novelAbuy Chapter 98 Wheat Harvest and American Immigrants
Chapter 98 Wheat Harvest and American Immigrants
Chapter 98 Wheat Harvest and American Immigrants
The Beiyang Fleet's transport ships carried immigrants to the villages and settlements assigned by Zhang Zongyu, while unloading various goods brought from the mainland and loading them with items collected by the immigrants from the Americas.
This includes various animal pelts obtained by immigrants through daily hunting, various plant seeds and seedlings collected during exploration in the mountains and valleys, as well as fragments of animal bones, soil, and stones.
Apart from the most common animal furs, most of the items collected by these immigrants are currently unknown in terms of their practical value and are being sent back as samples.
Let local scholars and businessmen examine and analyze it to see if there are any useful plants and minerals.
The Beiyang Fleet stayed in America for more than half a month. The new immigrants settled in simple houses and all the goods were unloaded and shipped.
The wheat ears in the fields had swelled and become firm, confirming that there would definitely be a bumper harvest this summer. So, I took a few handfuls of whole wheat stalks and set sail south to Mexico.
Shortly after the Beiyang Fleet left, the wheat harvest season began in the valley south of Wenjiatun.
Once the wheat is fully ripe, it turns a golden-brown color, and under the sunlight and rising heat, it appears to the naked eye as if it has turned golden yellow.
The men drove their livestock and cleared a huge threshing ground along the riverbank.
All the men and women who were not yet pregnant went to the fields to harvest wheat and transport it to the threshing floor.
Pregnant women awaiting delivery and women carrying children on their backs do odd jobs by the farmland: boiling water, cooking, feeding pigs, and feeding chickens.
Those who remained at Hudson Bay Company, including McMullin and Yale, also went to work in the fields.
McMallin and Yale initially felt that as businessmen and gentlemen, they shouldn't be doing such rough and menial work.
But faced with the murderous glares of the Han militia, he obediently went to the fields to harvest wheat.
While harvesting wheat, they immediately planted summer crops such as soybeans, sorghum, and potatoes, as well as melons, fruits, and vegetables.
After working continuously for more than a month, and with all the wheat harvested, Zhang Zongyu did a simple statistical analysis.
The highest yield per mu was nearly 300 jin, and the average yield per mu reached 160 jin.
(At this point, each pound contains 640 grams.)
This yield is not high compared to the mature paddy fields in the south, but if calculated according to the yield of dry fields, all the land here can be considered "superior fields".
Only the local "Ue-tien" fields could achieve a yield of 160 jin of wheat per mu, which is equivalent to a little over 200 jin in modern times.
Therefore, a yield of 160 jin per mu can be considered a bumper harvest.
The long-term immigrants who arrived last year were very happy, and the new immigrants this year are just as happy.
I've come to a truly wonderful place; Ueda, a rare gem in my hometown, is everywhere here.
After harvesting and storing the wheat, they planted the summer crops and continued clearing land and building houses.
All immigrants will continue to be busy.
Considering that there were pregnant women and new mothers everywhere in the military settlements, Zhang Zongyu arranged for more immigrants to go hunting and fishing.
Bring back more meat to nourish pregnant women and new mothers.
As summer fades into autumn, more and more children are born, but occasionally some die young, leaving the parents and their close neighbors heartbroken and sighing.
However, at that time, ordinary people were used to the fact that children died young, and the death of a child would not have a significant impact on their lives.
All immigrants are still young; if they lose a child, they can have another.
At that time, ordinary women in both the East and the West would have children continuously after marriage until they could no longer conceive.
Eastern women typically give birth to six children in their lifetime, while European whites usually have around eight, and Germanic and Saxon peoples briefly reached ten.
At that time, it was not uncommon for women in Britain and the One Kingdom to have ten children.
Victoria's grandmother, who was Queen, gave birth to fourteen children in total.
Even as Queen Victoria, she still had nine children.
However, the infant mortality rate in ancient East China was significantly lower than that in the West, generally ranging from 10% to 30% in the East and from 30% to 40% in the West.
The peak of the infant mortality rate was in working-class families in British cities during this era, where the infant mortality rate reached fifty percent.
A working-class woman in a British city would typically give birth to eight to ten children while she was still alive, but usually five of them would die before the age of five.
Women who have given birth also have a very high chance of dying from puerperal fever caused by poor sanitation.
After the founding of the Han Dynasty, Liu Desheng promoted a number of good hygiene habits through the militia garrison system.
Items mainly intended for children and postpartum women should be sterilized by boiling in hot water before use.
Simply maintaining cleanliness and hygiene has further reduced maternal and child mortality rates.
The surviving officials and elders of the late Qing Dynasty often looked at the throngs of children in the countryside and cities and exclaimed: "After our great Han Dynasty was established, the number of infant deaths among ordinary people has decreased significantly. Our emperor is truly a man of divine mandate!"
The immigrants to the Americas were mostly Han Chinese of the new generation, and they were used to this mortality rate, so they didn't feel anything about it.
However, McMullin and Yale, and especially the two European doctors who stayed there, found it incredible that almost no women died of puerperal fever and that they rarely heard of infant deaths.
They even began to doubt in their hearts whether their gods were protecting themselves or the Han people.
By early autumn of the second year of the Hanchang era, after several months of continuous development and construction, the scale of the various military settlements had almost doubled.
All the houses were simple, but at least they provided shelter from the wind and rain.
Summer crops are being harvested, and large quantities of fruits and melons are ripening.
While harvesting the second crop of grains this year, the immigrants began to make wine from the abundant fruit.
Then they prepare to plant winter wheat for the following year, hoping for a bountiful harvest.
On the morning of July 25th of the second year of the Han Chang era, at Naizitun, more than 300 kilometers upstream from Wenjiatun, which was the former Hudson Bay Company's Nezpersburg trading post.
A guard on watch in the watchtower carried a rifle and used binoculars to observe the surroundings, idly watching the movements of the indigenous tribe in the distance.
The guard's gaze inadvertently swept across the river in the distance, and something resembling a carport appeared at the edge of his field of vision.
The guard was immediately startled and gripped the binoculars tightly to observe carefully.
The guards quickly realized that it was a large log raft drifting downstream.
A horse-drawn carriage with its wheels removed was placed on a raft, and several figures were on the carriage and the raft.
The guards continued looking upstream and found several more similar rafts behind them.
"Those must be—people from Europe! They have horse-drawn carriages!"
Once the guard realized what was happening, he immediately rang the alarm bell on the watchtower and handed the binoculars to his companion, instructing him to continue monitoring the situation of the log rafts on the river.
He jogged down the watchtower and reported to Lü Daqi, the deputy commander in charge of Naizitun.
Lu Daqi was also taken aback when he heard the report: "The Han Dynasty has already occupied this place, so how come there are still Europeans coming here?"
The guard casually shared his thoughts: "Chief, think about it, the Americas are a huge place."
"Those people from Hudson Bay Company can't possibly send messages everywhere, can they?"
"Even if our Emperor issues an imperial edict, it will take a year or two to reach all places, right?"
"In some particularly remote mountain areas, it may take several years to get notified."
"These immigrants may not know about our news now."
Lü Daqi, the deputy commander of Naizitun, nodded slightly: "What you said makes sense. Take me up there right away."
Lu Daqi followed the guards to the watchtower and personally took out his binoculars to observe the situation.
The rafts on the river are now closer together, and it is now confirmed that there are a total of four rafts, with a total of more than twenty people.
Most importantly, Lü Daqi also discovered that there seemed to be a woman sitting in the carriage shed on the raft: "There's a woman! This means they're not explorers, but normal immigrants—"
Whether in Britain or the United States, the people who have appeared here in the past are adventurers and fur traders.
These people were almost all men; there were no women of European descent here.
The women that Lü Daqi saw were among the first European-American women to arrive on the west coast of the United States.
After observing for a while, Lü Daqi realized something else: "They also have caravans, which means that the road before boarding the rafts can be traveled by animal-drawn carts."
"In other words, they knew the way through the mountains!"
"We need to stop them and find out how they got here, how they crossed this mountain."
Lu Daqi tossed the binoculars to the lookout, ran down the watchtower, gathered the interpreter and fifty militiamen, and, with muskets and riverboats, went to intercept the group of American immigrants.
Position inland boats across the waterway to prevent any other vessels from passing, and set up muskets to aim at the enemy upstream.
Lü Daqi, along with his interpreter and thirty militiamen, hid behind a mound of earth on the bank.
Since Naizi Village is the easternmost village controlled by the Han Dynasty, it is likely to encounter adventurers from Britain or the United States. Therefore, Zhang Zongyu arranged for an interpreter to be stationed in the village.
Meanwhile, on a raft in the river, Presbyterian missionary Marcus Whitman and his wife Narcissa Whitman stood on the raft, observing their surroundings.
Marcus excitedly told his wife, "The Nezpersburg trading post should be just ahead; we'll reach it once we turn this bend in the river."
"Then continue sailing downstream along the Columbia River, and about two hundred miles away is Fort Vancouver."
"Both Nezpersburg and Vancouverburg are controlled by the British, so we'd better not go in."
"We should choose another place to establish our mission station on the other side of their river."
Narcissa was also very happy: "God bless us, this is the last leg of the journey across the Rocky Mountains."
"As long as the local natives can be converted and a road suitable for horse-drawn carriages can be found, immigrants from the United States will be able to come in a steady stream."
Marcus held his wife's hand and nodded repeatedly: "Yes, that's right. The territory of the United States will extend beyond the Rocky Mountains all the way to the Pacific coast."
"Between the two oceans, east and west, lies the promised land bestowed upon us by God —"
Marcus, lost in thought about the future, turned to look at the distant mountains and fields again, when he suddenly noticed several ships on the river at the edge of his field of vision: "What are those—are they British merchant ships?"
Narcissa grew nervous upon seeing the ships: "These British, are they blocking our way in the canal? Don't they want us to get through?"
Marcus's expression was somewhat grim: "We need to negotiate with them properly. According to the 1825 agreement, we have the right to settle, preach, and operate here."
"However, we must also be careful, as safety cannot be guaranteed in places like this."
Marcus turned and called everyone on the raft to their feet, instructing them to take their weapons.
The raft continued downstream, getting closer and closer to the boats on the river.
When the faces of the people on the ship became visible, Marcus and Narcissa cried out almost simultaneously again, "No! They're not British! They're all armed with muskets!"
Marcus immediately ordered the sailors to slow down and stop moving forward.
Marcus's raft soon slowed down.
But at the same time, Lü Daqi, who had been hiding behind the mound, came out with the interpreter and thirty militiamen.
Everyone raised their muskets and aimed them at Marcus and the others on the ship.
Following Lü Daqi's instructions, the interpreter used a tin megaphone to shout at Whitman and his group on the river: "We are the militia of Weinaizun in the Americas of the Great Han Dynasty. You have been surrounded by us!"
"Get ashore immediately and obey our orders, or we will open fire and kill you all."
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The junior interpreter had a heavy accent, but Whitman and others could barely understand him.
Whitman and his companions, facing more than thirty muskets and hearing the message from the interpreter, couldn't contain their emotions and cried out in alarm: "Watfuck! What are the Han Chinese doing here? What's going on?!"
Seeing this, the interpreter continued to shout, "I'll count to ten! Get your boat ashore immediately! Otherwise, we'll open fire!"