Struggle in the Steam Age

After Lawrence arranged all the questions about the construction of the defense line, he returned to the pier in the motor boat, and then went straight to the other direction of the island. Because according to the plan, he also needs to check the new facilities in another place. And the motor boat began to load the supplies for the technicians.

"It seems that the things you built before have begun to bear fruit." When Lawrence summoned the Phantom Steed and came to a small port not far from New Sauer Port, he saw a group of fishermen gathering with people from the Church of Agriculture. Together we sort out a large pile of ropes and cages on the shore beach. And in the small bay facing the port, there are a large number of bamboo rafts floating there.

"Yes, we have sorted out this bay before." The priest of the Agricultural Church who came to greet Lawrence said happily to Lawrence, "The ecology of the entire seabed has been rearranged as you said, making this place itself very The desolate beach is now full of life. In fact, we have successfully planted a batch of edible seaweed and kelp before, and found that the condition is very good after harvesting."

"Sounds like very good news." Lawrence said seriously. "After all, with the development of intelligent creatures, human beings will have more and more influence on the natural world, so that a certain degree of damage to the natural world is now exposed. However, I think this trend can be reversed. The development of intelligent creatures does not necessarily have to be at the cost of damaging the environment."

This kind of thinking may be difficult to achieve in the world of Lawrence's previous life, but it is not impossible in this world. For example, the existence of supernatural powers such as pollution can obviously limit those heavily polluted situations.

In addition, because of the existence of extraordinary power, it is much easier to purify pollution. At least many plants researched by Druids can easily absorb and purify the waste gas, waste water and waste residue emitted by industrial production. .

Compared with those wastes contaminated with magic, these non-magic industrial production wastes are much easier for druids to deal with. In addition to purifying pollutants, it can also be classified and recycled. So the industrial pollution in this world is not particularly serious.

Therefore, the most urgent problem to be solved in this world is the geometric increase in the consumption of all materials and the demand for living space brought about by the further development of civilization. And this kind of circular agriculture can play a big role in this regard. Because an important core of circular agriculture is to reduce the demand for external resources as much as possible to achieve the goal of sustainable development.

For example, the cage culture that Lawrence and the others are preparing now is the case. Planting a large number of organisms on the seabed before is actually constructing an ecosystem located in the bay. In this way, in the following breeding process, as long as they strictly abide by the contents of the breeding manual, they can avoid the eutrophication of the water body in the bay and reduce the occurrence of various diseases and insect pests.

"We mainly breed sea bass, several types of shellfish, and shrimp." The priest of the Agricultural Church brought Lawrence to the side of the water tank truck containing various sea creature seedlings and introduced.

"Because these types of marine organisms are the most suitable marine organisms to be raised in this area after our analysis and screening, and besides sea bass, both shellfish and shrimp can be made into dry goods for long-distance transportation."

"In addition to this sea farm, we will also build freshwater farms on several riverside wetlands and saline-alkali land on the plain." Looking at the busy fishermen, the priest of the Agricultural Church said. "Because we've found that farming fish is the most cost-effective from a cost perspective, and if nothing else, we'll double the meat intake of people on the island in a year's time."

"You're right." Lawrence nodded. "At least fish can provide everyone with meat that everyone can afford, instead of having to rely on various dairy products to supplement nutritional deficiencies. Because I found that the recent immigrants from all over the world are in good health. Compared with the group of new immigrants who came with me, the decline was severe. After the investigation, I felt that it was because their life was too bad before, and some people even didn’t have enough food before they came to the island. Pass."

In fact, the physical problems of those new immigrants are much more serious than everyone imagined before. To be precise, many of them are in a state of severe malnutrition.

The overall situation of the immigrants from the White Eagle Federation, the New Island Republic, the Elysion Empire, and some big countries in the Old Continent seems to be pretty good. The main problem comes from unbalanced nutritional intake. As long as the diet structure is adjusted, it can be compared Easily solve their problems.

But those immigrants from other countries, especially some of the poorer countries, have much worse physical fitness. For example, the recent group of farmers and fishermen from the Algarve Empire in the south of the New World is like this. Everyone looks short and dry, with different degrees of infection on their bodies, and almost all of them are night blind.

And this situation is not an exception. Among the fishermen that Lawrence and the others accepted before were those who escaped from the Algarve Empire. After arriving on the island, they had to recuperate for nearly three months before they were able to adjust their bodies. By asking these exiles, Lawrence and the others learned that the situation in the Southern Continent has become tense again recently, and some small-scale frictions have become more and more frequent.

Unlike the three powerful countries in the northern part of the New World, the Algarve Empire in the south and several surrounding countries have always been regarded by the mother country as a place for simple raw material production and dumping of industrial products. Therefore, the focus of development here was basically industries like mining or planting, and the industrial base was infinitely close to zero.

Even though they have been independent for more than half a century, the current industrial level of these countries is limited to simple agricultural product processing and the manufacturing of some daily items. At the same time, relying on the export of various agricultural products and minerals as the country's main source of income, everything is not much different from the colonial era.

Moreover, the biggest problem with this development model is that the entire country's finances are completely placed on an unstable international market. Once the international market fluctuates slightly, it will immediately lead to various domestic instability. For example, this civil war is likely to be related to the end of the Civilization Expedition in the Old Continent, which led to a drop in the prices of various raw materials in the market.

In fact, this civilization expedition did not end in a hurry, but the greed of the capitalists is the same in any era, they always feel that they can make money until the last moment. And there is only one result of this kind of greed, that is, the surplus of products leads to the shrinkage of exports, which eventually turns into a serious economic crisis.

Such a chain reaction led to a series of problems in plantations and mines, which in turn caused a large number of miners and farm workers to lose their jobs. And it is impossible for the extremely weak industrial and service industries in the country to absorb these unemployed people. As a result, a large number of riots and rebellions are inevitable.

What's worse, it's different from the three great powers in the north. Although the Algarve Empire has an emperor in name and is an empire, it is actually more like a loose confederation, and the real power is in the hands of warlords everywhere. The so-called Emperor of the Empire is not much different from the Emperor Zhou in the history of Lawrence's previous motherland.

And the first thing those warlords did in this chaotic situation was to purchase weapons and prepare their armies for war, hoping to use this opportunity to reap a lot of benefits for themselves and expand their territory and influence. The addition of these organized forces further exacerbated the chaos of the Algarve Empire, putting the Empire on the brink of an all-out war.