The Rise of the European Emperor

In July, after more than two months of difficult voyages, several ships to Cape Breton Island and the North American Twin Island Colony all arrived at their destinations. Only the boats to Grenada, which are farther away, are still on the sea.

After arriving at the colony, everyone discovered that the colonization was not as beautiful as imagined. At least, at the beginning, it was not so good.

Fortunately, they were colonies arriving in summer. If it was winter, if nothing else, the one on Cape Breton Island would definitely be frozen into a dog. Because, in winter, Cape Breton Island can also be as cold as minus ten degrees. Even the North American Twin Islands, several degrees below zero are not a problem. If immigrants come here in winter, because there is no house, people will definitely freeze to death.

But even in summer, it's a lot of trouble. First, the immigrants did not have houses. Therefore, the first thing that people who arrived at Cape Breton Island and the North American Twin Islands after disembarking was to go logging together. Houses were then organized by those of the immigrants who knew how to work as a carpenter and a mason.

However, Marin had long anticipated these situations, and specially dispatched a few craftsmen from Texel Island to instruct everyone to build adobe houses.

The adobe house is easy to build and saves costs. Also, time is fast. What's more, Marin "designed" the adobe house, which also had a kang inside. It's summer, and I can't see it yet. In winter, the advantages of such an adobe house become obvious.

However, even if you want to build an adobe house, you have to cut down the tree first. Because, whether it is Cape Breton Island or the North American Twin Islands, there are towering trees tens of meters high everywhere, and they are downright virgin forests. If you want to build a house on the island, you always have to make an open space first, right?

Therefore, the immigrants who just arrived on Cape Breton Island and Amerigo Island (Nantucket Island) among the twin islands of North America, the first thing to do is to cut down those big trees that are in the way...

Cutting down trees is a very laborious task. In fact, the process of cutting down the tree is not troublesome. The real trouble is to move the felled tree to the designated location, and to dig out the roots after the felled tree...

Among them, the most painful thing is digging the roots. This is not a small tree a few meters high, but a towering tree dozens of meters high. Their roots are intertwined and can occupy an area of ​​tens of square meters. Digging out such a tree root and digging it clean is simply a big project.

These days, there are no excavators, let alone Lanxiang technicians. Therefore, when everyone digs the roots, they can only use shovels and iron picks to dig manually...

However, digging out the roots of the trees covering an area of ​​tens of square meters from the deep buried ground is simply exhausting. Fortunately, these immigrants are young people, otherwise, it would be really difficult.

In this way, 200 immigrants each from Cape Breton Island and Amerigo Island spent their time digging for tree roots in the first few days after arriving on the island.

Their ships were all parked in the fresh water river, not according to Marin's vision, they were parked near the later Nantucket port and the Sydney mining area in North Sydney, north of Sydney Bay.

This is so for one reason - shipworms...

Ship worms are a very hateful animal, and their existence is simply the mortal enemy of great sailing. Because these ship maggots will attach to the bottom of the sailboat, like termites, feed on wood and eat away the hull. When the maggots are eroded to a certain extent, the bottom of the boat will be pierced. Then, the bottom of the boat would flood, causing the ship to sink.

In the famous Great Britain-Western naval battle, the Spanish Armada did not actually lose much under the British attack, but many were silent in the Atlantic Ocean because of ship maggots. The silent dozen warships were mostly because of The hull was damaged by maggots. During the naval battle, under the double action of the British artillery and the slap of the sea wind and waves, the water leaked and silenced, not the British artillery on the ship. The British artillery attack actually killed many sailors on the deck of the Spanish warship,

But how many Spanish warships were directly sunk. After all, Spanish warships are also professional warships that use a lot of wood to thicken their broadsides, so they are not so easy to be penetrated. However, the erosion of sea-bottom ship maggots is very difficult to control.

Built in ancient Greece, people have noticed the danger of ship maggots. People at the time used bitumen and tar to coat the bottom of the boat, and it worked for a short time. But when asphalt and tar soak in seawater, the toxicity will slowly dilute. When the poison is gone, the ship maggots will attach to the bottom of the ship and continue to gnaw on the bottom of the ship...

This problem, in fact, was not solved by the Royal Navy until the 18th century. That is - wrapping a layer of copper on the bottom of the boat. The copper-skinned boat maggots can't gnaw, and the copper-skin is resistant to corrosion, and it is hard to break in the water. If it is wrapped in iron, it will rust quickly.

However, this idea, in the time period of 1501, did not even think about it. Because copper is too expensive. The exchange ratio of silver to copper is 1 to 15. Wrapping the bottom of the boat with copper skin can only be done by the fighters among the local tyrants - the local tyrants in the Middle East who come through with money that can be converted into gold and silver...

Of course, ship maggots also have a weakness, which is that they cannot survive in fresh water. Because ship maggots are marine organisms and cannot survive in fresh water. Therefore, in the age of ancient wooden ships, ports were generally chosen at the estuaries of rivers. Such a position is conducive to going out to sea, and because the ship is parked at the mouth of the freshwater river, the ship maggots will automatically escape.

So Marin's migrants to Cape Breton and Amerigo Island chose to park at the mouth of the freshwater estuary instead of the port Marin envisioned.

Because, the ships of later generations are all steel or aluminum alloy hulls, and naturally they are not afraid of ship maggots. Therefore, the ports of later generations go directly into the sea. But the ports of this era are often at the mouths of big rivers. Like London, right on the Thames. Ocean-going ships, coming to London, must first enter the Thames, and then dock on the Thames.

Emden, the largest port in East Frisian counties occupied by Marin, is also on the banks of the Ems River. Only the port of Tamsui estuary or Hanoi, ships can dock for a long time. Otherwise, the ship will not be able to resist the long-term corrosion of ship maggots.

Right now, ships arriving at Cape Breton Island and Amerigo Island have entered the freshwater estuary to catch boat maggots. The immigrants also chose the estuary of the Danshui River to establish settlements.

However, the location of the estuary of the Danshui River is a fertile delta, so there are towering trees dozens of meters high, and it is extremely difficult to cut down.

But in any case, Marin is right about one thing - this is an undeveloped virgin land, the soil is fertile...

So, despite the hard work of moving the felled trees and digging their roots, the migrants chose to persevere. Because, as long as the difficulties in the early stage are over, a better life will be ushered in later.

While the immigrants were cutting down trees and digging their roots, the fishermen who came with the fleet drove small fishing boats and started fishing at sea.

Because they have just arrived at a new place, the fishermen are very unfamiliar with the local geographical environment and do not know the distribution of underwater reefs. So, at the beginning, the fishermen who came to the new place were very careful and the speed of the boat was very slow. Therefore, the fish caught are also limited. Also, they caught a lot of American fish species not seen in Europe. When encountering this new variety, they dare not eat it casually, for fear of being poisonous. Therefore, these fish should be put aside first, not for everyone to eat. Wait until you catch live prey in the future, feed the prey to test, if it is not poisonous, you can eat it...

Therefore, at the beginning, these fishermen could not fully provide the food supply of the colonized immigrants. Fortunately, Marin's immigration ship also brought a lot of food, but he was not afraid of starvation. After a period of time, the fishermen are familiar with the surrounding environment, and they can fish in large quantities to meet the food needs of the migrants...

Because it was summer, the time for spring ploughing had been missed. Therefore, even if arable land is reclaimed, only a small amount of crops suitable for autumn planting can be grown.

However, before reclaiming the wasteland, it is also necessary to cut down the towering trees that "occupy" the fertile soil and dig out the roots. This work is much more arduous than building settlements.

Because the area of ​​settlements is limited, and the area required for arable land is very large. This also means that there are many more trees that need to be cut down, and the number of roots that need to be dug is also very staggering, even very scary...

Governor Garland, who led the colonization of Cape Breton Island, and Governor Tara, who was responsible for colonizing the twin islands of North America (both were Marin's knight attendants, but they were not talented enough, so they were arranged by Marin to be the governor of the colony. ) are deeply aware that in the second half of this year, they will not even think about farming. For the rest of the year, they will probably spend cutting down trees and digging roots. Only in the spring of next year will they be able to plant the seeds of the crops during the spring plowing, and then wait for the autumn harvest...

However, they remembered that Marin wanted them to colonize the Americas to get enough wood for shipbuilding. For example, the chopped oak must be dried and preserved for future use in shipbuilding. As for the immigrants to build their houses and cook by fire, they all used wood that is not oak. Anyway, that's a lot. Therefore, Garland and Tara ordered the felled oaks to be carried to shelter from the rain as a whole, waiting to dry. As for other woods such as pine and birch, they were ordered to be divided into several sections because they were not needed for shipbuilding or were not needed much. In this way, the wood divided into several sections is also easy to carry. Otherwise, logs that are dozens of meters long are too difficult to lift...