1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 542
Li Dagui's cover status on the island for the past six months was a carpenter, and this status allowed him to have many opportunities to enter and leave the Dutch stronghold.Li Dagui has long been aware of the local situation of the Dutch, especially the defense arrangements.

"In the report given to Chief Lin just now, there is a port defense map drawn below. I wonder if you have seen it?" Li Dagui rubbed his fists and said: "I will explain it based on the map, maybe I can explain it in more detail."

Lin Nan immediately took out the report that Li Dagui handed in just now, and extracted the map that Li Dagui said from it.This map is only one foot square, and it is traced on a piece of thin paper with very thin handwriting.Although the painting style is very rough, Mu Xiabo can tell at a glance that the painter must have received professional training, and the true north direction and scale are marked on it, and the roads, buildings, forests, bridges, etc. It is marked with the standard symbols of the Haihan military map. Although there is no detailed contour line drawn like the military map, all the main commanding heights are marked, which can be used in wartime.

"The map is well drawn." Mu Xiabo nodded in praise.With Li Dagui single-handedly performing tasks here, it is difficult to carry out a large amount of independent surveying and mapping work. The maps used by the military staff are all based on satellite maps collected before crossing. The accuracy of this hand-made map can be achieved It has been extremely difficult.

"Thank you for your compliment!" Li Dagui was flattered, and quickly responded, and then began to explain the situation of the port to the two of them.He has recovered from the shock of seeing Mu Xiabo at the first time. Since the big man has stated that he wants to take the island, how much of the credit can be given to him will depend on how much he can earn at this time. up.

It has to be said that Li Dagui's stay on Natuna Island for more than half a year was not wasted. The intelligence information he collected was far more detailed than the written report delivered to the Ministry of Security.However, this is not because he deliberately concealed valuable information, but because of his limited education level, a lot of information cannot be fully reflected in the report with a limited length.However, by dictating the report according to the map like now, Li Dagui can pour out all the information he has.

Mu Xiabo and Lin Nan were not idle either, they were taking notes while listening to Li Dagui's narration, and from time to time they would ask questions about the parts that were not detailed enough in Li Dagui's words.

Li Dagui's oral report lasted nearly two hours before it ended, and at the end Lin Nan gave him a reassurance: "You go back and stay well, this credit will be credited to you first. Transfer you back to Sanya to report on your duties, and rewards will be given when the time comes."

Li Dagui quickly responded: "I will serve the executive committee to the death in a humble position!"

After sending Li Dagui away, Mu Xiabo said, "Commander Lin, your Security Department has done a good job, and the intelligence you have collected is very targeted. This will be of great help to our military!"

"Thank you, chief, for your compliment!" Although Lin Nan was a cadre in front of Li Dagui, he was a subordinate in front of Mu Xiabo.Although the two are not in the same system, under the rule of Haihan, the status of the traverser is undoubtedly the nobleman in this social system, while the naturalized people are undoubtedly inferior. Naturalized civilian cadres in special departments are no exception.No one expressed any objection to this. The people of this time and space are used to the existence of class differences, and one of the original intentions of the travelers who came to this time and space was to enjoy the treatment of the master?

Mu Xiabo accepted Lin Nan's thank you calmly, and continued to ask: "Before you came, you said that there are two people from the security department on the island, and when will an intelligence officer meet?"

Lin Nan replied: "The other person is a doctor who disguises his identity. We will bring him to the ship tomorrow morning under the guise of seeing a doctor for the crew."

The next day, as Lin Nan promised, another intelligence officer who was acting as a doctor also came to the ship and reported to Mu Xiabo face to face.Although this intelligence officer didn't have a hand-drawn map, he traveled around the entire Natuna Island in the name of gathering medicine for more than half a year. He knew the distribution of the residents on the entire island much more clearly than Li Dagui, which can be regarded as filling Filled in the gaps in the information collected so far.

During the two days that the two merchant ships stayed in the port, they did not arouse the suspicion of the Dutch. The representative of the Ministry of Commerce on board even sold some daily necessities produced in Sanya to the Dutch on the island, doing business for more than 200 taels of silver.This made the Dutch even more convinced that the two ships were indeed Ming merchant ships that were going to Batavia for trade.

After supplementing with fresh water and food, the two blessing boats left Natuna Harbor on January 1, circled the open sea, and turned to the northwest after making sure that there were no other ships in the nearby sea. The fleet of ships cruising in the open sea rendezvous.

After hearing the reports from Mu Xiabo and Lin Nan, Wang Tom believed that the intelligence collection work had achieved his goal, so he ordered to return to the voyage.As for exploring the waters south of the Natuna Islands, that was not the main task of their trip.

This time, there are two catamaran sailing ships with radio stations in the southward fleet. In order to hurry up, Wang Tom decided to divide the troops into two groups again. He will personally drive the "Lightning" sailing ship, and carry the personnel of several major departments back in advance. Sanya, report to the executive committee the information collected this time.The rest of the ships returned slowly according to the speed when they came.

On the way back, the "Lightning" only stopped at Cam Ranh Bay for a day's rest before rushing back to Sanya.However, Rao has been on such a journey day and night, and it has been a full two weeks since they returned to Sanya.

While the reconnaissance fleet went south, the Changhua Shilu track line finally completed the track laying work at the beginning of the new year.The steam locomotive departing from Changhua Port arrived at Shilu Station in one and a half hours at an average speed of 25 kilometers per hour, and it was within one kilometer of the two mines that had already begun to be excavated.This is currently the longest track on Hainan Island, marking that the development of the Shilu Iron Mine has entered the formal implementation stage. The ore mined here will be continuously sent to the seaside by railway, and will be turned into thousands of mines in the smelting factory in Changhua. tons of steel.

The director of the Changhua Shilu project, Qiao Zhiya, who is currently the military and political chief of the Changhua Development Zone, has moved his office from the vicinity of Changhua County to a hillside in Shilu.The office site of the Shilu mining area used to be the residential area of ​​Shizidong. In the early stage of site selection, because the foundation here was ready-made, Qiao Zhiya chose to use it as the office site and staff residential area of ​​the mining area for development and construction.

More than half of the original hundreds of boat houses were demolished and replaced with two-story wooden structure simple board houses of Haihan standard.The Ministry of Construction had already designed special simple houses for the development of the Shilu mining area more than a year ago. Because it is located in an inland mountainous area, it is not as vulnerable to the impact of hurricanes from the sea as it is by the sea. The main structure is bamboo and wood, and all the components are standard parts made in advance. After being transported to the construction site, it can be quickly built like building blocks with the command of the foreman.

Each of these simple houses can accommodate six to eight people, and the toilets and bathrooms are shared. Each two-story small building can be built in any size depending on the local conditions, from one room to a hundred rooms, as long as the construction site can accommodate it. That's fine.The Ministry of Construction has already built 2000 houses here before the whole line was opened to traffic, which can accommodate nearly [-] people, which can basically meet the initial needs of mine development.

Among the thousands of laborers who participated in the road construction in the early stage, most of them will be left to settle in the metallurgical industrial zone in Changhua. After simple training, they will enter the metallurgical industry and become steel workers.Some people will be assigned to settle along the railway line as maintenance and dispatchers for the track between Changhua and Shilu.A small number of people will stay in the Shilu mining area, serving as foremen and other positions.The main labor force in the Shilu mining area will be thousands of prisoners in the hard labor camp. Considering the production tasks assigned by the Ministry of Industry to the mining area, quite a few of them may have no chance of leaving this mountain area alive.

In addition, the Ministry of Justice has also passed a new resolution. From now on, the local prisoners in Hainan Island, except for some of the more sensitive criminals, will all serve in the Shilu Iron Mine. Some of the existing prisoners in the iron mine will also be moved there one after another to facilitate the unified management of the relevant departments.

All the technicians from the Ministry of Construction will be transferred away, some will go to the Qiongbei area to implement various infrastructure projects, and the other will need to work overseas for a period of time, going to the southern coast of Annan to be responsible for planning and commanding the several port development projects belonging to Haihan .

What Qiao Zhiya needs to worry about now is not only whether the operation level of the mining area can meet the output required by the Ministry of Industry, but the track line from Shilu Iron Mine to Changhua Metallurgical Industrial Zone is also a troublesome long-term matter.

Due to the total length of more than [-] kilometers, the project volume and cost investment are too large. In order to save construction time and resources, this track line adopts a single-track construction design during construction, which means that the two opposite ends of the train are actually Speeding on the same railroad.Of course, the problem of wrong train on the way is not difficult to solve. It only needs to build a section of double-track track on the way to solve it perfectly. From the perspective of construction technology, it is not too difficult, and the Ministry of Construction has indeed completed this task very well.The same method has been adopted on the track line from Tiandu to Sanya, and its feasibility has been proved through actual operation.

However, it is difficult to implement this method here, mainly because it is difficult to coordinate the scheduling of trains.The trains departing from the stations at both ends of the track line have a journey of one and a half hours on the way, and there are only three double-track tracks for the wrong train. How to make the train drive to the right place at a more accurate time for the wrong train is a problem. Very troublesome thing.If it is not handled properly, it will not only be a matter of delay, but also a serious traffic accident may occur.However, if the arrangement of trains traveling in the opposite direction is abandoned, it will greatly affect the operation efficiency of this track line, thereby indirectly affecting Changhua's steel production capacity, which is unacceptable to the Ministry of Industry.

Tiandu's track line to Sanya perfectly solved this technical problem, but the method used there is temporarily difficult to replicate locally.In order to ensure the daily electricity consumption of Shengli Fort, wires have been erected across the entire line from Tiandu’s industrial area to Sanya, and by the way, wired telephones have been realized, and the scheduling of trains between the two places can be easily passed Contact by wired telephone.The staff responsible for implementing the staggered train arrangement at the dispatch point on the way received the command of the phone, and then manually turned the switch to allow the trains to stagger.

Now the staff in charge of this track line are all trained naturalized citizens. Since the operation of the railway, there has never been a serious safety accident such as a train collision caused by a scheduling error.The track line between Tiandu and Sanya has partially completed the laying of the double track. After the double track is completed, there is no need to worry about the problem of trains passing the wrong train on the way.

This plan is also a technical solution prepared by the Ministry of Construction for the Changhua project. However, there is no such condition between Changhua and Shilu. Wired telephones have been deployed along the route for command.The energy department has thought about building a hydropower station in the inland mountainous area east of the Shilu Iron Mine, using the water conservancy conditions at the source of the Changhua River to generate electricity.After all, in the time and space before crossing, there was a rather large Shilu Reservoir in this area.But the engineering department rejected the proposal after a field visit here.

It is not that the Ministry of Construction does not have the engineering capacity to implement this proposal, but the amount of work is indeed a bit larger. It is necessary to build a concrete embankment with a length of more than 1200 meters in the mountainous area, as well as supporting hydropower facilities. The amount of work is about more than that originally built. Ten times that of the Tianduhe Hydropower Station, the construction period will take at least eight to ten months, which is impossible to meet the existing conditions in Shilu—even if there is so much labor, the Ministry of Industry will definitely give priority to it. Put into the mining of Shilu iron ore.

Without stable power generation capacity in Shilu, it is impossible to erect power lines, and it is impossible to realize train dispatching through wired telephones.Once this link is out of touch, it directly leads to the unsolvable problem of train scheduling.At present, the only way Qiao Zhiya can adopt is to let the traveler be in charge of dispatching the train number and the arrangement of the wrong train in the middle, and use the high-power wireless walkie-talkie as a temporary means of communication.Of course, the efficiency of doing this is very low, and it is a considerable waste of talent to arrange a limited number of traversers in such positions.

Qiao Zhiya also made a special report to the executive committee for this matter, requesting that a telephone line be erected between the two places as soon as possible. It will be done in half an hour.

(End of this chapter)