1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 202 Capacity and Market

As expected by the Executive Committee, due to the civil war in Vietnam, all large salt farms in the war zone were shut down.After the supply of salt in the south was interrupted for a few months, northern Vietnam has fallen into a certain degree of salt shortage. The price of salt in the market has skyrocketed, and there is no market for it. Even if you have money, you can no longer buy it through normal channels. to table salt.

Under such circumstances, the one thousand catties of refined salt transported from Heitu Port immediately became a hot commodity. The other party heard that the salt could be exchanged with grain, and agreed to Heitu Port's opening without even paying the price. out conditions.The Red River Delta to the east of Hanoi is a land of abundant rice production, and the price of grain is extremely low. The local FOB price is even only one-third of the price of grain in Yazhou, which is about less than two taels of silver per thousand catties. Compared with Vietnam The price of refined salt in the market has skyrocketed to more than 400 taels per thousand catties, and the difference is as much as two hundred times!
So the one thousand catties of refined salt transported from Heitu Port to test the market was exchanged for more than one hundred thousand catties of rice smoothly.And because Heitu Port didn't expect this situation, they only went to one ship for the transaction. As a result, they couldn't transport so much rice back at one time, so they had to complete the transaction in two parts.Immediately after completing the transaction, the Heitu Port Management Committee sent an urgent call to the base camp, canceling the original request for food support, and applying to replace all of this part of the transport capacity with salt.

Of course, this kind of profiteering transaction cannot last for a long time, and the Vietnamese government will definitely open up new salt farms to supply the needs of the people, so Heitu Port intends to seize this limited time to do a few more private salt transactions with the Vietnamese, and open it first. Even if the supply of salt in Vietnam recovers in the future, Heitu Port can continue to profit from it by further reducing prices.

Gu Kai, director of the Black Soil Port Management Committee, even claimed in a telegram that as long as the production capacity of the base camp is sufficient, it is entirely possible to take advantage of this opportunity to control the salt market in North Vietnam.At the same time, Gu Kai also suggested that the base camp send caravans to the South Vietnam area by itself, because according to the current situation, the salt farms concentrated in the warring areas of Ha Tinh, Quang Tri, Nan Quang Binh, Hue, and Quang Nam accounted for more than [-]% of their domestic production capacity. More than [-]% of the salt production is affected by the suspension of these salt farms, not only in North Vietnam, but also in the area ruled by the Nguyen clan in the south, which is also facing the plight of salt shortage. No!

As long as the trade window is opened, there will be a channel for the next arms export plan to Vietnam.Regarding the North-South Vietnam military conflict that will continue for several years, the Executive Committee has always regarded it as a good opportunity to expand its own strength, and has long planned how to make good use of this situation.Selling arms and absorbing Vietnam's population and wealth will be the main theme of the Transit Group's Vietnam policy in the next few years.However, before realizing these beautiful visions, the Executive Committee must first try to meet the current transaction needs-supplying a large amount of salt to the Vietnamese market.

According to the current own salt production, the demand for salt in the Vietnamese market is completely a bottomless pit. Even if the production capacity of the Salt Farm Commune is fully filled, it is estimated that the pit will not be filled, so the executive committee is eager to expand production capacity.Just these three directions of salt imports have completely exhausted the local salt production capacity, but at this juncture, the Guangzhou Office sent a telegram to apply for an increase in the amount of salt transport in the mainland.

As the fourth export direction, the mainland region, due to its huge potential market, the consumption of salt will completely exceed the sum of the first three export directions.Even if it is only in Fuguang and Guangxi provinces, the required salt cannot be supplied by a small salt farm commune.And now "Fu Ruifeng" has sent people to the various state capitals of the two provinces to inquire about sales channels. If everything goes well, then the private salt sales network in these two provinces will be fully rolled out, and it is estimated that it will be at the end of this year and early next year. up.

Faced with huge market demand, but unable to eat it in one bite due to insufficient production capacity, this kind of sweet trouble is simply a kind of torment for the executive committee. On September 9, the executive committee had to hold a special discussion meeting, gathering the heads of relevant units together to study how to expand the production capacity of the saltworks as soon as possible.

At the meeting, Anxi, the head of the Salt Field Commune, introduced the current production status: "Now the Salt Field Commune has a total of 660 members, of which the proportion of young and old laborers is about 65%, which is basically enough for the current production scale. Everyone knows Most of the salt farms are salt pans and sun-dried salt ponds. These two items occupy more than [-]% of the entire working area of ​​the salt farm. At present, the actual development area of ​​the salt farm only accounts for slightly more than half of the entire planning area, and there is still a large amount of usable area. It has not been put into use, and I think that if the development and construction of these areas can be accelerated, then a substantial increase in salt production can be achieved in the short term.”

"In addition, most of the seawater lifting and irrigation operations currently rely on wind energy, animal energy or even manpower, and the work efficiency is very limited. I suggest that the Executive Committee allocate a batch of steam-powered equipment to the saltworks as soon as possible. Even charcoal-burning equipment will do. Regarding this aspect I have typed the report five or six times, and I hope the executive committee will pay enough attention to it!"

Tao Donglai coughed dryly and said, "Comrade Anxi, everyone has read your report and attached great importance to it, but there have been some objective reasons for not distributing steam power equipment to the Salt Field Commune. Our previous steel production capacity Insufficient, in order to expand production capacity, almost all of the steam power equipment produced is invested in expanded reproduction. Roger, please tell me about the situation in this regard.”

Both Roger and Shi Diwen were senior mechanical technicians before crossing, and they are currently supervisors in the machining department.Shi Diwen is mainly responsible for the development of ordnance, while Roger has been engaged in the manufacture of steam-powered machinery.

Roger shrugged his shoulders, and said in Mandarin that he had already mastered a lot: "As Mr. Tao said, we have mastered the technology of making steam engines, but the limited raw materials limit our production speed. Now we manufacture a steam engine. A twenty-horsepower steam engine takes five days, and if necessary, we can manufacture three such steam engines at the same time, but the problem is that our steel production cannot keep up..."

Liu Xingli raised his hand and interjected: "Let me make an excuse. The bottleneck of steel production is not our production level or production technology, but fuel! Without enough coal coke, we can't smelt steel in large quantities. I believe that Everyone is very clear. As long as the Black Earth Port and the Ministry of Shipping can ensure sufficient fuel supply, the smelting workshop can also ensure sufficient steel supply to the manufacturing department."

Seeing that Yue Zhiyun was about to come out to clear himself up, and the topic seemed to be getting further and further away, Tao Donglai hurriedly ended the endless debate: "The topic of today's discussion is to expand the production capacity of the saltworks. , don't digress and become a habit!"

Bex said: "I think so. Since the current objective situation requires us to expand the production capacity of the salt farm, we might as well temporarily maintain a preference for the salt farm commune in terms of policy and material supply, such as the recently produced steam engines, cement, and newly arrived immigrants. , can be given priority to the Saltworks Commune.”

There was no objection to Beks' proposal.Everyone is well aware of the current external environment. Salt can be said to be an industrial output product with the lowest technical threshold and production cost, and it has a huge consumer market.Although the export price of table salt is only [-] yuan per ton, it is very cheap compared to other industrial products, but no matter how low the price is, it cannot stand up to the large quantity. One day, thousands of tons of salt will be sold abroad , the income is quite considerable.Moreover, the biggest difference between table salt and other industrial products is that table salt is a just-needed product, and the price will not affect its actual demand in the market, which is unmatched by other products.At present, there is a huge demand for salt at home and abroad, and it is reasonable for the Executive Committee to give priority to the needs of the Salt Farm Commune.

However, Anxi didn't seem to be satisfied with this arrangement, he shook his head and said, "It's probably not enough just like this."

Tao Donglai asked in amazement, "How do you say that?"

"We can first calculate the theoretical output that the Salt Field Commune can achieve in the future." Anxi stood up and walked directly to the whiteboard in front of the meeting room, picked up a marker pen and began to write, explaining as he wrote: "Where the Salt Field Commune is located The area is a mountain depression, so the actual developable area is very limited, and we knew very well at the beginning of the planning that the usable area here is only about [-] hectares."

"According to our current production capacity, the annual output per hectare is about [-] to [-] tons, which is very low compared to the output of later generations of Hainan Salt Fields, only about a quarter. Even if we pass various This kind of technological transformation, using a lot of mechanical equipment to increase work efficiency, but limited to the objective technology and management level, it is probably the limit to reach two-thirds of the output of later generations, that is, about [-] tons per hectare per year, so calculate After all, the annual output of the Salt Field Commune is about [-] tons, and at best it will not exceed [-] tons."

Anxi put down the marker pen, turned to everyone and said, "This output should be enough to supply the needs of internal industrial production plus the salt consumption of the entire Hainan Island residents, but if there is also a large-scale export to the two national-level markets at the same time , I am afraid there is still a big gap.”

Tao Donglai already understood what he meant, nodded and said, "Are you trying to say that we should start planning a new saltworks now?"

(End of this chapter)