Chapter 153 Differences of Opinions on the New Route
If everything goes well and no major accidents occur, it will be about a month before the Heitugang Coal Mine is put into operation. The Executive Committee still has a big problem that needs to work hard to solve during this period, and that is the serious shortage of maritime transportation capacity currently faced by the Crossing Group.
Since the beginning of the crossing, the crossing group has been stuck in the quagmire of lack of maritime transportation capacity and has been unable to extricate itself. Although there are many ships brought over during the time travel, with a combined displacement of over 10,000 tons, the fuel reserves are very limited, and after arriving in this time and space, they are limited to production levels, and the fuel cannot be replenished in the short term, including " These ships, including the "New World", have now basically become decorations on the shore - of course, these huge decorations are still very effective in visually shocking the outsiders who have just arrived.
The last time these ships were dispatched was three months ago. After catching the pirates including Takahashi Minami, all the iron ships never left the dock. If there is no large-scale seaborne enemy in the future, the Executive Committee will probably not let these ships move easily anymore. Regarding the future development direction of maritime transportation of the Cross Group, everyone agrees with the view put forward by the Ministry of Shipping, that is, sail power will continue to be the main power source of sea-going ships for a long time. Even if steam ships are launched in the future, the same will happen on board the ship. The presence of sails is also indispensable.
Now that the Ministry of Shipping has opened a golden finger to grasp the development trend of future ships, it has become a matter of course to build its own factories and ships. However, the difficulty of building a ship by oneself is far greater than expected. Currently, it will take these novices several months to start building this ship, which only costs 400 materials. With the current scale and speed of shipbuilding, several heads of the Military and Police Department doubt whether they can wait until the day when the steam ironclad is launched in their lifetime.
This time, due to the development plan of overseas coal mines, the executive committee spent a lot of money to buy three ships and rented three ships to form a basic cargo fleet. But a fleet of this size is not enough for the ambitious executive committee, but there is no way to get more ships. The shipping industry between the various ports on Hainan Island is not very developed to begin with, and now the executive committee can't find a ship to buy even with the money in hand. Although He Xi has ordered two 400-material sea-going ships at the shipyard in Qiongzhou Fucheng, it is estimated that they will not be delivered until the end of the year.
According to the Executive Committee's plan, it would be best to maintain a long-term capacity of ten to fifteen cargo ships on the route between Black Earth Port and Victory Port, but now it seems that the Ministry of Shipping's fleet is still quite far away from this goal. distance. The level of maritime transport capacity is likely to become a new bottleneck restricting the development speed of the Cross-Trade Group after manpower.
At present, the only solution the Executive Committee can hope for is to send people to the mainland to buy ships. The last time Shopkeeper Li of "Fu Ruifeng" came back from Guangzhou, he brought back two large ships and dozens of sailors and boatmen. This undoubtedly shows that the mainland's shipping market is much more prosperous than Hainan Island. While the development of Black Earth Port has begun to enter the track, the Executive Committee is also planning when to open the shipping route to the mainland.
Regarding whether to open a mainland route at this stage, in fact, there have always been two voices in the executive committee and even among the grassroots members of the group.
Navigationists believe that there are many benefits to opening up routes to the mainland. In addition to the well-known reason of opening up emerging markets, the raw materials and various craftsmen that the mainland can provide to the crossing group are not comparable to that of the small Hainan Island.
Since the opening of the port, although the Crossing Group has tried every means to introduce many immigrants from Yazhou and other places, most of these immigrants were previously engaged in agricultural production. Many people from the Li and Miao ethnic groups even do not know how to farm. , but the shipwrights, carpenters, blacksmiths, plasterers, stonemasons and other people with professional skills that the executive committee wanted to introduce were very scarce.
This imbalance in the proportion of occupations has resulted in many technicians in the group having to engage in some simple and repetitive manual labor. This is undoubtedly a huge waste for the group that values talents. Yazhou, with a population of only about 20,000, originally had a very small proportion of craftsmen, and now it is even more scarce. According to a report sent back by the Yazhou Resident Office, the current housing prices in Yazhou have increased by at least 20% compared to when they first arrived. A large part of the reason is that the Cross-Travel Group took away a large number of carpenters and plasterers with generous treatment, so that it often happened that some people wanted to repair their houses but could not hire craftsmen.
Similar situations are not limited to the two industries of carpenters and plasterers. In a brick kiln outside Yazhou City, more than 30 people, from the foreman to the technicians, have all immigrated to Shengli Port because they can work here. The remuneration I received was twice what it was before in Yazhou. But even if the Yazhou Office has been doing its best to introduce craftsmen from Yazhou, the number of these professionals is far from the level expected by the Executive Committee.
The situation on the mainland is completely different. The population of Guangzhou alone is several times greater than that of the entire Hainan Island. The types and numbers of various professional craftsmen are naturally much richer than that of Yazhou, a remote town. The Navigation School believes that opening up After the sea route, craftsmen can be introduced in large numbers from the mainland, thereby quickly increasing the local productivity level.
The other group's views are relatively cautious. They believe that they cannot relax their vigilance just because they are currently getting along with Yazhou officials in a "harmonious" manner. If someone really wants to find fault, then their status will change from "overseas merchants" to "Overseas chaos" is probably just a matter of paperwork. What's more, the Crossing Group has now extended its tentacles of private salt business to Qiongzhou Fucheng and Guangzhou. If the salt class in Guangzhou is really caught, someone who is interested can make the matter big in minutes. The cautious group believes that at this stage, Chuan Chuan Group should not be in a hurry to come forward, but should focus on developing its own strength first. As for the export of goods and the import of raw materials and population, it can be completely left to agents. This not only avoids risks during shipping, but also avoids the public’s appearance in Guangzhou and attracts official attention.
Of course, if the rationale of the cautious faction is just this, then it is certainly not convincing enough. In fact, the cautious faction has another very powerful argument that even the navigation faction cannot refute, and that is the existence of Western forces in the Guangzhou area.
During this period, Guangzhou was one of the most important foreign trading ports of the Ming Dynasty, and merchant ships from various Western maritime powers had gathered here. The Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, French, and British are all forces that have long been listed as important future competitors by the Executive Committee. If they knew about the existence of "Haihan", what would they do? Attitudes, now, are completely unpredictable.
Perhaps there will be Western merchants who are sensitive to business opportunities and will come to Port Victory to trade with the Crossing Group, but it is also very likely that they will attract the covetousness of some forces - especially when they learn that industries that are not even available in Europe can be produced here. It’s hard to say what kind of attitude they will have toward the Time Travel Group when they are finished. No one knows whether these plundering sea robbers will take risks due to the trend of profit and adopt some radical hostile measures against the crossing group. For the Portuguese, Dutch, and Spanish who have established strongholds in the Far East, the Crossing Group, which currently seriously lacks sea power, is simply a piece of fat meat that can be picked into their bowls by just stretching out their hands. They don't even need to attack Victory Port. As long as they directly cut off the sea route to Victory Port, they can trap the crossing group in this small harbor.
Of course, there is another possibility. Before the fat meat of the Crossing Group attracted all the maritime powers to Victory Port, it had already attracted a large number of pirates in the coastal areas. The pirate gang that attacked from Leizhou last time was just a small and unknown team among coastal pirates. A truly large pirate gang like Shiba Zhi, the Crossing Group simply did not have the ability to resist head-on. If they are really targeted by such a large pirate group, the only thing the time travelers can do is to retreat to the bastion of Base No. 1 for defensive operations, waiting for the other party to lose patience and retreat on their own.
The situation in the South China Sea is very complex. Cautious people believe that when the transit group is still lacking the ability to protect itself, it should not rush into this muddy water, but should develop steadily and build a reliable team first. The maritime power of China will consider opening shipping routes again.
The disputes between these two factions have never stopped since time travel. Public opinions are justified by public opinion and mother-in-law is justified. The keyboard executive committee members will fight fiercely on the forum every now and then, and the opinions of the executive committee have always been the same. He wavered and did not come up with a final resolution on this.
This situation lasted until mid-August, when a fleet from Guangzhou arrived at Victory Port, bringing an end to this protracted dispute.
Shopkeeper Li of "Furuifeng" returned from his trip to the Guangzhou head office last time, and he had already brought a letter to the executive committee. In the near future, senior personnel of "Furuifeng" will come to Shengli Port to contact them to discuss long-term stability. business cooperation model. This time not only did people come, but also money came, and they also brought two large-scale ships purchased for the Cross-Travel Group in Guangzhou.
The fleet had already been spotted by the coast guard outside the Port of Victory. After the coast patrol ship passed by and learned of the other party's intention, it immediately notified the port through the walkie-talkie, and the port quickly contacted Tiandu Industrial Zone. So several executive committee members immediately rode their bicycles all the way back to Shengli Port to meet with this distinguished guest who was said to be an executive of the "Furuifeng" head office.
(End of chapter)