On May 20, 1648, Li Zhengang, dressed in a sky-blue denim jacket and wearing a straw hat, stood on the north bank of the flowing Cotton River (Fihranana River) and measured the land with several officials sent by the New China Pioneer Team.

At this time, it is already the dry season (cool season), and the muddy and fierce Cotton River during the rainy season is now quite quiet and docile, and the water level is much lower than then, and of course, with the amount of sediment carried down from the upper reaches of the river, the water quality is also getting clearer. There are a few unnamed trees growing sparsely along the shore, and in addition to that, there are wild grasses everywhere.

It has a savanna climate with low annual rainfall (more than 600 mm in the grasslands in the north and less in the south), strong daylight and long sunshine hours. Especially during the dry season, even animals are rarely seen in the thirsty land. Without modern agricultural irrigation facilities, it is undoubtedly unsuitable for any agricultural activities. It turned out that the few natives here (Malay descendants, sometimes mixed with Arabs and Malays) had not built irrigation facilities, so they could only live a backward nomadic and gathering life, and never entered the feudal civilization like their relatives on the central plateau.

Of course, now these aborigines have been hunted down by the Dutch, and the people of the East Coast have been wandering around here for more than half a month, and they haven't even seen a single person, this place is really too desolate. The words "tropical" and "arid" are superimposed, and it seems that the death penalty has been pronounced here, but fortunately we still have this abundant cotton river, Li Zhengang thought secretly.

There are many animals in the Cotton River, but the largest number is undoubtedly the African crucian carp. The second is crocodiles. Yes. You read that right. These crocodiles, of the same species as the crocodiles from Mozambique across the Channel, seem to have arrived on the island a long time ago, perhaps earlier than the Malays who came to Madagascar in canoes and brought rice seeds and coconuts to Madagascar.

In addition to this, there are large expanses of roaming hump cattle in the steppes - largely undomesticated, and there are no large carnivores on the island, so their populations have always been large. The Dutch on the other side of the Cotton River had survived by hunting bison in addition to capturing natives all these years, but unfortunately their numbers were too small - only about twenty people, so these industries were not able to grow large.

More than 300 species of terrestrial animals live on the Falklands. Basically, they are all endemic species on the island, such as lemurs, Falklands civets or primitive species of animals, which are of great value to scientists who study evolution. There are also more than 200 species of birds, 180 of which are endemic to the island, which are characterized by their large size, fear of people and flightlessness.

The world's fourth-largest island has a variety of climates, such as tropical rainforest, tropical monsoon, tropical plateau, savannah, and subtropical (southern end). 80% of the plants on this island are endemic. Moreover, because of its isolation from the rest of the world, there are not many pests and diseases on the mainland, and the conditions for the development of agriculture are quite good - provided that the people of the east coast dominate the area. At the same time, the island was closed to a closed country similar to the national lockdown order, and exchanges with countries other than the east coast were severed.

"The most alarming animals on this island are crocodiles and wild boars, crocodiles can attack poultry, wild boars can spoil crops, but other than that, they are safe." A staff member who accompanied Li Zhengang and others to measure the land said, "But there are not many of them, you can plant cacti around the cotton fields, the cacti here are very powerful, and wild boars will definitely walk around." Of course, before planting cactus fences, you must first cooperate with the government to clean up the Cotton River. ”

The improvement of the Cotton River channel mentioned by this official actually refers mainly to the special rectification of soil erosion in the Cotton River Basin. As we all know, the Cotton River originates in the Central Plateau, where there is an abundance of water, especially during the rainy season, the water level of the Cotton River tends to soar or even inundate large areas of land on both sides. The floodwaters brought plenty of nutrients to the land on both sides of the river, so the vegetation was more lush than elsewhere and the bison herds were the most abundant.

However, if the people on the east coast want to develop cotton plantations here, then they must not allow floods to break out every year, so how to prevent too much sediment from rushing down from the upstream, making the riverbed too high year by year, and eventually reducing the water storage of the river, has become a mandatory issue for everyone.

According to the current experience of the people of the East Coast, the solution to this problem is mainly to build a large number of reservoirs of people, in addition to digging deep channels and accelerating their flow into the sea. In the midst of this, river dredging can mobilize a large number of dredgers from the mainland, which seems to be much easier than building artificial lakes. But with a savannah climate and an arid and semi-arid zone, it would be a crime to let a lot of fresh water flow into the sea. Therefore, in the Cotton River Basin, it is the only way to use the existing conditions to reconstruct artificial reservoirs to store water, and at the same time to dig a large number of irrigation canals to irrigate crops, which is the only way to consume excess water resources during the rainy season -- and cotton, a cash crop that consumes a lot of fresh water, is undoubtedly the most suitable.

Of course, the construction of artificial reservoirs is not a matter of one or two years, it is a long-term plan. At the present stage, it is mainly by planting trees on both sides of the river to prevent wind and sand fixation and reduce soil erosion, and at the same time to build some long-distance irrigation canals - the bottom of the canal is made of masonry and cement, and the upper part is covered with wooden planks to prevent leakage and evaporation - to irrigate the crops in the cotton plantations.

The trees planted on both sides of the Mian River are mainly oak and willow trees, rather than eucalyptus trees from the areas of Xinhuagang, Tacheng and St. Mary's Island. Those places have abundant precipitation, usually around 2,000 mm of rainfall per year, so drainage is needed everywhere. Later, the East Coast people introduced many eucalyptus trees from Australia to plant here, and the eucalyptus plant has good economic value, and at the same time it is a "pump", which consumes extremely water during the growth process. Therefore, transplanting to the northern tropical rainforest and tropical oceanic climate areas is very suitable, and the water resources of the Cotton River Basin are already very precious, so of course eucalyptus trees cannot be transplanted.

"We promise to transplant 2,000 willow trees and 2,000 oak trees, and then we will definitely complete the task." Li Zhengang took off his cool hat and fanned the wind, and then said: "This ghost place is too hot, this is not the cool season, why is it so hot!" ”

"It's already good, it's not yet 28 degrees, and it's not stuffy at all. Unlike Xinhua Port, which is humid and muggy, if it weren't for a little sea breeze that could cool people, it would be impossible to live. The staff member of the pioneer team smiled when he heard this, and said, "And the climate here is dry, and there are few mosquitoes." Even during the day, mosquitoes can often be seen in the shade of trees in the wild. On this side, there are only some mosquitoes flying around occasionally by the river, and there are very few mosquitoes far from the riverbank. You just wait and see, shopkeeper Li, in the future, when your cotton plantations are opened here, the mortality rate of the working population will be much lower than those sisal, coffee, and pepper plantations. I don't lie to you, I have heard from my fellow villagers who work in South Africa that the mortality rate is very low, and the incidence of malaria, dysentery, cholera and other diseases is not high, which is really enviable. ”

"Huh." Li Zhengang chuckled twice. Chuangji Investment Company is a large company with a registered capital of nearly 100,000 yuan, which is second to none in China. Fortunately, the shareholders of this company (Li Guo, Gao Yigong, Yuan Zongdi, Guo Sheng, Liu Fangliang and others) originally pulled Mo Dashuai of Weizhen Shandong into the shares, so it was established. However, Rao is like this, this company has still become a thorn in the side of civil officials, not only the taxes are extremely high, but even the various apportionments are so much, it is really not easy to make some money.

The company has invested heavily in Xinhuagang to buy the rights to a sisal plantation, a pepper plantation and three coffee plantations (20-year tenure). After carefully inspecting the conditions in the Cotton River area, Li Zhengang decided to spend money to buy a large area of wasteland for future cotton plantations, and at the same time promised to improve the local natural environment, plant trees on both sides of the river, and build artificial reservoirs and irrigation canals of a certain volume.

Captain Shi of the New Huaxia Pioneer Team was overjoyed when he heard that Chuangji Investment Company was willing to make such a bloody investment, and then no matter how the civil officials would hate him in the future, he approved this win-win agreement with a stroke of the pen: If you dare to invest in wasteland, I will dare to grant you land, and the rent will be reduced to the minimum! As long as you develop these wastelands, they will be national in a few decades, so what am I hesitating about? As for the noise of those white shirts, Lao Tzu doesn't care!

After the Chuangji Investment Company purchased these properties, the funds on hand were still very surplus, so Li Zhengang pondered whether to buy some slaves and come back. From a corporate point of view, it was most cost-effective to buy cheap Persian, Balochistan and even Arab slaves from Muscat merchants, but from a personal point of view, he was reluctant to allow these "Yiren" to occupy the land. The land on both sides of the Cotton River is very fertile, and although the grassland is relatively dry in the dry season, there are herds of bison everywhere, and it is not a problem to feed hundreds of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people.

It would be nice if all the people who lived in this land were my Ming descendants, Li Zhengang thought silently. He decided to try his luck in Xinhuagang in two days, and now that the entire New Huaxia Island is not allowed to move freely, he wants to go there to see if he can recruit some Ming children to come here to open up the wasteland. If there is nature, if not, then you have to go to the Muscat merchants' hall in Xinhua Port to contact business, and you can't let these plantations be empty for a long time. (To be continued......)