From Nerchinsk City to the west, there is a thick smell of gunpowder smoke everywhere, and the number of soldiers is more than ordinary people.
The area in the middle reaches of Heilongjiang located east of the Daxingan Mountains is mostly plains, suitable for large-scale agricultural planting.
Heilong Province established two towns here, one is Hailanpao and the other is the original Heilong City. These two cities were renovated and expanded on the original basis.
Heilong City has the most complete infrastructure and is located in the center of Heilong Province. It is the current capital of Heilong Province.
The Qing army has already retreated to Qiqihar City in the Nenjiang River Basin, and there is a sufficient buffer zone between it and the Huaihai Navy.
The Huaihai Navy set up outposts in the upper reaches of the Nen River to monitor the movements of the Qing army. However, Heilongjiang General Nafude did not send troops to check, perhaps because he was afraid of causing trouble for himself.
Huaihai Navy established several small towns in the original Jiangdong area to manage the original residents.
This is the most densely populated area in Heilong Province. Small towns have been established in the original old Aihun City, Huanghe Tun, and in Suchuna Tun and Wuerkan Tun further north.
More new farms will be opened up on the wasteland here, and the Huaihai Navy will also support local indigenous people to vigorously develop agricultural production.
The establishment of these small towns can provide them with better agricultural tools and seeds, thus allowing them to continuously improve their agricultural production levels.
In the future, the remaining grain produced here will be sent upstream along Heilongjiang to Nerchinsk and Ulan-Ude.
Herdsmen can exchange their cattle and sheep for food.
This will not only feed more herdsmen, but also allow downstream farmers to obtain large livestock, meat, and furs.
Herdsmen cannot feed many people with livestock alone, especially in a place with such a harsh climate on the Mongolian Plateau.
Every winter, a large number of livestock freeze to death.
Now, before winter comes, herdsmen can exchange their excess livestock for grain. In this way, the value of the livestock has increased a lot.
More people can be fed on the grassland.
No one could do this before because there was no way to complete transactions between grassland herders and farmers downstream.
The road on the grassland is too difficult.
No one has ever tried to use Heilongjiang to connect upstream and downstream.
The first one to try was the Russian, that is, Muravyov.
What a great idea he had!
It turned out that the village where Bao Youzhi led the people of Jiangdong to fight against the Russians was now renamed "Tuanjie Village", which means that everyone united to fight against Tsarist Russia and win.
Well, it's a good name, and it might become a tourist attraction in the future.
Historically, the Qing Dynasty signed the Treaty of Aihui with Tsarist Russia, which assigned the north of Heilongjiang to Russia, but agreed that the people of the 64 villages in Jiangdong would have permanent residence rights there.
However, the ferocious Tsarist Russians reneged on their promise and drove all the people east of the Yangtze River to the Heilongjiang River to kill them. Only a few people jumped into the middle of the river and swam to the other side.
That's why Dong Shuheng hated Tsarist Russia so much.
This mentality also affected his generals.
That's why Lin Wei made arrangements for the advance team heading north.
In the past, there were no people living on both sides of Heilongjiang.
Now take a boat trip downstream from Nerchinsk upstream.
You can see a settlement every dozens of kilometers. They are large and small. The small one is a small farm with dozens or hundreds of people, the larger one has hundreds of people, and the larger one is built on the basis of the original village.
A small town that grew up.
The fertile Heilongjiang connects these residential areas and nourishes the fertile land on both sides for people to cultivate.
The river is rich in fish resources, providing people on both sides with a rich source of protein.
Convenient water transportation allows people to exchange what they need, sell their output, and buy necessary daily necessities.
A new large-scale farm is being opened in the Sanjiangkou area, which is a granule plain formed by the confluence of rivers.
The land is fertile and rich in various animal and plant resources. After listening to the agricultural investigator's report, Dong Shuheng used one sentence to describe the place - beating roe deer with a stick and scooping up fish with a gourd.
This sentence became a slogan promoted by the Immigration Bureau. Many people moved their families there because of the imagination brought by this sentence.
Going south along Ussuri, Huai Haijun established several small towns in Boli, Bixin, and Niman. These were the former settlements of ethnic minorities.
Now that the Huaihai Navy wants to formally rule here, it must absorb and integrate these local people.
Among them, Niman is at the uppermost reaches of the Ussuri River. It is very close to Vladivostok.
The Far Eastern Province is planning to build a road from here to Vladivostok.
In this way, the distance between Vladivostok and the middle reaches of Heilongjiang is much closer.
Vladivostok is a frost-free port, and supplies are also shipped in during winter.
Through land transportation and sleds on the ice, these materials can be transported to the Heilongjiang Basin when Heilongjiang is frozen.
Of course, this method of transportation is more expensive than water transportation, but it can be used as an emergency supplementary method in winter.
In the Far East Province, with the arrival of waves of immigrants, various supporting facilities on Temple Street were built.
The establishment of schools, hospitals, post offices, banks, and government agencies made Temple Street the real political center of the Far East.
Life here is gradually getting back on track.
Tian Chang is an ordinary employee of the forest farm. He can be regarded as an old resident of Temple Street because he has spent a winter in Temple Street.
I still remember last fall when I was selected by the farm to go to Temple Street.
At that time they had no idea what Temple Street was.
I only know that it is the newly developed area in the northernmost part of Huaihai Navy.
As an employee of Huaihai Farm, Tian Chang must obey the farm's arrangements.
Ever since Tian Chang, his three children and his wife were taken in by Huai Haijun's farm, they began to eat from Huai Haijun.
Eating other people's food and doing things for them is a matter of course.
Where is the room for you to choose your own place?
Anyway, when Tian Chang goes out, the farm will give his wife and children a bite to eat.
And the person who is sent out that time will receive double salary for one year.
Money moves people's hearts.
He stayed on the boat for nearly ten days, which was a very painful thing for Tian Chang who had never been to sea.
But the banker man can endure such hardship.
After arriving at the place, I felt pretty good because it was just autumn and the temperature was just right.
When Tian Chang got off the boat, he saw a small town, all of which were wooden houses.
This is a beautiful harbor. Tian often heard from the captain that this is the mouth of Heilongjiang.
As a refugee from Shandong, Tian Chang had never heard of this place name.
But they don't care, as long as they follow orders and work.
Their earliest task was to cut down trees and build houses.
Tian Chang belongs to the forest farm, and his main task is actually to cut trees. There are huge trees all over the mountains and plains here.
They couldn't transport too big trees down the mountain, so they had to choose smaller trees. Pinewood of about ten centimeters was perfect for building houses after being cut.
After logging, they would collect some pine cones and mushrooms in the mountains.
Someone from the forest farm taught them how to identify mushrooms.
After every rain, the forest will be filled with mushrooms, which are most delicious when stewed with the grouse brought by the guards.
The forests here are all old forests with a thick layer of dead leaves. When you step on them, it feels like you are stepping on a mat.
When taking a bath, Tian would often run to the riverside to watch the fishing team fishing.
Every net is full of big fish, and it seems like there will never be enough fish caught. It looks very enjoyable.
The wooden frame for drying fish on the shore is like a small forest, densely packed!
The fish here are big and fat, many of which Tian Chang cannot even name.
But it tastes really good, especially the roe in the fish belly, which accounts for almost one-third of the fish belly.
Tian Chang likes to eat caviar mixed with rice. It's so delicious that Tian Chang, who hasn't had enough to eat since he was a child, doesn't know how to describe it.
But it didn't take long before winter came.
Winter here seems to have arrived all at once. The sudden cold makes even Shandong men like Tian Chang unbearable.
The heavy snow won't stop at once, and the wind outside is like a knife.
If you go out, you must be packed tightly.
He could only lie down with his coworkers in a small wooden hut with a heated kang all day long, doing nothing.
A group of men stayed together all day, making them dirty and smelly. The whole wooden house smelled of stinky feet and dry smoke.
There is not much emphasis on bitterness. But after surviving a winter, Tian Chang no longer wants to experience that feeling.
Finally, it was the spring of the second year. After getting used to working as a clerk, Tian Chang suddenly felt unwell for a few months.
Fortunately, in winter, you can still go out and do some work on sunny days. What everyone does most is shoveling snow. If the snow here is not shoveled, the house will be buried.
The key is that the snow that falls will not melt. Temple Street, where they live, happens to be a harbor. The wind blows all the surrounding snow over and accumulates it here.
After the snow melted today, many troops came to Temple Street, saying that the Russians who were here would come to take revenge.
Tian Chang and the others were also militiamen. They also received weapons and began to spend more time on training.
Sure enough, tens of thousands of people came from the upper reaches of the river, and the fleet could not even see the edge.
The militia commander joked to everyone: "These ships will all belong to us from now on."
Although Tian Chang was nervous, he was not worried. The Huai Navy had never lost a battle.
Sure enough, all tens of thousands of Russians were finally wiped out, and many prisoners were taken.
Now the most painful and tiring work on Temple Street can be left to these prisoners.
Major construction began on Temple Street. The two streets were paved with gravel and then poured with cement to make them smooth.
The gravel was mined by the captives in the quarry.
The cement is fired by the cement factory on the mountainside.
Later, the newly established military government of the Far Eastern Province set up its residence in this home and called on everyone to bring their family members over.
Tian Chang felt that there were hospitals and schools here, and the food was better than on his previous farm in Jiangsu.
The most important thing is that if you have family members, you can get a house of your own.
Tian Chang really didn’t want to be crowded together with his coworkers.
So he submitted an application to take over his three children and his wife.
Tian Chang got his wish and was assigned a house with three main rooms.
Tian Chang and his wife sleep in one room, the children sleep in one room, and the middle room is the main hall.
There are two side rooms, one is the kitchen and the other is the toilet.
The toilet here must be in the house, otherwise it won't be possible to clean it in winter.
The kitchen has a door connected to Tian Chang and his bedroom. The toilet is on the other side, separated by a door from the children's room.
The three children of Tian Chang's family, the oldest is twelve years old and the youngest is eight years old. They have all reached the age of schooling.
Tian Chang sent them all to school on Temple Street, and the school took care of meals at noon, so Tian Chang and his wife could both go out to work.
Tian Chang's wife is responsible for picking up mushrooms and fungus at the forest farm. After collecting them, she sends them to the food factory for drying. I heard that these dried mushrooms are very expensive in the south.
This can be regarded as a new way of making money for the forest farm.
Another way to make money is the logging work done by Tian Chang and others. The good wood will be made into fixed-size boards at the sawmill in the forest farm and then transported by merchant ships.
Now, the fleets that brought supplies can return with full loads every time they return.
Winter is here, and adults spend most of their time resting. Children still have to go to school, and the school is heated.
Thinking that some workers still have to squeeze into the same kang, Tian Chang can sleep at home with his wife in his arms.
It feels so beautiful in my heart!
"Daughter-in-law, since I have nothing to do, why don't I have another baby?" Tian Chang said.
Recently, Tian often has to repeat this sentence to his wife whenever it's snowing and he can't go to work.
This middle-aged couple took advantage of their children to go to school and found the feeling they had when they were newly married.
Tian Chang thought: The winter in the Far East is so nice!
The cold wind is howling outside, and the warmth of spring is blooming on the kang!