Chapter 138 Entering the countdown

Compared with what Luo Shengdong encountered in Victory Port, the executive committee members have been very restrained towards the group of people sent by Yazhou officials. With the current scale of the Traveling Group, it is not difficult to support such a dozen or so people.

The Executive Committee also believes that it is worth spending dozens of taels of silver every month to buy peace and quiet. As long as these people do not cause trouble in Shengli Port, the Executive Committee is happy to continue the current peaceful trade state with Yazhou.

The small courtyard of the Inspection Department is only two to three hundred meters away from the pier. You can see the situation on the pier without leaving the hospital. After everyone lived here for two or three days, apart from not having a lot of freedom, there was nothing unaccustomed to it.

After eating three meals a day, a group of people would stand by the fence and watch the busy scene on the pier.

After living here for the past few days, Wei Ping has a deeper understanding of what Haihan means by "rules." In Victory Port, everyone's behavior seems to follow the invisible and intangible "rules."

The militia soldiers standing guard around the courtyard left the deepest impression on Wei Ping. The sentries changed guard every hour. During the guard period, they stood straight in the same place without any conversation with each other.

Some of the provocative behaviors of the onlookers in the small courtyard were also ignored.

Of course Wei Ping could see that these people were local people and not Haihan people. Many of them were even mountain people from the Li and Miao ethnic groups, but these people all abided by the "rules" of the Haihan people without exception. He

I also felt Luo Shengdong's original confusion - how did the Haihan people train these people to such an extent?

Look at the subordinates around him. After eating every day, they either go to bed or sit by the river and fish to kill time. Although there is nothing wrong with such a peaceful life, Wei Ping feels that such boring days are simply unbearable. But he

Knowing that it would be useless to protest to the Haihan people now, unless he could think of some effective way to make the Haihan people think that it would be better to let him out of the yard and move around freely than to stay in the yard. Wei Ping observed day after day.

The movements of the Haihan people were racking their brains as they tried to figure out how to get out of this damn yard.

Yazhou officials want to set up an inspection department in Shengli Port for direct management, which is just a scabies disease to the Crossing Group. The executive committee is not currently focusing on this small group of people, and has entered the final preparation stage.

Overseas expansion is the core of all the current work of the Cross-Travel Group.

Just two hours after Wei Ping and his party arrived at Victory Port, another fleet sailed into Victory Port. Shopkeeper Li of "Furuifeng" finally returned from Guangzhou, and with him arrived at Victory Port in Guangzhou.

Two Guangzhou ships worth 400 yuan were purchased for the Crossing Group, as well as more than 60 shipwrights, sailors and a small number of mechanics employed along with the ships.

Shopkeeper Li's trip also brought other good news. The newly launched glass stationery of Chuanchuan Group was highly praised by the Guangzhou head office, and the market response was also quite good. The samples sent were not sold to the public at all, "Fu Rui said.

"Feng" only held one internal promotion meeting for major customers, and it was quickly sold out. This time, shopkeeper Li rushed back to Shengli Port. In addition to bringing two large ships across the group to seek help for purchasing agents to express goodwill, he also

I specially sent thousands of taels of cash in the hope of ordering 500 sets of glass stationery at one time, and named the "upgraded version", "premium version" and "limited edition" that Schneider had mentioned before.

In addition, the head office in Guangzhou has also expressed a certain interest in the private salt business, but hopes that Chuanchuan Group can guarantee a stable supply of no less than 10,000 kilograms per month. In this era, almost all salt fields on Hainan Island are It is impossible to complete such a production task, but for the Saltworks Commune, which has set this year's production target at 1,500 tons, this quantity is nothing at all. At present, the technical transformation work of the saltworks is progressing steadily, and a large amount of cement Salt ponds were built and the stone troughs used before were gradually replaced. The water diversion channel leading to the inland of the salt field was renovated. Production efficiency has increased several times compared with when Anxi first took over the salt field.

Although compared to the luxury goods business, where a transaction costs thousands of taels, the sales of salt are really not very impressive, but the executive committee attaches great importance to this project. The reason is very simple, because salt is a product with no threshold at all. Fast-moving consumer goods are also a kind of daily necessities that everyone has to buy. This special product nature makes its circulation in the market much stronger than other daily necessities currently produced by Chuanchuan Group. To a certain extent, it can even be used as Use hard currency, which is an unparalleled advantage of other products.

Shopkeeper Li also said that the Guangzhou head office of "Furuifeng" is still continuing to search for second-hand large ships in the Guangzhou market for Chuanchuan Group, and will send a ship to visit Victory Port in the near future. At that time, the senior staff of "Furuifeng" Will come forward to contact Chuanchuan Group to discuss a long-term and stable business cooperation model.

This good news greatly stimulated the Executive Committee. The opening of the first maritime trade route outside the main island will mean that the goods produced by the Crossing Group have a huge consumer market. Compared with this market, the current production capacity of the Crossing Group Obviously too low. If you want to shorten the time of primitive accumulation and get the first pot of gold for development as soon as possible, what Chuanchuan Group needs to do now is to do its best to expand production capacity. And to achieve this goal, the first thing to do is Solve the biggest problem at present - energy.

The number of sea-going ships available for overseas colonization operations has now increased from six to eight, and the total tonnage of the fleet has reached about 1,500 tons. After calculation, the Executive Committee believes that this tonnage can already meet the requirements for loading the first voyage. According to the immigration plan, some local refugees can be loaded on the east coast of Vietnam to open up wasteland in Xingang. The conditions for the development of Hongji Coal Mine have been mature, and the Executive Committee decided not to delay any further and issued a mobilization order for all With this order, all departments stopped their other affairs and made full preparations for this overseas colonization operation.

For this operation, the Executive Committee transferred capable personnel from within and formed a "huge" overseas team of thirty-five people. They will lead a team of eighty recruits and two hundred local workers to perform a one-day mission in Xingang. years of stationing duty.

After completing this year's stationing mission, the recruits will automatically obtain the rank of sergeant, and their military pay during the period of stationing will be doubled according to the original standard. The treatment of these local workers is also higher than that of their counterparts who stayed in Victory Port. Much, the overseas allowance alone has exceeded the original salary. After one year, these people will receive the third-level labor treatment, and they can stay or leave at their own discretion. They can freely choose whether to stay in Xingang or return to Victory Port. .

Compared with recruits who already have a basic concept of discipline, recruiting labor still encounters more or less trouble. The vast majority of people are unwilling to leave their hometowns to work overseas, and they don't even have the high salary and generous treatment offered by the Executive Committee.

It could play a huge role. In the end, the Executive Committee had no choice but to use some semi-coercive measures and draft conscripts on some families with multiple members in the commune.

In addition, according to Ren Liang's suggestion, some prisoners with good performance and obedience were selected from the labor camp to join the overseas labor force. Of course, it is impossible for these people to obtain the title and treatment of third-level laborers after one year. They can

All they got was freedom after a year. But even so, there was almost a rush for this precious spot in the labor camp.

The Ministry of Shipping painted the sides of the three 400-year-old ships it purchased with unified ship numbers, from "Commercial Transport 01" to "Commercial Transport 03", while the previously seized Haicang Ship and Guangzhou Shipyard remained the same.

The hull numbers of the previous "Hai Xun 01" and "Hai Xun 02" have been used. Although the two training ships have been equipped with the 27-type A 6-pound naval gun newly developed by the military industry department, the Military Police Department and the Maritime Transport Department

There are no plans to include these ships in the future naval establishment. These ships are not designed and built according to the standards of warships, and they are too reluctant to be used as combat ships of the navy.

According to the plan after consultation between the two departments, the current level of armament of this batch of ships does not need to be too high. It only needs to reach the level of Chinese-style armed merchant ships of the same era. In terms of the level of weapons manufactured by the Cross-Travel Group, when the equipment is equivalent

With a large number of artillery, these ships can definitely destroy the opponent beyond the opponent's range. For the several 400-pound ships newly arriving in the port, the military industry department has begun to produce 9-pound naval guns and 12-pound naval guns, but

After the cannon is cast, it will have to go through a long period of calibration and testing. I am afraid that it will not be ready for the first voyage. At present, we can only install a few smaller 6-pound cannons on these large ships.

With basic maritime defense capabilities.

However, the shortcomings of insufficient manpower showed up again at this time. It took the recruit camp more than a month to train more than a dozen naturalized soldiers who had mastered the basic gunnery procedures. This time, the executive committee was all assigned to the long-distance ship.

But even so, the gunners on the ship are far from enough. Evenly distributed, there are only two gunners for each gun. If there is a need for artillery fire at sea, I am afraid that the rookie gunners will have to command and temporarily mobilize

Only sailors and boatmen can do that.

Due to the increase in naval guns, the demand for gunpowder has also greatly increased. During this period, the chemical industry department stopped all scientific research work and devoted all its efforts to producing black powder. This stuff is not only used for the artillery on the ship, but also

The amount of gunpowder needed to build roads and mines in Xingang is even greater. According to estimates from the Ministry of Construction, the amount of gunpowder required during the construction of Xingang is at least one ton. To be on the safe side, the Ministry of Chemical Industry worked overtime to produce two tons.

Black gunpowder, which also wiped out the inventory of sulfur, saltpeter and other materials.

By mid-July, all preparations were in place, and the countdown to overseas colonization began.
Chapter completed!