Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 969 A new official takes office ([-])

"County magistrate, this is an industrial windmill shipped from China in the first half of this year. The standard configuration is 60 horsepower, and there are 4 seats in total. It can cut 24 ship boards at the same time, and the efficiency is extremely high." Accompanying Liang Xiangjian to the Heishui Shipyard near the pier Afterwards, a group of county officials finally showed some relaxed expressions, because this shipyard is the largest industrial facility in the county, with the largest investment, the largest number of workers, and the best machinery and equipment— — No, the Blackwater Pioneering Team just exchanged a lot of tea and raw silk for a lot of industrial machines from the mainland.

It is true that these machines are second-hand goods that have been eliminated locally. They are transitional equipment used in the early stages of local industrialization. They are not very advanced in terms of technology or design concepts. The shipyard still bought it without hesitation.After all, in the general environment where the Executive Committee is suppressing the industrial foundation of the Heishui area, if many local factories have not started to gradually update their machinery and equipment, how can the Heishui area have this opportunity to take advantage of it?

Moreover, the Blackwater Pioneering Team also spent a huge price to obtain these outdated equipment that are generally only [-] to [-] percent new.First of all, even if these machines and equipment that would have been resmelted were sold, the local business units on the east coast would charge a lot of money, and they would not accept the surplus gold and silver in the Blackwater area-because they believed that the gold and silver had reached the east coast It will increase domestic inflation and disrupt the normal economic order - only accept raw silk, tea, porcelain, medicinal materials and other commodities that can reduce the level of local inflation (the currency on hand can be recovered by the people), so it can be seen that it is necessary to obtain these scrapped equipment The difficulty is high.

"First-hand equipment such as industrial windmills can also be obtained. It can only be said that Captain Shao and Deputy Commander Wei are still a bit thin, and they still support the development of the Heishui area. It's just that there are many parts here. The ironworkers in the city Can’t the factory produce it by itself? I think the precision requirements are not low, and the local steelmaking is not possible, and even high-quality iron cannot be produced, which is always a problem.” Liang Xiangjian looked at the industrial windmill and the external wall that had been installed in place (Masonry), asked casually.

Johnson and other county officials were embarrassed when they heard the words.Indeed, the iron workshops in Heishui County have always used local steel as the raw material for secondary production. Not to mention steelmaking, the quality of molten iron is very average (of course, the quality has surpassed that of other East Asian countries at this time. level), there are not many serious machine tools, and there is not even a high-precision machine tool that can process parts.Wei Boqiu even asked the Northern Arsenal before, whether they could sell the obsolete machine tools—even pedal machine tools—to the Blackwater Pioneering Team. As a result, they would rather go back to the furnace to make iron than let those equipment flow here, which made Wei Boqiu Very annoyed.

"County Liang, this is the truth. The iron workshops in the city can only process some clumsy parts at this stage, plus simple repairs of farm tools, weapons, armor, etc. They don't even have a boring machine for drilling gun barrels. It is very shabby. And there is a shortage of talents. To tell you the truth, many people in the iron workshop are either "self-taught" soil experts, or workers from local apprentices with the same level. His skills are mediocre, his knowledge has many errors, and his vision cannot be compared with that of local talents. Under such conditions, developing industry is, in a word, difficult!" Johnson said honestly.

"Take your time." Liang Xiangjian is very clear about the local restrictions on the development of colonial industries, so he can only say this: "The big deal is that I will show my old face and come back from the mainland to buy some second-hand equipment every now and then. Today I bought a few miscellaneous models Tomorrow, I will buy a few broken forging hammers, and the day after tomorrow I will buy a set of small second-hand stamping equipment. If you accumulate slowly, your family will always be rich. Although we can’t even overhaul these equipment, this kind of equipment represents The emergence of industrial civilization in the Far East and Heishui is already a historic breakthrough. So we should not rush, but take our time. The first step is to cultivate talents and workers, and at the same time further enrich the local population. is the key."

After watching the shipyard, Liang Xiangjian and the others went back to the city for lunch—the lunch was relatively rich, with rye, potatoes and other local crops as the staple food, accompanied by sea vegetables, crabs, and salted fish imported from Dabo County in the south. Beef and mutton bought from Jie County, and Hezhong Daqu produced in South Africa, everyone sat around the big brazier in the cafeteria and had a lively meal.

After dinner, Liang Xiangjian, the new official, worked tirelessly and took a group of people eastward to inspect the coal mines.

The production of coal mines is still dominated by hard labor convicts, supplemented by a small number of North Korean and Ainu miners. The technology is backward, the equipment is outdated, and talents are even scarcer. Therefore, the daily coal production is only about [-] tons-this output is not even as good as two years ago. Liang Xiangjian was very surprised.However, the local officials quickly gave the answer, that is, a considerable number of coal miners were dispatched to the southern settlement of Duer Township, because a large open-pit coal mine was also discovered there, and the quality of the coal was even much better than that of the Blackwater Coal Mine. .

"The coal quality of the Duer coal mine is quite good." Johnson explained to Liang Xiangjian, "The coal quality of the Heishui coal mine is already quite good, at least one grade better than Australian coal, but there are still quite a few of them. Impurities, gangue, etc. But the coal in Duer Township is different, their quality is quite good! Moreover, the county magistrate, you will know when you go there to see that the coal fields in Duer Township are very close to the sea. In the dark valley on the side, many coal seams are even exposed. If a Hezhe person accidentally mentioned things there, I’m afraid we would not know about it.”

"Oh? The quality of the coal there is so good? What about the traffic conditions? I heard you said that the coal field is very close to the sea." Liang Xiangjian suddenly became interested, so he asked.

"It's true that it's very close to the sea, but unfortunately it's not a good port." Speaking of this, Johnson also sighed, and said with regret: "The coasts there are basically straight and steep highlands, and Most of them are stones and gravel, and there is no grass on them, and the land is extremely barren. There is only a small area along the coast where the terrain is low and a port can be built, but unfortunately there is a shoal, the water is very shallow, and large ships cannot enter at all. Shallow boats or barges. Of course, even small boats and barges have to take advantage of the high tide to get in at a good time, otherwise they will run aground. And if you delay there too long and miss the low tide, then You have to stay there all day waiting for the next high tide, which is very inconvenient."

"In addition, the land there is also very barren. Even the land covered by forests is mostly low-quality black soil, which is really terrible. In such land, even the growth of pastures is not very good. We have set up a Grassland, but the low-quality pasture produced can't feed the livestock used in the mines. God, you can see the desolation and barrenness there at a glance. Last time I led a team to send a hundred convicts to dig there. Coal, those guys even shed tears when they saw the steep and desolate coastline." Another official also interjected, and it was obvious that everyone didn't like that ghostly place in Duer Township.

"Du'e Township is too poor." Everyone accompanied Liang Xiangjian to the coal mine, and said in unison: "Look, there are people growing rye in the county town, but it can't grow there at all. There are not many local residents. I can only grow potatoes, a crop that is resistant to barrenness, and I usually go to work in the mines to barely make ends meet. However, the quality of the coal there is really good, and now the navy and immigration ships are also picking it up, so I have to use the Dua coal mine. They don’t pay attention to black water coal. So this time we sent another [-] convicts there to increase the output of the mine. Nearly half of them were exiled from England, The spies of the Netherlands, Portugal and other countries, we will definitely 'take care' of them..."

The road to the coal mine is a bit muddy, and there are two or three houses on the side of the road, some of which are of masonry structure and some of which are of wooden structure.There are haystacks and firewood piles piled up in front of the house, among which the haystacks are prepared for the livestock to spend the winter, and the firewood is the fuel for the residents.Next to the haystack is a vegetable garden with a fence, in which vegetables such as cabbage and carrots are planted. It is almost time to harvest these vegetables, which are more important for local residents to survive the long winter.

In fact, in Heishui County at this time, the houses in the county are generally the same as the houses outside the city. They are all houses with vegetable gardens and woods. The whole county is actually a large rural area, but it was previously called Marshal Mo ordered the city wall to be artificially enclosed.

Such a city is not worth mentioning in the local area, and it can even be said to be unqualified, but in the remote and backward Heishui area, this city already exists like a bombardment, and it is even jokingly called the "Heishui area" Yangzhou", "Suzhou" and "Paris" made Liang Xiangjian very speechless when he first arrived.

The black water coal mine still uses convicts as the main labor force, and their enthusiasm for work is the same.Liang Xiangjian randomly entered a cell shared by 20 people, but was immediately suffocated by the smells inside: the smell of ammonia from urine, the sour smell of human sweat, the smell of salted fish hanging under the eaves, and the messy smell everywhere. The bedbugs that scurried left a deep impression on him.

"Improve the living conditions and sanitary conditions of the convicts, and implement some incentives and punishments to increase their enthusiasm for work." Liang Xiangjian, who was still pale, stood outside the empty cell and said to the officials following him: "The convicts are numb and lifeless, just like walking dead. How can this improve labor efficiency?"

Looking at a group of officials who were submissive or disapproving, Liang Xiangjian sighed and said, "Forget it, this didn't happen overnight. The development of Heishui County has a long way to go."

(End of this chapter)