Chapter 112 Ammunition Reserve
For Chuanchuan Group, the Hainan Island market and the mainland market are two completely different concepts. The Yazhou market currently opened by Chuanchuan Group only has a population of more than 20,000, and the entire Hainan Island has a population of more than 200,000. However, the population of Guangzhou is several times that of Hainan Island. Even in this era when the population is not too large, Guangzhou has a population of nearly one million, making it one of the largest cities in the entire Far East.
A large population means a huge consumer market. In addition to high-end glass products, the Executive Committee believes that daily necessities such as private salt can also achieve excellent sales. The wholesale price of private salt given by the Ministry of Commerce to agents is fifty taels of silver per kilogram. This price seems extremely low, but as long as the shipment volume is large enough, the profit is also considerable. In Guangzhou alone, hundreds of thousands of taels of silver can be earned from the salt business every year. The executive committee will never let such a great market sit in front of them without occupying it. Moreover, low wholesale prices not only leave enough profit margins for agents, but also leave room for them to compete with lower prices. If they encounter competition from peers, they can rely on lower costs to simply reduce prices. Defeat your opponent forcefully.
They loaded thousands of kilograms of private salt into "Furuifeng" just to test the water. If "Furuifeng" really has the ability to operate private salt, then they will definitely sell more private salt soon after they sell out this batch. Come back to restock. And if the other party does not request to purchase goods again, it means that the choice of this agent needs to be further considered. However, shopkeeper Li was confident that his boss was powerful in Guangzhou and that trivial matters such as selling private salt were out of the question. But whether this business can continue in the long term, shopkeeper Li said it still depends on the boss's decision. After all, this is not a legal business, and it will be troublesome if caught by the salt class prosecution in Guangzhou.
At present, the production process transformation of the Saltworks Commune is already underway. Half of the locally produced soil cement is transported to the saltworks to build extensive cement drying salt ponds and crystallization ponds. According to the work plan submitted by Anxi, the director of the Saltworks Commune, as long as the technical transformation project progresses smoothly, there will be no pressure for this year's salt production to exceed the 1,000 tons originally expected by the Executive Committee, and it is expected to increase by another half of this number within this year. Completed the production of 1,500 tons of salt. This output is already seven to eight times the current total salt output of all salt farms in Hainan Island, and has reached three times the salt demand of the entire Hainan Island. In addition to meeting the current local sales and chemical production needs, it has the ability to start Selling to further and larger markets.
This output is quite astonishing based on the production level of this era, but the Executive Committee and the Ministry of Chemical Industry know that this is far from reaching the upper limit. After the lifting irrigation device is changed to more efficient steam power in the later stage, the salt production capacity of the Salt Farm Commune is expected to reach more than 30 tons per mu per year, and the entire commune's production capacity will exceed 4,000 tons per year. This output is undoubtedly sufficient. It scared Master Tiji of Guangzhou Salt Class Tiji Division to the point of peeing.
Although the plan to buy a ship and hire crew members has not even been completed yet, the executive committee can’t wait to start preparing for the route exploration trip to Victory Port-Hong Kai Port. In order to ensure nothing goes wrong, the fleet for this trip is still two catamaran sailing ships, "Speed" and "Lightning". They are fast and have excellent stability at sea. Compared with other wooden Chinese sailing ships, they are indeed Much more reassuring.
At the same time, the living conditions on these two ships are relatively good, and the crew can have independent cabins, which is definitely a very important enjoyment for people drifting on the sea. As long as they carry enough supplies, both ships can sail continuously at sea for more than half a month without needing to dock for supplies.
The only regret is that the liquefied gas stove on the ship has become a decoration. If the crew wants to cook during the voyage, they can only use charcoal and barbecue stoves, which is obviously not easy to operate on the choppy sea. Carelessness may even cause a fire.
As for the selection of members for this special operation, the selection of all members of the North American Gang is uncontroversial. With the presence of six of them, the Military and Police Department and the Shipping Department can take up a few less places and give up the limited member places to mining exploration. , construction and logistics management professionals. Because this field trip involves the establishment of overseas bases in the future, the executive committee is also very cautious in the selection of team members. The level of rigor is even more rigorous than the previous two teams sent to Yazhou. It is very likely that some team members will be in After that, they will become the first batch of builders and garrison personnel of the branch base.
In terms of material preparation, the executive committee also gave the expedition team the green light and responded to almost every request. All kinds of ingredients, vegetables and fruits were provided in unlimited quantities. As for the most important ordnance issue, the Executive Committee does not need to worry at all, because the arms reserves of the North American Gang are enough for them to launch a small-scale war.
It was not until recently that the Executive Committee learned that not all the arms purchased by the North American Gang with their own funds were transported to Base No. 1 for centralized storage. In fact, what they shipped ashore was only hundreds of firearms of various brands and models and some ammunition, and absolutely Most of the ammunition has been placed at the bottom of the cabin by the North American gang for use as ballast. The ammunition weighed two tons, including nearly 30,000 rounds of bullets for various firearms, dozens of kilograms of C4 plastic explosives and detonators, a small amount of US-made M67 grenades, police flash bombs and smoke bombs, etc. There are even several M16A1 anti-infantry mines in their ammunition depot.
One of the conditions for the North American Gang to join the group was that the executive committee recognized their private property and would not expropriate their private property without consent, which included two catamaran sailboats and the arms and supplies they purchased themselves. Inside. The two sailboats have almost been used as tools of the Military and Police Department since the time travel, and the North American Gang also moved most of their firearms into the arsenal at Base No. 1, so no one raised the issue of the North American Gang's possession of firearms. objection. But when the ammunition reserves of the North American Gang were exposed, it caused a small shock in the Military and Police Department and the Executive Committee.
Due to various reasons, although the Cross-Travel Group purchased 300 Type 56s overseas, there were only more than 10,000 bullets. After each battle, it took a lot of time to count the ammunition and recover the shells so that they could be used in technology. Reload the bullet when conditions are ripe. But when it was revealed that the ammunition reserve of the North American Gang was several times larger than that of the Military and Police Department, this made some people feel a little uneasy - with a large amount of arms, it was difficult to guarantee whether any of them would have any dissent. After all, everyone We all know that every year in the Lighthouse Country there are some lunatics who massacre innocent civilians with guns. Of course, in the eyes of some public elites, this is still a massacre of "democracy" and a manifestation of "freedom."
The news spread more and more, and then started a lively debate on the forum, ranging from the amount of ammunition reserves to whether the Cross-Travel Group should adopt a development route of military expansion, and finally even to the killing of enemies during World War II. The ratio of numbers to ammunition consumption. Anyway, keyboard strategists don’t care whether there will be battles with the intensity of World War II in this era. They only need to cite examples to prove that their opinions are correct and that the other party’s brain is purely underdeveloped. The most important thing.
This debate lasted for more than half a month, and the pro and con parties talked enough to set off a tsunami in Victory Port. In the end, the North American Gang had to hold an on-site defense meeting to answer questions from all the gods. Then everyone knew that the true situation of the ammunition reserve was announced by North America. Their purpose was not to show off their force, but to relax those who had been worried about the military and police department’s ammunition reserve being too low after traveling through time. Be careful, at least until the military industry can mass-produce flintlock muskets, the army has enough ammunition reserves to support several small and medium-sized battles.
Perhaps the North American Gang had other ideas for not reporting the situation to the executive committee at the beginning of the time travel, but that has become no longer important. It has been nearly a hundred days since time travel to this era. Everyone has realized that in order to survive well in this era, attaching themselves to the powerful collective of the Time Travel Group is the best choice. Even those who are as powerful as the North American Gang also know that if they leave the Crossing Group, they can at best become a pirate leader in Southeast Asia, but it is absolutely impossible to establish a modern industrial system. Without the division of labor and cooperation of hundreds of people, it would be difficult to support a reasonable social structure to achieve various construction goals.
After the defense meeting, in order to reassure the people who traveled through time, the North American Gang moved most of their ammunition reserves into the arsenal at Base No. 1 and accepted the unified management of the Military and Police Department. However, according to the prior agreement they reached with the Executive Committee, this part of the ammunition is still the private property of the North American Gang, and they can still use these ammunition freely, provided of course that the reasonable use must be informed to the Executive Committee in advance.
This route inspection operation has a certain degree of danger, so the executive committee did not impose any restrictions on the amount of ammunition used by the North American gang. Therefore, in addition to the configuration of an automatic rifle and a pistol, the armed personnel in the inspection team also It is equipped with an M249 squad machine gun just in case, and Morgan, who has better marksmanship, picked an additional M200 sniper rifle as a supplementary firepower. This sniper rifle with an ammunition capacity of only 7 rounds is very accurate and has the longest effective range among all modern sniper rifles. Its actual combat capability far exceeds that of the more famous Barrett and AWP sniper rifles. Of course, the M200 with such powerful capabilities is also expensive. Morgan originally spent a total of fourteen thousand dollars to purchase this desert camouflage-painted treasure on the black market. If this mission was not more important, Morgan would still have Not necessarily willing to take it out to see the light. (End of chapter)