African Nationhood

Chapter 248 Nanhua Shipyard

In February 1888, during the Spring Festival holiday of Nanhua Company, the south bank of Mapu in the northwest corner of Mapu Bay was bustling with gongs and drums.

As the first shipyard of Nanhua Company, such a day is of great significance. Boss Shi of Shijintang personally came here to inspect.

The red letter signboard of Nanhua No. 1 Shipyard is very eye-catching, but the overall construction of the shipyard is very shabby.

Although the road from the landing to the shipyard has been smoothed, the sand here is too thick and it is not very solid to walk on.

Shi Jintang couldn't help but ask Cai Jinzhang to make the road smoother and more solid. It could be paved with asphalt discarded from the Southeast Asia Petroleum Company's oil refining.

Although it will cause some pollution to the land, there is no farming here and the land is mainly used for roads, so we can't care about that much for the time being.

Cai Jinzhang naturally obeyed the boss's order, and the matter was settled.

Before the two of them had taken a few steps, a tall, thin, round-faced man came over from a distance.

This man is the director of Nanhua No. 1 Shipyard, and is also Boss Shi’s classmate studying abroad in the United States, Zheng Tingxiang, a top student majoring in mechanics.

After being recalled by the Qing Dynasty in 1881 in the original time and space, this man returned to the United States to study on his own.

Eventually he stayed in the United States and became a well-known mechanic and the inventor of the famous "Zheng's coupler".

Because of the appearance of Boss Shi in this time and space, he successfully completed his studies in the United States.

When he graduated and came to Southwest Africa, he took over the position of director of Trudeau's naval arsenal. Now that the shipyard was opened, he was transferred here.

Zheng Tingxiang is 26 years old this year. Although he is not good-looking, he is rigorous in his work and has the drive to study hard and work hard.

"Mr. Shi, Lao Cai, welcome. It's an honor for our No. 1 Shipyard to have you two here."

Shi Jintang pointed at this old classmate and asked with a smile: "Stop being such a mouthful, how about the Dutch aid work?"

Zheng Tingxiang shook his head and sighed: "Oh, it's hard to explain in words.

These foreign devils just love to play tricks on people and deliberately forget about things. If you can't spot them, they will just pretend to be stupid.

When you are about to use it, they will pretend they just remembered it and kill time by reworking it. The more anxious you are, the more they will waste time. "

Hearing this, Shi Jintang also felt a twinge of pain. He couldn't go directly to the Dutch official to discuss this matter.

Cai Jinzhang was also anxious after hearing this, "How did you solve it?"

Zheng Tingxiang grinned and twirled his fingers with his hands, "Is there anything in this world that money can't solve?"

Cai Jinzhang nodded angrily, "One day I will look good to these foreign devils."

Shi Jintang nodded, "Remember this in advance, there will always be a time to settle the general ledger."

After the three of them finished speaking, they continued walking to the shipyard.

After entering the factory area, the workers cheered for Boss Shi. Shi Jintang showed his true qualities as a superior, shook hands cordially with the shipyard workers, and patiently greeted them. After a show, Shi Jintang continued the inspection.

……

"Our shipyard is currently divided into several major parts. This is the hull processing workshop, which mainly forges steel keels, cuts hull steel plates, etc.

This workshop has the largest number of workers, nearly 800, and they are all well-trained and have excellent work attitudes and professional skills. "

After listening to Zheng Tingxiang's introduction, Shi Jintang and others entered the hull processing workshop and saw many workers working intensively in an orderly manner.

Scenes of giant water hammers forging steel and high-pressure acetylene flames cutting steel plates could be heard everywhere. A strange smell of scorching heat and burnt smell filled the air.

Shi Jintang did not disturb the workers too much and continued to move to the next workshop.

"This workshop is a wood processing workshop, mainly engaged in carpentry. It manufactures beds, bars and various soft furnishings on ships. There are fewer workers here, only more than 400 people."

Shi Jintang and others inspected the many workers using tools to process wood and process wooden handles. There were many sawdust and shavings everywhere in the workshop, and there was a section for baking wooden boards in the corner of the workshop.

Shi Jintang looked at the environment here and couldn't help but frowned and said to Zheng Tingxiang: "You must pay attention to fire prevention here. Once a fire breaks out, the consequences will be disastrous."

Zheng Tingxiang nodded quickly: "We have already explained this to the workers, and we also make frequent announcements in the factory."

Shi Jintang nodded: "It's good to pay attention to it, but this kind of thing must be talked about frequently.

After all, the stakes are high. These workers have been trained through hard work. It would be a pity to lose them. Zheng Tingxiang nodded quickly, "I will ask people to move the wood-burning section out and arrange a separate workshop. This will be safer." "

Shi Jintang nodded in support, and then went to the ship assembly workshop.

Here you can already see the prototype of the ship, the assembly of the hull keel and the assembly of the hull structure.

The temperature in the workshop is quite high, because rivets need to be fired, and there are not just one or two stoves, but many stoves that need to be lit here for a long time.

In the era before electric welding, rivet welding was the most important method of assembling ship hulls in this era.

Shi Jintang went to the water tank in the workshop to check and found that cold boiled vegetables and fruits were always available here.

Boss Shi agrees with this arrangement.

“What is the high temperature subsidy for workers, and can they be satisfied?”

“Each worker has a monthly high-temperature subsidy of 100 yuan in military coupons, and their basic salary is 200 yuan in military coupons. Welfare measures such as clothing, shoes, and safety helmets are also provided. Workers are very willing to work in the factory.

If there are girls in immigrant families nearby, they are also willing to marry shipyard workers. "

Hearing this, Shi Jintang nodded slightly. Workers in the shipyard already received the highest salary within Nanhua Company. Other factories did not have such high public funds.

From 1886 to the present, more than immigrants have been resettled in the south bank of Mapu, most of them young and middle-aged immigrants.

There are also many households settled here, and the naval port of Nanhua Company is also located not far from here, so the population density here is not lower than that on the north shore.

In addition, immigrants here are also the first to receive resettlement sites for female immigrants from the company. Only immigrants here can live here with peace of mind, and sufficient supplies of food and non-staple food can be ensured in the shipyards and naval ports in the future.

It was impossible to build a bridge between the north and south shores of Mapu in a short period of time. It was in 21st century Mozambique that the infrastructure madman helped build a bridge to connect the north and south.

Nanhua Company will definitely not delay it until the 21st century, but it will not spend money on construction in the short term. After all, inland cities are more important.

……

After visiting the pre-assembly workshop, they went to the slipway workshop, which mainly assembles electromechanical equipment for ships. Steam engines, internal combustion engines and generators are all assembled here.

Because Nanhua Shipbuilding is a thousand-ton shipyard, the daily assembly here will not be small ships, but small and medium-sized ships starting from four to five hundred tons, which require a lot of mechanical and electrical equipment.

After viewing the slipway, they came to the painting workshop, which is mainly a place for painting and rust-proofing ships.

The painting shop is the heavy lifting shop, which is responsible for the upper pier, launching, docking and undocking, as well as the overweight lifting of the slipway and dock area.

The outfitting workshop is divided into two parts, the infield and the dock are outfitted separately. This includes the ship's ancillary equipment, rudders, propellers and anchors, as well as the refined installation and deployment of rooms in the hull and various cabins.

There are also pipes and wiring installations for steam engines and internal combustion engines, which are delicate and cumbersome. There are the second most workers here. There are more than 600 people, and the workers here are also the most skilled.

They are all high-wage earners, and they are also the fastest group of workers to find wives.

……

After viewing the shipyard, Shi Jintang and Cai Jinzhang did not stop much. They boarded the navy's "Zhou Yu" and rushed to the next location. They continued to inspect the fishing boat shipyard in Sailu Town, a city on the south bank of the Limpopo River (today's Saixai City, Mozambique).

Sailu Town has also resettled more than 4 immigrants, and the mix is ​​similar to that on the south coast of Mapu.

The workshop setup of Nanhua Second Shipyard is similar to that of First Shipyard. The only difference is the addition of special tools such as fishing nets and fishing guns.

The construction period of the second shipyard is later than that of the first shipyard, because there are more parts of the riverbank sandy land that need to be leveled, and the cement materials used here are nearly twice as much as those of the first shipyard.

The Dutch who assisted in the construction were very distressed because the natural conditions here were worse, so more indigenous labor was consumed here.

After the inspection, Shi Jintang felt relieved. At least Nanhua Company's shipbuilding industry had started.

Although it is not possible to build large ships at present, the wolf gunboats for offshore defense can be built.

At that time, it is not necessary to resist the enemy, as long as it can cause damage to the enemy ships with a salvo, and combined with mines and torpedoes, it can also cause trouble to the enemy.

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  (End of this chapter)