1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 3646

Maritime trade and shipping was the first business that the Xu family in Fujian started to make a fortune. After decades of experience, they are considered the best in this industry in terms of scale and experience. Although competition in the shipping industry of Sing Tao is very fierce, Dong Shangyi is also experienced in this field and has his own way to find a starting point.

Through the information he had collected over a long period of time from the Fujian Trading Company located in Sing Tao Island, he quickly gained a general understanding of the region's shipping industry and found his own unique advantages.

The area covered by Xingdao's local shipping lines is limited, extending north to Hainan Island, east to the Luzon region, south to the Sunda Strait, and west to the western end of the Strait of Malacca.

It is not impossible to reach destinations outside this range, but the transportation costs will rise sharply and it will be impossible to compete with local shipping lines.

For the same reason, the departure ports of cargo ships that sail directly from Haihan to Xingdao are basically located in the South China Sea. From the Taiwan Strait to the north, there are very few direct flights to Xingdao, and they usually transfer in Sanya, Hainan.

Fujian is located right on the edge of the business area of ​​​​Sing Tao Shipping Company. Once a fixed route from Fujian to Sing Tao Shipping Company is established in the future, it will be able to take over the business in the northern waters that they rarely set foot in.

Materials and personnel transported from the north to Sing Tao Island can also be concentrated in several major ports in Fujian for transshipment. As long as the transshipment port is changed to Fujian, the round trip will be 3,000 miles shorter than going to Hong Kong at the mouth of the Pearl River, and 5,000 to 6,000 miles shorter than going to Sanya Port in Hainan, and the transportation efficiency will be greatly improved.

Of course, shipping companies in Hainan and Guangdong can also do this transshipment business, but due to the difference in voyages determined by their geographical locations, they cannot compete with shipping companies in Fujian in any way.

For example, the most famous trading company in Guangdong, Fu Ruifeng, also operates shipping trade between Guangdong and Guangxi and Sing Tao District, and even owns a large wharf in Sing Tao Port. It also has routes from Guangdong and Guangxi to the East China Sea District, the Northern District, and even the Korean Peninsula.

However, because the transshipment ports between the East China Sea and the South China Sea have always been located in Sanya and Hong Kong, the long-distance shipping routes that cross multiple regions vertically from north to south must first turn around in the South China Sea to reach the transshipment port. The resulting increased voyage will inevitably make its transportation cost greater than the transshipment routes in Fujian.

How to maximize the transformation of Fujian’s geographical location into operational advantages is what Dong Shangyi needs to do next.

However, this task cannot be accomplished by him alone. It involves the overall capacity allocation and hardware upgrade of Fujian's three major ports, and the adjustment of the current shipping policy. It must be presided over by Xu Yuzhuo personally. Even if it is implemented immediately, it will take at least a year and a half to see obvious results.

Dong Shangyi spent several days visiting various local public and private institutions related to shipping, and then wrote a lengthy report of more than ten thousand words, which he handed over to the Fujian Commercial Bank to arrange for it to be sent back to Zhangzhou.

After completing this major task, Dong Shangyi followed the official arrangement of Sing Tao and went to nearby areas to inspect another pillar industry of Sing Tao - the mining industry.

Batam Island and Bintan Island, located dozens of miles south of Xingdao, are important bauxite producing areas in Xingdao. At the port of Xingdao, you can see the billowing black smoke from the aluminum blast furnaces on these two islands when the weather is clear.

The bauxite mines and mining methods are actually similar to other mines that Dong Shangyi has seen in the past. Shallow veins are mined by open-pit mining, which mainly relies on manual excavation supplemented by a small amount of mechanical equipment.

Several rail lines were laid in the mine, and steam locomotives were used to transport the mined ore to a nearby smelter.

Of course, it is impossible to have enough electricity generation on the islands in the South China Sea at this time for the mine to realize the smelting plan of electrolytic aluminum. The only way is to use a relatively primitive method, first add soda and lime to the ore, and smelt it at a high temperature of 1,200 degrees to make semi-finished alumina. However, the melting point of alumina is over 2,000 degrees, and it is still difficult to smelt and purify it with a blast furnace. Alumina must be smelted with iron sulfide and coke to lower its melting point, first make aluminum sulfide at a temperature of about 1,000 degrees, and then add zinc chloride to the aluminum sulfide and roast it to obtain aluminum with higher purity.

Even with the mine's technical staff accompanying him to explain, Dong Shangyi still had no idea what was going on here, nor did he quite understand the purpose of going through so much trouble to refine this silvery-white metal.

"Aluminum has so many uses! It can be used to make cars and ships, as a heat dissipation material, for food packaging, to make pipes and containers... Almost every environment we come into contact with can be used for it!"

Dong Shangyi was a little dissatisfied with the technician's explanation. After looking around, he saw that the tools and equipment used here were almost all made of steel, so he deliberately asked: "Then is there any place in our mine where aluminum can be used?"

The technician was stunned when he heard this, probably because he didn't expect the other party to find fault with him in person, but he nodded immediately and said, "Master Dong, please follow me. The mine happens to need this thing these days."

Dong Shangyi followed him to a freight track construction site where the connecting rails were being built.

Dong Shangyi was not too unfamiliar with this thing. He had taken the local train when he visited Sanya before, and had also seen how the port freight tracks in Sanya Port, Zhoushan Port and other places operated.

However, this was the first time he saw how this steel structure transportation system was constructed and installed up close.

The technician explained to him: "The length of each of these rails is limited. We will weld them together when laying them. When welding, we will use a special flux made of aluminum."

After that, he asked the construction workers on site to show Dong Shangyi how to use thermite to complete the welding between the two rails in a very short time.

Dong Shangyi's eyes widened when he saw the rail joints quickly turning red and melting into one under the burning of thermite. This scene was completely beyond his understanding.

6◇9◇Book◇Bar

Later, the construction workers removed the welding sand mold on the rails, waited for it to cool down, and then polished the welding joints smooth, and the two rails were connected into one.

Dong Shangyi went to see several completed joints and was amazed at how smooth they were.

Suddenly he thought of a possibility and couldn't help asking, "Since this thing can melt steel easily, if it is made into ammunition and fired from a gun, wouldn't it be able to melt everything?"

The technician who accompanied the explanation smiled and said, "Master Dong, what a good idea! I heard that this thing is indeed used to make artillery shells, but later the army seemed to think that the killing effect was not ideal, so it was temporarily shelved."

Dong Shangyi was surprised and asked, "Does this mean that you think it's not useful enough?"

The technician nodded and said, "It is said that there is something more suitable than this, but I have never seen it with my own eyes."