Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 1746 Big Inspection ([-])

On January 1677, 1, which was the hottest season of the year, the Star of La Plata train, carrying Qi Wangping, Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Eastern China Republic, and his entourage, slowly stopped at the Xiayihe County Railway Station. .

The railway station in Xiayihe County is quite large. To the north, there is the Northwest Railway that goes directly to places such as Meiluo, Chengshan, Tieling, etc., and to the south, it passes through a large grain-growing area (where large farms are popular) and goes directly to places such as Shangcheng and Jingjiang. The Southwest Railway, and the Shimome Railway connected to the Ome Line to the east.

The three railways meet here, and it is the only one in the east coast of China. It is not an exaggeration to say that it is a railway hub.If we also consider that the materials that are gathered here from various parties are all important materials to the country, such as machinery and equipment, steel products, fuel, agricultural products, gold, etc., the importance of this place will reach a new level.

In addition, Xiayihe Town is also a river port.The artificial canal Yihe River, which is dredged by the Transportation Affairs Office of the Ministry of Communications every year, flows through this area, and has also played a huge role in the economic development of three or four counties in the river basin.During this domestic infrastructure construction campaign, the guys from the Canal Affairs Office proposed a plan, that is, to widen and dredge the Yihe artificial canal all the way to the west, connect it to the Heihe area, and enter the Wujiang River along the Heihe river. , running through the entire east coast prairie.Of course, this plan was not implemented in the end, because the project was huge and the cost was too high, and the water in the Heihe River was relatively shallow, which was not conducive to shipping, so it was abandoned.But in any case, at least in Zhongyihe County, Xiayihe County, Meilin County and other places, the role of this artificial canal is still very huge. It directly communicates with the heavy industry in the north through Milin Lake, Lianghu Canal, and Yazi Lake in the east. district.

With such unique advantages, Xiayihe County naturally has a developed economy and a large population.According to data from the Ministry of Civil Affairs, this county directly under the Central Government has a population of more than 7. It is hard to believe that this is a county deep inland, because even Qingdao County, the largest city in the country, has a population of only 10.

With a population of more than 7, more than [-]% of it is absorbed by agriculture as usual, which is similar to the national proportion. The rest are almost concentrated in the wholesale industry, logistics industry and deep processing of agricultural products.Especially the latter, Yihe Agricultural Company, a well-known agricultural enterprise on the east bank (formed by the merger of the original Xuji Oil Press Factory and Xu's Farm, etc., Xu Wenxuan is the largest shareholder, holding more than [-]% of the shares) has a large tract of land here. Soybean plantations, as well as large-scale oil mills, bean product processing plants, and feed plants (using bean cake as the main raw material), are one of the economic engines of Xiayihe County and Zhongyihe County, and their status is very important .

"The Yi River Basin raises people. The endless bean fields, wheat fields, and corn fields make people feel refreshed." Qi Wangping seldom sees such a large-scale agricultural agglomeration belt, so he is very interested, just listen to him talking to his side Everyone said: "There should be a large area of ​​undeveloped wasteland in several counties in the Yihe River Basin?"

"It can be said that most of it is in a state of undeveloped. The vast land of the eastern prairie has a mild climate and moderate rainfall. Except for the low Xiling Mountains, the whole area is plains, and it is the best agricultural area. Xiayihe County is a typical example. How can more than 7 people fill up such a large county? Not to mention that a considerable part of it is still engaged in other industries. According to what I saw when I worked in the Far East According to the standard of living of the Qing and Ming people, our county can support 30 to 50 people without much effort. Now, hehe, the land is sparsely populated, and young people can’t keep them. Can’t stop.” The county magistrate of Xiayihe County answered the question, a former soldier who is over [-] years old and has worked in Xiayihe County for many years. , the head of the county security team, the executive deputy county magistrate, and the county magistrate are veteran bureaucrats, and there is a trace of dissatisfaction with the central government's policies in their words.

After so many years of experience in officialdom, Qi Wangping naturally understood the slightest bit of resentment towards the county magistrate.It is not that the central government artificially controls the allocation of public land in the counties of the old areas, and favors frontier areas or undeveloped areas, forcing many young people who have not inherited land to leave their hometowns and go to other places to fight for land and open up wasteland for production.

This kind of behavior not only caused a lot of dissatisfaction among the people in the old district, but also caused a lot of criticism from the local officials, such as the county magistrate in front of him.Because that is tantamount to drawing the blood of these old counties and slowing down their development.As a local parent official, I found that I couldn't raise enough labor force when launching a large-scale project. At this time, if I don't scold my mother, I will go out of my way!Therefore, when facing Qi Wangping, the veteran county magistrate pretended to speak out.

Qi Wangping had heard a lot of these words on weekdays, and his ears were already callused, so he naturally didn't react to this meeting, after all, he deeply supported it in his heart.Otherwise, how many years would it take for those frontier areas on the east coast to be occupied?Moreover, how can the young second-generation national immigrants who have received a certain degree of education in the old districts assimilate those new Far East immigrants and non-national laborers who have not made a sound?Therefore, this policy is bound to be persisted for a long time, without wavering for 100 years!

"These places are one of the most elite agricultural production areas in the country. I haven't been to the Southwest Railway yet. I heard that the scale of agricultural production is even larger than here. The wheat produced every year almost piles up the barns of all counties and towns. So full that food prices have always lagged behind other commodities (the East Coast has been flowing into precious metals for years), and farm contractors are not even very willing to expand their acreage because profit margins are getting lower and lower.” Qi Wangping Selectively filtered the complaints of the old county magistrate, and shifted the topic to other places: "So agricultural mechanization is imperative! A lot of large-scale steam agricultural machinery is used in the Southern Cone area, because of its large size and weight, it is not easy to It is too suitable for use on the east coast prairie (the land on the east coast prairie is relatively soft), so the Ministry of Agriculture and the Engineering Technology Research Institute jointly developed a small-sized 7.5-horse steam engine. After years of experiments and continuous improvement, it has now been used Based on the development of many interesting small machines, it should inject new impetus into the agricultural development of our country."

What Qi Wangping mentioned is actually the current situation of agriculture on the east coast—mainly the grain production industry—that is, except for a few years of unfavorable wind and rain, most of the time the grain harvest is very gratifying, which makes the grain There is greater upward pressure on prices.I believe that if the government hadn't exempted the tariffs on grain exports and some policy subsidies, the domestic grain production industry would have been even more depressed.

However, there is no good way to reverse this situation. Due to the limitations of the world market and the domestic market, industry, commerce and other industries cannot absorb too many people for a while, and most of the employment of the population still has to fall on agriculture.Coupled with the need for immigration to the border (these people are basically going to farm), it is not surprising that there are always many people engaged in food planting.

In the countries of the Old Continent, this kind of stable food production that has lasted for many years will basically usher in high population growth and commercial prosperity. This is generally called the "prosperous age" by ancient Chinese dynasties.At this time, the rapid growth of the population will offset part of the affluence of food, and at the same time, behaviors such as raising livestock and brewing wine will also consume a lot of food.However, on the east coast, it proved to be a very stupid thing to consume food to obtain meat, because the almost inexhaustible bison on the Pampa Plain provided more than 300 million people on the east coast to eat for a lifetime There is endless meat, so the consumption of food is greatly reduced.

In this way, it is not surprising that there is a surplus of food on the east coast every year.To put it bluntly, there are too many people farming, the land is highly fertile, there have been no major natural disasters over the years, and there is no threat of war, which has created the current situation.The next step is to see how the government guides and appropriately reduces the proportion of agricultural laborers—over the past 40 years since the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the proportion of agricultural laborers has dropped from the initial 80% to less than 70% now—so that more people can devote themselves to construction , sailing, overseas colonization, etc., but this kind of thing is more complicated, and the people may not be happy, so we still have to look at how to act.

On January 1, after finishing his inspection tour in Xiayihe County, Qi Wangping's special train started again, heading north into Melo County, and stopped at the Melo Town Railway Station.The railway station is currently being expanded, mainly because the Northern Railway under construction will intersect with the Northwest Railway in the future.At the same time, the mining and production of a discovered super-large coal mine (tens of billions of tons) at the junction of Hengtang County and Kaiyuan County has been included in the agenda, so the Melo Railway Station must be expanded. Otherwise, it may not be able to undertake the transportation tasks that will suddenly increase in the future.

Qi Wangping didn't intend to stay here any longer. The howling Star of La Plata train left the Merlo train station that afternoon, crossed the first railway bridge on the east coast of China, and drove into Tieling Town with a bang. The key inspection area of ​​his trip to the Northwest Railway.

Cadres from Tieling County Government, Tieling Mining Bureau, Tieling Special Steel and other units had been waiting at Tieling Railway Station several hours in advance.As early as when Qi Wangping's special train departed from Merlot Station, this side had already learned the news from the other side through the cable telegraph, and then made preparations in advance. It has to be said that the cable network is really a multiplier of national productivity. No matter how high its effect is, it cannot be overstated.

Qi Wangping came to the restaurant of the station as soon as he got off the train, and had a fairly sumptuous dinner with the officials who came to report to work.After that, he didn't move, and listened to the reports of everyone in the restaurant, and the first ones he named were the managers of Tieling Coal and Steel Complex.

This so-called coal and steel complex consists of large state-owned enterprises such as Tieling Special Steel Works, Western Rolling Mills, Tieling Mining Bureau, Tieling Boiler Works, and First Heavy Machinery Plant. It produces carbon steel, alloy steel, iron bars, gold, Industrial products including railway tracks, bridge parts, construction steel, tinplate (tinplate), steam engine components and various types of mechanical equipment can be called the industrial heartland of the Eastern Republic of China. The scale may not be that big, but the products are more critical. It is no wonder that Qi Wangping called the heads of these factories in the first step and listened to their reports.

"Ferromanganese products are now very mature and have been applied to many industries. Manganese steel has now found the best ratio and has begun to enter the process of large-scale production. I believe that it will be more and more widely used in the future. At least, The strength of our current steam engine cylinder is greatly enhanced after using manganese steel as the material. Correspondingly, under the same weight and volume, the steam engine can provide greater output power, which has a huge impact on all walks of life. The director of the Tieling Special Steel Plant was the first to speak. This guy is a second-generation man who first worked in the Changshan Iron Mine. Later, he joined the Tieling Mining Bureau and focused on gold mine production. Later he was promoted to the director of Tieling Special Steel Plant.

Tieling Special Steel Works is the only manufacturer on the east bank that produces various types of alloy steel.Different from the large-scale Pingan Iron and Steel Works in the north, which mainly produces various types of cast iron, low-carbon steel, medium-carbon steel and high-carbon steel, the Tieling Plant mainly produces various alloy steels, which is due to the way they use crucible smelting. You can see it when you refine the metal.

At present, the main product of the factory is naturally the manganese steel just mentioned, in addition to the smelting and production of some lead, zinc, tin, copper and other metals, such as brass and bronze, tin plate (with the development of canned food industry , the demand for this product is increasing day by day), lead pipes (used on ships), tin pipes (used as hoses), etc.

In recent years, the plant has begun researching the metal nickel.The year before last, an engineer of the factory accidentally discovered that after manganese was added to nickel, the nickel would become extremely tough and have good ductility, making it suitable for rolling.Therefore, in the middle of last year, the Tieling Special Steel Works specially smelted a furnace of nickel-manganese alloy, then rolled out a large sheet, and finally transported it to the Shipu Mint to produce a bunch of coins, intending to replace Dongdong. Those heavy and impractical copper coins in China.

Of course, the role of nickel certainly does not stop there.Now the technicians of Tieling Special Steel Plant are gradually turning their attention to the nickel-steel alloy.Now that manganese steel alloys have become popular, what changes will happen when nickel is added to steel, which undoubtedly attracts the interest of many people. Tieling Special Steel Factory also regards it as an important scientific research project, and organizes elite troops to carry out the research. Research, I believe in the near future will definitely produce results.

"The largest output of our factory is now ferromanganese, and the second largest is copper. I don't know why the demand for this metal has doubled in the past ten years, so we have built a copper smelting workshop. Now Industrial production has been stabilized.” After the manager of the Tieling Plant reported on manganese steel, he began to enter the second part, talking about copper smelting and processing, which has almost become the plant’s second largest source of profit.

(End of this chapter)