Late Ming sea owl

Chapter 328 Tiandu Iron Mine
Yulin Inner Harbor is located in the middle of the northern shore of Dadonghai, opening to the southeast, and the Dingyuan could barely move northwestward with the wind. But when the waterway turned northeast, it could no longer sail and could only be towed by a paddle boat.

This turning point is the narrowest part of the entrance to the inner harbor. There are less than three hundred steps between the two banks. You can hit the other side with a heavy musket, but you just can't hit it accurately.

"Boss Li, look, if we build a few artillery batteries there, even gods won't be able to get in." Lin Hai pointed at the turning point outside the inner harbor entrance and said to Li Zhongguo.

"General Lin is right. In fact, we don't even need cannons. We can just bury an iron chain under the water and even Li Kuiqi can't break through it." Li Zhongguo said, "I wonder how big it is and how many ships can fit in it?"

"Don't worry, if you expand the size of your fleet tenfold, it will be more than enough to dock at Yulin Inner Harbor." Lin Hai said and ordered a notification ship and a fast crab boat to be left outside the entrance to guard, and the rest of the ships were to sail into the inner harbor.

After passing the bend, the entire inner harbor came into view, a long pocket-shaped body of water that stretched more than ten miles northeast. The harbor was surrounded by mountains, and the sea was calm, like a vast lake.

"I sent a ship here to survey for several months last year. There are no reefs in the inner harbor and the water is deep enough. Large ships like the Dingyuan can anchor very close to the shore."

While introducing this place to Li Zhongguo, Lin Hai was thinking to himself: After establishing his rule in the Central Plains one day, he must build this place into an important naval base as the starting point for the extension of the empire's maritime power. Of course, the prerequisite is to reduce the malaria here by piling up lives.

This may also be another mission of Tiandu Iron Mine. Lin Hai decided to develop this iron mine on a large scale, increase the number of miners to tens of thousands within a few years, and maintain the same scale for a long time. This can only be achieved by continuously importing slave labor from overseas.

"General Lin, since you have sent people here to take a look, please tell us where to build the water fort?" Li Zhongguo asked.

"To the west of the port, close to the water source." Lin Hai pointed to the eastern foot of Phoenix Ridge on the west side of the port. The terrain there is flat and there are sufficient and clean fresh water resources nearby.

There was no one living anywhere, so it would take a while to build a water fort. Li Zhongguo's troops would have to live on the boats for the time being. After the fleet dropped anchor, Lin Hai left Shibi and Li Zhongguo to lead the fleet, and asked Cai Ping and Jiang Junshi to lead the people to chop wood and fetch water.

Then, he ordered the accompanying personnel of the Engineering Bureau to survey the terrain and design artillery positions, and at the same time sent out several teams to explore in various directions whether there were any villages within a radius of dozens of miles.

Lin Hai also brought a group of people to the estuary of Tiandu River at the northernmost end of the Inner Harbor, and followed the river northward to search for the location of the iron mine.

The Tiandu River at this time was crystal clear, unlike the serious pollution in later generations. As he walked, he paid attention to the depth and drop of the river in order to judge whether this river could be used for navigation.

From what he saw, the Tiandu River was definitely not navigable, not even a canoe, but a bamboo raft might be feasible.

In the Ming Dynasty, there were many bamboo rafts used to transport goods in rivers and streams across Fujian. These rafts were called cargo rafts, and were especially common in the Minjiang River Basin. Large cargo rafts were usually made of more than ten bamboos three feet long connected in parallel, and then holes were drilled horizontally and three hardwoods were inserted through them as crossbars. They could be used for short-distance transportation in shallow water. This type of large cargo raft usually had its head heated and tilted upward to reduce resistance. It could carry one ton downstream and half a ton upstream. Although the load-carrying capacity of a cargo raft could not be compared with that of a boat, it was equivalent to the pulling force of two or three horses downstream. Compared with land transportation, it was still much more convenient and cheaper, which was crucial for the transportation of iron ore.

There were no roads on either side of the Tiandu River at that time, so Lin Hai and his party had to walk through wild grass and vines that were over ten feet tall. It was very difficult to walk, and their vision was severely blocked.

After walking about seven or eight miles, Lin Hai suddenly stopped and pointed to the mountain in front of him on the right and said to the accompanying miner: "It should be in the northwest of that mountain. This iron ore is mainly magnetite, and there is also a small amount of ochre. You can use a compass to find the ore later."

The so-called magnetite is magnetite, and ochre is hematite. The former can be found with a magnetic needle because of its magnetic properties, while the latter requires the use of color to find the mineral.

Tiandu Iron Mine is just one mile south of the later Tiandu Village and northwest of Huangniling. The closest distance to the Tiandu River is less than two miles. This transportation condition can be said to be quite favorable. After all, the estuary of the Tiandu River is in Yulin Inner Port.

"Let's go back first. The road here is really difficult to walk on." Lin Haixin said that it was a good thing that he had visited the Tiandu Mass Grave before and still remembered what Huangniling looked like. Otherwise, even if he knew that the Tiandu Iron Mine was near Yuling Port, it would not be easy to find.

It would take a lot of manpower just to clear the surface. If we didn't have a general direction, we really didn't know when we would find it. But as long as we could identify Huangni Ridge, we could have Li Zhongguo's troops clear all the vegetation in this area. They needed to chop wood anyway.

In addition, a road must be built from Tiandu River to the future mine. Fortunately, this road only needs to be built about one mile long. It can be paved with gravel in the early stage and then the rails can be built directly later.

Of course, freight cars on the rails still need to be pulled by draft animals. This was very popular in the 19th century. In the late Qing Dynasty, the Keelung Coal Mine built a horse-drawn railway from the mining area to the seaside. The Tang-Xu Railway in the Kaiping Coal Mine also used donkeys and horses to pull cars at first.

After finding the Tiandu Iron Mine, Lin Hai was in a good mood. Steel is the blood of the army and the backbone of the nation. No mine is more important than iron ore. After all, since the Iron Age, steel production has been an important indicator of a country's comprehensive strength, and it has been so until the information age.

Considering that Hainan is also rich in timber resources, Lin Hai also plans to set up a charcoal factory and an iron smelting plant in Yulin Port to smelt iron locally. Of course, more iron ore will still be shipped to Jinhe Kingdom by sea, after all, there is Keelung Coal Mine there.

The local coal resources in Qiongzhou Prefecture are very limited. Not only are they of low grade, but they are also mainly concentrated in the counties and prefectures in northern Qiongzhou. The best coal mines nearby are under the rule of Annan Zheng Zhu. Lin Hai intends to join forces with Ruan Zhu to cause trouble in Cambodia, so he does not want to contact Zheng Zhu for the time being to avoid unnecessary trouble.

After returning to Yulingang, the teams that had gone to explore other directions also returned one after another.

On the west side of Fenghuangling, about ten miles away from the water fort that Lin Hai had chosen for Li Zhongguo, they found several villages. These villages were also near the river estuary, but they were not fishing villages. The villagers all had a common identity - salt workers.

(End of this chapter)