1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 251 New Ship Launched
After hearing Tao Donglai's words, Ning Qi quickly calmed down from his initial excitement.No matter how good Jin Ran Bay is, it is still under the control of others. If the Traveling Group wants to occupy it, it must first have enough strength.Even if it is possible to use a method similar to the cooperation with North Vietnam to bring Cam Ranh Bay in the name of joint development, it must invest enough resources in its preliminary construction.

The Tushan Peninsula occupied by the Crossing Group in the Beibu Gulf is not large, and the terrain is easy to defend and difficult to attack. In addition, it can get supplementary labor and materials nearby, so the difficulty of construction and development cannot be said to be particularly great.At present, military depots, material warehouses and simple docks have been built in the local area, and nearly a hundred military personnel and almost the same number of civilians have been stationed there. Three hundred trainees have also started to receive training from Haihan military advisors ten days ago.

However, for the development of places like Cam Ranh Bay, it is difficult to completely copy the experience of Tushan Peninsula, because the area of ​​this place is too large. The inner harbor alone has dozens of square kilometers of sea surface. If we want to ensure this Local security is not something that can be achieved by stationing a small number of military personnel like Tushan Peninsula.Moreover, the local harbor formed by two peninsulas is actually very similar to Victory Harbor-only by erecting powerful coastal defense guns at the narrowest point of the harbor can the harbor be truly safe.However, the coastal defense artillery fortifications in the base camp are still in the construction stage. The coastal defense artillery has just been finalized, and the number of artillery is seriously insufficient. No matter how you look at it, it is unlikely that large-scale coastal defense artillery fortifications will be built in overseas bases in the short term.

And there are no special minerals in the local area, and it is also impossible to build it as an industrial base like Heitu Port.According to the data of later generations, the only valuable mineral raw material in the Jinlan Bay area is silica sand ore, which can be used in large quantities in the production of glass and ceramics and metallurgical industry, but the problem is that both Wenchang and Danzhou in Hainan have silica sand production areas and The reserves are not small, and there is no need for the Traveling Group to look far away.

"Cam Ranh Bay can be listed as one of the strategic points to focus on in the future, but there is no need to rush to occupy it in the near future. Even if Champa gave us that place, it still doesn't have enough resources to develop it now." Tao Donglai made a conclusion on the Cam Ranh Bay issue: "We can first establish a trade relationship with Champa, and then try to persuade the other side to let us set up a commercial warehouse terminal in Cam Ranh Bay for cargo transfer, and then expand it gradually. scale."

"Sell them arms?" Ning Qi blurted out.

"I want to sell, but I have nothing to sell recently!" Tao Donglai showed a rare expression of frown: "The production capacity of the military industry department is not enough! Now there are still unfinished orders in Fujian and North Vietnam. Expansion also requires more weapons and equipment, the production speed of munitions cannot keep up with the consumption speed, and there is no stock in the warehouse to sell to Champa.”

"Can't we let the military industry department speed up production?" Ning Qi was very puzzled by this behavior of not doing business.

"It's already been three shifts. The problem is that we don't have skilled workers at all. Almost all workers start to receive production training after entering the production workshop. If you think about it, the craft of making guns is only a few Is it possible to do it every month? Every time you say to speed up the production, the scrap rate will skyrocket. You haven’t seen Tiandu’s military factory. The scrapped parts are piled up like a hill. To have the current output, the military department Those people have worked very hard." Standing on the dual positions of the Military Police Department and the Industrial Party, Tao Donglai had to defend the military industry department.

"Recruit more workers..." Ning Qi felt inappropriate in the middle of saying this, and stopped himself.

The military industry department is no different than other units. Naturalized civilians with physical strength and obedience are not guaranteed to be competent. This is a real technical department. People with stupid brains will definitely not be able to enter. This section has already wiped out a considerable part of it. labor.And because it involves military technology, there are also certain requirements for the "political background" of the workers. They must be born in poverty, and naturalized citizens who have a positive view and a heart of gratitude to the time-traveling group can be eligible to become workers in the military industry.In addition, these people have signed an employment agreement for at least ten years. During this period, they cannot leave the area controlled by the Crossing Group for any personal reasons. This is also to ensure that the technological advantages of the Crossing Group in military technology will not be leaked.

With all kinds of restrictions, the selection of workers in the military industry department is not so easy. Every time the list of naturalized civilian laborers transferred from Ning Qi, they can finally pass a series of reviews and become official skilled workers in the military industry department. Less than one tenth.From a certain point of view, the military industry department's selection of personnel is even more stringent than the military and police department's selection of militiamen.This situation is reflected in the expansion of arms production capacity, and the effect is even negligible. If you want to expand production capacity, you can only hope that the group of industrial workers will gradually increase, and there is no rush.

"I'll talk to Zhan Gui later and see if he can be of use to us. We can't sell ammunition now, but we can sell other things! We opened such a big salt field, isn't it just to sell to all directions? Selling salt?" Tao Donglai didn't seem to care much about the temporary inability to sell arms, because the Time Traveling Group still has salt, a stepping stone to all trials and tribulations.

Although the current salt orders received by the Crossing Group have exceeded the monthly supply of 20 catties, the executive committee is no longer worried that this output cannot be completed.With the completion of the transformation of the Shengli Port Salt Field and the development of the Tielu Port Salt Field, the salt production is expected to achieve a step-wise leap in the next two to three months, from the previous monthly output of 12 to 40 jin to 60 more than a catty.Anxi expressed optimistically in the project report to the Executive Committee that when the first anniversary is passed in April next year, the total output of the two salt farms is expected to exceed [-] tons per day, which is equivalent to an output of about [-] jin per month—— This has exceeded the combined production capacity of Fujian and Guangdong provinces plus all Daming saltworks on Qiongzhou Island.

The price of private salt sold by the Crossing Group to the outside world is extremely low. First-level agents such as Luo Shengdong and "Furuifeng" get about [-] yuan per ton of wholesale price from Shengli Port, which is almost only six times the market price of Daming. One-eighth to one-eighth.This price may seem very low, but the executive committee has been aiming at small profits but quick turnover from the very beginning, leaving a huge profit margin for the agents so that they can develop more sub-agents in their respective regions , and can use a lower price to grab the market share of official salt.Moreover, although the wholesale price is very low, the production cost is lower, which is more than enough to maintain the operation of the salt farm and feed the workers in the salt farm.

The executive committee did not expect to make a lot of money from the private salt business, because there were various other high-value-added industrial products in its hands that could take on the task of making profits.The main purpose of running a private salt business is actually to expand business channels. To put it bluntly, it is to pave the way for the future sales channels of industrial products.As long as distributors get a taste of the sweetness from the initial private salt business, their acceptance of Haihan industrial products will increase a lot, which can save a lot of effort for Haihan products to build local sales channels.

According to the current situation of the Executive Committee, salt production in "backward areas" like Champa is still at the stage of the original salt cooking process, and its production efficiency and production cost are far from those of the Crossing Group. If the Crossing Group intends to To enter this business into the local area, it is sure to be able to easily gain a competitive advantage in terms of price.And the boss Zhan who claims to be familiar with the situation in Champa seems to be the best agent at present.

So three days later, when Zhan Gui left Shengli Port and headed south, there were five thousand catties of Haihan refined salt on board.Due to the unknown situation in Champa, the Executive Committee did not send a boat to accompany it, nor did it send the cross-travelers to travel with Zhan Gui's boat, but only sent a few naturalized crew members to board the boat and asked them to confirm the voyage first. and the state of Champa.Of course, Zhan Gui also got the promise of the executive committee. If everything goes well and the window for private salt trade in Champa can be opened, then he can be the sole designated agent of Haihan for the private salt trade in Champa in the future, and monopolize this business. It is called a profiteering business.

In mid-November, the two large ships ordered by He Xi at the shipyard in Fucheng, Qiongzhou were finally delivered for use. A team of Huamin sailors went north to pick up the ship, made a big circle in the west of Hainan Island, and recruited a group of laborers in Danzhou to transport them back to Shengli Port.

Just a few months ago, due to the fact that a large number of civilian husbands were conscripted to the mainland to quell the She'an Rebellion in Danzhou, the coal mine labor force was seriously insufficient, which led to a sharp rise in coal prices across the island. The black earth port colonization operation was launched.But after just a few months, the trend of the war in She’an has been extremely beneficial to Daming, and a large number of peasants have begun to return to their hometowns. At this time, the lignite in Danzhou has become a slow-selling product—almost all of Yazhou in the south uses it. "Haihan Coal" with lower price and higher calorific value.

Many coal mines with insufficient capital immediately closed down after two or three consecutive downturns. As a result, the miners who originally belonged to the local small coal mines began to experience large-scale unemployment, and the local government seriously lacked guidance for employment. effective measures.However, the Executive Committee, who learned this information from merchants in Danzhou, would not miss this opportunity, and immediately increased the speed of introducing immigrants from Danzhou accordingly.

November 1627, 11, the eighteenth day of October in the seventh year of the Ming Dynasty, was a memorable day for the Transmigration Group. Later Western historians even called this day "the beginning of the Eastern Dragon becoming the overlord of the sea". Because the Ministry of Shipping took several months to build the first test ship with various advanced concepts, and it was finally launched on this day for trial voyage.

All the executive committee members in Shengli Port attended this extraordinary launching ceremony, and several units stationed abroad also sent back congratulatory messages by radio, expressing their best wishes for the smooth progress of the launching ceremony.The shipyard specially built a colorful shed for this purpose, and also planted many small red cloth flags. The pointed bow of the test ship was also tied with paper colored flowers, creating a festive atmosphere.

Several executive committee members including Tao Donglai shook hands with the heads of the various units involved in the development one by one, expressing their thanks and congratulations to them. Zhang Tiangui, the supervisor of the naturalized shipbuilder who received this kind of "advanced treatment" for the first time, was so excited that he almost gave him a hand. The executive committee members bowed their knees.In fact, during the development of this ship, except for the Ministry of Agriculture and a few logistics units, almost all units and departments directly or indirectly participated in the development and construction of this ship. The degree of attention is also extremely high, no less than the grand occasion when the black earth port colonization fleet set off.

In addition to attracting a large number of local people to watch the port, the executive committee also specially invited some spectators from the outside world to participate in the ceremony.For example, Li Nai who is still staying in Shengli Port, Zhan Gui who just returned to Shengli Port from Champa yesterday, Yulin Inspection Department Wei Xunjian who has performed well recently, and Luo Sheng who specially led the fleet from Yazhou to congratulate Dong Luo is the general manager.And this time Luo Shengdong didn't come empty-handed, he sent 14 little girls "intimately" for the time travel group, and attached a deed of sale, costing more than a thousand taels of silver.Of course, no one in the executive committee dared to take this gift privately, so they quickly changed hands and threw this hot potato to Ning Qi—put these little lolis whose oldest age is less than [-] years old in the school first, and look for them later. Opportunity to discuss how to deal with this "trouble".

Luo Shengdong is not an outsider like Li Nai. Out of professional sensitivity, after getting the permission of the executive committee, he would go to the shipyard to check the construction progress of the test ship almost every time he came to Shengli Port. He doesn't have too many secrets about the ship, at most, there are some technical details that he can't understand, so he has a much deeper understanding of this ship than Li Nai and his like.

Luo Shengdong admired Haihan's boat-building skills and fantastic ideas in design, especially the shape of the bow, the steering wheel system and the design of the mast rigging, which made Luo Shengdong applaud.But at the same time, Luo Shengdong is also very clear that most of these advanced shipbuilding technologies cannot be replicated in Daming, because those hull reinforcements made of fine steel, mechanical transmission devices, and thick hollow masts made of fine steel are not What the craftsmen of the Ming Dynasty could imagine—even if they saw the real thing, it was hard to imagine how the Haihan people made these parts.

Luo Shengdong thinks that the only thing that the Ming shipbuilder can imitate is probably the kind of sail made by the Haihan people, but he also heard from people in the shipping department that there is not enough sail area, even if the traditional Chinese hard sail Changed to this kind of "Haihan sail", the actual effect on sailing is still very limited, and if you want to increase the sail area, the ultra-high hollow steel mast used by the Haihan people seems to be the only solution, so the only possibility The technical details of replication can only go to a dead end.

Regarding the actual performance of this test ship, Luo Shengdong is full of expectations and at the same time conflicted. On the one hand, he really wants to see how much better the sailboat built by the Haihan people after spending so much resources is better than the sailboat of the current dynasty. , and on the other hand, the continuous growth of the Haihan people's sea power also made him feel a little panic in his heart.Luo Shengdong is not one of those officials in the temple who can only talk in plain language. He has been in the navy for many years and has a very intuitive understanding of the importance of sea control, and the ship built by the Haihan people is obviously not just for carrying It's just cargo and immigrants - no civilian ship will be equipped with so many cannons, no, not even the warships of the Daming Navy have such strong firepower!

After the Haihan people have gained control of the sea, will they be as harmless as they are now, just burying their heads in making money and doing business?For this guess, Luo Shengdong was not even a little sure, but he really couldn't bring up the courage to ask the Haihan people face-to-face—if the Haihan people really planned to turn their faces and do something, then the cliff closest to Shengli Harbor The state navy is the first unlucky target!
"Anyway, we have to look at the performance of this new Haihan ship before we can decide whether to fight or..." Luo Shengdong was thinking silently in his heart, trying not to think about the worst possibility, He really couldn't imagine the scene of the Yazhou Navy's pile of tattered wood dealing with the Haihan gunboat at sea, and he could only hope that this day would never come.

However, Li Nai's perspective on this matter is different from Luo Shengdong's. Although he doesn't quite understand what kind of technical advantages the Haihan people's ship possesses, judging from the Haihan people's cautious attitude, the ship's Getting into the water has a special meaning for them.With the construction ability of the Haihan people, Li Nai has no doubt that in the next few years, Shengli Port Shipyard will ground a large number of such ships like dumplings.Moreover, the Haihan people can even build large iron boats that are tens of feet long, and it seems to be a foreseeable trend to build bigger and bigger boats in the future.

Tao Donglai raised his hand to check the time, and said to Yue Zhiyun, "Let's get started!"

"Don't Mr. Tao say anything?" Yue Zhiyun asked in surprise.Usually in this kind of occasion, the leader will say a few words casually, sum up the past, look forward to the future, as long as everyone works hard, there will be sweets and the like.

Tao Donglai smiled slightly and said: "Those who understand the meaning of this ship to our collective will naturally understand it, and those who don't don't need to explain more... Is the launching ceremony with Chinese characteristics the leader's speech? We still use facts Come talk!"

Yue Zhiyun nodded vigorously, and then walked onto the slipway with Sun Changmi.As the leaders of the development and construction of this ship, they were awarded the important task of cutting the ribbon by the executive committee.The two drew out the sabers at their waists, and after exchanging glances, they swung their sabers together and chopped off the red silk hanging in front of the bow from one left and one right.The deafening sound of firecrackers sounded immediately, and several healthy cattle were driven forward slowly by the peasants, pulled the winch, and then the 32-meter-long wooden sailboat was slowly pulled out of the berth by several traction cables linked to the winch , slowly slide towards the sea surface along the slide rail laid on the ground.

(End of this chapter)