Railway (from Tieling Town to the large port section, with a total length of more than 220 kilometers, and the terrain is mostly flat grassland) has been under construction for more than a year. It's a pity that most of the construction workers on the east coast are currently engaged in other projects, and the number of railway construction personnel has been greatly reduced, not to mention that a considerable number of railway construction workers have taken ships south to support the construction of the South Cone and Two Oceans Railway, which has further slowed down the construction progress of the fourth phase of the Northwest Railway, and there is really a shortage of people!

Ma Jia even wrote to Tang Yuan, the commissioner of Wujiang District, asking him to organize manpower there, and immediately transport a large number of construction machinery, labor tools and building materials after the initial improvement of the Daxing Port wharf, and then start to level the foundation, lay the railroad tracks, and repair the railway from the end of Daxing Port to the direction of Tieling Town, so that the Northwest Railway can obtain an outlet to the sea (Daxing Port on the bank of the Wujiang River, which can be directly connected to sea ships) and enhance the overall value of the railway.

Tang Yuan was entangled by him, and he himself wanted to develop Daxing Port in the jurisdiction, so he pushed the boat down the river and agreed to the request of the vest, and then invited the vest to go to the central government to ask for funds, materials, and personnel, which made the central bosses have a headache, and they were about to avoid these two "old cadres", which was really a wolf.

It can also be seen from this that the builders of the East Coast Republic of China are too eager to complete the construction, and no regime in ancient and modern history would require the completion of such a scale and high standard of infrastructure construction in just a few years, not to mention that there are many projects that are quite cutting-edge in this era - such as urban sewage treatment, such as railways, such as urban water supply facilities, such as high-grade highways, such as modern docks, and so on. If you want to complete these infrastructure projects in settlements across the country, without squeezing every ounce of the country's potential, how can you do this?

Of course, if you want to build slowly and leisurely, that's a different story. Look at the Spaniards, it took decades, and the city of Potosi is still that bird-like, tattered; Look at the British colonies in New England, the cities are very simple, and the peasants are like garbage pickers; If you look at the Dutch colony in the East Indies, the dirty city streets, I don't know how many germs have been bred and how many lives have been taken......

The people of the East Coast certainly will not allow their city to be built so slowly, so backward! How could the travelers who had seen the modern cities of later generations endure living in backward cities in the Middle Ages for a long time? And how can we endure the delay in reverting to a more modern way of life? Therefore, it is no wonder that the people on the east coast are so keen on building large-scale construction, and this enthusiasm for construction has also been forced out. (To be continued)