Chapter 977 What happened in Changhua

After Van Diemen took over the post of Governor of the East India Company in Batavia, the number of banquets he held and attended far exceeded those in the early years when he led his fleets to travel between colonial points in the Java Sea and Banda Sea.

time, but it was definitely not as frequent as the banquets he attended during this visit to Hainan Island. The intensive banquets arranged by the Haihan people were already too much for him. So when Qiao Zhiya, who was meeting for the first time, mentioned the Jie Feng Banquet, his face changed.

His expression is inevitably a bit strange.

After listening to Ning Qi's explanation, Qiao Zhiya was able to guess at least 70%. She smiled and said, "Don't worry, sir. Our reception banquet here doesn't have as many rules as in Sanya. You can just drink as you like. The Yacheng you went to earlier,

Sanya is a place where wine is produced, how can it show its local characteristics if I don’t drink you to death?”

Van Diemen could only express his helplessness about this "local characteristic". Although he personally likes drinking, he really can't stand Haihan's wine table culture. He would faint in two and a half of the three meals. If

It’s okay to let him go and drink when he has nothing to do, but this inspection is of great significance to the East India Company, and Van Diemen doesn’t want to waste this precious time in a daze. He can only silently remember the loss he suffered this time.

In my mind, when I have the opportunity to deal with the Haihan people next time, I will also bring a group of men who can drink to fight, so that these Easterners can see the Nordic people's drinking capacity.

Qiao Zhiya kept his word. Sure enough, no one attacked Van Diemen at the reception banquet, and the toasts were all ordered until the end of the toast. Unlike the banquet in Sanya where there is a rule of "three circles on the left and three circles on the right", the reception was

After completing these six rounds of toasting, you have to return six rounds of toasts. Most people can no longer hold on during the toasting stage.

Without the frequent toasts, Van Diemen was finally able to taste Haihan's delicacies in peace. He had to admit that even using the same ingredients and spices, Haihan's cooking methods were indeed better than those of Batavia's chefs.

There are many more, and the method seems to be different from the Han cuisine. However, Van Diemen’s understanding of the art of eating cannot be detailed in detail. He just feels that the method is more refined. Although I don’t know that I will never get tired of eating.

These are Chinese sayings about being careful and careful, but when Van Diemen thought about it carefully, he felt that this was consistent with the Haihan people's style of material enjoyment.

Fan Diemen also noticed a detail during the dinner. Qiao Zhiya, the local magistrate, was responsible for much more official duties than the two places he had inspected previously. People kept coming to ask for instructions and report on work during the dinner, so Qiao Zhiya had to leave the table frequently.

Dealing with problems. This level of busyness could only be achieved by several senior officials in the Haihan Executive Committee when they were in Sanya before.

"He is responsible for the local administration and production alone, so he will be very busy." Ning Qi explained for Qiao Zhiya who left the meeting again: "Presumably Mr. Van Diemen was in this state when he was in Batavia, right?

"

Van Diemen smiled bitterly and said with deep feeling: "It is true. This visit to your country for inspection can be regarded as the longest period of time that I have been away from official duties since I took office."

When Van Diemen took office, he encountered the Malata Blue Army's attack on Batavia. He finally managed to survive until the end of the war, and continued to face the heavy post-war reconstruction project. During this period, the Haihan people also took advantage of the opportunity to move in and deepen their tentacles.

South China Sea, step by step suppressing the scope of activities of the East India Company, it can be said that there was not even a relaxing day during his tenure. Although he came to Hainan Island with a mission this time, he was able to break away from the original working environment for a while.

Time is a rare treat for him. Although Van Diemen had all kinds of worries before coming here, it turned out that the Haihan people were quite generous and arranged the inspection trip much better than he expected.

, such as Changhua, which produces steel, Van Diemen never thought that he would be allowed to visit here.

The next morning, Qiao Zhiya took Ning Qi and Fan Diemen to visit the local smelting workshop as promised. Unsurprisingly, Van Diemen saw a steam engine here again. The blower used in the furnace here was driven by a steam engine.

The kinetic energy output by a steam engine can drive the blowers of several blast furnaces at the same time, and the efficiency far exceeds that of human power. The only materials consumed by the steam engine are cheap coal and fresh water.

Van Diemen also noticed that the iron and steelmaking furnaces used by Haihan were different in appearance from those he had seen and known, but Qiao Zhiya's explanation did not involve the relevant design principles and usage methods, and he

My understanding of smelting is only superficial, so I can only take a few more glances, keep the appearance in mind, and plan to draw it later and hand it over to professional technicians to figure out the mystery.

Van Diemen believed that since this stove was of a style he had never seen before, and based on Haihan's usual style, it must be the most advanced technology. Building one by imitating it might have the same effect. However, his idea was too simple.

A little more, Haihan's design of the smelting furnace took into account its own technological conditions. There are supporting solutions in terms of furnace materials, fuel, smelting process and temperature control. It is not just about imitating the appearance of the furnace that can make the whole set.

The smelting method was copied from the past. The steam-powered blower used to increase the furnace temperature cannot be made elsewhere.

However, Van Diemen is right about one thing. Haihan’s technology in smelting is indeed unparalleled in the world. However, due to current conditions, there is no way to build oxygen converters, electric arc furnaces, electroslag furnaces, etc.

For high-end equipment, we can only build blast furnaces for ironmaking and open-hearth steelmaking according to local conditions. Of course, even if the principles are the same, the technological advancement of the ironmaking and steelmaking furnaces built and designed by Haihan far exceeds the level of its contemporaries.

, both in terms of production efficiency and product quality, it does have relatively big advantages. In addition, Shanghai Han manages and arranges the smelting workshop according to the modern industrial model, so the operation of the entire smelting system is closer to the state of the industrial era, and

It is not a common workshop-style operation model in this era.

"Most of the coke used in our smelting furnace here comes from Black Earth Port. After the coal excavated there is prepared, the finished coke is directly transported here for use." Qiao Zhiya explained to Van Diemen: "From

In terms of steel production capacity, our smelting workshop here has exceeded that of Ming, Fujian and Guangzhou provinces combined."

Van Diemen couldn't help but feel a little moved when he heard this number. He had collected some intelligence about the Ming Dynasty in his early years, and this information about steel production was naturally an extremely important part.

During the Ming Dynasty, iron ore was discovered and mined in as many as 232 states and counties across the country, including 28 in Fujian, 23 in Guangdong, and two in Guangxi. These three places combined have 50 iron ore deposits.

There are as many as three places. As for private smelting workshops, they are everywhere. For example, the iron smelting plant in Nanhai County, Guangdong has reached a labor scale of 3,000 people during the Chongzhen period. According to the statistics from the Jiajing period, the number of government-owned smelting plants increased.

According to private workshops, the country's annual pig iron output has exceeded 10,000 tons, far exceeding the production level of European countries during the same period. Among this number, the production capacity of Fuzhou and Guangzhou accounts for almost half. Haihan is famous for this Changhua

The production capacity of one smelting plant is equivalent to the two major iron-producing provinces of Ming Dynasty combined, which shows its high production efficiency.

However, what Van Diemen didn't know was that the Haihan smelting base started so quickly because it actually relied on the many craftsmen trained by various official and private smelting institutions in the Ming Dynasty. Private iron smelting in Guangdong

The iron ore industry in Shaozhou, Huizhou and other places is particularly developed. Every year during the autumn harvest, people gather together and cross the border in groups to open mines and build furnaces on their own to stir up iron and make profits. Of course, except for this kind of "wild"

In addition to business operations, there are more legal smelting workshops and mines that have obtained official licenses and paid taxes on time.

For example, the scale of the iron casting factory in Foshan, Guangdong is quite large. There are thousands of employees in the iron frying industry alone, and they are subdivided into stokers, casters, fitters, hammerers, etc., and there is already a relatively detailed division of labor. However,

These craftsmen are still limited by the conditions of the times, and they basically obey the arrangements of the guild, rather than being free wage laborers of a capitalist nature.

In the early years, Haihan introduced a large number of refugees from Guangdong caused by wars and famines. Among them were many craftsmen engaged in this industry. Later, most of them were concentrated in Changhua. Through the connections of these people, the civil affairs department, Lu

Many craftsmen in the smelting industry were recruited from the Ming Dynasty one after another.

The Chief Secretary of Guangdong has relatively clear regulations on the operating structure of private iron ore mines. The owner of the mountain is the head of the furnace, and the head of the furnace is the general A. There is a small A for every ten people below, and personal information must be filled in and then submitted to the county.

Only then could the government office obtain the business license. Haihan obtained these lists directly through people in the government, and then dug people according to the lists, and brought them to Changhua one by one for placement. This method of poaching was even used later

When he arrived at the official ironworks, he poached all the craftsmen with high salaries.

At that time, the income of these craftsmen who served the government was about "ten stones and eight buckets of grain per year, two pounds of cloth for winter and summer clothes, and two pounds and eighty ounces of cotton." This kind of income can only be regarded as the lowest level in Haihan's salary linked to labor grade.

It is a relatively basic level, and Haihan has always been very generous to craftsmen with professional skills. As long as the treatment of third-level workers is shown, it is enough to make most of the craftsmen's hearts flutter, and there are colleagues who invested in Haihan early to persuade them to be guarantees.

, this poaching operation went very smoothly. Officials in charge of this field have long been fed by Haihan's sugar-coated bullets, and they have turned a blind eye to such behavior. As long as the matter is not too big, Haihan will

No matter how many people the Han poached, it would have no negative impact on the officials.

Among the thousands of smelting employees currently working for Haihan in the Changhua area, at least four to five hundred craftsmen were poached from the Ming Dynasty. Most of these people are already serving as leaders and foremen of various production links, and are also working for Haihan.

Han has trained more practitioners. Recently, it has even begun to accept trainees from Annan to train workers for the iron smelting plant to be built in Annan through cooperation between the two parties within the year.

Regarding the scale of the smelting industry in Changhua, Van Diemen can only observe it with envy and hatred. There is no such large-scale smelting plant in Batavia, and there are only more than 30 professional blacksmiths in the city.

Things like farm tools, weapons and armor are okay, but it is indeed a bit difficult to carry out large-scale smelting operations like Haihan. Of course, there are no large-scale iron mines near Java Island, which is the most fatal shortcoming.

.While Batavia was still worrying about the source of pig iron, Haihan's production capacity was already large enough to be used to lay long-distance rail transit lines. This really made Van Diemen feel a little worried.

Before Van Diemen came to Changhua, he had heard that there was the longest railway line on Hainan Island, and Van Diemen had briefly experienced the unique advantages of this railway line in transportation during his stay in Sanya.

He could only express his sincere admiration for Haihan's invention, but this thing, like many Haihan characteristics, could not be copied to other places. Firstly, only Haihan could make steam locomotives. Secondly,

The reason is that there are too many rails needed to lay the railway, which is several times more expensive than building an ordinary road. Others simply cannot afford to invest this money.

After visiting the smelting and production site in Changhua, Qiao Zhiya invited Fan Diemen to take the train from Changhua Port to the inland Shilu Mine. Naturally, Van Diemen readily agreed. In addition to taking the train, he

I really want to see what the conditions are like in the mines mined by the Haihan people.

That afternoon, a group of people boarded a specially equipped VIP carriage at the port train station. The main feature of this carriage is the use of relatively fine interior decoration, soft sofa seats and glass windows. Considering that every time it is used, the inside and outside of the carriage will be

It was contaminated with a lot of coal ash, so it was usually stored in a garage next to the port station. Even Qiao Zhiya himself rarely used it. Only on occasions like today can this luxurious train have a chance to see the light of day.

As the whistle blew, the train slowly left the station. The VIP carriage was hung at the end of the train to keep it as far away from the soot and water vapor as possible from the locomotive boiler. The whole journey took more than an hour.

It will not stop unless it misses a train traveling in the opposite direction.

Van Diemen also took a train once when he was in Sanya, but the trip between Sanya and Victory Fort was too short, so taking such a trip was not satisfying at all. This time he had the opportunity to take a train again in Changhua, which also made Van Diemen

Extremely excited. From time to time, he looked through the car window at the continuously retreating scene outside to judge the speed of the train.

"Mr. Van Diemen, what do you think of our train?" Qiao Zhiya looked at him like a curious baby and couldn't help but ask him.

"Very impressive!" Van Diemen thought for a while and then added: "It's just that the cost of building this kind of railway should be very high, and the construction will be more complicated. I'm afraid it will be difficult to promote it."
Chapter completed!