Wind Rises in North America 1625

Chapter 77: Shixing
It was sunny on March 8.

The summer on Qiming Island is not hot. Even at noon, the temperature will not exceed 26 degrees Celsius, and at most people will sweat slightly.

However, the busy wheat harvest season means that the more than 80 residents who stayed in Shixing Fort were soaked in sweat and tortured by back pain almost every day.

In order to welcome the upcoming immigrants and produce and store more food, Shixing Fort doubled its total crop planting area to 1,600 acres at the beginning of this spring compared to last year.

Among them, the wheat planting area is 600 mu, the corn planting area is 800 mu, and the planting area of ​​miscellaneous grains such as potatoes, pumpkins, peanuts, and sorghum is more than 200 mu.

It is estimated that the harvest of grain will be around 180 to 190 tons, which can meet the annual food needs of 500 people.

Of course, Qiming Island also has relatively rich animal and fishery resources, which can provide some meat for all residents and appropriately reduce food consumption.

During the wheat harvest season, Shixing Fort put almost all of its manpower into it, and even those Native Americans who were not good at farming were called over from the hunting forests and logging camps.

The young and strong man bent over, wielded a sickle, and worked hard to cut the wheat stalks, then tied them into bundles and threw them in the field.

The women drove ox carts or pushed simple chicken carts, loaded the bundles of wheat onto the carts one by one, and transported them back to the drying yard in Shixing Fort.

The children were excitedly running around in the fields, helping the women to carry the wheat bundles, or gathering together in groups of three or five to pick up the missed grains of wheat.

In the hot summer, the golden wheat fields shine brightly under the sunlight.

In the distance, a few lazy clouds floated on the light blue sky, as if they were attracted by the endless waves of wheat and were reluctant to leave.

The heavy ears of wheat sway gently in the breeze, making a rustling sound, as if whispering the secret of a good harvest.

The waving sickles brought with them waves of wheat fragrance, which mixed with soil and summer heat and filled the air. People couldn't help but take a deep breath, as if they could inhale the aura of the fields into their lungs.

Li Liang breathed a sigh of relief, stuck the sickle in his hand into the ground, supported his waist with his left hand, stood up with difficulty, and looked at the wheat field in front of him.

Oh my god, today’s harvesting task is not even half completed!
It seems that I will have to ask my friends for help later.

"Don't look at me!" Wei Zhonglong was bending over and harvesting wheat straw quickly. He felt someone looking at him, so he looked up.

He noticed Li Liang looking at him expectantly, and immediately said angrily, "My waist is about to break! ... I was thinking about finishing the harvest quickly so I can go back and lie down for a while!"

"Brother Long, can you bear to leave me alone in the wheat field until dark?" Li Liang looked pitiful.

"No, absolutely not!" Wei Zhonglong shook his head vigorously. "I'm not your Brother Long! You're my brother, my Brother Liang! I've been cutting wheat for two years straight, and I'm fed up!... I never dreamed that one day, I'd be cutting wheat in the fields with a sickle!... And for two years straight!"

"Since you have no brotherly loyalty, you'll definitely have to continue harvesting wheat for a few more years!" Li Liang stretched his waist again, then bent down to pick up the sickle. He swung it vigorously and said bitterly, "Besides, you might end up stuck in the fields for the rest of your life, and there will be endless wheat to harvest!"

"Tsk! How is that possible?" Wei Zhonglong said with a smile, "In a month or so, the captain and his crew will be back on the 'Breaking Waves', bringing with them two hundred or so Ming Dynasty immigrants. Hehe, by this time next year, we'll be able to use them to harvest the wheat!"

"What are you thinking?" Li Liang quickly tied a handful of cut wheat straw into a bundle and threw it onto the pile of wheat next to him, then continued to cut the next crop. "Even if more than 200 people come, plus the existing Spaniards and Indians, how can they feed more than 50 of us who have left their jobs? Humph, next year, if you don't go with the ship, you'll still have to harvest wheat like we do now!"

"No way?" Wei Zhonglong's smile quickly disappeared, and he asked in disbelief, "After getting more than 200 immigrants, we still have to work in the fields with them?"

"What do you think?" Li Liang said without looking up. "By next year, the grain planting area will definitely have to be expanded. Otherwise, how will we cope with the needs of the next wave of immigrants? You don't think that as the population increases, the demand for food won't also increase accordingly? ...Everyone will just starve!"

"Oh my god!" Wei Zhonglong heard this and swung his sickle fiercely in the air a few times. He said angrily, "No matter what, next year I'm going to apply for a voyage and I'm determined not to work in the fields anymore! ... Now I've become a farmer!"

"Why, you look down on farmers?"

"That's not what I meant!" Wei Zhonglong shook his head, bent down, and continued to cut the wheat. "I just feel that I should be of greater use, rather than just mechanically and numbly cutting wheat like I am now. ... Alas, sometimes, when I wake up in the morning, I have the illusion that I am a native farmer born and raised in the 17th century. I work from sunrise to sunset, tending to the crops in the fields every day, hoping for a good harvest, and then hiding in the house for the winter."

"Hold on for another two or three years, and once our population reaches a thousand, we'll be able to free you from the chore of harvesting wheat." Li Liang thought for a moment and said, "By then, our entire group should be able to do some simple specialized division of labor and build a miniature version of society."

"By then, will we have established a country?" "Establish a country? ... A country with a population of a thousand?" Li Liang was speechless. "You're just playing games! To establish a country, you need at least 80,000 to 100,000 people, right?"

"Ah? ...One hundred thousand people!" Wei Zhonglong paused. "How long will that take? Twenty years? Or thirty years?"

"Probably less than twenty years," Li Liang said. "In five or six years, when we have a solid industrial base, we'll be able to build our own ships. By then, we'll be able to send out seven or eight ships at a time, bringing back two to three thousand people. In the future, as our population grows and our industry and agriculture develop more robustly, the fleet available for immigration will naturally grow larger. ... Perhaps one day, we'll be able to bring back tens of thousands of people at once."

"Oh, I really hope that day will come soon. To be honest, when I think about the fact that there are only a hundred or eighty of us within a radius of hundreds or thousands of kilometers, I feel a little uneasy."

Li Liang nodded after hearing this.

Within a radius of hundreds or thousands of kilometers, there were of course more than just these "hundred and eighty people". There were also hundreds of Indian tribes of all sizes, as well as scattered missions established by the Spaniards. Even in Mexico, more than a thousand kilometers away, there were hundreds of thousands of Spaniards, Creoles, and various mixed-race followers.

However, as Shixing Fort was still weak and helpless, it could only hide on this island which was not on any shipping route, temporarily isolating itself from the outside world, concentrating on development and accumulating strength.

Then, for every member who is deeply involved in the process of hard work and development, they will naturally feel a kind of silent loneliness and solitude.

Humans are, after all, a social animal group.

"Hey, Brother Liang, why are you so confident about the future?"

"Whether you're pessimistic or optimistic, we all have to live day by day. Actually, it only took us two years to go from a barren land to build Shixing Fort and achieve basic food self-sufficiency. This is the best start for us, and you should be content. You have to know that the beginning is the hardest part of everything. Going from zero to one, taking the first step, is extremely difficult. But going from one to ten, then from ten to one hundred, and then to ten thousand, is much easier."

As of June, the population of Shixing Fort had increased with the birth of eighteen children - eleven of them were Indian, five were Spanish, and three were Indo-European, bringing the total number of "registered population" to four hundred and fifty-seven (305 of them were Indian).

Although the grain reserves in the granary have been reduced to less than 100 tons after more than a year of consumption, it is still enough to feed the existing personnel for seven or eight months.

Needless to say, the bumper harvest of crops in summer and autumn will further increase the food reserves in Shixing Fort.

With grain in hand, don't panic in my heart.

In addition to grain, the scale of livestock in Shixing Fort also increased to a certain extent.

There are five horses, twelve cows, forty-two sheep, and twenty-eight pigs, which can provide Shixing Fort with the necessary animal power and a limited supply of meat products.

As for chickens, ducks, geese and the like, there were even more, more than 380 of them.

However, given that the entire Shixing Fort is still implementing a collective living model, these livestock and poultry have not yet been allocated to individual family farmers for unified breeding, management, and distribution.

It can be said that after two years of hard work, the material foundation of Shixing Fort has been initially improved, and all residents, including some Indians, are basically well-fed and well-clothed.

In addition to agriculture, Shixing Fort's immature "industry" has also achieved a certain degree of development and improvement.

Blacksmith shops with technical guidance can not only forge and repair various farm implements and tools, but also transform and innovate matchlock guns, turning them into flintlock guns with slightly superior performance.

Several tall water wheels were built on the stream flowing through the north side of Shixing Fort, providing more powerful power for nearby mills, sawmills, and paper mills, greatly saving human resources.

When operating at full capacity, the brick and tile kiln factory can produce 12,000 bricks a day, providing the necessary building materials for the infrastructure of Shixing Fort.

After more than a year of construction, more than ten rows of red brick houses have been built on the east side of Shixing Fort, allowing all residents to live in new homes that are drier, warmer and more comfortable.

The large number of wooden houses that had been built were used as incentives and "rewards" to Indians who performed well in order to win their hearts.

Two years later, Shixing Fort had its foundation established.

(End of this chapter)