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Chapter 20 The troublesome Miskito people

 Cuba.

In the Governor's Mansion, Zhang Henxue walked around the hall a little irritably. It was already June, the rainy season in Cuba has officially arrived, and hurricanes in the Caribbean are also brewing.

A heavy rain not long ago filled the entire Havana with a wet smell. The heat, humidity, and inner depression made Zhang Henxue's white shirt almost soaked through.

There is only one reason.

Miskito people.

Although the ordinary Miskito people, except for the "warriors", were able to settle down through pretense, it was not possible to get them to engage in agricultural production obediently.

The Miskitos are a tribe famous for capturing the Mayans in the tropical rainforests of Central America. Although they occasionally plant, it is an extremely simple and extensive operation, that is, they just dig a hole and plant the seeds, and then plant them.

No matter, it is quite similar to some Indian tribes in North America.

As for how much they can harvest, they don't care. Apart from what they get from slave hunting, the rest of their livelihood comes from fishing, hunting, and gathering.

Taking this into consideration, the officials in charge of agriculture in the Governor's Palace of Cuba only allocated ten acres of land to each household. You must know that this is land that the Spaniards have cultivated for hundreds of years. It is all ready-made and does not require land reclamation.

Just plow the land and apply fertilizer with the assistance of agricultural officials and immigrants.

But they can't even do this.

First of all, they can't do it like the immigrants who get up very early in the morning and rush over to continue working when the sun is about to set in the afternoon. They are used to a free and undisciplined life and don't get up until very late.

When the sun is at its most poisonous, people naturally don’t want to work in the fields.

Later, the Governor-General decided to use military settlements to deal with the land in their hands. However, although these people were lazy and lazy, they were also very unhappy when faced with harsh punishments, so they secretly made trouble and quarreled with officials from time to time.

Conflict.

Now that I think about it, the Spaniards spent a lot of money to move this tribe here from the Mosquito Coast. Obviously, they didn't just let them occupy the cities and cause trouble for the Truchen people in the countryside, but they also realized that they were not easy to civilize.

.

The main colonies occupied by the Spanish in the Americas, such as Mexico and Peru, were all tribes that had established primitive empires before. They were all diligent planters, and they were very easy to use after the conquest.

Why did the Caribbean people disappear in the Caribbean? Is it because they were unruly and unruly? In the end, the white people had to kill them all through various methods, and they also had to migrate a large number of black slaves from Africa to replace them.

Compared with Indians who don't know how to farm, black slaves are stronger and much more honest. Zhang Henxue and others obviously take this for granted.

But Zhang Henxue couldn't kill all the nearly half a million people at once. What's more, he wanted to introduce a large number of such Indian immigrants from North America. Now he couldn't even kill a Miskito.

Not to mention others?

In the end, in order to grab the seeds, the Truchin immigrants came forward and almost completed the planting on their behalf. You know, the immigrants were allocated twenty acres of land to each household. In this case, wouldn't it mean that each of them needs to cultivate thirty acres of land?
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After a while, Zhang Henxue sat down.

"The mind is calm and naturally cool"

He recited these words silently.

"No, we can't tolerate these people anymore. We must insist on using military camps, and we must strengthen the detailed rules. For example, if you get up at six o'clock in the morning, you must hang a big bell near their longhouse, and then wake them up to work in the fields."

"The black slaves in South Africa also have farming experience, and they cannot all be used in the mines"

By this time, in his mind, there was no difference in appearance, and the black slaves gave him a higher look.

He called his secretary Nian Feng and the officials in charge of farming.

"When will the next slave ship arrive?"

"Sir, we will arrive in three days."

There are a total of five slave ships heading to South Africa, each of which can bring in 5,000 people. Two batches have already arrived, all of which are placed in the industrial and mining areas of Holkin. According to Zhang Henxue's plan, four more batches will be brought this year, a total of

Thirty thousand people.

Originally, it was planned to use all these 30,000 people for road construction, industry and mining, but now it seems that the plan needs to be changed.

The Indians living in the longhouses were all gathered together in groups of about a hundred households. The total number of longhouses was about 5,000. One longhouse was a village. Later, they helped them build formal brick and tile structure houses. At that time,

They actively participated in the labor with great interest.

Because they know that the warriors in the past lived in this kind of house, and they are qualified to live in such a house, they naturally participate enthusiastically.

But since they moved into such a house, they have settled down again, and their lives have not changed at all.

When I saw the Truqin immigrants helping them plant the land again, they didn't show any gratitude. They seemed to take everything for granted.

"This way"

After seeing the two people coming over, Zhang Henxue was already confident.

"Since everyone lives in the same place now, we are not polite. We must change these people into real farmers!"

"Currently, the Han immigrants and the Miskitos live not far away. They are both in the same township, but the number of Miskitos is only ten times as many as them."

"Relocate ten households of Han immigrants to Miskito villages, and at the same time relocate ten Miskito households to Han villages. The ten households that move to Miskito villages must be young people.

Families that are strong, have more men in the family, and have a backbone militia”

"The Miskito families who moved to Han villages were the worst behaved and most resistant in that village."

"In this way, every village on the island will have Han immigrants, and the older militiamen will be appointed as village chiefs. A big bell will be hung in the small square in the middle of each Miskito village, where they usually worship, and according to the military

"Tuen's regulations"

"Whenever you get up, when you go to bed, when you eat, when you return, you all have to ring the bell."

"Those who are stubborn will be killed without mercy!"

Zhang Henxue showed a hint of cruelty.

"At the same time, all villages adopt the method of collective farms. Half of the harvest is left to the village and half is turned over. A village committee is set up, consisting of the village chief, deputy village chief, militia squad leader, and accountant."

"The village chief gives each household a score every day based on their working conditions. The so-called work points are used to distribute different grains according to different work points during harvest."

"Our Han immigrants all have guns. Not to mention the Han-dominated villages. It is not a problem for the Miskito-dominated villages to be equal to ten. Of course, those who resist fiercely will be killed without mercy. There is no need to do this for those who are procrastinating. etc.

When it comes time to harvest and distribute food, they will know how powerful they are."

"Make it clear in advance that we will not provide relief when the time comes, we will just starve them to death."

"At the same time, implement a differentiation strategy among them, including those who are active in the village committee, and at the same time, slightly tilt the allocation."

"It is estimated that within five years, these people will be honest and learn how to farm. At that time, the fields will be redistributed and the grain tax will be collected according to the empire's taxation method."

"If the family was killed and they had children who went to school in the city, they would be demoted as slaves and let them work on the roads, in factories and mines."

"Except for half of the newly arrived black slaves who continue to work on roads, industry and mining, the rest are all placed in villages to farm until the fields left by white people are occupied. Among them, those who perform well will be given priority to marry.

, incorporated into our country’s formal jurisdiction system”

"After one year, those who have performed well, whether black or Indian, can be considered to join the militia. After three years, those who have performed well can be considered to join the Truchin Army."

In Cuba, a new storm has begun.

Holguin, a small fort with a circumference of only four miles, has become the industrial and mining center of the Viceroyalty of Cuba.

In the past, this was the Spanish gold and silver mining center on the island of Cuba. The area around Holguin was basically a plain, but there would be a hill every now and then, and some of the hills contained gold and silver mines.

The Spanish also discovered iron ore and copper mines when mining gold and silver mines, but they were not interested. For them, when they came to colonize America, the order of industry was: the first was gold and silver mines, and the second was economy.

Crops such as tobacco, cane sugar, coffee, etc., and finally food crops, such as corn, rice, etc.

Three thousand immigrant families of craftsmen arrived here at the same time as Sange. After a month of investigation, they quickly discovered iron ore, copper ore, and manganese ore near the gold and silver mine, and the grades were all pretty good.

If you want to meet Truqin's mining standards, you must first build roads. At this time, the first batch of black slaves also arrived, and they were naturally placed in various mining sites and worked on the road from the mining site to Holkin City.

The vicinity of Holguin is rich in clay and limestone. After the mineral spots were identified, small-scale mining and smelting began, sometimes for iron and copper materials, but for slag.

Slag, clay and limestone are calcined together to produce original cement, and clay can also be used to make bricks and tiles in large quantities.

In order to transport the gold and silver here and other materials in, the Spaniards set up ports in Shivara to the north of Holguin and Santiago to the south. The port in Santiago has excellent conditions, but it has to cross a mountain peak, Khiva.

The water depth in Lagang is only three meters, so large ships cannot be berthed.

Therefore, daily necessities were transported from Shivara in flat-bottomed boats, and the gold and silver ingots produced were transported to Santiago and loaded onto treasure ships.

Both roads have been built, but in the eyes of the Truqin people, they are naturally unqualified.

After the arrival of 10,000 black slaves, Yang Ge, the second-in-command in the Governor's Office, chief executive, and head of the construction company, immediately expanded Shivala Port and extended the pier fifty meters into the sea with concrete, making it a berthable port.

A place with a big ship like the Truchenbogda.

However, he did not give up the road to Santiago. Whether it was for connecting various places or for military considerations, it was very important to open up the connection with Holguin.

Two months later, a road from Porto Hivara to Holguin to Santiago, mainly made of cement and supplemented by some gravel roads, was connected based on the previous simple road. Naturally, there are tens of thousands of people in it.
Chapter completed!
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