Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 1832 West Indian Ocean ([-])

Inadvertently, the calendar was turned to 1681, and Ue Seng Port also ushered in a rainy and humid summer.

Today is January 1th, a great day for the official completion of the Nghe Seng Iron Works.To this end, local top officials such as Xiao Jingzong, Commissioner of the District Administrative Office, and Lin Chaoen, Mayor of Yicheng County, also attended the celebration.

It is worth mentioning that Lin Chaoen, the magistrate of Yicheng County, was born as an immigrant from the Qing Dynasty. He was born in Jiangbei. He was captured by Marshal Mo in the early years. Being the magistrate of Yicheng County, which is a position favored by many second-generation wearers, is also an odd number.In addition, his wife Li Mengqin is also doing well. She is currently serving as the president of the Northwest Reclamation Bank's Yi Branch. The two work in the same place, which attracted attention for a while.

However, President Li works here in Yicheng, and many people, including Xiao Jingzong, like it very much.There is no other reason. The Northwest Reclamation Bank has given the local government great convenience in terms of loans, especially the eye-catching project of the Yicheng Iron Works. When the United Industrial Credit Bank refused to continue lending due to financial constraints, the Northwest The Reclamation Bank took over in time, which made the project continue. Xiao Jingzong was very satisfied with this, and even had a favorable opinion of his husband Lin Chaoen.

Together with these local officials, there was also a group of special missions, that is, the missions from the Eastern Korean Kingdom.This mission consisted of about 30 people. It was led by Zhao Chuyan, the envoy of the East, and was sent to the East Bank by the order of Suzong Li Xuan of North Korea. He saw the customs and customs of the Eastern Kingdom, and bought some books back to North Korea for research.After being "bullied" by the people on the east coast for so many years, the North Korean monarchs and ministers also have self-respect, and they also want to see what kind of wind dance the Eastern Dynasty Shangguo, which only uses a colonial division to intimidate them tremblingly, is like. How to strengthen yourself.

The ship carrying the North Korean mission departed from Ganghwa Island. It was a "Yaksa" class armed transport ship with a standard displacement of 250 tons ordered at the Heishui Shipyard. It was made of oak and pine wood. The "Hyeonjong the Great", equipped with eight medium-caliber East Coast naval guns, has become a cutting-edge warship with good strength in the Korean Navy (although the East Coast people position it as a transport ship...).

This time the "Hyeonjong the Great" was sent to the east bank. In addition to carrying the North Korean mission, there was also a large amount of cargo on board, some of which were high-grade medicinal materials and furs. Gifts used to build relationships), and the rest are intended to be sold publicly in the East Coast market to raise funds for the mission.There is no way, the Kingdom of Korea has never been very rich, and it has been squeezed hard by the east coast. In addition, the successive kings have been relatively stingy, so they can only bring a batch of goods with the ship and sell them on the east coast to raise funds.

After the North Korean mission's ship arrived at Uiseong Port, due to a sudden illness, and the ship really needed repairs and maintenance, they stayed here and received condolences from the Uiseong District Administration.At this time, it happened that the main equipment and workshops of Yicheng Iron Works were officially completed. Xiao Jingzong, the commissioner of the regional administration, also invited North Koreans to participate in the ceremony, intending to let these bumpkins also see the power of industry. In their minds, they also planted the seeds that the Great East Coast is incomparably strong and the Vega is universal.

Sure enough, the main officials of the North Korean mission, headed by Zhao Chuyan, lost their minds for a while after seeing the huge iron-making furnace.Later, they visited the ore crushing plant, the flat track transportation system, the foundry, etc., and the impact was even greater.During this period, some low-level North Korean officials inquired carefully about some details. Xiao Jingzong smiled when he saw it, and did not stop it, because the North Koreans asked for nothing. It is absolutely impossible without the modern steel smelting system of Anren.They love to ask, so let them ask. In the face of the modern industry with a relatively small division of labor, they can't ask too many useful things.What they can bring back in the end is at best the exaggerated and unrealistic descriptions of literati and scholars who have no technical knowledge, and maybe they are full of critical words.

Since it is an iron factory, it naturally needs raw materials such as coal and iron ore.Of course, there is no need to worry about coal. The large coal mine in Chenggao County next door has entered the actual mining stage. More than 500 island soldiers from the Eight Banners supported by New China have driven more than [-] black slave laborers to build roads, houses and wash coal. factory while mining raw coal.

The reason why there are so many slaves—ah no, laborers—available, is the stormy offensive of the East Coasters on the Swahili coast of East Africa in recent years.It is said that since the new official Qiu Haiyang took office and decided to send troops to the waters around the island to attack the disobedient Moorish princes, a huge number of Swahili blacks were transported to Como by the east coast army. Luo Islands is a transit base.Afterwards, after the screening and selection of these Swahili people in the Comoros concentration camp, more than half of them were sent to the major state-run plantations, quarries, forest farms, coal mines, iron mines, gold mines, and graphite mines on the island. , brick kilns, and construction teams, as heavy manual laborers.The remaining half of the people were sent to Yicheng County, Chenggao County, and Yiyang Bay to participate in the construction, and even the local people were given a lot of Swahili labor—of course, the local people were not free. In fact, Xinhua Island has exchanged a considerable amount of local obsolete machinery and equipment for this purpose, which has played a greater role in local production.

Now, although Qiu Haiyang has resigned from his position as the captain of the New China Pioneering Team, and the battle of refusal to conquer has come to an end, but because a lot of people were captured before, the difficulty of labor shortage that has plagued the Yicheng area for a long time has long been not a problem.They divided the large amount of labor they had been allocated into several groups and worked separately. They completed the second phase expansion of Yicheng Port Wharf and the construction of several third-class national roads in the county. The Chenggao Coal Mine was successfully built and entered the In the stage of formal commercial production, in addition to supplying consumption in the region, it also exported a large amount to Hezhong and even the mainland, earning a lot of profits.

In addition, as the "supporting infrastructure" of the Nghe Seng Ironworks, it was recognized by the whole region as early as 1677, and the Ng Seng Railway, which intends to "build no matter how difficult it is", is currently working hard with the blood and sweat of these black laborers. Under these conditions, great progress has been made: by the end of 1680, the Yicheng Railway had completed more than [-] kilometers, exceeding one-third of the total design length. It is believed that if there is still a big gap in funds, At the end of last year, it was fully connected.

However, it is true that this railway cannot be dragged on any longer, because the Chenggao Coal Mine and Yicheng Ironworks located at both ends of the railway have already been built. Low, the cost is really high, and the road is not very safe - don't doubt this, there are many Tonga, Zulu and Swazi people who hold great hatred for people on the east coast. It is not uncommon for transport convoys to be attacked in recent years.

In order to overcome this difficulty, Xiao Jingzong, commissioner of the Yicheng District Administrative Office, went to Xinhua Port by boat last month, and had some consultations with Peng Yuanzhi, who was in charge of the work on Xinhua Island, and planned to borrow a batch of materials and funds for So that the railway that is about to go without rice can continue.Helplessly, Peng Yuanzhi was only an acting captain temporarily in charge of the work, and had no right to decide on the disposal of such huge amounts of money and property, so in the end Xiao Jingzong returned disappointed.

In desperation, Xiao Jingzong finally borrowed 10 yuan from the Northwest Reclamation Bank, where his wife is the branch manager, through Lin Chaoen, the magistrate of Yicheng County, for emergency relief.But this amount of money is undoubtedly a drop in the bucket for the Yicheng Railway Project, which still has a shortfall of about one million yuan, and it cannot last for too long.To solve the funding problem, it is still necessary to obtain a large loan or directly attract investment from the central government, but this seems to be a little difficult at present.

In the end, Xiao Jingzong reluctantly decided to "loan" a group of 6000 black laborers (including a large number of Tonga, Swazi, etc. they captured themselves) to the national railway that needed a lot of labor to build railways In exchange for a "free gift" of a batch of railway equipment worth about 20 yuan to the Nghe Seng District Administration.However, this behavior of sending out labor force suddenly emptied the reserve slave labor reserve in Yicheng area, making Xiao Jingzong gritted his teeth and ordered the main military officials in the area such as Mao Jun and Tang Moyu to search desperately nearby. , Capture the Xhosa, Zulu, Tonga and Swazi, and replenish the labor reserve in the region that has suffered serious blood loss, there is no one.

"Yicheng Iron Works is a project run by the former Commissioner Qiu. It was called a 'miracle' at the time, which shows the importance of this national investment project to the future development of our region. I, Xiao, have the same attitude, Yicheng The ironworks need to produce, and if they can’t, they still have to produce. I don’t want the brand-new factory building to be exposed to the sun and rain, and the brand-new equipment to be rusted and idle here. It must be used! And to make the Yicheng Ironworks operate normally , the key point lies in two points. One is that our own Yicheng Railway must do everything possible to complete it as soon as possible. This is a hard task, and there is no reason to delay; It is also very important to us when the mine can produce iron ore stably. Alas, I can’t push too much on this matter. After all, Xinhua Island has helped us a lot, and the project of this iron factory is Commissioner Qiu snatched it from them, alas, I can’t even urge you.” After visiting the inauguration ceremony, Xiao Jingzong walked with a group of people to the factory cafeteria to have a working meal. said the entourage.

What Xiao Jingzong said actually meant something.Officials in the Yicheng area all know that Xinhua Island has been fighting for the iron factory project, and the reason is ready-made. There is a rather large-scale pyrite mine in the Kanghua Port area, and it is accompanied by gold and silver. Very valuable for mining.For this reason, they began to move around many years ago, trying to persuade the Government Council and even the Executive Committee to agree to build a steel smelting enterprise with them. In the end, they even had a hint of success. Huagang set up a small-scale iron-making plant to make use of local resources nearby and develop the local economy.

But who would have imagined that Qiu Haiyang, who was the commissioner of the Yicheng District Administrative Office at the time, had great powers. After running around the central ministries and commissions, he cut off the project and made it settle in Yicheng District, and the investment scale also doubled, making New China The island and the others almost twisted their noses in anger.But after all, they are very honest, especially after Qiu Haiyang was quickly transferred to the position of the captain of the New China Exploration Team, the largest island colony under the rule of the east coast has continuously provided a large amount of money, food, materials and other resources to the Yicheng area. The labor force has even continued to the present, which is quite touching-of course, to a certain extent, this is actually a matter of mutual benefit. Southern Africa really needs a steel production center, and this center is built In Yicheng Port, it is already an acceptable result for Xinhua Island!You know, the Hezhong area has been working hard for a steel project for many years, but it is really not competitive in terms of resources, and finally lost to the Yicheng area.Therefore, since I have determined that I can't get this project, it is acceptable to give it to Yicheng Port. In short, I can't let it settle in the river, because that would be too far away from Xinhua Island.

"Commissioner Xiao, you don't need to worry too much about this matter. Xinhua is actually quite anxious about the Kanghua pyrite mine, but now their new captain (Shao Yaoguang) is not in place, and Peng Yuanzhi, the agent, is disheartened." Feeling cold, no major action. I believe that after Captain Shao takes office next month, this project will enter the substantive development stage. Anyway, I heard from a fellow working in Kanghua Port that the pier has been repaired long ago. , The mine has also been developed in sevens and eighties, but now it is short of manpower, and it has not received instructions from the superiors to develop it. If you really want to start, it is actually quite fast." Lin Chaoen, the magistrate of Yicheng County, comforted him when he heard this. Said: "And their mine is a pyrite mine with gold and silver, and the scale is not small. According to the ruling above, the gold and silver smelted and separated belong to the New China Development Team, and the smelting cost is offset by part of the iron ore. In this way After all, in fact, they don’t need to sell anything, they just transport the ore and sell it to us, and then they can sit on the ground and collect money, and the profit is extremely rich. With this factor, they will definitely redouble their efforts. Don’t worry, Commissioner Xiao, I guess they are more anxious than us, hehe."

"Well, that's the truth." Xiao Jingzong smiled lightly and said, "I hope it's true."

(End of this chapter)