In July, after more than two months of difficult sailing, several ships heading to Cape Breton Island and the North American Twin Islands colonies arrived at their destination. Only the ships heading to Grenada, because the journey is longer, are still sailing on the sea.
After arriving in the colony, everyone realized that the colony was not as beautiful as they thought. At least, it was not so beautiful at the beginning.
Fortunately, they arrived in summer. If it were winter, not to mention anything else, the Cape Breton Island would definitely be frozen into a dog. Because Cape Breton Island can also be cold to minus ten degrees in winter. Even for the two islands in North America, several degrees below zero is not a problem. If you immigrate in winter, you will definitely freeze to death because you don’t have a house.
But even in summer, it is a lot of trouble. First of all, immigrants have no houses. Therefore, the first thing people who arrived at Cape Breton Island and North America to do when they got off the boat was to log in collectively. Then, the houses were built by people who knew carpenters and bricklayers among the immigrants.
However, Marin had long expected these situations and specially sent several craftsmen from Texel Island to direct everyone to build adobe houses.
The construction of adobe houses is simple and saves costs. Moreover, time is very fast. More importantly, Marin "designed" the adobe house, which also has a earthen kang. It is summer now and it is still impossible to see it. By winter, the advantages of such a adobe house will be obvious.
However, even if you want to build adobe houses, you have to cut off the trees first. Because, whether it is Cape Breton Island or the two islands in North America, towering trees dozens of meters high are everywhere, and they are completely primeval forests. If you want to build a house on the island, you must first make a vacant land?
So, the first thing the immigrants who had just arrived at Cape Breton Island and the two islands in North America had to do was to cut down the big trees that were in trouble...
Cutting down a big tree is a very heavy physical task. In fact, the process of cutting down a big tree is not troublesome. The real troublesome thing is to move the cut down big tree to a designated position, and dig out the roots after cutting down the big tree...
Among them, the most painful thing is to dig the roots of the tree. This is not a small tree a few meters high, but a towering tree a few dozen meters high. Their roots are mixed and can occupy an area of ​​dozens of square meters. Digging out such a tree roots and digging them clean is simply a big project.
Nowadays, there are no excavators, and there are no Lanxiang technicians. Therefore, when people dig tree roots, they can only use shovels and pickaxes to dig with human power...
However, digging out the roots of a tree that covers an area of ​​dozens of square meters from the buried ground is exhausted. Fortunately, these immigrants are all young people, otherwise they would be unable to handle it.
In this way, 200 immigrants who immigrated to Cape Breton and Americo, spent their time digging the tree roots a few days after they came to the island.
Their ships were all parked in the Tamsui River, and did not follow Marin's idea, near the later South Tacott Harbor and the Sydney Mining Area in North Sydney, north of Sydney Bay.
This is only for one reason-shippeople...
Shipworms are a very hateful animal. Their existence is simply the mortal enemy of the great sailing. Because these shipworms will attach to the bottom of the sailboat, like termites, feed on wood and erode the hull. When the shipworm's erosion reaches a certain level, the bottom of the ship will be eroded. Then, water will enter the bottom of the ship, causing a shipwreck.
In fact, the famous Battle of the British and Spanish Invincible Fleet did not lose much under the attack of the British army. However, there were many silent warships in the Atlantic due to shipworms. Most of the silence of shipworms was caused by shipworms that damaged the hull. During the naval battle, it was caused by the double action of British artillery strikes and sea storms, which led to leaks and silence, rather than sinking the artillery on the British ships. The attack of British artillery actually killed many sailors on the deck on the Spanish warships, but directly sunk many Spanish warships. After all, Spanish warships were also professional warships that used a lot of wood to thicken the side, and were not so easy to be penetrated through the side. However, the decay of the shipworms under the sea was very difficult to control.
In ancient Greece, people noticed the harm of shipworms. At that time, people used asphalt and tar to apply it on the bottom of the ship, which was indeed effective in a short period of time. However, asphalt and tar soaked in seawater, the toxicity would slowly dilute. When the toxicity was gone, the shipworms would stick to it and continue to gnaw on the bottom of the ship...
This problem was actually solved by the Royal Navy in the 18th century. That is, a layer of copper skin was wrapped around the bottom of the ship. The copper skin was not chewed, and the copper skin was corrosion-resistant and could not be damaged even if it was soaked in water. If it was wrapped in iron sheet, it would soon rust.
However, this idea should not be thought about during the period of 1501. Because the price of copper is too expensive. The silver-copper exchange ratio is 1 to 15. The bottom of the ship is wrapped in copper skin. Only the fighter among the local tyrants, the local tyrants in the Middle East, who come through with money exchanged for gold and silver, can come...
Of course, there is another weakness in shipworms, which is that they cannot survive in freshwater. Because shipworms are seawater creatures and cannot survive in freshwater. Therefore, in the ancient wooden boat era, ports generally chose to go to the estuary of rivers. Such a location is conducive to going to sea, and because ships stop at the estuary of the freshwater river, the shipworms will automatically escape by themselves.
So, Marin sent immigrants to Cape Breton and Armerico, chose to park their ships at the mouth of Tamsui River instead of the ports that Marin imagined.
Because later ships were all steel or aluminum alloy hulls, they were naturally not afraid of shipworms. Therefore, later ports went directly into the sea. But ports in this era were often at the mouth of the Great River. For example, London was on the banks of the Thames. When ocean ships came to London, they had to enter the Thames first, and then docked on the banks of the Thames.
Emden, the largest port in the East Friesland country occupied by Marin, is also located on the banks of the Ames River. Only the ports in the mouth of the Tamsui River or Hanoi can ships dock for a long time. Otherwise, the ship will not resist the long-term erosion of shipworms.
At present, ships arriving at Cape Breton and Americo Island all drove into the mouth of the Tamsui River to catch shipworms. The immigrants also chose the mouth of the Tamsui River to establish settlements.
However, because the estuary of Tamsui River is all fertile delta, towering trees that are dozens of meters high grow, and it is extremely difficult to cut down.
But no matter what, Marin said one thing is still correct - this is an undeveloped virgin land with fertile soil...
Therefore, despite the extremely difficult movement of the big trees that were cut down and the digging of the roots, the immigrants still chose to persevere. Because, as long as the early difficulties are overcome, a better life will come.
While the immigrants cut down big trees and dig the roots, the fishermen who came with the fleet drove small fishing boats and began to try to go out to sea to fish.
Because they just arrived in a new place, the fishermen were very unfamiliar with the local geographical environment and did not know the distribution of underwater reefs. Therefore, at the beginning, the fishermen who came to the new place were very careful and the boat speed was very slow. Therefore, the fish caught were limited. In addition, they caught many American fish species that they had never seen in Europe. When they encountered this new species, they did not dare to eat them casually, for fear of being poisonous. Therefore, these fish had to be put aside first and not given to everyone. When they caught live prey in the future, they were fed to the prey to test, and they could only eat them if they were not poisonous...
So, at the beginning, these fishermen were unable to fully provide the grain supply for colonial immigrants. Fortunately, the immigration ships in Marin also brought a lot of food, so they were not afraid of starving people to death. After a while, the fishermen became familiar with the surrounding environment and could fish in large quantities to meet the food needs of the immigrants...
Because it was summer when we came, we had missed the time for spring plowing. Therefore, even if we cultivated arable land, we can only plant a small number of crops suitable for autumn sowing.
However, before reclaiming wasteland, the towering trees that "occupies" the fertile soil need to be cut down and the roots are dug out. This work is much heavier than building settlements.
Because the settlement area is limited, and the area required for arable land is very large. This also means that there are much more large trees that need to be cut down, and the number of roots that need to be dug is also very amazing, and even very scary...
Garland, the governor of the island of Cape Breton, and Tara, the governor of the island of North America (both were Marin's knight attendants, but they were not talented, so they were arranged by Marin to be governors) were deeply aware that in the second half of this year, they would not have to farm. For the rest of the year, they would probably spend cutting trees and digging the roots. Only in next spring can they plant seeds of crops during spring plowing and then wait for the autumn harvest...
Chapter completed!