1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 777 Huge Advantage
Strong infrastructure capabilities are undoubtedly one of the biggest magic weapons for Haihan to quickly expand its territory. Compared with its counterparts in this era, it will take 30 to [-] years, or even longer, to establish a colonial area overseas. , Haihan's colonization speed is enough to disdain the competitors of the same era.

Starting from the early cross-sea colonization of Heitu Port and the Pearl River Estuary, Haihan's colonial plan has been rapidly improved and strengthened in practice.How to choose and plan a foothold, how to build a colonial settlement from scratch, how to enable it to achieve basic self-sufficiency in a short period of time and have a profitable output in the future, and how to effectively integrate it into Haihan In the administrative management system of Haihan, relying on the accumulation of nearly 400 years of experience, Haihan was able to overcome these difficult problems for competitors from other countries.

How to quickly determine a suitable colony in an unfamiliar overseas environment is undoubtedly Haihan's strong point.Other competitors need to spend years and months of hard work, even at the cost of countless properties and many lives, before they can find a suitable foothold in the vast unknown world, while Haihan executives only need to look at the information in the computer database. Satellite map, call out those famous port cities in later generations one by one, compare and weigh your own needs and actual operation difficulty, and then choose the most suitable location from them.

And finding a foothold is only the first step in the construction of a colony. Due to the limitations of natural conditions and means of transportation, the population of the colonists who arrived at the foothold in the early days was often very limited, and it took a long time to even build a living place. time.During this period, the follow-up supply of materials may be intermittent due to the long distance at sea, which will greatly slow down the construction process of the entire colony.Some colonies are even too far away from the base camp, and the immigrants who move there are more like exiled prisoners. What additional output, let alone earning profits through trade to expand the size of the colony.

Haihan's planning during the colonization process and its ability to implement it can simply beat its contemporary competitors. Before opening a new colony, the relevant departments have already made corresponding plans, such as early resettlement The number of immigrants, the design and construction of infrastructure projects, subsequent supplies and supplies, as well as security, regional function settings, etc.

Since Haihan has relatively detailed geographical information, the development of each new colony has a strong purpose, or there are rich resources that can be developed in the local area, such as Heitu Port, Shilu and other places. Either it is a more important waterway hub, such as the Wanshan Port occupied in the Pearl River Estuary in the early days and Hong Kong Island, which was later taken over by Haihan. The other is that the local port has very superior conditions, and it is simply sorry not to occupy it first. For example, the Cam Ranh Port in Annan and the soon-to-be-developed Kaohsiung Port in Tainan.

This kind of colony development process with a strong purpose is much more clever than the competitor's method of spreading the net everywhere. Most of the time, the colonization method for the purpose of occupying land is much smarter. The concentrated use of resources will compress the early construction process of the Haihan Colony. In a short period of time, immigrants do not need to worry about future livelihood issues after arriving in the local area, and relevant departments have already made planning arrangements for them.Since they are isolated in the South China Sea like the Abunna Islands and do not have many natural resources to develop, the Ministry of Agriculture has also prepared a wide variety of tropical cash crop planting projects for them. Future output in this area will depend on The benefits are still worth looking forward to.

Another point in the development of the colony is the management problem brought about by the distance, which is almost unsolvable for Haihan's competitors. The problem brought about by the long sea voyage is not only the slow transmission of information, but also very difficult. It is easy to cause misunderstandings and contradictions between colonies and suzerain countries, colonies and colonies due to poor communication, and some irreconcilable problems will easily arise over time.And Haihan also has a unique advantage in this aspect. The artifact of the radio station is enough to allow Haihan to maintain a relatively smooth information exchange system between the various colonies. It can be used in various fields such as politics, economy, and military affairs. Means to keep the colony's sense of belonging and obedience to Haihan.

Based on the technological advantages beyond the times and the accumulation of geographical data, it is not difficult to understand Haihan's impressive achievements in the development and construction of the colony.Although Li Nai has limited understanding of the various black technologies in Haihan's hands, he has witnessed Haihan's continuous expansion in the past few years, and he also has a personal feeling for it.

Not to mention Annan, which is far away, the Li family participated in two ports developed by Haihan, Wanshan Port at the mouth of the Pearl River and later Zhennan Port, and Li Nai went to these two places for more than ten years. It has been the eighth time, and they are already very familiar with how the Haihan people develop and build colonies based on ports. Schneider said that he was putting on new gloves, but he did not wrong him.

Li Nai had no choice but to ask directly: "It's easy to invest money and people in it, but you just boasted that the scale of the port development is so large, can you give me an approximate range first, and how much you need to invest in it in the early stage to be eligible to be on the table?" Playing? It’s better to start doing things that should be prepared earlier.”

"The ones who are qualified to be on the table this time...there won't be more than five families in one province!" Schneider casually said a number that shocked Li Nai, but he continued immediately: "But it's not that those who are not strong enough can't participate Come in, you can invest in the form of Baotuan!"

"Set up an investment company?" Li Nai has played with the Haihan people for several years, so he naturally knows the favorite operation method of Schneider and others.

"That's right." Schneider nodded and said, "The port on Taiwan Island is different from other places. Since the executive committee has decided to open a port and build a port there, then feel free to make some appearances. Because of the large scale of the local port, it is necessary to consider the convenience of future management from the planning stage. It is much easier for us to gather small and medium-sized businessmen together and use one signboard to manage them.”

It is nothing new to organize Daming businessmen in the form of joint-stock companies to invest in new areas and new projects under Haihan’s rule. When Shengli Port was first developed, Ming merchants participated in the formation of a large investor named "Qiong Lianfa". , Invest money and people to participate in the development of Victory Port.As for the investment effect, it can only be said that whoever uses it will know. Just look at the current situation of more than a dozen shareholders of "Qiong Lianfa".Afterwards, Haihan organized similar investments in Danzhou, Haikou City, Annan, Hong Kong Island and other places. The investors who poured the most money into it were the "Qiong Lianfa" investors who were the first to taste the sweetness.

However, this model will still expose some institutional flaws after a long period of time. For example, after new investment projects appear, they are often taken over by rich and powerful merchants like "Qiong Lianfa". It is difficult for investors to squeeze out a position, and finally had to give up this kind of in-depth cooperation with Haihan.As a result, in some recent investment projects, Haihan had to clearly limit the shareholding of commercial giants like "Qiong Lianfa", and at the same time organized small and medium-sized businesses to set up new investment companies in groups, in order to be able to Let more merchants participate in Haihan's project.

Commercial organizations such as "Qiong Lianfa" mainly invest in large-scale plantations with stable income and long payback periods, while infrastructure facilities such as exclusive wharves are basically invested by individual businesses.The reason for this is also very simple. Some merchants do not have their own shipping companies, and the business they do is not mainly shipping, so the benefits of investing in terminal infrastructure are relatively small.For large merchants like the Li family that have already involved in all aspects, being able to have their own exclusive wharf in each port will undoubtedly bring great convenience to the transportation and trade of their own business.

However, the cost of building the wharf is extremely high, especially to meet the requirements of Haihan Port Management, it is necessary to use a large amount of cement produced by Haihan, and to assemble various large-scale equipment produced by Haihan for lifting cargo. , and the laying of rapid transit tracks, etc., the cost of the entire infrastructure project is not affordable for every business.If the merchants are measured separately, it is true that Schneider’s statement is not an exaggeration, and there are not too many merchants who can independently bear the cost of building the wharf.

How the Haihan people change the rules of the game is secondary. Li Nai just needs to make sure that his family can continue to have fun.The purpose of his rushing from Guangzhou to Sanya this time is to make sure that his family will not be sidelined and unable to participate in the next round of games in Haihan.A definite answer can be obtained from Schneider. In fact, the specific investment measures and implementation steps are secondary. For the Li family, the problem can be simplified to the amount of investment, the rate of return, and the length of the return period. Haihan people have never been in Li Nai is very relieved that he has treated the Li family badly in these aspects.

Before Li Nai left, Schneider wrote him a note, asking him to take the note to the Ministry of Communications to send a telegram back to Guangzhou.Li Nai took the note to the communications department, and then drafted a long telegram and sent it, which cost him more than 100 yuan in circulation coupons.The general idea is to ask the family in Guangzhou to quickly find the place needed by the newspaper in the local area, and then start preparing manpower to participate in the new colony project that Haihan is about to start.Of course, due to the need for confidentiality, Li Nai did not mention where Haihan's new colonial project will be located in the telegram.

After receiving the telegram from Li Nai in Guangzhou, Li Jifeng probably took over the matter himself, and received a call back only three days later, saying that the required newspaper office site was ready, and it was on the bank of the Pearl River outside the east gate of Guangzhou. It is only [-] meters away from the compound of Haihan Office in Guangzhou.The Li family moved so fast that Ning Qi wondered if they had quietly bought all the land and real estate around the Guangzhou Office.After Li Nai got a reply from Guangzhou, he left Sanya with peace of mind and returned to the north by boat.

On December 12, a small fleet of eleven ships left Sanya Port and headed north.Except for the red and blue zigzag Haihan flag hanging on the mast, this fleet looks the same as the merchant fleet on the sea, but this fleet is carrying about 11 immigrants who are about to settle down on Taiwan Island. They will become the first batch of Haihan naturalized residents who are permanently stationed there.In addition to carrying these immigrants on board, the ballast cargo is all kinds of supplies, so that these immigrants can survive the difficult period at the beginning of landing in the local area.

Three days after this fleet set off, another fleet also sailed from Hong Kong Island's Causeway Bay Wharf, and its destination was also Tainan.Some of the passengers in this fleet are a group of new immigrants recently recruited by Guangzhou, about 300 people, and the other part is a construction team secretly organized by the Li family, with a total of more than [-] people. Assist in the construction of houses, docks, and other infrastructure facilities.

On December 12, a fleet consisting of five combat ships and two comprehensive supply ships sailed out of Magong Port, Penghu, heading southeast in the name of maritime training.The goal of this fleet is the same as that of the previous two fleets. It is the Kaohsiung Port in Tainan. Its mission is to provide armed guards for the immigrant camps in the early days of the immigrants' arrival in the area, and it is also responsible for maintaining local law and order.

On the 17th and 18th, two fleets from Hainan and Guangdong also arrived in the scheduled sea area one after another. Under the guidance of the warships that arrived earlier, they slowly sailed into the harbor of Kaohsiung Port.The last time the Haihan Mining Corps came here to investigate, they had already selected the main landing site, which is the coast near the mouth of the Love River in Kaohsiung in later generations.The militia troops who arrived here in advance have already landed and deployed multiple groups of patrolling personnel in a radius of about one kilometer to ensure that they will not be subject to sudden attacks from the outside world.Although they had already negotiated terms with the local aborigines when they came last time, no one can guarantee whether these aborigines will abide by the agreement reached before, and the necessary deployment of troops is also to prevent problems before they happen.

The immigrants lived in large marching tents that could accommodate 20 people in the first few days of landing, and their task at this stage was to level the base, dig drainage ditches, storage tanks, and build toilets and other infrastructure.It was not until the fourth day that the immigrants, under the command of the craftsmen, transported the prefabricated wooden boards and other components unloaded from the ship to the predetermined location, and began to assemble and build houses.This kind of prefabricated house is mainly based on the previous thinking, taking the boat-shaped house of the Li nationality as a reference, but more improvements have been made in the structure, and a large number of prefabricated parts are used to simplify the process of building the house.Skilled craftsmen command seven or eight laborers to build a new boat-shaped house that can accommodate eight to ten people in just one or two days.

(End of this chapter)