Chapter 295 Comprehensive Advance
Since the expansion of war preparations a year ago, the Ministry of Construction and the Ministry of Military and Police have stepped up the construction of the Victory Port fortification group. The main project of the fortification group is the fort group on both sides of the harbor entrance. In the first phase of the project that ended last year, the construction of the fort group next to the military barracks on the east coast has been completed, with a total of eight forts and 24 gun positions - of course artillery and artillery. It's not quite there yet. The second phase of the project is mainly based on the forts on the Yulin Peninsula. After completion, a fire coverage area with no blind spots will be established on the waterway entering Victory Port from the east and west directions.
However, compared to the first phase of the project located on the east coast of the harbor, the highland where the Yulin Peninsula extends into the South China Sea is not conducive to the construction of large-scale projects. Before this, only an early warning observation post was built at the highest point. However, during the Haihan Militia's expedition, Tao Donglai was at the base camp and took charge of this project. From the beginning of the new year to late February, the Ministry of Construction continued to invest workers to build the second phase of the fort. So far, the expected project has been completed 70% of the quantity will definitely be completed within the next month.
Because the terrain of the second-phase fort is relatively steep, there are not as many gun positions as there are in the first phase, with only six forts and eighteen gun positions. But even so, the scale of the Victory Port coastal defense artillery group after completion will definitely be considered the largest in the Far East. At this time, the Dutch were building the city of Relanja on Taiwan Island, and its firepower output capability was far inferior to that of Victory Port. A piece of coastal defense fort.
Of course, the artillery required for setting up a large number of artillery positions once again put great pressure on the Military and Police Department. To give full play to the power of these forts, the Military and Police Department needs at least a coastal defense artillery force of about 300 people. The number of soldiers has always been the biggest bottleneck restricting the development of the military. In addition to constantly training new artillery, there are also two different opinions in the Military and Police Department on how to arrange the current limited artillery.
One is that we should focus on defense first. Since there is no external battle in the near future, the existing army artillery should be dispatched to serve in coastal defense artillery fortifications first to give full play to its role. Another opinion is that since the recruitment of naval personnel has begun, artillery should be given priority to be put on the ship. Otherwise, the warships that the shipyard is currently rushing to produce will not make much sense - a warship without artillery, then How different is it from a civilian ship?
While the military and police departments were quarreling, the navy's recruitment plan was in full swing. Perhaps the results of this expedition had an effect. The navy's recruitment work went very smoothly, and the number of young people who signed up far exceeded the military and police department's prior estimates. The Military and Police Department expected to recruit 300 reserve sailors in the first phase, but the actual number of applicants exceeded 1,000 within three days, not counting those who voluntarily transferred from civilian ship sailors to warship sailors.
The Ministry of Maritime Transport fully cooperated with the work of the Military and Police Department in this naval preparatory work, and also promoted the policy to its subordinate sailors and crew members. Anyone who voluntarily transferred to serve on a warship will enjoy the same status as soldiers of the Haihan Militia in the future. Benefits, whether it is income, casualty pensions, labor points, etc., must be a step higher than the existing benefits. Faced with such temptation, many brave people naturally choose to switch careers and enter the navy system - anyway, they are sailing on the sea, and the risks are the same, but the navy's death pension is several times higher than that of civilian ship sailors!
On February 25, the first batch of immigrants shipped by Annan after the war arrived in Victory Port and were loaded onto eight large ships. According to the data provided by North Vietnam, there were more than 1,400 people in total, including more than 1,000 young and strong men. Unsurprisingly, 80% of this group of immigrants were Southern prisoners of war during the Civil War. Ten people were tied into long strings with ropes, and the scene when they disembarked from the ship was spectacular.
In this Civil War, North Vietnam finally captured more than 10,000 South Vietnamese combatants, and Thang Long Province would definitely not waste food to feed these people. It happened to have a cooperation agreement with Hai Han to provide 2,000 people per month, so Most of these people's final destination will be in areas controlled by the Crossing Group. In addition to Victory Port, Black Earth Port will also accept a small number of prisoners of war and assign them to more dangerous jobs, such as workshops for making coal tar, which is highly toxic to human nature.
Fortunately, the Executive Committee had already received a report from the troops stationed in Vietnam, expanded the labor camp in advance, and built a special labor camp branch between Victory Port and Tiandu Industrial Zone. The prisoners of war who arrived in Victory Port this time were Most of them will be assigned to hard labor in the new labor camps. Their job is to participate in the construction of the first rail transit line between the two places.
The first phase of the rail transit line between Shengli Port and Tiandu is about nine kilometers long. The track is laid on a single line. In order to reduce the difficulty of construction, the entire line is located on the west bank of the Tiandu River, avoiding the trouble of building bridges. In order to facilitate the interchange of trains, two sections of two-way double-track passages will be built at a distance of three kilometers and six kilometers in the middle. The second phase of the project will complete the double-track construction and extend the track to the western end of the Yulin Peninsula, covering the entire Shengli Port area. The estimated construction period of the entire project plan was originally eight months. However, after reaching an immigration transportation agreement with North Vietnam and a steady supply of labor, the Ministry of Construction has begun to adopt a multi-point simultaneous construction method, which is expected to shorten the construction period to five to five months. between six months.
As of the end of February, about 60% of the rail transit line project progress has been completed. The Ministry of Construction is also trying every means to speed up the project construction, striving to hold a project completion ceremony as a gift on April 1, the anniversary of the crossing.
In the first few months of the crossing, the Ministry of Construction made great efforts to build the road. Although it was just an ordinary dirt road, it also reduced a lot of workload for the current track construction project, mainly piling gravel. Roadbed, laying of sleepers and tracks. After completing the track laying, road construction workers will have to further widen the existing road surface, because the next step of the Ministry of Construction is to solidify the ordinary road surface between the two places to enhance the traffic capacity of the road. This avoids the need to deploy a large amount of manpower for road maintenance during the annual rainy season.
After a large number of prisoners of war and overseas workers were introduced, the labor costs of Chuanchuan Group's construction projects also dropped rapidly. Originally, almost all the people involved in these infrastructure projects were naturalized citizens, but the cost for non-naturalized citizens was less than one-fifth of that of naturalized citizens. In this way, the cost of the entire project was greatly reduced. Construction workers who had already developed some basic skills before were assigned to new construction sites to engage in more technical work.
The housing issue has been a common topic on the executive committee, but it has never been properly resolved before. The reason is very simple, it is simply a lack of labor force. The continuous flow of people from North Vietnam can alleviate this problem, and the Ministry of Construction is finally able to start construction of the long-awaited personal dormitories with multiple projects under construction at the same time.
Since a considerable number of the time-travelers have been dispersed and assigned to areas outside of Victory Port, in fact, there is no such tight accommodation situation as in the early days of time-travel. For example, there are even seven or eight prefabricated houses vacated in the No. 1 Base. It is used as a temporary guest house to entertain foreign businessmen. When regular guests like Li Nai and Luo Shengdong come to Victory Port, they usually stay directly in the guest house on the base. And ordinary time-travelers have now gradually changed from six or even eight people per room in the early days of time-travel to two or even one person per room.
But for those who have enjoyed the urban life of later generations, prefabricated houses are not a long-term solution after all. Everyone has worked hard to come here to build, and they also hope to enjoy the life of a superior person as soon as possible. The accommodation conditions are the most basic. one of the measurement standards. Although current conditions are limited and it is impossible to build a deep house with a hundred servants for everyone, at least everyone should have a decent house. Now the Ministry of Construction has taken the initiative to propose a plan to build individual dormitories. The executive committee did not hesitate at all on this proposal. It unanimously approved the implementation on the spot - the assessment of priority use rights for personnel, building materials, etc., and even ranked it among the Victory Port Business Before the district, it was only second to Yulin Fort and rail transit lines.
Regarding the housing structure of individual dormitories, the Ministry of Construction had already prepared several plans. Finally, after voting organized by various departments, it chose the tube building structure, which is relatively easy to construct. However, compared to the barracks-style tube building in another time and space, the Ministry of Construction's plan is more similar to the structural design of an express hotel. Each room is small in area, but equipped with a separate bathroom. In order to reduce the workload, the interior furniture, decoration, etc. are also standardized.
Of course, if you are willing to do the hard work yourself, you can also register with the Ministry of Construction first. At that time, the Ministry of Construction will also set aside corresponding rough houses for the homeowners to take care of themselves. However, considering the current workload undertaken by the Travelers, I am afraid that no one has the extra energy to decorate their own houses. Considering the difficulty and safety of construction, the Tongzilou dormitories only have two floors. The housing on each floor is relatively distributed on both sides of the corridor. There are 40 households living in each building. Both singles and couples can be allocated a suite. Those with children You can apply for two suites at your discretion. As for the kitchen issue, the Ministry of Construction has not made any special considerations. After all, everyone now eats from a big pot. By then, they will just build a canteen for the public next to the dormitory area. This not only makes everyone's life more convenient, but also avoids fire safety problems that often occur in dormitories.
Although this kind of dormitory still does not get rid of the nature of a collective dormitory, for those who have lived in prefabricated houses for almost a year, it is tantamount to a complete change. The Ministry of Construction will start building new dormitories at Shengli Port Base No. 1 and Tiandu Base No. 2 starting from the beginning of March, and will start organizing a public lottery to allocate rooms.
Due to the limited construction speed, housing delivery can only be carried out in batches, and it is impossible for everyone to receive a new house at the same time. For the sake of fairness, lottery can only be used to solve the contradiction between insufficient supply and demand. Almost all the crossing members in the Shengli Port area participated in the lottery from March 1st to March 3rd. Even a few people from the Cliff Office specially took turns to return to Shengli Port on two days to draw the number. As for the personnel stationed in North Vietnam and Guangzhou, they are indeed too far away to arrange to participate in the first batch of lottery housing allocation benefits.
The first batch of welfare houses totaled 80 units, 40 units each in Shengli Port and Tiandu. According to the location of the unit, members participated in the lottery in the two places. Proportionally speaking, those who participate in the lottery basically have a 1/4 chance of getting a welfare house, and the winning rate is still relatively high.
The members of the executive committee who came to the scene as leaders were the first to draw numbers. This was the only "preferential treatment" they had. However, the executive committee probably didn't wash their hands before the lottery, and they were almost wiped out. Of the nine people who participated in the lottery, only Ning Qi got a suite. But he was not embarrassed to enjoy this honor to himself, but took the initiative to transfer it to Yuan Ruoxiu and Zhu Ping on the spot. This move also received applause from the crowd present.
In the Tiandu area, due to the nature of the units, most of the Chuanhuang units stationed in Tiandu are affiliated to the Ministry of Industry. The forty suites are almost occupied by the Ministry of Industry. Therefore, the Ministry of Industry became the winner of this lottery. The biggest winner of the housing event. The worst loser was the Shipping Department. No one won the lottery from the beginning to the end, but the people in the Shipping Department didn't really care. They left laughing after shaking the lottery. After all, if you don't win this time, there will be another time. It's just a matter of waiting two more months. Sooner or later, you will be allocated a welfare house.
The member dormitories built this time are not long-term standard housing. In fact, there are a large number of design drawings of single-family residences with one floor and one floor in the drawing library of the Ministry of Construction. However, due to the large amount of construction, it cannot yet be promoted as a member standard. Moreover, according to the long-term planning plan of the Executive Committee, Tiandu and Shengli Port are not the main commercial and residential areas in the future. If they are undergoing heavy construction now, they will still face the problem of collective demolition in a few years. There is no need to spend so much effort. However, the number of tube buildings being built now can be gradually increased in the future and used as staff dormitories for naturalized citizens.
In addition to the two dormitory building sites, groundbreaking construction has also begun in the military barracks area east of the harbor. Since the military expansion plan this year has begun to be implemented, the Military and Police Ministry expects that the number of combat personnel will at least double or triple from the current scale of less than a thousand personnel during the year. By then, the existing camps will not be able to station too many personnel. Now that there is a relatively stable supply of building materials and labor, the Military and Police Department will naturally not lag behind others. It plans to build its own military camp dormitories with masonry structures. The standards will be the same as the current Tongzilou dormitories, but the living density will be higher. Several times higher.
The technical transformation and expansion project of the Saltworks Commune has recently come to an end. According to data provided by Anxi, the general manager of the saltworks, the current monthly output of the Shengli Port Saltworks has reached around 350 tons, and the annual output is expected to remain above 4,000 tons. If measured by the production capacity of the same era, this is simply an astronomical figure, and it is more than enough to satisfy the civilian salt of the entire Hainan Island. The salt markets in mainland China and North Vietnam, which were difficult to balance a few months ago, are now basically able to relax and gradually increase supply.
However, in comparison, the development of Tielugang, which only started in October last year, is obviously much slower. Although it has become two communes and has moved in thousands of immigrants, the progress of salt farm construction is not very fast. , the current output has not reached the level before the expansion of the Shengli Port Salt Farm. The reason is mainly because Tieliang Port is far away from Victory Port. Many production tools and materials have to be transported from Victory Port to Tieliang Port by ship, which takes a lot of time to come and go. In addition, during the almost one month before and after the troops were sent to conquer South Vietnam, due to the tight maritime transportation capacity, there were also some problems with the supply of materials at Tieliang Port, which caused the salt field construction project to stagnate.
In order to solve this problem, the two communes in Tielugang are building salt production facilities while also building westward valley passages. As long as this approximately seven-kilometer-long land passage can be built as soon as possible, Tieliang Port will be able to directly connect to Tiandu, and the time required for material transportation in the future can be reduced by at least half compared to now.
In addition to the immigrants from Tielugang, there is also a group of people who also participated in the construction of this valley passage. These are the Fushandong mountain residents who relocated from the inland mountains. According to the agreement with the Executive Committee, hundreds of Li households in Fushandong were resettled in the valley between Tiandu and Tielugang. The civilian government was responsible for providing them with the items and food they needed for life. The Ministry of Agriculture instructs them to reclaim mountain forests and plant various mountain cash crops. The Executive Committee also encouraged them to participate in the construction of roads leading to Ironforge Port, and paid for their labor with daily necessities such as salt. In terms of labor costs alone, these relocated Li people are almost the same as prisoners in labor camps.
In addition to this valley passage, the Li people are also opening up another land passage to the Yalong Bay Agricultural Development Zone. This passage also starts from Tiandu and ends at the seaside plain of Yalong Bay between Shengli Port and Tieliang Port. In terms of length, this passage is nearly half shorter than the route from Tiandu to Tielugang, but the terrain is slightly more complicated. At present, the Yalong Bay Agricultural Development Zone has cultivated and planted more than 2,000 acres of crops with the nearly 1,000 immigrants who moved in earlier, mainly sugar cane, which is particularly valued by the Ministry of Agriculture.
According to the development plan of the Ministry of Agriculture, the Yalong Bay Development Zone will maintain at least two to three communes in the future, and gradually build this coastal plain into the largest sugar production area near Sanya.
By participating in the Vietnamese Civil War and introducing a large number of labor forces from Vietnam, Chuanchuan Group is gradually getting rid of the human resources bottleneck and accelerating the pace of construction in a series of engineering construction, agricultural development and other projects currently being carried out. Although the Shengli Port area cannot yet be said to be monolithic, the special social environment created by the existence of the Crossing Group has begun to gradually emerge with the progress of various construction projects.
(End of chapter)