1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 138 Entering the Countdown

Compared with Luo Shengdong's experience in Shengli Port, the executive committee members have already restrained the group of people sent by Yazhou officials.With the current scale of the Time Travel Group, it is not difficult to support such a dozen or so idlers. The executive committee also thinks that it is worth spending tens of taels of silver every month to buy a quiet place. As long as these people don't make trouble in Shengli Port I am happy to continue the current state of peaceful trade with Yazhou.

The small courtyard of the inspection department is only 300 meters away from the pier, so you can see the situation on the pier without leaving the hospital.After living here for two or three days, apart from being not very free, there was nothing unusual about them. After eating three meals a day, a group of people stood by the fence to watch the busy scene on the pier.

After living here for the past few days, Wei Ping has a deeper understanding of what Haihan people mean by "rules".In Victory Port, everyone seems to follow invisible and intangible "rules".Wei Ping was most impressed by the militiamen standing guard around the small courtyard. The sentries changed their guards every hour. Some provocative behaviors of these onlookers in the courtyard were also ignored.

Of course, Wei Ping could tell that these people were local people rather than Haihan people, and many of them were even mountain people of the Li and Miao ethnic groups, but these people all obeyed the "rules" of the Haihan people without exception.He also felt Luo Shengdong's confusion at the beginning - how did the Haihan people train these people to such an extent?

Looking at the subordinates around him, after eating every day, they either go to bed or sit by the river to pass the time fishing. Although such a peaceful life is not bad, Wei Ping finds such a boring life unbearable.But he knew that it would be useless even if he protested to the Haihan people now, unless he could think of some effective way to make the Haihan people think that letting him out of the yard to move freely was better than staying in the yard.While observing the movements of the Haihan people day after day, Wei Ping racked his brains on how to get out of this damned yard.

Yazhou officials want to set up an inspection department on the side of Shengli Port for direct management, but it is just a scabies disease for the time travel group.The current focus of the executive committee is not on this small group of people. The overseas colonization that has entered the final preparation stage is the core of all the work of the time travel group.

Just two hours after Wei Ping and his party arrived at Victory Port, another fleet sailed into Victory Port. Shopkeeper Li of "Furuifeng" finally returned from Guangzhou. He arrived at Shengli Port together with two Guangzhou boats of 60 materials bought in Guangzhou for the Crossing Group, and more than [-] boatmen hired along with the boats. Sailors and a few artisans.

Shopkeeper Li also brought other good news during his trip. The newly launched glass stationery of Transit Group has been highly praised in the Guangzhou head office, and the market response is also quite good. The samples sent were not sold publicly at all, "Fu Rui "Feng" only held an internal promotion meeting for a major client, and it was quickly sold out.This time shopkeeper Li rushed back to Shengli Port. In addition to bringing two large ships from the Transit Group to ask for help as an agent to express his goodwill, he also specially sent thousands of taels of silver in cash, hoping to order [-] sets of glass stationery at one time, and roll call To buy the "upgraded version", "advanced version" and "limited edition" that Schneider mentioned last time.

In addition, the head office in Guangzhou also expressed some interest in the private salt business, but hoped that the crossing group could guarantee a stable supply of no less than [-] catties per month.It is almost impossible for the salt farms on Hainan Island to complete such a production task in this era, but for the Salt Farm Commune, which has set a production target of [-] tons this year, this amount is nothing at all.At present, the technical improvement work of the salt field is progressing steadily. A large number of cement drying salt ponds have gradually replaced the previously used stone troughs. The diversion channel leading to the inland of the salt field has been rebuilt. The production efficiency has increased several times compared to when Anxi first took over the salt field. .

Although the sales of table salt are not too eye-catching compared to the luxury business that can easily cost thousands of taels of silver for a transaction, the executive committee attaches great importance to this project.The reason is simple, because table salt is a fast-moving consumer product with no threshold at all, and it is also a daily necessities that everyone has to buy. This special product nature makes its marketability much stronger than that of the Transit Group. Other daily necessities produced can even be used as hard currency to a certain extent, which is an unparalleled advantage of other products.

Shopkeeper Li also said that the Guangzhou head office of "Furuifeng" is still continuing to search for second-hand large ships on the Guangzhou market for the Transit Group, and will send ships to visit Shengli Port in the near future.At that time, the high-level personnel of "Furuifeng" will come forward to contact the Transit Group to discuss a long-term and stable business cooperation model.

This good news has greatly stimulated the Executive Committee. The opening of the first sea trade route outside the main island will mean that the products produced by the Crossing Group have a huge consumer market.Compared with this market, the current production capacity of the Time Travel Group is obviously too low. To shorten the initial accumulation time and get the first pot of gold for development and growth as soon as possible, what the Time Travel Group needs to do now is to do its best to expand its production capacity.To achieve this goal, the first thing to do is to solve the biggest difficulty at present - energy.

Now the number of sea-going ships that can be used for overseas colonization operations has changed from six to eight, and the total tonnage of the fleet has reached about [-] tons.After calculation, the Executive Committee believed that this tonnage was enough to load the materials needed for the first voyage, and in addition, part of the cabin could be vacated. According to the immigration plan, some local refugees were loaded on the east coast of Vietnam to Xingang to open up wasteland.The conditions for the development of the Hongji Coal Mine were ripe. The Executive Committee decided not to delay any further and issued a mobilization order. All departments stopped other affairs and made full preparations for this overseas colonization operation.

For this operation, the executive committee mobilized elite personnel from within and formed a "huge" overseas team of 35 people.They will lead a team of [-] recruits and [-] local laborers to perform a one-year garrison mission in Xingang.

After the recruits complete this year's garrison mission, they will automatically receive the rank of sergeant, and the military pay during the garrison period will be doubled according to the original standard.And the treatment of these local workers is much higher than that of their counterparts who stayed in Victory Port. The overseas allowance alone has exceeded the original salary.After the one-year period expires, these people will receive three-level labor treatment, and they can stay at their own discretion, and they can freely choose whether to stay in Xingang or return to Victory Port.

Compared with the recruits who already have a basic concept of discipline, recruiting labor is more or less troublesome. Most of the people are unwilling to leave their hometowns and go overseas to work hard. They don't even have the high salary and favorable treatment offered by the executive committee. can play a big role.In the end, the executive committee had no choice but to use some semi-coercive measures, and drafted some families with multiple members in the commune.

In addition, according to Ren Liang's suggestion, some well-behaved and obedient prisoners were selected from the labor camps to join the laborers stationed abroad. All he got was to regain his freedom a year later.But even so, the labor camps almost broke their heads for this precious quota.

The Ministry of Shipping used paint to paint the hull numbers of the three large ships of 01 materials purchased, ranging from "Shangyun 03" to "Shangyun 01". The hull numbers of the previous "Hai Xun 02" and "Hai Xun 27" have been used.Although the two training ships have been equipped with the newly developed Type 6 Type A [-]-pound sea guns developed by the military industry department, neither the Military Police Department nor the Shipping Department has plans to include these ships in the future naval establishment.These ships are not designed and built according to the standards of warships, and they are too reluctant to be used as naval combat ships.

According to the plan of the two departments after the joint discussion, the current level of armament of this batch of ships does not need to be too high, it only needs to reach the level of contemporary Chinese-style armed merchant ships.In terms of the level of weapons manufactured by the Crossing Group, with the same number of cannons equipped, these ships can definitely blow up the opponent out of the opponent's range.For the newly arrived ships of 9 materials, the military industry department has begun to produce 12-pound sea cannons and 6-pound sea cannons. However, after the cannons are cast, they have to go through a long time of calibration and inspection. I am afraid that they will not be able to catch up with the first trip. It's time to sail.At present, only a few smaller [-]-pound guns can be installed on these large ships, which can be regarded as having basic sea defense capabilities.

However, the disadvantage of insufficient manpower appeared again at this time. It took more than a month for the new barracks to train more than a dozen naturalized civilian soldiers who had mastered the basic operating procedures. in the team.But even so, the gunners on board were far from enough.Evenly distributed, there are only two gunners for each gun. If artillery fire is needed to participate in the battle at sea, I am afraid that the only way is to let the rookie gunners command the temporary sailors and boatmen.

Due to the increase of sea cannons, the demand for gunpowder has also greatly increased.During this period of time, the chemical industry department stopped all scientific research work and went all out to manufacture black powder.This thing is not only useful for the artillery on the ship, but also requires a huge amount of gunpowder to build roads and mines in Xingang.According to the estimate of the Ministry of Construction, the amount of gunpowder needed during the construction of Xingang is at least one ton. To be on the safe side, the Ministry of Chemical Industry directly worked overtime to produce two tons of black powder, and this also made all the sulfur, saltpeter and other materials in stock. sweep away.

By mid-July, all the preparatory work has been completed, and the overseas colonization operation has also entered the countdown.

(End of this chapter)