The Rise of the European Emperor

How important was food to the colonists? Originally, Spanish colonists landed on Heping Island and established the city of San Salvador, but because of the bad relationship with the local aborigines (there were two aboriginal villages on the island who were driven away by the Spaniards), the aborigines on land refused to sell food to them.

Then, the Spanish colonists on the island lived a miserable life of "full and hungry". Food was mainly delivered by ships sent from Manila. If the food ships from Manila arrived late, the colonists on the island would starve for a long time.

The worst thing was Jamestown, the first English colony in North America in the early 17th century. In the cold winter of 1609, the British colonists in Jamestown cut off their food sources because they offended the native Indians who provided them with food. Then, 500 colonists in Jamestown, many died of starvation. Worst of all, many people ate the corpses of their starving companions in order to survive. Even, killing their companions to eat meat... Then, of the 500 colonists in Jamestown, only 60 survived in the end. And these 60 people have all eaten the meat of their companions...

It is precisely because of reading these histories that Marin was never blind when he was colonizing. Without colonizing a territory, Marin tried to avoid fierce conflicts with the aborigines at the beginning. Because, if there is a conflict with the aborigines too early, it may be difficult to gain a firm foothold.

In addition, wherever he goes, Marin always considers the source of food as the most important thing. For example, when Marin colonized North America, he colonized the twin islands of North America first, instead of rushing to land all at once. After the food supply in the North American Twin Islands was stabilized, the plan for New York began. Even if the colonization of New York fails, the two islands of North America can provide enough food to supply the colonists.

Marin also considered a lot about setting up a stronghold on Heping Island. Heping Island is located at the exit of Keelung Port formed by several freshwater rivers. The south bank faces Keelung Port. It belongs to the freshwater area, and the bank is also an alluvial soil area, which is suitable for agriculture. Of course, it is the villagers of Jilong Village who are farming.

The north coast is a stone coast, and the northeast coast is a salt water area, where boiled salt can be obtained. The 10 solar cookers brought by Kong Tai happened to be placed on the northeast coast to boil seawater to obtain salt.

Of course, the colonists are not short of salt now, because a lot of salt was brought on board. But the solar cooker does not consume firewood, it is not cooking time, and it is wasted if not used. Therefore, while Kong Tai instructed the masons to build Majiabao, he arranged for some wives brought by the masons to help them go to the beach to fetch seawater and boil salt. In this way, while building Majiabao, a lot of salt can be obtained every day.

Table salt is a good thing. In Beihai country or Ming Dynasty, maybe table salt is not a rare thing. But for the Fanmin on Taiwan Island, it is a very precious thing. Because most of the Fanmin do not know how to cook salt. Therefore, salt is also a kind of hard currency on the island, which can be exchanged for many things. Such as venison, deerskin, velvet, such as wood... and these things are not worth much in the eyes of the natives...

What do natives like best? Salt, ironware and cloth. But Kong Tai currently has no conditions to supply ironware and cloth, so he had to supply salt first, mainly to build a good relationship with the local aborigines.

As for the land cheated from the east bank of Keelung Port, Kong Tai was not in a hurry to land and build a fortress. Mainly - not enough building materials...

Before, Kong Tai did not expect to be able to successfully transfer to the land on land, so the cement and bricks he brought were not enough, which was only enough to build the walled city on Heping Island, and there was no extra to go ashore to build buildings.

Therefore, Kong Tai simply let the villagers of Jilong Village paddle ashore to farm the land, but reserved a place for building a fort. When the Beihai fleet arrives next time, they will send people ashore to build a serious castle.

If you build a castle again, you will not use bricks and cement, but stones. The reason why Majiabao uses bricks and cement is mainly to consider the speed of construction. After all, just stack the bricks, put cement on them, and let the wind and the sun shine, and it will be OK. Unlike building a stone castle, it is time-consuming to first collect stones and then build them slowly. If a strong enemy comes during the construction of the castle,

The consequences could be disastrous……

But it's different when building a castle on land, because Kong Tai doesn't need to worry. With Majiabao on Heping Island as his base camp, he is in no rush to build a castle on land. He planned to hire the people of Jilong Village and his masons to mine stones and store them up during the slack period. Wait until the materials are enough, and then slowly build a solid stone castle while the farming is slack.

You ask why not use cement? If reinforced concrete or bamboo reinforced concrete is not used, a castle made of bricks and cement is not as strong as a stone fortress. The advantage of bricks and cement is that the construction speed is fast, but in terms of sturdiness, it is really not good. Unless, there is a supply of steel bars.

But the cost of producing steel wire rods in this era is too high, so Marin's decision is to vigorously promote the planting of moso bamboo in the colony in the future, and use bamboo reinforced concrete for buildings. Unless it is a very important military fortress, extravagant reinforced concrete will be used. Even, in the future, local cement buildings, such as river embankments, will choose to import moso bamboo from North America. The moso bamboo has now taken root in Savannah, and Marin gave an order to give the moso bamboo enough space to scurry around, even the grain fields must give way to the moso bamboo. Also, bamboo shoots are never allowed to be eaten...

After all, every tender bamboo shoot is an ungrown bamboo. A lot of bamboo tendons will be needed to build concrete buildings in the future. How can Marin tolerate bamboo seedlings being eaten?

Not only that, in the future, Marin also plans to cut down trees and plant moso bamboo in North America. With enough bamboo, there are materials to build river embankments and prevent floods.

There are many great rivers in North America, such as the Mississippi. But if you want to take advantage of the fertile soil beside these big rivers, you must also be prepared to withstand floods. The annual flow of the Mississippi River is more than ten times that of the Yellow River, and flooding is very scary. The golden river can only be used well if enough flood barriers are built.

Plus, even a small river like New York's Hudson River occasionally floods in the summer. Therefore, every large-scale river has the need to build flood protection dikes. The demand for moso bamboo is also very, very large. It is impossible to use steel bars, and Marin's wealth will not be able to be used even if his wealth is increased by 10,000 times. After all, there are so many rivers whose embankments need repairing. The "muscles and bones" needed to build river embankments can only be moso bamboo...

In fact, Marin also plans to use Dongfan Island as a base in the future to purchase unlimited bamboo seeds from Daming and bring them back to the southern part of North America for planting. In this way, North America can provide enough bamboo tendons for the mainland as soon as possible. After all, rivers such as the local Ems River also need to build flood embankments made of bamboo-reinforced concrete. Especially in the Ruhr area, which is located on the banks of the great river Rhine, flooding is common.

In fact, there were also bamboos on Taiwan Island at this time, and its unique native species—Taiwan Osmanthus Bamboo—is an excellent variety with strong toughness and high bending strength. It's just that Kong Tai didn't know. Moreover, even if he knew, he would not dare to take people into the jungle of Taiwan Island to look for this kind of bamboo.

What's more, even Marin doesn't know that there is a kind of excellent bamboo called osmanthus bamboo on Taiwan Island. Because of its high bending strength, this kind of bamboo is even more suitable as bamboo reinforcement for construction than moso bamboo. However, Marin had only heard of moso bamboo and nanzhu in his previous life, but he didn't know much about Taiwan osmanthus bamboo. Perhaps, Hsinchu in later generations has some connection with Guizhu in Taiwan. Otherwise, it would not be called Hsinchu for no reason...

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