Chapter 7 Preparations in progress (3)
Another small team from Tianjin arrived in Guangzhou only one day later than the Nongkou group. Said to be a team, there are actually only two young people, one named Sun Changmi and the other named Yue Zhiyun. The two are high school classmates. After graduation, they were admitted to Dalian Maritime University together. Sun Changmi majored in navigation technology and Yue Zhiyun. Zhiyun majored in Marine Engineering and Marine Electrical Engineering. After graduation, he now works in Tianjin Xingang Shipbuilding Industry. Although his qualifications are probably still far from expert level, he is already a unique navigation and shipbuilding expert among the current time travel team.
The Preparatory Committee has long ago decided to use Yulin Port in Sanya as the crossing location. Considering the local environment, the large-scale gathering of materials and personnel for the crossing operation cannot be carried out directly in Yulin Port. You must know that that place is now the station of the South China Sea Fleet. , any disturbance may bring unexpected trouble. Therefore, the crossing plan formulated by the preparatory committee is to use ships to carry materials and personnel, quietly complete a maritime assembly in the offshore waters outside Yulin Port, and then use the wormhole controller to conduct the final one-way crossing.
The drawback of this plan has been pointed out by knowledgeable people before, that is, the team lacks a talent pool with navigation knowledge and ship driving skills. Sun Changmi and Yue Zhiyun are both development targets that the Preparatory Committee has spent a long time in contact with. Tao Donglai believes that in addition to professional knowledge, these two young people also have an adventurous spirit, and in fact Sure enough, his judgment was proved correct. Under the arrangement of the organizing committee, the two young people and several other newly joined technical backbones went to Yuexiu Mountain to visit the Ming Dynasty Guangzhou City Wall at dawn. Before returning to the hotel, they had already decided to join the time travel plan.
The two young people did not rush back to Tianjin to go through the resignation procedures of the company. Instead, they stayed in Guangzhou and immediately invested in the preparation work. After understanding the current progress of the preparatory work, the two of them immediately set up the Maritime Department, which originally existed on paper. This was originally a good thing, but when Tao Donglai saw the preparation plan and purchase list handed over by the two three days later, he suddenly became uneasy.
According to the preparatory committee's current pre-purchase list, the ship purchase plan proposed by Sun Changmi and Yue Zhiyun is also quite large. According to the calculations of the Preparatory Committee, the preliminary estimate of the weight of the materials that need to be transported to another time and space is at least 7,000 tons. First, to ship various industrial equipment, construction machinery and other large pieces, at least a ship with a load capacity of 4,000 tons or more and a certain A general cargo ship with self-unloading capability or a ro-ro wheel with side ramps. According to the plan of Sun and Yue, this ship will be the main force in material transportation. The bigger the tonnage, the better. This may cost a considerable amount of money, but at the same time it can also effectively reduce the number of ships crossing the fleet, which will alleviate the problem accordingly. Without the required crewing pressure, it is an option worthy of serious consideration for crossing teams. Fortunately, Yulin Port is a natural deep-water port. Even if there is no channel guidance, a 10,000-ton ship does not have to worry about running aground or running aground in the harbor.
In addition to this main ship, the fleet also needs to prepare a number of offshore barges based on actual needs to serve as oil tankers, bulk carriers and other professional vessels. The reason why the plan recommends using offshore barges instead of purchasing professional ships is also because the team's crew reserves are seriously insufficient. Offshore barges can be directly pushed or towed by high-horsepower tugboats, and they do not even need to have self-propelled capabilities. If you end up buying a few barges to form a small fleet, then this fleet only needs to buy a high-horsepower tugboat and be equipped with a very small crew to drive it, and the price will be much cheaper than buying professional ships. Maybe It can make up a considerable part of the price difference of buying a big ship.
Another two-person team also made a special recommendation to buy a decommissioned landing craft, which aroused the interest of the organizing committee. Yan Chujie asked: "Since there is an offshore barge in your plan, the barge can also directly beach, why do you have to use a landing craft?"
"Mr. Yan was in the Army before, right?" Now the names of several main members of the Preparatory Committee have been given the suffix "general". Although the two newcomers have just arrived, they have already followed the local customs.
Before Yan Chujie could answer, Sun Changmi continued: "We have to consider the actual situation of landing at Yulin Port. The draft of the main ship is estimated to be 6-8 meters. In the port environment at that time, it was obviously impossible to dock directly. Therefore, we must first unload some construction machinery and build a simple dock. At the same time, we must level the ground at the landing site to prepare for subsequent ships to unload materials. Unpowered barges lack self-unloading capabilities and cannot be used to carry those who need to land first. For engineering machinery, landing craft does not have this problem. In addition, we can also use landing craft to transport some heavy equipment that is not convenient for loading and unloading at the temporary dock.”
Tao Donglai interrupted and asked: "Can retired landing craft be bought on the market? Will the price be scary?"
"Most of the landing craft built in the early 1990s have been in service for more than 20 years and are in the phase of elimination. There are quite a few on the market. In terms of price..." Sun Changmi pondered for a moment before saying: " In fact, it is very cheap. The price of a landing craft below 100 tons will not exceed 500,000 yuan, and the condition of the ship is generally not too bad.”
"Oh, that's good." Tao Donglai felt relieved. However, his good mood did not last long, because the red words at the end of the plan with a total budget of 30 million were too dazzling and could not be ignored.
"Does it really cost so much?" Tao Donglai asked through gritted teeth. It's not that he was stingy about spending the money. Anyway, he would have lost all his money playing time travel, and it would be useless to keep the money by then. Whatever he bought was not a purchase. The main reason is that funds have been spent too quickly and too much during this period. At present, his company's accounts cannot allocate such a large amount of funds at once for these prodigal sons to squander. The budget that was finally cut off from Meng He a few days ago was handed over to Mr. Yuan and his family to purchase improved seeds for various agricultural crops and poultry and livestock.
"It really costs so much!" This time Yue Zhiyun took over the topic: "Buying a boat is not like buying something on Taobao. Once you confirm receipt of the goods, we also need to calculate some unpredictable maintenance and modification costs in advance. , plus the fuel and daily maintenance before the crossing operation, if there is any remaining budget, we can also purchase several small-tonnage iron-hulled fishing boats for early sea fishing and short-distance transportation.”
After a short discussion by the Preparatory Committee, Tao Donglai announced the final decision: "The Preparatory Committee agrees in principle with the procurement plan of the Ministry of Shipping, but in view of the current tight financial situation of the Preparatory Committee, the implementation of the procurement plan will be delayed slightly. Time.”
Sun and Yue did not express any dissatisfaction or objection to this, but Sun Changmi reminded the committee members one thing before leaving: "The sooner the ship is purchased, the sooner the crew training can begin."
After the two of them went out, Tao Donglai let out a long sigh and said, "Everyone, we have just entered June, and there is still half a year left in this year. I have good news and bad news. Which one do you want to hear first?"
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"Let me tell you the good news first." Ning Qi responded immediately in a hurry. "The good news is that so far, our team's major departments such as industry, agriculture, chemical industry, information and communications, shipping, construction, military and police have basically set up a framework. In the period before the time travel, we only need to continue to recruit personnel , just improve this infrastructure.”
"What about the bad news?"
"The bad news is that the funds I have on hand can no longer keep up with the growth of the purchase budget. My company shares can be sold for cash, but most of the real estate under my name is land and buildings under development. I want to dispose of them quickly. It's not that easy. To give you a bottom line, I can at most provide 30 to 40 million in funds before the end of the year, and the budget plan we have received now is almost exceeding this number. If we can't think of it before then, If we come up with a good solution, the organizing committee will fall into bankruptcy before the crossing is successful.”
Yan Chujie, Ning Qi and Meng He used to live on wages and had little say in solving the funding gap. Gu Kai returned to the United States the day before and said that there were a few people there who were very interested in time traveling. Meet. So the only person who can actually discuss a solution with Tao Donglai is Bai Kesi.
Bai Ke thought for a while and then said: "If we consider that we will not come back after we go, it may be necessary to try some unconventional methods to raise funds."
Although the wording of "unconventional methods" is very clever, everyone here is not a three-year-old child, so naturally they all understood the implication of Bai Kesi. Yan Chujie, who has the strongest sense of obeying laws and regulations, first expressed his clear opposition: "No, even if we will never come back in the future, we can't do something that endangers national interests before leaving!"
Meng He rolled his eyes: "It's as if we poaching people here and recruiting people to join us are not endangering national interests."
"Can it be the same? At least what we are doing now has not violated the law. How can the method Bai Kesi said not violate the law?" Yan Chujie was so anxious that he simply called her by name.
Bai Kesi was not angry, adjusted his glasses and said: "Actually, the truth cannot be said so absolutely. Even if it breaks the law, it depends on which country's law it is violated. Even if it breaks the law, it may not endanger China's national interests. .”
Tao Donglai's eyes lit up: "Lao Bai, you are engaged in foreign trade. You must have many connections. If you have any ideas, please tell me!"
Bai Kesi waved his hand and said: "I can't come up with a specific method, but I know someone who must have a method. Do you remember that I recommended a person to you a few days ago?"
Tao Donglai thought for a while and said: "Is he the person you said you could take the lead in taking charge of business and finance?"
"That's him." Bai Kesi nodded: "This guy has a pretty good resume. He graduated from Stanford Business School and worked as a stock broker at the lowest level on Wall Street for several years. Later, he went to Lehman Brothers to do venture capital evaluation. In 2008 When Lehman collapsed during the financial crisis, he switched jobs to Deloitte and worked as a cross-border tax auditer for two years. Now he resigned and set up his own foreign trade company in Shanghai. I had business dealings with him before and knew this guy's approach. It's very wild. He happened to be in Guangzhou for business some time ago, so I tested his tone. Unexpectedly, he was very interested in what we were going to do. He had asked how to join our plan more than once. To be honest. , I think he may have a solution to the financial problem we are facing now.”
Tao Donglai thought about it for a moment and then asked: "When can I see him?"
Bai Kesi took out his mobile phone: "It only takes two or three hours to fly from Shanghai. He should be able to appear in front of you within today."
(End of chapter)