"The temperature must be several degrees below zero, right?" Liu Jianguo, a senior technician of the Engineering Department of the Southern Railway Company, muttered to himself as he looked at the fine snowflakes floating in the sky. ※%

It is now the cold winter in the southern hemisphere. In a place with a low latitude like Chiloe, the climate drops extremely quickly. Often, a gust of cold air flow from the westerly drift belt in the Pacific Ocean can cause the air here to drop a lot. Fortunately, it is not common, because if cold and dry air is often blown over, it will prevent the water vapor on the sea from rising to form rainfall - but local rainfall is very rich, and it is rare in temperate areas around the world.

The frequent rainfall and the relatively cold weather in the local area have created special geographical features such as Hokkaido, Japan, some areas of the United Kingdom, and the Baredevil Whale Port in the Equator Island: dense swamps and depressions, and soil peatification in some areas. Furthermore, peat deposits in some areas have gradually formed lignite over time, but this kind of coal reserves are not large and valuable, so no one has developed them.

"Get ready to go." Wang Dali, who is over 40 years old, tightened his whale-skin rain boots on his feet, leaning on a wooden stick, and looking at the confused road ahead. There is a small path cleared from the dense forest, leading to the logging farm deep in the forest. There are more than 300 prisoners of war from Poland working in the logging farm. These people were transferred to the inspection period for their outstanding performance in the South Cone Two-Yang Railway. If they did not make any major mistakes after the three-year inspection period, they can apply for nationality of the East Coast Republic of China, which can be handled within one year, which also means that they can obtain free status in only 5-6 years. Although it is not as fast as ordinary contract slaves to obtain free status in just 3-5 years. But considering their initial identity as prisoner slaves, this can be called a kind of benevolent policy.

Following Wang Dali and others, there were the former company commander of the 101st Company of the Army (now revoked), Xu Gang, the current squadron leader of the Nantie Company's road protection team. Xu Gang, with dozens of fully armed road protection team soldiers, escorting more than a hundred pack beasts (with more than a hundred Arakan Indian drivers) hired in the Port of Arakan, as well as more than 300 people from Hejian Prefecture, Zhili, the northern Ming Dynasty, and preparing to set off together.

The destination of these materials is the logging farm in the deep forest, and the same is true for immigration. They will be enriched together to help the Polish prisoners of war who arrived there in advance to establish a relatively stable settlement to facilitate future colonial activities in the deep interior of Chiloe Island. The Nantec Corporation obviously will not limit its pace to a coastal port such as Guanhai Harbor. Their ultimate goal is to occupy this large island in southern Chile. It is not that no one has pointed out the danger of Nantec Corporation immigrating to the areas where the Spaniards once colonized. But Nantec Corporation is a rogue enterprise from top to bottom. Their president Mo Ming is also a rogue leader with a strong personality. It is impossible to expect them not to cross the line.

Of course, Mo Ming's actions were not without support. The powerful departments of some countries, such as the State Intelligence Administration, the Gendarmerie, the Army and even the Navy, expressed limited support for the Nanzhi Railway Company's behavior of secretly expanding territory and testing the Spaniards' bottom line, that is, they really want to know whether the Spaniards would take any measures against the East Coast people who crossed the border.

Although according to some limited information, the Spanish Kingdom did not have any strong dissatisfaction with the countries that seized their colonies, such as Britain, the Netherlands, France, and Portugal. They did their business and their national exchanges were still the same. Nothing seemed to have happened, but overseas colonies themselves would fight. For example, the Spanish had organized fleets many times, and soldiers regained the colonies occupied by other countries, and then fought back by other countries, and then fought back again. The whole process was delayed for decades, but during this period the relationship between the two countries was basically not affected by any negative impact. Perhaps in their perception, the competition between overseas colonies was not enough to make the entire country fight.

However, even so, the East Coast people still want to know for sure that the Kingdom of Spain could not take action against France, Portugal, England, and the Netherlands, which are both Christians and whites. However, as pagans and yellow people, the East Coast people would make the Spaniards more angry and make up their minds to break up with the East Coast or even go to war. This kind of thing cannot be guessed, and they can only test their bottom line with practical actions. Fortunately, Nantik is a colonial trading company in name, and if they really want to make trouble, the East Coast government can also push all the matter to the merchants (although they seem to be the largest shareholder of Nantik), and it is not difficult to put it away.

Speaking of which, the market of Nantie Company is constantly bullish in China, especially after it has independently developed Peru's smuggling trade. Even though the company has clearly announced that it will suffer huge losses for the third consecutive year, it is still favored by investors in the Qingdao financial market. The company's seven-year and ten-year bond sales are in good condition, and the expected yield has repeatedly hit a low; share sales have also begun to gradually accelerate. Among them, the Doria family in Genoa exercised the acquisition rights a while ago and invested huge sums of money to increase its equity ratio to 5%. Some other investors are also very active. At present, the 40% equity sold by Nantie Company has sold a total of 19.85%, which has injected a large amount of valuable funds into the company's development, allowing President Mo Ming and Mo to perform some extraordinary tasks.

Perhaps the only concern for investors is the strong army background of Nantie Company. The company not only accepted several army companies that were laid off by the military headquarters, but also clearly stated in the company's charter that each president of Nantie Company must be an active military officer assigned by the Army Department. This large Kangcaien company, which is regarded as a "horse manure remnant concentration camp" by civil servants and naval officers, will inevitably be affected to a certain extent when seeking financing in the capital market due to its strong army background - but the Army Department seems unmoved about this.

However, no matter what the background of Nantik Corporation is, as the first company in China to carry out overseas colonization and trading, its influence and exemplary nature are undoubtedly extremely huge. Moreover, the company has brought a broad market and a large number of cheap agricultural and mineral products to the domestic business community. It has great positive significance in promoting the development of domestic industry and commerce or reducing the prices of daily consumer goods. With this alone, no matter how some sour civil servants are wrong, they cannot stop the Executive Committee from supporting the company - of course, this also includes Nantik's exploration and colonization of Chiloe Island.

Okay, let's get back to the point. At this time, the expedition team led by Liu Jianguo (representative of the Nantie Company), Wang Dali (representative of the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Geology and Minerals), and Xu Gang (client of the Army Force), set out from a settlement like Guanhaigang, which was in its inception and advanced to the logging farm in the inland area. Today is August 3, 1651, and they are expected to spend two or three days crossing the forest path temporarily opened between the hills and reaching the coast on the other side of the north.

The logging farm was located on the other side of the hills, because experts from the Ministry of Agriculture unanimously determined that the soil there was more fertile and the agricultural conditions were better. Therefore, the Nantie Railway Company decisively set up a logging farm there, and sent many prisoners of war (including supervisors) to log and clear the land, laying a solid foundation for subsequent colonial settlements.

After arriving at this expedition team marked as "Mishan Lumberyard" on the map (meaning in a hilly area covered with trees), this expedition team led by Wang Dali will distribute supplies to local lumberjacks and take a day off, and then continue to move forward depending on the weather conditions. If the weather is not good (which is common in winter), they will return to Guanhai Harbour and take a 72-ton steam steamer (an old paddle steamer that has been eliminated in China was bought at a low price by the Nan Railway Company to use its residual heat), explore along the eastern coastline of the island, observe and draw maps, and provide detailed information for future comprehensive colonization.

Of course, if the weather is good, they will explore inland areas along the paths between hills and valleys. They will do their best to find a road suitable for humans and animals to walk among dense forests, swamps, rivers, depressions, and lakes. At the same time, they will record the soil, forests and animal and plant resources of the areas they pass along in detail, and mark each place suitable for human settlement as the official basis for future colonization.

On August 5, 1651, Wang Dali and his group finally arrived at the Mishan logging farm after a difficult journey. The local Polish lumberjacks cheered and were fed up with this cold and wet place. Because the water at the local sea is shallow and silted, and the seabed is covered with reefs, it is not suitable to establish a port at all. Therefore, their supplies are all transported by ships docking at Guanhai Harbour, and then sent over through an extremely difficult forest path. The road conditions of this path are so harsh (many places are made of thick logs on the ground), so that vehicles cannot be passed at all, and they can only be transported by a horse team, so the supply speed is naturally extremely slow.

The poor road conditions, on the other hand, also means that the timber resources here are difficult to transport and export. This requires a lot of effort to build a road. For example, the Nan Railway Company once carefully considered building a railway from Guanhai Harbour to the north and through the mountain valleys to the Mishan logging farm (which can be extended to other areas in the future). In addition to forests and hills (no more than 200 meters, the undulations are not large and the slope is relatively slow), there are swamps and depressions everywhere. It can be said that the technical difficulty of railway construction is not very difficult, but the project volume is very large. This requires the Nan Railway Company to invest a lot of manpower and material resources to cut down trees, drain the swamps, and build reservoirs here, and then the railway can be built one after another. Before the Liangyang Railway is officially opened to traffic, this is destined to be a dream.
Chapter completed!