Chapter 523 Cheap Labor

As for the military, although it does not have a good impression of the landlord class in the former Ming Dynasty's ruling area, it still hopes to focus more on military operations for external expansion rather than bloody suppression within the rule. It can be more

With a buffer period of several months, the civil affairs and other departments will have more time to use other methods to coordinate and handle conflicts of interest in land relations. The people will also have a better understanding of Haihan land policy, and will not be directly affected by it.

Enter into a state of opposition.

Another thing that makes the military happy is that the Executive Committee approved the proposal submitted by the military to build a new military port on the Qiongbei coastline.

After occupying the Qiongbei area, the Haihan Navy's defense area has also expanded. The Qiongzhou Strait will become the navy's new key defense area. However, there is currently no dedicated military supply port on the Qiongbei coastline. Those who perform tasks in the Qiongzhou Strait

The fleet could only temporarily requisition the naval camp outside Fucheng. However, the navy's ships were generally small in tonnage, and the berths they docked were not suitable for the large ships of the Haihan fleet. Main ships like the "Dignity class" had no choice at all.

When sailing into the water village berth, it can only park in the Nandu River, and rely on small boats and springboards to build a road to the land on the river. If the Haihan Fleet wants to maintain a cruising density in the Qiongzhou Strait for a long time, it must have a suitable local berth.

A dedicated port will do.

There is no shortage of areas suitable for building ports near the capital of Qiongzhou. In fact, it has been the main distribution center for maritime trade on Qiongzhou Island since ancient times. During the Northern Song Dynasty, the earliest port, Baishajin, also known as Shenying, was formed at the mouth of the Nandu River.

Hong Kong. It is recorded in the "Qiongzhou Prefecture Chronicles" of the Wanli Dynasty in the Ming Dynasty that "the old name was Baishajin. Marshal Wang Guangzu of the Song Dynasty once opened it, but it was not settled. Chunyou Wushen suddenly had a hurricane, and it rushed into the harbor. People thought it was a divine response, so it was named."

As an important supply station on the Maritime Silk Road in the Middle Ages, Baishajin became the main port and cargo distribution center for Qiongzhou Island's foreign trade at that time. It was also a coastal defense fortress where naval forces were stationed in successive dynasties.

However, with the prosperity of Baishajin trade, the waterway here began to gradually become shallower due to sedimentation. Large ships were unable to enter the waterway. They often had to park outside Baishakou and wait until the tide rose to enter the dock. In the Song Dynasty,

At the end of the Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of the Yuan Dynasty, the trade center gradually moved to the vicinity of Haitian where the hydrological conditions were better.

This place turned out to be Haidian in later generations. In the fifth year of Kaibao in the Song Dynasty, that is, 972 AD, it was called "Haikou Pu" because of its location at the mouth of the Nandu River where it entered the sea. Historical records record that "we moved to Tianjin to build Pu, and when we crossed the sea from Pu, it was called 'Haikou Pu'."

"Port'." The place name Haikou also got its name from this time.

However, the place that the Navy is interested in is not at the mouth of the Nandu River. Considering the particularity of military purposes, the military does not want warships and civilian ship docks to be merged together. At least there must be a certain separation like Victory Port.

After repeatedly inspecting the coastal topography near Qiongzhou Fucheng, Fang selected the Xiuying Port area as the military port location. The coastal conditions and hydrological conditions here are more suitable for the construction of large ports, and there is no mud that is common at the mouths of rivers.

Hidden dangers such as sand siltation of waterways exist.

Of course, the cost of building a dedicated military port is not a small amount, and the arrangement of construction technicians cannot be ignored. If it were not for the necessity of setting up a military port in Qiongbei, it is estimated that the Executive Committee actually intended to

This major infrastructure project has been postponed to next year - the Shilu project and several ports in Annan are still in the construction stage. Opening any large-scale construction site now will put great pressure on the Ministry of Construction.

For the Executive Committee, these troubles in the aftermath are actually sweet troubles. After all, the vast area of ​​Qiongbei has finally been brought under the control of Haihan, and the Haihan regime has its own territory in the true sense.

A piece of territory is worth paying some price for.

The good news that followed was not limited to the pacification of Qiongbei. On November 5, the Changhua Engineering Headquarters sent a message back to the base camp, stating that the land passage from Changhua to Shilu had been fully connected, and the track laying progress had also been completed.

It is 70% complete and is expected to be fully opened to traffic in January next year. At that time, the ore produced by Shilu Iron Mine will be transported from the deep mountains and old forests to the seaside through more than 30 kilometers of railway tracks.

And this project does not end with the completion of the rail line. In fact, the completion of the rail line only completes one-third of the overall project. At both ends of the rail line, Changhua and Shilu will have to build coal mines respectively.

Iron composite industrial base and large-scale open-pit iron mine. The workload of these two projects is also huge, and it is not much easier than building this track.

The scale of Changhua Port has also rapidly expanded from a small fish port a year ago to a medium-sized cargo terminal that can dock more than ten 400-ton cargo ships at the same time. Its most important task is to receive a large number of cargoes sent from Heitu Port.

Coal is burned, and the steel that will be refined locally is shipped from here.

However, as the local administrator, Qiao Zhiya is really not very excited. He has just received the report submitted by the civil affairs and judicial departments, which contains the statistics of casualties since the start of the Chang Shilu project. In the past fifteen months,

During the construction period, the death toll of service personnel in local labor camps was 827 and 440 were injured. However, the injuries here only include injuries that directly affect the ability to work, and most of the injured were caused by injuries.

As for the degree of disability, ordinary minor injuries are not recorded in this statistics at all. However, the disability rate of hard labor is quite acceptable and does not exceed the warning line set by the Executive Committee. There are no similar incidents in the hard labor camp because of this.

Incidents of riot nature.

In addition to these cheap labor forces, 28 locally employed workers were killed and nine were injured. Seventeen naturalized citizens died in the line of duty and 11 were disabled due to injuries. This casualty rate is also a record

This set a record for the highest number of casualties in a single project in the history of the Haihan Project.

The only good thing is that no accidents happened to the time-travelers from various departments who were sent here to perform tasks. Everyone left here safely after completing their work. Although they did fall ill on the construction site during the process.

Some people, but fortunately they received timely treatment and did not cause serious problems.

But Qiao Zhiya also knew that he did not have much time to feel compassion for others. He signed his personal opinions on it, then took out his seal, stamped the last page of the report, and handed it to the attendant next to him. The attendant put the document into a kraft paper

The envelope was carefully stamped with a wax seal. This report will be sent to the Executive Committee tomorrow along with the scheduled flight to Port Victory. At the latest three or four days, the Executive Committee's executive meeting should discuss the issue of additional hard labor.

We will discuss the proposal for battalion personnel to serve in Changhua area.

As for the personnel loss data in the report, Qiao Zhiya estimates that no one will pay too much attention to it. After all, the "pirates" and militiamen have made a lot of money from Qiongbei this time, and have taken a lot of people into custody. Although "

It is not convenient for the people kidnapped by "pirates" to reappear on Qiongzhou Island, but these prisoners of war who were sent to Heitu Port to mine coal can completely replace the local hard labor and send them to Qiongzhou Island to perform labor service. And Qiongzhou Island

On Hainan Island, or Hainan Island as it is called according to the internal documents of the Executive Committee, the number of prisoners currently included in the hard labor camp is still about 6,000, which can be regarded as a large army of cheap labor.

However, the vast majority of them will be sent to work in the Shilu Iron Mine located in the interior of Qiongxi for a period of time in the future. As for how many people can leave that place well, then no one can

Sure. What the Executive Committee cares about is only the time when the iron ore is put into production and how many lives of prisoners will be consumed in the process. That is not the top priority. Compared with the production of hundreds of thousands of tons of steel

Value, these cheap labor are indeed consumables that no one cares about.

After proposing slave trafficking to the Portuguese, shrewd Portuguese merchants have begun to transport slaves to the Haihan-controlled areas. However, most of them are natives they captured on the islands in Southeast Asia, and only a handful of them are the ones the Haihan people hope to

Acquired African slaves.

These Southeast Asian natives are not only thin and have limited physical strength, but they are also extremely lazy. After all, in the environment they live in, even if they don't grow food, there are endless sources of various wild fruits to eat. As long as they are willing to open their mouths, they will never die of hunger. And like this

The environment also created their habit of being lazy and lazy. Even though the Haihan people resorted to various punishment methods, they did not have very good results on these naturally lazy Southeast Asian natives.

Of course, a high-ranking Haihan official like Qiao Zhiya will not worry about the laziness of these slaves. What worries him is the foreman of the hard labor camp who directly manages these foreign slaves. If the engineering tasks assigned to them cannot be completed on time, then the foreman will also suffer corresponding consequences.

Punishments - such as reducing food supply, canceling various special treatments, and in the most serious cases, they may even be removed from the position of foreman and become a slave again.

"Stand up for me!" With a clear crack of the whip, several skinny slaves with dark skin got up from the ground with frightened faces and tried their best to pull a flatbed cart filled with logs. However, maybe

It was because I didn't have enough strength. Even though several people were trying their best, the car still didn't move at all.

"Try harder! Feeding pigs is more useful than feeding you!" the foreman yelled mercilessly, and the whip in his hand kept dancing in the air, making the nearby slaves tremble with fear.

The cursing foreman picked up two more slaves from the side and joined in before finally pushing the heavy cart. The foreman walked to the side of the road, picked up the bamboo tube containing spring water and drank a few sips of it. Only then did he feel that the anger in his heart was finally gone.

It's gone a little bit.

But before he could recover, someone shouted: "Li Maozi!"

"Here!" the foreman responded, throwing down the bamboo tube and running quickly towards the place where the sound came from: "I'm here!"

This foreman named Li Maozai was the traitor who led the bandit leader Liao Dabi to attack Lijiazhuang in Guangdong. He narrowly escaped with his life outside Lijiazhuang, but was captured by the Haihan militia and was naturally surrendered after being sent to Sanya.

He joined a hard labor camp as a coolie. However, this guy was also considered tough. He actually managed to survive in the hard labor camp for more than a year. Then, because of the "old men leading the new" structure in the camp, he was promoted to a certain position.

The leader of the cell was promoted to foreman after another six months due to his good performance, and was then sent to Changhua to join the road construction army.

Of course, this foreman is not the other foreman, and the work Li Maozai does is not the same as that of a naturalized migrant foreman. Not only does he have to supervise the construction progress of the laborers, but he also has to assume corresponding responsibilities. If the team under his command fails to complete the task that day

, then what awaits him is not only a reprimand from his boss, but also possible corresponding measures to reduce his salary.

Li Maozai has now lived in a dormitory with eight people to a room, and enjoys a regular and rationed meal supply. The treatment is far better than that of those thirty or forty people who squeeze into a hut, only have a bowl of gruel for each meal, and can't finish the work.

The slave who was fined with food deducted was much better. He didn't want to go back to the living conditions he had when he entered the hard labor camp in the first year, so even though there were heavy labor tasks every day, he would still try his best to supervise the completion of these hard labor.

However, the batch of slaves sent recently made him very dissatisfied. These island monkeys are all very lazy. They will not move without being hit by whips. Not to mention compared to the Han people, even compared to Annan, which is separated by a sea.

People are also very different in their labor ability. Moreover, these monkey slaves have extremely poor physical strength. Only two or three people can do the work of a Han man. Their brains are also very difficult to use. It takes a long time to learn a simple operation process.

After bringing this group of people, Li Maozi has not been able to complete 7 days of work tasks on time this month. This means that he will pay a serious price for this next month - at least there will be no way for seven days.

Enjoy a stable food supply.

For this matter, Li Maozi also approached the cadres of the hard labor camp, but the cadres who were naturalized civilians did not have any good solutions to this problem. So Li Maozi could only find solutions on his own - such as using more severe methods.

They used corporal punishment to force these monkey slaves to work, draining every ounce of strength from their bodies.

This did indeed improve labor efficiency, but the cost was also very obvious. Seven of Li Maozai's hard laborers died within half a month. Although these people were not beaten to death by him, some even

It may be due to diseases caused by acclimatization after crossing the sea from near the equator, or physical exhaustion caused by excessive labor intensity, etc., but when the cadres count the number of casualties from hard labor, this account will undoubtedly be calculated.

It's on Li Maozi's head.

At this time, the cadre who called Li Maozi over for questioning was also asking about this matter: "I heard that two of your men died last night. What was the situation?"

Li Maozi complained endlessly: "This... this is really not my fault!"
Chapter completed!