August 1, 1658, sunny.￥f,

Ma Wenqiang stood in front of the expensive half-length mirror and carefully combed his hair. His wife leaned against the edge of the bed with a resentful look on her face: "What's the use of combing your hair? I'll bet you will be covered in sand in less than an hour after you go out. Are you stupid?"

"Women's opinion." Ma Wenqiang still combed his hair intently and said to himself: "Having a decent outfit will help maintain majesty in front of his subordinates. After all, I am a deputy department-level cadre now. If I am so sloppy and unreasonable as those cadres in Hai'an County all day long, what will it look like?"

"What a great official at the deputy division level..." The wife gave him a blank look, then comfortably got into the bed and said, "You go to work hard, I'm going to sleep. Recently, it's the off-season for wool purchases, and our factory is on holiday, so you're just envious."

"Ha!" Ma Wenqiang finished combing his hair, walked to his wife and lifted the quilt, then patted her perky buttocks hard, and said "viciously": "I will deal with you when I come back from a business trip."

At 7 o'clock in the morning, Ma Wenqiang hurried to the county government compound wearing a leather jacket. At this time, everyone was almost ready to stop and could set off.

"Deputy County Ma and Deputy Director Ma have sent someone to send a message back. They have successfully set up a forward stronghold in the upper reaches of the Chubut River. With them, three hundred Buryat Mongols and Shandans will set out. These herders will settle in the local area and consolidate this boundary for our country." A follower handed over a document and said.

"Yes." Ma Wenqiang hurriedly looked at the official document, then stuffed it into the cowhide bag, turned over and said, "Let's go."

With his order, five hundred new immigrants (including two hundred Ukrainian female slaves) drove a cart and led mules and horses to the west under the escort of sixty armed policemen. They walked along the fertile Chubut Valley through the Lannigou Township, full of vines and cherry trees, and passed the reservoir township with green water and opened up a lot of water irrigated land. They passed by Baitao Township, which has now become a large construction site and is increasingly valued, and then plunged into the vast semi-arid terrace grassland area.

Looking at the mounds on both sides of the river that were not decently eroded by the wind, the ground full of walnut-sized gravel, and the hard shrubs that were clustered everywhere, many immigrants couldn't help crying and crossing the ocean forever, just to come here to eat sand? Perhaps the only comforting thing is that the farmland distributed to each household by the court is owned by themselves, no longer for renting others, and the grassland that was allocated to everyone was large enough to stock many cattle and sheep. Otherwise, it would be a loss for fools to settle in this place where birds do not shit.

"Cai Huaze is so happy. Hai'an County has just been established for a few days and has begun to resettle some of the new immigrants to Xi, intending to open up more land. He is not afraid of being overwhelmed." His face hurt by the biting cold wind, Ma Wenqiang kept complaining: "But by the way, the Tverche people here are also afraid of us. There should be no danger in terms of safety, just a little harder and lonely. Oh, forgot, I don't care so much about doing things for the country, and the more difficult the environment, the more it can show my ability, isn't it? I'm more eye-catching in my political achievements, right? Damn, I'm just promoted to deputy county magistrate, and so many people are talking strange things. I remember that there were many fathers who were in their early twenties and became high-ranking officials. This world is really getting back."

"Uruguay is not a river, it is the blue sky floating across..." Someone sang a popular song on the east bank, and the song "Uruguay River" fully expresses the vast and distant artistic conception on the grassland.

Around you are the ever-changing plains and hills, as well as the shrubs and grass that grow tenaciously under the destruction of wind and snow. People stand between heaven and earth, and only feel the sudden loneliness eating your heart, making you feel extremely depressed and powerless. At this time, you often need some spiritual comfort.

"Uruguay is not a river, it is the blue sky floating by..." Ma Wenqiang also sang in a muffled voice, and his thoughts returned to the east prairie where he grew up carefree when he was young, to the warm embrace of his mother who had been dead for many years, to many past events that he thought had long forgotten.

"I sing the moon, not because she illuminates the night; I sing the moon, because she witnessed my long journey... The lonely moon, we are a little similar; I sing all the way, illuminating the earth in this way." In the beautiful melody of "The Moon of the Grassland", the group went further and further away, disappearing on the distant horizon.

...

On August 16, after a difficult long journey, hundreds of people arrived in a rough camp, that is, the west bank of the Chubut River east of the Paso de Indios town in Patagonia, and the name on the map was Maijiagou Township. However, this was not the end of Ma Wenqiang. Except for two hundred Ukrainian female slaves who stayed there, the remaining 300 immigrants from the Ming Dynasty will continue west under the escort of the police and go to the Luoma Township, which the expedition team once marked (named for the large group of wild Luomas, and later Tekeka Town) to settle down. Ma Wenqiang and others will temporarily stay here for a period of time, and will return to Hai'an County after everything is settled to receive subsequent immigrants.

By mid-August 1658, the total population of the East Coast Republic of China had reached a historical high of 812,000, the proportion of Ming people had dropped to less than 47%, and the proportion of white people had dropped to 30% (of which the proportion of men had dropped to 12.7%). The proportion of the new generation born on the East Coast reached one quarter for the first time. Of course, the average age of this new generation is relatively low, and most of them were born in the past decade, so they cannot contribute to national construction for the time being.

However, the population has exceeded 800,000. Although most of them are arranged to settle in the local area, some of them have been concessioned to Patagonia, Hejian, Dingjunshan, Nanzhu and other peripheral territories. After all, the emotions of local comrades must be considered appropriately. The population cannot be kept in the east coast prairie and Yazi Lake.

The newly established Hai'an County also received a quota of 2,500 people this time. In addition to arranging 1,000 people to settle in Baitao Township, Reservo Township and other places, most of the people are preparing to send several new settlements to the west, such as Maijiagou Township, Luoma Township and a town called Jinchengbao located near the later Eskel City.

Among these three settlements, the first two are very ordinary conditions, and are midway supply sites established to eventually advance to the Andes front line. In the future, their economy will be dominated by animal husbandry. Fortunately, the domestic wool market on the east coast is ushering in a bull market. If she raises sheep, at least it will not lose money, because their costs are extremely low, right?

As the core town in the future (usually the county seat), Jin Castle is located in the famous Eskel-Trevilin Valley, which is a famous agricultural area on the eastern foot of the Andes. It is suitable for various agricultural plantings. This nearby pastoral area provides a large amount of grain sources. Moreover, in this town with an average annual precipitation of 542 mm, you can also go to the Pacific coast on the other side of the Andes through multiple mountain channels (the island of Chiloe is opposite the sea). The strategic position of communicating east and west cannot be underestimated. Of course, these channels can only pass after the snow in spring, and can only pass through mules and horse teams (and cars can also pass through...), which has certain limitations.

On August 19, after three days of rest in Maijiagou (hundreds of people ate a large part of the reserved food here and were unable to live anymore), Ma Wenqiang ordered to set off west again and arrived at the finish line Luoma Township on August 26.

At this time, there was no one in Luoma Township, with only a lonely flagpole standing here. The flag on the east coast on the flagpole faded under the scorching sun and the rain and snow. Ma Wenqiang put away his hand and replaced it with a brand new national flag and raised it. Then he ordered everyone to start building simple houses with wood and rain cloth pre-stored here. After doing all this, he worked tirelessly and patrolled around with a team of people.

When we entered Luoma Township, there was actually not much precipitation. There were also forests on the wild horizon. Although they looked not as spectacular as the vast forests in the more western mountainous areas, they were also very good. At least it was much better than the semi-arid grasslands they had walked along the way. Obviously, this is a transition zone between mountain forests and terrace shrub steppes.

"The vegetation is mainly majestic South American pine (also known as Araucana South American pine)...." Although Ma Wenqiang is not a botanist, he can still distinguish this kind of tree from Patagonia and Chile. Of course, he is limited to this. He cannot recognize cypresses, larches, wild cherries, Ai Shen Wood, etc. except South American pine. However, he recognizes daisies, daffodils, violets, lilies, white lotus and other flowers everywhere under the woods, thanks to the knowledge he learned when buying flowers for his wife day after day.

In addition, many wild strawberries grow in the clearings in the forest, and some red silk bamboos are also there. Wild geese, Pudu deer, llama, and jaguars are inhabited, bringing vitality to the forest and giving people a very beautiful enjoyment.

"It's so beautiful here. It's not bad if it is pushed into the Jincheng Valley in the west, haha." Ma Wenqiang turned his horse's head and walked towards the camp, saying to his followers: "We must enrich these two front settlements as soon as possible, so as to migrate the first batch of residents to the Jincheng Castle area next year and next year. In this way, after Jincheng is built, everyone's benefits will be indispensable. Please work harder!" (To be continued.)
Chapter completed!