Chapter 496 Consumables
On March 7, 1630, the construction site headquarters was located somewhere inland in Changhua.
"In the eight-month construction period, more than 500 people died in your hard labor camp, an average of two lives a day!" Tao Donglai looked through the accident record list of the Changhua project and couldn't help but sigh: " If you put the mortality rate on Tian Du’s side, I’m afraid all of us executive committee members in charge of industry will be fired because of this!”
Qiao Zhiya shook his head slightly and said: "Mr. Tao, the situation is different. You can't simply compare numbers. Tiandu has a strict management system, operating procedures, and medical insurance, but we have nothing here. From Changhua to Shilu Most of this road is being constructed in the wild, and the most dangerous and tiring work is done by these hard laborers. We don’t have extra medicine and food to ensure their physical condition, so we can only do our best with limited resources. It may be used on one's own people. You can look at the casualties of naturalized people since the start of the project. So far, there are only a dozen people. At least the losses of naturalized people are still at an acceptable level."
Tao Donglai asked: "Approximately how many people are currently assigned as hard laborers on the construction site?"
"One thousand, two hundred and eighty-three people." Qiao Zhiya immediately reported an accurate number: "The hard labor camp will count the number of people every day and report it to me. This number is the result of the statistics at the end of the work last night."
When Tao Donglai was about to speak, a naturalized civilian cadre hurriedly walked in and said: "Report to the chief, there was an accident on the construction site. Two hard laborers were hit by stones. The construction site has been temporarily suspended. Please give instructions to the chief!"
Tao Donglai and Qiao Zhiya looked at each other, they really did whatever they said. Tao Donglai stood up and said: "Since something happened, let's go over and take a look!"
The place where the accident occurred is not too far from the construction site headquarters. It is more than a mile away and can be reached in a few minutes' walk. When Tao Donglai and Qiao Zhiya arrived at the scene of the accident, the place was already separated by a group of militia soldiers. The person handling the accident at the scene was Anxi, who was temporarily transferred as a technician. When he saw the two people arriving, he just shook his head helplessly and said: "There is no way, two of them were injured, one is completely dead, and the other is also disabled. .”
The accident happened on a not too high soil slope. The track line from Changhua to Shilu was going to pass through here, so the construction team dug a gap about six meters wide in the middle of the soil slope. However, the slope walls on both sides of the gap did not have time to undergo further solidification treatment. As a result, a loose stone fell from the top of the slope today. Two hard laborers working on the road below were unlucky. One of them was hit in the middle of the head and died on the spot. He died, and the other person was hit on his thigh, and he is still lying on the ground moaning loudly.
Tao Dong came to see the scene and had nothing to blame An Xi. Although according to the normal operating procedures, the dangerous factors on the construction site should be eliminated before construction can continue, the executive committee has placed a very tight deadline on this road. If the standard procedures are followed, the slopes on both sides of the road must be dealt with first. , then the entire project progress may be delayed by three to five days. Anxi chose to continue building the road while dealing with the slopes on both sides, also for the sake of construction time.
"Mr. Tao, this must be dealt with quickly, otherwise leaving it here will be a waste of time." Seeing that Tao Donglai did not express his position quickly, Qiao Zhiya reminded him in a low voice.
Tao Dong came to his senses and nodded: "Okay, let's deal with it in your usual way."
Qiao Zhiya immediately ordered: "Come here and carry away the dead and injured. Coach Anxi, send someone to check if there is any looseness on the top of the slope. If there is no problem, resume work as soon as possible!"
Several workers quickly carried away the dead and the still wailing injured on stretchers. Another worker stepped forward to cover the bloodstains at the accident site with soil. The supervisors yelled at the nearly a hundred hard laborers squatting aside and quickly got up and asked them to return to the construction site and start working again.
Tao Donglai did not ask what he would do with the two hard laborers who were carried away. In such a deserted place, they probably could only find a place to dig a hole and bury the dead. As for the man with a broken leg, it is probably even worse. The medical staff can at most put a splint on his leg. However, for a hard laborer like this who cannot work due to injury, half of the food supply will be deducted. This guy Whether he survives until the day when his bones grow back again depends on luck.
"Similar things happen one or two times a day." Qiao Zhiya said with a wry smile: "These hard laborers are not professional construction workers, and they don't have much awareness of self-protection on the construction site. Even if the foreman warns them, they can't get up much. Moreover, many of them were South Vietnamese prisoners of war, and they probably couldn't even understand what we were saying, so we specially recruited a group of naturalized people of Annan origin to serve as foremen here and direct them to work. ”
Most of the hard laborers working on this construction site were South Vietnamese prisoners of war sent to Haihan by the Annan court in the name of mortgaging war debts. These southerners neither spoke Chinese nor were of ancestry closer to the Malay people. It is difficult for people to have a sense of identity and belonging to Haihan, and they do not have much recruitment value for the Executive Committee. Except for a small number of people with sailors, craftsmen and other professional experience who are screened out, most of the prisoners of war are They were sent directly to hard labor camps to be used as pure labor force.
These people can only get the most basic necessities for survival in the hard labor camp, and there is no clear sentence. The default is to work until they die. From the executive committee to the grassroots foremen, they are almost regarded as Consumables. Although Tao Donglai had questioned Qiao Zhiya before, his starting point was that he regarded these people as property in Haihan's name and did not care about their lives. If something like this could be exchanged for doubling the speed of infrastructure construction, then the Executive Committee would probably be happy to absorb more of this super-cheap labor force. Although this approach is not very humane, the time travelers also know very well that they came to this time and space not to do charity, but to conquer the world. The oppression and killing of the weak will inevitably run through the history of Haihan's gradual expansion. , this is an absolutely unavoidable reality. Even if the number of casualties in the forced labor camps doubled, the Executive Committee would at most investigate management oversights and try to slow down the rate of attrition of the forced labor camps. However, it would never question the rationality of this approach, because the establishment of the forced labor camps would This matter itself was a decision made by the executive committee at the time.
In the new transaction plan submitted by Tao Donglai to Portuguese representative Thomas a few days ago, Haihan's shopping list suddenly included "labor force" as an independent item. At that time, Thomas also asked Tao Donglai what kind of labor force he needed. Tao Donglai's answer was very simple - as long as the limbs are sound and able to work like a normal person. As for the price of a single labor force, further negotiation will take place depending on the quantity and quality that Portugal can provide.
Thomas was not an honest man. He already understood as soon as he heard Tao Donglai's words - the Haihan people wanted to buy a large number of slaves! This is really the right person. The time when the Portuguese started the slave trade can almost be equated with the time when they opened up trans-oceanic routes on the sea. They are really familiar with this.
As early as 1441, a Portuguese expedition led by Antao Gonsalves captured several black Africans on the coast near Mauritania and brought them back to Lisbon to be sold as slaves. This was probably the earliest Portuguese expedition. The documented slave trade began. In the second half of the 15th century, the Portuguese trafficked a large number of black slaves from West Africa back to China to serve as laborers, and they were also sold to work in sugar cane plantations on the Madagascan Islands, Canary Islands, Cape Verde Islands and other Atlantic islands.
A century later, the Portuguese slave trade shifted to the Americas. Sao Tome Island, located in the Gulf of Guinea, Africa, became the most important slave transfer station at that time. Thousands of black slaves were transferred from here to the Americas every year. It was not until the Portuguese established a new, more convenient transshipment base in the Bay of Luanda in 1576 that São Tomé gradually lost its function.
Naturally, the Portuguese did not forget to bring their traditional business to Asia. However, because they did not occupy large colonies in the Far East, there were not many labor-intensive industries such as plantations. Businessmen The demand for black slaves was very limited. Although even Thomas was accompanied by black slaves, the Portuguese never realized that they could promote this industry to the Haihan people.
It wasn't until Tao Donglai took the initiative to bring up the matter on behalf of Haihan that Thomas discovered that he had never realized that Haihan's need for labor was so urgent. He only knew that the Haihan people had started another extremely large engineering project on the west side of Qiongzhou Island, so much so that they had transferred almost all the engineering and technical personnel and slaves from the hard labor camp in Sanya. However, judging from Haihan's request, it was obvious that now Some labor forces are not able to meet the needs of their projects, so they have to find ways to obtain more cheap labor from other channels - such as purchasing directly from the Portuguese.
Tao Donglai even hinted to him on the spot that he could consider exchanging weapons for labor. This is definitely a suggestion worthy of serious consideration for Portugal. After all, the cost of catching slaves in Africa is extremely low, and it is definitely much more cost-effective than using real money to buy weapons from the Haihan people. Then Thomas had already sent people to Malacca to deliver a message, entrusting the Goa colony on the Indian peninsula to raise a group of black slaves locally as soon as possible and transport them to Sanya. This was at least much faster than catching a group from Africa.
Of course, even if we set out from Goa, as soon as this news comes and goes, it will probably take about half a year for the first batch of slaves to arrive. Therefore, until then, various hazardous physical labor at various construction sites in Haihan will still have to be carried out. Relying on the labor force in the hard labor camps. Although the damage rate caused by various accidents is quite high, as Qiao Zhiya said before, at least the casualty rate of naturalized citizens is controlled at a relatively low level, and this is what the Executive Committee compared One of the important indicators.
Within a week of this work-related accident, four more slaves died on construction sites along the Changhua-Shilu transportation line. One of them died of illness, one was shot dead by the militia on the spot while trying to escape, and the remaining two lost their lives due to serious work-related injuries - they accidentally fell into the water at the construction site of the Changhua River Railway Bridge and were directly washed away by the river. They left, and their bodies were found two days later on the river beach downstream.
In mid-March, Tao Donglai left Changhua Port and returned to Victory Port. There is still half a month until the third anniversary of the time travel, and this has become one of the main festivals celebrated every year in the area under Haihan's rule. The executive committee has a lot of preparation work to arrange in advance, and Tao Donglai must also Go back to your post and take charge of the overall situation.
In addition, the main leaders of various overseas agencies will return to Victory Port during this period to perform their annual duty reporting tasks. The main members of the executive committee will basically not go out during this period, and will all stay in Victory Port to participate in discussions on various plans for the next year.
However, before the anniversary celebrations came, the steam engine operation and maintenance personnel that made the Navy look forward to the stars and the moon were finally in place. The "Majesty" announced the advent of the steam battleship era with a loud whistle one morning - this is more powerful than the world's The first steam-assisted battleship in the world, the "Napoleon" built by the French in 1849, was more than two centuries ahead of schedule.
When the "Majesty" sailed away from the military port pier with soot rising from its chimney, many people on the civilian pier on the other side looked straight at it - why was this warship still on the sea when it had clearly not raised its sails? Sailing? There is also black smoke that is constantly emitting from the ship. Could it be that there is a fire?
When the "Majesty" sailed out of Victory Harbor, Tom Wang always had a faint smile on his face. As one of the main forces promoting the steam battleship project, Wang Tom enjoyed this hard-won pleasure very much. Another sister ship of the same class, the "Wei Feng" battleship, will also officially join the navy's establishment within the first half of the year. These two new warships, which represent the highest level of combat power of the militia navy, will be stationed in Victory Port and the newly completed South Port of Hong Kong Island respectively, and will become the respective flagships of the two fleets in Sanya and the Pearl River Estuary.
Of course, it is not all good news in terms of shipbuilding. Because the cost of building this new type of warship is too high, the Executive Committee has ordered the suspension of the construction of the third steam-auxiliary power warship - this third ship was originally It is to be allocated to the navy stationed in Annan. However, because the Annan Civil War has been declared over, the Executive Committee believes that it seems a bit wasteful to station such a powerful force permanently in Indochina, and several ports in the south have just begun construction. Even if they are built this year If they come out, they can only be stationed in the north where war will not break out, and the actual effect they can play is not much.
(End of chapter)