1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 1027 Hope Oil Field ([-])

It was late April when the fleet led by Beks arrived in Miaoli. According to Haihan’s knowledge, the rainy season on Taiwan Island should be between April and May. However, this climate data comes from several No one knows how big the deviation will be in the current era.After the short rainy season is over, it is difficult to make an accurate prediction to what extent the navigation capability of this Houlongxi will be affected.Therefore, it is necessary to use the water flow of Longxi after this period to ensure that when the barge sails to the Chusulkeng Oilfield, we must seize the time to organize transport capacity to transport some large-scale materials into the mountainous area.

Under the constraints of such objective conditions, plans to wipe out indigenous tribes must be postponed for a while. After all, the huge amount of materials that need to be transported into the mountains and the navigation of Houlongxi that may be interrupted at any time are the urgent problems that need to be solved at present. The main contradiction, and the indigenous tribes are only hidden dangers at present, and the urgency of going to war is not so high.Moreover, because of the unfamiliarity with the local geographical conditions, the plans formulated in advance by the military used armed escort as the main means, and did not make sufficient preparations for active attacks.

After determining the direction of action, the subsequent things can be implemented step by step according to the plan.Morgan had already planned the general action steps before that, and everyone discussed and determined the division of labor during dinner, rested overnight and waited until tomorrow to start work.

Although the place of Miaoli is relatively unfamiliar, and there were only two on-the-spot investigations beforehand, for Haihan, he has practiced in the past few years to carry out surprise colonial resettlement in a short period of time. A set of more efficient action plans has been proposed, and only certain adjustments need to be made for the specific target environment.

The next day, the sky just dawned, and the coastal camp was already busy.The cooking class started to prepare breakfast for these 1000 people at three o'clock, so as to ensure that they could start work as soon as possible.Although the breakfast is just rice porridge and pickles, the chef added a lot of fresh seafood to the porridge. These cheap fish, shrimp and kelp immediately improved the quality of breakfast. Many people smelled this seafood in their sleep Wake up automatically after the aroma of porridge.

The food of Bai Kesi and others is naturally better, there are fresh meat buns and white flour steamed buns to choose from, as well as eggs and milk that only the chiefs can enjoy.Travelers have always enjoyed relatively good treatment in terms of life, even in a wild place like Miaoli, there will not be a big gap.They came to this era to enjoy the treatment of superiors, and they would not deliberately engage in any tricks to mingle with their subordinates. Moreover, East Asian civilizations in this era are still in feudal dynasties with clear distinctions between superiors and inferiors. Different treatment is also to maintain the majesty of the ruling class. one of the necessary means.

But today everyone has tasks and a lot of things waiting to be done, so they are not in the mood to enjoy breakfast slowly. After finishing eating in twos and threes, Bai Kesi called everyone to start work.

When the fleet led by Beks arrived here yesterday, there was still a lot of supplies that had not been unloaded to the shore in time, while on the other side, the unloaded goods had already begun to be loaded onto flat-bottomed barges for inland navigation.However, most of the flat-bottomed barges had already been packed and formed when they departed from Penghu. When the first trip from the coastal camp along the Houlong River entered the mountain, it could be directly hung behind the tugboat for transportation.

Because of the need to seize the time of the rainy season, Beks decided to put in all six steam tugboats. Each tugboat can tow four fully loaded barges and transport tens of tons of materials upstream at one time.Considering that two strongholds will be built on the way, two of the six fleets will be responsible for transporting materials and personnel to these two sites, while the remaining four fleets will concentrate on transporting materials to the Chusulkeng Oilfield area.In terms of military defense, Yu Yao and Morgan will be stationed at the coastal camp and the Chusongkeng camp respectively, and each of the two armed strongholds in the middle will deploy a platoon of troops and hand them over to the subordinate officers to command.

Bai Kesi, Liu Shanxia, ​​Tian Yeyou and Morgan were all going to the Chusulkeng area, and it happened that one person was in charge of commanding a fleet.After eight o'clock in the morning, several people boarded the boat separately and commanded the fleet to set off.All the fleets sailed out of the coastal camp in a single file, separated by more than half a mile from head to tail, and the scene looked spectacular. It should be regarded as the largest fleet ever to pass on Houlongxi.

Because it is necessary to send a large number of armed personnel to various strongholds along the way while transporting supplies, almost a dozen soldiers with live ammunition sit on the cargo of almost every barge, and a fleet can almost carry a platoon of troops.Considering safety issues, a large number of migrant workers will basically wait until the second trip to board the ship.

The fleet arrived at the first stronghold on the way more than two hours after departure. The river beach here is still deserted. It seems that Haihan's plan to set up a stronghold here will not encounter any resistance.After the fleet unloads, it will return to the coastal camp. If all goes well, it should be able to transport personnel and supplies here today.At that time, migrant workers and logistics personnel equivalent to the number of the garrison will be stationed here, and it will take about two to three days to build a prototype of an armed stronghold with a civil structure.

After the preliminary cleaning of the surrounding areas in the future, more immigrants will soon move in here, and gradually control this area through reclamation, and the armed strongholds built in the early days will serve as administrative politics here.At that time, the towns formed by the two river bends in the south and the north will also provide food and part of the labor force for the oil fields in the adjacent mountainous areas.

Due to time and safety reasons, the fleet did not dock to cook on the way, and everyone settled for lunch with dry food on board, even the traversers were no exception.At around two o'clock in the afternoon, the fleet successfully arrived at the location of the second river bend stronghold.A fleet of ships slowly approached the shore, and the remaining thing was to unload the supplies on the ship to the shore as soon as possible, and then start building the stronghold.If the soldiers moved fast enough, the fleet would have had time to return to the coastal camp before dark.

After passing this bend in the river, the terrain began to rise slowly, and the speed of the barge fleet carrying heavy supplies also slowed down significantly.After entering the mountainous area, only the loud sound of steam engines on a few tugboats could be heard in the entire mountain forest, making any attempt to hide their whereabouts come to naught.Although it was only a few miles away from the Sulfur Pit, it took more than two hours to reach the destination.

"This is our oil field!" Beks raised his hands high, unable to hide his excitement: "Our era of internal combustion engines will start from this place!"

"Old Bai, don't get too excited, the location of the underground oil has not yet been determined, and the horoscope has not been written yet!" Tian Yeyou stood in the position of an expert and poured cold water on him without hesitation.

Beks chuckled and didn't take it seriously.In fact, according to the mining location known to later generations, the general orientation of the oil field has already been determined, but the geography of mountains and rivers has inevitably changed in the past few hundred years, so field exploration is still needed to confirm with the data.And he is not the only one who is anxious about this matter. Most people in the executive committee are full of expectations, and even the name of the oil field has already been picked up early, it is called Hope Oil Field, to represent the people who travel through the world. The anticipation of the coming age of the internal combustion engine.

Of course, the wish is beautiful, but it is not so easy to realize.Haihan spent several 10 yuan in the early stage of material preparation and personnel transfer alone, and the subsequent stationing and construction funds in the Miaoli area are by no means a small amount.Even if oil can be successfully extracted and refined in the future, the cost will be astonishingly high. At least in the foreseeable future, such high-end products as gas turbines will not be widely used in Haihan's industrial system.

But even if this is a low cost-effective project that seems to be thankless at this stage, the traversers will still spare no effort to promote its implementation.The leading edge in the field of industrial technology is worth spending money to develop. This is the consensus of everyone, not to mention that this advantage is already two centuries ahead of the contemporary earth civilization.Moreover, judging from the history of civilization development, the rise of industrial civilization is bound to be accompanied by competition for energy production areas. The sooner Haihan masters the technology of oil development and utilization, the farther away his contemporary competitors will be.

Apart from food and daily necessities, the dozens of ships that arrived at the Hope Oilfield were almost all drilling tools, building materials and various prefabricated components used to build prefabricated houses.The soldiers were divided into two teams, one team was responsible for unloading on the river bank, and the other team began to clear the river bank clearing as the foundation for setting up the camp later.

When Morgan came here for a field trip last time, he roughly selected a flat area about 500 meters long and 200 meters wide on the south bank of Houlong Creek as the site for the camp.After disembarking, Liu Shanxia also affirmed the area Morgan had selected. The terrain here is relatively flat. If you go uphill, moving building materials and leveling the foundation will require double the amount of work.

Before Haihan's arrival, this area was an undeveloped virgin forest. Although the trees were not as dense as the tropical rainforest, it would take a lot of effort to clear this area.In terms of the amount of work, the manpower required for this place is much greater than that of the three strongholds outside the mountain.Those places are the alluvial plains on the shore, basically there are only low shrubs, and it is relatively easier to clean up.

"Boss Bai, you should call your subordinate Cai Hongzhan for this job. Logging is his specialty." Liu Shanxia joked with Bai Kesi while directing the work on site.

Cai Hongzhan was an employee of Beks before crossing, and his specialty was carpentry. After the time-traveling group landed in Yulin Bay, Cai Hongzhan was the leader of the logging team.Until now, he is still in charge of timber-related affairs, and all forestry managers on Hainan Island are under his command. In the field of logging, he is definitely better than Liu Shanxia in terms of professionalism.

Beks watched the soldiers chop down the thick trees with axes, and felt that the planning in advance was a little bit wrong.In such an uninhabited valley, a professional logging team may be more useful than an armed force.

In the midst of busy work, the sky has gradually darkened before we know it, and the cleared area is only a few hundred square meters. It is definitely too late to build a board room. We can only set up the marching tent first, and deal with the first night before talking .

In addition to the basic line of defense, Morgan also set up five groups of secret sentries in an area about 200 meters outside the camp as a temporary means of defense.Morgan knew very well that there was an aboriginal tribe across a mountain ridge to the east, but he was not too worried that the aboriginals would take advantage of the night to take advantage of the camp. This kind of action that requires strict combat discipline is not something that non-professional civilians can play. turn.

Taking advantage of the opportunity to have dinner together, several leaders also got together to communicate about the progress of the current camp construction.

"Three-quarters of the materials we have shipped have been unloaded, and it will take about one to two hours to unload tomorrow morning. However, the fleet that has unloaded the cargo has already returned downstream, and it is expected that it will be released on the [-]st tonight." Rest at the second base for one night. If you hurry up, you will return to the coastal camp at noon tomorrow, so the second trip should be sent the day after tomorrow." Morgan, who was in charge of unloading, was the first to report the progress of his work.

Liu Shanxia shrugged and said, "I think everyone has seen the situation on my side. The progress of clearing the ground will be slower than expected. There is no way. The only logging tools we have are saws and axes. I roughly estimated Let’s see, to clear this area, we still need to cut down [-] trees, even if we don’t sleep, it will take about five days at the current speed, which is already the most ideal result.”

"Tomorrow I will designate an area. You cut down the trees there first, and I will direct the drilling rig to be erected, and we can start drilling." Tian Yeyou's progress is undoubtedly the fastest among these people, and he seems to have found After seeing the location of the oil field, he looked calm and relaxed.

"How sure are you?" Bex immediately asked after hearing the words.

"It's hard to say, [-] to [-] percent, I think we have found the right place, but we still have to wait until we get down." Tian Yeyou's attitude is still relatively cautious, and he didn't talk too much.But to Bex's ears, this was no different from drilling oil out of the ground.

"Then tomorrow the logging team will give priority to ensuring the needs of the exploration team, and clear out the area of ​​the mining site first." Beks made a decisive decision and decided to invest limited resources in oil field drilling first. It's not that the internal combustion engine has already been built and is waiting for this Oil comes into play, but if the oil can be drilled smoothly, everyone's mood will be more relaxed.Moreover, the goal that the executive committee hopes to achieve at this stage is not the annual output of the oil field. It only needs to confirm that oil can be drilled in this place. After all, to turn oil into fuel oil, the oil refinery must first be built Get up and talk.

(End of this chapter)