Chapter 202 Capacity and Market
As expected by the Executive Committee, due to the civil war in Vietnam, all large salt fields in the war zone have ceased production. After the supply of salt in the south was forced to be interrupted for several months, northern Vietnam has fallen into a certain degree of salt shortage. The price of salt on the market has skyrocketed, and there is no market. Even if you have money, you can no longer buy it through normal channels. to table salt.
Under this situation, the thousand kilograms of refined salt shipped from Heitu Port immediately became a hot commodity. The other party heard that they could get the salt just by using grain, so they agreed to the purchase by Heitu Port without even paying back the price. out conditions. The Red River Delta east of Hanoi is a land of abundant rice production, and the price of food is extremely low. The local FOB price is only one-third of the price of food in Yazhou, which is about less than two taels of silver per thousand kilograms. Compared with Vietnam The price of refined salt on the market has soared to more than 400 taels per kilogram, but the price has actually increased by two hundred times!
So Heitu Port shipped one thousand kilograms of refined salt to test the market, and successfully exchanged it for more than one hundred thousand kilograms of rice. Because the Black Earth Port did not anticipate this situation, they only sent one ship to conduct the transaction. As a result, they were unable to transport so much rice at once, and had to complete the transaction in two separate operations. After completing the transaction, the Black Earth Port Management Committee immediately sent an urgent call to the base camp, canceling the original food support requirement and applying to replace all of this transportation capacity with salt.
Of course, this kind of hugely profitable transaction cannot continue for a long time. The Vietnamese official will definitely open up new salt fields to supply the needs of the people. Therefore, Heitu Port plans to seize this limited time and conduct several more private salt transactions with the Vietnamese. First, open the With this gap, even if the supply of salt in Vietnam recovers in the future, Heitu Port will still be able to continue to profit from it by further reducing prices.
Gu Kai, director of the Black Tu Port Management Committee, even claimed in a telegram that as long as the production capacity of the base camp is sufficient, it is entirely possible to take this opportunity to control the North Vietnam salt market. At the same time, Gu Kai also suggested that the base camp send its own caravan to the South Vietnam area, because according to what is now known, the salt fields concentrated in the war zones of Ha Tinh, Quang Tri, Nam Quang Binh, Hue, and Quang Nam have production capacity that accounts for more than its domestic production capacity. More than 70% of the salt production is produced. After the suspension of these salt fields, it is not only North Vietnam that is affected. The areas ruled by the Nguyen family in the south are also facing the dilemma of salt shortage. This is simply a windfall for the Crossing Group. It will not turn white. Don’t post it!
As long as the trade window is opened, there will be channels that can be used for the next arms export plan to Vietnam. Regarding the military conflict between North and South Vietnam that will last for several years, the Executive Committee has always regarded it as a good opportunity to expand its own strength, and has already made plans on how to make good use of this situation. Selling arms and absorbing Vietnam's population and wealth will be the main theme of the Crossing Group's policy towards Vietnam in the next few years. However, before realizing these beautiful visions, the Executive Committee must first find ways to meet current trading needs - supplying large quantities of salt to the Vietnamese market.
Based on the current own salt production, the demand for salt in the Vietnamese market is completely a bottomless pit. Even if the Salt Works Commune’s production capacity is fully filled, it is estimated that it will not be able to fill this hole. That is why the Executive Committee is eager to expand production capacity. Just these three directions of salt import have completely exhausted the local salt production capacity. But at this juncture, the Liaison Office of Guangdong and Guangdong sent another telegram requesting to expand the salt transportation volume from the mainland.
As the fourth export direction, mainland China's salt consumption will completely exceed the sum of the first three output directions due to its huge potential market. Even if it is just the two provinces of Fuzhou and Guangzhou, the salt they need cannot be supplied by the small salt farm commune. Now, "Furuifeng" has sent personnel to various state capitals in the two provinces to explore sales channels. If everything goes well, the private salt sales network in these two provinces will be fully launched, which is estimated to be by the end of this year and the beginning of next year. .
Faced with huge market demand, but unable to eat it in one bite due to insufficient production capacity, this sweet trouble is simply a torment for the executive committee. On September 10, the executive committee had to hold a special discussion meeting to bring together the heads of relevant units to study how to expand the production capacity of the salt farm as soon as possible.
The meeting began with Anxi, the leader of the Salt Farm Commune, introducing the current production situation: "Currently, the Salt Farm Commune has a total of 665 members, of which the proportion of young and middle-aged labor is about 65%, which is basically enough for the current production scale. As we all know, most of the salt field is composed of salt fields and salt-drying ponds. These two items occupy more than 80% of the entire working area of the salt field. However, the actual development area of the salt field currently only accounts for slightly more than one-half of the entire planned area, and there are still a large number of The available area has not been put into use. I think if the development and construction of these areas can be accelerated, a significant increase in salt production can be achieved in the short term.”
"In addition, most of the current seawater irrigation operations still rely on wind energy, animal energy and even manpower, and the work efficiency is very limited. I suggest that the Executive Committee allocate a batch of steam power equipment to the salt farm as soon as possible, even if it is charcoal-burning. Regarding this aspect I have submitted the report five or six times, and I hope the executive committee will pay enough attention to it.”
Tao Donglai coughed dryly and said: "Comrade Anxi, everyone has read your report and attached great importance to it, but the salt farm commune has not been allocated steam power equipment. There are some objective reasons for this. Our previous steel production capacity Inadequately, in order to expand production capacity, almost all the steam power equipment manufactured has been invested in expanding reproduction. Roger, please tell me about this situation.”
Roger and Shi Diwen were both senior mechanical technicians before traveling through time, and both are currently working as supervisors in the machining department. Shi Diwen was mainly responsible for the development of ordnance, while Roger had been engaged in manufacturing steam-powered machinery.
Roger shrugged and said in Mandarin, which he had become proficient in: "As Mr. Tao said, we have mastered the technology of making steam engines, but the limited raw materials limit our production speed. Now we make a A twenty-horsepower steam engine takes five days. If necessary, we can manufacture three such steam engines at the same time, but the problem is that our steel production cannot keep up..." Liu Xingli raised his hand and interrupted: "Let me interrupt. , the bottleneck of steel production is not our production level or production process, but fuel! Without enough coal coke, we cannot smelt steel in large quantities. I believe everyone is aware of this as long as the Black Earth Port and the Shipping Department. If sufficient fuel supply can be ensured, the smelting workshop can also ensure sufficient steel for the manufacturing department.”
Seeing that Yue Zhiyun was about to come out to clear his name, and the topic seemed to be getting further and further away, Tao Donglai quickly stopped this rambling argument: "The theme of today's discussion is to expand the production capacity of the salt farm. Everyone in charge should pay attention to what they say. , don’t make it a habit to go off topic!”
Bai Kesi said: "The way I see it, since the current objective situation requires us to expand the production capacity of the salt field, we might as well temporarily favor the salt field commune in terms of policies and material supplies, such as the recently produced steam engines, cement, and newly arrived immigrants. , can be allocated to the Salt Farm Commune first. ”
There was no objection to Beks's suggestion. Everyone is very clear about the current external environment. Salt can be said to be the industrial output product with the lowest technical threshold and production cost, and it has a huge consumer market. Although the export price of salt is only 100 yuan per ton, which is very cheap compared to other industrial products, no matter how low the price is, it cannot withstand the large volume. One day, it can reach tens of thousands of tons per month. , that income is quite considerable. Moreover, the biggest difference between table salt and other industrial products is that table salt is a necessity, and its price will not affect its actual demand in the market. This is incomparable to other products. At present, there is a huge demand for salt both inside and outside the country. It is reasonable for the Executive Committee to give priority to the needs of the Saltworks Commune.
However, Anxi did not seem satisfied with this arrangement. He shook his head and said: "I'm afraid this is not enough."
Tao Donglai said in astonishment: "How do you say this?"
"We can first calculate the theoretical output that the Saltworks Commune can achieve in the future." Anxi stood up and walked directly to the whiteboard in front of the conference room. He picked up a marker and started writing. While writing, he explained: "The Saltworks Commune is located in The area is a mountain valley, so the actual developable area is very limited. At the beginning of the planning, we knew very well that the available area here was only about one hundred hectares.”
"Based on our current production capacity, the annual output per hectare is about 14 to 15 tons. This output is very low compared to the output of the Hainan Salt Farm in later generations, only about a quarter. Even if we pass various This kind of technological transformation uses a large amount of mechanical equipment to increase work efficiency. However, limited to the objective technology and management level, the output that can reach two-thirds of future generations is probably the limit, that is, the annual output per hectare is about forty tons. Calculated this way At this time, the annual output of the salt field commune is about 4,000 tons, and at best it will not exceed 5,000 tons.”
An Xi put down the marker, turned to the crowd and said: "This output should be enough to supply the needs of internal industrial production plus the salt consumption of residents of the entire Hainan Island, but if we also need to carry out large-scale export to two national-level markets at the same time, , I’m afraid there is still a big gap.”
Tao Donglai understood what he meant and nodded: "Are you trying to say that we should start planning a new salt farm now?"
(End of chapter)