1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 228 Trip to Vietnam ([-])

After sending away the sullen Gu Kai, Tao Donglai didn't take this matter too seriously.There are indeed a few people in the time-traveling group who have a similar mentality to Gu Kai, thinking that since they have come to this time and space, they should create a more idealized social system, such as equality for everyone, equal pay for equal work, and so on.But Tao Donglai is very clear that this so-called absolute equality system is impossible to realize. After all, the vast majority of people abandon their original lives and come to this time and space for the great purpose of liberating the working people.Like Gu Kai and Reisa, the behavior of saying "equality", "freedom" and "democracy" and other slogans of later Western politicians all day long, in fact, regardless of the influence within the transmigration group or among the naturalized people Power is quite limited.The vast majority of people still prefer the existing time-traveling group structure, with a very small number of elites as the decision makers, the time-travelers as the leaders, and the naturalized people as the implementers. Such a pyramid structure is more suitable for their own development needs.

Nothing happened overnight.Early the next morning, Tao Donglai went to the cafeteria alone to check the operation status of the logistics department.

Compared with Shengli Port, Heitu Port has a more concentrated residential area and a higher population density. Therefore, the canteen here is divided into two parts, the north and the south. The south canteen where Tao Donglai is located mainly caters to the management committee staff, Military and police personnel, a small number of immigrants from Shengli Port in the early stage, and some local women and children.The content of the breakfast is very simple, rice porridge with pickles, but there are indeed a lot of ingredients in the porridge, in addition to the common sea vegetables, there are even a small amount of scallops.The special breakfast offered by Transit is slightly better, with one egg and one half-foot-long sea fish per person.

Soon a group of people from the management committee also appeared in the cafeteria. After everyone had breakfast together, Tao Donglai ordered Gu Kai, Zhou Hengxing and Tian Yeyou, and asked the three of them to go with him to inspect the local residential areas and production areas. District, while Wang Tom is responsible for checking the status of local ordnance and military facilities.The chief military officer Qian Tiandun is still on the Tushan Peninsula, and the entourage sent by the management committee to Wang Tom is actually Gao Qiaonan, a naturalized civilian corporal.

Tao Donglai saw that Gao Qiaonan led a group of militiamen standing straight outside the cafeteria, wearing a camouflage training uniform and carrying a musket that was almost as tall as him. Very upright! Whenever you see him, he always looks like he is ready to go to the battlefield."

Zhou Hengxing coughed dryly and said: "Corporal Gao Qiaonan's performance in the local area is still very good. Since he took charge of the security inspection work in the residential area, the local security situation has improved significantly. I heard that Lieutenant Qian has given The Military and Police Department issued a report, requesting that Gao Qiaonan be promoted to a rank in order to give him a real job."

"There is such a thing." Tao Donglai nodded and admitted the rumor: "The military and police department only recruits so many people. In the future, a large number of grassroots officers will still have to be selected from the naturalized people. People like Gao Qiaonan are more capable. , can be properly trained. In addition, because a training camp will be set up on the Tushan Peninsula in the near future, the local militia may need to be stationed there to serve as military advisors. Therefore, a company of militia will be added in Heitu Port, and the soldiers will be local The naturalized people will be screened, and the specific matters can be implemented after Lieutenant Qian returns from the Tushan Peninsula."

This news did not surprise the members of the management committee. In fact, Qian Tiandun had more or less gotten along with them before that.In fact, everyone is very clear in their hearts that the expansion of the army is only a matter of time. If the Traversing Group wants to expand its territory rapidly in the future, it must rely on a strong military force.It's just that so far, apart from the military industry, the construction of the army has not brought real and visible direct benefits to the Transit Group. This is also one of the important reasons why the civil service system opposes military expansion.

However, in Heitu Port, even the pacifist Gu Kai no longer opposed the expansion of the army, because compared to the base camp, the military and police forces here are too small.There are a total of about one hundred military and police personnel stationed in Heitugang, and they have to be stationed in several places. Usually, there are less than twenty mobile personnel. This is also one of the reasons why Gu Kai is more worried that the labor treatment of the miners will cause dissatisfaction among the naturalized people.

The first place Tao Donglai inspected was the naturalized residential area of ​​Heitugang.After suffering from floods, the residential area of ​​Heitu Port was moved to a relatively higher terrain, located on a mountain plain in the south of the port area.According to the original plan of the Ministry of Construction, the residential areas here have built public facilities such as bathhouses and toilets according to a certain residential density. The houses are almost all built according to the model of Shengli Harbor. Large areas of uniform boat-shaped houses form one by one small community.

The residential area here is divided into four areas A, B, C, and D according to the north-south direction. Tao Donglai noticed that each boat-shaped house has a wooden house number nailed on the outside. A NO.13.Zhou Hengxing said that this is an ongoing attempt by the civil affairs department, and based on this in the future, household registration files will be gradually compiled for the local naturalized residents.

The civil administration method of Heitu Port is different from that of the base camp. The social system of the base camp is based on communes or work units, and the places of residence are relatively scattered.If the civil affairs department wants to establish naturalized civilian files, it must rely on the unit to collect and organize information.On the other hand, because the industry in Heitu Port is relatively single and the residential areas are relatively concentrated, there is no commune system with a base camp. It can be said that it is another attempt to implement a civil administration system.The experience gained from establishing this household registration system will also be used in the civil affairs work in Sanya in the future, gradually forming a standardized management system.

These boathouse communities were basically built after the floods at the beginning of the port, so the drainage ditches around the community were dug deep and wide, and all boathouses had at least one foot above the ground.Even if the flash floods at that time were repeated again, the damage that residential areas would suffer would become extremely limited.

There are tall wooden watchtowers on the periphery of each residential area, and militiamen will be on duty on these watchtowers at night.In addition to fixed-point guards, there are also special night patrol teams that patrol around the community from time to time.To put it bluntly, the security measures adopted by Heitu Port far surpassed those of the base camp.For example, the communes did not arrange any sentries to be on duty at night. At most, there were two or three people who were on duty at night and patrolled regularly to prevent the occurrence of fire disasters at night.

The northern end of the residential area is adjacent to the port area. At this time, several fishing boats can be seen slowly leaving the port.The focus of Tao Donglai's inspection today is naturally the freight terminal area a little further north.

The wharf design here also refers to the cargo wharf currently under construction in Shengli Port, but the overall scale is only about one-third of Shengli Port.At this time, there were several coal ships docked at the dock, and the laborers were constantly loading the coal piled up on the dock into baskets.Tao Dong looked at it for a while, then shook his head slightly and said, "The efficiency is too low."

Gu Kai continued: "We have submitted an application to the Ministry of Industry for the development of a belt conveyor, whether it is manpower, animal power or steam power, but we don't know when it will be used."

For bulk cargo such as coal that requires long-term large-scale transshipment, relevant departments must consider the efficiency of the transportation process.For this reason, all the current colliers have carried out small-scale modifications to the cargo holds to allow faster loading and unloading of cargo.At present, the track from the existing mining area to the port area in Heitu Port, and the track from the planned port area to Tiandu Industrial Area in Shengli Port, these large projects are also built to improve the efficiency of transshipment.However, everyone seems to have forgotten to consider the efficiency of the process of loading from the dock to the ship. Like now, the coal is first put into the box on the dock, and the two laborers carry it onto the ship before putting the coal in the box. The coal in the basket is poured into the cabin, which will reduce the work efficiency virtually.

Fortunately, they have quickly realized this problem in practice, and it is not too difficult to make up for it.Although the production capacity of the Ministry of Industry for manufacturing steam engines is relatively limited at present, it is not difficult to obtain two sets of animal-powered belt conveyors to improve the efficiency of bulk cargo transfer on the wharf.And as long as a suitable interface is left on the power transmission mechanism, it will be very simple to transform it into steam power when the conditions are suitable in the future.

At the west end of the pier, there is a track about one meter wide extending inland. This is the largest project since the opening of Heitu Port - the coal transportation track.The actual length of this track exceeds 1500 meters, and it is still running on a single track. Only a section of double-track track is built at the middle end to facilitate the interlacing of rail cars starting from both sides.Gu Kai introduced that, according to the plan of the management committee, the construction of double tracks will start at the beginning of next year, and the coal transportation capacity from the mining area to the port area can be doubled on the current basis.

And these coal trucks are all shipped in after the chassis and wheels are built in the base camp. After arriving here, the four sides of the carriage walls are built with wooden boards on the chassis and can be put into use directly.Each coal truck consists of four carriages, which can carry about ten tons of coal at a time, and can be pulled by only two to four livestock.Although the transportation efficiency is not high, the cost of use is extremely low.

At the foot of the mountain in the area north of the cargo port, there are several workshops, mainly brick kilns, lime kilns and cement kilns, all of which are produced for local infrastructure projects.Because these industries are dusty, they are also placed far away from residential areas-although it is only about one kilometer, this is already considered by the management committee out of humanitarian considerations.

The management committee still wanted to apply for the introduction of the glass industry in Heitu Port, but the executive committee rejected this request after consideration.It’s not that the executive committee is worried about the leakage of glass manufacturing technology. After all, many key technical indicators are in the hands of technicians across the country. The main reason is that the base camp is desperately expanding the production capacity of glass products, and there are no technicians at all. On the contrary, there are still a large number of technical post gaps that need to be filled.

These workshops are considered to be the northern end of the current territory of Heitu Port, and to the north is a large area of ​​uninhabited mountainous areas. Except for the hunting team with live ammunition, generally no one will go deep into these dense forests.

Tao Donglai and his party turned back to the south and followed the coal transportation track.Gu Kai pointed to a mountain pass ahead and said, "Through that mountain pass, you will be in the mining area."

The current Heitugang mining area is divided into three mining sites, all of which are open-pit mining models. One of the mining sites is the coking coal that is in great demand in the production base camp.Before entering the mining area, Tao Donglai saw several charcoal kilns emitting black smoke.This is also a part of the coal supporting industry in Heitu Port. The mining area turns part of the coking coal into coke and then transports it back to Shengli Port, and extracts pitch from the coal tar obtained in this process.It's just that the production environment and production equipment here are extremely primitive, and the naturalized people working here are all blackened by soot, and they can't see their original appearance at all.

After arriving at the first mining site, Tian Yeyou, the leader of the mining industry, began to introduce the production situation here to Tao Donglai: "This mining site is the first place we identified when we came to investigate, so we named it No. 25 Mine. At present, there are 28 laborers working in this mine every day, and the daily output of raw coal is about [-] to [-] tons.”

Tao Donglai noticed that the diameter of the mine pit here is about 200 meters. With the continuous excavation, it presents a funnel shape, and the deepest point is at least about ten meters.The coal excavated by the miners below is continuously sent to the ground by small carts one after another, and loaded onto larger flatbed carts.Every time a car is filled, it will be pulled by livestock and sent to the designated coal washing yard, where the coal will be washed and screened before being loaded and transported to the wharf, or a charcoal kiln for burning coke.

Seeing Tao Donglai frowned, Tian Yeyou seemed to guess what he was thinking, and said first: "We will soon set up a winch-type coal truck here to further improve transportation efficiency."

The open-pit coal mines of later generations were shipped by large trucks, and there was no problem in terms of transportation capacity.However, the current Heitu Port mining area obviously does not have such conditions, and the method of manpower trolleys is too inefficient, so the relevant departments are constantly trying to improve the transfer efficiency in this process.

Tao Donglai's face softened a little when he heard this, and then asked about the work arrangement here.Tian Yeyou did not dare to be negligent, and gave a detailed introduction, including the scheduling mode, work remuneration, food supply and so on of these workers.Gu Kai kept counting on Tao Donglai to ask the questions he mentioned the night before, but Tao Donglai obviously didn't intend to fulfill his wish, and after listening to Tian Yeyou's explanation, he quickly ended his visit to the mining area. Patrol.

In the afternoon of the same day, Tao Donglai convened a meeting with the management committee of Heitu Port and the heads of some production units. First, he conveyed the recent plan of the Executive Committee to Heitu Port, and second, he explained the series of agreements recently reached with North Vietnam. .Wang Tom also made a brief report to Tao Donglai on the military inspection.

Compared with the energy expended on the Tushan Peninsula, the inspection team's inspection work in the Heitugang area seems a bit superficial and fleeting.However, there is no way around this. Tao Donglai's trip was originally scheduled for ten days, but now eight days have passed, and the main purpose of foreign trade has been achieved, so it is time to consider the return trip.In addition, Tao Donglai believes that based on what he saw during the inspection, the life and production order in the Heitugang area is relatively well maintained, the development is fairly stable, and the leadership team of the management committee is fairly united. There are no obvious flaws worthy of criticism by the inspection team, and staying a few more days by myself will only cause trouble for the management committee.

At the end of the meeting, Tao Donglai announced his decision to return the next day, so following the reception banquet the previous night, this night was followed by Tao Donglai and others to practice.

Early the next morning, the "Speed" sailed away from Black Soil Port amidst the crowd waving goodbye, but before returning to Victory Port, they still had one last inspection point to go.

At [-]:[-] p.m. that day, Fushuizhou Island appeared in the sight of the crew.This small island isolated in the Beibu Gulf was built by the Executive Committee as a safe haven and a transshipment relay station on this route because of its location right in the middle of the coasts of the two places.

There are currently [-] personnel stationed on Fushuizhou Island, but none of them have passed through.This is something that can’t be helped. Compared with the existing settlements, the living environment on Fushuizhou Island is indeed a little worse. Except for fresh water, almost all supplies have to rely on the cargo ships that come and go.When the living facilities on the island first started to be built, a few cross-travelers came to live for a while, but they soon couldn't stand the boring and monotonous life here, and applied to be transferred back to Heitu Port.

When the "Flying Speed" landed on the island, almost all the residents on the island flocked to the pier to welcome them.These personnel stationed on the island are all Vietnamese immigrants, and some of them were the first batch of refugees who immigrated to Heitu Port. They recognized the "Speed" sailboat that took them out of the predicament at that time. When they saw Wang Tom again on the pier He almost knelt down and kowtowed.

Compared with the time-travelers who couldn't bear the loneliness, these immigrants were indeed able to endure hardships.However, they also had their own purpose in accepting this arrangement—the management committee promised that as long as they lived on the island for half a year, they could immigrate to settle in Shengli Port, where the living conditions were far better than those in Black Soil Port.With such treatment, the job of stationing on the island has become popular among the naturalized people in Heitu Port. It is said that the number of personnel who signed up to be stationed on the island has been scheduled to 1630.

The living facilities on the island are very simple. There is a small pier and several boat-shaped houses. The only relatively large project is to use the terrain to build a huge reservoir near the pier to store fresh water.The purpose of this facility is not only to supply practical fresh water for passing ships, but also has a preparatory function, that is, to provide fresh water supply for future steam-powered ships—that stuff needs to consume much more fresh water than the crew when traveling at sea. many.

(End of this chapter)