Port Iguazu is becoming more and more prosperous now, and it is not an exaggeration to say that it is the best city in the Hejian region!

Due to the special geographical environment, ships from the south are generally stationed in Port Iguazu, because this is the end of the middle-stream area of ​​the Parana River shipping. From here, due to the dangerous shoals, rapids and waterfalls, it is extremely difficult and cumbersome to sail. Therefore, most of the goods from ships from the south must be unloaded here, and then sent to the nearby Iguazu Railway Station by flat-plated railcars. They are transported northward through the Iguazu Railway, which has just been opened to traffic, and all the way to the Nansheng Township Railway Station. Then they will switch the cargo to a small steamer or even a sailboat, shaking the boat, and slowly heading north along the dredged river channel, sending all kinds of materials to the upstream and more wild areas to support the people on the east coast's development there.

At present, there are more than ten settlements supported by railways, radiating tens of thousands of people. In addition to Nansheng Township and Zhenhua Township, there are also seven settlements including Yuntai Township (near Ebola Town in later generations), Banpu Township (near Assis Shatobrion City), Huayuan Township (near Umualama City in later generations), Xinba Township (near Kamagu Port in later generations), Yanwei Township (near Eculandia Town in later generations), Liku Township (near Riku Port in later generations), and Luduiji Township (near New Lundrina City in later generations). The role is quite critical.

In other words, the seventeen settlements in the vast area north of the Iguazu River, 40,000 to 50,000 people, their means of production and daily necessities rely on the transportation of the Port of Iguazu, a material distribution center, so the prosperity of the local economy is not so difficult to understand. What's more, Port of Iguazu is also a window for exchanges with the Kingdom of Spain. Many Guarani, Spanish or Mestiso are also used to coming here to trade with the people of the East Coast. Although its scale may not be very large (the hatred between the two sides has not been completely eliminated), it is also a significant promotion to the local economy after all. It is worth mentioning that the Kingdom of Spain and the East Coast have reached a temporary agreement on the western border between the bilaterals, that is, the Parana River is bounded by the east coast, and the West coast is the territory of Spain. Both sides do not invade each other, but free trade between the people is allowed.

Of course, as the party that has a great advantage in South America, the East Bank officials generally abide by the national border between the two sides, but many small groups among the people may not be, especially some lawless non-nationals! These people are mainly Italian and Irish groups under Mendes, Battino. These people often avoid the eyes and ears of the East Bank officials (in fact, local governments and military police turn a blind eye), and then cross the river with weapons to the Kingdom of Spain, and use violent means to capture the Guarani people to do cheap slave labor in Hedong. Their methods are so rough that they aroused the anger and protests of the Guarani people in the local Guarani people. From time to time, there are news of the annihilation of a certain slave-catching team from Hexi. In short, they are all unstoppable transactions with blood-licking blood. The scale is not particularly large, but they have been banned.

There are some Guarani slave workers in the construction team that is busy on Xu Hao's restaurant construction site, but it is said that these people were sold, which is a certain difference from those caught. To be honest, Xu Hao is actually not willing to use these Guarani workers because they are weak and impatient. Many times they die for various reasons after not long. They may delay the continuation and decoration of his restaurant.

However, who is the county short of labor now? Highways, reservoirs, houses, docks, stations, canals, dams, fortresses and other facilities have almost drained every available manpower. Even if ordinary people want to demolish their own sheds and build brick houses, they have to find a way to ask neighbors for help, otherwise they will not get any manpower, let alone commercial institutions such as Xu Hao's catering and entertainment venues. It was a huge deal to ask Goshkin's company to help with it. Now it's time to burn incense if you can hire a similar construction team to help with the decoration. It's not good to be too picky.

After having a hearty breakfast in the kitchen of his own restaurant next door, Xu Hao put on his coat and walked along the street to digest food. As for the daily operation of the restaurant, his confidant shopkeeper Lao Siji was responsible for it, so he didn't have to worry about it himself.

The streets in Iguazu County are very wide, about three meters away. As the best road in the county, the streets are all paved with sand and gravel, and there is a shallow and narrow drainage ditch on both sides. Because there was a heavy rain just before, some water was flowing in the ditch, accompanied by a lot of dirt such as fish scales, fruit peels, rotten shrimps, etc. I believe that if it weren't for the low temperature winter at this moment, these dirts might have become the source of pollution to a certain disease, and the residents' medical and health awareness would be too poor!

Fortunately, there are no animals on the street. Apart from the occasional horses, this is probably due to the strong management of the town government. Xu Hao vaguely heard that all the items needed for daily life in the city - such as pigs, cattle, sheep, fish, vegetables and fruits - are transported outside the city by horse-drawn carriages, and then sold by hawkers on the city with loads, which effectively reduces the residue of animal feces on the street and is crucial to the control of urban sanitation.

The person who was passing Xu Hao was a fishmonger. He saw this man carrying two buckets containing fresh fish caught from Parana Hanoi, shouting loudly while walking, both a hawking and reminding people to avoid him.

There are already many shops on both sides of the street. Perhaps because of the increasing number of permanent residents and migrant population in the county, the shop business has been quite good in recent years, which directly prompted more people to come and open shops. Most of these shops are made of wood, a few are made of bricks and stones, but there are also very few straw sheds woven with reeds, which are unbearable to look at them.

A businessman usually has a shop, and eats and lives. The goods sold are mostly food, and they are basically produced locally. Non-food products are mainly coarse porcelain ware imported from the south, silk satin (mostly silk and silk cotton blended), cotton cloth, handkerchiefs, ink, paper and pen, fans, knives, candles and other daily necessities. Only one store is quite high-end, selling things such as velvet, musical instruments, paintings, sculptures, clocks, gold and silverware, etc. I don’t know if there is any business, so it is probably not very good, because there are not enough consumers of such luxury goods in the local area.

There is also a pharmacy here - the only one in the county - a doctor who immigrated from the Ming Dynasty who was sitting in the hall, selling some medicines and helping people see the doctor. Xu Hao once visited this pharmacy. To be honest, there are both traditional oriental medicinal materials, as well as Eastern medicine drugs such as aspirin and foxglove preparations, and there are quite a variety. The most expensive medicinal materials in it are probably some ginseng imported from North Korea. This thing is also quite "easy" on the east coast, and the price is very high, and it is called the "king of plants" by some people. However, in recent years, a kind of ginseng called "garentouges" in the American continent was also secretly carried by smugglers into the east coast, and then placed on the counters of some pharmacies openly to make huge profits.

This behavior of using inferior products as good people is very hateful, such as Xu Hao. He actually likes to put some ginseng in the tea or soup he drinks in the morning, because it seems to be helpful to his lungs that have been uncomfortable since childhood, but if it is fake American ginseng, it will be very disgusting. He will angrily catch the merchants who sell and sell fake ginseng and use their relationship to exile them to the jungle of Trinidad, he swears.

Real ginseng medicinal materials can be exchanged twice the weight of silver on the east coast, and with the increasing demand, its price has a slight upward trend. At present, ships that basically take the South Pacific immigration route will carry some medicinal materials produced in the Far East. Among them, ginseng, deer antler, bear gall, etc. are the top priority and have almost become an important export income of North Korea and Hei Shui. North Korea currently exports more than 10,000 kilograms of ginseng every year (not many in wild, most of them are artificially grown in the Kaicheng area) to the East Coast Republic of China, making a huge trade surplus in this regard.

In addition to selling medicine and seeing a doctor in the pharmacy, he also provided some massage and massage services. This was surprising at the beginning, especially those European immigrants, who had heard more about bloodletting treatment in the Old Continent. However, the Ministry of Health quickly gave a precise explanation for massage, that is, although bloodletting can promote blood flow, the process is too dangerous and a bit absurd, so massage is used to replace it to create the effect of promoting blood circulation.

As a well-known local businessman, Xu Hao once invited the doctor to a restaurant to massage him. At that time, the doctor knocked his whole body with his clenched fists, kneading his arms or other parts. At that time, even Lausiji, who was outside the door, heard the crackling sound and felt chills in his heart.

At the end of the street is a Taoist temple, which is just built. At present, in addition to the two gates, clergy like Taoists and others have not even been able to take their place. Of course, this may be due to the fact that there are too many towns and religious people are in short supply on the east coast.

However, before the clergy arrived, the impatient local residents had already begun idol worship ceremony, but they followed their past routines in the Ming Dynasty: a skillful carpenter carved a statue of Taishang Laojun, and the painter came over to color it. A government official from a bookmaker wrote some things on the left and right with neat brushes. Then people raised funds to buy altars and altars, picked some fruits and placed them on them, and finally they could burn incense and pray. This kind of sacrificial behavior was obviously not a Taoist routine in the East Coast, or I don’t know if the Taoist priest sent by the Religious Affairs Office would be so angry that he spit out his old blood after seeing it.

However, this is not the only religious building in the county of Iguazu. In fact, there is a temple donated by a merchant in the southeast corner of the county. It is not big, and only a few monks presided over it. They wore silk cassocks and beads on their necks. They usually prayed for Buddhist scriptures every year to encourage people to be kind, but they didn't know how many people could listen to it in the "violent" place of Iguazu.

Sometimes they also hold some activities, such as last year they successfully held a Lantern Festival. At that time, these monks wore rare red monk robes and high hats, which was very glorious. At the same time, they greatly expanded the influence of Buddhism. The Taoist Association was so panicked that it immediately increased the allocation and asked Iguazu County to help speed up the construction of Taoist temples and seize the field of religious consciousness.

Bamboo introduced from the Far East was also planted in some places in the city. Since many of the locals were Ming people and were naturally familiar with the use of bamboo, many of them were immediately developed. For example, bamboo sticks used for walking, boat covers, shoulder poles, chairs, beds, tables, fences, hoods, hats, drip troughs, feed troughs, fans, brushes, and even scaffoldings for house walls and construction. In short, they are still very widely used and have gradually become an industry.

Even now, many families in Iguazu County have begun to introduce this plant in front and back of their yards (in fact, there are already many bamboo forests in many places in the south, including the vermilion bamboo unique to South America and the oriental bamboo introduced). Because it looks profitable in the future, this can be seen from the fact that some bamboo craftsmen gradually become popular.

After walking around the streets in the county town, Xu Hao returned to his restaurant in eastern Guangdong and was planning his next plan. At present, he invested heavily in the first place and came here to develop before the completion of Port Iguazu. This move was probably right, which directly created his leading position in the catering industry in this hub city (and seems to have huge development prospects in the future). It can be said that as long as he does not make any major mistakes in principle, his life in the upper reaches of the Parana River in the future should be easier.

However, if Xu still wants to achieve further development and take his career to a higher level, the Iguazu area alone will probably not be able to support him. He must find ways to further expand his business scale, and even if he makes large loans to United Industrial Credit Bank and La Plata Bank, it is willing to pay for large-scale loans. Anyway, the East Coast Republic is in a period of rapid development. The economic prosperity brought about by the British-Dutch War and the Western-French War has penetrated into every corner of society. At this time, industrial layout and business scale should not be too long.

As for where to invest next, Xu Hao has actually thought about it, that is, the Beining area, a place that is not very conspicuous at the moment, but has unlimited future development prospects.
Chapter completed!