Daming 1805

Chapter 125 Oil is out!
When Zheng Fuguang arrived in Liusha County, Zhu Jingyuan received a report from Liu Zhixin.

These include the oil exploration, smelting and sales businesses mentioned by Zheng Fuguang in the name of Daming Aviation Fuel Company.

This suggestion was made by Wang Zhenyi, the treasurer of Daming Royal Flying Machine Company.

Zhu Jingyuan was very confused by this suggestion.

As the treasurer of a company affiliated to the imperial consortium, Wang Zhenyi took the initiative to remind Zhu Jingyuan's company of such a plan to exploit loopholes.

This is not like Wang Zhenyi's personal behavior.

So Zhu Jingyuan immediately sent a telegram to ask his father and mother.

Zhu Jianyan's reply came soon:
"That's what your grandfather meant."

The telegram that came back only had this sentence, and Zhu Jianyan didn't give any explanation to Xiangxi.

Zhu Jingyuan looked at this sentence, frowned and thought about it for a long time, and then slowly tasted some possibilities from it.

The oil industry has great prospects, and it is impossible for a company to operate it, and it will gradually be split up within the royal consortium.

As the grandson of the emperor, the future prince, the nature of his property is not much different from that of the royal consortium.

Then, there is the last possibility...

When one's own industry expands and wants to be absorbed into the royal consortium stably, there is only one natural way.

The same logic applies to the growing food kingdom.

Is this a guarantee for your own status?
But it's also a bomb...

Zhu Jingyuan was speechless about the old emperor's arrangement.

Drill the oil well and hand it over directly to the royal consortium for operation. How easy is it for me, Dashiguo, to lie down and count the money?
Why stand when you can make money lying down?

You have to make me stand?

If you want to stand up and make money, you can use the extremely low local oil price to attract petroleum smelting related industries to settle in.

Engage in auto and aviation industry expos?
It was originally a land of two oceans, three continents and five seas, and after the opening of the West Sea Canal, it became an absolute traffic artery.

It is originally suitable for wide-area tourism and cultural industries.

Actively cultivate racing culture and aviation culture to attract people to settle in.

On this basis, we can also try to develop the automobile manufacturing and aviation industries locally.

But this is all the future, and the thing to do now is to drill out the oil well.

At the same time, build large-scale oil storage tanks in advance, purchase enough standard oil tanks and barrels, and upgrade the existing crude docks.

Others simply cannot imagine how outrageous the oil production in the Persian Gulf will be, and how quickly it will soar.

Zhu Jingyuan once again sent messages to his mother and treasurer Liang Yunying, Zheng Fuguang, the person in charge of exploration in the Dashi area, and Xu Minghui, who stayed behind at the Dashi palace.

Hurry up to build a large-scale construction project, hurry up to buy, buy, buy, and get a loan in front of you. All the current investments can be earned back by selling oil once.

Communicate with the Royal Oil Refinery in advance, the early fuel must be sold to them.

If Dashiguo manages the oil refining industry by itself, it must be at least after the peace talks are over.

…………

Zheng Fuguang took a few workers who had drilled oil wells, and after three days of simple exploration outside Liusha County, he started drilling directly.

At this time, the theory of oil exploration was completely fragmented, and even skilled craftsmen did not have a very clear method.

Either find a place where oil and gas leaks directly on the surface and drill directly.

Either refer to the topography and environment of the existing oil fields, and try to find other wells with similar environments.

Most of the time it comes from feeling.

Now that the King of Food has finalized the place outside Liusha County, let's find a suitable place to start construction here.

Including Zheng Fuguang and several veteran craftsmen, they did not hold much hope for the first drilling.

In the past, the oil wells of Daming were mainly located in the Southeast Asia region, where there were humid and hot islands, and dense tropical rainforests everywhere.

Now suddenly to drill in a place full of sand, the previous experience has little reference value.

With such an apprehensive mood, everyone drilled down step by step.

Xu Minghui, the judge of Dashiguo, came to the construction site to check every now and then. Anyway, the construction site was not far outside the city, so he usually had nothing to do.

Pour the water in the barrels that came with the ship into the water storage tank, build large oil tanks according to Zhu Jingyuan's request, and order more oil tanks and barrels.

All that's left is to wait for oil to come out here.

In such a complex atmosphere of doubt, apprehension, and expectation, the drilling depth is deepening day by day.

Zhu Jingyuan asked to drill to 500 meters, and even asked to drill to 2000 meters.

But the vast majority of people think that if there is oil, it shouldn't be that deep and it should come out.

After 20 days, the drilling depth reached 1000 meters and still no oil was seen.

The low expectations of the workers have been infinitely close to zero.

Xu Minghui also became more apprehensive.

Another eight days later, the drilling depth reached 300 meters, and still no oil was seen at all.

Craftsmen have basically given up.

Hu Biao, an old worker who drilled oil wells in Borneo, has been talking to himself from time to time these days:
"If there was oil here, it would have come out this deep..."

Zheng Fuguang saw this kind of emotion in his eyes, and he didn't really have any expectations in his heart, so he could only use Zhu Jingyuan's request to issue an order:
"The money paid by His Highness and the shopkeeper, we will do as His Highness asks.

"Drill 500 meters first, and then try to drill 2000 meters. First, drill to the depth required by His Highness.

"If you can't drill out anything, just report to His Highness when the time comes."

What Zheng Fuguang said was the reality, anyway, the money was paid by the boss, and he just did the work as required.

The workers had nothing to say but lamented that His Royal Highness wasted money...

Xu Minghui is also in a complicated mood, and these days he has started to sit in the accountant of the palace again, carefully calculating the cost of this drilling.

The wages of machinery and equipment and personnel are all paid by Daming Airlines, and Dashiguo does not need to pay for it, but the accommodation and meals must be provided by Dashiguo.

In fact, the craftsmen didn't know it, and Zhu Jingyuan himself didn't know it. It's a good thing that they can't drill oil now.

Liusha County is located above an oil field, and the large-scale oil reservoir of this oil field is at a depth of about 500 meters.

If the oil came out early, it may have drilled into the scattered small oil reservoirs scattered above the oil layer.

As a result, either the daily output is low, or it disappears within a few days.

But now that the oil has come out, it may cause the craftsmen to stop drilling, and then think that there is only a little oil here.

Historically, Standard Oil of California drilled seven wells here in a row.

The first few wells were either such sporadic reservoirs, turned into water wells, or nothing at all.

Until the seventh well, we drilled to 370 meters, but still saw nothing.

Funding for the drilling fleet at the time was nearly broken because Standard Oil of California was about to give up drilling in Saudi Arabia.

It wasn't until Texas Petroleum took an equity stake that the drilling continued.

As a result, when the seventh well was drilled to more than 440 meters, the drill bit directly penetrated the large oil layer.

A large amount of crude oil was sprayed out, like an artificial high-pressure fountain.

It was a natural high-pressure gushing well.

On that day, 25 liters of crude oil gushed out, and then the daily output reached 58 liters, or about 600 tons.

Then they went back and continued to deepen the previous few wells to similar depths, and all of those wells turned into high-pressure self-flowing wells.

The large-scale oil development in the Persian Gulf region began, and the No. [-] well opened an era.

Therefore, after Zheng Fuguang, Xu Minghui, and all the workers continued to suffer for five days, they were shocked by the surging crude oil.

The oil layer that has never been exploited, the underground pressure is released for the first time, and the surging oil column rises into the sky.

Several craftsmen were directly sprayed to the ground by the splashing crude oil, and then were covered all over by the crude oil falling from the sky.

On June 34, [-], the first oil well of Dashiduo officially produced oil.

Xu Minghui, who came to inspect the construction site again, rode on a horse and looked at the crude oil fountain in front of him, and immediately widened his eyes and exclaimed loudly:
"My goodness..."

Extraordinary cheers have also erupted at the drilling site.

Several old workers were stunned:
"This is too damn powerful!"

"Labor and management have never seen crude oil spray like this in this life..."

"This fucking is called a blowout well!"

There are natural gushing wells in other areas, but they are far less common and less violent than the Persian Gulf.

Ordinary workers who had never seen such a thing were completely dumbfounded.

A large group of people just watched where the crude oil sprayed.

Xu Minghui, who still loves money the most, was the first to react. While pumping his horse, he ran towards this direction with all his strength, and shouted loudly:
"Don't be dazed! Refuel! It's all money!"

Zheng Fuguang also reacted:
"Drilling craftsmen to cement the well! Others to fill the oil!"

Xu Minghui rode to the construction site, jumped off the horse, ran to Zheng Fuguang's side, grabbed his arm and asked nervously:

"Mr. Zheng, tell me, how much can the crude oil from this well be sold for?"

Zheng Fuguang has gotten used to the feeling of Xu Minghui's eye for money, turned his head to look at the gushing oil column and made an estimate:
"According to Manager Wang, the crude oil transferred from the Royal Oil Production Company to the refinery company last year was calculated on the basis of three yuan per stone.

"Now internal combustion engine vehicles and ships are increasing, fuel prices are continuing to rise, and crude oil prices will continue to rise.

"If this well continues to spray at this rate, it is estimated that it will spray two thousand stones in a whole day, which is 20 liters..."

After the Renwu Dynasty, among the metric units of the Ming Dynasty, liters, buckets, and stones were all defined as capacity units.

A square container whose length, width, and height are one decimeter each is determined to be one liter.

Ten liters is one bucket, ten buckets is one stone, and one stone is one hundred liters.

After hearing Zheng Fuguang's explanation, Xu Minghui's eyes widened again:
"One stone and three silver dollars? Two thousand stones is 6000 yuan? Six thousand silver dollars a day! 18 a month! Two million a year!

"My God! My Dashi Kingdom is now developed!"

At this time, the purchasing power of one yuan of Ming Dynasty silver dollars and silver banknotes was almost equivalent to one hundred yuan of later generations.

Six thousand silver notes are 60, and two million silver notes are two hundred million, equal to the salary of twenty princes of Ming Dynasty.

This is only the first oil well drilled by Zheng Fuguang.

Zheng Fuguang didn't think much of it at first, but he was taken aback by Xu Minghui's random calculation:

"This... the current price of oil is indeed the case, and the gushing speed of the oil well in front of me is indeed... outrageous...

"And... this is just the first well. According to Manager Wang's introduction, an oil field can usually drill several wells, even dozens of wells..."

"Dozens of bites—"

Xu Minghui screamed, and took a deep breath, but he almost couldn't catch his breath, and coughed forcefully:
"Cough-cough-"

Seeing this, Zheng Fuguang quickly supported Xu Minghui, patted him on the back, and continued to explain and comfort him:

"Don't be so excited about the trial...that's just the sales price, we didn't count the mining and transportation costs.

"We don't have any market for Dashi, we have to transport it to the mainland of China. The ship and the oil barrel are all money...

"And it's impossible for this well to spray like this all the time, the speed will gradually decrease..."

Xu Minghui also came to his senses, but he was still very excited, chanting:

"Yes, yes, the cost has to be calculated, the cost, I have to be able to do the calculation, well... calculate..."

Xu Minghui rested for a long time before he barely recovered.

After staring at the gushing oil column for a long time, he reluctantly left the construction site and rode back to the city.

After returning to the palace, Xu Minghui ordered the oil tanks and barrels to be rushed to the construction site, and then ran into the accounting room to calculate the costs and benefits.

The craftsmen and workers continued to work on the construction site, and the well was basically stabilized in the evening.

After the derrick was installed and the oil guide pipes were installed, the crude oil began to flow under the constraints of the pipes, and was successively loaded into a large number of oil tanks and barrels.

Zheng Fuguang watched the oil well blow out all day on the construction site, and felt that its strength showed no signs of weakening.

When the time came to the next afternoon, Zheng Fuguang counted the output of the whole day.

Although he had expected it in his heart, Zheng Fuguang was taken aback by the result.

The daily output is not two thousand stones at all, but five thousand stones!
In this way, the theoretical income of one day may reach 5000 yuan in silver notes, and at least 500 million silver notes in a whole year.

In terms of purchasing power, it is [-] million yuan converted into future generations.

Zheng Fuguang swallowed several mouthfuls of saliva, and after carefully calculating the data three times, he sent someone to report to Xu Minghui in the city.

Let Xu Minghui continue to build large oil storage tanks and order more standard oil barrels at the same time.

Zhu Jingyuan repeatedly reminded this side to prepare oil tanks and barrels. Zheng Fuguang felt that Zhu Jingyuan's expectations were too high a few days ago.

I was also worried that Zhu Jingyuan would be disappointed in the future.

As a result, it now seems that His Royal Highness is the one who has the foresight.

The layout is still small.

Xu Minghui didn't get much sleep last night, and he was always planning how to sell oil and how to make money for Da Shiguo.

After receiving Zheng Fuguang's new report, Xu Minghui almost smoked again.

After regaining his strength again, Xu Minghui immediately asked Dianbo to write a formal report, announcing the good news to Zhu Jingyuan and Liu Zhixin in Xiyang Cape.

…………

More than 20 days ago, Luo Yashan's family left Liusha County, Dashi Country.

After leaving the Persian Gulf, the passenger ship sailed southwest along the Dashi Peninsula and the east coast of Mozhou.

They stopped at two piers along the way. Sophia, Peter and other children couldn't help but sigh with emotion wherever they went:
"This place is better than the Great Food Country..."

"The Great Food Country is really too poor."

After sailing for half a month, the ship finally arrived at Cape Xiyang.

The children came to the bow of the ship again, and as the passenger ship slowly sailed towards the pier, they cheered one after another as they watched the city ahead:

"This is the Cape of Good Hope!"

"The city here is so beautiful. Is this what cities in the East are like!"

“The port and the pier are so lively!”

"This port is busier than all the ports in Lucia!"

"No, it's busier than all the cities in Lucia."

"A thousand times more prosperous than Dashi Country!"

Luo Yashan and Zhao Xinlian were also quite absorbed in watching the city getting closer.

The Cape of the West is the Cape of Good Hope in Taixi, the most important port city that Ming seized from the Dutch.

Sophia still remembered the matter of the Great Food Kingdom, so she couldn't help but ask her parents:

"Since Prince Dashi is Emperor Ming's favorite grandson, why should he be given such a barren fief?"

Zhao Xinlian explained with a smile:
"The title of Dashi Prince is the only title of double princes in Ming Dynasty.

"So since he is a native prince of the Ming Dynasty, he can get the normal salary of the Prince of Ming Dynasty.

"It's the king of the Great Food Kingdom again, and can get the tax share of the Great Food Kingdom.

"Although the Great Food Country is poor, for the Prince of Great Food, that is completely extra income, so it doesn't matter how much it is.

"The other Daming princes don't even want it yet.

"So, stop complaining about the poverty of the Great Food Country, and quickly forget about the Liusha County of the Great Food Country.

"Neither the Prince of Food nor your future life needs to depend on it."

Sophia gently nodded her little head:
"I really don't need there..."

(End of this chapter)