On March 20, 1687, it rained heavily in the southeast of New China Island. Yang Jie, a commissioner of the Zelu Regional Administration, had just met with a group of expedition teams returning from the Inland Mountains and had dinner with them.

After drinking and chatting, Yang Jie and his secretary returned to the villa in the county. It was dusk at this time. Although it was raining heavily, the dedicated night watchman still climbed up the gas lamp pole on the side of the road with a ladder, illuminating this important lighting facility to facilitate pedestrians at night.

The gas lamp system of Duofan Port was of course invested and built by the East Coast Gas Company supervised by Wang Hua. This guy who has invested almost all his wealth in the company (has accounted for more than 10%) has now accelerated the expansion of East Coast Gas in various places, including both local and some relatively wealthy overseas colonies. The reason is actually very simple, that is, Wang, who felt a certain degree of threat. The situation that was originally as stable as Mount Tai was shaken, so he had to change his previous relatively conservative style and start a more radical business model.

As for who is the competitor of the famous East Coast Gas Company, it is clear to put it bluntly, that is, the East Coast Gas Company, which is not yet well-known. This power company run by Ma Xiaopeng has installed arc lights in several domestic ports, and has launched fierce competition with gas lights.

Of course, Wang Huadu knew that although the brightness of arc lamps exceeds that of gas lamps, its installation cost is a bit too high for now and the market competitiveness should not be very strong. But Wang Huadudu was still afraid because he knew that the power industry on the east coast was still developing steadily. No one could predict what step the arc lamp system would develop in the future. What if someone made a breakthrough in technology, the cost suddenly decreased? Or the country suddenly began to invest in power generation equipment and began to form power grids in some key cities? Although this seems unlikely at the moment, we must be careful.

Therefore, Wang Huadu thought about it and finally decided to make key investments in some cities that have not yet established gas lamp lighting systems in the next few years, so as to cover them up and eliminate any other competitors' possibility of land grabbing. To this end, he had already tried to convince the company's shareholders (the main shares are in the hands of the government, but in fact they can only handle the Ministry of Civil Affairs), suspend dividend distribution for three years, take out the profits that should have been paid in the three years, and at the same time, they borrowed 500,000 yuan from United Industrial Credit Bank, Northwest Reclamation Bank and Volkswagen Savings Bank to invest in small and medium-sized cities that were not originally planned by the company, build gas generators, install gas pipelines, and finally establish a complete gas lamp lighting system.

These small inland counties are very willing to pay the monthly gas lamp usage fee, but if you ask them to purchase equipment from gas companies, then install and debug and lay pipes by themselves, then you are unwilling to do so. The reason is that the financial funds of these counties are very tight, basically relying on selling land, and the construction tasks are heavy. They also need to ensure the public officials and education funds of the whole county. The latter is guaranteed by the Executive Committee repeatedly. It is really difficult to spend a lot of money at one time to build a "luxury" system such as gas lamps, so the East Coast Gas Company can only come by itself.

The same is true for Xinhuaxia Island. This time, the East Coast Gas Company really invested heavily. It established branches in Xinhua, Tacheng, Mianhe and Daze counties, basically the same as the East Coast Building Materials Company and department stores. One county and one branch is either sole proprietorship or joint venture with local governments, and has fully launched the construction of the gas lamp system and strived to cover most county areas. For example, Xinhua County originally had gas lamp lighting in the development team government and a few other key areas, but now it has basically spread to the entire county town. The intensity is not small, and the investment is naturally amazing.

Duofan County Gas Company is wholly owned by the East Coast Gas Company. Currently, a lighting system has been built on a cross street where the regional administration, county government and town government are located, and it is operating very well, which makes the people of the county very happy. In addition, the dock, the Navy Ship Repair Factory and the Taoist Association have also purchased a lighting system from the gas company for their own night lighting. In short, as the central city of the region, the nights in Duofan Town are now much brighter than in the past, which makes some foreign merchant ships who occasionally sail to the port at night are also extremely amazed, and even feel a sense of worshipping this civilization and advanced symbol.

Yang Jie was fascinated by this kind of lighting "gate" because it means that he could also process documents with bright lighting at night, and even convened a meeting of staff from the Regional Administrative Office and the Security Command (he also served as the Regional Security Commander) to implement his will, and in short, he helped him a lot.

Another group of "gategories" who also helped him a lot were the natives, who were captured from the forests in the northwest mountains and other eastern coastal areas. These people had complex composition and different customs. People on the east coast were too lazy to distinguish their ethnic attributes now, but were called natives, with a total of about 20,000 people.

These people are currently being invested in the increasingly large-scale coffee planting and harvesting industry in Daze County, which has become an important part of the plantation economy. Among them, those who have been working for two years, and those who have just been arrested for a few days, are uniformly guarded by the local soldiers of the Eight Banners of the Island and organized their labor. The harvest from selling coffee beans is naturally the Eight Banners, so their enthusiasm is still quite good, and they are not ruthless in squeezing these close relatives and even compatriots from blood relationships.

In addition to working in state-owned plantations, these captured natives may work in the swamps, especially in Lu'an and Gaodu counties on the east coast, where there are large swaths of swamps and tidal flats near the coastline. As the "Oil Palm Operation" gradually deepens, cleaning these swamps also requires a large amount of manpower, so they come in handy at this time.

Yang Jie often felt that the region was relatively lucky because the number of natives was relatively dense, which was a considerable wealth. Due to the climate, environment, soil and other factors, there were not many foreigners to invest here. For example, in the northwest of the island, three Italian companies (Penna*Asian and African companies, Delta and Marco Polo) jointly developed, and the good things that 20,000 to 30,000 Italians worked hard to carry out pioneering will not fall on them. Therefore, they lacked the pioneering "cannon fodder" and could only put their ideas on the Malay "cannon fodder", which is just for their use.

At present, more than 15,000 people are working in the coastal swamp areas of the above two counties. Their main task is to cooperate with the East Coast engineering and technical personnel to dig ditches, dredge rivers, and build reservoirs in the local area. In short, drain the accumulated water from the local swamps and clear out a large amount of fertile fields to lay a solid foundation for the next step of planting of pepper, oil palm, coconut and other crops. In this process, due to the harsh natural environment of the original natural environment, they will undoubtedly suffer from large-scale injuries, but this is inevitable. The captives themselves have no human rights, right?

However, the government has recently introduced some new measures, which is to allow all parts of the island to count the number of Malay workers on their territory and count their working years. If you find that you have performed well within three years and have done well within three years, you can be amnesty and incorporated into the island Eight Banners system to supplement it and leave the de facto slave class.

At the same time, the speed of relocation of the islands Eight Banners was started to increase. To this end, the government of the Development Team could ask the local Foreign Ministry to assist the Portuguese to open the Zambezi River Basin and allow the islands Eight Banners to carry their property through their territory and settle in the inland areas. As for where they settled, it was actually very clear, that is, the famous yellow and black decomposition line, which acts as a barrier to isolating the East Coast people from Bantu blacks.

It is generally believed that the final destination of these Malays is located in the northwestern Mozambique and the neighboring northeastern Zambia region in later generations. The living conditions here are quite good and the climate is not very hot. If developed properly, it can be regarded as the basis for their founding. Of course, this is just the preliminary idea at present. The yellow-and-black dividing line is generally in this area, but the specific location is fine-tuned (for example, some surviving veterans in China cannot put down the copper mining area in Zambia). In short, let the Eight Banners of the Island go over and talk about it first, and then look at the future events.

Yang Jie felt in his heart that the Portuguese probably had no way to resist the request of the East Coast Foreign Ministry. They are now tied to the East Coast Republic so tightly that they have labels on them and can never be torn off, although they are also flirting with the British.

The Portuguese may find it difficult to understand the "hard march" along the westward direction of the Eight Banners of the island, which has a population of more than 100,000, but there is no doubt that the Zambezi housewives from various local estates welcome the arrival of these Malays because they can take the opportunity to sell the grain that has accumulated in their granaries for a long time. The fruits that were originally rotten and unwilling to be sold in the orchards can probably be sold, let alone herds of cattle and sheep. They can hear that even the Eight Banners of the second-class citizen island under the East Coast people, their people may have some money on hand and cannot be called poor people. Therefore, their consumption along the way will inevitably greatly promote the development of the Portuguese estate economy in the Zambezi River Basin.

In fact, some Portuguese may even have the idea of ​​helping them clear the black tribes they encountered along the way. Because the Portuguese colonial power in Mozambique is limited, they can only focus on a few big cities. Even in the relatively rich Zambezi River Basin, there are a large number of black people living in the wilderness between their two manors, and the security situation is not stable. Therefore, if the Eight Banners, an island with weapons and ammunition, sweep across the land, I believe that the local situation will be much more stable, although the Portuguese may also lose some "wealth" that can move.

Since the population needs to be replenished into the Eight Banners of the Islands so that they can go to the African continent to fight against black people, then the state-owned farms and plantations naturally need to be replenished. After all, they can't close the door, so wouldn't the early investment be wasted! Therefore, it is estimated that the government of the pioneer team will raise funds and manpower in the next few years and organize many battles to sweep the natives to obtain enough labor sources. This is likely to have a conflict with the Melina people on the Central Plateau, but so what? Are you afraid of them not going to succeed? According to many people on the East Coast, the Melina people on the Central Plateau have not yet been unified. Although one of them is already very strong, there are still separatist forces in the local area to resist. Therefore, when facing the multi-way attacks of the East Coast people, they are obviously powerless. If nothing unexpected happens, they will be defeated all the way.

The expedition team members Yang Jie met today were from the East Coast people controlled the area, went deep into the mountains and ridges, and finally arrived at the outpost troops that were in the Central Plateau for investigation. They had been moving in the southern part of the Central Plateau for several months, drew a large map, carefully examined each possible marching route, and even arrested a few locals before leaving, and handed them down the mountain to officials of the State Intelligence Administration for interrogation. This was undoubtedly very critical for the large troops to advance in multiple directions in the future. Therefore, after the reversal, Yang Jie, on behalf of the Zelu Regional Administration and the Security Command, welcomed them, and promoted many people on the spot at the meeting and distributed large bonuses. It was a pleasure for the host and guests.

If this is not enough to show the determination of the superiors to advance to the Central Plateau, then the recent news that Shao Yaoguang wanted to break up the New China Infantry Battalion into two, and at the same time add new recruits and form two infantry battalions is already obvious. Once both infantry battalions are formed, the combat effectiveness of the East Coast people can be greatly improved. They can even attack from north or south or east to west, and use their skillful combat skills and fierce artillery fire to completely destroy the group of Melina people who are still in the early feudal society, and control the cool climate and fertile central plateau.

You know, this place is a mature land that has been developed by the Melinas for 600 years. They built cities here and built farmland water conservancy facilities. The golden rice fields during the harvest season are endless. This temptation for the East Coast people is not ordinary. Moreover, these Melinas are somewhat different from history. They are now unable to contact other overseas merchants, because almost all the land along the coast of New China Island has been developed and occupied by the East Coast people. They who live on the central plateau have almost become turtles in a jar and have no other place to go. What will happen in the future? Can you tell me if you don’t ask!

Only when the East Coast people occupied the vast and relatively cool central plateau, can the development of the New China Island have a stronger backing. In later generations, Madagascar, the main population, economy and industrial society, were basically distributed on the Central Plateau, and even the capital was located here, which shows the importance of this plateau. I believe that after the two New China Infantry Battalions are formed and the training is completed, Captain Shao will use them to train instead of fighting and test the Central Plateau. This is a very clear thing.
Chapter completed!