On January 15, a group of 600 immigrants from Zhenjiang Prefecture (possessed during the Battle of the Yangtze River) were placed on the south bank of the Cotton River. Ma Wanpeng was very concerned about these "Zhenjiang fellow villagers" and distributed them the fertile alluvial plain near the river bank: one person had 30 acres of arable land and twenty acres of pasture, and the treatment was extremely generous.

On February 10, Ma Wanpeng intercepted a group of more than 500 immigrants from Chizhou Prefecture, Nanzhili, and also placed them on the south bank of Mianhe Port. These people, together with the previous group of 600 migrants in Zhenjiang, digging ditches and building artificial reservoirs with the help of the only steam plow. The soil is relatively poor in the area far away from the river, so Ma Wanpeng plans to learn from the Nanzhi Company of Xingnan Port to use flooding to cover the originally barren land with a layer of organic matter-rich silt on the originally barren land. After a few more times, it is easy to open up large areas of farmland. These farmlands will be treated as dry farming, mainly planting peanuts, corn, and legume crops.

On March 1, Ma Wanpeng received a gift, with a total of 1,000 Qing army prisoners sold by Li Chengdong as piglets to the East Coast people. Of course, most of these so-called prisoners were just ordinary people in Chaozhou Prefecture, and the only hundreds of "real prisoners" were all trained in armed forces by local landlords. When Li Chengdong's army defeated Zhao Guozuo, the Qing Dynasty's Fujian Admiral and recovered Chaozhou Prefecture, they were caught and sold as piglets in exchange for high-quality weapons produced in the Jeju Island Workshop.

Because all of these thousand people are male and have certain combat effectiveness, Ma Wanpeng sent a few simple weapons and then walked less than 30 kilometers southward to the area near the town of St. Augustine in later generations, and then garrisoned and built a fort. It is close to the Hun River, the Unilahi River, and was named because the river carries a lot of mud and sand. It is rich in water and has large western bright forests and low bushes along the coast. The environment is much stronger than that of later generations that have suffered large-scale destruction. If developed in an orderly manner, it can become a relatively livable new town.

By the way, this new town is now called Chaoyang Fort, and it is named because most of its residents come from here. In the future, it will be mainly cotton planting and dry farming, which is almost exactly the same as the one in Mianhe Port. When more and more Ming immigrants flock to this place in the future, this large area of ​​land starting from Mianhe River in the north and ending from Hunhe River in the south will become the most important cotton planting area on New China Island, which will surely create great economic news, bringing the cotton self-sufficiency rate of the East Coast Republic of China to a new level.

The new population greatly enriched the relatively empty land in the Mianhe Basin. As new houses were built, new land was opened up one by one. Mianhe Port, a new territory that was personally supervised by Ma Wanpeng, flourished bit by bit.

At this time, the carriage Ma Wanpeng was riding along a dusty dirt road under the scorching sun. Eight soldiers on horseback were transferred to serve as Ma Wanpeng's guards. Originally, there were more than 100 German mercenaries in the Tulair Merchant Station. After the Dutch sold the merchant station and affiliated colonies, the contracts of these people were also bought out by the East Coast people and began to play for the New China Development Team.

However, Ma Wanpeng didn't trust these bitter Germans, so after giving them some things to win over the hearts of the people, he also organized them into Xiao Baitu's troops to fight against the Sakarava natives. From then on, he began his career of playing hide-and-seek with the natives. It is hard to say how many people could survive after the war.

The carriage quickly stopped on the side of a road covered by shade. It was already the edge of the territory. On the left is the quiet Mian River during the dry season, and on the right is a large wilderness and some rolling hills. The wilderness is very dry. Apart from the weeds and bushes, there is only dust flying all over the sky, exactly the same as the inland areas of South Africa, a typical semi-arid grassland area.

There are many hump cows wandering on the grassland, which are also the property left by the Dutch. At present, the total remaining number is about one thousand. They are grazed in the vast coastal area between Mianhe and Hunhe River. After Ma Wanpeng took over this place, he basically retained the original appearance of the Dutch ranch, and even the original grazing team left behind. At this time, the few people he saw on the roadside were a few of these ranch employees.

"I haven't learned the official language yet?" Ma Wanpeng asked with a straw hat and a roar in his ears as he listened to the roar of the difficult Fujian dialect. The darkened Fujianese in front of him were all ranch employees under the former Dutch rule. They were responsible for grazing, milking, caring for livestock, making cheese, tanning leather, and pickling beef. Sometimes they had to follow the butts of the German mercenaries to catch slaves - of course they were just logistics personnel - with a very low status, and they were just more advanced than some native slaves.

These poor people who were exiled to this place by the Batavian High Court are basically descendants of early Fujian immigrants. Most of them only speak Fujian dialect and Southeast Asian native languages. Occasionally, a few smart people can speak stuttering Dutch - most of them are Christians who have entered the church - in short, they just don't speak the East Coast Mandarin language, and it's quite difficult to communicate. Ma Wanpeng even had to communicate with them through his Dutch-speaking subordinates, otherwise they would not be able to talk at all, which was extremely depressing.

"Commander, these Fujianese are very stupid and can't teach them no matter how much they teach." An officer from Zhejiang came forward and said. His family's ancestors were once a maritime merchant, but they were later robbed and killed by Fujian pirates at sea, and their family was ruined. Therefore, he hated these Fujianese very much - although they were all descendants of Fujianese who had immigrated to Southeast Asia for countless generations.

"Don't talk nonsense to me!" Ma Wanpeng glanced at this subordinate and said, "The people on our East Coast are from all over the world. If you say these nonsense next time, hurry up and go home to grow cotton, and don't do it in the garrison! Tell me, what happened to you last time?"

"No clue." The officer said with some frustration: "These people are also lower-class people in the East Indies, otherwise they would not have been sent to this place for no reason. They knew nothing about the Portuguese and had limited knowledge of the Dutch. They knew nothing about where they could sail, which islands could be docked, which harbors could shelter from the wind, and which cities could get supplies. They only knew how they lived in a mess, but once you asked where they actually lived, they couldn't answer."

"That's how..." Ma Wanpeng was a little disappointed. It seemed that it was difficult to get some information about the East Indies from these people. If the East Coast people want to obtain key information about that strange sea, it seems that they have to find a way elsewhere. If it really doesn't work, they can only send an expedition ship! (To be continued, please search Piaotianwen, the novel is better, updated and faster!
Chapter completed!