"Consumption is the ultimate goal of all production." This motto of the Finance and Economics School under the Ministry of Industry and Commerce deeply interprets the mystery of the commodity economy. Unlike the soybean and machine powdering industries in Meilin County, Zhenhai County, which produces excess commodities far exceed their own needs, many areas in the northern part of Ping'an County, which are closely linked to Portuguese commerce, are typical production for consumption purposes.

In Ping'an Township, which is the largest heavy industry center in the East Coast Republic of China, the proportion of workers among local residents is quite high. They do not carry out agricultural production, but rely entirely on importing grains, meat, oil and other foods from the outside world. As for other small commodities that do not produce themselves on the east coast, they are all produced by the Portuguese on the mountain.

As the east coast economy grew larger and more populations became more and more, the Portuguese towns on the mountain became increasingly prosperous. A large number of white people who could not survive in the old continent for various reasons flocked to the towns, blacksmiths, new Dundee, slave towns, and Captain Ricardo settled down, and then produced small commodities such as buttons, sewing needles, fish hooks, woven bags, hat brims, leather shoes, etc. through handicraft workshops, and exported them to the neighboring Ping'an County to make profits. This business is so big that there are so many practitioners that every month the grain transported from Baoan Township on the east coast to the Portuguese territory on the mountain is as many as fifty tons, which is amazing.

In fact, it is normal to think about it carefully. Most of the "Portuguese" on the mountain come from Portugal, England, Ireland and Scotland in the Old Continent, and most of them are handicraftsmen. They use their craftsmanship to make extremely rich profits from the East Coast people, so they naturally have no time to produce food. In fact, Brazil's grain planting industry has been on the verge of collapse under the impact of cheap grains on the East Coast, and they are somewhat ill-fated against the aggressive East Coast government.

Fear and dare not take measures such as trade barriers to restrict imports. Therefore, those already rare grain plantations compete for the low-cost East Coast grains. They began to switch to tobacco, sugarcane or cotton on a large scale. In addition to producing a small amount of wheat for their own and their families, most of the grain was solved by importing wheat bran, potatoes, sweet potatoes or cassava from the East Coast - these were for slaves and inferior people (mixed races).

However, not everyone is willing to stay on the mountain to eat wheat bran, sweet potatoes, and cassava. Some Britons who have no skills (meaning no objective income) overcome their fear of pagans under the stimulation of a better life. Under the "inspection" of the guards on the east coast (they are allowed to enter and not leave), they crossed the border line and entered the east coast to make a living.

In such cross-border immigration, Ping'an County, an important city in the east coast, played a decisive role. For example, those "New Brazilians" found that the wives and children of East Coast farmers or workers often grew strong, which meant they had enough food; for example, the nearby East Coast workers occasionally had the opportunity to go to the tavern to drink a glass or eat some dishes they didn't dare to imagine; and even a booklet of "50 Different Methods of Making Pork" popular in Ping'an County also sparked the bitter old continent's yearning for the East Coast. Therefore, even though the East Coast people are pagans, even in the priest's propaganda, there are a considerable number of contract slaves who were tortured by hunger and still tried every means to escape from the plantation where they worked and then searched for opportunities to enter the east coast.

According to incomplete statistics, in 1648, more than 1,500 people entered the East Coast across the border and never left again. Most of these people came from Britain. With the accelerated development of the East Coast economy and the huge desire for labor. In the first three months of 1649, the number of British people entering the East Coast across the border exceeded one thousand. All of this indicates that perhaps the number of "illegal immigrants" entering the East Coast this year will reach more than 3,000 - an extremely surprising number.

These foreign populations who illegally cross the border often choose to live in Ping'an County first. The river-drawing construction site in Bao'an Township, the orchard in Liming Town, the wharf in Ping'an Township, and the coal mines in Meihe Township all provide them with quite good transitional work. After familiarizing themselves with the situation in the East Coast, accumulating a little travel fee and obtaining a formal identity certificate, they will be registered by officials sent by the Ministry of Civil Affairs, and then scattered to resettlement in the new and old settlements in the East Coast, trying not to allow them to stay in their original places to reduce various unnecessary troubles.

As the South Northwest Railway and the South Railway Company developed projects such as Patagonia, starting from the second half of 1948, these spontaneous immigrant white contract slaves were gradually assigned to railway construction sites, and a few were also planned to be sent to Xingnan Port to support the construction of the South Railway Company, which undoubtedly greatly alleviated the domestic thirst for labor.

Immigration and commodities form the communication link between Brazil and the East Coast. Brazil's small handmade products, cane sugar, spices, tobacco, cotton, tropical fruits, wood and population flow from north to south, while the East Coast's grains, oils, bean cakes, leather goods, textiles, steel, honeycomb coal, building materials, hardware products, soaps, medicines, and some luxury goods (such as clocks, whale oil candles, etc.) flow from south to north. The trade volume is so large that some Portuguese merchants responsible for import and export trade between the Gerard Mountains have increased their wealth several times in a few years. Then they joined forces to form a large syndicate company, monopolizing most of the trade between Brazil and the East Coast.

The benefits of the increasing prosperity of trade and the large influx of population to Ping'an County are self-evident. First, Ping'an's infrastructure is the best among the eight counties in the country (including the newly established Xiayihe County and Qingdao County). This is due to a large number of cheap to almost free illegal immigrant laborers. They used their hard-working hands to dig up irrigation canals, load and unload bags of goods on and off the ship, mine a ton of tons of coal from underground, etc.; secondly, some handicraftsmen are the same.

They also immigrated to the east coast, and they brought skills to fill the gaps to the east coast, increased productivity levels, and enriched the commodity market. Finally, the flow of goods from south to north brought a large amount of commercial taxes to Ping'an County and greatly stimulated the development of various local economies. Ping'an County's fiscal revenue surpassed the capital Dongfang County in 48 years and reached the first place in the country. In this extremely hot economic data, the contribution of the booming trade with Brazil even accounted for nearly one-third.

In addition to these spontaneous immigrants, Valentino, a famous labor agent from Italy, also kept importing large groups of Italian and Spanish immigrants to the East Coast (mainly persecuted Catalans). Due to the special instructions and economic rewards of the East Coast government, Valentino is now paying more and more attention to introducing skilled craftsmen to the East Coast.

For example, in December 1948, a ship from Pisa to Oriental Port was loaded with more than 80 Italian glass blowers; in January this year, more than 50 German beer brewers from Württemberg traveled to the east coast through the port of Livorna, Italy; in February, more than 150 Catalan wool combing workers persecuted by the Kingdom of Spain transited through Port of Messina, Italy, fled from the nightmarish country for them, and came to Port Rochao in the East Coast of China...

Except for a few of these immigrants with the skills, most of them were allocated to the Beiyazi Lake area - especially Ping'an County, which also added fire to Ping'an County's already hot economy, making the county's economic scale, fiscal revenue and population ranked first in the country, and the distance between them and the capital Dongfang County is growing bigger and bigger.

Qian Hao, the county magistrate of Ping'an County, was quite happy with this phenomenon, which also prompted him to be more tolerant of illegal immigrants from abroad. For example, he strongly suppressed the old immigrants in the county (mainly Ming people) to criticize outsiders: they gave the British people who had crossed the mountains a "migratory bird"; some small restaurants opened by Ming people even refused to receive these "barbarians" or charged more expensive fees than ordinary people, and various discrimination and humiliation were all enough. Even though they had immigrated from the Ming Dynasty not long after, the prejudice took root and sprouted so naturally.

Fortunately, Qian Hao, the local supreme chief, believes that the local residents' criticism of these new immigrants is unreasonable. Because these people basically do the work that locals pick up the remaining work, and the food they eat is mainly potatoes and sweet potatoes transported from South African sorghum and Dongfang County. Occasionally eating some meat does not seem to be able to push up the local meat price on a large scale. Therefore, he strongly suppressed these doubts, which led to the population of Ping'an County growing far beyond the national average, an increase of 18% last year, and also led to the rapid development of Ping'an County's economy far exceeding the national average level.

More population means a larger market and economic scale, and also more government fiscal revenue. This is an obvious thing. Ping'an County is such a living example. The vigorous cross-border commodity trade and active population migration are the only way for the county to maintain rapid economic development. At the same time, different cultures, concepts, ideas and living habits collide here violently and then blend with each other. These all make Ping'an County have signs of developing its own unique culture. This does not seem to be a bad thing for time travelers. The new nation will naturally develop different cultures that are different from the mother country. (To be continued, please search for astronomy, novels are better, updated and faster!
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