Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 742

The Port of Rio Gallegos in Southern Patagonia is now called Xingnan Port. It was named by Mo Ming, the new president of the Southern Railway Company. Second, it also has the meaning of revitalizing the Southern Railway Company.

This planned port city is situated on the southern bank of the Xinan (Gallegos) River, at its confluence with the seasonal Chico River.Although the annual precipitation is less than [-] millimeters, there is no shortage of fresh water resources, and the land on both sides of the river has been cut by the river for tens of millions of years. There are more fine grains and rich nutrients. The prospects for agricultural development are quite good. .

But before agricultural development, what needs to be done most here is to build a decent port first.The main task of the Southern Railway Company is to build a railway between Araucan City and Xingnan Port, and all the company's business activities are carried out around this point.If it's just to make a fortune, then why should the Southern Railway Company drill into this corner? Madagascar has a lot of opportunities. It is much better to invest there than in Southern Patagonia, a place that doesn't shit. Here I don't know when it will be profitable.

Nowadays, there are not many people in the East Coast who are optimistic about the Southern Railway Company. This can be seen from the cold sales of the company’s publicly issued bonds in the Qingdao market. The ten-year corporate bonds have only been sold sporadically for 4.8 yuan. Yuan, very disappointing.In addition to the poor sales of corporate bonds, the share subscription of the Southern Railway Company was not ideal. As of February 1649, 2, only 28% of the 40% of the shares sold in the market had been sold, raising funds of 8.29 yuan.

Among them, the East Coast Company became the largest investor of the Southern Railway Company except the government with an investment of 30 yuan (the shareholding ratio is 3%); in addition, the Almeida family of Brazil invested 20 yuan, accounting for 2% of the shares; the Doria family of Genoa invested 100 million bank liras, accounting for 1.64% of the shares; Chuangji Investment Company (the main shareholders are Li Guo, Gao Yigong, Yuan Zongdi, Guo Sheng, Mo Ming, etc. Li Zhengang) invested 10 yuan, accounting for 1% of the shares.

Apart from these shares, the rest are scattered private minority shareholders.Among them, the most famous one is the well-known private Marshal Mo Mingmo in the Far East. He took out 2 yuan in cash, and at the same time, the main assets under his name - Haidiao Watch Factory, Bee Island in Xinhua Bay (Lease breeding bees) ——As a mortgage, he borrowed 2 yuan from the Bank of La Plata, and Chuangji Investment Company also provided him with an interest-free loan of 1 yuan, thus making up the investment of 5 yuan , as the price of 0.5% of the shares of the Southern Railway Company.

Privately investing 5 yuan in a project, this kind of generosity almost blinded everyone's eyes.But this is not the most enviable thing. What makes the civil servants of the Government Affairs Council hard to let go is that there have been rumors that Mo Ming may directly take out 5 yuan in cash to invest without any loans or loans. Southern Railway Company.Maybe he went through so much trouble just to not over-irritate many time travelers in China. He has really made a fortune in the past five years since he went to the Far East!You can tell by looking at the big boxes he brought back. It is said that the contents inside are not the books that are declared to the outside world at all, but full of gold, jewelry, jade and antiques.

除了莫茗外，剩下还有约0.15%的股权（价值1.5万元）被国内诸多小投资者们所认购。出售股份募集到了82.9万元；政府投资（不计实物投资，仅限现金投资）了20万元，另外还发放了48年度财政补贴10万元；销售公司债获得4.8万元；林林总总一共117.7万元，南铁公司就以这么一笔看起来还算可观的资金开始启动了自己的计划。

The company's first project is to lose money-well, at least it doesn't look like it will make money in the short term. The company's burden is too heavy-that is, at the mouth of the Gallegos River Build a decent pier here for large ships from the mainland to berth.

The main body of Xingnan Port is located on the south bank of the Gallegos River. According to the survey by the Navy, it is almost the place with the best seabed conditions. It is not a problem to berth the transport ships with a draft of 3-4 meters that are currently the mainstream in China.Moreover, the climate here is relatively warm in the entire southern Patagonia region, and the lowest temperature in winter is only minus 20 degrees, which is about mid-July to early August. At this time, the sea in the port will occasionally There are some thin floating ice sheets, but basically not hindering navigation.

Moreover, if dredgers are used to dredge the bottom of the river and the seabed in the future, and large ships frequently enter and leave the port, the freezing situation of seawater will be greatly changed.In other words, the more frequently ships come in and out, the harder it is for the sea to freeze, and the more valuable the port will be.

Most of the wind in the port is blown from the west land, especially in winter, the westerly wind is accompanied by snow all over the sky, the visibility in the port is low, and it is difficult for ships to dock.At this time, facilities such as breakwaters, lighthouses, and high-level permanent piers are extremely important.

However, after preliminary calculations, Mo Ming, the president of the Southern Railway Company, immediately rejected some of the costly projects, such as the main breakwater with a total length of 3.8 kilometers-because the winter tide in the sea off Xingnan Port is very high, it is necessary to build a high-standard Otherwise, ships will be affected badly when mooring in bad weather; for example, three permanent masonry piers with a length of 4 meters will be built on the south side of the Xingnan River with a water depth of 360 meters. This plan is also under the interference of Mo Ming Modifications have been made: the cement permanent dock has been changed to a wooden dock that is easy to corrode and has high maintenance costs, in order to save the initial construction cost.

In addition, a wooden trestle bridge with a length of 7 meters and a width of 180 meters will be built on the left side of the estuary of the Chico River with a water depth of 15 meters (to park ships with a deep draft, such as battleships), and an adjacent large dock with a length of 200 meters (use for repairing ships).These two projects really cannot be saved, especially the dock is very critical, because it is very important for a port to be able to maintain and overhaul and minor repairs to the passing ships.

此外，还有长度达10公里的临港货运公路、货场和仓库（约4.3万平方米的建筑）、露天堆场（7万平方米）、储煤场（1.5万平方米）、火车站及其附属设施（0.4万平方米）。而由于这个港口最重要的功能（转运移民），这里还将修建一个超大型的旅客侯船室、码头管理处、医疗保健处、食水供应处等等。

Finally, as a terminal, its material handling and transshipment equipment has to be added, which is another large investment.For example, flat rail cars (iron wheels, weighing 5.75 tons) used for short-distance transshipment of goods, large steam cranes, steam tugboats, steam water supply ships, steam coal supply ships, and disinfection ships that may be needed for large ships to dock and go offshore , small ice-driver (to expel thinner small ice floes) and so on.

In general, if it is really completed according to the original design plan, then the port of Xingnan Port is indeed the most advanced in the east coast in terms of modernization.Perhaps it is not the largest in China in terms of scale (the cargo holding capacity of the first phase project is 2.5 tons, and the maximum annual cargo throughput is designed to be 30 tons), but because it uses a large number of new equipment representing the most advanced scientific and technological achievements on the east coast today , New technology, its degree of modernization and transshipment efficiency are undoubtedly the highest. Rail-sea combined transport and rail-road combined transport are undoubtedly extremely advanced concepts in the 17th century when the management and operation of the wharf was still very primitive.

But this plan also has a fatal flaw, that is, the cost is conservatively estimated to be more than 300 million yuan—an extremely astonishing figure.Therefore, the high construction costs doomed Xingnan Port to reduce its specifications and extend the completion period, so that the reconstruction and expansion of the South Railway Company could be carried out after financial affluence.Therefore, under the guidance of such ideas, Mo Ming, the first president of the Southern Railway Company, extended the construction and completion plan of Xingnan Port to ten years with a stroke of his pen, and the investment in the first year was only 20 yuan.

This is not because he is unwilling to build a high-standard port once and for all, but because the Southern Railway Company has not much funds at hand.Xingnan Port invested 20 yuan in the first year, and the investment in Araucan Port (Natales) will reach nearly 30 yuan. The two ports at both ends of the Liangyang Railway will cost 50 yuan a year. The construction cost, this Nima has already consumed less than half of the 117.7 million yuan in the company's account, and the remaining money will be used in many places, how can it be paid for?

Could it be that the company has just been established and started to invest, and is it going to go out for alms again?Mo Ming shook his head and decided not to think about this issue for now. What he needs to think about now is how to feed the new immigrants who are about to come from the mainland this year.The number of these new immigrants is more than 1000, almost all of whom are Ming men. They will settle down in the riverside area of ​​Xingnan Port, and then use the relatively abundant freshwater resources and fertile river valley siltland to grow crops and herd livestock. In order to start the agriculture here as soon as possible, and save all materials from the local purchase, it can save a lot of money.

In addition to the new immigrants, there is also a group of special people who will arrive in Xingnan Port within a few days, that is, the 101 officers and soldiers of the 240st company of the former army who have just been abolished.These people were sacrificed as bargaining chips in the game between the military and civilian officials, but according to the compromise plan of the two parties, these people could even carry weapons and be incorporated into the Southern Railway Company's road guard team as a whole to protect the Southern Railway Company's development. The interests in the process will not be damaged - of course their future wages and maintenance costs will be fully paid by the Southern Railway Corporation.

(End of this chapter)