At the end of September 1788, Su Chong'a, who came from the Ningguta prisoner-of-war camp, stood on the deck of the Thor, looking at the continent that was continuing to go away, and his heart became increasingly sad and desolate.
As a Manchu who had never seen the sea and couldn't swim, Su Chong'a felt that he had settled down for the rest of his life, and I was afraid he would never return to Shenyang. His surname was "Cai Hala" and his ancestors were Han Chinese , lived in Shenyang for generations. Since the Jin Dynasty occupied Shenyang in the late Ming Dynasty, and in the Huang Taiji era, they changed their surname from Chai to Manchu.
In August, according to the order of the Ministry of Civil Affairs of Beihai Town, some Manchu and Eight Banners prisoners of war were selected from the Qing army prisoners in Ningguta and sent to Heishi Town on Kuye Island for labor service. Due to the current manpower shortage in Beihai Town, the escort and guard personnel It is limited, so the number of people in the first batch is only 500.
As soon as the news came out, some of the prisoners of the Qing army suddenly felt panic. Many people thought why the treatment of Marshal Fu and others was different from before. Last time, the prisoners of the Qing army basically did nothing except digging a ditch in the cold weather. What kind of drudgery? I spent a winter stuck in a cellar, with no heavy work except for taking roll call every day. Although I had a mediocre meal, I heard that I could listen to ditties.
Now it's our turn. Look, what kind of life are these? Not only do we move rocks, cut trees, and dig soil every day, but we don't live well. Why, you want to send us to a deserted island to do hard labor?
What a joke! The first batch had to be exchanged for money. And it was winter, so it wasn’t enough to let these people go out to cut wood. So at that time, Zhao Xin directly deducted money from the rations and maintained the minimum food supply standard, as long as he didn’t starve to death. .
Beihai Town does not plan to release these captives now. The Ministry of Civil Affairs plans to let these prisoners become permanent residents of Kuye Island after their hard labor period expires.
Blackstone Town was actually the location of Alexandrovsk in later generations. Ding Guofeng had visited this place once before, and later the Civil Affairs Bureau sent a group of people to plan the site. At that time, according to Mergua He said that there was an ancient city ruins there called Yiduicheng. After he returned to Beihai Town and looked through the information, he found out that it was the former site of the ancient city of the Jin Dynasty. Since there was an old site, it was a good idea to make use of it, so the Ministry of Civil Affairs transferred Kuye Island to This is the place to stay in the southwest.
The Thor first arrived at Dabo Town at the southernmost tip of Kuye Island, unloaded some supplies, and stayed for a night before setting off again, heading north along the strait between the Outer Northeastern Continent and Kuye Island.
This strait was called the "Tatar Strait" in later generations, and the islanders called it the "Mamiya Strait." In fact, starting from the Yuan Dynasty, it and the Sea of Japan were collectively called the "Whale Sea" in the books of the Central Dynasty. ”.
Count Laperouse, who was visiting Beihai Town, originally sailed north from here, hoping to find a passage from the Sea of Japan to the Sea of Okhotsk.
However, because the mayor of Dabo Town, Jiang Tenglin, played a trick and did not tell them the truth, the French went further north and found that the strait became shallower; basically for every nautical mile they went north, the water depth decreased by 2 meters. When they reached the water depth of only 20 meters, they no longer dared to leave. In fact, the shallowest part of the Tartar Strait was only seven meters, and Beihai Town's own ship could not get through, let alone the French.
Seeing that the seabed gradually increased, the water in the strait was almost stationary, which made the French mistakenly believe that this was not a strait but a bay. So on the map they drew, Kuye Island was drawn as a peninsula. Later, the French
We had no choice but to turn around and return to Dabo Town. Under Jiang Tenglin's guidance, we headed north along the east coast of Kuye Island to Okhotsk.
When they passed the town of Oja, the French also saw billowing black smoke from the oil refinery on the shore from the ship. The French, who were not aware of the situation, wanted to go ashore for inspection, but Zhang Bo refused. The Count of La Perouse
Thinking of the coastal defense artillery I had seen in Dabo Town (Beihai Town's self-produced 75mm artillery, with a range of 6,500 meters), I gave up the idea of forcibly landing.
On the Tartar Strait in winter, the spectacle of whales spraying water and swimming around attracted many Qing prisoners of war. They came to the deck to point and marvel.
However, the superficial happiness cannot cover up the anguish in these people's hearts. In fact, the further away the Thor is from the mainland, the more desperate these people feel. If they hadn't been arranged in groups of five, all wearing shackles on their feet, they would be strung together in a string.
, maybe someone who couldn't bear to think about it would jump into the sea and commit suicide.
The Thor stopped on the sea one kilometer away from Blackstone Town. On the sea not far from the shore, several rocks stood abruptly. At this time, the sea was filled with fog, and the three largest rocks were like black in the hands of the devil.
Steel fork; This scene made the Qing prisoners on the ship feel like they were in hell, and one young prisoner even started crying.
The sailor on the deck laughed and said: "Coward, what's so scary! Let me tell you, the oysters here are so fat, you can easily pick up the ones as long as your forearms on the beach. When you come here, you won't be able to eat them all year round.
Lack of meat to eat.”
Su Chong'a wiped the tears from the corners of his eyes, thinking that the weather was so cold, and if he picked seafood with his bare feet in the water, he would still get sick from the cold.
Taking advantage of the time when the barge was put down, the prisoners lined up on the deck one by one under the orders of the soldiers. The barge on the Thor was not big, and could only hold twenty people at a time. In addition to the prisoners, there were also
A lot of supplies needed to be transported ashore. When the last shipment of supplies arrived at the beach, the sky was already dark.
The prisoners spent their first night in a tent around a campfire. In addition to the hooting of owls, the howling of wolves could be heard faintly around the camp.
When they were woken up by the whistle the next morning, they walked out of the tent shivering one by one and completed the roll call, then began to eat breakfast. Su Chong'a drank hot stick noodle porridge while looking at this strange place.
The place where they are currently camping is still more than four miles away from the old site of Yidui City, but as the first batch of settlers here, Su Chong'a and their labors have to start here first.
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! The Ministry of Civil Affairs has sent people to inspect the location of the campsite in advance, and chose an open space only one mile away from the coast. The area is almost the size of three football fields.
The surrounding area has been marked with wooden poles over one meter high.
These Qing army prisoners had been building the road from Ninggu Pagoda to Fuldan City in the past few months, so they were already very familiar with how to use various tools produced in Beihai Town. The team of 500 people was divided into ten teams, each with
One team was guarded by a squad of Beihai navy.
The job of Su Chong'a's team was to cut wood in the lower reaches of the Yidu River. After the group arrived here carrying tools, he first dug a shovel of soil, leaned down, grabbed a handful and rubbed it twice in his hands.
.The light brown soil is sticky and slippery in the hand, and there are a lot of gravels.
A man in his thirties next to him came over, grabbed a handful of soil, looked at it and said, "The land here is too poor. I'm afraid I won't be able to grow crops."
Su Chong'a asked curiously: "Have you ever planted land?"
The man said: "Why haven't you planted it before? My family is from Liaoyang. Before I went out to serve in the army, I followed my mother to pick up crops. If you want to grow food on this land, you must first drain it and then plow it deeply. It will not be possible until the second year."
sowing."
Su Chong'a has never farmed. His family has been serving as soldiers to provide food for his ancestors, and the dozens of acres of land in his family are cultivated by tenants.
While the two were working, they chatted for a while to pass the time. During the conversation, Su Chong'a learned that the other party's name was Chen Yingqi, who belonged to the Xianglan Banner of the Han Army. During the Tiancong period, Chen Yingqi's ancestor was kidnapped from Pyongyang to Liaoyang due to war, and he settled there ever since.
Come down; their group is called "Cen Hala" in the Manchu surname. His great-grandfather was the deputy general of Yonggu, Shaanxi Province, and he was also wearing the title of "Qi Duwei".
The prisoners were working here, and the Beihai navy who was guarding them was not idle either. The battalion commander who led the team asked a few soldiers with good marksmanship to hunt in the woods, and occasionally they could hear a gunshot. At noon, they actually shot
Two deer were caught, which made a group of captives overjoyed.
The Ministry of Civil Affairs has set a labor service period of three years for these prisoners. After the expiration of the period, they can stay and settle locally, or be allocated fifty acres of farmland in the south of Kuye Island. If the North Navy captures the entire Northeast by then, they can also
The family members all took it over. With such hope, the prisoners became much more active in their work.
As for Kuye Island, the Ministry of Civil Affairs has a comprehensive consideration for the development here. That is, the northern part is dominated by oil and animal husbandry, the southern part is dominated by planting industry, and the central part can only be coal and forestry.
Apart from forestry and coal, there are no agricultural prospects here in Blackstone Town. The main reason is that due to the natural conditions of the Yidu River and the Adangji River Valley, and being sandwiched by mountains on both sides, there are too few areas available for reclamation. As for the
If you want to develop along the coast, don't bother with that.
In the history of another time and space, due to the barrenness of the local land, the farmers who came here from Tsarist Russia in the 19th century reclaimed the land and built farms, but many of them left within a few years. The reason could not be simpler: the crops could not be grown at all.
Even growing potatoes is not enough to eat.
Therefore, Blackstone Town is suitable as a labor base for prisoners of the Qing army. When their labor period expires, they will be assigned to farm in the plain area east of Dabo Town or to the north to raise livestock, and then they will be mixed with some
The refugees in the pass and the naturalized people of the island country, the entire Kuye Island is considered occupied.
As for the southern part of Bitter Leaf Island, although the plains are open, there are also many swamps. It will definitely take a lot of effort to transform it into an agricultural area.
If the swampland is to be transformed into a field suitable for farming, it must be mechanically dug and ridged for drainage, which will increase the ground temperature, increase the temperature difference and increase the activity of aerobic microorganisms; and then fertilize to reduce organic matter and change the pH.
Only by making the land "out of swamp and into soil" can it be worth it.
Even in modern times, it is no exaggeration to say that it would take at least ten years to improve a swamp area and turn it into a highly productive farmland.
This is not at all like a modern person who can turn wasteland into fertile farmland with a wave of his hand or a command.
Don't always talk about potatoes and sweet potatoes. Whether it is Chinese or foreign farmers, when they come to a strange land and find that the harvest of the staple food crops is not good, they will be eager to leave this place. And if farmers
If they cannot be retained, agriculture will not develop, and it will be difficult for emerging immigrant towns to develop.
In an agricultural society, farmers' stubborn mentality towards staple food is often unimaginable to modern people. It's useless even if you tell him a thousand times that potatoes can produce a thousand catties per mu. In the life he has heard about since he was a child, that thing is not what he wants.
Staple food to eat!
Even Europeans were very resistant to potatoes in the early days. First, they were not familiar with the way potatoes grow, and second, they were not mentioned in the Bible.
That is to say, European countries are small and food is extremely scarce. It is relatively easy for leaders to change their lifestyles through their own power and influence. Would you try it in an East Asian country?
To this day, islanders eat dumplings or ramen as side dishes with rice. This shows that rice as a staple food has been deeply engraved in their genes. Similarly, to this day, Chinese people have not heard of anyone wanting to eat potatoes when they are hungry.
Or sweet potatoes, these are things that are only occasionally changed when you are tired of the staple food. Grains as the staple food have long been imprinted in the bones of the Chinese people.
With the handy tools and sufficient food, the prisoner team's work at the Blackstone Town landing point is progressing quite well. But for people like Su Chong'a, the labor in Blackstone Town is really hard!
Their logging area is mainly in the lower reaches of the Yidu River. The width of the river here is up to 20 to 30 meters. The low-lying areas on both sides are covered with towering trees, firs, larches, alders, and willows. They are surrounded by a forest.
It is a muddy swamp. In addition to the tall trees, there are often huge, semi-rotted trees lying vertically on the ground in the forest. They all need to be cleaned up. Some of these trees have fallen due to aging, and some have fallen.
Some were overturned by storms. There are often moss-covered mounds next to the roots of fallen trees, and beside the mounds are pits and deep ditches.
While logging, the prisoners also had to cut grass everywhere and bundle it into bundles to fill the swamps and deep ditches so that the chopped wood could be transported out of the forest.
After three or four days of such work, the prisoners were exhausted one by one. They were all listless and gloomy, and after finishing work every day, they went into their tents and fell asleep.
By the end of the first week, they had dug a septic tank with a side length of 20 meters and a depth of three meters, and built temporary toilets; they had cleared an open space the size of four basketball courts and used chopped wooden stakes to clear it.
It was surrounded to ward off wild beasts; two wooden columns had been erected, and they are currently used as warehouses; in addition, the prisoners, under the guidance of the soldiers of the Northern Navy, built a T tower about three meters high that extended into the sea.
The zigzag pier has begun to take shape.
In the second week, the Thor sent over a thousand prisoners of war and a batch of supplies. The number of manpower was tripled, and the construction progress of the entire camp was accelerated.
As snowflakes began to fall in Blackstone Town, the Qing prisoners including Su Chong'a and Chen Yingqi knew that time was getting tighter. Even in the camp at night, the lights were brightly lit, and the prisoners worked until eleven at night.
, got into the tent to rest at two o'clock, and got up to work again early the next morning.
Compared with the wet cellars where the prisoners lived along the Ninggu Pagoda Road, the residence built by Su Chong'a and the others in Heishi Town was much better. The floors in the wooden houses were at least one foot high from the ground.
It can effectively isolate cold and dampness. Beihai Town's almost strict health management has prevented the prisoners from having large-scale outbreaks of dysentery or other infections so far.