1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 3695

In the agreements that have been reached, there is no doubt that Hai Han will be the party that pays more, while the Xihu tribe seems to be just sitting back and reaping the benefits.

But there was nothing that could be done about it. After all, Hai Han was an outsider with no roots in the local area, and had to rely on the cooperation of the Xihu Tribe to quickly implement subsequent plans. The Xihu Tribe was equivalent to investing in the development zone with land and manpower, and all other matters were left to Hai Han. Only a certain balance could be achieved between the two, not absolute fairness.

However, in the eyes of Qian Tiandun and others, this is still a very cost-effective deal. Compared with the cost and long-term impact of taking military action to seize Khasab, the cooperation agreement can save a lot of military expenditure for the early development of Khasab.

But even for such a big thing, the fat Chief Abdullah had no intention of leaving Xihu City and coming to Khasab to supervise the start of the project. He only sent a confidant to come on behalf of the Xihu tribe to finalize the implementation details with the person in charge of Hai Han.

It is hard to say whether Abdullah is too carefree or has an inexplicable trust in Hai Han. Qian Tiandun is actually a little worried about this.

Once some differences of opinion arise during the development process in Khasab and the representatives of the Shihu tribe are unable to make a decision, they will have to spend a lot of time asking Abdullah, who is far away in Shihu City, for a decision, which will greatly affect the development progress.

But now that an agreement had been reached, Qian Tiandun didn't want to waste time on these details and immediately began to deploy development matters.

At present, this visiting fleet is basically composed of combat personnel. There are not many engineers and civil engineers accompanying them. Large-scale construction cannot be organized for the time being. They can only carry out preliminary surveys and planning, and at the same time, expropriate and demolish land in designated areas, and let local people vacate the place first.

Demolition is not an easy task anywhere, but it is relatively easy in Khasab. The reason is very simple. Because of the special environment here, most of the local people live by the sea and have almost no land to speak of, so the part of real estate involved in the relocation process is relatively low.

Most of these Arab people live in simple mud-walled houses, and some even live in tents all year round. Only a few families with better conditions can build larger houses with mud bricks and stones.

In order to make these people relocate collectively, in addition to giving them financial compensation, there is another effective way, which is to build settlements with better living conditions as soon as possible. However, after the meeting, Qian Tiandun found that it was not easy to build houses on a large scale here.

Although there is a lot of clay in the oasis of Khasab that can be used to make bricks, the proportion of bricks used in local buildings is quite low. The reason is very simple: there is not much fuel available locally to make bricks.

In the desert environment, there is not much vegetation, and the available wood is extremely limited, almost all of which is consumed as fuel for daily life. And there is no coal production locally, so it is difficult to prepare bricks and tiles in large quantities.

The bricks, tiles and timber used by local wealthy families to build houses are mostly imported from other places, and the cost is not affordable for ordinary people.

Although Qian Tiandun knew that there was a large amount of oil buried in the nearby area, the problem was that the oil pumped up from underground was not suitable for direct use as an efficient fuel.

What's more, the preliminary preparations for oil extraction are complicated, and building settlements is one of the preparatory work. If even houses cannot be built, subsequent industrial projects will have to be shelved.

"The most urgent task is to solve the fuel problem first, otherwise all infrastructure projects will be affected!"

Qian Tiandun found that this problem could not be avoided, so he decided to focus on the fuel problem. However, the local Arabs soon provided some useful information. It is said that there are some small coal mines in the area adjacent to the Indian Ocean at the eastern end of the Arabian Peninsula. In addition, coal is also sold in the port of Abbas in Persia across the Strait of Hormuz.

However, the price of these coals that need to be transported across the sea, plus the freight costs, will naturally not be too low. Although local people will also buy some, they are still far from being rich enough to use imported coal to burn brick kilns.

"We have to buy it no matter how high the price is! We need to arrange it as soon as possible and negotiate a long-term contract with the coal supplier for bulk purchases."

Qian Tiandun breathed a sigh of relief after hearing the news. These two places were not too far from Khasab. As for the procurement costs that would be incurred, there was definitely no way to save them.

Probably the only way to save money is for Hai Han to send out its own ships to transport the coal, which would at least save some of the freight costs.

However, for the special operations division that lacks shipbuilding capabilities, the transportation capacity that can be deployed to the Persian Gulf region is also very limited. How to deploy it specifically still requires more detailed planning.

When the relocation area of ​​Khasab was demarcated, thanks to Abdullah's order, the local people cooperated and did not encounter much resistance for the time being. It can be seen that although the fat chief rarely appeared in front of his people, he still had a very high prestige.

However, the plan to recruit local people as laborers did not go smoothly.

Perhaps because they are still wary of Hai Han, a group of outsiders, the Arabs have a clear lack of interest in working for foreign bosses. Even though Hai Han announced that it would provide workers with generous compensation and long-term jobs, there were still very few applicants.

The locals, who have been making a living from fishing for generations, still rely on fishing as a means of livelihood, and they do not quite understand why these foreigners want to build a port here with great fanfare. With their vision and knowledge, they cannot imagine how much the future development of Khasab will change their lifestyle.

In desperation, Qian Tiandun could only let the few hired Arabs do the work first. Once these people got paid and lived a better life than ordinary fishermen, they could serve as an example to the locals and make them realize the benefits of working for Hai Han.

After coordinating and arranging various affairs, the fleet stayed in Khasab for about half a month.

During this period, all personnel of the fleet were engaged in infrastructure construction as laborers. The goal was to level out a piece of land approximately one mile square on the coastline as the construction area for the first phase of the port project.

In late January, Qian Tiandun attended the port construction launch ceremony with representatives of the Xihu tribe. As a memorial, a three-foot wide and seven-foot high stone tablet was erected in the currently empty port area.

One side of the stone tablet is covered with inscriptions, which contain the agreement reached between the Hai Han Kingdom and the Xihu tribe on the joint development of Khasab, recorded in both Chinese and Arabic.

On the other side of the stone tablet, there are three large and vigorous characters engraved. Those are the place name written by Qian Tiandun for the new port of Khasab - Fubo Port.