1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 1924
In fact, the thirty or so armed riders outside the convoy were just the local garrison and Luo Shengdong's personal guards, and the two caravans at the end of the convoy were still carrying Gai Liangcai's men.The number of these teams added together is not less than the number of people who were on duty inside and outside the guest house last night.In terms of the number of participants in the operation alone, this level of security is almost the same as that of Haihan's high-ranking officials.

Because Yinggehai is rich in salt, salt merchants from various countries often come and go. In order to ensure the personal safety of these rich people in the local area, the prosperous areas such as ports and county towns have relatively strict security measures.In the past, some people tried to use extraordinary means to get some money from these wealthy businessmen, but Luo Shengdong was born as a warrior, and he has a ruthless side in doing things. These people who want to make troubles in the local area are stumbling blocks for him , those who were caught had a miserable fate. They were basically sent to the Shilu mines as coolies after being paraded in the streets.

It was actually not the first time for Luo Shengdong to provide security for foreign dignitaries who came to investigate, and he had never made any mistakes before, so he was still very confident in the measures he deployed.As for Gai Liangcai's command, he didn't think there was any problem with it. He was just a local official, and he just had to cooperate with him in these two days.

As for the two carriages parked beside the main road, they didn't attract anyone's attention at all.Almost all the seven local carriage and horse dealers in Yinggehai use this standard horse-drawn carriage designed by the Ministry of Communications and built in large numbers in recent years. At least more than a hundred of these carriages shuttle back and forth on this main road every day.In order to facilitate the trade activities of salt merchants, the salt field is actually a relatively open area, and there is no special checkpoint like the Tiandu Industrial Zone in Sanya.Even foreign businessmen can also enter and exit this area, and the most convenient means of transportation is a horse-drawn carriage.

Of course, those areas where the products are relatively special, such as the production process that requires multiple refinements and processing, and the market price of refined salt is quite high, the production sites will still refuse the entry of idlers for the sake of technical confidentiality.

The two carriages parked on the side of the road did not move at all, until the large official convoy passed by and was about to disappear at the end of the field of vision, Captain Xue gave an order in the car: "Follow behind, don't get too close, keep distance!"

There is a short gun about one foot long stuck in his waist. This fire gun is said to be made in Spain, and it can shoot through iron armor within three feet. It is really powerful.However, it is a little troublesome that this thing has limited accuracy, and it needs to be very close to the target when it is used. If the distance is more than five feet, it can only be hit by chance.

Besides this firecracker, the weapons of the others in the group were only a variety of cold weapons, and they were all short and capable, without long-handled weapons or heavy weapons that were inconvenient to carry.To be honest, Captain Xue didn't know much about this mission. Just now, he saw from the gap in the hood that all the guards in the convoy were carrying rifles. All discounted.

Just because he realized the huge gap in strength, he didn't dare to issue radical orders at this time. If his deeds were exposed, he didn't dare to expect the group of people he led to escape from the noses of dozens of cavalry.

The only good thing is that there is only one main road here, and all the cars and horses passing by take this road. The two cars hang far behind, so it won't look obtrusive, and the terrain here is flat, so Almost all the places I can see are large and small salt fields, and there are no obstacles to block the view, so it is not easy to lose sight of the target.

After walking about three or four miles away from the county seat, the official convoy turned into a branch road leading to a village in the bay.There were still a few riders left at the intersection, probably to guard the intersection and prevent other horses and horses from entering, so as not to block the slightly narrower branch road.

"Keep going, don't stop!"

Captain Xue seemed to be quite experienced in how to track and track, and immediately issued new instructions after discovering the movement ahead.If you stop at this time, it will easily arouse the vigilance of the guards in front, and take the initiative to overtake the opponent's position, in fact, you have entered the psychological blind spot of the opponent's vigilance, and it is easier to hide your intentions.

After passing the branch road, the two carriages continued to walk for nearly a mile before they pulled over and stopped again.Captain Xue fumbled out a binoculars and watched the movement of the official convoy in the distance from the gap in the hood.

In fact, so far, he is still unable to determine whether the protagonist of the convoy is the North Korean who arrived here yesterday, which is completely inferred based on the level of this guard.After all, in addition to the North Koreans, I heard that there are also a group of Haihan officials accompanying them. It is also a reasonable arrangement to dispatch a large number of armed personnel to protect the local area.But in this way, such a strict level of protection is not something they can easily challenge.

This is actually because the matter came too hastily, and there was no time to make comprehensive preparations. It was just reported that the son of the Joseon Dynasty was going to leave Sanya for an investigation, and then he received the news that he would depart from Shengli Harbor the next day. In such a short time, Captain Xue One can imagine the difficulty for the forces behind it to organize a group of people in Sanya to follow them and look for opportunities to attack the North Koreans.

Although I got a boat temporarily and organized a group of desperadoes, even Captain Xue, who took the lead, was not sure about this mission. He didn't even know when and where to do it. step.

When they came out of Shengli Port, they could barely keep up with the fleet of the Koreans, but when they approached Yacheng, the fleet in front suddenly increased their speed, and their ship was pulled down.Hurrying quickly, I finally arrived at Yinggehai at sunset.In fact, they didn't know whether the fleet of North Koreans would dock here, and they didn't feel at ease until they saw the two ships at the port. It's just that this group of people was not familiar with Yinggehai's place of life, so they found it in a hurry. If you don't reach the destination of the target, you can only settle for the next best thing, and use the method of waiting for the target to appear.

Fortunately, although Yinggehai is a big place, the geographical environment is simple. As long as you guard the main road out of the county, you will basically not let the target go.But the current problem is that the security measures taken by Haihan are extremely strict, and Captain Xue can't find the slightest chance to do anything at the moment.He understood that if he had to attack rashly under such circumstances, it would be no different from death, and it would be impossible to succeed.We can only wait patiently to see if there will be a turning point in the development of things.

At this time, Li Lu and his party did not realize that there was a danger lurking nearby, and they were visiting a model local salt farm under the leadership of Luo Shengdong.

"This is one of the earliest salt farms developed in Yinggehai, and it is also the first local salt farm to realize mechanized irrigation!" Luo Shengdong proudly introduced the local achievements in salt farm construction to Li Min: "Please look, my son, our salt farm This kind of steam engine-driven lifting and irrigation device is used to pour seawater into the salt pond, and the efficiency is much higher than that of manual labor before. Come and show the prince a demonstration!"

Li Wei is no stranger to the steam engine. After going to the Sanya Municipal Library to make up for it, he even has a general understanding of the operating principle of this peculiar mechanical device.But I still feel very mysterious that this thing can convert the heat energy of coal combustion into seemingly endless kinetic energy.The Haihan people are obviously experts in the use of such mechanical devices. Whether it is sailboats, trains, or the current device for lifting and filling seawater, they all use steam engines as the source of power.

Looking at the seawater being quickly poured into the empty salt pond through the lifting irrigation device, there is no doubt that this is much better than the traditional lifting irrigation method of pedaling water wheels, and the efficiency is even more incomparable.As long as there is coal and fresh water, this steam engine can seem to go on endlessly, but man and beast have no such persistent physical strength.

But Li Lu also thought of another problem. Haihan's extensive use of steam engines actually reflects the serious shortage of labor in this country to a certain extent, forcing them to use this seemingly complicated mechanical device to replace Human and animal power.Although the efficiency of this thing is high, considering the cost and consumption during use, as well as the need for dedicated maintenance, its use cost may not be cheaper than manpower and animal power.

And the fact is exactly the same, even though the executive committee is determined to promote industrialization quickly, the manufacturing capacity of steam engines is still slow to improve due to the shortage of professional labor, and the defect of high cost of use caused by this cannot be overcome for the time being.Even in saltworks that claim to be free of money, such mechanical lifting and irrigation devices have not been deployed on a large scale. The reason is cost on the one hand, and the production capacity of the steam engine cannot keep up with the demand on the other hand.

The Executive Committee wants to promote the use of steam engines in the industrial field, but at the same time, it must ensure that the production technology is not leaked as much as possible, so that Haihan's technological advantages in this field can last for a longer period of time.In this way, both the production of steam engines and the training of related professionals must be controlled by the officials, and the speed of their development must be limited.In the past two years, the academy in Danzhou wanted to train professionals in this field by itself. Zhang Jinbao of Jonesey Academy even recruited a group of people to conduct research in secret, but in the end they were stopped by the government and asked them to cooperate with the official arrangement.

Therefore, although Haihan's steam engine manufacturing and application technology is unique in this era, in fact, the speed of large-scale promotion and application is not very ideal.Even in saltworks with better economic conditions, this advanced device can only be used as one of the selling points to show off to visitors, rather than a truly popular production tool.

Of course, only a few high-ranking officials in Haihan know about this kind of thing. In fact, even middle-level officials like Luo Shengdong are still sincerely proud of these black technologies.After all, this thing is the only copy of Haihan, even if other countries copy it, they can't even try to copy it.So when he introduced Li Luo, that kind of pride was not pretended, but really came from the heart.

However, the Haihan-style salt-making process is not as simple as pumping seawater into the salt pond and then waiting to dry. In fact, the tidal water in the bay must first be brought into the pool of the tide storage, because all the water from the tide The obtained seawater has a higher salt concentration and is easier to produce salt.

The Yinggehai Salt Field will choose low-lying areas in the tidal flat area of ​​the bay to build tide storage tanks. When the tide is high, the gates will be opened to naturally absorb the tide water, and when the tide is low, the gates will be closed.The function of the steam lifting irrigation device is to pour seawater into the tidal storage in areas where the terrain conditions cannot allow tidal water to flow in by itself, or to lift the seawater in the tidal storage to the salt pan.

The construction of these salt pans is not simple. It needs to first turn the soil, dry it, soak the brine, and repeatedly compact it. According to different functions, it is divided into evaporation area, adjustment area and crystallization area. The final crystallization pool even needs to be used. Brick or concrete structures to prevent leaks.

This production process seems simple, but in fact there are corresponding technical standards for each production link, such as the standardization of crystallization concentration, which is the unique setting of Haihan Salt Manufacturing Process.

During the years when Luo Shengdong was a private salt dealer, he had to go in and out of the two salt farms near Shengli Harbor in Haihan almost every month, and he gradually mastered these techniques.Moreover, he also learned theoretical knowledge for a period of time from Anxi, the director of the salt industry, so he can be regarded as a half-technical official.Therefore, when introducing the production process of sea salt to everyone, it can really be as smooth as a few treasures, and all kinds of details can be eloquently explained in detail.

After listening to it for a while, Li Luo also admired Luo Shengdong a little bit. Obviously, this guy is not a vain name. He is indeed a bit of a real person to be able to sit in this seat. The technical details of the salt-making process are all clear. In addition, he has been doing private salt business for several years, presumably the people working under him would not dare to play tricks to deceive him. Haihan chose such a person to manage the largest salt-producing area under his rule. He should also have taken a fancy to Luo Shengdong's ability in the professional field.

But to be honest, Li Luo could only understand about half of the production details Luo Shengdong introduced, and what he could really understand might be one or two sentences out of ten.This reminded him of what Li Xi had said to him when discussing the majors of studying abroad. Some things are not that Haihan is unwilling to teach, nor that other countries do not want to learn, but that the students sent to study abroad simply do not understand. Courses can only be learned bit by bit from the most basic subjects.Similar to some relatively advanced knowledge, the study time even needs to be counted as ten years, and few people are willing to spend such a long time studying abroad. After all, people who come to study abroad are to study early and return to China to be an official. If you have been a student for so long, you might as well just get naturalized.

(End of this chapter)