Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 702 Social Change ([-])

The atmosphere in the compound of the Meihe Township Police Station is solemn today, and several officials from the Ministry of Internal Affairs in black uniforms are carefully interrogating several captured prisoners.Behind them, there are still a few patrolmen who are sweating profusely explaining something. In short, everything here is messy, and it is obvious that something unusual has happened.

Several prisoners had typical Guarani faces. Although they were squatting on the ground at the moment, they still had righteous indignation on their faces, as if there was nothing wrong with what they did.But whenever they wanted to do something, the patrolmen who watched them hit their heads and faces with batons, and they squatted down obediently.

"So, because the Bureau of Mines decided to transfer jobs to you, you all teamed up to destroy the machine?" An agent of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in a woolen coat put his hands behind his back and stared at these people with stern eyes. Ragged Guaraní miners.

"Not only these." After a long silence, the man in the lead suddenly said in fluent Chinese: "Last year, a series of terrible disasters occurred in the No. 12 mine where we work. There are coal mine flooding accidents, There was also a pit gas explosion, and many people in our tribe died. However, the compensation and pensions issued by the Mining Bureau are very small. One person dies with two bags of wheat and one bag of corn. This compensation is not enough. He also thought that our work efficiency was low, so he planned to install some machines to assist in coal mining, and he wanted to lay off our staff. The Italian guy in the human resources department even called us barbarians and insulted us in every possible way. We destroyed the machines in a moment of anger .”

Hearing the Guarani's well-organized words, the agents of the Ministry of the Interior were a little surprised. He walked up to the Guarani and lifted the Guarani's chin with the toe of his riding boots. Looking at him, he said in a more stern tone: "As far as I know, the Government Affairs Council formulated the 'Coal Mine Inspection System' at the beginning of this year to conduct regular inspections of 21 coal mines in Ping'an Coal Mine where accidents frequently occur. Our coal mine system It has been perfected. But no matter what, you destroyed a machine worth tens of thousands of yuan. This is an indisputable fact, and you must accept legal sanctions."

Hearing what the agent said, the Guaraní people squatting on the ground were a little nervous, not knowing how the robbers who occupied their land would deal with them.

They are all Guarani people who originally lived in the mining area. Later, a judge from the North Duck Lake District Circuit Court on the East Coast came and declared that their possession of these lands was "illegal". Before they could understand what was going on Then, the militiamen on the east coast drove them away, and then dug mines on their farmland and houses, and collected coal.

However, because their land and houses were seized and they had no food and clothing, they accepted employment from the people on the east coast. Men became miners, while women and children went to coal washing plants, briquette factories, brick kiln cement factories and other places with harsh environments as hired labor. Difficult and tenacious to live down.It's just that these people's physique is poor, and they died of various reasons after a few years of work. Therefore, limited by the plight of the increasing shortage of manpower, the Ping An Mining Bureau has gradually developed some simple coal mining machines in the past two years. Replace some workers to speed up work efficiency.

After all, the Indians are notorious for their poor physique and intolerance to heavy work. This was the case with the Araucan miners in the Spanish Chilean region. More than half of them died within a few years, far inferior to the blacks.Therefore, from a long-term perspective, Ping An Coal Mine has decided to gradually realize the steaming and mechanization of coal mining, so as to reduce the dependence on manpower as much as possible.

Moreover, it is not only a matter of reducing manpower dependence, but as the mine is dug deeper, it becomes more and more difficult to hoist the mined coal out of the well. Therefore, the demand for large cranes has officially been put on the agenda.With the gradual development of the domestic steel and machinery manufacturing industry, Dong'an people, who have accumulated many years of industrial development, began to research and develop coal mining machinery.

Steam-powered cranes first replaced human or animal-powered hoisting machinery.For example, many mines in Ping'an Coal Mine now use cranes with a power of 175 horsepower. This kind of crane can not only lift coal, but also lift miners. The efficiency is far from the previous human pulley boom.The wicker baskets originally used to hold coal and miners were also replaced by metal boxes (made of iron). This kind of strong basket can hold more people or coal. Lightweight steel case too.

And at the beginning of this year, after the Government Affairs Council decided to strengthen coal mine production safety, it sent a large number of inspectors to inspect the mines and urged the Mining Bureau to install underground ventilation devices as soon as possible.The Mining Bureau decided to ventilate the mine by releasing high-pressure steam from a steam boiler after a meeting of technicians to study it. After testing, it was found that the effect was quite good.In addition, a technician from Italy invented a special fan for coal mines and obtained a technical patent, which was quickly bought out by the Ping An Mining Bureau and vigorously promoted in various mines.

After the promotion of these technologies, according to the estimation of the Ping An Mining Bureau, coal mines will produce about 28 tons of coal this year, but the potential market demand is about 57 tons, which is not even half of the demand.You must know that the local coal produced by the Ping An Mining Bureau is used by various domestic industrial enterprises, inland steamships and even civilian fuel consumption, not the clean coal from Tacheng transported across the sea.The cost of that coal is too high. Although the quality is obviously better, it is basically only used in large quantities by coking plants, the State Railway Administration and ocean-going ships.

It can be seen that the domestic coal market is still far from reaching saturation, and there is still a lot of room for development. The premise is that the Ping An Mining Bureau can gradually increase its own output.Of course, the Ping An Mining Bureau is not indifferent. They vigorously promote various machinery in coal mines under the guidance of their superiors.

And these Guarani people are obviously the "victims" of the deepening mechanization process.Because with the in-depth promotion of the machines, their role is also decreasing day by day. After all, there is already a pickaxe driven by a steam piston to dig coal. Drilling miners.Especially when these Guarani miners were out of tune with the people around them, the Ping An Mining Bureau decided to assign them to the newly opened coal mines to work as transport workers-the income of this job is obviously much lower than that of underground miners-but These Guaraní people are used to high wages of more than seven yuan per month. How can they work as transport workers who are exhausted but earn only five yuan a month?

Therefore, these Guaraní people who were deprived of the power to work in the mine were obviously enraged. After being dominated by anger, they even took advantage of the paralysis of the coal mine management personnel to gather a crowd to destroy some machines on the mine, and then demanded Restore the traditional way of coal mining, let them continue to mine coal.

For this serious case that caused a direct economic loss of nearly [-] yuan, the people below couldn't suppress it. The scene of coming to the mine to investigate.The case itself was very simple and not complicated at all. After the possibility that the Ministry of Internal Affairs was worried that the Guarani miners colluded with Spanish spies to destroy the production equipment was ruled out, the handling of this matter became even simpler.

The leading miners were sentenced to hang, while the miners who followed were sentenced to exile and went to New China or Australia to serve hard labor.They can choose to go to the military service alone, of course, they can also choose to bring their families with them, in short, they don't want to retire unscathed.As for the coal mining machinery destroyed by them, the Bureau of Mines will first take out some spare machines from its own warehouse and send them to the mine for production use, and then the mine will continue to place an order for production at the newly established coal machinery factory in Meihe Township. up.The economic loss is said to be tens of thousands of yuan, but that is all falsehood. The real production cost is 5000 yuan. This is still the research and development cost, otherwise it will be cheaper.

After dealing with the case of destroying machines in the Ping An Mining Bureau, the special task force of the Ministry of Internal Affairs went to several places and found many similar cases.For example, there was a case in Bao’an Township. Several local villages suddenly tore up the labor employment agreement signed with the Portuguese on the other side of the mountain, because they found that it was more cost-effective to use steam plows to dig furrows and plow the land than to hire those foreign laborers. He decisively tore up the agreement and refused to hire those Scottish laborers from Portuguese towns.

The Portuguese labor broker, who had paid a large upfront fee and expenses along the way, was furious and organized his workers to destroy two steam plows placed on the ground by an agricultural machinery leasing company.What's more, there are a few sneaky guys carefully observing and describing the appearance of the steam plow, as if they have other plans.

The dispatched patrol police from the police station and a militia brigade quickly suppressed the rioting Scots, and arrested more than 100 people including labor brokers on the spot. Among them, two Portuguese who stole drawing paper were even arrested on charges of espionage. Sent to be detained in Ping'an County, waiting for them will undoubtedly be the death sentence.

In addition to this case, there have also been cases in various places where craftsmen and country millers smashed machines and spread slanderous remarks about steam engines.It can be seen that in the east coast republic where steam power is gradually popularized and the degree of industrialization is gradually deepening, the speed of the collapse of the traditional social order is extremely alarming.In this young country, which can be called a blank slate, without any old forces and old rules, a new production order and social order are also being established at an unparalleled speed.

(End of this chapter)